Saturday, April 17, 2010

Health Care Reform: The Morning After

Today's guest blogger is Barbara O'BrienBarbara blogs about health care reform at The Mahablog, Crooks and Liars, and AlterNet. She has been a  panelist at the Yearly Kos Convention and a featured guest blogger at the Take Back America Conference in Washington, DC.
 
Many politicians and pundits warned us that the health care reform (HCR) legislation that just became law will destroy America. Government bureaucrats will take over health care decisions, we were told. The old and infirm would be hauled away by death panels. Everything about the way we receive our medical care will change, and change drastically, they said.

Medicare recipients have been frightened by stories that their benefits will be cut. Middle-age people are worried they will lose their jobs when the law’s dreaded regulations, or taxes, or maybe regulations with taxes, would destroy their employers’ businesses.

The truth is, very little will change for most people. If you were insured by employee benefits before HCR, you will be insured by exactly the same policy in exactly the same way after HCR. You will have access to the same doctors on the same terms. “Government bureaucrats” will no more be involved in your health care than they were before.

And the same is true of Medicare, which of course is a government program, although many of the people who opposed the HCR bill don’t seem to know that.

Here are the “cataclysmic” changes to health care that are now in effect, or which will go into effect within the next six months for people who are already in group insurance plans:
  • The law says you can’t lose your insurance coverage because you get sick. Before, in many states, if you were stricken with a severe illness such as mesothelioma cancer that would be expensive to treat, your insurer could use just about any excuse to cancel your coverage. That is over.
  • HCR has ended lifetime limits on coverage. As long as you are receiving medical care, your insurer pays the bills.
  • Your children can be covered on your existing policy until they are 26 years old.
  • In six months, insurers cannot refuse to insure people under the age of 19 because of “pre-existing conditions.” This provision will go into effect for everyone in 2014.
And if you are on Medicare, you will be asked to struggle with the following:You get a free annual checkup.

The co-pays and deductibles on many preventive care services are eliminated.If you are in the Medicare D “doughnut hole,” you will get a $250 rebate check in a few weeks. The hole itself will be closed gradually and will be gone by 2020.

But what about all those terrible regulations and taxes that are about to drive businesses out of business? Um, there really isn’t much to report. Oh, wait, here’s one — a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services that use ultraviolet lamps will go into effect July 1. That’s about it.

However, beginning this year a tax credit will be available for some small businesses to help provide insurance coverage for employees.

Soon the politicians and pundits will start trying to frighten you about the provisions that will go into effect after this year. I assure you they are about as scary as the provisions that go into effect this year, but I will discuss them in a follow-up post...

Bill Clinton warns against political rhetoric getting out of control...

Distributor Cap explains capital gains...

National Day of Silence...

7 comments:

Leslie Parsley said...

Thank you, K. So it was the tanning tax that Boehner objected to? LOL.

Roy said...

Unfortunately, all the common sense and calm words coming from Barbara O'Brien and Bill Clinton will fall on deaf ears, at least the deaf ears of the demagogues and their disciples. Did you ever notice that calm words only seem to make them even more hysterical? For some perverse reason the attempt to cool things off and calm things down seems to them to be an admission of weakness on the part of the calmers and coolers. I'm still reading Budiansky, and the resonances between the attitudes of the Right now and white Southerners during Reconstruction are ringing so loudly that I'm practically going deaf from the resulting tinnitus.

Annette said...

Good job my friend... I am glad we are getting this out there for her...

Wish I had known about the Day of Silence sooner...

Steven said...

I'm afraid there will be even more fear and trembling amongst the masses as some doctors stop accepting Medicare...

But, from all I've read, most doctors are glad to have Medicare because it's the only insurer that pays the bill in a timely manner. If they depended on Blue Cross et al to pay what is due, they would be closing their doors.

Unknown said...

Excellent & informative post! Thanks to Barbara & to K for giving the guest slot. Also thanks for the National Day of Silence shout-out.

K. said...

tnlb: LOL! Boner would have a stroke if it taxed golf balls!

Roy: Gee, you noticed that in Budiansky, too, huh? The other two books drive that point home with a sledgehammer.

Barbara isn't going to convince any 'baggers, but we do need a concentrated effort to calm everyone else down.

Steven: I think, hope, that the Medicare thing is an empty threat. This isn't the first time doctors have said they won't take patients, but they always do. Your point about the reliable payments is key.

Ima Wizer said...

Thanks for the info...we live in scary times, period. Oh, and TAX the Rethuglicans!