What Does the President’s ‘Meaningful Coverage’ Mean for Health Care?
Upon taking office, President Obama hit the ground running on comprehensive healthcare reform that he originally referred to as “universal health care” but now calls “meaningful coverage.”
What is “meaningful coverage,” and what do the few specifics we’ve been given concerning it portend for our future physical health and the viability of our nation as a whole?
During the Democratic presidential primary debate in Las Vegas, NV, on November 15, 2007, Obama said his plans to implement “universal health care” had grown out of his belief that many uninsured Americans “desperately wanted [insurance]” but couldn’t afford it. He said his plan would make it, “affordable to get health care …[that was] as good as the health care” enjoyed by members of Congress.
After securing the Democrat nomination in 2008, Obama pressed his plan with urgency by regularly telling the story about his mother dying from cancer while being denied insurance coverage because the insurers said her cancer was a pre-existing condition. This gave Obama his bad guy — insurance companies — which he could pit against the American people in promoting healthcare reform.
Using his mother’s story as a segue, Obama’s stump speech contained the line: “As president I’ll … make sure insurance companies can’t discriminate against those who are sick and need care the most.” This line always caught my ear because it’s completely nonsensical. How can any sane person expect to have their health insured if some disease has already destroyed their health before they seek insurance?
Sane or not, the emphasis on “discrimination” always succeeded in exciting those who attended his speeches, as those who came to Obama rallies loved to hear that their health care was going to be guaranteed by the government (just like their mortgages).
Candidate Obama occasionally threw the privatization crowd a bone by promising to create a National Health Insurance Exchange so that people who already had health insurance could keep it yet enjoy lower premiums than they had before. And since becoming president he’s said that if someone has “a doctor that they like, they should be able to keep [that] doctor [under his plan]. They should just pay less for the care that they receive.” Doesn’t anyone ever wonder how Obama is going to lower insurance premiums or cut the price on doctor visits?
President Obama hasn’t missed a chance to push for universal health care, now called “meaningful coverage,” even if the numbers he uses to push it seem exaggerated or the logic behind his arguments and promises appears to be flawed.
For example, on February 24, 2009, while speaking to a joint session of Congress, Obama said: “The crushing cost of health care … now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds.” Upon hearing this I grabbed my calculator and ascertained that that means roughly 1,036,800 American families a year are filing bankruptcy because of healthcare expenses.
Sounds good. Don’t buy health insurance until you really are very ill. If you recover, cancel, buy again!!! Obamacare.
“Meaningful Coverage” will be whatever Obama thinks will get him the most votes possible to get re-elected.
While I’m no defender of health insurance companies who do their best to fight paying the benefits they are obligated to pay, I’ll still defend them from having to insure the already “sick and dying.” forcing them to do so is tantamount to forcing them out of business. And maybe that’s the goal – to so weaken them that they need government help too.
I don’t want to see healthcare nationalized, but it’s a fact; most Americans expect the government to do something. The GOP squandered opportunities to reform tort law and take the lead in creating an environment in which free market values can replace entiltlements and still have a system in which the average American and the wealthiest Americans have the same care available to them. Doctors don’t want to turn away the ill and conservatives should have had the foresight to have made it possible for them to not have to do so and still not have nationalized health care. Unfortunately, it’s only been important to conservatives during election cycles. Now look at us.
This is a harbinger of a NHS type program which of course cannot be afforded, particularly if one opens the door to every arrival in the USA, tourist,illegal or legal.
This will decrease both quality and access…rationing by any other name. Waiting lists will be common for they are cost effective when you die before receiving care.
Funding will dry up and the government will have to force providers to participate. Currently, Medicare pays hospitals about 82 cents out of every dollar of their cost and they are expected to shift the rest to “payers”. When there are no payers, there can be no cost shift, no capital investment and no incentive to improve.
That leaves a shadow system outside of Zerocare. This will be a world without ER’s and will have a separate Third Party fund system that people will buy to access quality care. This is good for the government, because this re-establishes the “payers”. This however is only attractive if there is a huge differential in quality and access to the government sponsored system.
It will not be an accident when all this occurs.
Doctors will no longer be in control; and that’s I need to know to know that “meaningful coverage” means disaster for our healthcare system. Like the other things Obama has taken over without understanding them, allowing him to take over medicine would be handed me control over something he knows nothing about. Won’t exactly inspire confidence in those with rare diseases and ailments.
It must be like being in a ‘Meaningful Relationship’. Only, if you’re an indigent and your heart gets ripped out- somebody else will pay for it.
How did we get to this point, where the government can tell a private company they have to make business decisions that will break them? I like my insurance, I like my cost, I like my care. I don’t think he has the right to ruin all that, so that people who CHOOSE to spend their money elsewhere can make the rest of us foot their medical bill.
