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As Congress prepares to return from it's July Fourth recess, four divisive issues still appear to be hampering attempts to make affordable health insurance available to all Americans. Neatly summed up by the Associated Press, these include the staggering cost, creating a government run plan, taxing workers' benefits, and penalizing employers that don't offer coverage to workers. It's proving to be a nasty and complicated process to revamp health care, and provide affordable health insurance to the 47 million uninsured Americans out there right now. The issue of cost is an easy one to understand: ranging from 1 to 2 trillion dollars, it's ironic that providing an affordable health insurance option won't come cheap. And, as the country struggles to free itself from a terrible economic situation, racking up new costs doesn't seem quite smart. However, there's also the issue of billions of dollars lost for covering the uninsured and for dealing with inadequate medical record-keeping, which could save us money if we could minimize their costs. Taxing worker's benefits and penalizing employers who don't offer coverage is a big issue with labor unions, who suggest that this will squash economic growth. These options aren't very popular, but affordable health insurance won't be affordable unless someone pays for it, and health care costs are going nowhere but up. And the most contentious of all is the potential to create a government-run health insurance plan. Republicans argue that by providing such an option, the private insurance market will be driven into the ground. In contrast, Democrats argue that the private insurance market, not known for its "customer friendly" policies these days, needs the competition in order to force them to lower costs and revamp the policies that could make their product more appealing to the public.
Major American health insurance companies are sweating bullets these days. With a potential public option for health care on the table from President Obama, the big agencies that provide coverage would have serious competition should his plan be signed into law. Which is exactly why the President wants to provide such a plan. But now it's getting even worse. According to The Washington Post, a recent report released by the staff of Senate Commerce Committee finds that health insurance companies have "forced consumers to pay billions of dollars in medical bills that the insurers themselves should have paid." How so? Mostly it involves those consumers who pay extra for the luxury of going outside their network for doctors and treatments. Insurance companies usually pay a percentage for what they call "usual and customary" rates for services. And of course, they get to decide what is "usual and customary," which tends to be quite a bit lower than it should be when major health insurance companies are footing the bill. This is just one more reason why consumers have to pay close attention to every detail when it comes to their health and health insurance coverage. Whether or not a public plan will be devised by the end of the year remains to be seen, but let's hope that if it does, it won't involve lengthy and complicated application forms, or long-winded agreements that can leave consumers in the dark and out of luck.
It was the industry's dirty little secret until three years ago, but it appears that even now some health insurance companies refuse to part ways with the practice of rescission. Rescission is the controversial practice in which health insurance companies find ways to cancel the insurance policies of individuals who become sick. They say that it's done to prevent fraud, and that the goal is to cancel the policies of individuals who lie on their applications about pre-existing conditions. But the LA Times discovered that this wasn't the case. In fact, many health insurance companies had canceled the policies of people for what they claim were honest mistakes on their applications. For example, the woman whose policy was canceled once she was diagnosed with breast cancer because she hadn't disclosed an appointment with her dermatologist for acne. Or the man with lymphoma who lost his coverage after he failed to disclose a potential medical condition that his doctor had noted in his chart, but never mentioned to him. Health insurance companies UnitedHealth, Assurant Health, and WellPoint Inc. admit that falsely canceling policies is a terrible practice. But, when put on the spot, none of them agreed to cancel rescission as a company-wide policy. Democrats and Republicans alike criticized the health insurance companies and their officials for such practices, and reiterated that this is exactly why we need a major overhaul for our health care system in America.
