Obama's Health Care Plan Might Work

My previous blogs shared concerns about the Obama National Health Care Plan. However, there is at least one thing I’m very pleased to see in the plan, and that’s mandated coverage for every American.

Gasp! Did I say “mandated”? Yes, and here’s why. All insurance coverage works on one simple principle; those who do not use the insurance subsidize the coverage for those who end up using it. It takes a huge “pool” of people paying insurance premiums but not using benefits to make premiums affordable for those in the pool who do use them.

With health insurance, the vast majority of the 47 million or so uninsured Americans have chosen not to purchase it. A very large number are young and healthy and not likely to use their coverage at all, even if they did have health insurance. If we made sure that as many healthy people as possible were paying (even a small amount) into the health insurance pool, and not using the benefits, the rates would go down for all of us. It’s a win-win; everyone gets coverage and the rates become reasonable.

So, how do you make sure people who are young and healthy have health insurance? Mandate it. Mandates are unpopular and politically risky, but this is one thing the Obama administration and the House have done right. Let’s hope this provision sticks.

10 years, "just" over 1 TRILLION, only 30 Million more covered....

The first Health Care Reform Bill is now out of the House. What does it do?

1. Creates a new Government Sponsored Health Plan to compete with Private Insurance Plans.
2. Reduces the ranks of the uninsured by 30 Million.
3. Costs "just" over 1 TRILLION dollars over 10 years. (That's the House's own estimate)
4. Increases Taxes on the wealthy and medium-large businesses.
5. Will reduce the amount doctors receive for treating medicare/medicaid Patients.
6. Closes the "donught hole" in the Medicare prescription drug program. (Finally)


So, let's get this straight, it spends 1 TRILLION over 10 years to cover only 30 Million more People? If you do the math that's a terrible deal!

Once again it does not address the most pressing need, which is holding down the expense of medical care in our country. Just because you pay doctors less who see Medicare-Medicaid patients, that does not mean you have reduced the root cause of the expense crisis.

Our terrible wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will look like a trip to the "dollar store" compared with this plan's "Tiffany's" type shopping spree! If Obama wants to leave a lasting legacy, this will end up being the opposite of the reputation he desires.

I really hope our elected leadership takes a deep breath and a step back to consider the ramifications of this Plan before ramming it through like the Stimulus

Fire! Aim! Ready!..........Here comes Obama's Plan!

It looks as if our House of Representatives is doing exactly the opposite of what I discussed in my last Blog. That is, they are marching full steam ahead to tackle Health Care Reform, without first defining what problem they are trying to solve.

It appears it's not IF we are going to have a Government Run Health Insurance Option, but WHAT that option will be. Said Nancy Pelosi , Speaker of the House on July 13th:

"We are in the process of bringing our health care proposal to the floor, It will happen."
"It will have, coming out of the House, a public option," "The only debate on that is what it will be called -- a patient option, a public option, write in your suggestions."

This is just plain frightening. We ALREADY have Government Run Health Insurance, called Medicare. Medicare not only requires you to spend money for it its premiums, but also supplement that coverage (because it's so bad!) with purchased plans (to cover the gaps in its coverage) from private insurance companies!

Hey Nancy, would you fix the broken system we already have before throwing a $ Trillion $ or more at a brand new "Solution"!!?

There is no Health Care Crisis

How can I possibly say there is no Health Care Crisis? President Obama says it, the Media says it, so it must be true, right? What we have is a Health Care EXPENSE crisis, not a QUALITY crisis.

The quality of American Medical Care is among the best in the world, even though our health isn't. Who is to blame? We are. As a nation we are overweight, out of shape, and just plain don't take care of ourselves. Imagine if we treated car insurance coverage like health insurance. We'd all "drive it like we stole it". If the car broke, we'd take it to a mechanic, give them our insurance card, and demand it get fixed "fast". When it got out of the shop (for only a small copay of course!) do you think we'd dive it any differently? In this model, how high do you think our car insurance premiums would be? But this is exactly how we currently view Health Insurance!

If there were cost incentives (like good driver discounts) we would take better care of ourselves, use less medical care, health insurance and related medical costs would be much lower, thus providing more people greater access to high quality health insurance and medical care. Then and only then could we even come close to being able to afford health insurance coverage for every American. For a fun video of this topic go to http://www.myhealthinsurancewa.com/videos.html

So, let's tell those in Congress who are currently drafting massive overhaul to make sure they define what problem they are trying to solve. Solve the cost problem FIRST, and the rest
will be easy.