When I went off my dad’s policy at 21, I bought my own. I was in college, had little money, but I found the $80 a month that it cost (only 8 years ago). It meant-GASP-no cell phone. Egads, the horror! And I have been continuously covered since. It’s called responsibility, and if you don’t have it, don’t come crying to me.
And we can kiss new meds goodbye, no one will be able to afford to research them. We overpay precisely because so many other countries underpay. Countries who have (bad) socialized medicine because we pick up the tab for their meds and military defense. We also have a huge illegal alien problem. No system can work when tens of MILLIONS of people pay nothing in at all but still get care. Why can that moron not see that? That’s our biggest problem now, and will be worse after the asshat does his usual “everything I touch turns to crap” magic on it.
Govt doing something is precisely the problem.
Thirty years ago, $0.70 out of every $1 spent on healthcare actually went towards patient care. Fast forward 30 years, now $0.70 out of every $1 is spent on bureaucratic paper-shuffling and a$$-covering. Why? GOVT – in the form of ever-increasing govt regulation…insane monetary awards for damages…etc.
And this meme of “you’ll be able to keep your private insurance” is a ridiculous lie because after a few years, there won’t be any private insurance companies left.
Why?
Simple. Private insurance companies are beholden to their shareholders. If they’re unable to provide a positive return on investment, those shareholders will stop investing in the company and it collapses. And that’s exactly what is going to happen…and these lying Leftists know it. Govt-provided health insurance will undercut private insurance by offering lower premiums and/or tax incentives. How? By simply rolling up funding shortages into the national debt.
Private companies won’t be able to match the prices.
Game over.
There is a underlying assumption by Obama (and the Left) that people are entitled to healthcare; that it’s a right. But no one has a right to healthcare in this way. It is a privilege. By making it a right Obama will destroy it.
William would prefer to let the poor suffer – way to go conservatives – that is the ticket to winning back a majority
Why do people like the “The Shadow” equate opposing government intervention with opposing compassion or help for the less fortunate? Helping the poor is a private affair, not a government’s task. Churches and philanthropy cannot be replaced by Obama and the remaining Woodstock crowd. It is no more government’s job to guarantee healthcare than it is the government’s job to guarantee car ownership. And admitting that fact is not being anti-poor.
“Medicare costs are consuming our federal budget [and] Medicaid is overwhelming our state budgets.” I don’t understand his logic of government healthcare reducing costs. In Canada health care eats up 50 to 75% of each province’s budget. And it grows every year as government workers get their increases and bonuses, while us private workers don’t. How does he reduce costs??? Can someone explain his side?
That’s simple…he’s an ignorant Leftist.
TO: Bob, et al.
RE: Wrong
It’s actually the other way around.
“Meaningful Coverage” is the term to put in everyone’s mind, what they ‘hope’ for.
It’s the same ploy as his campaign statement of ‘hope’ and ‘change’. He trolled that line out and everyone who doesn’t think very well ‘bit’. They all had ‘hope’ that things would be ‘better’ as a result of the ‘change’. Only those of US who could think beyond the end of our nose recognized the fact that his lack of concrete statements on what he planned to ‘change’ recognized the potential for problems.
It’s the same trick with THIS effort.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Every people gets the governance they deserve.]
P.S. I want to thank all the ‘teachers’ of the vaunted American public education system for getting US here….
….buy failing to teach people HOW to think, and pushing WHAT to think instead.
“Conservative Mom” has hit the nail on the head. How is more government involvement going to reduce costs? Has government involvement in anything ever reduced costs?
Government healthcare (universal healthcare) will be just like government education (public schools). It will be a train wreck which we’ll have to throw tax payer money at from here on out if we start down that road.
It will be a train wreck which we’ll have to throw tax payer money at from here on out if we start down that road.
I once had to look at the old actuarial projections for the cost of Medicare. They were off by a factor of 20 or so. We need to fight these programs tooth and nail or else we will be on the hook for the rest of human history or until it all collapses under its own weight, whichever comes first.
If providing health care for all of our citizens is called socialism, then so be it. I don’t care what kind of label you put on it, but the richest country in the world should provide free health care from the cradle to the grave of all citizens, period. Of course the Republicans would be against that, the one thing we know about them is that they do not care about the middle class, the working class, the poor, or non whites.
our republic’s only responsibility is to uphold our constitution, allow for free unregulated trade and growth, and protect it’s citizens unalienable rights. this was, and is, a truly revolutionary set of ideas, it has been under attack since then , and continues to be. many have laid down their lives to try to keep it intact, and will continue to do so. it is no wonder, that having strayed so far from this visionary guidance, we find ourselves here , being ushered into. what basically amounts to communism, and will lead us to the graves of many citizens, as has been mentioned. now let us try liberty.
Jack T and others.
Here’s my question. If your idea, cradle to grave health care coverage at public expense is such a wonderful idea, why does it have to be forced on us at gunpoint? Surely such a wonderful concept would be so immensely popular, people would be lining up to volunteer for it, right? It’s the element of force that I oppose. I don’t give a damn what you do for yourself or your family, but I will fight you tooth and nail, if you try to force me and mine to go along with you.
