As we reach the end of 2012, I read the news headlines of this past week with a nostalgic sense of the old days when $63.00 could get national attention because in fact, $63.00 did get national attention.
If you follow Obamacare, you’ll find dozens of articles about companies facing an additional $63.00 charge per person in 2014 (after which the amount drops through 2017) to provide money for a governmental fund designed to help insurance companies bring in new insurance policy customers with pre-existing conditions.
Dozens of articles talking about $63.00, not the trillions in government debts, the billions in government expenses or the millions designated for government programs, just $63.00.
And for those who wax nostalgic at this time of year, while recognizing that the overall purpose of the Affordable Care Act is to get more people to have health INSURANCE (not health care), it’s an equally homey idea to resurrect the original concept of insurance that people pay premiums that cover the costs of those who need to make claims on that insurance.
I believe we should remain true to that understanding of an INSURANCE PRODUCT designed to help individuals pay for needed healthcare by allowing companies to collect premiums from all policy holders. To me it is the sole purpose of insurance for ANY consumer, including those with pre-existing conditions.
But of course, it’s 2012 and nostalgic IDEAS don’t work in today’s world. Today insurance companies are looking to sustain and improve their profits. Today employers want to reduce their expenditures using every tactic from moving their jobs away from the US to cutting benefits for employees, today healthcare providers use a sky’s the limit approach to their fees, often supporting one another through prices that are so similar that in any other industry it would appear to be price-fixing or price-gouging.
The Affordable Care Act, including the $63 is doomed in its efforts to resurrect the values that were represented by the village doctors coming to help their fellow citizens, or the care provided by “Marcus Welby,” or images of the contributions given by citizens to save the savings and loan company depicted in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Today, $63.00 worries employers who envision that the provision won’t ever be phased out, worries health insurers who don’t believe it will be enough to cover the increased costs that they think will occur from those with pre-existing conditions, and frustrates consumers who’d rather leave the ill to fend for themselves (as if they will never become ill) all designed to save a buck, or $63.00, to be exact.
The $63 headline is a sign of the times. Whether we like it or not, our VALUES have changed as a nation and COST-CUTTING has replaced ideals of long ago. I believe this is why $63 can make a headline.
First, we don’t trust that $63 will be enough, after all, insurance companies keep charging more for premiums in spite of the endless slew of cost-cutting measures they’ve taken so it makes sense that insurance expenses will continue to go up for consumers since we’ve nationalized a POLICY of increased COST-SHARING meaning consumers will pay a bigger portion of health CARE costs in addition to HIGHER premiums.
Second, we don’t trust that our government will efficiently administer this fund so that it accomplishes what it intends and then is phased out by 2017. It’s not insane to consider that once it’s begun this fund will become part of the mammoth permanent feature of the federal government.
But the biggest problem with this $63.00, as is the case with most of the Affordable Care Act is that we KNOW that the Affordable Care Act, designed to get more people INSURED as its PRIMARY goal, will likely fail to improve HEALTH CARE, either for those with pre-existing conditions or those who get sick maybe tomorrow, maybe next year.
We see healthcare providers refusing to accept insurance in response to efforts to control the charges they impose on consumers. We see insurance companies selling policies with rising deductible amounts and fewer provider choices, reimbursed at lower rates. We see that in our deal with the other stakeholders that much like Social Security and Medicare that we’re supposed to pay now and see the benefits later which has proven to be a sucker’s bet for consumers.
As we go into 2013, before the 2014 start date for much of Obamacare, consumers should remind their local representatives and national representatives that we are the ones funding the healthcare industry, EVERY aspect of it.
Regardless of your view, your opinion counts because you’re paying. $63 or the trillions of dollars in debt, it’s time for us to be able to see what we’re getting for our money, and even perhaps to dare to put cost-cutting in its proper place, not as an overriding VALUE but as one goal in pursuing the value of being able to get affordable health CARE in our country REGARDLESS of age or health without committing ourselves to bankruptcy.
