PNHP

Most Med Schools Offer Subpar Mental Health Coverage

Most Med Schools Offer Subpar Mental Health Coverage

By Deborah Brauser
Medscape News Today, Sept. 6, 2011

Most medical schools in the United States do not offer health insurance plans that sufficiently cover mental health or substance abuse treatment, new research suggests.

In fact, only around one third of the schools evaluated offered unlimited monetary and visit benefits.

“Visit and dollar limits are common features of medical student insurance coverage for [mental health treatment] and [substance abuse treatment],” write lead author Rachel Nardin, MD, assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and chief of neurology at Cambridge Health Alliance, and colleagues.

In addition, “fewer than 22% of the schools provide first-dollar coverage without cost sharing,” they add.

The investigators note that this is particularly “worrisome” because past research has shown that requiring copayments or coinsurance often discourages students from seeking help for their mental health or substance abuse problems.

They write that although these findings may not be any worse than those found for nonstudent populations, “this parity is not reassuring given the importance to the medical profession and patients of aggressively treating these disorders.”

The study results were reported in a Research Letter in the September 7 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Plans Vary Widely

In the study, the investigators evaluated data on health insurance plans offered by 115 of the 129 US medical schools.

Results showed that although some outpatient mental health coverage was provided through health plans from all of the schools assessed, 6 schools did not offer inpatient coverage of either mental health or substance abuse treatment.

Only 37.4% of the schools provided unlimited outpatient coverage for mental health treatment, and only 28.6% provided it for substance abuse treatment. Unlimited inpatient mental health or substance abuse treatment was provided by 43.2% and 36.4%, respectively.

In addition, only 13 of the schools offered complete outpatient mental health coverage without cost sharing, and 17 provided it for outpatient substance abuse treatment. A total of 22 and 23 schools provided complete inpatient mental health and substance abuse treatment coverage, respectively.

Finally, the median coinsurance rate to be paid by a student was 20% for all services.

Dr. Nardin noted in a release that the plans also varied greatly in terms of annual limits. “At least 1 plan limited annual coverage for outpatient substance abuse care to $800, while another covered the same services up to $200,000 per year.”

“Everyone, including medical students, deserves full access to all needed care,” she added.

Senior author J. Wesley Boyd, MD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard, said in the same release that these medical students experience higher levels of psychological distress including depression and suicidality, than their peers.

“Such distress correlates with decreases in empathy and altruism…and with increases in medical errors,” he reported.

Dr. Nardin said that the best solution for this situation is a national single-payer health insurance program that would offer comprehensivebenefits without copays or coinsurance.

“That message needs to be heard once again in Washington.”

The study was supported in part by an Institutional National Research Service Award. The study authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

JAMA. 2011;306:931-933. Abstract

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/749182

Sally Pipes threatens us with Medicare for All

Democrats’ Plan B For Medicare: Medicare For All

By Sally Pipes
Forbes, September 6, 2011

Democrats know the individual mandate might go up in smoke. So they’ve started strategizing a constitutionally sound means of achieving the ever-elusive goal of “universal coverage.”

Their preferred remedy? “Medicare-for-All,” a term popularized by the late Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) who supported a single-payer, government run healthcare system.

Former Clinton labor secretary Robert Reich laid out the basic idea in a recent op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle. “So what do Obama and the Democrats do if the individual mandate in the new health care law gets struck down by the Supreme Court?” Reich asked. “Immediately propose what they should have proposed right from the start — universal health care based on Medicare-for-All, financed by payroll taxes.”

This notion has been floated in progressive policy circles in the past. It’s a pure distillation of their government-heavy approach to health care reform. Typically, though, the idea’s been shelved out of fears of political blowback.

Today, when the government extracts Medicare taxes from people’s paychecks, it’s forcing them to assent to this deal: Hand over a slice of your paycheck now, and get government-sponsored health insurance in old age.

Of course, Americans are not allowed to opt out of that deal — just like they won’t be able to opt out of the individual mandate. But unlike the mandate, the taxes that finance Medicare are not in danger of being deemed unconstitutional.

