Tag Archives: America’s Health Insurance Plans

The Future Of ObamaCare?

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Yesterday Yahoo News reported that Vermont is abandoning its single-payer healthcare plan because it will be too expensive to taxpayers.

The article reports:

Going forward with a project four years in the making would require tax increases too big for the state to absorb, Shumlin said. The measure had been the centerpiece of the Democratic governor’s agenda and was watched and rooted for by single-payer health care supporters around the country.

“I am not going (to) undermine the hope of achieving critically important health care reforms for this state by pushing prematurely for single payer when it is not the right time for Vermont,” Shumlin said to reporters and two boards advising him on health care changes.

Legislation Shumlin signed in 2011 put the state on a path to move beyond the federal Affordable Care Act by 2017 to a health care system more similar to that in neighboring Canada. Shumlin adopted the mantra that access to quality health care should be “a right and not a privilege.”

The legislation called for the administration to produce a plan for financing the Green Mountain Care system by 2013 but it wasn’t completed until the last several days. Shumlin said it showed the plan would require an 11.5 percent payroll tax on businesses and an income tax separate from the one the state already has of up to 9.5 percent.

Governor Shumlin stated that he had asked his health care team for alternative designs, but no one could come up with a plan to offer quality coverage at an affordable cost. There is definitely a lesson to be learned in that statement. Healthcare costs money–someone has to pay for it. Insurance companies have actuary tables that allow them to calculate how to share the load. They do their job very well. We should let them do it.

There are a few changes I would make to private healthcare. First of all, I would make sure it stays private–keep the government out of it. Second of all, tort reform is needed to keep the cost of healthcare low. Third, health insurance needs to be the responsibility of the person–not his or her employer–it needs to be portable if a person changes jobs. Fourth, health insurance has to flow between states–not just be limited to one state–in order to allow insurance companies to spread their risk. And finally, Americans need to understand that companies who provide health insurance are doing us a service. They are in business to make money, which they should, and they are providing a service. We need to allow them to do business in the most efficient way possible. The percentage of profit in the health insurance industry is below the percentage of most other industries in the United States. We need to stop demonizing free enterprise.

The Obama Administration Targets Women And Children First

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Actually, the Obama Administration targets the elderly, and women and children first. Today’s American Spectator posted an article about a recent announcement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that it plans to cut an extra 2.2 percent from the Medicare Advantage (MA) program. This new cut, which came as a surprise to everyone except Obama’s health care commissars, will be added to the $200 billion in cuts Obamacare has already mandated for MA. What does this have to with low-income and minority seniors? The administration’s new Medicare cuts will come directly out of their pockets.

Medicare Advantage is one of the most popular health care plans among senior citizens. It is successful because it involves competition in the private sector.

The article reports:

… The MA plans are already taking a huge hit pursuant to Obamacare’s $200 billion cut, and they will be unable to absorb these newest slashes in the program without passing at least some of the costs to the patients in the form of increased co-pays and deductibles.

And it is by no means an exaggeration to say that these extra out-of-pocket costs will hit the seniors who can least afford them. America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a trade group to which many MA carriers belong, recently issued a report confirming that reality: “Sixty-one (61) percent of all minority (nonwhite) beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage in 2011 had incomes of $20,000 or less; 59 percent of African-American and 75 percent of Hispanic Medicare Advantage beneficiaries had incomes of $20,000 or less.”

…”This reduction in funding will leave many vulnerable seniors with fewer benefits, higher out-of-pocket costs, and in some cases the loss of their current MA coverage.”

It will indeed. As AHIP reminds us, “The Congressional Budget Office projects that the reform law’s payment cuts alone will result in three million fewer people enrolled in Medicare Advantage.” The group goes on to point out that Obamacare is already expected to increase the out-of-pocket expenses endured by MA enrollees: “Actuaries at Oliver Wyman estimate that the health insurance tax will result in seniors facing $220 in higher out-of-pocket costs and reduced benefits next year and $3,500 in additional costs over the next ten years.”

It is time to repeal and replace Obamacare. Otherwise the American health care system will never be able to recover from the damage being done to it.Enhanced by Zemanta