Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Speaking Up From the Blog, Pt.3 – Will ‘tough love’ responsibility leave us noseless?

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‘Dr. GRM’ attacks Mr. McCain’s plan a little stronger. He calls it a naiveté reflection and a ‘wishful thinking’ approach. He believes it would only throw the health insurance/care crisis into deeper despair. Mr. McCain wants to abolish the state-level mandate standards and leave an effective ‘free-for-all’ struggle between the multi-trillion dollar health insurance/care industry and the consumer. ‘GRM’ would like to see even more force behind standards, enforced by the national government. If we don’t, he contends, “we'll see the equivalent of negative amortization home mortgagees.” Low ball pricing and ‘bare-bones’ plans will abound and hapless families will continue to face bankruptcy. These are good and responsible Americans who were led to believe that all was well until they found that their health insurance companies weren’t going to pay when times got tough.

In a perfect world, ‘GRM’ concedes, sure, it would be great if all Americans "would take more responsibility and make smarter decisions.” But, in light of reality, that expectation itself is not a responsible approach. We’ll never have a perfect world. It can be improved, however. One way, ‘GRM’ suggests is by raising health insurance deduction levels. Not from $10,000 to $20,000 as does happen to chronic and pre-existing condition victims, but responsibly. Another responsible approach is to educate (and protect) the consumer where the health insurance provider assures them that all is good and they are already protected by “some overriding set of rules”. Any responsible on-looker should already realize that teaching these people by allowing them to suffer bankruptcy hurts everyone else as well. Those ‘would-be, tough love’ proponents themselves need to be responsible enough to know that taxes will rise, medical access is reduced when facilities go unpaid, and extended families bear the brunt when these people fall into helpless despair.

Health insurance is just like lending. We can make Wall Street suffer but, should we cut off our noses to spite our faces?

Continued…
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