If the individual mandate is actually struck down, Medicare-for-All may become the new rallying cry for progressive luminaries. And if President Obama wins a second term, he may look to heed that cry.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2011/09/06/democrats-plan-b-for-medicare-medicare-for-all/

As a Canadian libertarian now serving as President and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, an organization advocating for free market solutions to America’s problems, Sally Pipes is issuing a warning that “Medicare-for-All may become the new rallying cry for progressive luminaries.” Further, “if President Obama wins a second term, he may look to heed that cry.” Don’t we wish!

Most medical schools offer students poor coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment, imperiling student and patient care: Harvard study

Nearly 4 of 5 student health insurance plans require co-pays or coinsurance, obstacles to getting needed care, and most impose visit and dollar limits

EMBARGOED until
Sept. 6, 2011, 4 p.m. Eastern time

Contacts:
Rachel Nardin, M.D.
J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., Ph.D.
Mark Almberg, Physicians for a National Health Program, (312) 782-6006, mark@pnhp.org

Most U.S. medical schools offer their students poor health insurance coverage for the treatment of mental health and substance abuse disorders, a practice that imperils the well-being of our nation’s future doctors and their patients, a group of Boston-area researchers report in JAMA today [Sept. 7].

In the first study of its kind, the researchers – most of whom are faculty physicians at the Harvard-affiliated Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) – found that fewer than 22 percent of the 115 medical schools they studied provided their students with complete coverage, without co-pays or coinsurance, for mental health and substance abuse treatment.

Some student health plans require co-payments of $20-$25 per outpatient visit and up to $500 per inpatient stay. The median coinsurance rate (the percentage of total costs paid by the patient) was 20 percent, meaning that a single course of treatment might cost a medical student thousands of dollars out of pocket.

“Research shows out-of-pocket costs discourage patients from getting mental health and substance abuse treatment,” said Dr. Rachel Nardin, assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, chief of neurology at CHA and lead author of the study.

“Everyone, including medical students, deserves full access to all needed care,” she said. “As an aside, it’s worth noting that only single-payer health systems have been able to assure such unhampered access. Private-insurance-based systems fail miserably on this score, as we see in this instance.”

A majority of schools’ insurance plans had annual limits on visits and/or total expenditures for mental health and substance abuse treatment. The plans varied considerably in this regard, Nardin said. At least one plan limited annual coverage for outpatient substance abuse care to $800, while another covered the same services up to $200,000 per year.

“In many cases the maximum dollar benefits can be very low,” she said. The number of patient visits allowed by the plans was also quite variable, ranging from 8 visits to 150 visits annually.

Senior author Dr. J. Wesley Boyd, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, said: “Medical students experience higher levels of psychological distress than their peers, including depression and suicidality. Such distress correlates with decreases in empathy and altruism among medical students and with increases in medical errors in doctors in training.

“Given that medical students are often leery about seeking treatment in the first place, requiring students to pay huge co-payments or coinsurance for mental health or substance abuse treatment might foreclose obtaining needed psychiatric care,” he said. “This is bad for the students and bad for patients.”

Boyd noted that many ailments persist into later years, so ensuring the ability to receive early treatment is essential.

The authors urge U.S. medical schools to “move immediately to improve student insurance coverage for mental health and substance abuse disorders.” Nardin added: “The best remedy for this situation would be a national single-payer health insurance program, a program that would offer comprehensive benefits while requiring no co-pays or coinsurance. That message needs to be heard once again in Washington.”

*********

“United States medical students’ health insurance coverage for mental health and substance abuse treatment,”
Rachel Nardin, M.D.; Leah Zallman, M.D.; Cassie Frank, M.D., M.P.H.; Benjamin Day, M.A.; J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., Ph.D. JAMA, Sept. 7, 2011.

*********

Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org) is an 18,000-member organization advocating a nonprofit, single-payer national health insurance program for the United States. PNHP had no role in funding the study mentioned above. To speak with a physician/spokesperson in your area, visit www.pnhp.org/stateactions or call (312) 782-6006.

