Record numbers uninsured by private insurance

[eridani]

http://articles.sfgate.com/2010-09-24/opinion/24086986_1_health-insurance-health-reform-law-universal-coverage


PPACA was not designed to provide universal coverage. In fact, if the new law works as planned, in 2019 there will still be 23 million uninsured. Yet the consequence of being uninsured can be lethal: Research published last year shows about 45,000 deaths annually can be linked to lack of coverage. That number is probably more than 50,000 today.

As Don McCanne, senior health policy fellow at Physicians for a National Health Program, has observed, PPACA is an underinsurance program. Employers, seeing little relief, will expand the present trend of shifting more insurance and health care costs onto employees.

Individuals buying plans in the new insurance exchanges (which won't start until 2014) will discover that subsidies are inadequate to avoid financial hardship. Inevitably, they will end up with underinsurance, spotty coverage and high deductibles.

And workers who are unemployed or without employment-based insurance will move into Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California), where providers are reimbursed at such low rates that many will not accept patients.

When Congress passed the new law last spring, it based its decision on a faulty assumption - namely, that the rest of the population will have sustainable private health insurance. But between 2008 and 2009, the number of people covered by private health insurance decreased from 201.0 million to 194.5 million, and the number covered by employment-based health insurance declined from 176.3 million to 169.7 million.

If this trend continues, as it's bound to do under current economic conditions, the ranks of the uninsured will expand and the new law will fall far short of the mark - either the cost will exceed projections, or coverage will be need to be reduced.

[Mimosa]

1. Missed opportunity.

SAD.

[kenny blankenship]

4. Sabotage is more like it. Hijacking and betrayal.

[flyarm]

6. not missed, this was deliberate! Hell, a damn lobbyist wrote the damn bill!

with Obama and congress giving love hearts to them!

[Lorien]

10. That's the painful truth of it

and if anyone thinks that's just "Obama bashing" then their idolizing of him is way over the top. Those of us with pre-existing conditions have only ONE choice if we get seriously ill: suicide. Yeah, sure; Obama's plan will force the insurance companies to offer us health insurance-with premiums and deductibles that we can never afford, which will make affording the tiny amount of health care we buy out of pocket now impossible. If government's first job is "protecting American lives", then they're doing a piss poor job of it.

[Mike Marble]

2. Count me in that group, and not too happy about it.

My non-profit employer can no longer afford group coverage for us, so I'm trying to find coverage in California.

I keep getting turned down, even though I don't have any preexisting conditions. I do have some bad habits (smoking, drinking) and I'm past 55 now, but these companies won't even let me pay them $550 a month for the privilege of being covered.

We need to join the ranks of civilized nations when it comes to health care (among a few other things).

[flyarm]

5. and when you get in the $1000.00 range you will have cadillac insurance!

and unless you are protected by a union..you won't get the pass (for the few years the unions do) of not paying a high tax on your insurance!

Well some of us warned about this and we were shouted down, and all but told to sit in the corner and STFU.. and told we were whiners and we wanted a pony and some great chess game was coming our way!

[Admiral Loinpresser]

7. Amen, brother.

I am a fellow whiner who is not insured. After the midterms I bet they'll cop out on tax cuts for the rich.

[Lorien]

11. Even if they "let you pay" $550 a month for coverage, what's the deductible

and the co-pay? What services aren't covered? It's really just legalized extortion.

[xchrom]

3. Recommend

[TexasObserver]

8. recommend

[The Uncola]

9. But none of this could have been predicted... oh wait a sec..

.. actually it's EXACTLY what us "fucking retarded" Progressive said would happen.

[eridani]

12. Well, like.........DUH! n/t