While the final version of a federal health care reform plan remain to be worked out by congressional leaders, the broad outlines are increasingly clear.
While we have concerns about a mandate to purchase insurance (something that President Obama opposed on the campaign trail) as well as the backroom deals it took to reach 60 votes in the Senate, the upsides of this bill are significant.
That’s something that seems to have escaped the notice of much of the public, which appears to have soured on the measure in recent weeks. We believe that will change as the public actually learns the details of the plan.
Many conservatives are unlikely to change their view, but much of the decline in support recently has come from liberals, who are disappointed that a new public option was dropped from the Senate bill. That focus on the “public option” obscures the fact that both the House and Senate plan significantly expand eligibility for a long-established public option— Medicaid.
The expanded eligibility is expected to add at least 175,000 Minnesotans to the Medicaid rolls, with the federal government paying 91 percent of the bill. That’s ultimately good news for the state because it will eliminate the need for the General Assistance Medical Care program as well as reduce the MinnesotaCare caseload significantly, potentially saving the state as much as $800 million a year.
It will also extend medical care to a large number of working adults without children, who currently don’t qualify for other public programs. That extension will bring insurance coverage to adults without children living right now in places like Ely, Orr, Virginia, or Tower-Soudan. At least 7,000 residents of St. Louis County will see quality coverage that they didn’t have before. Across the country, an estimated 14-15 million Americans will become eligible for Medicaid. It represents a major step forward in reducing the ranks of the uninsured. The alternative “public option” would not have affected as many people.
But there’s much more to the plan than a Medicaid expansion. Other benefits include:
• Added funding for expanding the network and services of community health centers. This will not only assist existing community health centers in our region, it makes establishing new health centers, like one in Tower, more likely.
• Requiring insurance companies to pay out 85 percent of premiums in actual benefits. While the insurance mandate will presumably create millions of new customers for private insurance companies, a long list of new regulations will require them to operate more responsibly. No longer will they be able to charge more or deny coverage for pre-existing conditions or charge older enrollees exorbitant rates.
• Expanding the National Health Service Corporation to encourage the training of more primary care physicians and sending them to underserved regions of the country— like ours. The country already faces a shortage of primary care physicians and we know that expanding access is likely to increase demand for services. Expanding the ranks of primary care physicians is the best and most affordable means of meeting that demand.
• Filling the “doughnut” hole in Medicare Part D, to reduce out-of-pocket expenses for seniors.
• Expanding benefits without expanding the deficit. That’s a big contrast to the creation of Medicare Part D, when the Republican-led Congress created a huge new benefit without any new taxes or offsetting spending cuts. That half trillion dollar measure was funded 100 percent by deficit spending. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Senate health care bill will actually reduce the deficit through a combination of new taxes and spending cuts.
Certainly, the plan falls short in many ways. While it does take some important steps to control costs, the nation needs to do more. The rising cost of health care represents one of the biggest threats facing this country today, one that will increasingly bankrupt businesses and government alike. This bill is not the final answer. But it’s a reasonable start, one that deserves support, not vilification.
More government involvement in the healthcare system means increased taxes for everyone. That is not what the President has said, but just look at Social Security and Medicare to see the pattern. Our government doesn't do anything very well. The current plan is said to cost 900 billion dollars or so over the first ten years. Half will be paid for with new taxes and fees. The rest is supposed to come from savings in Medicare/Medicade. If the government could find 50 billion dollars per year in waste and fraud in the current system wouldn't they have done so already? Our taxes will go up in 2010 to raise the money for the ten year period ending in 2020. The program doesn't begin spending the money until 2014. Wait and see how much more we will be paying when 2020 rolls around. If you save money for 10 years and spend it in 6 years and break even (or as CBO claims you have a little money left over) how can you fund the next 10 years?
175,000 Minnesotans getting free health care that we are paying for? The federal government runs on tax dollars. They have ZERO incentive to save money. Billions have been spent and not investigated in Medicaire/Medicaid fraud. Remember the $2,000 toilet seats, and $60.00 claw hammers? You folks that think entitlements and government bailouts are good things must not be paying taxes.
I love the clear thinking and expressions of wisdom which come out of those who comment! (But fear they will not pick up on the sarcasm in my words.)
Requiring everyone have insurance is unconstituional. I am hoping that some blue dog dems. get their heads out of the kool-aid and vote no. Requiring young, healthy people be insured is ridiculous, it is a ruse to get more customers for the insurance industry. There has been little mention of "major medical" poliicies as a solution for the uninsured. Those policies are for cancer, major medical events. My 21 year old son does not need or want insurance, but the administration is going to "make" him buy it? We need term limits now. We need tort reform, and no more lawyers should be elected to public office.
To the previous writer: I hope that your son is totally immune from all possible diseases and guaranteed not to have an accident. And, of course, does not drive, ride any vehicle that might go where he doesn't want it to go.
P.s. As I said in an earlier comment, what has become of "clear thinking"?
P.p.s. I wish your son great luck. Without it ... or coverage ... the bill is on me, and other taxpayers anyway.
When I was young and healthy, I did not need insurance. If I got sick I paid the bill. That is, sadly, no longer possible, in large part due to the inflated rates cozy deals between insurance companies and HMO's have inflicted on us all. Medical costs have skyrocketed, have you noticed, along with insurance premiums. Today young people have to have insurance and cannot afford it because of stagnant wages, soaring education costs and a lack of jobs. It is amazing to me that people fear government options and price controls and yet find not fault with a system that is disenfranchising our children, placing undue burden on the aged and nickle-diming the rest of us with legal manipulations that employ legions are analysts to ferret out ways to deny coverage on technicalities. They fear a system that give us more scrutiny and control and defend a system that is bankrupting us an leaving us more and more unprotected while digging every more deeply into our pockets and fighting to be sure no serious options can thrive. This is about money... more money for those who already have too much.