COVID-19 & Healthcare

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Dean Baker has a must-read post at the Huffington Post for all those panicky Democrats in Congress — and also Bill Clinton — who care more about the politics of elections than getting public policy right on health care. The media focus should be on the regulation of predatory insurers engaged in consumer fraud, not on a campaign pledge President Obama made. The media is giving these predatory insurers a pass. The Obama Pledge on Keeping Your Insurance:

President Obama has been getting a lot of grief in the last few weeks over his pledge that with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in place, people would be able to keep their insurance if they like it. The media have been filled with stories about people across the country who are having their insurance policies terminated, ostensibly because they did not meet the requirements of the ACA. While this has led many to say that Obama was lying, there is much less here than meets the eye.

First, it is important to note that the ACA grand-fathered all the individual policies that were in place at the time the law was enacted. This means that the plans in effect at the time that President Obama was pushing the bill could still be offered even if they did not meet all the standards laid out in the ACA.

The plans being terminated because they don't meet the minimal standards were all plans that insurers introduced after the passage of the ACA. Insurers introduced these plans knowing that they would not meet the standards that would come into effect in 2014. Insurers may not have informed their clients at the time they sold these plans that they would not be available after 2014 because they had designed a plan that did not comply with the ACA. [i.e., consumer fraud]

However if the insurers didn't tell their clients that the new plans would only be available for a short period of time, the blame would seem to rest with the insurance companies, not the ACA. After all, President Obama did not promise people that he would keep insurers from developing new plans that will not comply with the provisions of the ACA.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

All this faux outrage from the conservative media entertainment complex and Tea-Publican politicians over insurance cancellation notices is a disgusting spectacle to behold.

Essentially what the right-wing is arguing for is continuation of the status quo of a health insurance market that was completely broken. One where people were at the mercy of unscrupulous insurance companies who would sell you a crappy health insurance policy with a low premium, but with high out-of-pocket costs and no coverage for serious illness or medical procedures, preexisting condition exclusions, annual limits — and frequently cancelled after its term of one year expired. Consumers with a pre-exisitng condition were uninsurable at any price.

In essence, the right-wing is defending health insurance consumer fraud and victimizing consumers. The fact that some people are happy with being victimized by insurers with a crappy health insurance policy and no coverage speaks more to their shortcomings — "please take my money for nothing in return, i love throwing my money away!" These are not the kind of people who should determine sound public policy.

Ezra Klein argues Obama shouldn’t apologize for blowing up the terrible individual market:

NBC's Chuck Todd asked President Obama about the people losing their
health insurance despite his promise that "anyone who likes their plan
can keep it." (See the video and read the transcript here.)

"I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me," Obama replied.

The answer is a bit of a dodge. People aren't finding themselves in
this situation based on the president's promises. They're finding
themselves in this situation based on his policy. And Obama isn't
apologizing for the policy.

"Before the law was passed, a lot of these plans, people thought they
had insurance coverage," he said. "And then they'd find out that they
had huge out of pocket expenses. Or women were being charged more than
men. If you had preexisting conditions, you just couldn't get it at
all."

Obama was wrong to promise that everyone who liked their insurance
could keep it. For a small minority of Americans, that flatly isn't
true. But the real sin would've been leaving the individual insurance
market alone.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

CBS Evening News reported on Friday night, S.F. programmers build alternative to HealthCare.gov:

[T]three of them have created their own website that addresses some of the most annoying problems with HealthCare.gov.

In a San Francisco office shared with other tech start-ups, three 20-year-olds saw HealthCare.gov as a challenge.

With a few late nights, Ning Liang, George Kalogeropoulos and Michael Wasser built "thehealthsherpa.com," a two-week-old website that solves one of the biggest problems with the government's site.

"They got it completely backwards in terms of what people want up front,"
said Liang. He added: "They want prices and benefits, so that they could
make the decision."

Liang showed CBS News how it worked. "You come to our website and you put in your zip code — in this case a California zip code. You hit 'find plans,' and you immediately see the exchange plans that are available for that zip code."

by David Safier The Star has a lovely, feel-good story this morning about an uninsured woman, Rosie Armenta, who needed treatment for cancer. The community stepped up and helped her, donating $17,600 in six weeks. My heart goes out to the woman, and I'm impressed by the generosity of friends and strangers who helped her … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

One thing I have found missing in the absolutely craptacular reporting of the past week about "ObamaCare Sticker Shock," particulary from the AP (All Propaganda), is the failure to point out that the "cancellation notice letters" from insurers to customers with substandard crappy insurance that does not meet minimum coverage standards is that these insurers are "upselling" their customers to their pricier plans — hence the so-called "sticker shock" — and are not advising their customers of less expensive comparable options.

Insurers also are not directing customers to the health insurance exchanges where they might find a less expensive, better quality plan from another insurer.

In other words, insurers are still engaging in the consumer fraud practices that the Affordable Care Act is trying to end.

Luckily, Dylan Scott at Talking Points Memo today does real investigative reporting in How Insurers Are Hiding Obamacare Benefits From Their Own Customers:

Donna received the letter canceling her insurance plan on Sept. 16.
Her insurance company, LifeWise of Washington, told her that they'd
identified a new plan for her. If she did nothing, she'd be covered.

A
56-year-old Seattle resident with a 57-year-old husband and 15-year-old
daughter, Donna had been looking forward to the savings that the
Affordable Care Act had to offer.

But that's not what she found.
Instead, she'd be paying an additional $300 a month for coverage. The
letter made no mention of the health insurance marketplace that would
soon open in Washington, where she could shop for competitive plans, and
only an oblique reference to financial help that she might qualify for,
if she made the effort to call and find out.

Otherwise, she'd be automatically rolled over to a new plan — and,
as the letter said, "If you're happy with this plan, do nothing."

If
Donna had done nothing, she would have ended up spending about $1,000
more a month for insurance than she will now that she went to the
marketplace, picked the best plan for her family and accessed tax
credits at the heart of the health care reform law.