Health Care Hoopla

Look for the administration to begin a media blitz on specific provisions of the health care bill that take effect this week.
Leave it to a politician to time the changes in the law to the election cycle. Democrats purposely made these provisions effective just before the election because they thought they would be perceived as consumer friendly and therefore equate to votes.

What the administration will tout as great for the consumer actually is expensive to the insurer, so as a result they are being force to raise rates to pay for the mandated changes. Instead of acknowledging that these mandated changes have any cost, this administration simply criticizes the insurance companies for raising rates.

Since when did every business in this country become a non-profit? Oh yeah, Jan. 2009. Under this administration any company that makes a profit is frowned upon and immediately a candidate for investigation and further government scrutiny.
Regulated mandates have a cost despite what politicians will have you believe. So not only are we spending way more money than we take in each month, we are taking more and more money out of the taxpayer’s pocket through all of this government intervention.

So what are the health care changes that are going to take effect this Thursday?

1. Children over 18, but under the age of 25 can now remain on their parents' health plan.
Most insurers already provide this coverage as long as the child is a student. This change is likely to help some jobless young adults. Rules adopted after the law passed say insurers must charge the same for children regardless of age. That is good news for those with infants and older children who buy individual coverage—they previously paid more to cover the expensive first two years and those in their 20s—bad news for most others. What this means for insurers is more people insured on the same policy.

2. Preventive Care - New plans, sold after 9-23-10, must provide dozens of preventive services without charging a copayment. While a nice idea, it has cost implications for the insurance companies in the form of lost revenue formerly provided in the form of copayments.

3. Removal of Lifetime Benefit Cap - No lifetime limits on benefit payouts. Most plans today have some maximum amount that the insurance company will pay out over the lifetime of an individual. Many employer sponsored plans have lower lifetime limits than plans purchased by individuals. Again, while a nice idea, it is not without financial impact to the insurance company.

4. Phase out of Annual Limits – similar to the lifetime limit on benefits, this ruling begins to phase out annual limits on benefit payouts, starting by making the limit no less than $750,000. Several employer and individual plans can either get a waiver or will be exempt.

5. Pre-Existing Condition waiver for children - Insurers can't deny children coverage because they have a pre-existing condition. Regulators broadened the provision so that insurers, in effect, must guarantee coverage to all consumers under age 19.

While it is hard to argue that these changes are not beneficial to consumers, for the most part, it is also equally true to state that these come at a cost. Then when the insurers try to point out this fact they are threatened by the current administration.

In fact, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the national association of health insurers, calling on their members to stop using scare tactics and misinformation to falsely blame premium increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act. She further warned insurers that states have new resources under the Affordable Care Act to crack down on unjustified premium increases.

I am fed up with playing politics with every aspect of our life. Can anyone in Washington be honest with “We the People?”

Exercise your Civic Duty

Tuesday, September 14, 2010 is Election Day in Wisconsin and your vote is important.

Many people complain about their elected officials, but when you ask, you find out they didn’t even bother to vote. If you won’t even take time to vote you have no right to complain.

I was curious about the voting behavior of Wisconsin residents so I visited the Wisconsin Governmental Accountability Board website and found some interesting statistics. Care to guess what percent of the eligible population in Wisconsin voted in the last September primary race?

In Sept, 2008, only 8.9% of the eligible voters bothered to vote in the primary. That is the lowest voter turnout in a September primary since they began tracking this in 1948. Over 81% of the eligible voters in the State didn’t think it was important enough for them to take time and cast a vote. No wonder we get the kind of representation we do.

The best turnout for a Sept. primary was in 1952 with 38.9% of population voting. Normally, the Sept. election has less than 25% of the eligible voters participating. People in Iraq were willing to risk being shot to participate in the election process. Where is that same passion here?

The numbers are a bit better when you look at the general election, especially when there is a Presidential race, but still 30-40% don’t bother to vote.

Tomorrow expectations are for a strong turnout but that equates to only 28% of the eligible population bothering to cast a vote. The stakes could not be higher with this election and I am just shocked and amazed that more people won’t be compelled to have their voice heard. Have we become that pathetic as an electorate or are we so disgusted with our leaders that we have decided no matter what we do it won’t make a difference?

But what is worse than not voting is casting an uninformed vote. Nothing irritates me more than someone who votes for someone because someone else told them to vote for that person. While you have the right to cast a vote, I believe you have a responsibility to take the time to understand the people on the ballot and their view on the issues.

Specific to Wisconsin, I have issues with the switching of parties for the primary so as to affect the results of the general election. A perfect case in point is the Governor’s race where it has been encouraged by many Democratic organizations that normally Democratic voters vote the Republican ballot instead of the Democratic ballot. The sole purpose of doing so it to vote for Mark Neumann, in hopes that he defeats Scott Walker.

Other states require you to register a Democrat or Republican and then you can only vote the ballot for the party to which you are registered. While it is nice that Wisconsin allows an open primary, it is games like these that undermine the reason why the primaries are open.

When you have such low turnouts in the primaries, tactics like those being proposed by the Democrats might influence the election. While there is nothing illegal about what the Democrats are proposing, it is unfortunate that they need to rely on such slimy tactics.

Let’s hope that Republicans have a chance to determine which candidate they want to place on the ballot for the general election and it is not determined by desperados who think the only way the can win is to hijack the system.

No mater what your political persuasion, please review the candidates on the ballot and make an informed choice on Tuesday.