By Claudia Chaufan, M.D.
Originally posted on SocialMedicine.org.
So today California Healthline reported the “good news” about health reform U.S. style, joining in the celebratory mood with the New York Times, which announced that “For Many, Health Care Relief Begins Today”, because, as California Healthline noted:
- Insurers are no longer permitted to rescind coverage for technical mistakes made on patient applications
- Lifetime monetary limits on insurance coverage will end
- Adult children will be allowed to remain on their parents’ plan until age 26
- Insurers will be required to provide certain no-cost preventive services, such as colonoscopies, immunizations and mammograms
- Consumers will be allowed to appeal claims decisions through an external review process.
These are only a few of the many provisions that take effect as of today, and that as it appears we are supposed to celebrate. But are we?
Not just yet. Let’s look at the “good news” through an alternative, and equally plausible, lens:
Number 1: While insurers may not be permitted to rescind coverage for technical mistakes made on patient applications, they will be able to do so based on other considerations. For instance, based on“intentional misrepresentation”, the number 1 reasons insurers allege to cancel policies.
Number 2: While lifetime monetary limits on insurance coverage will end, these limits apply only to covered services. Uncovered ones will be on patients, as they always have been. And as insurers are permitted to sell policies that cover as little as 60% of covered services (again, only covered services), patients will be extremely vulnerable to financial ruin if they become seriously ill.
Number 3: Yes, your “adult child” will be able to remain on your plan (assuming you have one and you or your “child” pay for the coverage) until age 26. And if you signed up to receive email alerts from Barack’s cheerleaders, Organizing for America, you may have read illustrative stories about the law’s goodness. For instance, you may have read that Kristin, a recent grad living in Scottsdale, Arizona, laments that health reform was not implemented last year, because it would have allowed her to remain on her mom’s plan, something that young folks now are able to do….until they turn 26, of course. But clearly this is only good news compared to the status quo, yet why should this be our standard? If Kristen lived in Canada, or in the UK, or anywhere else in the industrialized world, including Taiwan (and soon in China) she would not be hoping to remain forever young just to have access to her parents’ coverage – at least not for those reasons – because her health care needs would be covered as a matter of right, and for life.
Number 4: Yes, insurers will be required to provide certain no-cost preventive services, but, who do you think is going to foot the bill? You guessed it! All of us in the form of increased premiums — together with the bill for any other provision that affects insurers’ bottom line, such as the provision that insurers spend no more than 20% in administrative overhead.
Indeed, in a less cheerful mood just yesterday, New York Times reporter Robert Pear wrote that “state insurance regulators told the White House…that health insurance markets in some states would be disrupted unless President Obama gave insurers a temporary dispensation from one major provision of the new health care law” – remarkably, that which requires that insurers spend no more than 20 or 30 cents of every premium dollar on paper shuffling or profit rather than on health care (For the record, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation estimated that insurers’ expenses on physicians and clinical services amount to a mere 21.2%, so insurers are complaining about having to spend no more than roughly the same amount for “administering” our money).
Just getting a tad ahead of us (and of the law), as California Healthline noted earlier this week, Blue Shield of California has ended its “one-year rate guarantee”. This means that Blue Shield will be able to increase health plan rates throughout the year, instead of waiting for the annual renewal period. As a company spokesperson reported, Blue Shield opted to end the rate “because of forthcoming changes under the federal health reform law”. All which, according to the same source, has left Democrats and Republicans scratching their heads, seeking reasons behind hikes in premium costs (really???).
Ok. If depression has not prevented readers to read this far, let’s examine “reason for celebrating number 5″. As it appears, as of today “consumers” (we’re all consumers now) will be allowed to appeal claims decisions through an external review process. Now, assuming that it is good news that the bad guy will be still around yet now we are allowed to defend ourselves from him, the downside is that it is unclear who will be in charge of those appeals, or more importantly, who will pay for them. Indeed, just days ago, the same California Healthline announced that “state agencies have limited resources to implement reform law”.
Should we be surprised? Not at all. Indeed, the law was not passed to make ordinary Americans happy, although that was certainly the rhetoric. It was passed to satisfy the real constituency of the folks in Washington, a corporate lobby that has hijacked American democracy. In fact it was drafted by a member of that lobby, a WellPoint executive, himself. And they surely have reason to celebrate, now that they’ve been given at least $447 billion in taxpayer money to subsidize the compulsory purchase of their shoddy products.
Can we do something about it? Yes we can. We can, and must, demand a public single payer system that streamlines administration, stops wasting money in paper pushing or inflated prices, puts back medical decisions where they belong — in the hands of providers and patients — and allows us to make badly needed improvements in the health care delivery system – increasing the number of primary providers, emphasizing primary care, and so forth.
We need a new civil rights type movement. We need to demand health care justice for all.