One Of Many Reasons Healthcare Insurance Premiums Are Going Up

One of the talking points in the Democrat's push for their healthcare reform bill is that private insurance premiums are rising at an exponential rate that people cannot afford.  That may be true, but a national takeover of healthcare is not the answer.  But let's look at one of the reason private insurance costs are going up.

On Friday, the Naples News posted a story stating that unless Congress intervened immediately, Medicare payments to doctors will be reduced 21 per cent starting today.  The cut also applies to military members and their families who use the TRICARE program. 

There are some really ugly results of this cut going into effect:

• Doctors may reduce the number of Medicare patients they are willing to treat and refuse to take any more Medicare patients--the rate cut makes treating a Medicare patient more expensive than what the doctor will be paid.  In essence, this is rationing healthcare--if you can't find a doctor who will treat you, what good is your insurance?
• Because medical costs for doctors will not be reimbursed by Medicare, the doctors will be forced to charge non-Medicare patients more in order to make up the difference.  As the doctors raise their rates, the private insurance companies will raise their rates to cover the increase. 

The cut to Medicare is one of the reasons insurance premiums will raise rapidly, and that cut is controlled by Congress.  At the same time Congress is saying it needs to pass President Obama's healthcare bill because private healthcare insurance costs are rapidly rising.  Congress is essentially causing a problem it demands legislation to fix.  Would you trust a businessman who did that?

The article points out:

"A reimbursement cut, of a varying amount, from Medicare is expected annually with the start of the new fiscal year on Jan. 1 but Congress usually acts in time to reverse it. In the final days of the session last year, Congress only postponed the 21-percent cut for this year to March 1."

It sounds to me as if Congress expected to get healthcare reform pushed through by March and thought it could ignore the Medicare cut this year.  There is so much political intrigue swirling around the current push to get healthcare reform through that I really think the right thing to do is tear up the current bill and start from scratch. The goal should be passing a good law that is less than ten pages long.  It would be a challenge, but it could be done!