I Wish It Had Been An April Fool's Joke

[howeird]

Every time I hear something about Obamacare and this debate about mandatory health insurance, I want to throw a shoe at the TV/radio/person.

Pardon my screaming, but Obama and Pelosi promised

National Health Care

Not insurance.

Like all the other countries which have socialized medicine, the plan was for the insurance companies to leave the medical world and try to make ends meet gouging us on car, home, life and flood insurance. I know they could eke out a tiny profit from those. The government would pay the doctors and hospitals directly, there would be no co-pay, no insurance premium, it would all come from taxes.

Very early in the debate the GOP cleverly flooded the media with crap about single-payer insurance, and the media obligingly changed the vocabulary from health care to health insurance.

All Obamacare does is encourage the insurance companies' gouging by forcing everyone to buy insurance. It's a 1% plan - with one hand give a small number of people with pre-existing conditions the chance to pay exorbitant prices for insurance, and on the other hand take away $$ from those who can least afford it by requiring them to BUY insurance.

Comments

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

I agree 100%. Here's the problem: we're probably not going to see it happen in our lifetimes. Second problem: we are currently dealing with opposition that, unlike the opposition when the current bill was passed, is unified and completely unwilling to compromise to get anything done. The only way we'll get what we want is with a president + 2/3ds of house and senate gone to liberal democrats & progressives.

Work on that.

By the way, we do have national health care for certain people. Medicare, Medicaid, CHP, the VA and I think there's one other are all single-payor plans. My simple fix is to make everyone eligible for Medicaid. Period. This would eliminate the need for Medicare and CHP altogether. It would also eliminate most private health insurance. It would not, unfortunately, get rid of HMOs.

[howeird]

Thanks. The original suggestion from Pelosi was to extend medicare to everyone. Medicaid varies too much from state to state to make it viable. VA type coverage would be good, and I think it would have to start with the Feds taking over all the hospitals.

Of course we won't see this in our lifetimes. The window was open from 2009-2010, and Pelosi, Reid and Obama blew it. It will be at least another 12 years before the dice fall like that again.

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

As I recall the situation back then, the problem was with the blue dog democrats.

The HUGE problem with Medicare is the bill, as proposed by LBJ back in - was it '65, was pretty much universal single payer coverage, and the "compromise" worked out with the opposition was to only give partial coverage, requiring a complicated and expensive multiple-billing system, with no coverage for dental or pharmacy. Medicare only covers 80%, and most people have to buy private health insurance to cover the other 20%. W's much-touted prescription drug plan is like something Chico Marx was selling with his tutsi-frutsi ice cream in A Day at the Races. You're covered, for a while. Then there's a doughnut hole, where you get to choose between death from no medications or death from starvation, unless you have money for insurance to cover the doughnut hole. If the act is repealed, this is what a lot of folks will go back to. Then, after you're dead, you're covered again. Brilliant! I wonder if they ever counted the bodies.

Medicare is actually a combo of about 5 or 6 insurance plans, some private and some not. A and B are inpatient and outpatient, 80% covered. C is of little importance except to 75 year old workaholics. D is usually private insurance, and often part of an Advantage plan. Medigap is normally private health insurance that covers the 20% not covered by Medicare. Medicare includes no dental coverage, but some Advantage plans include dental. Some low-income Medicare people get Medicaid or other state programs that pay for the part B premium, copays, and the gap. Advantage plans, usually private, combine part D, medigap and sometimes dental. Some also offer other benefits. Trying to shop for a part D plan is a common cause of mental deterioration - it's a very confusing and frustrating experience, and one's chances of getting the best plan for them are about 1 in 19. I don't think inflicting Medicare on the entire population is a wise or well thought out scheme. Which is why I favor combining all the various public and private health insurances, benefits, health plans and whatevers into one - the same policies would apply to all states, the overhead and administrative costs would shrink considerably, a lot of insurance company employees would be looking for more useful occupations (but at least they'd have health care while out of work), and the health care money would actually be going for health care and not lining the pockets of rich creeps.