My good friend, and a loyal Conservative, Dave wrote me to rub in some of the problems of the ACA. I wrote this in response: Ok, Im re-engaged after taking most of the winter off. I felt I had to choose between surviving the cold, surgery, insomnia, obsessive need to be in Arizona...or dealing with crazy GOP politics. Lets do this thing!! Heres where we agree on the ACA: ...a very awkward, troubled beginning of the website (not to say that the ACA itself was similarly plagued). A problem that is fading into the past (except Rush wont let it go) ...if would have been a lot better if the traditional debates between the parties had taken place first. It got zero GOP votes...upon which the Democrat president saw he had no choice but to go on his own. ...its a shame that its all about partisan politics, rather than about the needs of the citizens..and the dire need to put a governor on the frightening rate of escalation of healthcare costs (both sides agreed that the rate of increase is unsustainable and threatens the health of our economy ) ...its too bad that costs are going up....1) because everyone is sharing the risk of everyone else, 2) insurance companies are raising rates in the short term...to increase their profits and, most profoundly, 3) costs of healthcare have been super-escalating for a decade, and are only now starting to slow down a bit. I dont like to have to put an insurance problem in the hands of politicians any more than the next guy. But how are we to get the insurance guys to, for example, get rid of pre-existing conditions? Its a sacrilege; they wont do it. How do you get the insurance guys to throw away the morbidity tables that justify charging women so much more than the do men? They wont do it...and consequently a huge number of women couldnt afford healthcare...including, for a poignant example, care of their reproductive systems (pretty important area there). Even the rational concept of allowing college students, etc., to stay on their parents policies while they get assimilated into the workforce...was never going to happen if left to the insurance companies. And mentioning that, insurance companies charge less if you have group insurance via the workplace...discriminating against the unemployed individual. And they wouldnt change that on their own either. The old way doesnt work (it never really did in the concept of discrimination)...and the cost increases threaten our excellent healthcare delivery system. Insurance companies, if left to their own devices, will exclude as much risk as they can to increase profits. Thats what they hire actuaries to help them to do! Through Medicare (a social insurance program), despite the gnashing of GOP teeth, our countys retirees get GREAT healthcare (Im one, and I can attest to that). All other industrialized nations provide forms of universal healthcare. Its a reasonable next step for the USA to extend insurance to the rest of her citizens. The insurance companies wont do it, of course. Because it would reduce their profits...and they have no strategy that would allow that action. So...the government provided fledgling ACA, with all its scars, is taking us there. Never to look back... There was no model for this ultra-ambitious, whole nation, undertaking...so, its guaranteed to have glitches. I think its a good thing that some of the mandates have been postponed, allowing the realities of the enormity of the task to be properly dealt with. The road may be arduous, but its getting us there. The dedicated opposition is on a suicide mission, sacrificing themselves in an effort to kill what will one day save them. They will fail. Ive come to recognize that there are two profound forces at work, that do two very different things for us: 1) free enterprise: creates opportunity & growth & quality of life...when there is a financial profit to be made... 2) ...and where there is no profit (or the profit motive interferes with desired results), government must step in where the well-being of the citizens is the issue. Im with you in this: the two political factions must cooperate to get this done successfully. If all the GOP continues to do is to try to kill the ACA, everyone loses. IMHO ...your turn. :-) Christopher (Kit) Lawson
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 17:31:31 +0000
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