The Health Care Plans: Worthless

Now that I’m over my disappointment in the sudden withdrawal of John Edwards from the nomination race, I’m back to officially “undecided.” I’ve reservations about both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, beginning on the policy side with health care.

Since both Clinton and Obama developed their plans while taking large campaign contributions from insurers, it’s not surprising that their plans are “insurer-friendly.” Both involve mandates requiring citizens to purchase health insurance from an insurance company. Both avoid highlighting problems with the way insurance works as the reason our system is in such outrageous disarray.

Forcing people to buy health insurance doesn’t address the issue of access to health care. Insurance and treatment are two entirely different things. They’re artificially linked at the valuation end. The standard operating procedure to deny claims hasn’t just hurt the patients, it has hurt the health care providers as well. Hospitals are closing. The system’s been bled dry.

Requiring everyone (including the government) to give more money to the cause of the serious problems we face is astoundingly stupid. The greedy just get more money. Americans don’t get more health care.

Then there’s the question of who the mandate applies to. Clinton wants it to apply to everyone, even going so far as to garnish the wages of those who show up at ERs without coverage. Obama would let adults opt out. But if everyone doesn’t contribute to the pool, the problem of costs for those who do remains precisely the same and the bill still ends up in the government’s lap.

Nor does any of this address the scandalous and “ought to be illegal” tricks insurers use to limit their pools to the least likely to have medical problems (while leaving those most likely out in the cold). Both candidates promise to outlaw the practice of insurers refusing coverage for pre-existing conditions, but that is regulatory law the insurance lobby will fight tooth and nail. Those people will end up with federal coverage instead, the insurers will still discriminate. Then there’s the practice of simply refusing all claims unless the policyholder can afford to get a lawyer to threaten suit. Or the practice of approving necessary treatment and then rescinding approval after the treatment has been delivered – a practice that threatens the viability of hospitals, clinics and rehabilitation services directly. Or the practice of canceling policies if the premium is a day late, charging twice as much to reinstate.

Then there’s your basic “junk insurance” that if everyone is forced to purchase policies, will be all that a huge chunk of the middle class (up to $60K range) can afford. Junk insurance is insurance with large deductibles and co-pays – up to $20,000 per year for a family of 4 – that, if their income is going into buying junk insurance, the family won’t have to pay for doctors, treatments or drugs. In other words, junk insurance is pretty much the same thing as no insurance unless someone gets gravely injured or contracts a serious disease, and in that case the insurer will just refuse to cover claims or cancel the policy. Free money to rich insurers for exactly nothing to the person forced to buy it.

None of this addresses our health care crisis, none of it gets actual health care to any American citizen, and none of it is fundamentally different from what we [don't] have right now. But the insurance companies are bound to love it. They’ll get richer, America just gets sicker.

This is Super Tuesday and Americans are voting their diminished choices in 22 states, 1 territory and Dems abroad. Tomorrow we’ll see what the situation is, but since the polling outfits are finding it impossible to make accurate predictions this cycle, we might still be looking at a brokered convention. Which is a great place for Democrats to insist that real health care solutions be part of the platform and not corporate welfare to rich insurance companies.

Hillary’s Plan

Barack’s Plan

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Filed under Barack Obama, Campaigns, Class War, For-Profit Insurance, Health Care, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Party Primaries, Presidential Candidates, SCHIP, Universal Care | Comment (1)