Not sure I can add anything to this. Read to the end--especially the bit about peace. Please, everyone, let's remember that.
If you have time, the comments on this post are an interesting read, too. A quote from one: "What you [the blogger] are essentially saying is that you're happy your friends with pre-existing conditions can rip off the rest of us, enslave us to the government, and pay through the nose to support them, and thousands like them."
This commenter opposes the health care bill and is criticizing the blogger for her support of it on behalf of her "friends with pre-existing conditions." I identify a lot with the blogger's position--I was thrilled that the bill passed, not because I need health care (I have a great plan through my husband's employer), but because I have a lot of friends and family members who don't have health care. Some of them have pre-existing conditions. Some of them refuse to go to the doctor for fear or being diagnosed with pre-existing conditions. None of them can afford health care.
Do I want those friends and family members to "rip me off" and force me to "pay through the nose to support them"? Frankly--yes. I can't afford to pay for their health care out of pocket. But I hope that with this bill--or maybe with future, improved iterations of it--my increased taxes will help make health care affordable for them. And honestly, while it would probably be better for my spiritual growth if I were to donate money to them out of the goodness of my heart, most people will give more when they have to. Charities and the church are not meeting this need--if they were, my family members would be going to the doctor right now. I don't think this bill is perfect, not by a long shot, and it remains to be seen how much impact it will really have. I think it will have to be changed. But I also think it's a step in the right direction.
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Thanks for the shout-out, Lisa! And for a great, thought-provoking post.
Like you, I know a lot of people who will benefit from this bill - especially folks with preexisting conditions who feel trapped in their current job in order to keep their insurance or desperate to get any kind of health care coverage at all.
My husband and I also stand to benefit, as we have to purchase our own insurance (being self-employed and all). My understanding is that premiums for us may go up, but we will be able to get substantial tax breaks/subsidies to help pay for our health insurance.
The bill's not perfect, but I think it will help a lot of people.
Thanks again for your encouraging words!
On the one hand, we *should* be generous. We *should* be willing to shell out what we can of our hard-earned money to help the poor.
On the other hand, we should be generous with our *own* money. We are called to give out of our own poverty, not out of our neighbor's prosperity. When the Good Samaritan found the man half-dead on the side of the road, he promise his *own* money to cover the innkeeper's expense; he did not expect the innkeeper (or the town as a whole) to pay for the man's recovery.
There's a phrase, "Robbing Peter to pay Paul." Remember...however noble his motives may have been, Robin Hood was a thief.
Of course, the biggest danger with the bill is whether we end up in a situation like they have in Massachusetts.
I recall reading an article, written by a woman who actively supports health care reform (IIRC, she's a speechwriter or something like that), who moved from DC to MA. What she discovered there was that, due to the various restrictions on insurance companies (couldn't take into account pre-existing conditions, etc.), premiums on insurance were prohibitively high; she couldn't afford health insurance. To make things worse, insurance was mandatory, so the State was going to fine her because she couldn't afford to pay the premiums!
Her conclusion in the article was, "We need health care reform, but not like this!"
Where I would disagree with her is that she saw this as emphasizing the importance for the public option. In my opinion, health care reform needs to go the other way...getting the government *out* of health care in the first place and, more importantly, tort reform (i.e., addressing the insanity of malpractice claims that drive up costs for everyone else).
Thanks for the post. To be completely honest, I haven't read up fully on this bill. But at a glance, I don't think it is going to revolutionize anything. Positive or negative. If you rate the impact of foreign health care programs from 1 to 10 with Canada an 8, Britain a 9, France a 9, etc, then US is more like a 2 in terms of how impactful this legislation will be in changing the way health care is done. This is just not radical and it certainly isn't socialism.
For the Republicans, don't get all in a hissy about something that isn't a huge deal and for the Democrats I don't think there is too much to be that excited about. There are some improvements and there are some poorly thought out provisions. The one dark horse for big impact could be the Medicare provisions in decreasing medical compensation by 23% (or whatever the number was). What I find interesting here is that the Republicans are touting this as one of the worst provisions because doctors will stop accepting Medicare, but to me I would think the Republicans would be generally excited about the decline of an entitlement program being sponsored by the left, resulting in angry liberal constituents and votes for them in the next election... So if what they are touting is true then I think the DNC would have been more concerned. So I don't think this will actually have a big impact other than to make doctors gripe more about what they receive from Medicaid/Medicare. But we'll see.
In terms of the pre-existing conditions, how is that really supposed to play out? If I find out that I have terminal cancer then I try to get insurance, they have to price my insurance on the basis of age, height, weight, etc but have to exclude any pre-existing conditions? In this case those without pre-existing conditions will subsidize those who do have those conditions? It seems to me that this already happens with many of our other taxes such as property taxes (The family of 7 living in a trailer have their cost of schooling highly subsidized by the baby boomers living in the mcmansion paying 10x the property tax rate...this is highly progressive taxation). There's nothing anti-American about that whether or not I disagree with it. The big question for me is why didn't they take it a step further and make it progressive rather than just neutral. Why not take additional factors out such as age when pricing insurance so that the elderly don't have a problem with insurance if/when Medicaid/Medicare begin to decline because we can't afford it any longer.
Frankly, I think most of it is much ado about nothing from a large scale and just more evidence that people need to learn to work together so that this actually could have been a bi-partisan impactful bill.
Justin, I totally agree with you--I think the bill as it stands is not going to have that much impact. I'm hoping that it will make people realize the necessity of more change, though, and eventually it will open the door to more useful legislation.
Great question about how the pre-existing condition clause will actually play out! I have no idea. But it's a relief to me to at least feel like my family members without health insurance aren't going to be completely screwing themselves regarding future coverage if they decide to go to the doctor and get diagnosed with something.
I am from the UK where we have a National Health Service. My wife called in at the surgery today to see the nurse for a routine health check, which included a blood sample check.
The samples were sent off to the lab for analysis and the results will be back in a couple of days time when she will see the doctor for the results. If any other actions are needed, medication etc then like all the appointments, there will be no charge.
I was giving lectures to a group of ministers last week and in the numbers were two US ministers who were transfering money to the US so their daughter could simply afford to see a doctor.
We all really are our brother's keeper
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Starting in 2014, the law will prohibit insurers from denying coverage to sicker applicants, or imposing special conditions such as higher premiums or payments.
Health care reform is a general rubric used for discussing major health policy creation or changes for the most part, governmental policy that affects health care delivery in a given place.
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