The mainstream news has been all over the mishandled rollout of Obamacare, and rightfully so. The administration has flubbed the development of the website while Obama has made some inaccurate claims (some might call them lies) regarding existing coverage. Meanwhile, republicans are seizing the moment, as they have grasped every opportunity in recent months, to repeal either the entire law or the measures of the law that make it work.
I must express my disappointment in the administration’s implementation of the government’s healthcare site. It seems the critical phase of testing was not a key priority for the website team. I recognize that developing sites with multiple partners can be extremely challenging. Add that this site is mining data from a variety of different sources and the challenges sore even higher. But I do feel that they had the time, the money and resources to get the job done. Personally, I don’t know why the administration hasn’t fired staff and/or contractors.
Of course, the poor development of a website is no reason for this country to not have healthcare reform. Obamacare is not perfect…far from it. For starters, it should have had a public option to fix the problem we’re seeing now where those with ineffective insurance plans are being forced to pay more for real health care plans. A public option would have provided an affordable alternative to the profit-based healthcare corporations’ high-priced policies.
Obama never should have told Americans they could keep their plans. The administration should have done its research and understood how many Americans were grossly underinsured. How many of these plans didn’t cover hospitalization or emergency services? How many of these plans didn’t cover preventative care? What would happen to someone under one of these plans if they were diagnosed with cancer? Who pays when someone under one of these plans ends up in the ER? That is the real story.
The reason many policies are being cancelled is because they do not conform to the new healthcare regulations. The new law requires the following 10 essential health benefits: ambulatory services; prescription drugs; emergency care; mental health care; hospitalization; rehabilitative services; preventive care; laboratory services (blood work); pediatric care and maternity/prenatal care.
As a result, healthcare corporations are offering new policies that include these essential benefits; unfortunately, they often come with much higher premiums. The trade off is that higher premiums means better coverage. Before the implementation of the law, Americans were experiencing annual increases for no reason other than the industry wanting to make higher profits. Thankfully, many of those experiencing rate increases will be eligible for subsidies through Obamacare. These subsidies are paid for by a number of cost cutting and revenue increasing measures built into the law.
You may wonder why you should pay for services you may not need. It is one of the few good things about the law in which it helps to spread the costs of expensive services across the board. You may not agree of course but society as a whole benefits when pregnant women, for example, receive adequate prenatal care; and newborns receive the necessary pediatric care. Not everyone will need to go to the emergency room, but if everyone pays into this service, it will enable all individuals to afford it if and when they need it. Spreading the costs makes the care to those who need it more affordable. Also, having the necessary healthcare ensures that individuals will take advantage of care they need, especially preventative measures which can save lives and dollars.
A current bill in Congress would allow Americans with substandard plans to keep them. I don’t believe the solution is to allow those who are inadequately insured to remain inadequately insured. These types of plans were a major part of the problem with our old healthcare system — the underinsured relying on the rest of us to pay when they ultimately wind up in the ER or hospital. They get off cheap while the rest of us pay. The new plan requires that we all pay in.
The big winners of course have been the healthcare corporations. They receive guaranteed customers, through the individual and employer mandates and they receive guaranteed premium increases, thanks to the required essential benefits. Want to change this? Support single payer or universal healthcare. Remove the middle men and expand medicare for all. It isn’t going to happen overnight. The healthcare industry is a powerful lobbying force.
If you recall, we needed healthcare reform because healthcare costs were rising exponentially; people were being kicked off their plans for getting sick and others were denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions like cancer or diabetes. Thanks to the new law, these issues are fixed. Obamacare is a very small step in the right direction. It provides a bill of rights for patients but in turn provides a windfall to health care corporations.
Bottomline: We need a single payer system — like what exists for senior citizens and veterans right here in our own country. Perhaps in coming years a public option will be introduced which will lead to a more comprehensive system. The U.S. needs to move into the 20th century, which is when much of the industrialized free world chose to provide universal care for their citizens.