Do you know how to catch wild pigs? You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they come to eat.
When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.
I don't know if the vote that occurred last night was the gate slamming, but I know that the reality of an oversized, overpowered government has hit home to a lot of Americans. And us pigs are running around and around inside the fence. I still have hope that this "reform" can be stopped. But we need to make it abundantly clear to those who are now ruling us - rather than serving us - that they have overstepped their bounds (remember, I feel this bill is Unconstitutional). The fact that these people have convinced millions of Americans that buying insurance for 32 million more people will be cheaper for us in the long run is a testament to their incomprehensible deceit. Do they think we're dumb? Then again, do we give them a reason not to think we're dumb?
Please, if someone reading this can explain to me how insuring 32 million more people will truly save money then here is your chance... reply below and make me smarter (keep it clean and civil, please). I can see a lot of things happening as a result of this bill, but the crimson and clover fantasy being shoveled upon us will probably never come to pass. Let us assume that the deficit (due to this Bill) is actually reduced by billions of dollars and we provide health care for another 32 million people. Who is going to pay for this? We are! That money comes from us. We are not saving money, rather we are spending it faster and the government is the driving force. You will spend more on taxes and on mandatory insurance because the government thinks that's what best for you. And your premiums will grow to compensate for those who can't pay or come into the system already sick. I mean c'mon Washington, making an insurance company cover someone who is already ill is like knowing who won a game and betting against them after the fact. The fact that this makes sense to our law makers explains our national deficit.
But that's not all you'll be spending more on. Because now companies have to provide better (more expensive) insurance to their employees. Who believes that Steve Ballmer or Alan Mulally or Mike Duke are going to allow this law to affect their bottom line? That additional cost will be passed to the consumers. And the further down the manufacturing line a product is created the more the price will grow.
The steel company has to raise prices to meet insurance mandates, so they charge the engine manufacturing company more. The engine manufacturing company has to pay more for the steel AND spend more on benefits so they charge the tractor manufacturing company more. The same increase in spending affects them, so the farmer has to pay more for the tractor. He has to raise his feed prices to get by so the cost of milk has to be raised. So now you're spending more for your milk... and everything in which it is used. And the cost increase isn't just to repay the dairy farmer... the consumer will absorb the cost increase all the way back to the steel manufacturer and anyone he purchases from! Any additional expenses incurred by the companies (and this will affect all of them) whose goods and services we purchase will be passed directly to us in the price of that good or service. This is on top of increased taxes.
But by the time most of us realize what's happening it will be too late. We will have forgotten how to forage in the woods, we will have returned to the free corn and accepted our captivity. At least Washington hopes so.
Please understand that I truly am in favor of health care reform. To me a better starting point would be hospitals that are more interested in healing than their bottom line. Penalties for using an ER for anything other than an emergency. The sniffles are not an emergency, and neither is crapping your adult diaper (both were on the news recently). Companies providing benefits commensurate with their profits. Wal-Mart should be absolutely ashamed of themselves (and will be the subject of a future blog) but we can't expect the local, family run restaurant to provide the same coverage - and tax payers shouldn't have to absorb that cost either. If the government really feels the need to get their fingers into this thing, they could manage, monitor and/or regulate the companies that make medical equipment. Maybe health insurance wouldn't be that big of a deal if an aspirin didn't cost $5 and medical equipment didn't cost an arm to buy and a leg to maintain. And finally, make the punishment for unjust rescission by an insurer one that affects not only the company, but its bottom line and hits the owner/CEO in the wallet, too. The canceling of a contract because someone has become ill is total BS... you got that one right Mr. President.
Take it from someone who has government health care, it's not all that it's cracked up to be. Since I've joined the Navy my health package upon retirement has shrunk considerably. Many of the benefits originally promised to me are gone. Why? To reduce government spending silly! You see, once they have us all (and I think the public option is still the ultimate goal - and I will blog about my theory on how it will still come to pass) then we will be helpless. If your insurer is unjust with you you can go to the government for help, but who do you go to when the government is your insurer?
I figure they have us right where they want us. During this whole embarrassing debacle I have heard and seen reports of public schools across the country shutting their doors and laying off teachers and staff. I haven't heard heard a peep from Capitol Hill on how they intend to curtail that little problem. So now we have "universal" health care (that's not universal), and less schools. The working class is getting healthier and dumber. Perfect!!
