Candace

Talmadge

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August 21, 2009

The Ticking Cost Time Bomb in Health Insurance Reform

President Obama has gone on a tear against health insurance companies lately, blaming the industry for almost every problem known to humankind.

The White House also dispatched an e-mail trumpeting all the things that those naughty insurance carriers will no longer be allowed to do under proposed health insurance reform legislation. These to-be-banished actions include:

·         No discrimination based on pre-existing medical conditions.

·         No charging higher premiums based on gender.

·         No annual or lifetime limits on coverage.

·         No dropping or scaling back on coverage if/when a policy holder becomes seriously ill.

·         Yearly caps on the amount insurance companies charge for deductibles or co-pays.

·         Mandatory reimbursement for regular checkups and tests that help prevent illness, such as mammograms or eye and foot exams for diabetics.

·         Children to be eligible for coverage under their parents’ insurance until age 26.

·         Coverage renewal guaranteed as along as policy holders keep current on premium payments.

There is one fascinating omission in the preceding inventory of sins. It contains nary a breath about the prices that insurers charge for premiums.

Combine this little oversight with the indisputable fact that insurance companies are in business to make a profit. They do this by collecting premiums priced as high as possible and then getting out of paying for actual medical care any way they can. That is why the list of proposed no-no’s is so extensive and nefarious.

If reform legislation outlaws all the insurance company actions itemized previously, the price for coverage will go through the roof faster than a duck jumps on a June bug. It will be absolutely unaffordable except for the ultra-rich. After all, the industry must satisfy Wall Street one way or the other.

But wait. Isn’t there something called the public option? This is the proposed government health insurance plan that supposedly will keep private insurers honest.

Let’s not hold our breath in anticipation. The public option is the key sticking point for a lot of conservative Democrats. Without their votes, health care reform won’t pass, because it won’t get any Republican support. And with Obama staking his presidency on this issue, the Democrats seem determined to pass something, even if it is only the appearance of a public option, and not the reality.

Staring us in the face is a nightmare repeat on a national scale of Massachusetts, where so-called health insurance reform is smashing the Bay State budget to smithereens. This kind of “reform” lacks a public option strong enough to make a difference but requires everyone to buy health insurance. Under this reform (wink, wink), the U.S. government, just like Massachusetts, will have to step in to subsidize more and more mandated coverage premiums. On top of that, there will be plenty of people who cannot afford the sky-high premiums, but do not qualify for subsidies.

The inevitable result: We shell out billions if not trillions in tax dollars on insurance company overhead and profits instead of on actual health care. And millions remain without health insurance and thus still have no access to real medical care. We are back where we started, minus scads and scads of public money forked over to private health insurers.

Gosh. Why not just spend those tax dollars on real health care, the way Medicare already does? And why not just put everyone into one big coverage pool? Why is Medicare for All such a hard concept to grasp? Other industrialized nations have managed single-payer systems. Is this country exceptional to the point of sheer stupidity?

Far from being any type of cure for what ails U.S. health care, what we have now in Congress is sheer reform quackery. It will do next to nothing to ensure that everyone has access to health care or to lower the explosion in health care costs. But it will guarantee continuing and greatly expanded profits for the health insurance industry. And that appears to be the real point of the entire legislative prescription.

Those megabuck campaign contributions continue to pay off handsomely!

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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