[Vision2020] Health Insurance is NOT Health Care

[Donovan Arnold]

Mr. Schou,
 
You are still not getting it, the point of Health Care Reform is to provide affordable health care to everyone, not transfer trillions of taxpayer dollars from the US coffers and the middle class to private insurance companies. 
 
And the reason I don't believe you are a liberal Democrat is because you support a conservative Democrat’s plan to want to give all our money to private insurance companies in the hopes that some of it "Trickles Down" on the people in the form of medical bill reimbursement. Where as I believe that the government should just use the money it spends on medical, including but not limited to; Medicare, Medicaid, VA, and subsidizes, and spend it on operating their own hospitals, clinics and research facilities providing care for everyone and competing with the private industry. 
 
This bill is simply a giant CASH INFUSION of public and private dollars to insurance companies. It will do nothing to reduce the cost of health care, or provide better care, or increase the availability care. It treats no problems, it just shifts money around.  
 
Proof is in the Pudding:
 
Massachusetts has adopted this plan, created by conservative Republican Mitt Romney, Former Governor of Massachusetts, it is one of the most expensive places in the states to live, and guess what, their insurance premiums are being raised ANOTHER 10% this year http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2009/09/16/health_insurers_plan_10_rise_in_rates/. 
It is a FAILURE:
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/03/02/mass_healthcare_reform_is_failing_us/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124726287099225209.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/10952.html
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27610.html
 
 
The residents have NO CHOICE but to pay it because the State is forcing them to. Imagine, selling a product that everyone has to buy because the government makes them, regardless of how ridiculously expensive or useless it is?
 
 
Your distortion of reality;
 
"According to CBO and JCT’s assessment, enacting the Chairman’s proposal would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $49 billion over the 2010–2019 period (see Table 1). The estimate includes a projected net cost of $500 billion over 10 years for the proposed expansions in insurance coverage. That net cost itself reflects a gross total of $774 billion in credits and subsidies provided through the exchanges,"
 
The Reality:
 
Mr. Schou, you conveniently forgot the next paragraph in that same report that says, "Those estimates are all subject to substantial uncertainty. Furthermore,
although we understand that the published document describing the
Chairman’s mark was intended to reflect the specifications provided to us, CBO and JCT have not reviewed that document to determine whether it conforms in all respects to those specifications."
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/105xx/doc10572/09-16-Proposal_SFC_Chairman.pdf
 
Should we also add in the fact that the CBO and JCT's assessments have NEVER been accurate and has almost always underestimated the actual cost of government services, your argument is watered down to be nothing but water. The assessment also excludes elderly persons and assumes that the cost of health care will not rise between 2010 and 2019.  So to use their assessments is laughable at best, and insulting to anyone that knows the facts. 
 
Second, the CBO and JCTs have never done an assessment on the CURRENT amended bill. And finally, the CBO and JCT cannot make an assessment because the details of the benefits and projected sources of revenue of the package have not yet been finalized and cannot be until this bill passes or a proposed draft of another bill is written and submitted to them by House and Senate leadership. 
 
Distortion of Reality:
 
"One of the biggest problems in American health care is doctors moving away from primary care and toward specialist care. There's a tremendous undersupply of primary care in this country (which is why I have to wait three months to see my physician) and nothing's currently being done about it. The changes in the rates are relatively small. The number I'm looking at proposes roughly an 8% increase in reimbursement rates for primary care."
 
The Reality
 
Cutting Medicare by almost 10% and shifting the funds from Specialty care to Primary Care will not fix the problem of a shortage of Primary Care Providers because the problem is demographic, 
not national: http://www.managedcaremag.com/archives/0706/0706.shortage.html . Even an increase in Primary Care Providers will just add more to regions of the country where current primary care providers are retiring rather going to new places. However, if you had government run care, they could shift providers where they are needed most and turn specialists into primary care providers. But this plan doesn’t accomplish this. 
 
Mr. Schou, the reason you have to wait so long to see your doctor is because not enough doctors will work for what your insurance company will pay them. If Medicare begins to pay closer to what your insurance provider pays, it will be harder, not easier to get access to your doctor because he/she will be more willing to see Medicare patients filling up the office calendar. Also with everyone else having coverage, you will also be having a tougher time.
 
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97620520
 
The Distortion:
 
“The purpose of Medicare Advantage was to compete with government-provided Medicare and reduce costs. Instead, it increases costs by 14%. This is crazy, and "but it provides better service than Medicare" is over the line.”
 
Is this the SAME or a DIFFERENT 14% cut in Medicare as proposed by Republicans in the 1990s and was rejected by liberals in Congress? 
How are you going to make up the difference that Nursing Homes get? If Nursing home budgets are cut by 5% and medical costs rise 10%, who takes the cut? Or is our concern for the quality of life in Nursing Homes not as important anymore as increasing profits for insurance companies?
 
The Distortion:
 
“However, the insurance subsidy is delivered as a tax credit, which means that the illegal immigrant would have to have a fraudulent SSN in order to use their taxes.”
 
And your point being what, Mr. Schou? That people who enter the country illegally, and use a fraudulent SSN to get jobs, enter their children in school, get food stamps, subsidized housing, and other state and federal programs would be unwilling to use the same fraudulent SSN to get free medical care for themselves, their spouses, children, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, cousins, parents, grandparents, and other relatives and friends? On what grounds that would they not? That it is illegal? That they feel bad about getting free medical care from the US Government that stole their native land and treats them as second class citizens? I don’t think so.
 
Do you think the US government will racially profile people with Hispanic names to see if they are not using fraudulent SSNs? I don’t think so.. Do you think they will check everyone to see if they are not using fraudulent SSNs? I don’t think so, that would never make it through Congress. Sorry, but if you add 20 million illegal aliens at $7,000+ a person we will be broke. 
 
The only way to provide proper health care for illegal immigrants is to reduce the costs of health care and provide them a path to citizenship which includes them paying into the system. 
 
The Distortion:
 
“This is exactly what the insurance companies have been clamoring for for years. Here's why: insurers will have the choice of 50 regulatory schemes. When that happens, as has happened with the regulation of credit cards and trusts, there's a regulatory "race to the bottom" to capture as much of the industry as possible under the least restrictive regulatory scheme.”
 
Not true Mr. Schou, if you also create federal regulations when you allow for pooling across state lines. Interstate commerce is federally regulated. The Federal government can also reduce or eliminate state funding for certain items if it refuses to amend their current laws to conform to new federal regulations as it did with highway funds and under 21 drinking in 1984. 
 
The Distortion:
 
“Government-run health care is both the cheapest and the most popular health care in this country. Medicare has been experiencing only a 5.6% annual cost increase; the average increase in the cost of private health care is 5.9%.”
 
Not true, Mr. Schou, Medicare is not government health care. It is government provided health insurance. There is a difference. It is cheapest, but Medicare and Medicaid clients are discriminated against and often turned away by private providers whenever they can. The only reason many private providers take them is because federal laws force them.
 
Government health care would be government operated hospitals and clinics that are funded by the government and the employees are salaried government employees.  This is what I am in favor of doing. It is the only way to keep costs of needed care down to where everyone can get care. 


Donovan Arnold


      
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