It's time to enroll for benefits season. This is where we are and we are still governed by Obamacare after the Republican failure to show us anything better. For consumers, it's a continued tough lesson in how far our elected officials have strayed from representing us and it highlights the importance for consumers to solidify what we want in order to come up with a cohesive message of what we need our government representatives to do.
The first thing that really fell apart within and without Obamacare for consumers was characterizing the motives of some people as good guys and some as bad guys. Today, I might still well be considered one of the bad guys because I am for repeal of Obamacare but not for replace with anything we've seen so far.
As I've shared, I voted for President Obama, and was hopeful about the well-recited promises of covering pre-existing conditions, getting people insured, expanding Medicaid and saving us all $2,500 a year to boot. I believed the expression of motives to achieve these goals as coming from a good place.
Having read some of the junk that has come out from Republicans, I was never supportive of their "plan" because well, quite frankly, first and foremost I never believed it was coming from a "good" place.
But the coming from a "good" place ends up being an expectation from our government elected officials that was not realistic on any level. After all, the motives of those supporting Obamacare ended up being not so good, at least to me. How could a law that created an avenue for increased premiums in double digits since the consumer kicker provisions of benefits year 2014 be motivated by the good? How could a law that inspired leadership up to and especially up to the President to lie to the American public in order to justify it be motivated by the "good"?
It turns out, that actually the benefits to small pockets of consumers was actually INCIDENTAL to the major goals of the law which was an unprecedented partnership between government and insurance companies designed to save both money in terms of their expenses per person in insurance. This was the "not good" place where Obamacare motivation began.
In 2008, insurance lobbyists proposed the terms of the deal in order to help President Obama make good on his campaign promises. That deal was simple--You guarantee us more enrollees and we'll cover those with preexisting conditions. For Obama the deal was good, he could appear the hero by getting those with preexisting conditions covered AND he could reduce the somewhat amorphous guesstimate numbers of uninsured in our country. President Obama rode the myth of the good place until 2014, neatly timed post his re-election when consumers realized what Obamacare really was.
Soon enough, we discovered that the "Affordable" in the Affordable Care Act was in fact about payer affordability--Saving government and insurance company money on their share of covering costs for people facing the costs of obtaining NEEDED medical services. For those who desperately wanted to sustain the appearance that Obamacare came from a "good" place, reality was blurred in the news we received. Still today, many of them defend Obamacare's stunning failures as "unintended" consequences, unable to even read the law and realize that those consequences were not unintended but were the purpose of the law.
Naturally, the Republicans have bolstered the perpetuation of the "good" versus "bad" motivation of government because their hopes of further limiting money spent by payers, government and insurance companies, have been crystal clear all along and we're sure they're not coming from a "good" place. Unlike the Democrats, they could never devise a plausible coming-from-a-good-place scenario to persuade people.
But as consumers, we lost and perhaps the biggest lesson of Obamacare is that when governmental and population goals clash, the population becomes less important.
For this President, the Democrats have used their ability to appear to be coming from a "good" place to stymie his efforts, mischaracterize his allegiances and even question his mental health. Frustrated Republicans, whose extremist views have lagged behind the majority of Americans for a decade, remain fierce defenders of their outdated policies and have shown that the only ways Republicans win is if they can ride the coattails of a moderate like Trump and if they can present an alternative to some of the equally frightening rhetoric of extremism from the Democrats.
For this benefits season, we once again are at the mercy of the businesses of big government and insurance companies hoping that our "representatives" get their acts together. And that's where our opportunity comes in.
We're smart enough to know that government and people are NOT on the same side when it comes to health insurance, if nothing else the partnership of insurance companies with government in the Obamacare taught us that. Both government and insurance companies are looking to REDUCE their responsibility in helping covering costs of health CARE for individuals. There are no "good" goals of government representatives when it comes to putting the needs of population ahead of their number one goal of fulfilling that paying-out-less goal.
The importance of understanding that our goals are NOT the same as insurance company and government goals is the first key to consumers addressing health CARE. Forget politics, both parties' representatives are united in their hopes of reducing the federal government's responsibilities as payer. So, what are our options?
The issue of health insurance came to the attention of government for many reasons: First, fewer and fewer people could afford the product, second, more and more people opted out of the product as they realized that the instant they needed coverage that coverage was inadequate, third, insurance is a regulated industry and pressure started being placed on government representatives who sought election or reelection to pay attention to consumers who began to object to the strong provider and insurance company lobbies that had for years pressured government to obtain laws that worked against consumers, and fourth, government itself as payer, whether it was for Veterans benefits, Medicare, or Medicaid were also skyrocketing.
All this got lost in the hype, campaigning and consumer manipulation of Obamacare, which even today has good-hearted people "worried" about what will happen to the 10.3 million working people who have Obamacare plans where the federal government pays premium assistance and cost sharing. (The 10.3 million number as reported by CNN, Tami Luhby, 6/12/2017, "Obamacare enrollment slides to 10.3 million.")
As we move forward, as consumers, it should be with an eye towards the problems that inspired any attention at all to the health insurance situation as listed above. This is why the first provision of government action attempting to address CONSUMER concerns must be that Congress and others in public employment be required without exception to live by the rules they create, no loophole escape hatch for them as was utilized under Obamacare.
That's where a conversation of the "good" begins, with a put your money where your mouth is proof of motivation by public employees, including Congress. Without it, the natural conflict between what consumers want and what government wants means that we will be vulnerable to the next smooth talking government salesman who lectures that what's being done to us is really for us.
