Fixing Health Care in a Week
Yesterday, I wrote about the hypocrisy of Republicans and conservative Democrats who have been telling us that it’s “too expensive” to extend to all Americans the generous single-payer health insurance coverage that they and their families, as federal employees, enjoy at Americans’ expense.
Today, Los Angeles Times reporters Mark Z. Barabak and Faye Fiore have a lengthy, detailed piece about just what it is that elected officials like John Boehner and Ben Nelson happily accept for themselves but would deny to the rest of us (emphasis mine):
Among the advantages: a choice of 10 healthcare plans that provide access to a national network of doctors, as well as several HMOs that serve each member’s home state. By contrast, 85% of private companies offering health coverage provide their employees one type of plan — take it or leave it.
[...]
In all, taxpayers spent about $15 billion last year to insure 8.5 million federal workers and their dependents, including postal service employees, according to the Office of Personnel Management.Generous plans are available in private industry. But the federal coverage far surpasses that enjoyed by 70 million Americans who are underinsured and at financial risk in the event of a major health crisis — not to mention the estimated 46 million who have no medical insurance.
“For the average worker, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan would probably look quite attractive,” said Pete Sepp, a spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union, a pinch-penny advocacy group.
[...]
Federal employees also enjoy a significant benefit denied the average American: There is no such thing as a preexisting condition, which keeps many sick people from obtaining insurance. Once hired, federal workers are eligible for coverage no matter their health, with no waiting period.
Members of Congress who support single-payer — or at minimum a robust public coverage option — for all Americans and are fighting to pass legislation providing that, deserve our respect. One House member, however, has gone a giant step further. Rep. Steve Kagen (D-WI) “has refused to accept federal healthcare benefits … until every American can enjoy the same coverage as federal lawmakers.”
Kagen recently had knee surgery, writing checks for more than $4,500 after bargaining for a reduced-rate MRI and a 50% discount on the operation. (He is still dickering over the hospital bill.)
“If every member of Congress put their heads on their pillow every night like I do . . . knowing this could be the night I lose my house, we’d fix healthcare in a week,” said Kagen, who spent decades as a doctor in the Green Bay area before winning office in 2006.
Kagen said his wife and three of his four children have health coverage. But not his oldest daughter, 28, who can’t afford insurance.
Emphasis mine.
Via Memeorandum.
12 Responses to “Fixing Health Care in a Week”
Kathy, the problem of the single player program is not that it's too expensive right away but the fact that it becomes too expensive through overuse. the reason why we've had rising costs is not greedy insurance companies (they need large cash reserves to pay off potential claims) but the simple fact that the insurance covers everything from routine doctors visits to life-endangering problems. it should really be something more like auto insurance covering only the emergency room and the most expensive things like long-term care. Yes premium-coverage ratios will be high but rightly so as it'll be much more like a regular insurance company rather than a health care company (there's an important distinction).
I see the 'health care reform' definition that Obama constantly refers to s not 'reform' but reorganization of the current system and a single-payer plan would only bring eventual care rationing like what is being done in Canada now. This is all when less government involvement is necessary, not more (already the government pays directly about 47-52% of all health care expenditures through medicare, medicaid and other programs not including social security that is [source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus07.pdf figure 6])
Your intentions are correct but the method is not, what we need is a move out of the business supplied benefits (which by the way are untaxed) and move towards a more individual market… yes the problem will be the costs of living will be artificially higher for a few months, but governments can demand that the wages must be reimbursed directly proportionate to the amount of money that previously was going towards the health insurance. oh! and add in tort reform and the trend should become flatter than in recent years
who have been telling Americans it’s “too expensive” to extend to all Americans the generous single-payer health insurance coverage that they and their families, as federal employees, enjoy at Americans’ expense.
Besides the fact that it most likely would be too expensive to extend that to all Americans, I can't figure out why you call it 'single payer'. Right in your own post you pointed out that they choose from a variety of insurance providers.
It is pretty hypocritical for all of the Congresscritters to choose to keep this kind of Cadillac coverage for themselves and exempt themselves from everything they try to foist on the rest of Americans though.
[...] Fixing Health Care in a Week | The Moderate Voice Share and [...]
[...] This medical News / Journal title : :Fixing Health Care in a Week | The Moderate VoiceYesterday, in my post titled Red and Blue Creeps, I wrote about the contemptible hypocrisy of Republicans and conservative Democrats who have been telling.Read Full about this medical News / resources [...]
