The Audacity of Shamelessness

[marm]

I've been watching the health care reform debate with keen interest. It is one of those situations where I think there's a public policy problem, but the solution is very difficult to tease out. None of the proposals I've heard thus far have truly addressed the problem in an honest way, proposed a solution that would actually address the stated

Comments

[marm]

I think that, somehow, we need to get health insurance detached from employment. That wouldn't solve your problem, but it would change the market by getting individuals closer to the actual cost of their care (as opposed to not seeing what the coverage actually costs, and therefor, not making any effort to shop around). This has worked in vision care, and it's starting to work in dental. I think that in the long term, detaching health insurance from employment would lower costs for everyone (including individuals in your situation), and squelch some of the anxiety that people have because losing your job wouldn't mean that you lost coverage.

For your situation, I think you could actually be one of the people who would benefit from the Kennedy-Dodd bill, because you make less than 5x the poverty level and have almost unaffordable insurance, but it's hard to tell from what's been released. But could also be damaged in the long term if the "public option" (that seems to be the gold standard Dems are seeking in a final bill) eventually crowds out private insurance, which is the driver for research on conditions for which there is currently no treatment, or no good treatment. Not good if you have two chronic conditions that currently don't have really great treatment options.