"Obamacare is in a death spiral."
"This is what we ran on; this is what we promised the American people."
The bill has not been "scored" by the OMB; the House of Representatives will vote on the bill before the cost is known.
I've never been so glad to be on Medicare; I have the AARP on my side and nobody on The Hill wants to make the Granny Lobby angry.
I wonder how the Trump voter looking for lower insurance premiums will react when it comes time to enroll in a new plan. The bill focuses on what we used to call Major Medical - the inexplicable bills which accompany a hospital stay. Apparently, all that prevention in the ACA - like prenatal vitamins and free wellness check ups - is expendable. They would rather pay for open heart surgery than subsidize a gym membership.
NPR broadcast an Ohio health care official worrying that 25% of the state's hospitals will enter bankruptcy if those formerly-uninsured-now-insured-soon-to-be-uninsured-again Medicaid expansion recipients reenter emergency rooms and in-patient wards without funds to cover the care the hospitals are mandated to provide.
If only our Representatives were looking at the same problems that the rest of us face. But they have their own sweet health insurance policy, and no one seems to be suggesting that they save some money by repealing that.
Sigh. It's only March.
They did need to fix it. One of my writer friends found their premiums had gone to $20,000 a year with a $6000 deductible. In Arizona, the Advantage provider we add onto our Medicare, to cover what it does not, isn't even available. I don't think though that the plan the Repubs appear to be offering will improve things. As long as our economy needs to keep pharmaceuticals and insurance corporations very profitable, the patient isn't the important part-- it's the bump to the economy. There are some changes they could make that might fix things but as it stands, it doesn't appear they are looking for real fixes. One big help would be to let Americans buy their prescriptions overseas-- that's competition. I hear that it would hurt research but many countries are doing medical research, maybe more than us. When i was going to renew a cream that I like to keep on hand for cold sores the copay was $350 and the cost to the insurer was $3000. We looked overseas and I could buy the same cream, no insurance, $45. I decided I didn't need to have it on hand that much and got none of it. Still, we are being stiffed and Obamacare does need fixing-- not sure Republicans are interested in doing it. And you can bet that Medicare will be on the table sooner than later. They'd love to end it.
ReplyDeleteReading more about Paul Ryan and Medicare and I fear that you are right. Eliminating state border restrictions would be a great start.
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Health care is a mess and I'm also glad to be on medicare. But it turns out that Congress doesn't have their own sweet plan - what a surprise, right? I saw that information in a letter to the editor in the Arizona Republic and didn't believe it so I did some googling and sorry, didn't save any sources. They choose from the Marketplace too, of course, they have more money to buy a better plan than most people can.
ReplyDeleteThey had 7 years to develop a cohesive strategy, out of the limelight, taking time to investigate and cogitate and create. Sure.
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