Obama

[innerSpaceman]

And the problem for Obama and, well, flippyshark (among so many others) is that most people have health insurance and ... whether it's because they've had no devastating illness or because their medical coverage experience has been genuinely good ... most people are perfectly content with their current insurance situation.

That doesn't bode well for a population being asked to change course, and feeling (quite understandably) they're being lied to when "assured" there will be no change to their situation while simultaneously insuring millions of new people and slashing costs.

Perhaps if Obama and his cadre would simply come clean and tell the American people that, yes, sacrifice will be needed to fix the system that he claims (with some justification) will bankrupt our nation. But he's not doing that. It comes off as dishonest. That breeds fear.


I suppose another way to handle it would be to, oh, slash the defense budget by, ya know, not waging war in Afghanistan ... but I won't hold my breath on that one either.


All in all, Obama's seeming disingenuous. And most people are happy with their current situation. It's a bad recipe for change.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Some fear insurance companies and drug companies. I fear the government more.

Ok, so where in the House bill (or any of the various competing bills on the table at the moment) would you be forced into the care of government instead of private insurance?

[BarTopDancer]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

I'm one of those slip-through-the-cracks cases - I work three or four part time jobs, have no coverage, and as of a couple of months ago, could no longer afford to carry myself.

I'm currently one of the slip-through-the-cracks cases. I can't afford COBRA (even with the subsidization it's too much for this single income household). I certainly can't afford a policy on my self. I'm lucky that I'm healthy and my parents were willing, and able to take out a catastrophic policy on me.

Government health care isn't all bad, or inherently bad. Congress has "government health care" and they seem to love it. Military health care seems to work for the most part. MedicAid sucks, not sure about MediCare other than my dad doesn't have any issue with it.

Something has to change starting with "Pre-existing condition clauses". When I was laid off 2 years ago I was denied an inexpensive individual policy (couldn't afford COBRA that time either) because I took Zyrtec for allergies on a daily basis (this was before it was OTC). How many people who have been laid off and can't afford continuous coverage are now going to be facing insane insurance costs if/when they find a new job.

[wendybeth]

It may have been noted here already, but I'm too lazy to go back and look: We already subsidize health care. Indigent people who receive care at ER's, people who skip out or file bankruptcy on their bills....basically, all those who are unfortunate enough to not have health care or have sub-standard health care are subsidized by everyone else. We are overcharged by our providers and the hospitals because of their losses elsewhere. Our premiums are skyrocketing because of these reasons. One thing I find interesting is that the majority of my clients who bitch about national health care are on Medicare. What the hell do they think that is?

A recent letter to our newspaper caught my eye- the writer asked when was the last time you saw riots or protests in Canada or Sweden or England that were against national health care?

[JWBear]

Canadians and Europeans love their "Socialized Health Care". They want nothing to do with our for-profit system. That should tell you something.

[scaeagles]

There are a few things that concern me, Alex, as far as me being "forced" onto the government program.

Page 16 of the bills is one of my concerns. Perhaps I am not reading it correctly, but it says (in part):

“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1” (the year the legislation becomes law).

As I read that, no new employee can be enrolled in a company insurance program after the beginning of the government program (I couldn't find any exceptions in that paragraph). Does that mean I am forced onto the new program? No, I suppose not, but that puts a burden on the company I work for to deal with two separate plans.

This is just one aspect of many that make it more likely that companies will opt for the government option. Does my company have to? I suppose not, but there are other aspects of the bill that makes it difficult for my company NOT to change to the government option. I don't really have time to go into it all, but hopefully I have answered your question.

I haven't even begun to list a small portion of what I don't like about the bill, from what it says to what can be implied or interpretted to what it will cost.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by BarTopDancer

Congress has "government health care" and they seem to love it.

No they don't, they have traditional private insurance just like I do through my employer. Congressmen, though, as part of the largest employee pool in the United States (they have the same insurance options as all federal employees) just has the bargaining power to get relatively cheap rates.

