Mercnbeth
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Who is this Health Care proposal benefiting and at what cost?
According to the Census Bureau's 2005 Current Population Survey (CPS), there were 45.8 million uninsured individuals in 2004, or 15.7% of the civilian non-institutionalized population. From the same source 25% or 11,450,000 are below the poverty line. Under the terms of the current plan under debate these people would pay little, if anything, to become insured. There will be 34,350,000 outside the government determined 'Federal Poverty Level' (FPL) who will be required to pay whatever the premium is for their particular age and risk status.
Although some business will be required to provide coverage meeting a number of employee threshold; small businesses, like mine, will have the opportunity to fix cost and no longer carry the burden of budgeting for ever increasing health premiums. The onus, per President Obama, will be for individuals to participate and pay or be subject to fines.
Who benefits? Well, obviously for the first three years with no government option in play, the insurance companies will have government mandated customers. The doctors will have a large influx of new, and insurance covered paying patients. No wonder they've endorsed the plan. I'm confused why the insurance companies haven't yet - but maybe they had the same difficulty as I reading through and understanding the cross referenced verbiage.
But of course there are other beneficiaries such as those disclosing their own personal crises on these boards. There will be no denial of coverage, no pre-existing condition exclusion, no 'black listing'. Everyone will have access and if you are 'lucky' enough not to have an income exceeding the FPL, you may not even have to pay a dime out of pocket. Tried as I may, I didn't find any provision that addresses caps in coverage. The 'catastrophic' health occurrence is still possible per my read through, although if someone can point to that not being the case - I'll stand corrected. Perhaps a minor issue, but wasn't that the other cornerstone behind the reasoning to implement a national health program? If you can still "lose everything" once your policy has maxed out, whether you've paid for it, or some other taxpayer, participant is footing the bill for you, it seems that issue is still looming.
There are some other exclusions, the biggest being abortion. Personally I never understood how this is a conservative issue. Religious maybe but conservative? Hell, pragmatically to avoid the expense and all the other issues, obligations, and entitlements now in place for um's you would think the pragmatic conservative view for abortions would be just to opposite or at minimum a "buy one get one free!" However it was the most explicit language in the document - not one penny of coverage goes to abortion. Setting the stage for the first court test when the agenda based debate of mother's health to unborn's health will be argued by people not involved with the situation.
I understand that I am in the minority. I have insurance. I pay for my employees insurance. I believe in self accountability. I also believe in access. Looking at this bill how many people do you think fall into the specific case of wanting insurance and being 'black-balled' or denied coverage at any cost? The majority of those above the FPL choose to not buy coverage. They aren't denied. They've made a personal decision. Now that decision is taken away from them. The people who are denied coverage or don't have the ability to pay or have been excluded seem to me to be a much smaller number.
Care to pick one, or a percentage? Can it be, from a pool of 45.8 million uninsured provided by this 2004 government report 10% of that number? or about 5 Million? That would represent less than 2% of the population falling outside the current insurance industry underwriting guidelines. Is a commitment for all generations to come to pay for this current program justified in lieu of a much simpler and easier to implement solution? Why not simply eliminate the insurance company exclusions? Why not have the existing Medicare program become the insurer of last resort and cover these. Then if taxes and/or fees go up citizens will know exactly why and what they are. Meanwhile, personal choice about where to spend your money for the other group of people represented now by those who can, but do not buy, available coverage won't have to abdicate that choice to the government.
Just some questions and a thought or two.
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RE: AMA & AARP endorse House health care bills - 
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