Daily News Updates - Health Insurance News

Health-Care Contrasts, Pt.8 – Weighing ‘apples’ & ‘oranges’.

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It’s also evident that much more government regulation would be involved, given Mr. O’s health insurance/care approach. In the Health Affairs article, such health experts as Joseph Antos, Gail Wilensky and Hanns Kuttner report that much less regulation would be involved with Mr. Mc’s health insurance/care plan – major contrast. There is only one reason for this vast difference – either we provide health insurance for 34 million of the uninsured or we don’t. That’s what we trade.

The experts also make note that Mr. O wants to set minimum standards for health insurance, while Mr. Mc wants to eliminate them. So Mr. O’s premiums will probably cost more than Mr. Mc’s. Nothing is said here about ‘best value’, perhaps because there isn’t enough detail yet from either candidate to ‘flesh it out’. Again, the actual crises is, evidently, not a significant factor in the Health Affairs report. So the 27 million Americans with inadequate health insurance, many worse off than those with no health insurance are not addressed.

In reality, the winner would be the ‘best bang for the buck’. ‘Too little’ is not better and neither is ‘too much’. The ‘comfortably adequate’ is a point somewhere in between. The writers of the Health Affairs article believe that political pressure will drive the minimum standards too high, resulting in no cheap health insurance. Again, these forecasts cannot substantiate a narrow error margin, because of lack of sufficient detail.

The Tax Policy Center summarized the overall impact, here. They pull the crises issue back into the equation by emphasizing the significance of the ‘uninsured’. Although not universal coverage, providing affordable quality health insurance for 34 million Americans within 10 years is nothing to sneeze at. This is the Obama plan.

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