Sent in by a fan for a local newspaper, tell her what you think of it, and thank you for supporting "I am ObamaCare" --Tuesday, August 27, I attended Congressman Bill Pascrell’s Town Hall meeting in Woodcliff Lake. I was amazed that still to this day; there is so much miss information about The Affordable Care Act, “ACA” or “Obamacare”. To the Congressman’s credit, his aides handed out a fact sheet detailing the most common myths vs. the reality of the program. However, many audience members have assumptions that are more deeply rooted and aren’t address by his fact sheet. I learned the major assumption is that Obamacare is an insurance program. Attendees kept asking why representatives can opt out of Obamacare. They can’t, because Obamacare is not insurance. Obamacare is a set of laws reigning in abuses of the insurance industry like throwing people off their insurance when they get sick; denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions; throwing young people off their parents insurance; having caps on the amount of coverage; denying procedures; spending lavish amounts on administration and CEO bonuses, to name the most egregious. The ACA in addition, will eventually bring costs down. How? By making costs transparent, for one. Those that buy their own insurance will (as of October 1) be able to compare rates and policies on-line and payments to providers. For example, it was reported in numerous sources this week, that a simple bottle of saline costs a hospital $0.44 cents, yet many hospitals bill patients $91.00. These costs are so high primarily for two reasons: a lack of transparency of costs and emergency room costs for the non-insured. Obamacare will eliminate free coverage by emergency rooms with its all inclusive mandate. Also, with transparency, we will be able to become better shoppers for health insurance. In all the states that are handling their own exchanges, costs are already coming down significantly. NY reports drops of 50% in premium payments. The other major issue I heard at the Town Hall was about people loosing their Medicare Advantage plans. This is good for Americans as Medicare Advantage is essentially a failed experiment in privatizing Medicare. Medicare Advantage is a plan that an eligible Medicare recipient can elect to carry rather than "regular" Medicare. The Advantage plans offer, for a premium, Medicare benefits plus additional coverage such as eye care or gym memberships. Medicare Advantage plan carriers pay the Medicare benefits on claims and then get reimbursed by Medicare, charging Medicare the usual 4-6% processing fee plus an additional 14% that presumably goes toward things like customer service costs and the cash flow carrying costs, etc. Regular Medicare claims are processed by lots of insurance carriers and Medicare processing centers with costs limited to 4%. Under Obamacare regulations, carriers offering Medicare Advantage will only get the percentage of regular Medicare for their plans with no additional processing fees, so Medicare Advantage plans will likely be discontinued by carriers since there is now no advantage for insurance carriers to offer it. Find more information on these and other new health care regulations at healthcare.gov.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 14:46:10 +0000
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