Is Heathcare Reform about insuring the uninsured?
The answer is it depends who you ask. It appears that the answer is NO. National Institute for Healthcare Mangement (April 2008) Brief: says there are now 47 million, or 15.8% of the population uninsured. Is that what it really says? Read more.. Page 1 of the brief has some interesting census data on the uninsured that you should keep in mind.
Let's narrow down the 47 million number. 5.6 million illegal immigrants. 12.0 million people eligible for Medicaid or State Assistance but not enrolled. Now we are down to 31 million: Let's break it down more". 7.3 million are those that make in excess of 400% of the federal poverty level (FPL). For a family of four that means they earn at least $85,000 per year I am going to go out on a limb and say that there are no political action groups looking out for the higher income (yes, $85,000 AGI is higher income) groups.
Now we are down to 20.5 million unisureds. Broken down as: 1)4.5 million at 300-399% of FPL; 2)8.3 million at 200-299% of FPL and ; 3)14.4 million at 101-200% of FPL.
So Healthcare reform is really about educating 12 million on what already exists and providing varying levels of assistance to 27 million more,of which ,Maybe, 8 million people will really get benefits.from major healthcare reform without tax increases paying for their coverage.
On July 17th, 2009, Howard Dean said on CNBC that the core issue is not about providing insurance to the uninsured, its " about the Private Sectors failure to control costs" .
He claims that Medicare is more effective than the private sector in controlling costs. Is he right? Sort of. Medicare mandates that doctors accept what they pay. I am not going to tell you that Medicare pays providers less than actual cost, but the doctor groups will. (refer to the search term "Medicare reimbusement cuts 2010")
If the issue is truly that "THE PRIVATE SECTORS FAILURE TO CONTROL COSTS", you should know what any of these bills true purpose will be.
Categories: Healthcare Reform
Tags: Reform uninsured Howard Dean
I am an independent health insurance broker. I don't think that forcing everyone in the U.S. to buy health insurance would solve the problem. It would only provide temporary relief from the spiraling costs of health care, which, by the way, is THE reason why we are trying to reform the current system.
I am tempted to say that there is nothing wrong with our curreny health care system; the only problem is that it is very expensive. I have asked the question "Why do my customers' insurance premiums go up 20-25% every year?" When the average inflation rate is much lower than that, what or who is driving the cost of medical services and medical products so high?
Probably, the right answer to that question is a variety of reasons. Regardless of what those reasons are, it would seem to me that a cap on what hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies can charge for their services is the only way to control health care costs.
I am sure, however, that this type of solution would be rejected by many of the industries involved.
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Thanks for your comment.
There is plenty of blame to go around. It's not just the providers, or the hospitals, or even the agents. I find it unusual that you left the Government itself off the radar of accountability. Much like the analogy that we all pay for theft of shoplifting at the store, we the public, pay for the unfair reimbursements to medical providers for services rendered by Medicare.
Healthcare costs and premiums have skyrocketed for privately insured members because the government makes the privately insured subsidized the government discounts.
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