Medicare Option is Dropped from Health Care Legislation, Individual Health Insurance Reclaims Center Stage
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Just when everyone thought the Democrats had locked-in health care legislation that most in the Senate could agree to pass, the notion of expanding Medicare creates another impasse.
As it says in the Wall Street Journal article on health care and the Senate, just last week the plan to make Medicare available as buy-ins for those individuals 55 and over was introduced as a means of keeping those people out of the market for individual health insurance.
You see, many men and women 55 and older are now suddenly unemployed and uninsured. By offering them Medicare, millions of currently uninsured could enjoy coverage.
But Senator Joe Lieberman made it clear that he wouldn't support an expansion of the already-embattled, government-run Medicare.
Democrats have agreed to press on without the measure, leaving those men and women to find coverage on the individual health insurance market in the coming years.
Still, there is hope for them on the horizon. Current legislation would make it illegal for insurers to deny someone based on pre-existing conditions. That, combined with subsidies offered to those who can't afford insurance on their own, would make individual health insurance far more affordable for the 55 and older set.
One question that still remains is this: will health care costs be controlled or capped? If so, how? These questions are particularly important if a legal mandate to get coverage is passed, since the individual health insurance market tends to be more expensive than the group coverage offered by most employers.