Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

What’s all this fighting about?, Pt.15 – Final admonitions and summary.

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As far as Mr. Mc’s minimum government intervention policy, is this like pulling all the referees out of a pro football game to just let the men fight it out? Or will the powers that be in the health insurance/care world, police themselves and not allow significant segments of our population to fall into destruction? Is “diverting the vast river of health [insurance/]care premiums into a government swamp to be doled out by bureaucrats,” as suggested by Sally, as bad as it sounds? When health insurance/care economists claim that Medicare is, by far, the most efficient health insurance/care system our country has just sidetracks and distractions?

Mr. Mc’s resolution seems to be centered around tax credits that ‘everyone’ is offered for health insurance. Does this ‘everyone’ award of $5,000 also apply to the struggling family of four, earning minimum wage (about $12,000 per year) who don’t owe any taxes? Or would they have to earn the full $59,000 annually in order to actually owe a $5,000 tax and appreciate the full credit? Will those who need health insurance most get nothing? More questions, vague answers.

As far as eliminating state-mandated health insurance consumer protections, the answer is somewhere in between. While it’s true that some mandates are unnecessary, still, some are critical. That issue may turn into the HMS Pandora’s Box, if opened.  At least one caution should be considered here. That is the plight of the ‘underinsured’ sector. As stated earlier, many people in the sector are shown to be in worse shape then those people who have no health insurance at all. . (For more on this, please refer to “Major 'Underinsured' Sector”.)

The ominous news is that this sector is known to have grown from 16 million strong to a colossal 25 million Americans between the years 2003 and 2007. That’s a 60% rise (the difference of 9 million is 60% of 16 million). All this happened before the current surge of scaled-back policies that have become the health insurance industry’s answer to the current ‘affordability’ crises. With so many states, like Florida, quickly jumping on the ‘scaled-back’ bandwagon, future studies will reveal to us any ramifications of this new trend.   Meanwhile, the fight over the best health insurance/care reform proposal is expected to escalate until the November showdown.