It’s fascinating to watch our flawed legislative system “work.” Buy offs, illegitimate martinets demanding their 15 minutes, deals with money hungry corporate entities, bribery at every level, compromises until it’s hard to recognize what’s really been accomplished and complexity that violates the KISS principle. It’s certainly not pretty, efficient or effective.
Despite all that the resulting bill improves the current dysfunctional non-system and should be passed. This conclusion is more a comment on the current pathetic state of health care in America than an unqualified endorsement.
In a “two party” democracy one would have thought the opposition would have something to offer. But in this case the best they could do was maintain that free emergency room care was the answer to our health care problems. Incredible.
The bill allows insurers to rate on age but appears to stop the practice of varying rates according to illness.
‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—With respect to the premium rate charged by a health insurance issuer for health insurance coverage offered in the individual or group market—
‘‘(1) such rate shall vary only by— ‘‘(A) family structure; ‘‘(B) community rating area; ‘‘(C) the actuarial value of the benefit; ‘‘(D) age, except that such rate shall not
vary by more than 2 to 1; and
‘‘(2) such rate shall not vary by health status- related factors, gender, class of business, claims ex- perience, or any other factor not described in paragraph (1).
The publicity on the bill claims no one can be denied coverage and that rates will not be increased (presumably after issuance) for a pre existing illness. It does sanction a 3:1 increase based on increasing age, hardly a people friendly policy. Considering that the average cost of insurance for a family is in the range of $10,000, such variation in charges are prohibitive. If this is so it’s hardly a benevolent system or one in which the health and well-being of those covered is the primary objective.
Companies in the exchanges would have to offer policies to all customers, regardless of their health status. Insurers could not charge older people more than three times what they charge their youngest customers, an unprecedented national restriction on what is known as age-rating.
It’s also unclear what the bill will do to decrease costs to a more reasonable level; to rein in corporate profits; or whether it will provide objective evaluations of the effectiveness of outrageously expensive therapies and improve efficiency.
Until we are more concerned with patients than corporate profits our health care will be costly and, for the amount spent, mediocre.
Medicynical Note: I’m in awe of a health care system that can charge $20 for a flu vaccine and then add $38 to the bill as a fee for the injection–as I was recently billed. We need to put the health care reform ball in play and make changes in its trajectory as we go.
Medicynic 