Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP = Health Care "Public Options" Already in Place

Wondering why some top health care executives are pushing against a public option for health care? The answer to this very important question centers on how existing business -- no matter the industry -- hates competition. What real competition does is force business to watch their costs of doing business, get creative about how they do business and be responsible and respectful to their customers. What the public option being considered in Congress will do is put in place the now missing competitive factor into the health care industry.

For example, once a public option is in place, companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield (care LESS) will need to think twice before they make arbitrary decisions that can raise rates dramatically using little more than the "excuse" that one claim in 20 or 25 years is enough to justify their making dramatic increases in annual rates.

The reality is that without this public option, health care costs can be expected to skyrocket even more than they have in the past. A 2005 study published by the Federal Reserve Bank concluded that nearly 60% of American families cannot afford their health insurance. This was true for everyone -- older, younger, rural and urban. Since then costs have only gone up.

For more info, see the data at "The Sustainability of Health Spending Growth".

For rural families who are less likely to have employer paid health insurance and more likely to be forced to travel extreme distances to get medical care that is affordable and comes with easy access, the need for relief from the growing cost of health care is essential.

What's most amazing to us is how some rural seniors and others seem to have fallen for the "don't want the government involved" refrain when the reality is that the government is involved already and these same seniors and heads of households are happy about it -- happy with Medicare, happy with Medicaid and happy with State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP are "public options" for health care.

Healthcare and the Conservatives' Anti-Tax Fantasy

Steven Pearlstein writes today in the Washington Post:

"Nothing has been more damaging to rational discourse about economic policy than the notion, peddled relentlessly by Republican conservatives and accepted by too many centrist Democrats, that raising taxes is always and everywhere bad for the economy." (7/29/2009).

We very much agree. Unfortunately, once again, right-wing conservatives have muddled (we hate to use the word "lied") about both taxes and our nation's need to make health care affordable for all, using bad information to scare people about health care reform.

We urge you to read Pearlstein's column -- detail by detail, at "Health Reform Threatened by Conservatives' Anti-Tax Fantasy" to get the truth about the benefits of President Obama's campaign to improve affordable access to health care for the hardworking people who make up our nation's middle class.

To get you started, see below for facts particularly important to rural families:

• Small business benefits from health care reform. Right now -- for those small businesses (50% of all small businesses) who offer insurance to their employees, they pay on the average about 20% more than does big business.
  
• Proposed tax surcharge applies only to families earning more than $350,000 a year (House proposal).
  
• Tax credits offered to small businesses with low-wage workers (House proposal).
  

Read more here.

Doing Something Beats Doing Nothing When It Comes to Health Care

Steven Pearlstein's column "Imperfect Health Reform Still Beats the Status Quo" in the 7/22/09 issue of the Washington Post.

Our favorite line is:

"So the next time you hear someone throwing a hissy fit because health reform might raise taxes on some people, or steer people into managed care, or require small businesses to contribute $2 a day for each employee's coverage, just remember to ask yourself: And that's compared with what?"

Compared to what? e.g., compared to Canada -- every now and then you may hear someone using their most frightening voice to say, "In Canada, you have to wait to see a doctor!"

Well, we have to wait to see a doctor here. The difference isn't in the waiting time, but rather, when we wait, we pay more money than the Canadians do when they wait. There are lots more "compared to what" questions, but it will be important to make sure that while some are out there looking for utopia -- the land of perfect health care, the rest of us need to make sure that health reform actually gets started.

Children & Families Must Be First Priority for Health Care

Today's Congressional Quarterly (CQ) reports that the top worries of some rural Members of Congress are as follows:

• Greater cost containment
• More generous exemptions for small business to evade paying even a portion of the cost of insurance for their employees, and
• Changes to the government-run plan that Democrats want to create to compete with private sector insurers.

Our question. When will rural members of Congress start prioritizing children and families' need for more affordable coverage over the wants of health insurance companies? It would be better if these members -- conservatives and moderates -- would start prioritizing keeping rural hospitals open and fee for service so that rural communities that recruit doctors have a better chance keeping them.

If you've got the same worries we do about whether Congress is willing to pass a true reform of the health care industry -- a reform that prioritizes access and affordability for families, then be careful about these (good) words as you watch the debate:

1. Cost containment. A lot of folks talk about "cost containment" as a goal, but let's be clear: cost containment must apply to the cost of health care for families first.
   
2. Access for all. Every family needs their own family doctor, so they don't have to rely upon more expensive emergency room services.
   
3. Pre-existing conditions. ... Meaning big insurance companies that are already arguing against change, could actually be required to accept all customers -- no more cherry-picking as to which customer is the healthiest.
4. Public option. Another good word -- meaning that the private health insurers would get competition in the form of a government-sponsored plan that would allow you to pick your own doctor.
   
5. Single Payer. No, not a bad word but rather a good word that already defines Medicare, a system that works well for our seniors.
6. Working Poor. Careful on this one ... it really means people who work but can't afford the sometimes thousands of dollars a single health insurance policy costs, but opponents of affordable health care often use it as a means of disparaging those who can't afford health care now.