It’s a bill introduced by Rep. Alan Grayson to allow any American to buy in to Medicare buy at cost. I know I’m dreaming, but wouldn’t it be nice to see it passed?
Please, if you can, tell me what’s wrong with a bill that would increase competition, increase health care coverage and is not mandatory? No one would have to get rid of their old insurance coverage if that’s what they preferred, but neither would anyone be forced to stay at a bad job to keep their health insurance, or pay ridiculous rate hikes every year, or risk losing their insurance coverage if they lost their job, or have their claims for treatment denied at the whim of an insurance company executive.
Aren’t we a nation that believes in the market? Well why don’t we let the market work? In my neck of the woods (lot’s of woods actually) we have basically two health care providers. The rates they charge are effectively the same. You can pay a lot for really crappy coverage or you can pay a lot more for somewhat better coverage.
The one we have denies claims for treatments for my medical condition all the time. Of course, that’s after we pay a $2,400 deductible before our benefits (such as they are) kick in. Probably a fifth of our income goes to pay for health care costs: medications, physician’s visits, etc. My wife now qualifies for Medicare due to her disability and so she was kicked off our family coverage. Not surprisingly our coverage rates did not go down, and our family deductible went up.
I’d pay for Medicare coverage for myself and my children in a heart beat rather than keep tossing money at corporate bloodsuckers America’s private health insurance industry.
…being thrown open to everyone, but I dunno. Like all good ideas like the public option, I see this dying the death of a thousand cuts in Congress.
I know as much about the mechanics of Medicare as the average American, which means I don’t know much. But wasn’t it created as a low cost means to continue Seniors access to health care after retirement when their incomes are halved or more? And because seniors are a much smaller pool than the population at large, Dr’s and hospitals can serve them through Medicare and still maintain a profit because the rest of the population is mostly privately insured? How would it work for “any American” to buy into Medicare irrespective of income or age and not completely re-engineer the entire medical industry? How would this affect doctor’s incomes? How would that in turn affect tax revenues? How would that in turn affect the federal and state budgets? I just find it hard to believe it’s as simple and seamless as you are describing.
I’m not being facitious; I really want to understand this.
One, not everyone would buy into Medicare. People happy with their health insurance would keep it. Others would avoid Medicare out of principle.
Second, Health insurance companies, in order to survive would actually have to start competing for your business. It’s no surprise that last year in the most significant economic downturn in decades they made record profits. They turned down customers, got rid of customers on whatever basis they could when those people needed their insurance the most, denied claims, and raised rates on everyone that remained. What a business model, eh? Offer them a service, take more money than they need, and then don’t deliver on their promises. In most countries that would be criminal or civil fraud. In the US its the SOP.
Insurance companies are also bloated and inefficient companies. They survive primarily on the fact that in each region of the country they, due to their antitrust exemption, have a virtual monopoly or duopoly on delivering health insurance. You either get health care from the companies in your area or you don’t get health care at all (unless you qualify for Medicaid, Medicare or VA benefits). Insurance companies don’t face any real competition. If they did, they’d have to find ways to make their policies attractive to consumers and lower their costs by means other than screwing their customers.
This would be only the first step, by the way. Further legislation would be required to make costs come down (i.e., which would mean taking on Big Pharma and negotiating real competitive rates for prescription medicines like they do in every other developed country).
The model we are discussing is essentially the model that Japan and Germany and France employ — not single payer but a mixed approach of private and public options.
Here’s a link to a discussion of the Japanese system which we would do well to emulate: Japan’s Universal and Affordable Health Care.
Other links can be found here, here, here and even here in the Washington Post (which tries to make Japan’s system look as bad as it can but ultimately has to admit it works better than what we have in the US).
You can google more articles if you like.
Yeah, my understanding is that Medicare patients are subsidized by insured patients. I do think the Medicare system should be open to anyone who wants to pay in, but the under-65s will need to pay at a higher rate than the over-65s for it to be sustainable.
I mean, reimbursements for the under-65s will have to be higher than the over-65s. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.
Living in the DC metro area as I do, every year I see the value of competition among insurance companies — during “open season” when the huge local federal government workforce has the option to change which health insurance plan/company they have. The government picks up most of the cost (all of it for some), but cost is still one of the criteria people use to make their choice. But the other factor is what the plans offer and how good their service is.
In other words, it’s the only time I ever see ads from health insurance companies that are focused at the ultimate CONSUMER of their services. (Mostly insurance companies focus their marketing at benefits managers and corporate bigwigs, where the primary concern seems to be keeping down costs for the business, but not necessarily for the person actually covered by the policy. Otherwise known as “Patient-directed healthcare” plans — meaning, don’t get sick with something you can’t afford.)
That’s the kind of insurance market I want to see — where there’s an affordable option like medicare for those who want to get it. Then the private insurance companies can tweak their prices to insure only the young and healthy to protect their investment returns if they want (and if they can persuade the young and healthy that they actually have something to offer) — the rest of us who aren’t so young or have chronic health problems of various kinds will have a reliable, affordable alternative.
It would help small companies like the one I work for, because we would have a good idea how much medicare expenses would be a year or two in advance — right now, it’s a chew-the-fingernails, scramble for the best deal, hope they don’t raise the rates TOO much even if more of us are over 50 now, kind of thing — EVERY DAMNED YEAR. How can any business plan for the future if you don’t know if your insurance rates will go up by 10%, 18% or 36% from one year to the next? It’s insane.
Go, Grayson! Medicare (optional) for all is really what we need.
I have the cheapest — or one of the cheapest — health plans they offer. It’s not as great as people think.
It costs about $2,600. That’s my share. Uncle same’s share is about $7,800 per year.
Which is fine relative to what others get in the private sector, of course. But I’d trade my shitty insurance for the French system or the NHS any day of the week. We’d get better care, and it’d cost far less.
As a retired federal employee my health ins premium was about what you stated yours is. I had BC/BS Basic. I dropped it because I have Medicare as primary and Tricare as the secondary.
Medicare for all is probably as good as it gets. Or at least it is far, far better than what we have now.
Alan Grayson: Proof that, yes, even Florida can avoid fucking it up once in a blue moon.
It would not pass now. Without the framework of the current less than perfect bill, nothing changes.
Medicare is great.
Um, yep – that’s what IO’ve been saying.