A Guest Post By Barbara O'Brien From MahaBlog

Thanks to Cujo who points out the problems with Barbara's post. OTC has never gone to the HC trough other than to say it's a piss poor bill. Make your own mind up but I'll go with Cujo.

Cujo359 said...

No, the HCR bill did not end lifetime limits on coverage. That was eliminated from the Senate bill, and never restored.

Children with pre-existing conditions may not be excluded from current policies. Thanks to the way the law was written, insurers still have the right to refuse to write new policies for children with pre-existing conditions. That supposedly will end in 2014 (at least, it will be against the law), but ...

There will be no enforcement mechanism. The states are already underwater, they can't add staff to administer the programs. There was no LOE or budget assigned for enforcement at the federal level. That means it's up to the President to make a budget request. We're talking about billions of dollars here, since complaints from a customer base of almost 200 million people are bound to be rather numerous under the best of circumstances. If there's one thing both this Congress and this President have shown, it's that they aren't going to go out of their way to make insurance companies do anything.

OTOH, we will be required to pay for insurance. It will cost much of the (formerly) discretionary income of most people who do not have insurance today, and they will not be able to make use of that insurance, because the copays and deductibles will be too high.

Oh, and if your employer provides health insurance, it's probably going to get worse after 2016, which is when the excise tax starts rising.

This bill sucks, and anyone who can figure out the finances of the people who live from paycheck to paycheck, a category that includes most Americans these days who are lucky enough to still have jobs, would know that.

You don't even know what's in the bill, and you're trying to tell me I'm wrong for opposing it? The attention to detail that you are demonstrating is what allowed this piece of crap to pass in the first place. Thanks, but I think you need to do your homework before you start lecturing people.

Health Care Reform: The Morning After

Many politicians and pundits warned us that the health care reform (HCR) legislation that just became law will destroy America. Government bureaucrats will take over health care decisions, we were told. The old and infirm would be hauled away by death panels. Everything about the way we receive our medical care will change, and change drastically, they said.

Medicare recipients have been frightened by stories that their benefits will be cut. Middle-age people are worried they will lose their jobs when the law’s dreaded regulations, or taxes, or maybe regulations with taxes, would destroy their employers’ businesses.

The truth is, very little will change for most people. If you were insured by employee benefits before HCR, you will be insured by exactly the same policy in exactly the same way after HCR. You will have access to the same doctors on the same terms. “Government bureaucrats” will no more be involved in your health care than they were before.

And the same is true of Medicare, which of course is a government program, although many of the people who opposed the HCR bill don’t seem to know that.

Here are the “cataclysmic” changes to health care that are now in effect, or which will go into effect within the next six months for people who are already in group insurance plans:

• The law says you can’t lose your insurance coverage because you get sick. Before, in many states, if you were stricken with a severe illness such as mesothelioma cancer that would be expensive to treat, your insurer could use just about any excuse to cancel your coverage. That is over.

• HCR has ended lifetime limits on coverage. As long as you are receiving medical care, your insurer pays the bills.

• Your children can be covered on your existing policy until they are 26 years old.

• In six months, insurers cannot refuse to insure people under the age of 19 because of “pre-existing conditions.” This provision will go into effect for everyone in 2014.

And if you are on Medicare, you will be asked to struggle with the following:

• You get a free annual checkup.

• The co-pays and deductibles on many preventive care services are eliminated.

• If you are in the Medicare D “doughnut hole,” you will get a $250 rebate check in a few weeks. The hole itself will be closed gradually and will be gone by 2020.

But what about all those terrible regulations and taxes that are about to drive businesses out of business? Um, there really isn’t much to report. Oh, wait, here’s one — a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps will go into effect July 1. That’s about it.

However, beginning this year a tax credit will be available for some small businesses to help provide insurance coverage for employees.

Soon the politicians and pundits will start trying to frighten you about the provisions that will go into effect after this year. I assure you they are about as scary as the provisions that go into effect this year, but I will discuss them in a follow-up post.

— Barbara O’Brien