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This article separates facts from some of the fictions being spread around.
NYT: A Primer on the Details of Health Care Reform
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Medicare & the public option
My U.S. representative, apparently trying to be a blue dog even though our district is in New York State, has come out against health reform on the specious grounds that it might harm Medicare.
Meanwhile, protesters around the country are screaming "Keep the government's hands off my Medicare."
Well, I have news: Medicare is a government program and always has been. Is it really possible that people who are old enough to be eligible for Medicare have lost track of this?
If so, maybe their medication needs to be adjusted. Or, more charitably, perhaps the fact that they file their claims with private insurance companies (which have contracts to administer Medicare claims), or sign up with a non-governmental HMO operator, has misled them.
I'm not yet eligible for Medicare, but I'm old enough to remember the fight to enact it. And I remember the panic when it started: my mother's sister was in the hospital at the time, and the hospital was determined to discharge her even though she needed hospital care. Everyone thought that all the old people would immediately come to the hospital!
Of course, that didn't happen. But there was a good reason to fear that it might, because until the beginning of Medicare, most old people had no health insurance and many rejected or postponed treatment because of the cost.
It's the relative success of Medicare that created the demand for a national health program that could include everyone. Medicare is far from perfect, but people who have it certainly don't want to give it up.
I believe that a robust public option for health care is essential for any genuine improvement in the situation. Merely expanding the current, dysfunctional system will make things worse, not better. (Actually, I believe that replacing the current non-system with a single-payer system would be best, but I despair of its ever being enacted.)
One suggestion that I've heard is simply to open up Medicare (or a plan just like Medicare, but financially separate from it and called something else) to everyone, at a fair price for those who can afford it. That idea includes a multi-year phase-in, e.g., make it available immediately to anyone 55 or older who wants it (thus taking care of everyone my age who has been forced into early retirement without health benefits, or who would retire voluntarily if health insurance were sure to be available), and then gradually reduce the minimum age.
Oh - on the idea that Medicare isn't the Gummint:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/get-your-goddamn-governme_b_252326.html
Meanwhile, protesters around the country are screaming "Keep the government's hands off my Medicare."
Well, I have news: Medicare is a government program and always has been. Is it really possible that people who are old enough to be eligible for Medicare have lost track of this?
If so, maybe their medication needs to be adjusted. Or, more charitably, perhaps the fact that they file their claims with private insurance companies (which have contracts to administer Medicare claims), or sign up with a non-governmental HMO operator, has misled them.
I'm not yet eligible for Medicare, but I'm old enough to remember the fight to enact it. And I remember the panic when it started: my mother's sister was in the hospital at the time, and the hospital was determined to discharge her even though she needed hospital care. Everyone thought that all the old people would immediately come to the hospital!
Of course, that didn't happen. But there was a good reason to fear that it might, because until the beginning of Medicare, most old people had no health insurance and many rejected or postponed treatment because of the cost.
It's the relative success of Medicare that created the demand for a national health program that could include everyone. Medicare is far from perfect, but people who have it certainly don't want to give it up.
I believe that a robust public option for health care is essential for any genuine improvement in the situation. Merely expanding the current, dysfunctional system will make things worse, not better. (Actually, I believe that replacing the current non-system with a single-payer system would be best, but I despair of its ever being enacted.)
One suggestion that I've heard is simply to open up Medicare (or a plan just like Medicare, but financially separate from it and called something else) to everyone, at a fair price for those who can afford it. That idea includes a multi-year phase-in, e.g., make it available immediately to anyone 55 or older who wants it (thus taking care of everyone my age who has been forced into early retirement without health benefits, or who would retire voluntarily if health insurance were sure to be available), and then gradually reduce the minimum age.
Oh - on the idea that Medicare isn't the Gummint:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/get-your-goddamn-governme_b_252326.html
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