Why I don’t like the Senate Health Care Bill

I am a liberal.  I am not afraid to say it.  I am extremely progressive when it comes to social policy.  However, I am also an avowed Capitalist and I do think capitalism is the best insurer of democracy and therefore individual liberty.

There is a lot in the senate’s version of the health care reform bill that I don’t like.  First – I would prefer a public option.  A robust public option.  Medicare for all – allow us to buy into the system at any age.  I also really like the Hawaiian system which sets a price that policies will be offered at and private companies compete for individuals to buy those policies – so an exchange is good.

There are several things I don’t like about the Senate bill.  First, the mandates.  We should not be forcing anyone to purchase any product or service from any company or industry.  Yes, I realize that spreading the risk around helps reduce costs, but in this case they won’t.  The insurance industry has plenty of health people they are making oodles on.  The insurance industry is currently making healthy profits.  A larger pool of clients isn’t going to impact anything and the mandate does force people to buy a product or service from a company they might not want to do business with.  Me for instance.  I don’t want to buy insurance from any of the private carriers available in Florida anymore because they have ALL defrauded me.

My second concern is with the subsidies.  If you can’t afford the private over priced insurance that isn’t really insurance product, your fellow taxpayers will pay your premiums for you.  Originally the subsidies were supposed to be so people could get into a public plan.  This isn’t the case anymore.  It is basically a way to transfer taxpayer money to the already profit making insurance companies, except unlike the bank bailout – the insurance companies are not planning to pay us back.

More importantly, subsidies will not help lower the cost of insurance just as housing subsidies have not reduced the cost of low income housing.  There is no reason to lower the costs so your clients can afford your product when the government is willing to pay the difference.  Subsidies are a SERIOUSLY bad idea.

I don’t like how the plan to pay for this – by taxing already expensive health care policies.  So, if you are lucky enough to be able to afford a real health insurance policy and not just one of the shams pretending to be a policy – your policy will get taxed.  Even if you aren’t paying for it because it is a benefit as part of your work.  And that tax will be 40% tax.  Yikes.  Taxing health insurance plans isn’t going to do anything to make insurance more affordable.  It makes it less affordable and encourages people to take the more crappy policies that don’t actually cover anything instead.  But perhaps that is what the insurance companies want.  

Finally, there is no option for people the private insurance companies refuse to insure.  For instance, if you have had cancer, they will take you and charge you $2k/month, but… that policy won’t insure any current or future cancer care.  With the new regulations that would require them to insure your cancer care if they take you – you can bet insurance companies will just refuse to issue these survivors policies.  So… people who are sick will still not be able to get insurance unless they go broke and become eligible for a government program.  So… again – no reform – just more of the sickening same status quo.

The only good thing about the bill is that it will make it illegal for insurance companies to not preclude pre-existing conditions.  Which is nice, except you are probably going to need to be able to afford a lawyer to enforce that clause.  Same thing if they drop you if you get sick.  They will and you will need a lawyer to fight for you.  So, while this aspect of the bill is nice, it isn’t really a guarantee that this will happen.

The only good thing is that the pre-existing condition periods will end – where they take your $1,500/month after accepting you as a client and let you have an annual physical at a cost of $75 to them, but then they won’t pay for any tests for 18 months because you might potentially have a pre-existing condition even if your tests come back negative.  Oh – and yes – they will suspend you while taking your $1,500 until you can prove that you don’t have a pre-existing condition that is why you had a test which only cost $231. (sigh – did I mention I am sick of being defrauded by these stupid companies). 

So…. one bright spot, and the rest is a big massive give away to the insurance companies that will reduce our liberty and not reduce costs one iota.  Lovely.  Unless the committee reconciling these bills gets us medicare or a public option – I think the house needs to reject this as it just isn’t going to be good for the country.

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Health Insurance Blues