CStanley, it's just a talking point which has been spouted so often by its sponsors that many supporters now just repeat it. What Congress has is a form of “Cadillac coverage” which is far above and beyond what most people will ever see, primarily because of the cost. But not ALL Americans. There are plenty of high paid, very affluent people out there who have the same or better coverage. You can have it too, right now… IF you have the money for it. Of course, the populist approach of telling everyone that we can give every single American that kind of coverage and somehow nobody but a few stinking rich people will have to pay for it is a pipe dream. But hey… that's never stopped a politician (of either party) from selling pie in the sky for free.
overuse/misuse wouldn't be an issue if costs are shared and people are given choices. There's always going to be some abuse of systems, whatever you put in place. Abuse of systems happens today from all sides. Some insurance companies abuse the system, some drs abuse the system and some patients abuse the system.
We have care rationing today, it's not called that but it amounts to the same thing. If you don't have the money, you either don't get care or you have limited access to care. If you have insurance *and* the insurance company agrees to pay, you might get care. Or if you have access to cash you might get care. Step into some of the discussion groups about illnesses, cancer, amyloidosis, transplants, whatever and one of the biggest topics is INSURANCE (how to get them to pay) or how to pay for treatment in some other way.
Single payer isn't the perfect answer, but it's far better than what we have now. I've lived under single payer for about 12 years with family and it has worked well for us. We actually saw the GP when we went in, I could get appointments, same day when needed. There was only one front office person and paperwork was far less complicated. I took my receipt to the medicaid office and they reimbursed me.
That was it. Cheaper for everyone when it's simple.
The claim that insurance companies refuse to pay for treatment does not cohere with my personal experience. My wife's cancer treatments were shockingly expensive (even after you pick through the confusing blizzard of discounts and accounting gimmicks), but we never had any problem receiving insurance benefits with the exception of one weird situation with an ambulance charge that was resolved very quickly.
It is perhaps true that some insurance companies in some cases present unnecessary difficulties in honoring their contracts. It is certainly true that overuse of “recission” is a problem that deserves to be dealt with with regulatory changes and greater government enforcement. But I think the standardized memes about evil insurance companies have ossified into partisan talking points that oversimplify and fundamentally misrepresent what is actually going on in the interest of pushing a “solution” (single-payer health care” that is also oversimplified and its difficulties air-brushed away.
Partisanship is completely exterminating actual analysis in the health care debate in this country and that is a problem on BOTH sides rather, than as some would try to have you believe, only among Republicans.
You're wrong, again, naturally. They don't deserve respect and don't get it from the intelligent; they have rightly earned contempt. If they want to change things, never mind the fundamental problems with their desire for federal health care (which the cowardly and dishonest call “single-payer” to be both deceptive and euphemistically, deliberately vague) — they could start by ending their dishonesty and neglect, which sometimes has been deliberate, about the details of what they are seeking. (That's if the truly _know_.)
” dealing with the legitimate concerns about downsides and tradeoffs that confront any serious reform effort”
As I've said so often before, by going from private to public (government) health care, we'll exchange one set of problems for another — not merely receive manna from heaven, as advocates behave as if they believe.
“its difficulties air-brushed away or forced away by instant counter-attacks on any of the 'creeps' who dare to raise them in the first place”
Note that this is not merely specific to health care, but is true in general for the Left, such as with the most stupid and destructive “global warming”-related alarmism and other misconduct by the Left in its name, for example.
TT, overuse and misuse will always be a factor, the simple idea that consumers (a.k.a. citizens) don't have to pay for it with disposable income means that they think it's free. and once it becomes free, more people are prone to misuse it. In fact, we have that idea in our heads right now by having basic tests and checkups being paid by private insurance (36% which includes individual and business paid), government (34% federal and 11% state and local), and out of pocket (15%) sources.
Yes, the status quo is unacceptable, the hybrid of indirect payment and government payment is not effective. But at the same time, cost controls of medicare (19.9% of all health care payments) and medicaid (17.5%) that the US government has put into place just does not work, costing much more than anyone had thought previously (about 10-100 times more expensive than the most generous forecasts, only medicare-D hasn't gone over it's forecasted cost yet). We see Canada rationing care for the most expensive things like cancer transplants and other things that you've mentioned yourself, not allowing the eldest to get the care they need to continue.
you're right that single payer isn't the perfect answer, but the private insurance industry is already competing with the government, and now congress wants a 'public plan' that is not an NPO, but a tax-funded plan. it's practically guaranteed to have everyone flocking to it and overflowing the projections within a year, and eventual rationing will soon occur. It's just a bad plan that occurs whenever this congress comes into session. no where near a single-payer system, not in the direction i'd prefer, and certainly not the right way at all for anyone
Just wanted to send Mr. Kagan an “ata boy”