The emergence of private insurance exchanges

Private exchanges offer yet another alternative to group health plans

By Emily Berry
American Medical News, September 5, 2011

With potentially more than 50 state-based versions of a public health insurance exchange set to emerge by 2014, another version of a post-health reform insurance market is emerging: the private exchange.

A private exchange is an existing concept taking on a new name. The idea also has been pitched as a “defined benefit” plan and has been part of a package with a health reimbursement account. Simply put, a private exchange is an alternative to a group health benefit plan. Rather than paying a portion or all of a premium, an employer pays each of its workers a flat amount and sends each to choose his or her plan.

Here’s how a private health exchange works:

An employer decides what it can afford to pay for health benefits — for example, $1,000 per employee per month. Rather than enrolling every employee in the same plan and using the $1,000 to pay for a portion of a premium, the employer puts $1,000 in an account for each worker.

Then one of two things happens: One, the employee works with a third party that acts as a clearinghouse. The worker chooses from any plan available in the individual market, with the clearinghouse administering the employee’s HRA, and helping connect brokers and health plans with the employees who want to buy coverage.

Under the second scenario, the employer sends the worker to a third party that gives him or her a limited set of choices, for instance a range of plans offered by the state’s Blues plan.

A private exchange would be a better deal for the employer than not offering health benefits, because the company can still reap the tax advantage of offering health benefits and avoid the penalty that would apply to companies with 50 or more employees if they decided not to offer benefits, analysts said.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/09/05/bisb0905.htm

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

Employers who want to reduce their roles in providing health insurance for their employees, yet do not want to turn their employees over to the state insurance exchanges and pay penalties for doing so, seem to have another option – private exchanges.

One of the greatest benefits for the employer is that they can convert their health benefit programs from a defined benefit to a defined contribution. This shifts the burden of future health care cost increases onto their employees.

In the next couple of years we can anticipate seeing many other similar efforts to skirt the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. It is really tragic that we are going to have to wait until far too many more people are destitute and suffer and die before we are ready to enact the reform we really need – an improved Medicare for all.

The emergence of private insurance exchanges

Private exchanges offer yet another alternative to group health plans

By Emily Berry
American Medical News, September 5, 2011

With potentially more than 50 state-based versions of a public health insurance exchange set to emerge by 2014, another version of a post-health reform insurance market is emerging: the private exchange.

A private exchange is an existing concept taking on a new name. The idea also has been pitched as a “defined benefit” plan and has been part of a package with a health reimbursement account. Simply put, a private exchange is an alternative to a group health benefit plan. Rather than paying a portion or all of a premium, an employer pays each of its workers a flat amount and sends each to choose his or her plan.

Here’s how a private health exchange works:

An employer decides what it can afford to pay for health benefits — for example, $1,000 per employee per month. Rather than enrolling every employee in the same plan and using the $1,000 to pay for a portion of a premium, the employer puts $1,000 in an account for each worker.

Then one of two things happens: One, the employee works with a third party that acts as a clearinghouse. The worker chooses from any plan available in the individual market, with the clearinghouse administering the employee’s HRA, and helping connect brokers and health plans with the employees who want to buy coverage.

Under the second scenario, the employer sends the worker to a third party that gives him or her a limited set of choices, for instance a range of plans offered by the state’s Blues plan.

A private exchange would be a better deal for the employer than not offering health benefits, because the company can still reap the tax advantage of offering health benefits and avoid the penalty that would apply to companies with 50 or more employees if they decided not to offer benefits, analysts said.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2011/09/05/bisb0905.htm

Employers who want to reduce their roles in providing health insurance for their employees, yet do not want to turn their employees over to the state insurance exchanges and pay penalties for doing so, seem to have another option – private exchanges.

One of the greatest benefits for the employer is that they can convert their health benefit programs from a defined benefit to a defined contribution. This shifts the burden of future health care cost increases onto their employees.

In the next couple of years we can anticipate seeing many other similar efforts to skirt the provisions of the Affordable Care Act. It is really tragic that we are going to have to wait until far too many more people are destitute and suffer and die before we are ready to enact the reform we really need – an improved Medicare for all.

