The looming collapse of private health insurance

[applegrove]

The looming collapse of private health insurance

Ryan Cooperat, Opinion, The Week

April 3, 2020

https://theweek.com/articles/906391/looming-collapse-private-health-insurance

"SNIP.....


The week ending on March 21 had the greatest explosion of new unemployment claims in American history, with 3.3 million people filing for benefits — surpassing the previous weekly record by a factor of nearly five. Now we have data for the week ending March 28, which more than doubled the prior week's record. Given struggling state enrollment programs and other factors, the real damage was surely worse than that. Well over 10 million people have lost their jobs in just two weeks, and a lot more will soon. A Federal Reserve economist estimated America could be seeing over 30 percent unemployment in a few months — more than the nadir of the Great Depression.

Thanks to America's uniquely boneheaded insistence on tying health insurance to employment, a great many of these people also suddenly find themselves without health coverage — one of several ways the novel coronavirus pandemic is hammering the insurance system. But the problem will also affect more than those who have lost their jobs. If Congress doesn't do something very big — like throwing every American onto the military's Tricare program — the system is in very real danger of collapsing altogether.

Before the crisis hit, about half of Americans got their insurance through their job. Now, maybe a third of those people will lose their coverage. It turns out, contrary to the argument from moderate Democrats that the current system allows people to keep their insurance if they like it, in fact people have no such choice. Even during normal times, millions of people lose their employer-based coverage every month. Now perhaps 50 million people are about to learn all at the same time how little choice they actually have.

.....

The best solution I've seen comes from Jon Walker at The Intercept. He proposes opening up Tricare, a Pentagon plan that covers military families and retirees under 65, and already includes about 10 million people. Unlike most ObamaCare plans, it has low cost-sharing, cheap premiums, wide networks, and covers prescription drugs. Unlike Medicaid, it is funded and controlled by the federal government. There would be many ways to do it — for instance, Congress might say anyone who loses their job this year, or works at an essential service like sanitation or a grocery store, can apply for Tricare. Or they could simply cut the Gordian knot and throw everyone on there.

.....SNIP"

Maybe Trump is paying for the uninsured all of a sudden so that this problem stays under the carpet and nobody talks about putting Americans on Tricare?

[DarthDem]

1. Biden's Plan

Is contrary to what the article claims. Under Biden's plan, anyone who loses their job can automatically enroll in a public option. So the article is simply wrong when it addresses "moderate Democrats."

[The Magistrate]

6. That Goes Without Saying, Sir

The greatest portion of people commenting from a political angle on health insurance gave little knowledge past sloganeering of various candidate's proposals.

There is a sound point to the article, that a great imcrease in unemployment will, under present arrangements, strip many millions of coverage. It may also bankrupt some insurers, who will see their income from premiums reduced greatly, and the worth of their investments reduced, even as they must pay outgreatly increased amounts for treatment of policyholders.

[TexasTowelie]

13. I think that there will be plenty of time for health insurance rate increases to be adopted.

In the first place, most physicians and hospitals take months before they actually begin to bill the patients and their insurers. The last time that I was in a hospital it took about three months before I saw the first bills from the physicians to arrive in my mailbox and over six months before I received a bill from the hospital.

Second, just because the bill arrives doesn't mean that the insurers aren't going to try an haggle the bill down to a more reasonable amount. That will most likely mean another delay of two or three months.

Third, the insurance companies that are in stronger financial positions that are willing to expand their businesses with new policyholders may acquire the insolvent insurers if they view the risk as viable in the long term.

I think that the financial pressure is more on healthcare providers rather than the insurers who have other avenues like reinsurance to maintain financial stability and offset the increased amounts paid for medical treatment claims.

[DarthDem]

17. Agreed in part, Judge

There were some sound points in there, although I don't think insurance companies are going out of business any time soon. What I found most interesting was the author's use of the situation to smuggle in some attacks on actual Democrats, i.e., Joe Biden. Disguised hitpiece and quite standard for that publication.

[msongs]

2. italy has universal health care nt

[applegrove]

3. It also has a way, way older population with health complications. That

is why it was so bad there. Also it took them a while to implement shelter in place. Median age in 2018 is 45.5 in Italy vs. 38.1 in the USA. Italy is like 6th oldest population in the world by median. US in the middle.

[ck4829]

9. So does South Korea

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/coronavirus-cases-have-dropped-sharply-south-korea-whats-secret-its-success
https://www.internations.org/go/moving-to-south-korea/healthcare

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. There have been fervent defenses of employer-provided insurance on DU.

Hopefully, all of those defenders are still employed and still insured.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

5. The best healthcare plan (IMO) that I've heard...

... was one mentioned by a coworker a few years ago.

He was covered by his wife’s health insurance, which was an HSA plan.

“HSA” sounded terrible to me, but then he explained that her employer completely covered the out-of-pocket max each year. All healthcare costs after that would be covered 100%, of course, and they kept any of the employer contributions in their account whenever they didn’t reach the max with healthcare costs.

It seemed like an appealing idea to me because it gave them incentive to not be hypochondriacs with their “free” healthcare. Also, any money left in their account could be used toward other expenses after they retired.

[JCMach1]

7. Just open ACA enrollment for 18 months

[applegrove]

8. Politically they can't. That would ruun the plans for separating the well off from the

workers by uplifting the middle class. We can't have that. They want Obamacare to go. People in canada love our healthcare and it keeps everyone identifying with each other.

[progree]

14. People who lose their health insurance through job loss qualify for ACA special enrollment

https://www.healthcare.gov/have-job-based-coverage/if-you-lose-job-based-coverage/

If you leave your job for any reason and lose your job-based insurance, you can buy a Marketplace plan. Losing job-based coverage, even if you quit or get fired, qualifies you for a Special Enrollment Period. This means you can buy insurance outside the yearly Open Enrollment Period.

[TexasTowelie]

10. I've pretty much learned to disregard any suggestions

that come from the writers over at The Intercept.

[applegrove]

11. Still it showers light on the options Trump was looking at and they basically chose

to put them under the government plan (big governments usually don't pay into insurance for their people as they are big enough to just pay for the civil servants who are sick. They often are an insurance market in themselves with no premiums. I don't know if the US government does that in the US. But if it does the uninsured are now in that market).

[TexasTowelie]

15. Federal employees pay for insurance that is offered through the private market.

There are around 250 plans from which the employees get to choose. The government pays up to 75% of the health insurance premiums while the employee pays the remainder.

[DarthDem]

16. Ayup

Not a force for good.

[not fooled]

12. Meh

red don will bail out the private insurers by covering the cost of treating coronavirus victims. That's the only way they can prop up the execrable private insurance system and keep it going to fleece the public on an ongoing basis, which is their real aim.