Beware of so-called doctors from Louisiana pleading to fix health care insurance is what I say.
Republican says ‘deal can be had’ on healthcare as subsidies set to expire
Senator Bill Cassidy urges collaboration between Democrats and his party after Senate rejected dual healthcare bills
I smell Senate GOP desperation in the air folks!
US senator Bill Cassidy said on Sunday that “there’s a deal to be had” on tackling the rising cost of healthcare, suggesting he remained optimistic over bipartisan cooperation on the issue despite the recent failure of two competing proposals in the Senate.
Speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation, the Louisiana Republican and chair of the Senate healthcare committee encouraged collaboration, saying “there has to be a meeting of the minds between Democrats” and members of his party.
This from the guy who supported a filibuster against the Democratic plan to renew the ACA subsidies for another three years. Cassidy’s plan, however, had no extension whatsoever. And his plan only had a measly $1000 contribution to a Health Savings Account ($1500 for us seniors). Oh, and there were more restrictions on spending any of that money on abortions or gender-affirming care.
But Cassidy now says that he might, sorta, kinda, maybe, think about doing a short-term extension of the ACA subsidies, provided Democrats work in a “bipartisan fashion.”
But WE (the royal WE) must do something about those high deductibles, at least according to Cassidy. Never mind about those premium spikes. It’s the high deductibles that have to be fixed.
I sense a profit motive here somewhere.
I do know that HSAs don’t do dick with premiums. They are paired with health insurance plans that have low premiums but sky-high deductibles. Those might be great if you are young and expect to never have an accident or a health emergency. But they suck for everyone else who might be health conditions or even have kids.
And they only really work if you are paid enough to save money for healthcare.
Anyway, Cassidy is not giving enough money even in his own HSA proposal, so how are high deductibles to be dealt with? If the government isn’t going to provide the money, where to get money to make those high-deductible plans cheaper? Beats me.
I can only think of two ways to make high deductibles cheaper, but it was a method that Republicans have already rejected: mandate everyone get health insurance. You expand the health insurance pool, and in theory, insurance companies would be able to spread the costs of the plans they offer over a broader number of healthy and sick people.
Oops. Republicans rejected the “individual mandate.” The SCOTUS struck it down as unconstitutional, or so I recall. Therefore, no forcing people to have health insurance.
I suppose the other idea might be to curtail medical coverage to patients. That’s done nowadays to anyone without health insurance. Plus, the ACA did away with all those pre-existing conditions regulations that insurers had to deny sick people coverage. We take your premium, but if you get seriously ill, die!
Something tells me that might be what dear old Cassidy might be angling for. Republicans have this belief that healthcare is expensive because there are too many people wanting a limited supply. In other words, supply and demand is out of whack when it comes to healthcare. And if Americans just took the time to be better consumers of medical care, we would have cheaper prices! We all want a Cadillac plan for health insurance, but damn it, some of us just have to do with a 70’S Ford Pinto!
Don’t believe me, read this from NPR on high-deductible health insurance and HSAs. According to Cassidy, he wants to leave it up to the patient to shop around and find the best quality health care for the lowest price. In fact, it’s what these plans were supposed to do for employers. It was a way to supposedly reign in higher medical bills.
Those plans are failing.
And why is Cassidy so hung up on this type of health insurance? Profit motive time. HSAs are invested in things like the stock market! And HSAs are great for wealthy people!
Democrats, whose support Republicans will likely need to pass any health care measure, have widely panned the GOP’s ideas. They are calling instead for an extension of the enhanced subsidies to control premium costs for most of the nearly 24 million Americans enrolled in the ACA marketplace, a larger pool than the 7.3 million people the Trump administration estimates soon will be eligible for HSAs.
HSAs “can be a useful tool for very wealthy people,” said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. “But I don’t see it as a comprehensive health insurance opportunity.”
Once again, this is another con from a so-called doctor who really is a partisan quack.
Why do I call him so-called doctor?
- He violated his medical oath by fighting to put RFK Jr. as head of HHS. Now, kids are dying and people are getting sick because of an anti-vax nut is in charge.
- Cassidy has not bothered to get off his ass in years to develop a health care bill that really addresses the needs of Americans who cannot afford health insurance.
- His latest proposal allows millions to go without health insurance, while padding the investments of wealthy people.
As I have said here multiple times, there is no way to fix this mess unless Republicans cave and extend the subsidies. But the GOP hates the ACA with the heat of a million suns, so I see no real compromise on the horizon. Millions will go without insurance next year. It’s a wreck that Trump and the Republicans engineered.
If the American people feel the pain of this next year, maybe they will vote out the Republicans in the midterms. And that is what keeps Cassidy up at night. He might lose his gig on that committee he chairs, and wouldn’t that be awful. /s.