I'm just kidding. I don't think this particular style of health care reform is going to work. I think it's going to cost a whole lot, and we're going to pay that bill, and the health care system will suffer in the long run. So really... we're going to be dumb, sick and poor. Perfect conditions to make us even more dependent on the government. Damn, maybe that gate is swinging shut after all.
And by the way, why would a group people rush to pass a Bill they they admit has flaws in it and that NEEDS TO BE FIXED!? Would you rush to paint a room brown knowing you would need to paint it green tomorrow? Jumping through hoops to pass a law that the majority of America is against while knowing it has flaws... it's just incredible, and ignorant.
"Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think."
- Hannah Arendt
- Hannah Arendt
This article from Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62G2DO20100317?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r2:c0.114286:b32005914:z0) highlights a problem known as "post claims underwriting." This means that insurers issue policies with the intent to investigate the applicant's medical history only after large or potentially large claims are filed. At that point, they look for anything they might rely on to rescind the coverage, voiding the policy back to its inception and returning the premiums, which is usually cheaper than paying a large claim. This case involves an HIV claim, which was diagnosed several months after the young man bought his policy.
ReplyDeleteI read about a case where a California woman purchased insurance for her family. A year later her son was diagnosed with cancer. The carrier immediately ordered medical records on every member of the family and rescinded the entire family's coverage because the mother had answered "no" on the application to a question asking whether any family member had seen a doctor during the previous 5 years "for any complaint not listed". The listed "complaints" included cancer, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and similar long term chronic and catastrophic illnesses. The company determined that the woman had lied on the application because she had seen a doctor a year before applying for the coverage because she had the flu. A California court awarded her $5 million for bad faith and breach of contract, but not in time to get her son the treatment he needed. He died a year before the case went to trial. California had a bill pending last year that would require its Dept of Insurance to review and approve any rescission of a health insurance policy, but as frequently happens when the insurance PACs get involved, the bill was killed in committee. Several states have passed statutes prohibiting post claims underwriting. Most have not, and I find their failure to regulate their insurers just as reprehensible as the system abusing carriers.
One of the most egregious things I've seen is the use of a doctor's notes in the medical file, which the patient is not privy to, to void a policy. Sometimes the doctor writes down an observation without even discussing it with the patient, and the patient has no way of knowing that it's in her records. One woman in Arizona recently had her policy rescinded because her doctor had noted she "appeared" to be depressed during her visit, which had followed her recently losing her job. She had answered "no" to the question of whether she suffered from any psychiatric complaint, and the insurer now wanted to use the doctor's notation of depression to say she lied on her application. The claim that triggered the investigation into her last year's medical records was for a diagnosis of melanoma -- nothing to do with depression or psychiatric disorders, but the carrier will grasp at any straw. A similar situation takes place in the HIV story below, where the company found a note made by a nurse, and had every reason to know that the note contained an incorrect date, but used it to state that the insured knew he was HIV-positive before he bought the policy. The company also engaged in subterfuge by failing to record the names of the persons involved in the rescission decision and destroying pertinent records so they could not be used in evidence at trial. The CEO of this company has been before Congress numerous times in the past 2 years, and each time he is asked if the company will discontinue its rescission practices, he has answered, "No."
The insurance lobby is one of the most powerful, and they are spending big bucks to mislead the public about health care reform. I was watching a recent "town hall" broadcast, for instance, where the only people interviewed about their opposition to a national health insurance plan were senior citizens who are already receiving their health care at the expense of the taxpayer.
I posted the previous comment for a reader from my email. Although this reader and I have different viewpoints when it comes to Health Care Reform, we agree on rescission. It's a bunch of crap. Any company that openly practices it should be shut down. Period.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input!!
Dear Jumbo,
ReplyDeleteYou ask how insuring 32 million more people can save money. Here's one theory: We're already paying for them, but in ways that cannot be controlled or reigned in.
First, uninsured patients account for the majority of bad debt faced by medical practitioners (hospitals, doctors, medical groups, etc.) To cover these bad debts, health care costs are inflated to account for these uncollectible accounts receivables. You know those $5 aspirins you mentioned? Why do you think that is?
And as health care costs go up, insurance carriers have to raise premiums, so those of us who buy insurance are already subsidizing those that don't. Those like you, who receive health care through a federal program, are seeing the decline of your coverage to account for an already overburdened federal budget. Reduce the bad debt, and stem the double-digit annual rise in health care costs.
