Is acupuncture essential health care? Weight-loss surgery? Under Obamacare, states choose.

[xchrom]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/22/is-acupuncture-essential-health-care-weight-loss-surgery-under-obamacare-states-must-choose/


California legislators passed a bill that would declare acupuncture an essential health benefit (Wonderlane | Flickr)

It is among the health-care law’s most important — and most daunting — questions: What health-care benefits are absolutely essential?

California legislators say acupuncture makes the cut. Michigan regulators would include chiropractic services. Oregon officials would leave both of those benefits on the cutting-room floor. Colorado has deemed pre-vacation visits to travel clinics necessary, while leaving costly fertility treatments out of its preliminary package.

Policy experts expected the Affordable Care Act to establish a basic set of health benefits for the nation, but the Obama administration instead empowered each state to devise its own list. When all Americans are required to purchase health insurance in 2014 or pay a penalty, they will find that the plans reflect the social and political priorities of wherever they live.

That nationwide patchwork highlights the difficulty of agreeing on what constitutes good basic health care, as well as the tricky balances that states face in weighing coverage vs. cost

[dipsydoodle]

1. Acupuncture is now included in our UK NHS treatment

for specific ailments/ medical conditions. Only time I've had it was in conjunction with physiotherapy on my hip.

Some details here : http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Acupuncture/Pages/Introduction.aspx

[xchrom]

2. interesting. nt

[dipsydoodle]

3. Try it sometime

Its like getting a mild electric shock.

[HopeHoops]

4. The "states chose" thing totally undermines the GOP rhetoric on the ACA.

Yes, state's make the decisions. That's pretty much the whole idea. As Republicans are fond of saying, "if you don't like the state's rules, you can always just move to another state". That's utter bullshit, but with the ACA it actually is up to the states. Personally, I would prefer that the federal government passed a law requiring abortion to save the life of the mother as an essential medical service. We also need a single-payer system. Insurance should NOT be a for-profit business. The core concept is to pool money to help everyone. Multi-million salaries for insurance company executives isn't helping anyone but themselves.

There aren't many people who don't benefit from the ACA. Most of them simply don't realize it. You can't convince them otherwise. It really has nothing to do with the ACA. It has everything to do with hating Obama because he's black, a Democrat, outshines rMoney, knows his shit, is great with foreign policy, doesn't want to start another war, or whatever other reasons they might have. They aren't voting for rMoney - they're voting against Obama.

[SickOfTheOnePct]

6. Bottom line to me

is that the ACA benefits the people that need it most, i.e, the people that couldn't get insurance before but can now. It doesn't benefit me personally, nor does it benefit most people that I know, but that wasn't the point. The point was to benefit people that needed it, not those of us that didn't.

[porphyrian]

5. It's complicated because regulation of medical practice is state-level and unlikely to change.

Some organizations have been pushing for national medical licensure, but the power currently rests in the hands of each individual state, so taking it away would be like trying to take a baby from its mother. Each state has its own laws and rules related to medical practice and licensure, all of which would have to be altered, eliminated or changed, which could take years, if not decades, to orchestrate and there is no guarantee of success. I'm not saying that having national standards and/or regulation is necessarily a bad idea, but the logistics of implementing it any time soon make it practically impossible. Having the ACA empower individual states was probably a practical decision, given this reality, and most people in favor of the ACA agree that it is only the first step, not the last.