If the individual mandate cost $25 a month, would the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act be debated in the U.S. Supreme Court this week? Perhaps not.
The individual mandate is a distraction from the real issue that the health care reform law didn't fix: health care is too expensive and unaffordable.
See what Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said on ABC News last January when she was asked what people should do when their health insurance premiums increase too much.
She replied, "They should contact the governor of their state and state legislature demanding that those laws be changed."
The health care reform law didn't really make health care affordable. It papered over the real cost with subsidies.
Why isn't health care affordable? Health care has caught the Wall Street fever and become just like the banks. See how health care and the banks operate the same way, documented in The Battle Over Health Care: What Obama's Reform Means for America's Future.
Just like the banks, health care has its own price bubbles, toxic assets, too-big-to-fail syndrome, conflicts of interest, the ratings game, and the tendency to privatize gains and socialize losses.
The result? Even with the reform law and subsidies, the cost will still be high for many Americans.
A single 60-year old woman earning $48,000 won't be eligible for subsidies and will pay more than $10,000 a year for health insurance, in addition to out-of-pocket expenses.
A family of four with a 40-year old head of household earning $48,000 will pay more than $3,000 a year even with subsidies.
Health care reform merely transferred the risk of bankruptcy of individuals to the risk of bankruptcy of the federal government. And there is nothing in the health care reform law to stop the bleeding.
This is what Americans should be protesting about -- call it Occupy Wall Street Health Care.
Rosemary Gibson led national quality and safety initiatives at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, NJ for 16 years. She is the author of The Wall of Silence and The Treatment Trap: How the Overuse of Medical Care is Wrecking Your Health and What You Can Do To Prevent It.
http://vthirdp.blogspot.com/2012/03/16-things-we-must-admit-if-we-really.html
And I like it!
Health care spending is rising faster than economic growth in leading industrialised countries, with higher expected medical costs set to impose tough choices on governments, the OECD said Tuesday.
Health spending in the 31-member Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development jumped from 7.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2000 to 9.0 percent in 2008.
The OECD attributed the upward pressure to technological changes, population growth and ageing.
The study found that the United States spent 7,538 dollars per person on health care in 2008, more than double the average 3,000 dollars for all OECD countries.
The next biggest spenders were Norway and Switzerland, spending about 50 percent more than the OECD average.
"Given the urgent need to reduce their budget deficits, many OECD governments will have to make difficult choices to sustain their health care systems: curb the growth of spending on health, cut spending in other areas or raise taxes," the OECD said.
http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/afp/oecdeconomyfinancehealth
Diseases and suffering are source of large incomes and bonuses for people who are gaming the system and costing US citizens in money and health! The health outcome from this super-expensive NON-care is 37th in the world right behind Cuba, which spends on hundredth of what we pay in USA.
Universal health care with NO intermediaries, but single payer government to chosen direct providers (doctors and hospitals) of care is the only way to simplify and improve the system. The complicated and convoluted Obama Health Care, for which you need several lawyers to interpret what is covered. More work for lawyers is not a solution!.
Businesses should not have to pay for their employees health care but it should be paid from savings on killing machines, once we stop insane expenditures on military weapons and contractors. NISS approach is the ONLY way to go: Make It Simple, Stupid!
As I listened this week these are some of the questions I am struggling to reconcile:
1.how can one industry get the govt to make everyone buy its product?
2. If the govt acknowledges it is important to provide the service to every American so much so that there is a mandate for citizens to buy it and yet the govt doesnt provide the service for everyone??
3. why is the govt demanding we all but a product that is well-evidenced to be an unreliable product at best and unsafe poor quality product at worst?
4. Would it be more helpful to spend this time publicly arguing on how/why the providers are overcharging consumers who do purchase the product?
Here's one: "Patient gets medical care. Office of physician bills patient because bill is 'Overdue'. Later insurance company pays Dr's. office. Patient and insurance each pay entire bill. Doctor says 'Don't ask me I don't do the billing.'. No wonder U.S. care is double what every other civilized country pays. Insurance company says,"We must pay Physician, can't pay a patient for prior payments, get it from Dr.". Doctor says, "Don't ask me I don't do the billing.". Single payer system would fix the whole mess. No wonder Medical care has Socialized.
Sadly with all the lies about the systems used in Europe, dim witted Americans believe it...Those fabricated storys about people waiting for years for treatment etc..pure rubbish, I know I lived over there...Its BETTER than our system from start to finish...its the AMA and Big Pharma..they are terrified of it.
Health care in European countries isn't gold-plated Medicare for all, which is bankrupting us because of unit costs and wasted care. It's basic health care for all, and if you want more coverage, you buy it. And their governments/taxpayers still have a hard time footing the bill.
I had a close family member spend 6 wks in shock trauma for a puncture wound. The total bill was close to $350,000. $80,000-$100,000 of that was for pills. The same pills would have cost $1500- in any other civilized country in the world.
As for the awesome health care law that half of the population praises Your welcome. They doubled my premiums in the past two years apparently to cover the cost of people that are unisured for various reasons. At the same time that my premium doubled my deductible went from $500- per year to $2500- per year.
I know theres probably too much relevant information in my post for an msm site but the way things are going I dont think its really going matter in another year or two.