Mandatory insurance can actually be WORSE than no insurance

[eridani]

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/september/health_reform_failur.php

Why has progress been so meager? Because most of the promised new coverage is of the “buy it yourself” variety, with scant help offered to the struggling middle class. According to the Census Bureau, only 28 percent of Massachusetts uninsured have incomes low enough to qualify for free coverage. Thirty-four percent more can get partial subsidies - but the premiums and co-payments remain a barrier for many in this near-poor group.

And 244,000 of Massachusetts uninsured get zero assistance –just a stiff fine if they don’t buy coverage. A couple in their late 50s faces a minimum premium of $8,638 annually, for a policy with no drug coverage at all and a $2,000 deductible per person before insurance even kicks in. Such skimpy yet costly coverage is, in many cases, worse than no coverage at all. Illness will still bring crippling medical bills—but the $8,638 annual premium will empty their bank accounts even before the bills start arriving. Little wonder that barely 2 percent of those required to buy such coverage have thus far signed up.

While the middle class sinks, the health reform law has buoyed our state’s wealthiest health institutions. Hospitals like Massachusetts General are reporting record profits and enjoying rate increases tucked into the reform package. Blue Cross and other insurers that lobbied hard for the law stand to gain billions from the reform, which shrinks their contribution to the state’s free care pool and will force hundreds of thousands to purchase their defective products. Meanwhile, new rules for the free care pool will drastically cut funding for the hundreds of thousands who remain uninsured, and for the safety-net hospitals and clinics that care for them. (Disclosure --we’ve practiced for the past 25 years at a public hospital that is currently undergoing massive budget cuts.)

Health reform built on private insurance isn’t working and can’t work; it costs too much and delivers too little. At present, bureaucracy consumes 31 percent of each healthcare dollar. The Connector—the new state agency created to broker coverage under the reform law—is adding another 4.5 percent to the already sky-high overhead charged by private insurers. Administrative costs at Blue Cross are nearly five times higher than Medicare’s and 11 times those in Canada’s single payer system. Single payer reform could save $7.7 billion annually on paperwork and insurance profits in Massachusetts, enough to cover all of the uninsured and to upgrade coverage for the rest of us.

[silverojo]

1. K&R

Important reading for the masses. :mad:

[Kiouni]

2. Why can't we take care of our citizens?

Is it money? Put a dollar tax on an Ipod and bam set for life.

Do our leaders not get it?

I am willing to give up more money for universal health care. And I strongly believe most people would too.

[eridani]

3. But you don't have to give up more money

As Kucinich keeps saying "We are already paying for universal health care--we just aren't getting it."

OK, so you call it a "tax" instead of a "premium" or a "co-pay". But who the fuck cares, as long as the tax is less than the premiums and copays, as it will be by quite a long shot.

[HardRocker2005]

4. absolutely. nt

[Screwfly]

5. Doctors in my area

are so greedy and incompetent, I won't go them if their services were free. Wake up smell the coffee, the level of health care available to the average person in the U.S. is so shitty the American medical establishment now has to enlist the government to force people into the health care arena.

[PDenton]

6. those subsidized health pools

are always going to be a target for politicians, just like welfare was. That's one reason some people don't like the idea of indexing social security benefits, after all.

I do think at least Hillary is pushing a plan, that is important that every single Democrat candidate thinks healthcare is an issue.

[1776Forever]

7. Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense

The government spends 2 trillion dollars a year on health care and I have witnessed myself with my son who is in his 30's and developed MS with no insurance coverage the lack of support he received because he did not have any dependent children! The Medicaid doctors and specialist he had to go to almost cost him his life! We had to go to a college run medical school in order to get him stabilized and get the medicines he needed!

The FACTS from the NCHC Site: http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml

National Health Care Spending

* In 2005, health care spending in the United States reached $2 trillion, and was projected to reach $2.9 trillion in 2009 (2). Health care spending is projected to reach $4 trillion by 2015 (2).
* Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense (4).
* In 2005, the United States spent 16 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care. It is projected that the percentage will reach 20 percent in the next decade (2).
* Although nearly 47 million Americans are uninsured, the United States spends more on health care than other industrialized nations, and those countries provide health insurance to all their citizens (4).
* Health care spending accounted for 10.9 percent of the GDP in Switzerland, 10.7 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in Canada and 9.5 percent in France, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (5).

[Vinca]

8. Reportedly, there has been an influx of people into southern

New Hampshire, moving to escape the Massachusetts insurance law. The issue here isn't availability so much as it is cost. My husband and I are older and the $12,000 a year with a $5,000 deductible (as of 2 years ago) is not affordable for us at all. But, it's AVAILABLE. It's the price that's the problem. Hill wants to give us tax credits. Great. Maybe she can front me the $12,000 at the beginning of the year for the policy. We need average, working people putting together an insurance plan for the country, not the superwealthy who are receiving campaign funds from the insurance industry and big pharma.

[raccoon]

9. I think it's worse than no insurance. WIthout reading the article. nt

[Faryn Balyncd]

10. Mandatory insurance from predatory insurance corporations = FASCIST medicine (not socialized........

.....medicine.

As much as the right wing reflexively mislabels Hillary's mandatory insurance plan "socialized medicine", the simple facts are that it is an insurance lobbyist's wet dream.

Rather than utilizing the immense amount of resources now diverted to insurance companies (who earn their keep by denying coverage to the sickest patients), this plan MANDATES that Americans buy insurance & perpetuate a corrupt & predatory insurance industry.

Calling such a plan "socialized medicine", or even a "national healthcare plan", is a joke.

[bbgrunt]

11. just like "clear skies initiatives" and other

Orwellian terminology, This idea of mandatory insurance is just another way to fleece consumers. Why any proposal leaves the insurance industry in charge of health care is beyond me. It's like putting the mafia in charge of law enforcement.

It will not make health insurance more affordable. Already the administrative costs of funneling health care through private insurance companies makes our health care system one of the most expensive in the world. Now we are supposed to believe that we can solve the problem by FORCING everyone to pay into this corrupt system? Puleese!

Hilary--you are hilarious.

[WinkyDink]

12. ITA. And HRC's analogy to car insurance is completely specious,

if not disturbingly disingenuous, to wit:

NOT EVERYBODY DRIVES A CAR. THUS, no payments for car insurance.

People don't need HEALTH INSURANCE; they need HEALTH CARE. DOCTORS, not INSURANCE AGENTS. HOSPITALS, not "OFFICE PARKS."

[eridani]

13. Very few people percentagewise get expensively sick

Tha MA plan encourages insurance companies to dump them. How long would we tolerate a system of paying for fire protection that imposed the entire cost only on those homeowners or businesses that actually had fires? Private health insurance defeats the very purpose of insurance, which is to spread risk.