Secrets of the City

I’m inclined to think that “health care reform” is the next “metric system” issue that is ready to die after 20 years of public proclamations and prognostications with absolutely no follow through. If we can’t come together and agree on obvious issues like childhood hunger, you risk a bankrupting health incident unless you’ve got millions in the bank or the key to that special bathroom at work.

This is one particular issue where I mostly feel pretty hopeless. It’s so complex, there are so many places where there are failures, and you’ve got to assume that any kind of fix is also going to be expensive.

The fact that someone is even able to wrap their brain around a solution and it has gotten as far as proposed legislation is heartening. It makes sense that it would occur on a state level. But as someone mentioned in my comments, how do you ensure the system gets the cash it needs? Especially when MN has mandatory budget balancing.

Bleah.

The US health care system is truly broken. There will be a tipping point and some sort of universal health care will happen.

The US standard system for measurement is awkward, but not broken. The metric system is used more and more. It is the worldwide standard for measurement. Thus, it also will happen.

It’s a bad time for health care reform, at either the state or federal level, I’m afraid.

One thing has changed since Hilary’s plan failed — more of the (big) business CEOs now actively advocate for national, universal health care.

Why? They are paying the lion’s share for employee health insurance costs, something competing businesses in other counties don’t (the cost burden is shared by everyone, not just employers).

I am pretty skeptical about this plan. The cost to administer MinnesotaCare, which is a sliding scale health plan, is incredible already. By adding millions of people to the system, it would be an astronomical cost. The biggest costs are from determining income to set premiums, which could be streamlined considerably, but I don’t have high hopes of that.

And there would still be a need to determine where the sliding fee falls. You can take two people making $30,000 a year but “affordable” is quite different for each of them, especially if one is burdened with large student loans. Charging a sliding fee will still keep people out of the system because they will be unable to afford it, or like many 20 somethings, don’t think they need it and choose not to afford it.

Finally, it will not reduce the burden the state has in paying for Medical Assistance. We will still be required by Federal Law to provide Medical Assistance to the needy. While we could reduce many of our programs, many will remain. Currently we use Health Plans to administer a lot of the services because they are cheaper, but if we chase the Health Plans out of the state, these costs will rise also.

I’m all for universal coverage, but I don’t think this is the best way to go about it.

Thanks, kc.

I just want health insurance companies to not be able to deny people for pre-existing conditions. There are many people who could afford individual coverage but cannot get coverage. I don’t like paying $350 a month for COBRA but I have no choice.

350/month? that’s ridiculous. Doesn’t your job offer a plan that is more reasonable?

That’s not ridiculous, baker. That’s actually a pretty good COBRA payment.

Under COBRA, she’s not paying an employee portion of the premium, she’s paying the full amount of the monthly premium that the firm would pay.

Very unlikely (if not impossible) that she would get the level of coverage she has for anything close to that price.

And that’s assuming that she could get anyone to even issue an individual policy to her.