Obamacare

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

50 Examples of Government Waste. 8 October 2009. 29 June 2010 <http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/08/50-examples-of-government-waste/>.

Bauer, Gary. Obamacare's Broken Promises. 20 June 2010. 14 July 2010 <http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=37561>.

House sends health care bill to Obama's desk. 22 March 2010. 13 July 2010 <http://www.msnbc.com/id/35961584/>.

Reynolds, Denise. CDC: Number of Americans without Health Insurance Coverage Increases. 17 June 2010. 13 July 2010 <http://www.emaxhealth.com/1506/cdc-number-americans-without-health-insurance-coverage-increases>.

Tully, Shawn. You'll lose 5 key freedoms under Obama's health care plan. 24 July 2009. 13 July 2010 <http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/24/news/economy/health_care_reform_obama.fortune/>.