Landmark? Health care? Hmmm...
This morning the New York Times front page, definitive article about the health care bill that passed the House is notable for what it omits: pretty much all of the crucial details about this “landmark” legislation. Instead the authors focus on how the bill got passed, who did what to get it through, who gave who a high five and cheered on the House floor - all of the chattering, un-wonky, and frankly irrelevant details. If you were hoping to figure out exactly what you, the American taxpayer, will be purchasing if this bill is eventually signed by the President, you wouldn’t have but a very vague idea if you just read this article.
So that got me to thinking: did the authors just find the process of passing the legislation more interesting than the bill itself? Did they not really understand the bill very well and so chose to focus on other details about it? Or, is there really not very much to the bill other than the meager details mentioned in the article?
According to the NYT article, the House bill allocates $1.4 trillion of American taxpayer dollars over the next 10 years to the following:
- “coverage” extended to 36 million people who do not currently have insurance;
- creating a “government health insurance program”;
- ending insurance company practices like not covering people with pre-existing conditions or dropping coverage when an insured becomes ill;
- requiring most Americans to get health insurance or face penalties;
- requiring American companies to provide “coverage” to their employees or face penalties;
- cutting Medicare and expanding Medicaid;
- offering subsidies to help moderate income people buy insurance from insurers or the “government insurance plan”;
- setting up a “national insurance exchange” where Americans can shop for coverage.
Where are all of the crucial details? What is that monumental “coverage” for 36 million Americans who do not currently have insurance that the Democrats are pounding each other on the back about? An annual checkup and one office visit? Is that what it is - and, is that really “coverage”? And why is there a provision forcing these people to get insurance? Won’t they realize on their own what a precious gift they’ve been given? What is a “goverment health insurance program” anyway?
Most importantly, what does the bill do to help the average middle class American who gets more expensive - but less useful - coverage every year?
What does the bill do to help remedy the following insane scenarios that plays out, with infinite variations, every day in America. Mom, insured under a high deductible plan in which she is responsible for payment of the first $5,000 of health care costs annually, doesn’t take her daughter to the doctor for days while the child suffers a high fever, because she knows the visit will cost her $150 that she doesn’t have right now. Dad, insured under a similar high deductible plan, visits the doctor after days of coughing and nose blowing only to be told that he has spent $130 on a cold. But, the doctor prescribes an antibiotic anyway, because it’s Friday and that cold might get worse over the weekend when it’s impossible to see a doctor without waiting six hours, and even though the cold doesn’t get worse, Dad gets the prescription filled anyway because the next time he gets sick he figures he can just take the antibiotic and save some money skipping the doctor’s visit.
While I have not read the 2,000 page House bill, I am fairly sure that it does nothing to address these kinds of monumental, landmark problems faced by average Americans.
In the end, though, it is likely that the House bill will be torn asunder in the Senate, and if health care reform passes at all it will likely not resemble the House bill anyway - from The National Review today:
Greater scrutiny will not help the Democrats’ efforts. In truth, their hopes for passage largely hinge on successfully hiding two plain facts from the voters: One, the House Republicans and the Congressional Budget Office have now shown that a bill costing $61 billion can lower Americans’ insurance premiums, while bills costing $1.7 trillion cannot (and instead would raise them substantially). Two, the Democrats’ plans would be paid for only if they follow through on plans to siphon hundreds of billions of dollars out of already-barely-solvent Medicare, and to do so just in time for the baby boomers’ retirement.
We can only hope that the Senate does better - and, that our newspapers are capable of doing a better job explaining to us, the taxpayers, what exactly we’re getting for our money.
