re: #218 reine.de.tout

Nana - I am frightened too.
My medical needs have a cost that exceeds $30,000 a year. I’ve had the same employer-provided group insurance for 30 years, and right now, thank the good Lord in heaven, I am covered 100% for the major part of that cost.

I am very much afraid that under Obamacare, my insurance plan could no longer take new enrollees, and would have to cease. I would then have to be under Obamacare, and I’m afraid I would be ineligible for the treatment I need, because of my age … and if that happens, I believe I will be dead within 5 years, whereas I can expect to live another 20 or 30 with it.

Reine, under the present proposals, as long as your employer continues to ofer coverage, you will continue to be covered. What is happening now, however, is that employers are dropping insurance altogether, purchasing a lower level of service, or increasing deductibles and co-pays because insurance is so expensive. It’s that trend that Obama is trying to counter.

Conservatve Republican senators have been on TV in just the past week saying that one out of three of our health care dollars are wasted. That’s another pattern that needs to be countered.

Because we are Americans, we like to believe that we have the best heathcare system in the world, but we don’t. We have the most expensive healthcare system in the world. And we are not the healthiest people in the world. Many nations have longer average lifespans than we do.

As far as rationing is concerned, we have rationing now—in part based on ability to pay and in part based on underwriting rules such as denial of insurance to people who have pre-existing conditions or recission of benefits to people who develop expensive illnesses. The New Yorker recently published an important article by Atul Gawande, a physician, about the irrationality in our current system. I urge you to take a look at it.

Every respectable health care economist, whether conservative or liberal, acknowledges that costs are expected to increase dramatically in the very near future. It’s entirely reasonable to diagree with any given proposal, but saying that we want things to stay the way they are isn’t reasonable because (a) things aren’t that good for many citizens and (b) things will change or the worse if do nothing.