Will the final "health care reform" bill turn all but the wealthiest into the underinsured?

[clear eye]

Since what virtually all the members of this site want is a healthcare financing system that will reduce or end the exclusion of Americans from reasonable, effective care for their health issues, it is crucial to find out if a proposal is heading in the right direction. Anything else will only increase emotional and/or physical suffering. DUers, would you please consider where the proposal so far leads?

There is the real possibility that the proposed bill will turn all but the wealthiest retired people into underinsured by putting such severe "cost/benefit" restrictions on coverage that millions of people formerly eligible for a good Medicare plan would be given only cheaper, ineffective treatments or palliative care if they have a serious ailments, the harshest denials phasing in as people age. Restrictions on physician payments and coverage, but not premiums or insurance co. profits is planned to save 1/2 $T over 10 years.

One new problem looming will be that the premiums you or your employer can afford with the subsidy may not be able BY LAW to buy a policy that covers the type of care that would restore your health, since all the policies in your price range will have to follow the same restrictions. There will no longer be any shopping around for a policy that just happens to have what you or your child needs.

What difference would it make to someone whose health makes them currently uninsurable, if they were allowed into a plan that only gave them primary care but didn't cover effective treatment for the serious problem they had?

What if the cruel denials under the new plan turn almost everyone off to any government-administered program--especially single-payer?

It is alarming that there is to be cost/benefit analyses of allowable coverage by some undisclosed bureaucrat probably hired right out of the insurance industry if the usual pattern of appointees by this Administration continues. It is worrisome that we won't know what these decisions will be until AFTER the bill is passed or even know what basis will be used. For example, what is 5 years of extra life worth in those calculations, when you're 55? when you're 75? If you earn nothing when you're 75, is it worth nothing? What if it is determined that your child's health issues spring from a genetic disorder and she/he will need expensive care for life if healed this time. Will your tier's plan be permitted to give it?

There are penalties under the bill to hospitals for excess readmissions, but not for excess deaths.

What if the bill causes economic recovery to continue to stagnate or even to slide further toward depression?

The bill requires businesses above 10 employees to provide health insurance or pay a fairly large amount/employee into the insurance exchange. If we keep handicapping U.S. enterprises, how can we ever expect decreased unemployment into the future? Will our young people or single mothers be able to find jobs? It's also very difficult to stay healthy if you're homeless and/or going hungry.

The bill does not rescind the prohibition against bargaining with pharmaceutical cos. in Medicare pt. D, but creates government funded rebates for the doughnut hole, so the increase in those excessive costs along with the burdensome administrative costs for the multitude of private insurers and the providers dealing with them, and toll taken in increased premium costs for profits to private insurers can only derail any effort to pay down the deficit. The consequence will be to add to the crushing inflation impacting especially on the huge part of our population who will be on fixed incomes. If our Treasury hadn't been looted at the point of a gun (threat of marshal law) to avoid a reorganization and reregulation of the banks, the U.S. could have afforded an overly expensive system. The effect now is very different.

There is much in the current bill that leads inexorably in these directions. Please help fight to change those provisions, for example by mandating that the cost/benefit analyst be someone from the public health field, not the insurance industry, and that there be an independent citizens' board w/ veto power over exclusions, or, failing that, fight for European-style single-payer healthcare financing that offers one tier of coverage, made better by enormous administrative and end-to-profit savings, for all.

[Cleita]

1. Listening to Ed Schultz ranting about how this shaping up, it seems we are

going to be worse off than we were and the milquetoast Democrats are allowing the Republicans and Blue (Cross)Dog Democrats bully them into something the insurance company can make even more money from.

[nightrain]

2. clear eye, this post and your post about the Medicare Advisory Panel are great--

would you consider re-posting them on the General Discussion so they get a wider audience?

[clear eye]

3. Thanks. They're there alreadly. Or were. n/t

[truedelphi]

4. Probably. n/t