www.HealthCare.gov
I am late to the news, but so far reported on healthcare law implementation:
1. www.HealthCare.gov, a new online portal where anyone can go to find insurance options in their state, went live. It’s a very handy resource for information that used to be difficult to find. It’s available to help millions who need insurance find it, and as a resource for those who want to shop around for new options or find out their new benefits under the new law.
2. States are starting to create new insurance pools for hundreds of thousands of people with serious medical conditions who had previously been unable to get insurance. Federal grants to help with setup are on their way to states right now.
3. In June, 80,000 checks were mailed to seniors to help with prescription drug costs not covered by Medicare.
And of course, many of the key insurance reforms—allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26, and making it illegal to deny a child or baby insurance because of a “pre-existing condition”—have already started to take effect.
Now, many of the major reforms—the new health insurance exchanges, an end to pre-existing condition discrimination for adults, and more—have yet to go into effect.
If the purpose of the bill was to provide wellfare for some people it should have been sold that way. None of the provisons above provide any benefit to me. If they don’t provide any benefit to most Americans then the president oversold his policy.
Thanks for the note aaron.
Although you don’t anticipate the limit on lifetime care being an issue, it clearly does benefit you if you get into a situation where you need it. Either you have a child with a severe birth defect, where in 1 year or so you can run thru the limit, get severly burned or the like. That benefits everyone because everyone has a chance to have one of the extremely long term expensive diseases.
Now of course the alternative to the 26 year plan is clear if you are young and have an accident, likley you will qualify to get medical debts forgiven thru chapter 7. Being young one has no assets and will not loose much by going BK.
Lyle,
You’re talking about welfare or charity for people in severe need. That’s different than insurance for most Americans. There was never a need to take over insurance to provide the type of welfare that you’re talking about.
Owl, you’re providing a wonderful example of the kind of short-sighted thinking that failed states are made of. “What’s in it for me, right now?” Applying that line of think would eliminate just about every government function. My house isn’t currently on fire, so why should I have to pay taxes that support a fire department? No foreign nation currently is attacking the city where I live, so why should my tax dollars be used to support a military?
As long as you never get laid off, start a business, get seriously ill, have children, grow old, etc. etc. then you have nothing to gain from government regulating health insurance in such a way that everybody has access to it. But for those of us that fall into one or more of the above categories, or will at some point in our life, then implementing a health care system that guarantees us access to health insurance is a significant improvement over, say, the Somali where government does nothing to regulate or guarantee access to health care.
Granted, the plan that passed is pretty bad. For political reasons, a Democrat President and Congress passed a plan pretty much like what Republicans have been proposing for years, and a Republican governor actually implemented in Massachusetts. For reasons that are obvious to many people, the plan will be a mixed success that is a marginal improvement over the existing system of cutting off health insurance for sick people…but still our system will lag far behind the rest of the world in terms of objective measures like measurable health outcomes and cost. Still, you gotta take the small victories.
First, “health insurance” <> “health care”
Second the connotation of “health insurance” in the U.S. has very little to do with insurance, rather it’s more of of a pre-paid maintenance plan. Since the funding mechanism for the health care reform is progressive taxation Owl’s characterization as “welfare for some people” is spot-on.
Mjed,
Owl said the purpose of the bill was ‘welfare for some people’, not that it has some provision for ‘welfare for some people’. The ‘If’ first wordd appeared to be a throwaway word. Second, while I can guess what you mean when you write US health insurance has little to do with insurance, please explain more fully.
Owl: “You’re talking about welfare or charity for people in severe need. That’s different than insurance for most Americans.”
Well, gee, protection against severe financial loss or need is why I take out insurance.
Min you have caught why people take out insurance it is to protect against severe need. One does not get insurance against small risks its big risks. With health care as contrasted with other areas, the small problem can become big. Why should I need charity if I can pay to cover the risk? Once we get off the subsidized part of flood insurance thats the idea there pay for the risks you incur, all be it that for costal areas the premium is not high enough.
Fundamentally the question is are we all in it together or is every man for himself. Since the new modern definition of socialism is putting the community at an even or higher state than the individual, not state ownership of the means of production, then saying we are all in it together is socialism.
Oddly, or not, the website omits mention of SF’s single payer program. Of course, this is consistent with censored“>the Obama administration’s single payer censorship. Yes, they actually suppressed mention of a single payer question in a Towh Hall.
Insurance is for unpredictable events – untimely deaths (life insurance), living longer than expected (annuities), or in the case of property & casualty – fires, burglarly, car accidents, slips & falls, etc. It is not intended for regular maintenance. You don’t file a claim to your auto insurer for oil changes or replacing your tires and you don’t file a claim to your homeowner’s insurance company to clean your gutters or for tuckpointing. Furthermore, insurers of these risks are allowed to price based on expected outcomes – if you’ve demonstrated a history of bad driving, you pay more for auto insurance. If you smoke, you pay more for life insurance.
While there’s some component to health insurance of unpredictible which is genetic – thereby making it “unpredictible”, many things that are covered by health insurance (usually stautorily mandated) should not be covered under the guise of “insurance” – annual checkups as one example. Now one could certainly argue that annual checkups benefit private insurers, because they offer the chance to catch something early and thereby lower costs to the overall system, as well as produce better overall outcomes – but one could similarly argue that private insurers should also pay for gym memberships. Also, as far as I know, health insurers are prohibited from taking individual behavioral choices, e.g., smoking, into account when pricing – and certainly don’t underwrite for it (when I bought life insurance, I was required to have an EKG, blood test, etc. – when I changed jobs and insurers, all I had to do was fill out a one page form).
Owl,
The purpose of insurance is to prevent indegency because of sudden acute calamity, whether due to health, weather, fire, etc. Charity is for those who have nothing and need help, not because of calamity, but because they have no resources. And the US is one of the only countries wherein someone (that’s you Owl) might regard the need for medical treatment as a charitable situation rather than a necessity. You might select a different, more appropriate, nom de plume. Maybe Vulture or Carrion would be more accurate.
Worth watching.
My Cobra payments are going to over $1200 dollars a month and I’m not eligible for medicare until I’m disabled for a full 2 years. How can I afford this on disability?