Tag Archives: Health Insurance

It Should Be Unbelievable, But Isn’t

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As reported this afternoon on the NY Times website:

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, called House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio on Wednesday to commit to negotiations on a long-term deficit reduction deal, but only after the House passes the Senate’s bill to reopen the federal government without policy strings attached.

[Reid called Boehner on the phone and also sent this in a letter:]

“Before the House you have the Senate-passed measure to reopen the government, funded at the level that the House chose in its own legislation. I propose that you allow this joint resolution to pass, reopening the government,” Mr. Reid wrote. “And I commit to name conferees to a budget conference, as soon as the government reopens.”

The speaker’s office dismissed it as a surrender demand.

“The entire government is shut down right now because Washington Democrats refuse to even talk about fairness for all Americans under Obamacare,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner. “Offering to negotiate only after Democrats get everything they want is not much of an offer.”

Wait a minute. “After the Democrats get everything they want”? It’s what the Democrats and the rest of us already have! Except for the federal government being on life support, and presumably most Republicans want that little problem to be fixed too.

The Affordable Care Act has gone into effect. It’s not going away. It’s not something that has to be renegotiated. There was an election. The Supreme Court approved it. People are already signing up (although there is so much interest, the new websites are having trouble keeping up with the demand). 

Get over it, Boehner spokesman, and move on to the next crisis!

Earlier today I read a comment from a Republican at the Boston Herald site. She said that delaying the entire ACA for one year was “reasonable”, since some parts of it have already been delayed. She also said it was o.k. to delay it because the thing doesn’t work anyway (the evidence being that thousands of people who visited the websites yesterday had trouble getting through, because thousands of people were trying to get through).

This is the problem we’re having in this country. There are many among us who live in a different reality and use words like “reasonable” in a different way. “Extortion” becomes “negotiation”. As a result, communication becomes terribly difficult. Ideology can certainly cloud your perception of the world. 

http://www.nytimes.com/news/fiscal-crisis/2013/10/02/reid-says-hell-negotiate-once-house-drops-demands/

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/us_politics/the_lone_republican/2013/10/
day_2_in_obama_holding_federal_government

PS — Someone just left a comment on the previous post asking why it’s bad for the Republicans to want to delay the ACA. That’s their right, of course. The question is how they try to achieve that goal. See the comments on the post below if you’re interested, including a link to another opinion piece.

In the meantime, I’m going to watch some soccer.

Patience and the Affordable Care Act

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It’s always bothered me that the Obama administration didn’t come up with a catchy name for the health insurance provisions of the Affordable Care Act. We’ve got “Social Security”, “Medicare” and “Medicaid”, so why couldn’t the administration come up with an equally helpful name for this thing, instead of leaving an opening for it to be called “Obamacare”?

I bet if Saint Ronald was still President, one of the first things on his agenda would have been to give his pet program a great name that would help sell it to the American people. But Obama apparently thinks he’s above such things.

Nevertheless, the important thing is that this landmark legislation is going into effect two days from now, regardless of what any misguided, foolish, cowardly and/or evil House Republicans do in the meantime.

I know people (including myself) who will probably be taking advantage of the ACA in the relatively near future, so I’ve been wondering how much it’s going to cost. Unfortunately, there are reports in the media that suggest what “average” premiums will be. There was one such unhelpful article in the New York Times today: “‘Affordable Care’ or a Rip-Off?”.

The problem is that you can’t know what a person’s or a family’s costs will be until you factor in where they live, how old they are and, especially, what their income is. Many or most people in this country, not just the poorest among us, will be eligible for subsidies from the government. In fact, if you’re eligible for a subsidy, you won’t even have to wait for the IRS to send you a check. The subsidy will be applied right up front when you pay your insurance premium (which means that some people won’t have to pay anything at all).

There is good news here. The health insurance premiums being discussed so far are generally cheaper than what people would pay for private health insurance today, and the premiums are going to be lower, often much lower, for many of us after the subsidies are applied.

So maybe everyone who’s interested should wait a couple days and then go to https://www.healthcare.gov/ to see the real numbers (and also see the pretty young woman with a big smile on her face). I’m sure we can all wait a couple more days.

Here’s today’s New York Times editorial on the importance of the ACA and the subsidies:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/opinion/sunday/dawn-of-a-revolution-in-health-care.html?

If you’re in the mood for even more good news, take a look at this column from Nicholas Kristof. Here’s his conclusion, supported by statistics from the World Bank, the Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development:

So let’s acknowledge that there’s plenty of work remaining — and that cycles of poverty in America must be a top priority at home — yet also celebrate a triumph for humanity. The world of extreme poverty and disease that characterized life for most people throughout history may now finally be on its way out.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/opinion/sunday/kristof-a-way-of-life-is-ending-thank-goodness.html?

Electrocardiograms ‘R Us

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I saw my primary care doctor last week. She decided that I needed an EKG. She also personally called my cardiologist’s office and got me an appointment the following day.

When I arrived at the cardiologist’s office, the first thing they wanted to do was an EKG. I pointed out that I had just had one yesterday. The nurse went away, presumably to get a fax of my EKG from my other doctor.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. My cardiologist ordered her own EKG.

Both EKG’s were normal. Our insurance company will be billed for two tests, one of which wasn’t necessary.

Paul Krugman points out that the US and Canada used to spend about the same amount on health care, but we don’t anymore. Our system, supposedly based on free market competition (and as many EKG’s as possible?), now costs more than Canada’s, even though the Canadian single-payer system gets better results and Canadians are happy with the health care they receive.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/health-systems-and-health-costs/

Romney Tells the Truth. Oops!

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Michael Kinsley once said that a political gaffe is when a politician tells the truth — some obvious truth he isn’t supposed to say. There are other kinds of gaffes, of course, but this kind can be especially informative.

Yesterday, Mitt Romney praised the efficiency of the Israeli health care system. It is efficient, since they spend much less than we do per capita while getting better results and providing universal coverage.

Maybe Romney didn’t realize it, but it’s important to note that the Israeli healthcare system is single-payer and government-regulated. It is, in fact, an example of socialism at its best.

Definitely the kind of political gaffe described by Michael Kinsley.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/07/30/whiplash-mitt-romney-lavishes-praise-on-israels-socialist-government-controlled-healthcare-system/

Over There

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Those poor, benighted Brits — celebrating their socialistic National Health Service at the Olympics opening ceremonies!

Don’t they know it would be so much better to have a system like ours?

One that is reliant on profit-driven employers paying as little as possible to profit-driven insurance companies, who pay as little as possible to profit-driven doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, who charge as much as possible.  

Leaving millions without decent health care, whether or not they have health insurance, while we spend more on healthcare per capita than any other nation in the world and lag behind other developed nations in quality of care.

A system in which people often decide where to live or work depending on whether an employer provides health insurance.  

A system in which a major illness can bankrupt a family.

Crazy foreigners.