Sen. Wyden hammers home the fallacies of the healthcare bills in Congress. You may have noticed his remarks on the front page of Politico talking about the great danger of Dems selling this bill as one of having hcare choices when only 10pct will have such a choice. In Huffington Post Wyden lays out the case for real choice.
He shatters many myths of the bill. One being your employer can go into the exchange. True- but if your employer does this who decides the insurance you get? Yep the benefits manager does.
What if your benefits manager goes with Aetna over a superior govt public option plan for the employees? What if Aetna treats your benefits manager with a great dinner and golf game while the govt pub. Opt. doesn’t offer such a bribe? We need real choices. You should have the right to make your insurance plan accountable by being able to take YOUR business elsewhere if you want. Choice is very American. Time to ask Congress for real choices NOW not later or ever.
The Choice Should Be YOURS.
By Sen. Wyden
Nov 16 2009
Polls show that Americans are really happy with the health insurance that they are getting from their employers; therefore health reform must protect these benefits by making it impossible for Americans to choose anything else.
I am mystified by this argument.
The logic is that, given the choice, millions of Americans would drop their employer provided benefits thus triggering some sort of employer-based system "death spiral." As scary as that sounds, how does it make sense? If Americans are really happy with the health insurance that they are getting from their employers, why would they choose something else? Moreover, if one of health reform's goals is to ensure that Americans are happy with their health insurance, why NOT let them choose something else if it would make them happier?
I agree with just about everyone in the reform debate when they say "If you like what you have, you should be able to keep it." But the truth is that none of the health reform bills making their way through Congress actually delivers on that promise. What the legislation guarantees is that your employer will continue to choose your health insurance plan for you....While it's likely that reform will expand health care choices for more employers by giving them access to the new health insurance exchanges, your company's human resource department will still be the one choosing whether or not to take your company to the exchange just as your human resource department will be the one picking your plan in the exchange. You may want the public option, but ... if your company's benefits manager picks something else, you get something else.
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Denying Americans the ability to make their own health care choices will also limit the impact that innovative new approaches like the public option will have on the system as a whole. For example, under the House Bill, ...CBO estimates that out of that 30 million in the exchange only 6 million Americans would enroll in the public option. How will competing for a fraction of the customers in this market have a significant impact on an insurer like UnitedHealth Group which will be guaranteed to keep the majority of the 73 million customers that it already has outside of the exchange? ...
Now imagine if YOU, rather than your company's benefits manager, was in a position to choose the health insurance plan. .... Well, under today's system, if an insurance company wants to attract new business or keep their customers, all they have to do is win over a company's benefits manager. (Dinner, golf, maybe tickets to a sporting event are all acceptable strategies.) But if all Americans are empowered to choose the health insurance plan that works best for them, insurance companies ... will need to start competing with other insurance companies to offer more affordable rates....
One analysis found that even just giving Americans a choice in where they get their health insurance could save Americans and their employers (because more choices and competition is good for business too) as much as $360 billion over ten years. ...Who would oppose such a plan? ...Well, benefits managers were the first to complain. ....I also don't understand why we would want to create a system that would force people to keep health insurance that they don't like....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...