Like your health care as it is? Vote for reform
Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife
As we all know by now, one of the biggest scare tactics that proponents of the health care status quo put forth is that, if health care reform passes, people who feel well-served by the current health care system can kiss their comfort goodby. The cost of insuring poor folks will sit firmly on the backs of the middle-class. Forcing hospitals to control costs means that none of us will get the treatments we badly need. We can expand Medicaid only by decimating Medicare. Oh, yeah, and let’s not forget the death panels.
Even if any of that were true, simple morality and decency would dictate that we have to make some sacrifices to insure that no-one is suffering — or dying — because they simply cannot afford medical care.
But the fact is, it’s not true.
Nearly every mainstream analysis calls for medical costs to continue to climb over the next decade, outpacing the growth in the overall economy and certainly increasing faster than the average paycheck. Those higher costs will translate into higher premiums, which will mean fewer individuals and businesses will be able to afford insurance coverage. More of everyone’s dollar will go to health care, and government programs like Medicare and Medicaid will struggle to find the money to operate.
Policy makers, in the end, may be forced to address the issue.
“It will break all of our banks if we do nothing,” said Peter V. Lee, who oversees national health policy for the Pacific Business Group on Health, which represents employers that offer coverage to workers. “It is a course that is literally bankrupting the federal government and businesses and individuals across the country.”
This is not political rhetoric. Economists keep warning that health costs — and thus, insurance premiums – are going to soar well beyond inflation. Unemployed people, or those whose employers don’t provide health insurance, will, of course, be in the deepest yogurt. But don’t think that folks with decent jobs that provide great health benefits will be immune to financial pain. Employers will undoubtedly ask employees to pay more toward skyrocketing premiums — or, will give much smaller raises. And co-payments are likely to rise, while the lifetime ceiling on reimbursements is likely to be lowered.
And since we are still not a country that lets people die in the streets, who do you think is going to pay the price of treating uninsured people? We are, friends, we are.
As you know, I‘m all for getting rid of insurance altogether, and having government fund hospitals and such. But I doubt that will happen in my lifetime, so I’m happy to get behind a public option and other aspects of health care reform. It’s not like we don’t have benefit of hindsight on the cost of doing nothing:
The Commonwealth Fund estimates that the nation would be spending hundreds of billions of dollars less than it does today if any of the health care legislation proposed by previous administrations had been enacted, assuming that they reduced costs by about 1.5 percentage points. If President Nixon’s plan had passed, the United States might be spending a trillion dollars a year less than it does now, and President Clinton’s plan would have reduced spending by some $500 billion a year.
We’ve blown it so many times already. Let’s finally admit that maintaining the status quo is simply not an option.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
[...] post: Like your health care as it is? Vote for reform – Claudia Deutsch … all-know, biggest, care-reform, care-status, care-system, comfort, current, feel-well-served, [...]
Thursday’s health care summit was what it was: an exercise in rhetoric. Republicans reprised their familiar routine of propaganda and political theater. Democrats dug in, sticking mostly to the same talking points they’ve been repeating for over a year now. And the President persistently attempted to bridge the gaps and break the deadlock between them, to no avail.
Unfortunately, it was obvious from Senator Lamar Alexander’s (R-TN) opening remarks onward that Republicans never intended to have a real conversation about health care. Rather than focusing on areas of potential agreement, like medical malpractice reform, the senator chose instead to misrepresent the facts about health insurance premiums.
Behind a facade of phony fiscal fortitude, the G.O.P. blindly obstructs legislation essential to our economic recovery, hoping that this cynical strategy will return them to power.
Moreover, by repeatedly refusing to engage in a serious exchange of ideas, Congressional Republicans fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth behind health care reform: that it is an economic and social necessity.
Read more @ http://armchairfirebrand.wordpress.com/
Our of fairness to the Republicans (and boy, do I hate being fair to Republicans), if you listened to them on the Sunday talk show circuits, they did indeed stress malpractice reform and other possible points of agreement. I’m not happy with either party on this one — the deals that are being cut (exemptions for Florida? Nebraska? c’mon) are revolting.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Health care reform: why doing nothing is not an option [...]
Reform…reform…reform
Let us not automatically equate “change” with reform…Theya re not the same thing by a long shot.
Three issues dominate: 1)insurance and/or care
for those unable or unwilling to get or buy it;
2) scope of mandatory coverage package; and 3)
paying for all of the above at a time when just the existing levels of usage and coverage are themselves increasingly problematic.
The Dems (Obama’s now only because he initially outsourced and abdicated the issues)
“solution” is a) ten years of funding for 6 years of spending (that alone should sent serious people into orbit) that supposedly expands NEW COVERAGE to 40 or so million people now not insured (but still receiving treatment when necessary) while also insisting upon NEW HIGHER USAGE COVERAGE (as opposed to some core minimums) that includes universal “preventative care” and mandatory coverage of preconditions. The latter of course makes it foolhardy to spend a dime on health insurance until the xray shows a tumor, then you sign up.