John Geyman's "Breaking Point"

Breaking Point: How the Primary Care Crisis Endangers the Lives of Americans

By John Geyman, M.D.

What are the dimensions of the crisis in primary care? How did we get here? How and why have past efforts to resolve it failed? And how can we succeed in rebuilding our crumbling foundation of health care in this country? In Part I, we will outline the dimensions of this crisis; its impacts on our system, patients and their families; and consider what we can learn from failed attempts to rebuild primary care. In Part II, we will look at various policy alternatives, summarize what can be learned from other countries, and propose a comprehensive agenda for rebuilding primary care.

This is admittedly a challenging problem that requires a long view, most likely over one or two generations. Present trends are very unfavorable, and a complete re-orientation of the goals of health care, the roles of physicians and other health care professionals, and fundamental changes in the way we finance health care will be required if we are to deal effectively with the primary care problem.

http://copernicus-healthcare.org/books-by-copernicus.html

Both the book and the Kindle ebook are available at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Point-Primary-Endangers-Americans/dp/0983773408

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

In “Breaking Point,” John Geyman explains why it is crucial for us to rebuild our primary care infrastructure, and how we can do it. Highly recommended!

John Geyman’s “Breaking Point”

Breaking Point: How the Primary Care Crisis Endangers the Lives of Americans

By John Geyman, M.D.

What are the dimensions of the crisis in primary care? How did we get here? How and why have past efforts to resolve it failed? And how can we succeed in rebuilding our crumbling foundation of health care in this country? In Part I, we will outline the dimensions of this crisis; its impacts on our system, patients and their families; and consider what we can learn from failed attempts to rebuild primary care. In Part II, we will look at various policy alternatives, summarize what can be learned from other countries, and propose a comprehensive agenda for rebuilding primary care.

This is admittedly a challenging problem that requires a long view, most likely over one or two generations. Present trends are very unfavorable, and a complete re-orientation of the goals of health care, the roles of physicians and other health care professionals, and fundamental changes in the way we finance health care will be required if we are to deal effectively with the primary care problem.

http://copernicus-healthcare.org/books-by-copernicus.html

Both the book and the Kindle ebook are available at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Point-Primary-Endangers-Americans/dp/0983773408

In “Breaking Point,” John Geyman explains why it is crucial for us to rebuild our primary care infrastructure, and how we can do it. Highly recommended!

Defining success – UnitedHealth acquires Monarch HealthCare

UnitedHealth Buys California Group of 2,300 Doctors

By Anna Wilde Mathews
The Wall Street Journal, September 1, 2011

UnitedHealth Group Inc. will acquire the operations of a major southern California physician group, in the latest example of how lines are blurring between insurance companies and health-care providers.

The purchase of the management arm of Monarch HealthCare, an Irvine, Calif., association that includes approximately 2,300 physicians in a range of specialties, establishes United’s Optum health-services unit as a formidable presence in the region. Optum had previously taken over the management arms of two smaller southern California groups, AppleCare Medical Group and Memorial HealthCare Independent Practice Association.

In California, deals involving control of medical groups are structured to comply with rules that block most entities from directly employing practicing physicians. Typically, a company like Optum might buy non-clinical assets and sign a long-term management agreement with an independent practice association of physicians such as Monarch.

United has said in the past that providers acquired by Optum will not work exclusively with United’s health plan, and will continue to contract with an array of insurers. But in one sign of the potential complications that might ensue, Monarch is currently in an arrangement with United competitor WellPoint Inc. to create a cooperative “accountable-care organization” aimed at bringing down health-care costs and improving quality.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903895904576542553422509280.html

Comment: 

By Don McCanne, MD

Consolidation is accelerating, and the largest insurers are positioning themselves to be at the top of the heap.

Excuse a personal note, but this particular merger is difficult for me to observe. Having practiced in Orange County, I watched the founding and expansion of Monarch HealthCare until they dominated health care in our region. As an early opponent of managed care as it was playing out, I certainly had no interest in joining them. Probably because my practice included large numbers of Medicaid, uninsured, and undocumented patients (so many that they crowded out my privately insured patients even though I worked extended hours), Monarch also never communicated an interest in including me in their panel.

