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By Cassandra Effect, August 11, 2009 9:19 pm

 White House Health Insurance Reform FAQ #2 Isn’t health reform going to put more burdens on federal and state governments because we will be covering more people without insurance?

Controlling health spending is critical for the fiscal health of the federal government and the states. For example, health care spending today consumes 30 percent more of state and local budgets than it did 20 years ago, forcing governments to choose between cutting services and raising taxes.

They begin the FAQ with a threat to raise taxes!  No information provided as to why there is a 30% increase in the past 20 years.  Is it due to cost increases, expanded government employment, expanded benefits?  No discussion or explanation -it just IS!

And the Council of Economic Advisors recently released a sobering report on the impact of health care spending on the federal government. It found that if we do nothing by 2019,

• Health care expenditures will be 21 percent of GDP—one fifth of our economic output.
• Spending on Medicare and Medicaid will be 8 percent of GDP.
• Nineteen percent of the non-elderly population, or 54 million Americans, will be uninsured. The cost of caring for the uninsured burdens all of us. Families with insurance pay a hidden tax of $1000 to cover the cost of uncompensated care in this country.

The uninsured population now is 54 Million “Americans”.   No one seems to agree on this figure – the CBO says 31 Million – and 17% of this figure (one in six!) are illegals.  The use of the term “Americans” is disturbing!   There are certainly people without insurance, but blowing up the system for everyone else makes no sense at all.  And we pay a hidden tax?  They are asking us to now pay a non-hidden tax?  You betcha!  Remember what Obama said “”I want to cover everybody,”  all the facts at MSNBC of all places

For working Americans who rely on employer-sponsored health insurance, rising costs mean that an even greater proportion of their compensation will be in the form of health benefits rather than take-home pay. In ten years, the estimated percentage of average total worker compensation that comes in the form of health insurance will be 26 percent.

That assumes we continue to buy overly generous insurance plans.  Seriously folks – you DO NOT NEED first dollar coverage – you are PAYING for it through higher premiums.   Get a high deductible policy – $2000, $3000, even $5000.   If it was really your money to spend as you wished, what would you buy? First dollar coverage or catastrophic care insurance. 

In addition:

• Resources that are devoted to health care cannot be used to provide the other goods and services that Americans want, including education, investment, and infrastructure.

Sure sounds like “resources” means taxes.  Americans can’t have everything.

• The federal deficit will continue to rise and, if meaningful health care reform is not enacted, more painful choices about how to deal with our unsustainable fiscal situation will be unavoidable in the future.

The Deficit will continue to rise – the first very true thing here!  And yet another threat - BRING ON THE PAIN!

• That is why the President has been clear that he will not sign a health care reform bill unless it is deficit neutral and on a stable trajectory as the decade ends.

Does anyone REALLY believe this?  And why is the focus only on the first 10 years?  Is that as far as our limited ability to plan?

• We have to expand coverage and bring down costs for families as well as transform health care so that it costs less and delivers high quality in years to come. Adding more people to a broken system will only cost us more in the long run.

We HAVE to?  Does anyone really expect MORE QUALITY AT LESS PRICE?   Seriously folks – Wal Mart gives you less cost, but the quality suffers.  There is no free lunch.

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By Cassandra Effect,

Here is my first post in a point by point breakdown of the White House FAQs on Health Insurance Reform

FAQ #1 Rationing

Health Insurance Reform will end current forms of rationing, not expand it.

Note the use of the weasel words “CURRENT FORMS”.  This choice of words are EXACTLY why people do not trust the Federal Government.   The only forms of rationing in the private sector right now are due to money.  If you cannot afford to pay for a procedure and have no other means or programs then you self-ration due to lack of financial   resources.  both private and public (Medicaid and Medicare) alreadyIf you have insurance through a private payer, and you don’t like their service, you can walk away and go to another insurer.  Its simple – the market will compete. 

 This First, there is widespread rationing in today’s system. Right now, decisions about what doctor you can see and what treatment you can receive are made by insurance companies, which routinely deny coverage because of cost or the insurance company rules. Health reform will do away with many of those rules that result in rationing today.

Now we see the tactic – CARE IS DENIED ROUTINELY by the insurance companies.  Most people’s experience is that care is provided routinely, and insurance companies have publicly disclosed policies on medical care.   Aetna, for example, publicly lists its medical policies HERE.   These policies are neither capricious or arbitrary.  They may not pay for the latest medical advances and delay moving “experimental” procedures into accepted practices.  And you may not agree with them or like it, but in a free market you can choose not to do business with an insurer.  We all lose once we go to a government run plan or government mandated benefits that all players in a so called “exchange” must offer.  The reason is no one is accountable, and all players will have the same benefits and same rules.  You have no chance of leveraging your purchasing power when this happens.   Don’t buy into the demagoguery of the insurance companies – they’re not in business to give care away. but neither is the government.

Health Insurance Reform will prevent insurance companies from denying coverage because you have a pre-existing condition; prevent them for canceling coverage because you get sick; ban annual and lifetime limits on coverage, which often force people to pay huge sums out of pocket if they develop a serious illness; and prevent discrimination based on gender.

This will come to pass any future

With health insurance reform, we will also put treatment decisions back into the hands of doctors in consultation with their patients.

Unless we require step edits, prior authorizations or rationing of care like we do today in the Medicaid and Medicare program……

One of the reasons we spend too much on health care today is that our incentives are perverse: Doctors are paid by the procedure, rather than for quality. We want reform that rewards quality of care not quantity of procedures. Having dozens of procedures doesn’t necessarily make you better. In fact they can make you worse. Right now roughly 100,000 Americans die every year from medical errors, which, in many cases, were the result of treatments that were wrong for them. We want to reduce preventable hospital re-admissions that are frequently caused because patients are not getting the right care in the first place. We want to give doctors the ability to make the best treatment decisions for you and your family.

I’d much rather the number of procedures I need be MY DECISION rather than the governments.  It is true that there are perverse incentives.  What is more perverse is that the government “solution” to this lies not in empowering individuals to become more informed and involved about their health care purchasing, but rather to stick their big fat nose in and start telling you what is appropriate for your care.

NO THANK YOU!