So to prevent that gaming, the pin heads come up with mandatory insurance. You gotta have it
or you’ll feel Uncle Sam’s bayonet in your back. Not because you might get sick (’cause only some of you current nonpayers will) but because “we” need your premiums to pay for the largesse we just dreamed up and doled out. And to the extent there’s any short fall, we’ll make it up be reducing Medicare and Medicaid payments to even lower than today’s paltry sums.
Well, such savings are “real”, lets do them NOW!!! We dont need a reform plan to cut costs that are there waiting to be trimmed.
That fantasy is demonstable by the fact that the curreent plan doesnt dare try to implement
those savings immediatelt, but punts them several Congresses into the future, knowing full well that no future Congress is likely to make cuts the current Congress cant work up the gumption for. And BTW, no prior cuts since
1964 have stuck. Every Congress reprieved them.
The question is classic: There are only two ways to go and they are diametrically opposed.
The current plan is to extracts as much money for the taxpayer/wage owner short of revolution, recycling those funds thru the Wash DC meatgrinder – which extracts a not small cut – and then decides how and when spending will occur on health care. Door number 2 leaves as much money in the hands of the taxpayer/working class (aka health care USER) and lets the user at point of use decide the best alternative for him/her then and there.. Policy options abound
Again, sounds a lot like the Sunday talk show circuit…
In response to another comment. See in context »Why you won’t accept that preventive care can actually save money escapes me, as does your refusal to factor in the benefits of trying to get care providers to focus on efficacy of care rather than fee for service (which is what lowering reimbursements might do, if applied correctly — but full disclosure here, that’s an eventuality that even I am not comfortable guaranteeing)And we both readily acknowledge that uninsured people are in fact getting care at taxpayer expense — but clearly we each think that fact proves our diametrically opposed points.
I have absolutely no problem with forcing people to have insurance they may never ( in fact, they hope they never) have to use. I’ve paid into social security all my life, and I truly hope that I am not dependent on it to pay my bills. I am very grateful for every year that my automobile insurance did not pay for itself. And, in fact, I would like nothing better than to pay more health insurance premiums than my need for care would warrant.
oh dear…
the reason preventative care doesnt save money is because to have to provide it (no free lunch)to literally THOUSANDS of people who arent gonna get sick at all to ID the 2 or 3 people who are gonna get some illness no matter what. It is the antithesis of insurance which is about spreading risks, not about deliberately incurring costs as far as the eye can see.
“Efficacy” of care? What’s that? You break a leg, you get a surgeon’s and an OR’s services, for which compensation is in order. You cant possibly “insure” universal “wellness”. If you think fee for service creates unnecessary service, wait til you see what no accountability whatsoever “wellness” treatment costs. (Sort of like when the jobless rate soared, the “accountability” of the “stimulus package” promptly shifted to how may jobs were “supposedly saved”. Cant you just see the metrics: more money for all the treatments for people who didnt get sick !
There’s a difference between acknowledging that poor folk are in fact cared for, and suggesting their lot must be elevated (to the enhanced mandates previously noted) at even greater expense. My point is that they are not
left dying in the gutter. This does not mean they are entitled – at taxpayer expense – to the same robust care people with jobs and ability to buy insurance have, taxing those same people to provide it.
You are not troubled by REQUIRING people to buy health insurance? That they dont want or need? Just to glom onto their money to spend on others? How is that different from a tax to accomplish the same thing? (Ooops, there goes that hopey/changey thing again!) Why stop at health care? Why not food, housing and spiritual attention?
Are we not the “home of the free”? or just until some whinet tree hugger has a better idea how to help the “little guy”, but only and always with other people’s money.
Go reread Atlas Shrugged. There’s passage in the middle where the discussion is re people needing serious medical care when times and funds are lean. Those people start experiencing fatal accidents disproportionate to the general population. But we’ll have a committee of experts doling out care wisely that will avoid that unseemly result !
In response to another comment. See in context »how are you defining sick? Only cancer or other long-drawn-out life-enders? My guess is, of the thousands who are given preventive care, including nutritional counceling or spotting pre-diabetic conditions or arthritis treatments, etc, many hundreds will end up avoiding a much more expensive condition. And btw, I don’t equate preventive care with wellness treatments — no, I’m not advocating free B12 shots for one and all.
In response to another comment. See in context »Can’t call it a tax, since yeah, I’m saying even people who are unemployed should be required to buy health insurance. If they can’t afford it, the government subsidizes. And yeah, we already do that with housing and food — we do not accept people in homeless shelters who can afford to pay rent, and I don’t imagine you and I would qualify for foodstamps. (Before you say it — yes, there’s fraud going on, but probably far less than the fraud rich folks perpetrate with tax dodges)
My favorite Ayn Rand line is not from Atlas Shrugged, but from Fountainhead. So tell me, what do you really think of me? The truth, sir, is that I don’t think of you. And yes, I’ve been blessed to have had opportunity to actually deliver that line to a couple of blowhards in my time. Have always been grateful to her for that, whether I think selfishness is a virtue or not.