2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumDon’t Let Republicans Scare You About Obamacare
http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2013/05/06/republicans-scare-obamacare/Dont Let Republicans Scare You About Obamacare
We talked to health experts all over the city for the May issues guide to the Affordable Care Act. And guess what? Were not scared anymore.
By Sandy Hingston 5/06/2013
For the past few years, my colleague, health and fitness editor Emily Leaman, and I have worked together to produce our annual Top Doctors feature. This year, when we sat down with editor in chief Tom McGrath to plan what wed do, there really only seemed to be one option. As Tom put it, This is the only time well ever be able to introduce our readers to Obamacare.
Emily and I found the prospect daunting. That 900-page act! The lawsuits! The thousands of pages of explanations and regulations! But as we began our research, a funny thing happened. This act has a lot of really great stuff in it, I remember Emily saying not long after we beganand I had to agree. As we read all we could find about the act, and called on the remarkable resources available to usthe dozens of super-helpful contacts we have locally in the medical and insurance fieldsit became more and more clear that America is standing on the threshold of a new dawn in how we care for our most vulnerable populations: the elderly, the mentally ill, the chronically ill, children, the indigent. For the first time ever, this nation is taking steps to see that health care is available and affordable for everyone who needs it.
Nobody we talked to said that its going to be easy. On the contrary, our experts all foresee a long, hard haul ahead, as a health-care system that evolved to be volume-basedmeaning that hospitals and doctors made more money the more patients they cared forchanges over to one thats value-based, in which payment depends upon results. Hospitals will be rewarded for treating patients right the first time, so they dont have to be readmitted. Preventive carevaccinations, mammograms, colonoscopies, diabetes screeningswill be free, without co-pays, so well all see medical professionals before theres something wrong. Insurance companies will no longer be allowed to screen out those with preexisting conditions. There will be no more lifetime or annual limits for those with catastrophic health costs. Mental health coverage will have to be as comprehensive as that for physical health. And, as those of us with young adult children just starting out in life already know, those young adults can remain on our insurance policies until they turn 26.
Sure, its a convoluted act. It had to be, to try to effect the seismic shift it aims for. And the fact that it has so many moving parts makes it vulnerable to those who are out to thwart it, even if their only real goal is to have the President look bad. Hospitals face the loss of funds they now use to pay for patients without insurancebut the act presumed that states would shift those patients onto Medicaid rolls, since the incentives to do so are so generous. (The federal government pays 100 percent for the first three years and 90 percent after that.) But Republican governors have turned down the chance to expand Medicaid, or, like Governor Corbett, are dragging their heels, unwilling to do whats right by the citizens who elected them, and who trust elected officials to look out for them. Why? Because those politicians would rather see citizens go without the health care they need than see Obamacare succeed.
The more Emily and I learned about the Affordable Care Act, the more we liked it. Almost all the experts we talked to like it, too. And theres one thing everyoneinsurers, doctors, hospital administrators, nurses, public-health advocatesagreed on: Health care in America had become so bloated, inefficient and expensive that something had to be done. Is Obamacare perfect? No. No one we talked to was naïve enough to believe that. But the consensus was, this thing can work, if we put sufficient will behind it and are patient with what Obama has called the glitches and bumps that lie ahead. Emily and I invite you to read our nonpartisan, non-political take on Obamacare in the May issue. Dont let the fearmongers scare you off. We think the more you know about it, the more youll like it, too.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,516 posts)1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)The article lack the requisite anti-President Obama points.
msongs
(67,347 posts)humbled_opinion
(4,423 posts)price controls put on healthcare providers, hospitals, doctors, etc than all of the wonderful things that the ACA does will continue to cause the premiums on our mandated insurance policies to get larger and larger, I am sorry but medicine is not a commodity and doesn't fit so nice in the free market competition realm. So the fear is the cost, I go "all in" as long as my current costs don't increase but I just don't see how that is going to happen, I hope there will be some really low costs options on the exchanges....
BlueDemKev
(3,003 posts)Addison
(299 posts)even in my progressive state of California, where they're trying their best to implement it as progressively as possible.
From what I can tell so far, I'll get no help paying for my family's insurance because I'm just above the income threshold, despite being saddled with huge student loan payments.
I'd love to have my suspicions proven wrong, but the fact that the program was originally designed by Republicans and entrenches the system of for-profit insurers makes me very skeptical.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)that currently provides you with health insurance?
Addison
(299 posts)and if I added my wife and kids the cost would bankrupt me.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)sorry about your plight; but it has NOTHING to do with ObamaCare.
quadrature
(2,049 posts)O'care was passed over three years ago.
when do I find out the price?
I'm getting real tired of the secrecy BS.
I have to plan for the future.
Brigid
(17,621 posts)But we still need a single-payer system, and I am hoping Obamacare is just a steppingstone on the way to that.