The Health Insurance Dilemma -Part 2

To note, the Obama site had a 5 page outline and a 13 page detailed plan. Grab a double espresso and plan to read slowly! Obama's plan has more options and versatility, parts of the plan are similar to McCain's ideas, but it has many layers which makes it difficult to know how he will get it approved through congress!

Many have said that Obama wants universal insurance and healthcare.  Government run health insurance is questionable to me. When thinking government, think HIPAA!  That was a great piece of legislation that causes me to have to sit on the phone in order to connect the dots and reconnect the dots so the dots can speak to each other to clarify a billing error!

In fact, Obama advocates for a system set up like the federal government and my friends working for the government like their insurance coverage.  This could be a good thing!

1A) From the Obama outline: “Obama and Biden will make available a new national health plan to all Americans, including the self employed and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to members of congress.

1b) The Obama-Biden plan will create a national Health Insurance Exchange to help individuals who wish to purchase a private insurance plan. The exchange will act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible.  Insurers would have to issue every applicant a policy, and charge fair and stable premiums that will not depend upon health status.  The exchange would evaluate plans and makes the differences among plans, including cost of services, public.”

My comment: Lawyers love to verbally abuse us! So here’s my suggestion take a look at the OPM homepage for the fed program: http://www.opm.gov/insure/.  If this is what he intends to mimic for everyone, this program is like any other that you get from a large employer.  For small companies this maybe the PPO to offer.  Would it cost more, I'm betting that it would because we have to cover everyone. I don't know how he intends to make it less money unless we pay for it through taxes.

2) Lowering Cost by increasing the Insurance:  “The insurance business today is dominated by a small group of large companies that has been gobbling up their rivals. There have been over 400 mergers in the past 10 years, and just two companies dominate a full third of the national market. These changes were supposed to make the industry more efficient, but instead premiums have skyrocketed by over 87 percent. Barack OBama and Joe Biden will prevent companies from abusing their monopoly power through unjustified price increases. Their plan will force insurers to pay out a reasonable share of their premiums for patient care instead of keeping exorbitant amounts for profits and administration. Their new National Health Exchange will help increase competition by insurers.”