Misunderstanding mars health care reform debate
As reported at MSNBC, a joint Wall Street Journal/NBC poll was conducted in mid-August, and the results suggest that misunderstanding is preventing people from informed participation in the debate over health care reform.
Among the alarming examples:
- Nearly half of Americans surveyed wrongly believe claims that the government would start making decisions about when to stop providing care to the elderly.
- Over half of those surveyed believe health care reform would lead to a “government takeover of the health care system.”
- Even more believe President Obama’s plan would extend health insurance coverage to illegal immigrants – which has never been in the plan.
In fact, some who are misrepresenting that last point supported similar language in President Bush’s Medicare part D bill in 2003, which pretty much confirms that there are the same tired old partisan realities – and players – driving the debate that most Americans voted to fix in November of 2008. Perhaps they’re being influenced by big donations and lobbyists, since the insurance industry is presently spending between one and two million dollars per day to persuade D.C. to leave things just as they are – a strategy that hasn’t worked out well for consumers when applied to Wall Street and banks.
However, polls still show most Americans support President Obama’s health care reform plan and the public option once they know the real truth, and 62% of those in the survey disapprove of GOP handling of health care reform. Of course, 14% reported they had no health care insurance, so one can imagine that they mostly find reasons to support improvements in the current model. (If you multiply that 14% by the estimated 2009 population of the USA, incidentally, that suggests there are over 43,000,000 Americans without insurance.)
So, while there are those who say Obama’s plan isn’t good enough for one reason or another, NBC and the Wall Street Journal found that an overwhelming 91% of respondents felt that at least minor reform was needed, and 60% of those surveyed indicated the system needed major reform, if not a complete overhaul. Clearly, some just don’t want to support a solution associated with the President even though they aren’t satisfied with the way health care insurance is currently practiced in the USA.
So why do we continue to hear that we have the greatest system on earth? Is it because we spend the most, or because special interest money is dominating the media and the dialog?
Digg this discussion
RSS - Posts
If ObamaCare, as it is currently written – HR 3200 being the only bill truly in play at this time – is implemented, the government will decide what is required to be covered by plans on the Exchange and will determine reimbursement schedules (pricing of procedures) for the Public Option.
***
Given Dr. Emanuel’s views, it would obviously entail choices being made by the government of covering the aged. Would it be death panels? No! But it would likely mean grandma doesn’t get her new hip…
***
ObamaCare would essentially be a government takeover of the health insurance industry. They would be telling the companies who to cover and what to cover. The government would also be entering into direct competition with those companies and be able to undersell them.
Even Obama has said aloud that the Public Option could be a first step to a Single Payer system.
***
HR 3200 (section 1702) would extend non-emergency Medicaid coverage to illegals due its calling for state agencies to have reduced questioning and reporting capabilities.
***
You see, that’s the thing; Obama is lying and so are the GOP, and they’re lying in the same fashion. They’re oversimplifying things so that the masses can easily digest them.
Well, to call it ObamaCare is another version of “oversimplifying things” if not outright misleading, since to this point the bills have been taking shape in the House and Senate based on their own priorities and agendas. Neither is a product of the White House or the President, despite their fairly clear election mandate to insure the matter of reform is brought to a vote (by which I mean that it was a majority of US voters who put Obama into the Oval Office, and health care reform was one of his principle platforms.)
How one can assert anything about “grandma” getting her new hip before either bill passes, let alone the two being reconciled and/or being signed into law, rather beggars the imagination. Nonetheless, if we can get health care administration costs overall down from the 33%+ that most private insurers tack on to more like the 2-3% that existing government administered plans operate on, perhaps those savings would make it easier to find the money to pay for that hip. It’s not evident as I check either bill that your fears are justified.
If the insurance industry can find a way to run their paperwork at or about the same margins that the government can, then they won’t be the victims of your theoretical take-over. Of course, they’ll have to stop spending the money they collect for premiums on lobbyists and influence peddling as they do now, and the CEOs may have to settle for 6-digit salaries, but I’m OK with it either way if it gets those over 40 million Americans properly covered. There’s certainly nothing in the language that prevents private insurance companies from persisting, unless they fear competing (which does seem to be the case, ironically.)
Since Obama has been largely pushing HR 3200, “ObamaCare” is a convenient shortcut nomenclature. I admit though, that it’s less than fully accurate.
You’re also overstating the overhead of the private sector by about 10% and understating the true overhead of the government plans by about 9% Private insurance firms run about 23% overhead and Medicare / Medicaid run about 12% if one takes into account the overhead absorbed by other agencies in the government.
But tell me…how does any for-profit company compete with a government-ran non-profit, especially when other provisos in the bill will already damage their bottom line?
You keep speaking to what is formally written in the bills and don’t address what the effects of those things will be.
No, jonolan, I am citing facts which are widely cited and easily verified with a quick google search (among other means,) which you’re disputing in order to engage me in speculation about potential, entirely hypothetical outcomes of as-yet-unfinished legislation — which therefore also hasn’t been brought up for a vote let alone passed by either house. I’m not psychic, so I decline that exercise.
I understand your fears, they’ve been stoked by the very misinformation uncovered in the poll mentioned in my first post. You need to do more research, clearly. How an insurance company competes is so simple I suspect you’re simply trying to waste my time, but perhaps unlike me you’ve never owned a business or given it much thought, so for the sake of thoroughness, the proven answer is: by controlling overhead costs.
Stop by my blog sometime. You’ll find that I do my own research and do it almost obsessively since I trust no MSM outlets.