Health Care III

Happy Sunday!

As a reminder, I am responding to an e-mail that my father-in-law forwarded to me from someone who supposes to be highlighting the negative effects of the first 500 pages of H.R. 3200, the house bill on health care reform. I posted the entire e-mail in Health Care I and began discussing the comments that Dad-in-law made. In Health Care II, I continued and also included descriptions of some of the terms being thrown around. I am now going to start addressing the actual e-mail highlights.

Again, here is a link to H.R. 3200 so you can look up these pages for yourself.

The e-mail begins:

Subject: A few highlights from the first 500 pages of the Healthcare bill in...

A very frightening prospect, but this is what some idiots have voted for.

Contact your Representatives and let them know how you feel about this. We, as a country, cannot afford another 1000 page bill to go through congress without being read. Another 500 pages to go. I have highlighted a few of the items that are downright unconstitutional.

My response: No one has voted on anything yet; will let you decide if this is "unconstitutional."

• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!

My response: Pages 21 & 22 mandates a study of the insured and self-insured employee health care markets. Studies are done to gather information or test a hypothesis; audits are done on data after something is done. This is incorrect.

• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!

My response: This entire section speaks to the cost-sharing of insurance. Cost-sharing is the paying of deductibles, coinsurance and co-payments (not premiums). This limits the cost-sharing to $5000 for an individual and $10,000 for a family. This is not rationing of health care, but specific dollar limits placed on the out of pocket expenses of consumers. This is incorrect.

• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)

My response: This section establishes a Health Benefits Advisory Committee. The committee will recommend covered benefits and the elements of three types of plans: essential, enhanced, and premium. In other words, someone has to decide what is in the "essential" or basic plan so that consumers and businesses can compare apples to apples. This is to aid in implementation of contents of the bill, this is not addressing any coverage issues a consumer may have after they have purchased their insurance. This is incorrect.

Sorry, but I have a party to attend, so I'll let you chew on these few and be back later. Enjoy your afternoon!