Selling Healthcare Reform

The most critical are (1) annual cap without lifetime limit, and (2) no more denial or discrimination based on pre-existing conditions for insurance under the annual cap. A Federally guaranteed limit on losses, IF IT IS UNIVERSAL, will be a complete game changer, because providers will now know they cannot lose out on tens or hundreds of thousands, or millions, when the patient shows up at the door. The huge waste involved with collection issues -- which reaches into the fees themselves to cover delinquencies and late pays, not to speak of the cost of the collection infrastructure -- will be reduced dramatically. Insurance premiums will come down dramatically because now the insurer is only covering the amount of annual claims between, say, a modest deductible like $300 or $500 and a cap, say $10,000. If the average total fees covered for a family under the cap is $1500, tack on another 50% for covering the cost of doing business and profit, and that insurance should cost less than $300 per month. Meanwhile, if the Feds are covering catastrophic losses, the cost covers the entire risk pool -- an assumption the private insurer cannot make -- and there is no need for profit. Hence, the cost of catastrophic is less than the premiums were for that same coverage by private entities. Perhaps we have reduced the premium by $500 while the tax increase to cover the shift is $400. We come out ahead.

However, trust but cut the cards. We have to see the details.

When you call something Healthcare Reform, people want it. If the details involved doctors repeatedly stabbing you with blunt objects, a lot of people would still prefer it to our current system. Our current healthcare system is incompatible with an economy.

"healthcare theoretically provided for you by taxes on people who make above $250,000 but actually paid for by the people who lost their jobs due to this added taxation"

What would be even more disturbing would be the decline in estate tax revenue because of the fewer deaths resulting from better overall health care.

Not to mention the distressing decline in bonuses paid to medical insurance CEO's.

What tripe. And the Obama Administration is lying about the costs. They trumpet the CBO estimate, but the CBO estimate - in its own words - is incomplete. The CBO admits the costs will probably be much higher. To wit:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/104xx/doc10430/House_Tri-Committee-Rangel.pdf

Money quotes:

"It is important to note, however, that those estimates
are based on specifications provided by the tri-committee group rather than an
analysis of the language released today. For that reason and others outlined below,
those figures do not represent a formal or complete cost estimate for the coverage
provisions of the draft legislation."

"our analysis was based on specifications regarding insurance coverage
that were provided by the tri-committee group and that differ in important
ways from the “discussion draft” version of legislative language that was
released on June 19, 2009. The specifications that we analyzed are supposed
to be reflected in the draft language released by the three committees today,
but we have not yet been able to analyze that language to determine whether it
conforms to those specifications. Our review of that language could have a
significant effect on our analysis."

"some effects of the proposal have not yet been fully captured in our
analysis. In particular, we have not yet estimated the administrative costs to
the federal government of implementing the specified policies, nor have we
accounted for all of the proposal’s likely effects on spending for other federal
programs."

The Obama Administration is extrapolating its 10-year estimate from the five-year estimate. What they don't tell you is that after five years, the costs will skyrocket.

I can't wait for the midterm elections.