Washington Post: Healthcare Reform is Really Hard Work
Maybe I’m a crazy person, but to me the Washington Post this morning doesn’t seem enthused that JOBS will be created to HELP people access healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act:
Signing up an estimated 30 million uninsured Americans for coverage under the health-care law is shaping up to be, if not a bureaucratic nightmare, at the very least a daunting task.
While some people will find registering for health insurance as easy as booking a flight online, vast numbers who are confused by the myriad choices will need to sit down with someone who can walk them through the process.
Wow, sounds really awful, doesn’t it. Not a “nightmare” the Post assures us. But kinda close to a nightmare. Daunting in fact.
Enter the ‘navigators,’ an enormous new workforce of helpers required under the law. In large measure, the success of the law and its overriding aim of making sure that virtually all Americans have health insurance depends on these people. But the challenge of hiring and paying for a new class of workers is immense and is one of the most pressing issues as the Obama administration and state governments implement the law.
Enormous, the Post says. The “challenge” posed by this “requirement” in the law is very, very “pressing” says the Post.
Tens of thousands of workers will be needed — California alone plans to certify 21,000 helpers — with the tab likely to run in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Tens of thousands of workers! Hundreds of millions of dollars! Begats!
I could say something here about the amount of money we spent bombing and rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. But I won’t say anything like that here.
Anyway, besides helping people choose healthcare coverage—for some perhaps the first time—it seems to me this will also be an opportunity to put some of the vast human capital at the nation’s disposal to good effort.