The Battle for Obamacare goes on. John Dean points out that no huge program, private or public ever gets off the board without glitches and that stands twice as strong for government programs. He also points out that the program is being fixed, this time by an outside contractor. Let’s hope he’s right.
But then Bill Kristol jumps in and starts trashing the whole program. His biggest argument against it seems to be that over ten million people are losing policies that they already have. First we have to ask ourselves if these figures are accurate, because the right’s history on truth is pretty pathetic. And after all, you have to realize that it’s Bill Kristol, who is quoting these figures and we all know where he stands on facts. Then we have to ask ourselves who is to blame for this, if it is true. It seems that it is the insurance companies, not the ACA who are cancelling policies and when we look at it we realize that they are only canceling policies that aren’t profitable.
Even Dirty Dick Cheney had to open his fetid mouth about Obamacare and the first words out of said swamp are that the American system of health care is the best in the world. That may be if you are an ex-vice-president, Dick but for the rest of us, based on cost and performance it rates about 34th among industrial nations. And this moron is worried that Obamacare will hurt it. Obamacare doesn’t count when the government is picking up millions of dollars in your medical expenses, Dick, but for the poor guy with four kids that has to pay for it himself it makes a hell of a difference. I love it when some rich asshole talks about how to solve a problem that doesn’t affect him but does affect millions of poor people. Cheney should know better but he has managed to forget his roots just like he has managed to forget the damage he and his puppet did to the country.
Every debater knows that anecdotal arguments are worthless but evidence is the accumulation of anecdotes, so I’m going to use one just to illuminate a point. Many of the facts in this illustration are taken from an article by Igor Volsky in Think Progress/ News Investigation.
There’s a woman named Edie Selby in California who is suffering from stage 4 gallbladder cancer. She is losing her United Health Care (Pacific Care) policy which had laid out $1.2 million for her care to this point and never questioned anything. She is being cut from the plan because in the words of United spokeswoman Cheryl Randolph, “Over the years, it has become more difficult to administer these plans in a cost-effective way for our members.” What that little sentence full of mumbo-jumbo means is that United Healthcare no longer finds the policy profitable so they are dropping it.
Insurance is basically a gamble. You are betting that you will need more money from the insurance company than you are paying into the premiums and the insurer is betting that you will not need more money than the investment value of the money in the policy. Edie isn’t the only one being dropped by United; about 8000 more of her fellow Californians are getting the ax. United is a minor player in California where Blue Cross and Kaiser Permanente are the big dogs in health insurance. United wants out of the whole state because they are not getting enough volume to make their business there worthwhile.
Edie went on Fox News a while back describing her old policy as being “fantastic” even though it came at a high cost. Her husband admitted that, besides premiums, his family had spent tens of thousands of dollars on treatment beyond the plans coverage. So Think Progress, stepped in and ran a comparison of the Selby plan from United and plans offered by the California ACA exchange and what do you know! Pacific Care’s (United’s) policy cost the Selby’s $37, 341 per year while the most expensive, “Ultimate Pro” plan from Blue Cross, offered by the exchange, was only $31, 028 and that was before any government subsidies were applied and this policy comes with stronger consumer protections. It can’t be suddenly cancelled but if it is cancelled they won’t be able to charge more per month. It can’t charge her more because she’s a woman and she will receive a more comprehensive benefits package.
The bottom line here is that all the scare tactics being promulgated by the right are nothing but hot air. They have lied about everything involving the ACA except the fact that the technological rollout was a bust. But that has nothing to do with the plan, only about how it has been implemented.
The other big bug-a-boo is that the plan won’t work unless we get a lot of healthy young people who, for the most part, don’t need health care, to sign up. This could become a big problem, but it won’t if the people behind ACA stop praying for a good turnout and get off their asses and do something about one. How about reduced premiums for young people who join up before age 28, something that works like term life insurance, with maybe the premiums staying low past 50, all as an incentive for taking it at an early age. If the premium for a certain plan was $300 per month at age 50, those who joined up at age 25 would still be able to get is at only $200 per month even after 50. There are many ways to juggle something like this to make it work for everyone. A real advertising campaign would also help. Not a lot of talk about the benefits of the ACA but a “you never need it until you need it,” type of campaign.
Kentucky has opened its own exchanges and in one month they have had over 300,000 people log on. Of these, over 26,000 have signed up for some kind of healthcare. This shows what a technologically functioning system can do. The federal government can see this and now all they’ve got to do is get their system working.
I am really tired of all the naysayers whining about how Obamacare doesn’t work, when the bottom line is that we need health insurance for everyone and none of the slugs that have opposed the ACA have come up with anything to replace it. ACA is aimed at prevention and wellness very necessary parts of any healthcare program that is to be financially viable and no one is even talking about that.
There has been much made by the right wing press and politicians about Blue Cross cutting 300,000 subscribers from their rolls. Now just think about that for a minute. Does any business just cut 300,000 customers? If they do, where does their profit margin go? So right away you know that the right wing press is full of crap and the story they are telling is a flat out lie.
What is really happening according to Pat Geraghty, Blue Cross CEO is that Blue Cross has notified those specific customers that their insurance no longer meets the criteria for the ACA guidelines. This means that those programs were significantly lacking in the standard coverage points, or in other words, they stunk. To make up for this, they are providing a number of plans that do meet these criteria, and he adds that with the government assistance available, many of these programs that meet the ACA criteria will be cheaper than the plans that their customers currently have. This as usual, is a far cry from the picture the anti-ACA crowd is painting. How long will it take the American public and the media to realize what a cesspool of lying scum these guys really are?
For those who are worried abut the disruptive aspect of this problem, one can only say that you do not make an omelet without breaking eggs. If the end result is better individual and national health then so be it. The need is to get people out of emergency rooms for normal health care, to get better health care and eventually to get all this for a smaller cost.
Look, universal health care is going to work. All we have to do is work out the details and it would be a great help in getting that to happen if the radical right would forget that Obama is the guy who implemented it and start to think about what’s actually good for the country.