Health care 'overhaul'? The devil's in the details

maryf

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Thu Dec-31-09 08:25 AM
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Health care 'overhaul'? The devil's in the details

Dr. Coates wrote this in part to support Rep. Eric Massa, democrat who voted against the health care "reform" bill, please see the entire article at the link.
http://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/news/opinion/2009/12/COMMENT-Health-care-overhaul-The-devils-in-the-details/

on December 29, 2009

by Andrew Coates

<snip>

The crux of the legislation in Congress is compulsory private
insurance. Under the "individual mandate," a long-held wish of the
insurance companies, the government will coerce people to become and
remain their paying customers.

If you're uninsured and you don't buy health insurance, the Senate
bill allows a fine of up to 2 percent of your income, assessed by the
IRS. (It's 2.5 percent in the House bill.) Pay the fine and you're
free to remain uninsured.

If you simply can't afford a policy, according to the Senate bill, you
can avoid paying the fine by applying for a "hardship waiver." Get the
waiver and you're free to remain uninsured.

Since the legislation does nothing to make insurance affordable, tax
money will subsidize private insurance premiums for those who earn up
to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. But those earning up to
400 percent of the poverty level would still have to pay up to 9.8
percent of their income for insurance (under the Senate bill). This
taxpayer gift to insurance companies will amount to as much as $476
billion - half a trillion dollars - over a decade.

The Senate formula also pushes the onus of health costs onto
individual families by imposing a 40 percent tax on high-cost health
plans, an incentive to reduce coverage. This will especially impact
residents of states with high insurance costs, like our own state;
union members with comprehensive benefits; companies that employ women
(whose group insurance costs are higher), and plans that cover older
employees (whose insurance costs are higher).

The Senate bill also encourages skimpy coverage by allowing the most
basic plans to cover only 60 percent of actual health costs on top of
growing of out-of-pocket expenses. Prescription drug costs have gone
up 9 percent this year. Meanwhile, the insurance industry itself has
estimated premium hikes of 79 to 111 percent over the coming decade.

In addition to millions of new customers for insurance companies, the
legislation seeks an enormous expansion of Medicaid, with new
enrollment of millions of people by expanding eligibility to those who
earn up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level. But we know from
bitter experience that having Medicaid is no guarantee of access to
care, nor will it reduce disparities in care.

If private insurance will remain a defective product and Medicaid will
remain a poor program for poor people and the legislation will not
reign in costs - where is the reform?

But perhaps most startling is that the major features of the
legislation would not begin until 2013, after the next presidential
election, and then would take effect gradually over six years more.
Such a proposal hardly seems worthy of the name "overhaul" when we
remember that Medicare passed in 1964 and was up and running in 1965.

<snip>

It's time to scrap this pro-insurance-company legislation and start
over. A good starting point would be the improvement and expansion of
Medicare to cover every person in the United States.