Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

20 comments

  1. John Allen

    if you are uninsured. Purchasing a policy on the open market is not an option for most people.

    I’m 63 and don’t have insurance. The best policy I can find would cost me over $4400 per year. The benefits wouldn’t kick in until after I pay $2600 for the deductible. That means I’d be $7000 out of pocket before the insurance company paid for anything. Once the deductible is reached I’d have to pay a 20% copay. Hell of a deal.

    There’s more involved than the cost of such a policy. For instance, if I got sick, there’s no guarantee the insurance company wouldn’t just raise my rates each year in an effort to price me out of the policy and thus avoid having to pay for any expensive illnesses as I get older. The other thing is that, at my age, everything is a pre-existing condition. At least, for the first 2 years. A lot of good that will do me. I’ll be on Medicare in less than 2 years.

    I think I’m screwed.

  3. Chris Blask

    I think healthcare is heading in a direction that is different than it was in 2008, and we’ll see how that works out.

    Out here in California we have Meg Whitman (nervously shooing aside her illegal immigrant maid) saying she will save billions by “cleaning up fraud”. Others talk about fixing the public education system. Any of these things being immediately “solved” by someone smarter than the rest of us are eventualities I put at a very low order of probability.

    What becomes of our healthcare system, now? How do the changes enacted recently ramify through the Victorian steam engine of brass valves and steel rods we call a health care system? What unforeseen emergent behavior develops, and/or which Wise Pundit is proven correct next year and next decade(among thousands of contenders statistics will make someone look smart later)?

    I dunno. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

    My expectations were I think properly set going into this. I know that I don’t know what any given set of changes will mean tomorrow and next year and twenty years from now. I know that from those future vantage points it will all be Very Obvious and Any Fool should have been able to see it back now, but I am just not wise enough to be that Fool.

    A Democrat President and a Democrat Congress did the kinds of things one should expect them to do on the subject at this time. The Republican Body Politic thinks these are all the wrong things to do.

    None of that surprises me. In fact, it often bores me to tears discussing it with people who are Shocked (shocked, I say!) by any part of it.

    What will be interesting is what fractal combination of hopes and fears (combined with which Completely Obvious Unknowns the Future will expect us to all be able to see) turns out to be the case in reality.

    Healthcare (unlike education and welfare) is a moving target. What it cost and involved a hundred years ago, today, and a hundred years from now have almost no relation to each other. Two hundred years from now we will still be teaching our kids and helping the helpless, but imho by then we will have passed the stage of incredibly expensive healthcare and entered the incredibly good and virtually costless. Over the next 50-100 years some of the possible costs and potential benefits of healthcare will go through the roof while the cost of other healthcare pieces will fall overnight. It’s too damn big and complex to forecast with accuracy.

    As the Chinese Premier is (erroneously) quoted as saying when asked his opinion of the impact of the French Revolution: “It’s too early to tell.”

  4. jsfox

    From where I am sitting I am. Could it be better absofuckinglutely. But because of it my son who just turned 27 and is in Graduate School was able to find a health plan in PA. My daughter who is out of college and 22 was able to stay on ours.

    You may want to read this:

    My Backyard Meeting with President Obama

    Next, take a look here of you are looking for insurance. The site has improved since it was first rolled out.

    http://www.healthcare.gov/inde…

    And finally we still need a PO of some kind. Be it Medicare for all or some other plan.

  5. creamer

       

     I suspect there will be some more give and take. I think the enormity of the change made it inevitable. For companies(insurance and pvt bussiness) it has an obvious cost impact.

    To enact legislation of any kind and not be open to modification, compromise and changes would be irresponsible.

      Even if we were transitioning to single payer we would be making adjustments and compromises along the way.

  6. DeniseVelez

    I am biased toward what we have gained.  We just have to keep on adding to those gains.

    Since I am also a staunch advocate of Community Health Centers I am also pleased that many are now receiving additional funding.

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