President Obama: I want a health care plan on my desk by August

The status quo is broken. We cannot continue this way,” Obama said in his weekly address. “If we do nothing, everyone’s health care will be put in jeopardy.”

The president wants a health reform bill that covers all Americans on his desk by August, reaching for a goal that has eluded presidents for decades — in a single summer.

The Plan will also  definitely contain a “government run” health insurance option.

Funny, though. My HMO  just  recently decided to eliminate that deductible they shoved down my throat with their snide take-it-or-leave-it tone a few years ago — at the same moment they increased my premium by a double-digit percentage.  Nice of them to reverse that, don’t you think? How Timely!

Say what you want, but I don’t find this  extortion reversal accidental. I believe it is a direct result of fear that their customers might be interested in the future  ”other option”. This is not something that is mentioned much by the pundits and the Town Criers.

I predict that fear alone will straighten out some of these health insurers, who suspiciously appear to have been Price Fixing for years. A quick check of Single Pay policy options in my area tells me it has never been a coincidence that all of the premiums are within a few dollars of one another.  No, health insurers aren’t going to go out of business. Instead, they are going to think twice before extorting their customers or killing people for  greater profit. I would be willing to bet they are also working on cutting that outrageous overhead rate they all share as well.

I also notice in my state that the Blue Cross people are now offering insurance to people who can’t afford their outrageously priced Single  Pay policies, but who do not qualify for state offered policies, due to assets and income. While means tested, the “means” is much higher, touching closer to the middle class. The premiums are a fraction of the Single Pay price. I find that very interesting.  Let’s face it, they aren’t offering this option because they “care”. They too, are reading the Handwriting on the Wall and are prepping to compete.

These are situations that would have never occurred but for Fear of Competition. Nobody is going to be “driven out of business”. Instead, they are about to be forced to live with some real competition — for a change. Health insurers will no longer be able to run entire states via their massive infusion of contributions to politicians. This is especially the case if people will no longer be held hostage by laws written by lobbyists that make it illegal for residents to cross state lines to get the same policies at a fraction of the price.

It is time for the health insurance industry to stop extorting and start competing–and that is the positive side of health care reform.

Just saying.

Then there’s the problem of  hospitals and how they calculate charges based on different scales. It is no secret that uninsured and under-insured people end up with massive bills. Charges for services to those who have any assets at all are many times higher than what insurance companies pay out for the same services.  Where I come from this is called extortion, if not blackmail. This habit has driven many previously responsible people into bankruptcy–and that costs the rest of us too.

Okay, forcing everyone to be insured rubs a lot of people the wrong way, even if it’s  means tested. This is especially so of young people who think they will never get sick. So, a 21 year old is living home with his parents, which we all know is more common than grass. He no longer qualifies for insurance on his parents’ plan.  He works and spends all of his money on himself. Why throw bucks into health insurance when you can have fun instead!  So, one night he is texting while he’s driving that car his parents lease for him, and he gets into a crash. He owns nothing and he runs up a boatload of bills, which he doesn’t bother paying. Who pays that bill? Those of us who have been paying ever-increasing premiums do, that’s who.

Okay now for the worrisome part.

Admittedly, there is one “Minor” detail that has not been resolved yet. How is the country really going to pay for the ‘government option”? After the votes are counted up amongst American workers, the idea of taxing health care benefits given to them by employers is not going to look very good to those who ever want to be re-elected again. And the concept of taxing the richest five percent only is becoming laughable. These people didn’t get rich being stupid. They will become expats if they have to–before they allow this “Redistribution of Wealth” idea take hold. We have already seen the exodus of billionaires from over-taxed states to states that have no state tax. New York is about to learn a huge lesson in what happens when you try to push the envelope of the wealthy too far.  If the Federal government gets the same attitude as their former states, they will just………leave.  That means, tax increases are going to have to occur amongst earners who make far less than the tauted $250k a year. That would make Barack Obama a campaign liar in the vein of “Read My Lips” Bush–and we all know how that worked out for Mr. Bush.

Then too, the worst words on earth are “We’re from the government. We’re here to help”. We all know that once Congress gets involved in “helping” us, we end up paying. I just bought a new hot water heater for some property I own. It cost nearly $800, due to ‘regulations’ added by Congress. Some jerk blew himself up or something,  because he wasn’t too bright while tinkering with his hot water heater with his own head up his ass, and now the idiot-proofing of hot water heaters has doubled the price. And if you haven’t bought a new Central Air Conditioning unit lately, please know that those prices have also doubled due to new “regulations”.

That’s the kind of help Congress always gives us. 

So yes, there are some concerns here. In fact,  I am reminded once again of the short story, “The Lady or The Tiger“. 

The story goes like this:

There was a “semi-barbaric King” who had a strange way of conducting criminal trials. He would place the prisoners into an audience-packed arena where there were two doors.

Behind one door was a hungry tiger.

Behind the second door was a beautiful woman.

The prisoner would be forced to pick a door without knowing which of the two was behind the door he picked. If he picked the door where the tiger resided, he was considered guilty and became the tiger’s lunch in front of everybody watching in the stands. If he got lucky and picked the door that led to the beautiful woman, he was considered innocent and could go free. But he would have to marry the woman as his reward for freedom. This was not negotiable.

Now, the King had a beautiful daughter who was in love with a man who was far below her station in life. The King would have none of this, so he arrested his daughter’s lover and planned his “trial”.

Since the King knew that his daughter loved this man, he added a bit of a twist to the routine. He tossed her beloved into the arena and then told his daughter which door housed the tiger so that she could signal her beloved as to which door he should choose. 

The wicked King had put his daughter into one of those “rock and hard place” positions. Her catch-22, so to speak. If she pointed to the door that held the tiger back, her beloved would be ripped to shreds. If she pointed to the door that released the beautiful woman, she would have to endure his marriage to the woman, thereby losing her lover forever.

The lover of the king’s daughter stood before the two doors in silence. Then he looked to the King’s daughter for a sign.

The story ends with the question:  “Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady?”

The answer is left open for the reader to ponder.

So it is with Health Care Reform.