Candace

Talmadge

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March 3, 2008

Health Insurance Mandates: Great for Insurers, And That’s About It

Ohio residents, at least, have a chance to hear some common sense during this election year health care debate.

Until the March 4 primary polls open, a 60-second radio commercial is airing in the Buckeye State from the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

This is the same organization that took on California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over health-related issues and won.

“The government should be protecting us from insurance companies, not forcing us to buy their products,” the commercial states, in part. “Especially while insurance companies can still charge as much as they want and still deny you care when you are sick.

“So why are politicians still calling for mandates? Forcing people to buy health insurance isn’t universal health care. It just means more profits for the big insurers . . . ”

Amen, tell it, sister and brother nurses!

Remember all the idiotic hoopla over the Massachusetts health insurance mandate passed under former Gov. Mitt Romney?

Those chickens are now coming home to roost, and they’re very high-rent. According to calculations by the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, in 2007, the cheapest private health insurance – no frills, high deductibles, basic health care coverage – in 2007 cost a 55-year-old living in Boston $4,510 for an annual premium; a small-town couple in their late 40s some $9,121 a year; and parents in their 50s with two kids in rural Greenfield, Massachusetts a whopping $13,752. Remember, these are premiums for one year of high-deductible, no-frills basic health care insurance.

It turns out that private health insurance is so unaffordable in the Bay State that uninsured citizens are signing up in droves for either fully or partially state-subsidized health insurance plans. In other words, the people in Massachusetts who went without health insurance did so not because they were selfish or frittering their paychecks away, but because they could not afford to pay the premiums and cover other necessities, like the mortgage or food.

All the preceding puts a much larger burden on the state budget, to the tune of up to $619 million to subsidize health insurance premiums instead of the planned $472 million for the fiscal year ending June 30 – a $147 million gap.

The situation is untenable even for those whose income is too high for any subsidy. On the foundation’s web site is the 2007 story of Lisa Poplaski, of Pittsfield, Massachusetts. When her husband was laid off, they lost his health insurance coverage. He was out of work for eight-and-a-half months before finding another IT job with no health care benefits. Based on state guidelines, the annual premium for the policy that would work for them is $8,640. Slightly cheaper premiums are possible but the high deductibles would make the total cost the same.

“Premiums are totally outrageous in this Ponzi scheme,” Poplaski says. “Our income will be too high to get the subsidized coverage, but not enough to afford $720 a month . . . if we don’t buy the insurance before December, we’ll lose our state income tax deduction. Then, beginning in January 2008 the state will bill us for up to half the cost, even though we’d be getting nothing for it . . . ”

Of course there’s more. The cost for the state of Massachusetts of subsidizing private health care insurance will only grow from here on out. The mandate requires citizens to buy some form of health insurance, but does not also require private insurers to accept them or limit yearly rate hikes on premiums. What’s wrong with this picture? Private insurers in Massachusetts are raising rates this year by double digits, with state officials lamely begging them for mere single-digit hikes. Let’s not hold our breath on that one.

The nurses are so right. Mandated health insurance is a boon to the health insurance industry, but does nothing for anyone else.

The nurses’ group advocates Medicare for All, which sounds great except for Part D drug coverage. The law implementing Part D specifically prohibits the federal government from negotiating for lower prices for drugs – obviously a gift to major GOP campaign donors in the pharmaceutical industry. Reverse that and make the Medicare administration negotiate the cost of drugs across the board, and behold the beginnings of real universal health care, not some outrageously priced health insurance mandate scam.

All these numbers don’t even begin to describe the suffering and misery of those in Massachusetts who cannot afford bare-bones health insurance, or others around the nation who pay big bucks for health insurance only to find their coverage rescinded just when they needed it most.

A future column will discuss many more personal horror stories from the health insurance trenches.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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