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News & ArtsMonday, February 22, 2010
Health Obama's Health Care Plan
Posted by Eli Sanders on Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 9:11 AM
It only took a year—one very long year, during which Congress tried, and failed, to act on health care reform—but now President Obama has come forward with his own health care bill.
It basically merges what the White House thinks are the politically doable aspects of the stalled reform effort in Congress. In: a new federal agency with the power to limit insurance premium hikes, more money for health care subsidies for middle class Americans, and a revised excise tax. Out: the public option, the exchanges, and the "Cornhusker Kickback."
Will it go anywhere? And, very much related: Will it make for good TV? Find out on Thursday.
2
OK. I LIKE the headline, Obama seeks federal power over insurers. Finally he's getting it -- there is no way to message this thing by saying "let's sit down with insurers!"
The message has to have a bad guy. That's how stories work, that's how people understand the world. "Those bad guys are screwing you" is almost always the narrative that works. It's never "we need a market based reform with tax credits and subisidies and income standards at 80% of the COLA and the inflation rate multilied by monopoly and public exhchanges" blah blah blah.
So one cheer for Obama today, this is a step in the right direction.
There's another story beneath the one about insurers are screwing you. That story can be told once you say insurers are screwing you and the government will stop them. That story is the death spiral. Just like some markets don't work becuase of bubbles, others don't work because of panics. Or similar spirals out of control. here the unemployed in Ca mean too many folks are quitting the insurer there who wants to raise rates 39%....guess what, people with conditions and afraid of their conditions and guess what some of them even harboring conditions....don't quit. The helathy and the unemployed quit. With less of a pool paying premiums, rates gotta go up. The logic of the market is inescapable. That's why some things can't be in a market which is why Obama would get three cheers if he dropped the pretense that insurers should exist at all. Bit okay, for today, a cheer.
Yay; Obama. One tiny step back to "change."
The message has to have a bad guy. That's how stories work, that's how people understand the world. "Those bad guys are screwing you" is almost always the narrative that works. It's never "we need a market based reform with tax credits and subisidies and income standards at 80% of the COLA and the inflation rate multilied by monopoly and public exhchanges" blah blah blah.
So one cheer for Obama today, this is a step in the right direction.
There's another story beneath the one about insurers are screwing you. That story can be told once you say insurers are screwing you and the government will stop them. That story is the death spiral. Just like some markets don't work becuase of bubbles, others don't work because of panics. Or similar spirals out of control. here the unemployed in Ca mean too many folks are quitting the insurer there who wants to raise rates 39%....guess what, people with conditions and afraid of their conditions and guess what some of them even harboring conditions....don't quit. The helathy and the unemployed quit. With less of a pool paying premiums, rates gotta go up. The logic of the market is inescapable. That's why some things can't be in a market which is why Obama would get three cheers if he dropped the pretense that insurers should exist at all. Bit okay, for today, a cheer.
Yay; Obama. One tiny step back to "change."
4
Ooh, that's a shitty bill. Every year when it comes time to decide whether to OK the premium hike or not, you've got the world's biggest lobbying organization on one side and Joe Schmoe on the other. Guess who's going to win that one.
Not to mention the fact that if insurance premiums stay at the amount they're at today, America is still out of the running economically for fifty years.
Not to mention the fact that if insurance premiums stay at the amount they're at today, America is still out of the running economically for fifty years.
6
If rate-increase controls are simply vetted to insure they are actuarily sound, there won't be any effect at all. The recently released shockingly large increases are totally justified. They are simply the result of large numbers of mostly healthy people leaving the insured cohort. One feature of elective group insurance is that it's selectively elastic. As prices go up or real incomes drop, the relatively healthy drop their insurance. That raises prices across the cohort becuase it's become less healthy on average. As prices increase more people drop out. That sort of feedback means prices can rise very quickly. There's nothing at all sinsiter or unethical about it. It's just the nature of group insurance.
7
@6 - Corollary to that, the individual mandate in the plan is what keeps that feedback from happening. If everyone - sick and healthy - is required to carry insurance, the healthy can't bail when the economy goes sour, and rates should be much more stable. That's the idea, anyway.
8
This is silly.
Stop whining and do what every other first world industrialized nation has done and what three-quarters of American citizens want:
Single payer national health care.
Want to do it cheap? Just borrow the Canadian system's software and training - it works with all US health plans, private plans, dental plans, and all our area codes and zip codes and they have a US English dictionary package.
HALF the cost. TWICE the health care.
God, that was easy ...
Stop whining and do what every other first world industrialized nation has done and what three-quarters of American citizens want:
Single payer national health care.
Want to do it cheap? Just borrow the Canadian system's software and training - it works with all US health plans, private plans, dental plans, and all our area codes and zip codes and they have a US English dictionary package.
HALF the cost. TWICE the health care.
God, that was easy ...
9
According to CNN, the exchanges are not out...
"Health insurance exchanges would be created to make it easier for small businesses, the self-employed and the unemployed to pool resources and purchase less expensive coverage."
"Health insurance exchanges would be created to make it easier for small businesses, the self-employed and the unemployed to pool resources and purchase less expensive coverage."
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