Today President Obama addressed the American Medical Association to discuss his plan to offer health insurance coverage to all Americans. And, if he can do so without overburdening doctors with paperwork, limiting their health care options, or cutting their paychecks, he'll be a very popular guy. According to NPR, many doctors feel that our current system is making it impossible for too many people to afford health insurance coverage, and as a result, they're seeing people who are too sick to be treated as they should. For example, someone with quality health insurance coverage is more likely to go to well check appointments, to be counseled on appropriate lifestyle decisions, and therefore, are less likely to get sick in the first place. Furthermore, those people who can't afford coverage are more likely to wait until their sickness has progressed to a dangerous degree, making it very expensive to treat them, if it's possible to treat them at all. In fact, Dr. Nancy Nielsen, president of the American Medical Association, says the biggest problem facing doctors and patients alike is when patients don't have health insurance coverage. This is why Obama is claiming that his plan will save over $1 billion in 10 years in minimized services alone. Right now the argument about how to go about creating a system that provides good health insurance coverage to all citizens is raging hotly throughout the Senate. But most people agree with Dr. Richard Roberts, a "family physician" who has been practicing in Wisconsin for 23 years: "The debates about whether it needs to be single-payer or multipayer, I'm going to leave that to the politicians ... I just want to get it done and have everybody covered."
We're all used to the idea that Republicans and Democrats can't agree on how to structure an affordable health insurance market for all Americans. But, you know you're dealing with a complex and thorny issue when Democrats can't agree amongst themselves either. And that appears to be the case. As President Barack Obama pushes legislators to provide him with a bill for affordable health insurance by October, it seems that no one is able to agree on exactly how to do that. Sticking points, according to CNN, include a requirement that all Americans purchase health insurance coverage, that employers help to pay for it, and whether or not there should also be a government-run plan offered as a means of creating competition in the private market. And while no one is going to say that Americans don't deserve a more affordable health insurance market, no one appears willing to give an inch, either. How will we be able to afford it? Will the private market collapse if there's a public option for Americans? Will employers be forced to pay too much, hampering their productivity? These are some of the questions that are now on the table. But none of them matter as much as this one: when will Americans finally have a means of obtaining health insurance coverage that they can rely on?
In the struggle to overhaul America's individual health insurance market, Democrats are preparing to unveil an overhaul that would include a public plan. This new public plan, not unlike Medicare and Medicaid, would provide competition in the individual health insurance market, hopefully driving down prices and simultaneously making it easier for some of America's 47 million uninsured to obtain coverage. However, according to Reuters, the legislation is opposed by Republicans who fear that the plan is too expensive, and would lead to a "government takeover" of the health care market. President Obama has long campaigned for an individual health insurance plan that could be both affordable and effective. The plan, attracting a lot of attention, is still in the early phases and is "being discussed" as an "outline." Obama wants to back healthcare legislation that would enjoy bipartisan support. How that will play out, and whether the final plan will be approved on both sides of the aisle, remains to be seen.
An article released by Forbes today reveals that as access to more affordable health insurance has gone down, medical bankruptcy has gone up...way up. Researchers at Harvard Law School, Harvard Medical School, and Ohio University found that in 2007, medical problems and the expenses incurred by those with medical problems contributed to almost 2/3 of all bankruptcies in the US. That's a jump of nearly 50% since 2001, and while those who have coverage are also in the group, those who haven't been able to find affordable health insurance are paying for it again and again. "Medical bills for medically bankrupt families with private insurance averaged $17,749, compared to $26,971 for the uninsured and $22,568 for those who initially had private coverage but lost it during their illness." Hospital bills and prescription drugs were the biggest expenses for these people...costs that should be covered by health care. Sadly, since the study didn't include today's economic downturn, it's likely that even more bankruptcies are fueled by a need for affordable health insurance than the study could find.
In an effort to maintain some semblence of control over the insurance market, health care providers have promised to provide consumers with affordable health insurance by cutting up to $1.7 trillion in costs. This would be accomplished by improving care for chronic illness, reducing unnecesary care and costs, and streamlining the adminstrative process. This bid - and the focus on affordable health insurance for the masses - reveals how promises made to President Barack Obama have the potential to reduce the growth rate of health care by 1.5% over the next 10 years. These savings, and their potential to support more affordable health insurance, are discussed at the Wall Street Journal. Savings for chronic care management could be "between $350 billion and $850 billion; administrative streamlining would save $500 billion to $700 billion; and improving the "utilization" of care would save $150 billion to $180 billion." Some critics suggest that the savings won't add up to the necessary $2 trillion needed for the ambitious plan, but even minimal savings could make things easier for consumers struggling to find coverage in today's market.
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