(no subject)
Washington Post, this past weekend: Health Care Reform Cheat SheetHealth-care reform is not that hard to understand, and those who tell you otherwise most likely have an ulterior motive.
Reform proponents exaggerate the complexity of the issue to elevate their own status as people who understand it; opponents exaggerate it to make the whole endeavor out to be a bureaucratic monstrosity.
This gets a bit tiresome for reporters such as me who are writing article after article about the debate, only to have another pundit, politician or colleague dismiss the whole subject as an incomprehensible mess. Well, health care is a mess. Our current system is a mishmash that consumes 16 percent of the economy. Fixing it could be very simple: a single-payer system. To the dismay of many liberals, President Obama and congressional Democrats think it's more realistic to build on what's already there, which is why legislation overhauling it comes in the form of 1,000-page tomes.
And more importantly, a bit of explanation for why to mandate that everybody buy insurance: The proposed solution to the first problem is straightforward: The legislation on the table would make Medicaid available to more people and would cover others by helping them buy their own insurance, with subsidies based on income. The venue for people to buy insurance would be an "exchange," a marketplace that would replace the uncompetitive and lightly regulated landscape that now confronts individuals and small businesses trying to buy coverage. Insurers on the exchange would have to meet basic standards and would no longer be allowed to deny coverage or price it exorbitantly because of preexisting conditions; they'd still be able to set rates based on age, but not to the degree they do now.
The thinking is that insurers would comply because they would want the customers coming to the exchange, notably the younger and healthier uninsured. This is one reason all the proposals would mandate that people buy insurance, or risk paying a fine. This would draw younger people, who spend relatively little on health care, into the exchange, lowering the price of coverage for everyone. At least at the outset, larger businesses and people who receive coverage from their employers probably wouldn't be able to buy on the exchange, to keep the employer-based insurance system that covers most Americans from unraveling.
Is this really so scary?
[Edit: Oh, and Maybe more pols need to take a page from Barney Frank.] (video)
Reform proponents exaggerate the complexity of the issue to elevate their own status as people who understand it; opponents exaggerate it to make the whole endeavor out to be a bureaucratic monstrosity.
This gets a bit tiresome for reporters such as me who are writing article after article about the debate, only to have another pundit, politician or colleague dismiss the whole subject as an incomprehensible mess. Well, health care is a mess. Our current system is a mishmash that consumes 16 percent of the economy. Fixing it could be very simple: a single-payer system. To the dismay of many liberals, President Obama and congressional Democrats think it's more realistic to build on what's already there, which is why legislation overhauling it comes in the form of 1,000-page tomes.
And more importantly, a bit of explanation for why to mandate that everybody buy insurance: The proposed solution to the first problem is straightforward: The legislation on the table would make Medicaid available to more people and would cover others by helping them buy their own insurance, with subsidies based on income. The venue for people to buy insurance would be an "exchange," a marketplace that would replace the uncompetitive and lightly regulated landscape that now confronts individuals and small businesses trying to buy coverage. Insurers on the exchange would have to meet basic standards and would no longer be allowed to deny coverage or price it exorbitantly because of preexisting conditions; they'd still be able to set rates based on age, but not to the degree they do now.
The thinking is that insurers would comply because they would want the customers coming to the exchange, notably the younger and healthier uninsured. This is one reason all the proposals would mandate that people buy insurance, or risk paying a fine. This would draw younger people, who spend relatively little on health care, into the exchange, lowering the price of coverage for everyone. At least at the outset, larger businesses and people who receive coverage from their employers probably wouldn't be able to buy on the exchange, to keep the employer-based insurance system that covers most Americans from unraveling.
Is this really so scary?
[Edit: Oh, and Maybe more pols need to take a page from Barney Frank.] (video)