I was going through some old files on a thumb drive and I came across what I am now posting.
This was an assignment in one of my college classes that I took for Medical Insurance Billing and Coding. The assignment was to write about Obamacare and what impacts it would have on healthcare in the United States. As with any good college paper, I have left my references so you can see where I got my information.
Please keep in mind that I wrote this some time in the summer of 2010. Now that we are learning the horrible truths of Obamacare, I found it interesting to see how much we knew then as compared to now.
And in case you cared to know... I got an A on this assignment.
On
March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law H.R. 676, which affords the
federal government more control over the American health care industry,
specifically the medical insurance portion of health care. The idea was to
provide medical insurance coverage for those Americans who do not have
coverage. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 46.3 million
Americans reported that they had no medical insurance for the year 2009.
It
is well known that some Americans cannot afford private medical insurance, some
cannot obtain coverage due to current or past health problems, and yet others do
not want coverage for whatever personal reason. So the real questions are who
will pay for this, can everyone be covered, and will everyone be forced to have
coverage?
The
general belief is that H.R. 676 will be paid for via cuts in other government
ran programs such as Medicare, an increase in taxes and even the possibility of
new taxes (such as the Value Added Tax or VAT). This is believed to be true
because other countries that have socialized medicine use taxes to pay for their
government ran health care, but is it true that our new health care program
will be paid this way? It is a logical conclusion since the only way the
government can earn money is through taxes.
According
to the news agency, MSNBC, H.R. 676, “...includes more than $400 billon in
higher taxes over a decade, roughly half of it from a new Medicare payroll tax
on individuals with incomes over $200,000 and couples over $250,000.” (House sends
health care bill to Obama's desk) The bill also
includes a $500 billon cut to Medicare payment to facilities that treat
Medicare patients.
The other issue, in my mind, with financing this new health
care legislation is that the federal government is rife with instances of
fraud, waste, and abuse over financial matters. This, in my opinion, is what
has been keeping us from properly financing our socialized medicine programs
better known as Medicare and Medicaid. Our federal government has been and
continues to spend money on things that they probably should not in light of
other issues such as our ability to pay for President Obama’s new health care law.
Spending such as:
- $25 billion that is spent
every year on federal properties that are not being used
- $123 billion spent annually
on government programs that have been found not to work
- $2.6 million that is being
sent to China to train their prostitutes on how to drink more responsibly on
the job
- improper purchases such as
home gaming systems, jewelry, liquor and vacations on government credit cards;
our tax money at work
- $3.9 million spent recently
on rearranging desks and offices at the Securities and Exchange Commission’s
headquarters
- $146 million spent annually
on upgrades to flights for federal employees who refuse to fly coach
- $350,000 spent to sponsor
David Gilliland who is a NASCAR driver
- $500,000 given to Alaska
Airlines so they could paint a Chinook salmon on a Boeing 737
- $100 million in unused
travel tickets initially purchased by the Department of Defense (DoD) that were
refundable tickets, but that the DoD had never gotten refunded
- $60,000 per hour to take
pictures of Air Force One in front of national landmarks
- $50,000 for paintings
painted of high-ranking government officials; that is for each piece, not a
total amount
- $1.3 million per month in
rent for a medical lab that cannot be used by the federal government
- $2.4 billion on new jets for
the Pentagon that it says it does not need and will not use
- $1.8 million spent to build
a private golf course
- $2 billion that is paid
annually to farmers not to farm their land
Just within the above examples over this past year, which is
only a sampling, the total bill of fraud, waste, and abuse comes to a total of
well over $152 billon; $152 billon that could have been used to help fund
Medicare and Medicaid.
The aforementioned total does not cover the amount of money the
federal government distributes to people who could work, but choose not to. They
exist totally on the government paying them an income. They believe they are
owed by the federal government just because they exist. In reality, they are
only causing a financial strain on a system that is being overly strained as it
is. They take money that could otherwise be spent on other social programs like
Medicare and Medicaid as well as for those who are disabled and cannot work.