What defines a successful health care system? It always seemed to me that success would be when everyone could receive quality health care that was appropriate and without financial barriers that would impair access. Yet The Wall Street Journal implies that success is when you can organize and control the delivery system and corner the portion of the market that has the highest monetary resources.

Although I was far busier than other primary care physicians in our region, I ended up retiring earlier than I intended because the composition of my practice eventually resulted in an unsustainable negative cash flow.

By most standards, at least by the dominant standards of today, I was unsuccessful, and Monarch HealthCare was highly successful. I’m not sure that my patients who couldn’t get past the appointment desks of Monarch physicians would agree when they had success in negotiating past my appointment desk.

Not to be defeated, I made a decision to devote my remaining productive years to promoting a concept of success that serves patients – all patients – without the intrusion of intermediaries such as UnitedHealth and Monarch HealthCare that glom onto the money and try to keep all that they can. Haven’t we had enough of Wall Street’s version of success?

Reform health care with evidence, not ideology

By Rick Kvam, M.D.
Letters, Rochester (Minn.) Post-Bulletin, Sept. 1, 2011

Dr. Mark Liebow’s  op-ed supporting single-payer health care reform flies in the face of current cries for smaller government and less regulation. Good. We need logical strategies, not simplistic formulas, when U.S. health care spending is a $2.1 trillion gorilla menacing every state and federal budget.

Guided by evidence, not ideology, one finds that in health care, the unbridled free market returns a very poor value. We boast the most market-driven health care in the developed world, and, not coincidentally, far and away the most expensive. Our per capita costs are double those of other industrialized nations (in spite of 50 million uninsured!), but our outcomes (life expectancy, infant mortality, etc.) are nevertheless worse. Workers’ inability to switch jobs for fear of losing health care coverage (“job lock”) is a major drag on our economy.

Nobel Prize-winner Kenneth Arrow showed almost 50 years ago that health care is a highly imperfect market, and that “the laissez-faire solution for medicine is intolerable.” We can no longer afford to insist on a “uniquely American” system that is uniquely wasteful.

As demonstrated in ALL other developed nations, a coordinated health care system (whether single payer or a private mechanism) will provide better care and cost less. Our health care crisis requires a rational solution, not free market skim milk masquerading as cream.

Dr. Rick Kvam resides in Rochester, Minn.

Defining success – UnitedHealth acquires Monarch HealthCare

UnitedHealth Buys California Group of 2,300 Doctors

By Anna Wilde Mathews
The Wall Street Journal, September 1, 2011

UnitedHealth Group Inc. will acquire the operations of a major southern California physician group, in the latest example of how lines are blurring between insurance companies and health-care providers.

The purchase of the management arm of Monarch HealthCare, an Irvine, Calif., association that includes approximately 2,300 physicians in a range of specialties, establishes United’s Optum health-services unit as a formidable presence in the region. Optum had previously taken over the management arms of two smaller southern California groups, AppleCare Medical Group and Memorial HealthCare Independent Practice Association.

In California, deals involving control of medical groups are structured to comply with rules that block most entities from directly employing practicing physicians. Typically, a company like Optum might buy non-clinical assets and sign a long-term management agreement with an independent practice association of physicians such as Monarch.

United has said in the past that providers acquired by Optum will not work exclusively with United’s health plan, and will continue to contract with an array of insurers. But in one sign of the potential complications that might ensue, Monarch is currently in an arrangement with United competitor WellPoint Inc. to create a cooperative “accountable-care organization” aimed at bringing down health-care costs and improving quality.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903895904576542553422509280.html

Consolidation is accelerating, and the largest insurers are positioning themselves to be at the top of the heap.

Excuse a personal note, but this particular merger is difficult for me to observe. Having practiced in Orange County, I watched the founding and expansion of Monarch HealthCare until they dominated health care in our region. As an early opponent of managed care as it was playing out, I certainly had no interest in joining them. Probably because my practice included large numbers of Medicaid, uninsured, and undocumented patients (so many that they crowded out my privately insured patients even though I worked extended hours), Monarch also never communicated an interest in including me in their panel.

