There are many negotiators who insist that the strength in any negotiation is the willingness to walk away. It's the most basic rule of negotiation that provides a person or a group with the upper hand and it's this misuse of governmental power under Obamacare that removed this right from citizens that lies at the root of consumers' worsening "health insurance" problem which today functions as a barrier to obtaining needed medical services rather than a consumer financial product that assists us in obtaining needed medical services.
It's not a novel problem. After all, when Obama twisted truth and tried to convince America that it was only those with pre-existing conditions who were uninsured, or those who were ineligible for Medicaid as the cost of health insurance rose to obscene levels of percentage of our incomes who were uninsured, it was really ONLY the President who was silly enough not to realize that many people had OPTED OUT of purchasing health insurance because the cost of such insurance combined with the ever-decreasing provision of coverage sufficient to cover consumer expenses for needed medical services had influenced consumer choice NOT to purchase the product.
In short, a tremendous number of people didn't purchase health insurance because the coverage was too expensive and was insufficient to protect them from financial devastation in the event of illness. Naturally, those with better health were usually the ones to opt out. And there were others, those who simply could not afford the product and those who were ineligible for the Medicaid insurance product.
This was and is a KNOWN--people weren't buying insurance unless they had to because it wasn't providing them with sufficient financial protection and choice in the event they needed medical care. Combined with that essential problem--people weren't getting what they paid for, was the compounding problem that the RISK POOLS under such circumstances attracted the sicker and older, those that felt that in the event of illness that some insurance might be better than none. Insurers, whose bread and butter is collecting premiums and paying out less and less on claims, responded with new strategies to NOT COVER or put barriers in the way of obtaining needed medical services and by raising their prices.
Providers threatened to reject insurance plans or not join in the first place if their payment wasn't high enough and that worked for them, especially under Obamacare as they angled for more pay (and got it), fewer requirements to obtain incentive payments (and got it), and still we read of more and more doctors not taking Obamacare and other insurance plans (they are getting rich on Medicaid, however).
That problem has not only not gone away, but has worsened under Obamacare and under Obama's Republican doppelganger, Paul Ryan, unless consumers exercise their influence we will be in for more of the same--the ideological and egotistical blindness that desires "something" for a politician to sell at the expense of consumer financial and physical health.
So pay attention to the AHIP memo of 2016. Remember the AHIP memo of 2008? The first thing insurers demanded and got from Obama who was trying (and did) ride "an issue" into the presidency was a partnership with Obama's government that threw consumers under the bus.
In 2008, AHIP gave Obama the political clout he wanted as long as he gave away the strongest power that the PAYING CUSTOMER has, the power to walk away from a product that doesn't work. Instead, Obama used the power of government to tie consumers' hands and force people to purchase their product or face a tax penalty and embraced AHIP's proposal in 2008, when the lobbyists presented their plan that our Ego in Chief presented as his own, "Health Plans Propose Guaranteed Coverage for Pre-Existing Conditions and Individual Coverage Mandate,” produced by AHIP, 2008.
In that deal Obama got what he wanted, a political tagline, a phony promise that he'd used his authority as President to rid us of the "problem" of insurers denying coverage for preexisting conditions forgetting to tell us that all he had to do was force ALL Americans to purchase the insurance product.
And now the Republican Obama, Paul Ryan, a government hack whose own protected little govworld bubble excludes reality is being offered a new deal by insurers trying to give him his political tagline (Making Health Care Work for Every American, Solutions to Deliver More Competition, Market Stability and Affordable Coverage, AHIP 2016,) as long as government gives insurers the right to…that's right, keep consumers' hands tied by forcing CONTINUOUS COVERAGE, a private sector version of the individual mandate that allows INSURERS to punish consumers with higher rates if they have a lapse in coverage.
(For more on the memo read: "Trump and Consumers are Being Threatened by Insurance Company Demands: AHIP," 12/8/2016.)
Sure, health insurance is a better-than-nothing option to those who can afford it, but Obamacare made it a little less "better" and a lot more nothing with its hyperfocus on prevention rather than sufficient financial protection IN THE EVENT of needed medical services and care.
The trend is bad for consumers on every metric--Costs of insurance have gone up for consumers, out-of-pocket maximums have gone up for consumers, barriers to treatment like running us through endless "diagnostic" "covered" services only to meet with inadequately covered needed services in the event we need them have increased our expenses and our exposure to medical interference even as we learn that medical error is the third leading cause of death in this country (which the CDC won't list in its leading causes of death list), and the trend to let people die, by choice or by the PAID counsel of physicians who under Obamacare get to read crystal balls and tell patients who are very ill that it's not worth trying an expensive treatment (yeah, that's CMS rule under Obamacare).
Consumers first of all need to regain our right to WALK AWAY. Truthfully only the bravest do so or the richest, or the healthiest who bank on their own statistical likelihood of good health for a particular year, because we still believe that some insurance is better than none, But without that option, insurers will NOT improve their product--that is 100 percent proven by Obamacare where the bare minimum requirements of health insurance plans backfired into an excuse as to why significant coverages were reduced or omitted and where insurers used those "requirements" as an excuse to raise their rates.
Consumers are the payers whether it's through our tax dollars, our salaries, our money, yet our power to influence the horrendous money-grab of the healthcare marketplace has never been worse. It's time to go back to basics--NO individual mandate or its private sector version CONTINUOUS COVERAGE.
