The White House Health Care Reform Bill

Yesterday, President Obama released his plan on the White House web site. The President’s proposed plan closely mirrors the current Senate version with a number of additions and changes that were previous suggestions by many Republicans.  This was intended to provide at least some opportunity to show a bipartisan effort.  However, the effort was purely political and was launched with the hope that Americans watching Thursday’s health care summit will side with the bill and it will regain momentum.  Many serious doubt it.

 
I won’t spend time here to debate the details nor the merits of the plan. There are plenty of other outlets that you can go to get that info.  However, I do want to raise two points.  First, there has been much negative publicity about backroom deals in prior bills. The President’s plan tries to rectify this by eliminating special deals for one state over another. It also closes the “doughnut hole” in Medicare that requires Medicare recipients to pay for their prescription drugs after they’ve reached the maximum.
 
Second, a major addition to the bill will be the creation of an agency that gives the government more authority and oversight over insurance companies so they cannot slap excessive premiums on plans. After last week’s Blue Cross of California requested premium hikes, many feel that not enough is being done to guard against excessive rate increases.  Seriously, do you believe that Blue Cross would take the risk of seeking rate relief at that level in the current politically sensitive environment if these rate hikes weren’t justified? Of course not.  In fact, a closer look at their filing shows that without aging, they requested rates ranging from a 20% decrease to a 39% increase.  So, the 39% rate for just one particular contract type becomes the lightning rod for all the noise by holding it up as the overall increase.  Don’t be mistaken, many of the “facts” that we see everyday are just like this.  A single “sound bite” made to deflect the true issues.
 
The new the bill, for example, is expected to cost $950 billion over 10 years – and it won’t raise the deficit. Really!  Of course, taxes kick in early and changes in true reform doesn’t begin for years to keep the total net impact under a Trillion dollars. So what happens in years 11, 12, and so on? 
 
I can go on and on but I’ll save that for another post.  For now, I look forward to Thursday’s summit meeting with anticipation for nothing more than a side show and partisan politics at its best!