MI DEMOCRATS AND HEALTHCARE REFORM?

Recently, the U.S. Senate was considering a bill named HEALTH INSURANCE MARKETPLACE MODERNIZATION AND AFFORDABILITY ACT (S. 1955).

Most business people like me supported the bill wholeheartedly. The bill, for the first time, would allow health insurance providers to offer many different kinds or types of health coverage policies that would be suited in price and coverage to basically every person’s life situation. Currently, state laws mandate what health policies MUST cover and that makes the policies very expensive and thus unaffordable to many people who prefer to remain UNINSURED!

Being able to offer a variety of health insurance policies would help eliminate the uninsured; the people responsible for our ever rising health care costs (see previous blogs on this subject).

I wrote to Michigan’s Democratic Senators for support but I should have known better. Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow voted against the bill that would bring us a step closer to solving our healthcare dilemma. Why did they refuse to back this common sense bill?

Both Senators had similar responses to my emails. Their first objection was that the new law would allow insurers and businesses to offer “basic” coverage which would not include all the current state-mandated benefits. @#$%^&* that’s the point of this bill – currently some businesses offer NO coverage because the state-mandated coverage is too expensive. By being able to offer AT LEAST basic coverage, their workers would not have to be uninsured.

The Senators mentioned specific areas that would not have required coverage. They included hospice care, newborn coverage, access to Ob/Gyn docs and Pediatricians, diabetic drugs and prevention of diabetes programs. Excuse me but a healthy; 19-25 year old male would not need any of that. Why should he pay exorbitant premiums for something he does not need?

The whole point of this law is to make available policies that fit the specific needs of specific people and their families. If you expect to need the services of a pediatrician, you would buy a policy that included that coverage or you would ask your employer to include it even though you as the employee may have to pay the extra amounts for that coverage – AT LEAST YOU WOULD NOT BE UNINSURED!

The second objection and probably the biggest one since whole page newspaper ads were taken out protesting this point, was that insurers could discriminate. This means the insurers could set their fees according to certain factors like current health status, age, smoking habits, drinking habits, being a female, overweight or working at a high-risk job, to name a few.

Well I hate to be a hard ass but you know Americans need to start taking some responsibility for their health and well being. People that DO take care of themselves should not have to pay higher premiums just to cover people that don’t give a shit about their own health. I would exclude any and all discrimination against diseases and conditions that are beyond the control of any individual.

Even today, life and disability insurance companies run tests on you before they issue a policy. That policy is priced according to the tests and exam results; that only make business sense, so why not use the same factors for health insurance? I would also insist that as you improve your life style (quit smoking, etc.) that your premiums or the premiums of your employer, go down accordingly.

The Senators also objected to the lack of state oversight of insurance plans and elimination of consumer protection for internal grievance procedures. Well, if that bothers you so much why not add it to the bill?

The Senators are SO sympathetic to the plight of small businesses and their problems with annual double digit health premium increases but the proposed plan just did not agree with their views of how things should be. Did they propose an alternative – NO -  but I bet I know what it would be – NATIONAL HEALTHCARE COVERAGE run by our just so efficient federal government (remember Katrina) and paid for by our middle class (poor people should not have to pay for anything in their lives).

I am not naïve to the point where I expect my Michigan Senators to give a crap about my small business or for that matter any business in Michigan that is trying to control its healthcare quandary. My senators are old DEMOCRATS which means they are really SOCIALISTS and we all know how their thinking runs.

So what does all this mean for me and Michigan, we are screwed! Socialism will not solve our economic issues so we should not elect Democrats but Bush Republicans have become weird religious nut cases that have lost their Republican economic principles. So who do we have to vote for? Like I said, we are screwed!

Janusz