I always look forward to your post even if sometimes we disagree. I can be a hot headed jerk, but I do appreciate the finesse you have in making your points.
In regards to the first article- I think if we get a public option we will see a profit loss from insurance companies as they lower their premiums. Also, as people-like the folks in Mass can shop for the best/cheapest coverage of course profits will decrease. Please tell me and I know you will if I am wrong;)
I would never put price caps on insurance- I do believe though that with a public option it can regulate its self.
In regards to the Cato Institute article its hard for me to read it without my own bias stacked against it. The CI is a libertarian think tank so of course the notion of socialized care would horrify them!
Here is a paragraph from the article:
“In the three years since Massachusetts enacted its individual mandate, providers successfully lobbied to require 16 specific types of coverage under the mandate: prescription drugs, preventive care, diabetes self-management, drug-abuse treatment, early intervention for autism, hospice care, hormone replacement therapy, non-in-vitro fertility services, orthotics, prosthetics, telemedicine, testicular cancer, lay midwives, nurses, nurse practitioners and pediatric specialists.
The Massachusetts Legislature is considering more than 70 additional requirements.
Those requirements can increase premiums by 14 percent or more.”
I don’t like the word “can” in the last sentence only because it is a speculation. Its an educated guess, but its not fact.
Another paragraph
“One way insurers can avoid the $50,000 patients is to drop benefits those customers find attractive. Shelby Rogers is a 12-year-old girl with spinal muscular atrophy, whose parents chose an Aetna plan through the price-controlled health insurance exchange for federal workers. Last year, Aetna announced it would drop coverage for Shelby’s 12-hour-a-day nurse, who, among other things, helps Shelby avoid bedsores by turning her over at night. An Aetna spokesman explained the reason was to avoid offering a benefit that causes the sickest patients to flock to the plan.”
Shelby’s parents can shop for another plan. Also, this is already happening in other states without any public option whatsoever. Honestly Allan, 12 hour a day nursing care. My plan is Blue Cross HMO after i spend a million dollars that’s it no more and many insurers are the same. This girl is 12…when she’s my age she would have exhausted her health benefits and no one else would want to insure her. She would/will eventually be on Medicaid regardless, because her parents cannot work forever.
Also, Aetna must have hated the bad press because they reinstated her current care for 2009 though won’t promise for 2010.
I’m not suprised that was said by Aetna, because they are still in it for profit.
The article is a good one, but it cuts off the rest of Merrit Hawkins findings about long waits that have increased “Phil Miller, vice president of public relations for Merritt Hawkins and Associates, sees one clear solution to long wait times:
“We need to be training more physicians, particularly primary care physicians,” he says. “We have been training the same number of doctors for the past 25 years, but a lot has changed in the last quarter-century”.
I am also wary of statements like these “Though initially popular, enthusiasm for the Massachusetts reforms may be on the wane. A recent poll found that more Massachusetts voters say the law has made health insurance less affordable (27 percent) than believe it has made coverage more affordable (21 percent). Voters who believe the reforms have been a failure outnumber those who believe the reforms have been a success by 37 percent to 26 percent”.
“May be on the wane”. Is it or isn’t it? Who did this poll? When was it taken? How many people participated?
One thing I noticed in the third article right away is that it states Mass already had the longest waits before 2006. Now they are longer, but they use Merrit Hawkins in the previous article and their findings show (which didn’t make it into the article) that all cities have seen an increase in wait times. So it seems natural that Mass still has the highest with or with out the health laws.
Allan, I get that it’s not without flaws I do. Its ill funded in 2009, but it wasn’t so bad in 2006. The recession has got to play a part in that.
Thank you for the articles I will read them again. I’m not trying to discredit the Cato Institute and they have been bipartisan in a number of issues and openly opposed Bush Jr. so they are immediately in my favor! They are Libertarian though and I can see and empathize how Obama and any notion of socialized care could rattle them to their bones.
