Democrats Ask GAO to Study the Individual Health Insurance Market--They Are Really Trying to Set Up McCain and Cast Doubt on His Health Reform Plan
There is an old salesman's axiom, "Don't ever ask a question you don't already know the answer to."
Key House Democrats have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to take a look at the current state of the individual health insurance market. They also want the GAO to review the operation of the state high risk pools designed to provide a safety net for those who can't get coverage in the private market.
Democratic House Committee Chairmen Dingell, Waxman, and Pallone told the GAO, "The individual market for health insurance coverage is seriously flawed. Many people who need insurance and apply for it are denied coverage in the individual market or are offered insurance coverage that turns out to be inadequate or it is too expensive or both."
What's really going on here is that John McCain is offering a standard Republican prescription for health care reform--which includes the rebuilding of the health insurance market on an individual platform that would emphasize personal responsibility, consumer choice, individual ownership and portability of coverage. In short, McCain and the Republicans want to revitalize the individual health insurance market--often by deregulating it.
The Democratic response to that will be that McCain and the Republicans just want to throw you to the market wolves--an individual health insurance market that gives the best prices to the young and healthy and sends the sick off to government-run risk pools that fall way short of giving people decent coverage.
The problem for McCain is that is in fact how the individual health insurance market works today. The Republican nominee is going to have to tell the voters how his reinvigorated individual health insurance market will work better than that. So, far he is short on the details.
The Democrats are about to get themselves a report that will condemn the operation of the individual market and give the Democratic candidate for President a lot of ammunition against McCain.
Senator McCain would do well to close the loop on his proposal and tell us how the sicker and older will get a good health insurance policy in his new system.
5 comments:
Couldn't happen to a more deserving candidate, in my opinion; he knows better.
Shame on the American electorate for actually needing the Democrats to hang a lamp on what's wrong with the so-called free market/"individual" health insurance approach.
Despite the importance of healthcare as an issue in this election, it underscores the incredible apathy and, frankly, the ignorance of the American public about this important topic.
You can put lipstick on a pig and it's still a pig; the mechanics of how insurance works guarantees that McCain can dress-up individual healthcare any way he wants and it's not going to amount to much more than a tax shelter for the healthy and wealthy. I'm grateful for the Democrats calling him on it.
I can tell you one thing, as a young person with inexpensive individual coverage, the market wolves are my guardians.
I have zero interest in involuntarily subsidizing the older or sicker.
I want to pay to cover my risk and only my risk.
Ask me to cross subsidize and pay more in premiums than the expectation costs for my healthcare, and I drop out of the system and self insure.
And I am not alone.
Well anon - wait a few years and have a baby - who just happens to develop ear infections and see a doctor all the time. Then decide you'd like to live somewhere else and look for cheap coverage then!
"Young and inexpensive" in insurance company-land is not very long. You too will be scratching your head wondering why you don't work for a big employer before you know it.
FYI, my wife and I have 2 kids...
We have a 5K deductible, so we shopped around for the best deal.
The first baby was delivered healthy and without complications at a birth center with a nurse midwife. $3k start to finish.
The second was a homebirth, prenatal by nurse midwife $1200 total.
And we don't run to the doc for every sniffle.
I like my coverage...family of 4, $5K deductible, about $200 per month.
This instead of a $800/month PPO. We bank all the savings ($600/month) first by maxing out an HSA ...and we still have money leftover, and that goes for the future.
Tell me again why I would rather have the $800/month PPO?
McCain should explain how he would introduce new regulations that would make individual policies work for the insureds regardless of their ages or health status.
Good regulations are the key to developing trust in any market. Given that the group markets are distorted by state and federal mandates, starting with a clean slate and few or no mandates would allow insurers to offer much more affordable and portable policies.
McCain's supports regulations that make sense for sellers and buyers. Such regulations should require, as I've said many times before, insurers to put individuals in geographic pools that are large enough to ensure that consumers are buying insurance, not letting insurers skim the cream. The regulations should require portability, allow selling across state lines and protect insurers and their customers against people who self-insure until they need insurance.
With a GOP congress, McCain could help create viable individual insurance markets. With a Dem Congress, he wouldn't waste much of his time trying.
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