Health Care for All
If you want universal health care, AHIP — the insurance industry trade group — is happy to give it to you. But there’s a price. They released a plan today, ably described by Igor Volsky at the Wonk Room:
AHIP is all for “affordable” coverage on the government’s dime. That is, rather than agreeing to end premium discrimination based on age or sex, it wants the government to issue tax credits and cap total health expenditures for lower-income individuals to protect Americans from bankruptcy. The plan calls on the government to ensure affordability, while protecting industry profits.
This is why I hope we don’t see Barack Obama giving a table-pounding speech absolutely demanding that congress pass a universal health care bill. Health care reform is urgent, but the point of reform is to actually make things better, not just to anything that happens to constitute reform. So you push for change, but also leave yourself the room necessary to say “no” to a one-sided proposal.
28 Responses to “Health Care for All”
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December 3rd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
In the UK, healthcare is for all, the medical system is socialized, and English on average live longer than American. Also, healthcare costs are much lower.
Just saying.
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:47 pm
That’s a fantastic idea. We ought to issue government health insurance to any American who wants it, as long as their total health costs stay below $17.50 a year. Problem solved.
December 3rd, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Yeah you according to Republicans you guys are commies and your system is tainted BS.
Ok back to reality for a second – I’m not a huge fun of Obama’s plan, but it sure was a hell of a lot better than McCain’s. Health insurance is the crappiest product that America sells, and I am pretty certain that despite Obama’s best efforts to reform it, the insurance companies will do everything in their power to improve their bottom line but at the government’s expense. If this is going to work at all, Obama needs to stick his foot FAR up the health care industry’s rear end.
He backed off the windfall tax idea, not too hot about that, but let’s see how he pans out with the rest of his agenda.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
. . . rather than agreeing to end premium discrimination based on age or sex, . . .
Okay, there must be some worthy criticism to be lodged against the health insurance industry, but this is not it. Discriminating between clients on the basis of known information on risk is what insurers do. It is a legitimate part of the deal.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:35 pm
@Whick
Of course health insurance discriminates on the basis of knowledge of risk. But that’s also a large part of why the system is broken. If health insurance companies had their way, they’d only ever take on young, healthy people as clients. This works fine for covering people in the case of accidents, but is not where the bulk of health problems come from. For an individual buying health insurance, the system is entirely rigged against them, which is why most of the Republican plans, which aim to increase individual health insurance, are stupid. The only way to make health insurance work is to pool large groups of people such that the health risks are spread around.
December 3rd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Re: It is a legitimate part of the deal.
Except that for health insurance this works against the public good. And yes, health insurers can make money without risk rating individuals. They use one-price-for-all when they issue group policies and most of the big insurers actually prefer to do large group policies over individual ones.
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Discriminating between clients on the basis of known information on risk is what insurers do. It is a legitimate part of the deal.
I guess that means the system’s working perfectly already, then. Dude, you smoked us right out!
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:06 pm
@Whick
Of course health insurance discriminates on the basis of knowledge of risk. But that’s also a large part of why the system is broken. If health insurance companies had their way, they’d only ever take on young, healthy people as clients.
The only problem with that statement is that it is assuming that everyone is trying to obtain health insurance for the first time right now, which if that were the case then yes it would be a large part of the problem. But generally speaking most people who are applying for health insurance are young, healthy people so perhaps the “large” aspect of the problem is something completely different. It is easy to compare our healthcare broadly with those in Europe and say that European healthcare is less expensive and therefore better, but I certainly would not want to pay the taxes that they have to to have their government solve every social problem that occurs. That being said our healthcare system is broken, but I think finding and diagnosing the problem should be first and foremost in solving it, not just allowing the government to blindly throw money at it and wishing it away.
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:48 pm
That being said our healthcare system is broken, but I think finding and diagnosing the problem should be first and foremost in solving it, not just allowing the government to blindly throw money at it and wishing it away.
There are two kinds of expensive patients. Old people and people with long term treatable but expensive diseases. There is something to be argued about whether we spend too much on sustaining end of life treatments. The latter group is getting screwed, though. You buy an insurance policy to protect you from risk. But if you get diagnosed with an expensive medical condition, you’re still screwed since your insurance company will try and drop you. And good luck if you need to change jobs or health care carriers for some reason. Those are the people that are getting f’d in our system. Of course, our attitude could just be, ‘oh well’, but that seems a little unreasonable.
December 4th, 2008 at 1:54 am
The MO of the Republicans is to get everyone behind a nice sounding phrase and then when everyone agrees we need something that conforms to the phrase they change the details and we end up getting poop instead of honey.
Somehow Democrats frame this sorry process as compromise, when in fact it is something planned way in advance.
Maybe that is why Republicans always throw a hissy over anything they don’t control, it is much easier to always be against something than to explain why you changed your mind.
December 4th, 2008 at 6:20 am
Re: And good luck if you need to change jobs or health care carriers for some reason.
Changing jobs is not a problem and hasn’t been for the last ten years (assuming both old and new jobs have group insurance). The 1996 HIPAA law stipulates that your new job’s health insurance must accept you, at the prevailing group rate, provided you had coverage at your old job. I’ve known people with various long trem conditions, including cancer and HIV, who changed jobs and insurances with no hassle.
This is NOT to say that the system doesn’t need a major, major overhaul, as I agree that it does. However no one should pass up a better job opportuinty out of health insurance fears.
December 4th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Isn’t the problem that access to basic health care is rising in price faster than inflation, and has been for some time?
Would the solution be to lower the cost barriers to healthcare?
Right now the gatekeepers of healthcare in this country are doctors. US doctors are great. The best and the brightest working on me. I thank them for it, and I don’t bemoan the pay they make. But I also wonder why I need to see the best and brightest with all that fancy schooling for something routine like checking my blood pressure or the sort of mundane access to health care that should be a yearly thing for every American?
Instead, I propose that America create a new class of medical professionals. They would be one step below doctors, one step above nurses. Their education would be a 4 year degree from an accredited university. Their job would be to perform the sort of basic health care diagnosis that people need. Lets us say, for example, I take regular medication for some cronic health problem. Maybe high blood pressure? Maybe recurring migraines? Maybe something else. When my perscription expires, do I really need to see an expensive specialist and spend hundreds of dollars to get a new John Hancock on a slip of paper? Certainly this needs to be handled by a trained professional, but isn’t the problem that basic health care needs are being handled in overkill mode?
The way I see it, people are being priced out of the healthcare market. Instead of worrying about insurance, perhaps we should be working to make health care more affordable and yet give better service. I see this as one way to acheive this.
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