What defines a successful health care system? It always seemed to me that success would be when everyone could receive quality health care that was appropriate and without financial barriers that would impair access. Yet The Wall Street Journal implies that success is when you can organize and control the delivery system and corner the portion of the market that has the highest monetary resources.

Although I was far busier than other primary care physicians in our region, I ended up retiring earlier than I intended because the composition of my practice eventually resulted in an unsustainable negative cash flow.

By most standards, at least by the dominant standards of today, I was unsuccessful, and Monarch HealthCare was highly successful. I’m not sure that my patients who couldn’t get past the appointment desks of Monarch physicians would agree when they had success in negotiating past my appointment desk.

Not to be defeated, I made a decision to devote my remaining productive years to promoting a concept of success that serves patients – all patients – without the intrusion of intermediaries such as UnitedHealth and Monarch HealthCare that glom onto the money and try to keep all that they can. Haven’t we had enough of Wall Street’s version of success?

The Great Health Care Takeaway

By Shamus Cooke
ZSpace, August 30, 2011

The health care crisis in the United States is getting worse with no visible end. The popular anger over unattainable or unaffordable health care has been diverted away from corporations by crafty politicians, always seeking to exploit a social disaster for their benefactors. Instead of making health care more affordable for the average person, politicians have successfully switched the messaging. Now, the purpose behind “reform” is to make health care less costly for governments and employers, at the expense of patients and workers.  

This was the essence behind Obama’s health care reform. And although Republicans exploited the “individual mandate” in Obamacare to gain populist credentials, they wholeheartedly agree with the deeper philosophy of the plan, which aspires to control health care costs — for corporations and governments — by providing less health care services to those who need it.   This agreement to “ration” health care aligns the two parties over the coming cuts to Medicare in Obama’s bi-partisan “Super Congress,” while also binding the two parties’ approach to health care on a state and business level. 

Most workers now understand that there is a difference between apparently having health care and actually having health care: if you are technically “insured” but cannot afford doctor visits due to high deductibles and co-pays, you really aren’t insured.

This fact, applied to Medicare, has startling consequences. The New England Journal of Medicine found that, “For every 100 people enrolled in plans that raised co-pays, there were 20 fewer doctor visits, 2 additional hospital admissions and 13 more days spent in the hospital…” 

When co-pays and deductibles are raised, people simply stop going to the doctor and use the emergency room as needed. 

This dynamic pleased politicians because less Medicare money was being spent on doctors’ visits, but they were upset that hospital stays were more frequent. The answer? Stop paying Medicare payments to hospitals if they re-admit a patient after 30 days, a policy sure to “reduce costs.” And it worked! This aspect of Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act gives hospitals financial incentives not to admit patients and, according to Bloomberg, is a major reason that Medicare costs have dropped significantly in the past year:

“Historically, nearly 20 percent of Medicare patients have been readmitted to a hospital within 30 days of being discharged… The Affordable Care Act included, among other remedies, a modest penalty for hospitals with high readmission rates.” (August 24th, 2011). 

The problem here is that re-admissions are usually medically necessary. According to a study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, only one out of ten hospital re-admissions were preventable. Hospitals are thus encouraged to deny hospital stays to those who need it, something they’ve already started. According to Case Management Monthly, hospital social workers have noticed this disturbing trend accelerate: “Several case managers have recently received readmission denial letters…they are surprised because the readmissions in question were actually appropriate and medically necessary.” (October 1st, 2010).  

Cost saving ideas like these are at the heart of Obama’s health care plan — which included massive cuts to Medicare — and further cuts to Medicare can be expected in his Super Congress. Even if the bi-partisan Super Congress is unable to agree to make massive cuts to social programs, cuts to Medicare will be automatically “triggered.” Obama tells us not to worry because the triggered Medicare cuts will affect only providers — hospitals and doctors — not patients, as if the two could be so easily separated. The above example of denied hospital re-admissions is also a case where providers were targeted for cuts but patients were the most affected. 