Next, uninsured patients tend to postpone health care until the problems can no longer be ignored, meaning the severity and prognosis are worsened, and the time and cost needed for treatment become exponentially higher. This also means many people allow health conditions that may have been easily treatable in the early stages to exacerbate to the point where the person is now losing time from work because of the illness, the treatment, or both, and as we know, when people aren't earning money, they aren't paying taxes or their other bills either. This also means the unpaid medical bills are higher than they needed to be if the person could have gotten early intervention for their problem (see the above paragraph). So the bad debt that is being passed on to us is exaggerated because of treatment delays.
This leads to a third issue: one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in this country is the accumulation of overwhelming and insurmountable medical bills. When a person files for bankruptcy relief, ALL their debts can be forgiven, meaning they now don't have to pay those credit card bills they've accumulated, either. They may lose certain property due to secured debts -- the house is foreclosed, the car gets repo'd, for example, but they are off the hook for the debt. Many foreclosed properties or repossessed personal property are not worth the outstanding amount on the debt, so the creditors frequently have to sell them at a loss.
So the creditors lose money, and who do they pass that bad debt onto? Well, for one thing, under the IRS code, they can write it off and reduce their taxes by the amount of the bad debt times their tax rate. The larger the bad debt, the larger the write-off. So Mr. and Mrs. America need to step up and make up the difference on their tax returns each year. And as to the balance of the bad debt that has not been applied to their taxes? The creditors raise prices for the rest of us to cover the amount that can't be written off, so we are subsidizing both the bad debt and the tax relief.
There's no free lunch, Jumbo. You're footing the bill for those 32 million uninsured already. It's just hidden in your tax bill, your credit card interest rate, the price of goods and services, and that $5 aspirin. And the little guy is paying more than his fair share for these things already, since our tax code is biased to allow corporations to pass the tab onto the rest of us as a means of protecting their investors.
Do I think the overall effect of the bill will be to reduce the cost of health care? No. But if we are covering 32,000,000 more men, women, and children for roughly the same amount, keeping people at work and productive, reducing unnecessary catastrophic illnesses or deaths, and reducing the bad debt that is inflating health care costs, as well as reducing taxes and raising other social costs, isn't that a win?
Well, as I say, it's one theory.
Thank you so much for the input! I'm really excited to see some interaction!! Please don't hesitate to create a profile and follow this blog (you can do so under an alias).
ReplyDeleteYou make valid points. I agree with you that we already pay for those who do not have insurance. But I see the cost of this reform unfolding a different way. The theory you present is that we will get more "bang for the buck" with the reform. I disagree and my reason is this...
Insurance is gambling. Your betting you'll need it (that sounds morbid, but it's true), and the insurer is betting you won't. The insurer plays the role of the bookie. They determine the over/under and assign a "spread" to us based on the metrics they collect on us. That spread is represented by the premium we pay. And since the insurer is "the house", they, like any casino, will ensure that spread is in their favor. In other words, they will do their best to ensure they take in more than they pay out. I am not even talking about rescission or underhanded practices. I am talking shear odds.
So now we are paying premiums on 32 million people, that statistically will cost more than the health care they will receive. Couple that with the fact that (as you mentioned) the individuals will be more apt to utilize health care (see next paragraph) I think we can fairly state that it will be more expensive to insure them than not. Especially if they have pre-existing conditions.
Now please don't get me wrong, I want these people to use health care. I want fair and equitable treatment for every human on Earth, not just within our borders. But I wanted to point out that our health care system will be more utilized than ever. A strain is coming, and what is the rule of supply and demand? Low supply + high demand = high price. If the insurer has to cover the spread, then they need to raise the prices across the board now. More cost.
Another misgiving I have is that this is ultimately to going to lead to the bulk of America utilizing the public option. What does the government do when they absorb a new responsibility? They manage it... for a time. Then someone will say, "We can save even more money if we outsource this."
I can tell you what happens then. Tricare takes over your health care. They make getting appointments impossible (you'll need to make an appointment 3 days BEFORE you get sick), they slowly strip away your benefits and coverage, and they slowly complicate and corrupt the whole system. And Congress doesn't care, because they are saving money.
And I am supposed to pay more for this? I can't even figure out how this is supposed to do anything for the deficit... other than raise it.
I would much rather the government explored tort reform and stopped letting big business hide behind IRS laws that hurt the citizenry. Our leaders must stop protecting corporate America and start protecting us. This bill, in my mind, really does the opposite.