Quote:
Originally Posted by Chica Chaser
Sure, easy.........
If you want to actually do something about healthcare reform of course. And not anything for any political motivations.
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1. Eliminate the tax disparity between employer-provided health insurance and individually-purchased health insurance. This would uncouple health insurance from employment and restore a level playing field to the individual insurance market. Individuals could then purchase policies that they kept even when they changed jobs (just as they already do with their car and homeowners insurance).
2. Eliminate all mandated benefits. Insurers should be free to offer to willing consumers inexpensive policies covering only catastrophic accidents and illnesses. Insurers would remain free to offer richer policies that covered varying levels of elective procedures (but cost correspondingly more). Customers could purchase whatever levels of coverage they wished from willing insurers based on their own individual needs and circumstances.
3. Allow insurers to sell policies across state lines. State mandates create 50 separate state markets rather than a single national market. A family insurance plan costing $3,000 in Wisconsin might cost $10,000 in New Jersey because of state regulatory barriers. Allowing interstate competition would quickly drive down prices and help many working families on a tight budget.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhsie...lth-insurance
1. I agree with what author says about tax disparity. The committee that Senator Bacus chaired did not get the memo.
2. It's true that most of the Obamacare policies have the 10 different basic coverages. However, if you are under 30 years old you can get a catastrophic type policy on Fed.Gov. This was also expanded to the people(regardless of age) who policies were cancelled and they can't get their old policy back. The sate of New Jersey has agreed to restore the old policies, but not all states. It's true a checkup is not a rare event. What they have done is your premium will cover a lot of preventive type things. You won't have to pay out of pocket. You have already paid for it with your premium.
3. When someone purchases a policy on Fed.Gov a national market is being a established. What the health insurance underwriter is hopeing for in this market is that there will be a mixture of high risk and low risk policy holders. Two million people went to Fed.Gov on December 23rd.
4. The author does not discuss covering people with pre-existing conditions. This was a big problem in the individual market. If you have high blood sugar or high cholesterol, no health insurance company in the old system was going to sell you a policy. This is why millions are uninsured. Health Insurance companies did not want to take the risk of selling a policy to some one who is "already sick". With the ACA the health insurance companies can't deny insuring someone with a pre-existing condition.
5. There were democrats and republicans on the committee that Senator Baucus chaired. His committee voted to send the bill to the floor. They had an up / down vote that was televised. The ACA was passed. There is certain amount pork in every bill congress passes. That's how congress operates.