The obviously hard part in this is: 1) Do we take away from the needy even if
their need is under false pretense and 2) If we do, who gets to decide? Do the
ends really justify the means?
Continuing this idea of “being owed”, can everyone be covered
under Obama’s new heath care law?
The simple answer to this question is yes, but another question
arises. Are there any negatives with this new health care law?
According to Shawn Tully of CNN, yes there are. There are
actually five freedoms we could end up losing.
The first freedom is the freedom to choose what we want in our
plan. The bill includes wording that makes it to where a person has to purchase
insurance based on standard benefits. The problem with this is that no one
package will contain overlap. That is, services that will be paid for will be included
in only one certain package, but not all. For example, you could not choose
between more than one package that covers heart problems because only one package
will cover heart problems. This leaves less of a chance for real competition in
health care coverage.
The second freedom is the freedom to be rewarded for healthy
living or to pay for your actual medical expenses. This means that a person who
is healthy would have to pay just as much for medical insurance as a person who
lives a more unhealthy life. The deviousness of this is the actual reason, according
to Tully, that younger Americans do not have health insurance. Typically,
younger people have less income than older people do. This means that younger
people have less money to spend on their health care as compared to older
people. Young people with little money will have to pay just as much as older
people with more money. As Tully says, “It’s as if car insurers had to charge
the same rates to safe drivers as to chronic speeders with a history of
accidents.” (Tully)
The third freedom is the freedom to be able to choose coverage
with a high deductible. In the past, those who worked were able to deposit
money tax free into Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) where employers can even
match contributions. Then, employees were able to use this money to purchase insurance
with high deductibles for services such as major medical costs. Other visits to
the doctor would be paid using the money in the HSA. With the aforementioned standard
benefits plans, the federal government can choose what they believe deductibles
should be. This means that the federal government could lower deductibles
meaning that HSAs could be eliminated.
The fourth freedom is the freedom to be able to keep your
current insurance plan. In a nutshell, the new health care law states that once
you lose your current insurance, such as employer provided insurance, you must
be put on the federal government’s insurance plan. Also, if your insurance
coverage changes in anyway, the insured must drop their plan for the
government’s plan.
Finally, our freedom to choose what doctor we see will
disappear. The new health care plan is like a HMO in that the government will
assign you a provider and that provider decides what specialist, if any, you
will be able to see.
So we now have an idea of who will pay and who will be covered,
but will everyone be forced to have coverage?
This is the basis of this new law, coverage for everyone. It
will be mandatory that everyone have some sort of medical insurance, like it or
not, but those effects will not be totally felt until 2014.
According to Gary Bauer, a Presidential candidate himself, it
has already been reported that 1.5 million Americans run the risk of losing
their current health care coverage this year. Current estimates now include the
possibility that tens of millions might lose their current coverage in 2014.
Why? According to Bauer, “...the federal government is going to dictate what
kind of coverage you must have.” (Bauer)
Included in the bill, as also stated by Tully, is the fact that
once your current insurance plan changes in anyway, in actually, you end up
losing it and being forced onto the government’s plan. A simple adjustment in a
co-pay could cost an individual their current insurance plan. Worse yet is that
there is verbiage in H.R. 676 that actually gives businesses incentives to drop
their employee medical insurance plans, according to Bauer.
Even healthy, young people will be required to carry some sort
of medical insurance under the new health care law. “In 2014, premiums for
young adults who get coverage on the individual market will rise by an average
of 17 percent, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis by the
Associated Press.” (Bauer)
On
March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law H.R. 676, which affords the
federal government more control over the American health care industry,
specifically the medical insurance portion of health care. The idea was to
provide medical insurance coverage for those Americans who do not have coverage
for whatever reason. Now we know that everyone will have to pay, everyone can
be covered and that everyone will have to have coverage, like it or not.
Works Cited
