First I want to say this diary isn't meant to belittle anyone or take away from the reality that millions are uninsured and need proper health care (indeed, "people are hurting"). But as it stands, if you can't afford health insurance now, you're not likely to be able to afford the public option in the house bill:
The budget office said "a less healthy pool of enrollees" would probably be attracted to the public option, drawn by the prospect of looser rules on access to specialists and medical services.
As a result, premiums in the public plan would be higher than the average for private plans. That could nudge healthy middle-class workers and their families to sign up for private plans.
So not only does this version of "reform" not even come close to covering the 50 million uninsured, but it actually could end up helping the for-profit insurance industry.
My wife and I are an almost too classic case of insurance woes in America. I'm uninsured, on principle. I refuse to throw cash into a profit pit designed to devise the most clever way to keep my money while at the same time avoiding actually providing any services that I might need. Indeed, the prospect of someone at a health insurance company actually paid to figure out how to make money off of debilitating illnesses and pain disgusts me to the point where I simply refuse to take part.
As if I needed any more convincing in favor of my position, there's my wife's situation - she actually has health coverage provided through her employer. For months she has been in pain, heretofore undiagnosable by doctors in spite of several tests she has been administered. Now, the insurance company refuses to pay for the tests because for three months last year she had no coverage. The reality: she had been hired for a contract position at a university but had to wait those three months for the contract to begin. The insurance company's fantasy: she was actually avoiding getting coverage for those three months because she was hiding a preexisting condition (never mind the fact that whatever her condition is, he symptoms didn't begin until after she started her new job). She's still in pain, undiagnosed, and now cannot see any more doctors or have any more tests unless we pay for it all ourselves.
This is our system, in a nutshell. The for-profit insurance industry gets free rein to rake us over the coals. And from what I can tell, Congress has utterly failed to solve it with what they are offering:
The budget office estimated that about 6 million people would sign up for the public option in 2019, when the House bill is fully phased in. That represents about 2 percent of a total of 282 million Americans under age 65. (Older people are covered through Medicare.)
The overwhelming majority of the population would remain in private health insurance plans sponsored by employers. Others, mainly low-income people, would be covered through an expanded Medicaid program.
My worst case scenario fear is that this "public option" is a poison pill that will destroy the notion of a reliable government backed plan by being so prohibitively expensive that few will take part, and ultimately it will collapse under its own weight. I know how the argument goes: once we open the door to government involvement, we can improve the service and eventually expand into a single payer system. Here's my argument: a poorly designed public option will stand as a glaring example for all of the "government is bad" factions to use to kill the idea for at least a generation, maybe more. Insurance companies will be able to keep their rate structure the same for healthy people and, while prohibited from denying those with preexisting conditions, will be happy to charge something close to what the anemic public option costs, because with only a relatively small pool of the highest risk patients in the government-backed plan, that figure will be considerably higher than what a plan for a healthy person would cost. In the meantime, they will continue their own "death panel" practice of pursuing every means possible to deny services.
The Democrats' approach to health insurance reform has been riddled with mistakes. Day one should have begun with a simple proclamation: our position is single payer and our compromise position is a public option open to EVERYONE alongside an end to the antitrust exemption; anyone in our caucus not on board with this: prepare to lose your committee assignments.
So I may be uninsured, and now probably my wife also. But merely passing a severely lame attempt at "reform" simply to be able to go back to your constituents and say you did something doesn't fit my definition of responsible and beneficial legislation. And from what I can see what's in the bills on offer does nothing to help either one of us - not in 2013, not in 2019, and maybe not ever.