by Tom KandoAn Englishman was recently heard asking some American visitors: “Why do you Americans want healthcare to fail?”
Such a question can only be asked by a sober outsider, because American society is in the grips of a frenzy, as if drug-induced orgy of piling on Obamacare.
It began with ridiculing the technical difficulties experienced during Obamacare’s roll-out. The website didn’t work (very well). This attack is not lethal. Everyone has had a good time with this issue, including Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live. The White House can parry this attack, explaining that the technical problems will soon be solved, and that they have nothing to do with the substance of Obamacare.
Let me also remind you that the initial implementation of Bush’s drug plan in 2003 was an even greater fiasco, even though it was piggy-backing on an already existing bureaucracy - Medicare.
But now a second issue is spreading like wildfire. And the attack on Obamacare is no longer just the purview of Fox News and of crypto-fascists like Charles Krauthammer and Rush Limbaugh. Now, “mainstream” outlets such as NBC and even respected people like Charlie Rose are piling on.
The allegation is that millions of Americans are being disenrolled from their health insurance, forced to go without health insurance, and will soon DIE.
Our blog receives comments such as the following (always bravely signed “anonymous”):
NBC News: "President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting...cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare... and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years." OBAMA LIED, PEOPLE DIED”
And:
“NBC ( a notoriously liberal organization) is telling me that MILLIONS will have their insurance cancelled after Obama LIED to them and told them they would be able to keep it. Now some will DIE because they can’t afford the increased premiums.”
We are back to Sarah Palin’s “death panels”!
But here are some facts:
1. There are about 12 million people with individual health plans (5% of the total). Some of these people are getting “cancellation” notices from their insurance company.
2. These are primarily people who have Junk Insurance. Their policies have very high premiums, deductibles and co-payments, lifetime maximums, exclusion of many major ailments, etc. These policies are in violation of the new Affordable Care Act.
3. Instead of their useless junk policies, most of these people are offered far superior AND OFTEN CHEAPER policies that comply with the ACA’s standards. This is called upgrading. Anyone making under $96,000 for a family of four qualifies for the federal subsidy!
4. Initially, even these individual junk policies were “grand fathered” into the ACA, so as to allow any fool who wished to stick with his bad old policy to do so. The only stipulation was that individual junk policies which were altered after a certain date would NOT be grand fathered in. Then the insurance companies made what they call “business decisions.” At renewal time (typically once a year), many policy holders’ premiums were raised, their coverages were reduced, etc. These policies could no longer be grand fathered into the ACA. It became permissible to cancel such policies (although the customers have been offered the option to upgrade).
5. Did the President lie? He did not. The intent was to grand father into Obamacare all previous existing individual plans, even garbage plans. The administration bent over backwards to make the statement “no one will be dropped” true. Even those whose policies were tampered with by the insurance companies after the deadline got a year’s grace period.
6. Obama made a mistake: He counted on the insurance companies’ cooperation, not on them undermining Obamacare. He should have anticipated that insurance companies would change the terms of some of their policies. He should have said, months ago: If you have junk insurance, which protects you against practically nothing, and the terms of your policy have been tampered with by your insurance company recently, you have to make a choice: (1) Get a new plan that complies with Obamacare, which in most cases will be cheaper and will provide far better coverage, or: (2) get rid of your junk plan, save money, pay the minor penalty, and wait until you get sick to get health insurance.
7. NBC and other media report, irresponsibly, that up to 2 million people are getting screwed. This is false. Most of these people will in fact be upgraded to better health plans. What’s being canceled is some of the junk insurance. So why do the media report only the trouble with Obamacare?
Conservatives realize, of course, that if Obamacare succeeds, this will be the biggest nail in their coffin.
As to the media that are supposed to support the president, I suppose they fear that if they report positively about Obamacare, they’ll be viewed as biased.
Meanwhile, the media-induced lunacy spreads. Thousands of comments made on various websites are almost unanimous in their vitriolic denunciation of the ACA and of the President, while at the same time displaying appalling ignorance and illiteracy.
Apparently, America wants health care to fail. Republicans don’t wish to improve health care. They oppose ANY universal/mandated health care system, something which exists in EVERY other advanced country. Check out Canada, Australia, Japan, China, Germany, Scandinavia, the UK, France, most of the rest of Europe and much of Asia. Dozens of countries define health care constitutionally as a RIGHT, not as welfare or as a mere entitlement. They understand that PROFITING from people’s illnesses is fundamentally wrong. As long as the American health care system is based on PROFIT, it will remain inferior to that of other countries: Costlier, and keeping people less healthy.
Is America hellbent on remaining the last bastion of feudalism in the Western world? leave comment here
© Tom Kando
7 comments:
In 1993 Hillary Clinton showed her contempt for individual choice - she justified an extensive expansion of federal authority with the comment - "We just think people will be too focused on saving money and they won't get the care for their children and themselves that they need" - She believed, as do the supporters of the ACA that federal officials know better than individuals about what they need.
What you call "junk" policies are mostly what are called high deductible where individuals insure against costs they cannot afford and bear the everyday costs of health care. That is a logical decision for many consumers.
If you carry the "logic" in then you would also agree that the government should determine which cars are junk - that kind of logic produced the Trabant.
The simple answer is not that American's want health care to fail, but that neither political party is concerned about them. Republicans want financial industries (like insurance companies) to be dependent on on government. Democrats want more taxpayer dollars for bureaucratic jobs in the name of social goods. I am beginning to think that we are witnessing the result of a generation of dysfunctional families and that people in government are as prepared to lead as single 13 year old Moms are prepared to raise their children. When the people in government in both parties are dependents on government, there are no adults in charge.
The evidence supports your premise, alas. CNBC interviewed a 20 something who complained that her current out-of-pocket health care cost of $600 last year would be less than next year's ACA premium. This was presented as a valid gripe by a middle aged reporter who knows better.
Piling on is all the media seems to know how to do lately.
Good point about it being similar to the Medicare drug plan rollout.
Thanks for the comments.
Jonathan, yes, the Trabant was a ridiculous car. I drove it sometimes, when visiting my country of birth - Hungary - back in the 1970s and 1980s. The Trabant is a poster picture for the failure of the 100% planned economies under Communism. However, the transition to what you have there now - like Russia’s wild-west capitalism - is not the solution either. There has got to be a better way, namely a mixed economy.
NWE has well internalized the current party line. He defines, as do most Americans by now, “the government, and dependency on the government, as the problem.” To him, the two parties are both equally bad. I disagree. One party is much worse than the other. Furthermore, you misdiagnose the problem. It is not “excessive dependency on the government.” Defining the problem that way is only a reflection of the ruling class’ ideology, and of the fact that America is the most conservative country in the Western world.
Anonymous’ anecdote is indeed illustrative.
Anyone who wants to know how American health care compares with the rest of the world needs to read "The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care" by T.R. Reid. NOBODY else wants to have a health care system like ours! And we, as citizens, deserve better.
Sharon:
Thank you so much.
The public indeed needs more correct information, and a more global perspective, rather than the propaganda and the falsehoods to which it is relentlessly exposed, and instead of the parochial perspective which suggests that the world stops at our borders.
I am confident that people like you are making a significant grassroots contribution to educating the public.
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