Another way that politicians are saving health care money is by slashing Medicaid, the shared federal-state health care program that serves low-income populations. The states’ budget crises are quickly debilitating this already under-funded program, reducing availability and quality of health care for those low income people who qualify for the program. USA Today reports: 

“With a shortage of doctors…[ Medicaid] patients have little choice but to use hospital emergency rooms for more routine care.” (July 5th, 2011).

Higher income workers across the country are also seeing their health care rapidly deteriorate. The shoddy health insurance that includes high deductibles and co-pays are standard to most non-union workers who’ve suffered under this pseudo insurance for years. But even these plans are being shelved.  Two studies recently show that employers plan to quit offering health care plans altogether: a survey by Towers Watson showed that one out of ten companies plan to eliminate health care coverage by 2014; while a different study by the McKinsey Company showed that, by 2014, 30 percent of companies will drop their health coverage for workers. 

Much of this is due again to, Obama’s Affordable Health Care act: companies were encouraged and given an excuse to drop their health care coverage because everyone would be mandated to buy their own shoddy coverage. Politicians recognized that high health care costs were hurting corporate profits, and they were determined to do something about it. 

For those companies with a unionized workforce, Obama’s health care plan took special aim, taxing companies extra that offered so-called Cadillac insurance — coverage that was actually quality health insurance. But no more. This Cadillac tax doesn’t kick in till 2018, but employers are working now to make their health care plans skinny enough to avoid the tax; unions everywhere are being forced to make major concessions in the realm of health care, paying higher monthly premiums, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket costs. 

Another trend in the attack on health care for employees involves the implementation of Health Engagement Models (sometimes called Health Promotion Model). This super-invasive insurance plan forces all workers to undergo a health “assessment,” and based on the results (weight, blood pressure, etc.) and health habits, workers will be forced to follow recommendations of a health “coach.” Not following the coach’s orders will result in monthly fines, as will refusing assessments or continuing to smoke or other bad habits. Plans like this are becoming popular among corporate leaders since they openly discriminate against workers who are overweight, or are older, or who smoke, and thus drive down the cost of health care of the employer. This form of plan combined with the above higher costs are quickly turning the once-quality health insurance of union workers into its opposite. 

The above trends in health care are not likely to be reversed anytime soon. Some union leaders are arguing for these concessions using outworn logic, assuming that the economic crisis will soon be over, enabling unions to again demand better wages and benefits. No respected mainstream economist believes this. The current recession is expected to be longer and deeper than any since the Great Depression. Labor unions need to adjust their expectations to the facts and revise their tactics based on the changing economic landscape. 

This also applies to working people in general, who cannot simply wait for jobs to be created or wages and benefits to regain their past value. Health care is a key component to a worker’s standard of living, and it is now unreasonable to expect any progressive health care reform from the Democrats or Republicans. The above policies have not improved health care, though they have decreased the cost of health care for corporations a
nd governments, since patients are paying more for fewer services. The above policies have also not increased the number of workers with health insurance. In fact, the number of people without health care continues to grow every year, the most recent figure stands at over 52 million!  Obama’s plan to force people to buy crappy insurance they couldn’t afford to actually use — if the law survives the Supreme Court — will do nothing of substance to help.

The above health care policies are the natural result of a health care system based on the principles of private profit.  Corporate profits demand that companies provide the least amount of health care services at a minimal cost. From this vantage point, health care is a commodity that is bought by those who can afford it, instead of it being the human right of every person, as the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts. Europe has already proved that a nationwide, single payer system is vastly superior when it comes to quality, cost, availability, and results. 

The single payer system did not come into existence from the benevolence of kind governments, but from the demands of people in the street. Organized workers must fight to maintain their benefits; unorganized workers must organize to fight for better insurance; and older workers/retirees must fight to maintain and expand Medicare. The logical end to such struggles would be to demand a Medicare For All system, financed by taxing the wealthy and corporations.  

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org).

http://www.zcommunications.org/the-great-health-care-takeaway-by-shamus-cooke