Opinion: 18 Myths About Health Care Reform Bill Revealed

Beacool

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Sat Mar-20-10 10:06 AM
Original message

Opinion: 18 Myths About Health Care Reform Bill Revealed

(March 19) -- The Firedoglake health care team has been covering the debate in Congress since it began last year. The health care bill will come up for a vote in the House on Sunday, and as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., works to wrangle votes, we've been running a detailed whip count on where every member of Congress stands, updated throughout the day.

If the American public is going to be mandated to pay almost as much to private insurance companies as they do in federal taxes, they ought to know what they're getting. So, we've also taken a detailed look at the bill, and have come up with 18 often-stated myths about this health care reform bill.

--------

Myth 1: This is a universal health care bill.

Fact: The bill is neither universal health care nor universal health insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office:

* Total uninsured in 2019 with no bill: 54 million.
* Total uninsured in 2019 with Senate bill: 24 million.

--------

Myth 4: The bill will make health care affordable for middle class Americans.

Fact: The bill will impose a financial hardship on middle class Americans who will be forced to buy a product they can't afford to use. A family of four making $66,370 will be forced to pay $5,243 per year for insurance. After taxes and basic necessities, this leaves them with $8,307 in discretionary income -- out of which they would have to cover clothing, credit card and other debt, child care and education costs, in addition to up to $5,882 in annual out-of-pocket medical expenses for which families will be responsible.

--------

Myth 6: This bill provides health care to 31 million people who are currently uninsured.

Fact: This bill will mandate that millions of people who are currently uninsured purchase insurance from private companies, or the IRS will collect up to 2 percent of their annual income in penalties. Some will be assisted with government subsidies.

Myth 7: You can keep the insurance you have if you like it.

Fact: The excise tax will result in employers switching to plans with higher co-pays and fewer covered services. Older, less healthy employees with employer-based health care will be forced to pay much more in out-of-pocket expenses than they do now.

--------

Myth 12: The bill will provide immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition.

Fact: Access to the "high-risk pool" is limited, and the pool is underfunded. Only those who have been uninsured for more than six months will qualify for the high-risk pool. Only 0.7 percent of those without insurance now will get coverage, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report estimates it will run out of funding by 2011 or 2012.

Myth 13: The bill prohibits dropping people in individual plans from coverage when they get sick.

Fact: The bill does not empower a regulatory body to keep people from being dropped when they're sick. There are already many states that have laws on the books prohibiting people from being dropped when they're sick, but without an enforcement mechanism, there is little to hold the insurance companies in check.

http://www.aolnews.com/healthcare/article/opinion-eighteen-myths-about-the-health-reform-bill-debunked/19406480

We all want a healthcare bill to pass, and goodness knows that this country is in dire need of healthcare reform, but is this the bill that we want passed?

:(