Health Care Reform: The Beat Goes On

Hello everyone!

I've decided to pre-empt my second August SharePost on respite care with a review of the health care debate. My question of the Week about a single payer system could've been posted too soon as it failed to generate as much of a response as my other Questions have. The bills that have been introduced in the House and Senate do not offer single payer options. Town Hall meetings devolve into angry outbursts based on false assumptions about the bills, neither of which involves socialized medicine. Let's look more closely at what's actually going on.

According to a news professional, "In the past 10 years, the profits generated by the health insurance industry skyrocketed a whopping 428 percent while 19 percent of the insured were dropped due to their ‘undesirability', age, or ‘pre-existing' conditions." The insurance industry has created smoke-and-mirrors controversy that fails to tell these outraged citizens that there are high costs associated with the current system. People may like their insurance just fine and not want to pay extra to insure people who don't have insurance now. Yet that is exactly what we do when the uninsured go to emergency rooms. The hospitals shift the cost to insurance companies who in turn raise their premiums.

The bonuses paid out to Wall Street executives who use the money to buy yachts nobody bats an eyelash over so why are Americans suddenly fueled on hate about the health care options Obama is willing to endorse? Instead of giving CEOs hundreds of thousands a year that money could be spent guaranteeing that all Americans have health insurance.

We need cost-effective, best-practices treatment across the board. I like that term "across the board" because it relates here: The Obama Plan would allow 15,000,000 people to be uninsured. That is a legitimate drawback of the public option.

Now I'll run down some of the false claims:

People will lose their current insurance.

Private insurance will remain legal and those who already bought their insurance before the House bill went into effect would have their insurance grandfathered in. Any new plans would have to be purchased through a new health insurance exchange yet even here the exchange would offer private plans as well as a new federal health insurance option.

You can read HR 3200, known as America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, at http://thomas.loc.gov by typing in HR 3200 in the Search Bill Summary & Status box and then clicking the bill number button. It has eight co-sponsors; one of whom is a New York City representative, Charles Rangel. The bill prohibits denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition. Section 102 protects the choice to keep current coverage.

Medicare benefits will be slashed or health care will be rationed and government will determine coverage.

Not true. There will be no death squad or mandated coverage or loss of coverage. Obama has outlined cost-saving measures that will curtail the deficit in the coming years yet none involve jeopardizing our health.