As I was waiting anxiously for today's Supreme Court decision, I knew there was a man in Colorado I'd met on the first anniversary of the Affordable Care Act who was likely far more anxious than I was.
I do not recall the man's name, but I have kept him in mind in the months since he came up to the podium to tell me after I spoke to an audience in Denver that he knew he was alive that day because of the new law. To me, he came to represent the thousands of Americans of whom I know can truthfully say that they probably would be in their graves if not for ObamaCare.
That man was among millions of people in this country who insurance companies have labeled "uninsurable," meaning they could not buy insurance coverage at any price because of pre-existing conditions. One of the most important provisions of the law that was upheld by the Court today was the one that will take effect on January 1, 2014, the one that will at long last make it illegal for insurers to refuse to sell coverage to people who have been sick in the past.
Knowing that 2014 was too far in the future for people to wait, Congress included in the reform law funding to help states create or expand high-risk pools to cover millions of people whom insurance companies for years wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole. That man was among those millions who were finally able to buy coverage that gave them access to life-saving care.
While many political pundits and columnists will be focusing on how the decision will affect the political fortunes of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and just about every candidate for Congress, I plan over the coming weeks to focus on the people who already are or will soon be benefiting from the law. That, frankly, includes members of my own family. My 25-year-old daughter, who has not been able to find a job that offers health benefits, was able to get back on our family policy because of the law. My mother, now 87, is not having to spend as much on her medicines because the law has already begun closing the hated doughnut hole in the Medicare prescription drug benefit. And the law even affects my wife and me and millions of other baby boomers like us. We both also have to take medications and, as a consequence, undoubtedly would be among the ranks of the "uninsurable" if we lost our employer-sponsored coverage.
The law is expected to bring 30 million of the 50 million uninsured Americans into coverage when it is fully implemented. It is not perfect by any means, but it represents the most comprehensive health care reform law in this country's history. What we will see in the coming months will be attempts to weaken the consumer protections in the law, and I know the industry I worked for over two decades will be at the center of those efforts. Advocates of reform will have to be on guard to make sure those consumer protections live on.
For Monday, I will write about what we can expect from the insurance industry in the months ahead. And I will write about other people, like that man in Colorado, who likely will be able to live a longer life, thanks to ObamaCare.
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Are we happy with the "American model"? No.
Should we change to a system that works, like the 36 industrialized Countries ahead of us?
Duh.
Obamacare is not good for me because my health insurance premiums are going nowhere but up.
If your insurance company has to send you a rebate check this year due to Obamacare, can I assume you're going to refuse to cash it since you are so opposed to it?
I wonder how much we've spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 10 years. I'm sure it's about the same as the ACA is expected to cost. But I don't hear many people complaining about that stuff. I guess we prefer taking lives over saving them.
Should doctors and pharmaceutical companies make a profit? Sure! But should insurance companies? Nope! They serve no purpose outside of basic administration, and we could have that for a lot less than we're paying now. I'm tired of my premiums going up just to satisfy the bottom line of some middle-man that does nothing for me.
WHAT HAS OUR GOVERNMENT DONE WELL AND NOW YOU ARE GOING TO LET THEM RUN THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM! JUST THINK ABOUT IT!
Come to think of it - accurate punctuation would be helpful as well.
I suspect the decision had a lot more to do with power-tripping, threats, blackmail, back room deals, than anything that could be called "blessed". The folks that run our government and own our country don't care, period, end of story, about us: everything they do is to keep themselves at the top of the heap, and us in our proper places.
Look, here's the truth, and you'll see that I am right. If this thing stumbles around and vaguely, kind of works, then it's not going to be the next step to anything. It's just going to perpetuate a system that is uncompetitive and obsolete. The only way this thing is a "next step" to single payer is if it fails miserably and brings the economy down with it.
A public option would be a next step, because if everyone switched over to it, the corporate health insurers would go out of business. But the ACA? A next step? How is that actually going to work? The step from what we have now to single payer is SMALLER than the step from the ACA to single payer. The mandate in the ACA renders the insurers and this system more established and difficult to dislodge.
The ACA is a step backwards. I'd like it if one of these guys charted an actual course in which the ACA would "step" to single payer. But no such course exists, except it's complete failure, a step we should not be taking.
Trouble is, the health insurance industry runs the government. You don't have powerful lobbyists with bags of cash swarming over the halls of Congress. They do. Those lobbyists exist to benefit the health insurers at your expense.
As long as our government is run by the guys with the biggest bags of cash, the health insurance industry isn't going to suddenly start acting in a humane and productive manner.
Nice theories are just that: nice theories. In this case, if you believe it, you are a fool.
Here they've defunded Planned Parenthood and will reject the Fed monies to expand Healthcare access. Yet, with only an annual income of $15,000 I will still be subjected to the law that insists I still purchase insurance or pay a penalty, which I can't afford either. Until that issue is addressed, I will reserve my celebration.