The VA is our example of British-style government provided health care. Medicare is our big example of Canadian-style single-payer (but not government provided) health coverage.

The current proposals in Congress set up neither a single payer system nor government provided health care.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

“Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day of Y1” (the year the legislation becomes law).

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you actually read that yourself and it is just a coincidence that Sean Hannity talked about it in response to an IBD editorial that misrepresented it. It is pretty standard grandfathering boilerplate.

A few comments.

1) The bill does not outlaw private insurance.

2) That paragraph is talking about grandfathered insurance plans. The bill creates new rules and regulations around private insurance. Generally, when rules and regulations change (as currently happens all of the time) existing plans must be brought into compliance. This section is actually there as a bone to your fears. It is saying that existing plans at the time the bill is passed can continue as they currently are. So, as is the phrase, if you already have insurance and like it the way it is you get to keep it. Similarly, when laws were passed that mandated seat belts in automobiles existing cars did not have to be abandoned but all new cars had to have them. Under your reading of this, such a grandfathering rule for seat belts would mean you weren't allowed to buy any new privately manufactured cars.

3) However, any new coverage provided by privateinsurance companies must comply with the new rules and regulations. Just as currently happens all of the time. Again, private insurance is not eliminated, it is just required to comply with new regulations and rules, which they already have to do every day. So you are correct that employees could be on two different plans. That, however, is almost universally true already.

4) You say you read on and found no exceptions to this bar on new enrollment in grandfathered plans. The very next paragraph is an exception.

[scaeagles]

I am actually not able to listen to the radio at work (no reception) and streaming is forbidden.

Just FYI, I came across a list of items (some 100 that are "concerns" out there) in my research and have been investigating each of them. Many of them are wild spin and I can obviously see that. Some greatly concern me.

I did read on, and yes, I suppose adding a dependent to my existing policy is an exception, but my concern was specifially that a new employee could not be added to the existing employer offered plan. I hve a problem with that as it takes away the ability of the new employee to accept whichever it is they might want. I'm not trying to be difficult. Am I misunderstanding that in your opinion?

Why is it so great that the government will allow programs to be grandfathered? The very fact that grandfathering is an issue on existing plans means that the government sees something wrong with them and will not be allowing new similar plans in the future. The very next paragraph (after the dependent exception) also says the grandfathered plan cannot change any of the benefits. That seems to me to be a bit unrealistic and very restrictive. That says you can keep what you have as long as it doesn't change at all (a copay change, whatever). If it changes at all, you can't have it, and have to go with a government approved plan (public or private).

With your seatbelt analogy, I can put a new engine on my old seatbeltless car without having to abandon it because I've changed something about it. In the healthcare example, changing something about it means it does have to be abandoned.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

It may have been noted here already, but I'm too lazy to go back and look: We already subsidize health care. I

Originally Posted by JWBear

Canadians and Europeans love their "Socialized Health Care". They want nothing to do with our for-profit system. That should tell you something.

I need to find it again but I recently saw an interesting set of comparative charts. It showed 3 statistics for a bunch of countries. 1) The percentage of the country's total medical spending that is spent by the government 2) The percentage of the country's GDP that total medical spending represented and 3) WHO's ranking of the country's medical care.

In regards to wendy's point, around 50% of total medical spending in this country is already done by the government. So the change being proposed is hardly the 180 degree philosophical shift for this country towards socialism poeple would like us to believe.

So most of the other countries shown had socialized systems where the government represents >80% of spending. The first thing I noticed was, among this list, the US was the ONLY country where total medical spending was >10% of GDP, which seems to rather put lie to the myth that socialized health care = runaway spending. Most were in the 7-8% range, the US is 15%.

Then there were the rankings. The US was something like #23. All but 2 of the countries on the list were ranked higher by WHO, which challenges the common argument that such systems mean worse care.

Just saying.

ETA: Aha, found it. And the US ranking was worse than I remembered, #37 http://thetoiletpaper.com/blog/2009/...ped-countries/