And, for your information, caring about people is not defined as using the power of the state to rob your neighbors in order to salve your own conscience.
Liberty is more valuable than life, or health, or wealth. Somehow, we’ve lost that ideal in this country. We’ve been brainwashed to think that we’re owed everything, from food and housing to medical care. Well, let me assist you with your education. Your neighbors do not owe you anything but to leave you alone. That’s all any of us owe each other.
I can’t fathom getting my prestiptions through the same government that can’t deliver a package over night via it’s US postal service. Or just think about having your physician’s treatment options assigned by the same government that makes tax policy so confounded in this country. Universal healthcare is better left for socialists who are already accustomed to mediocrity.
Jack T. How have the democrats helped the poor, the working class, the middle class and non-whites? Seems to me the leftists you have running it now are pretty up front about saying they think everyone should be poor together (except them). And they encourage non-whites to stay poor (wait for govt handouts )- it works for them. That is socialism – why people think it is going to be any different with Obama trying it is beyond me. How has education under government been handled, the Dems play to the unions which like the status quo, health care will be no different, they will just need “more” money to fix things.
Barack Obama has used many things, some of them supposedly personal (a mistelling of his mother’s predicament with insurance companies, a perversion of his grandmother’s experience on the streets of Hawaii…) in support of his agenda for the country.
His aw gosh, gee whiz, how unfair lap dog base eats it all up like the Useful Idiots they are.
His “ultimate agenda” is centered around his definition of fairness, which he alone defines. His mind is, fundamentally, that of a small time community organizer.
Obama’s Ultimate Agenda
The reordering of the American system will come not from these temporary interventions, into which Obama has reluctantly waded. It will come from Obama’s real agenda: his holy trinity of health care, education and energy. Out of these will come a radical extension of the welfare state; social and economic leveling in the name of fairness; and a massive increase in the size, scope and reach of government.
“As president I’ll … make sure insurance companies can’t discriminate against those who are sick and need care the most.” This line always caught my ear because it’s completely nonsensical. How can any sane person expect to have their health insured if some disease has already destroyed their health before they seek insurance?”
This has always been the reason to put off even bothering with health insurance, and the argument to keep it the way it is.
Education and Medicine…quality, rigor, intelligence, affordability, trust…have shot craps during my lifetime, in exact measure to federal government interference and involvement in same and loss of local control.
Oh, let’s have more of that ! Then we’ll all be as mediocre and screwed up as the socialist medicine examples of Britain and Canada, with distant bureaucrats deciding your course of treatment. And then you will pine for the waiting and frustration of “now which (even these) will be better than the screwedupness that awaits you.
But (and this is all the Useful Idiots really care about), the playing field will be levelled and they’ll get more free stuff.
Without more doctors, the only ‘levelling’ will be downward.
“If providing health care for all of our citizens is called socialism, then so be it. I don’t care what kind of label you put on it, but the richest country in the world should provide free health care from the cradle to the grave of all citizens, period. Of course the Republicans would be against that, the one thing we know about them is that they do not care about the middle class, the working class, the poor, or non whites.”
Well you’re just a freakin’ idiot, aren’t ya? How exactly does this “free” thing work? Drs work for free, till they starve to death? Medical equipment companies work for no profit and donate their goods? Really, please explain how it’s free. Because what it looks like is those of us paying taxes will pay for the care of everyone else. Free to some, in other words. Quadruple the cost for 1/4 the care for the rest of us, IF we’re lucky.
And by the way, we’re low-middle class and our last name is Sanchez. Please do not presume to tell me I should stop thinking and blindly support the dems just because we happen to fall into a group they arrogantly assume they own. It’s insulting.
After all, it’s not like anyone is ever poor because of their own stupid life decisions is it? We shouldn’t judge, oh no. Just happily shell out our dough.
Not to mention cradle-to-grave will be a much shorter trip, since medical care for the elderly is just a waste of money. You’re 60 and have cancer? See ya! Hope you enjoyed your mediocre care during your life, but you no longer qualify for treatment of any kind.
Ok. Several states have attempted to achieve the goal of universal coverage. To my knowledge, none have succeeded, and several that have tried have found the expense unsustainable to the point of, more or less, giving up on the attempt: e.g. see TennCare in Tennessee. Those supporting a federal attempt to achieve universal coverage need to explain why failures at the state level would not be replicated at the national level.
I remain confused. Do we need reform of our health insurance system or our health care system?
If insurance, then we need to somehow decouple health insurance from employment, have some kind of guaranteed insurability, and make it affordable. Government can pass laws that would promote these basic changes that would be carried out by the privatee free market sector through competition for subscribers.
If our heath care system needs reform why don’t we see how things look after insurance is “reformed.” Our health care system is far too complex for any one entity like the federal government to fix or run.
Heath S.C.A.R.E 2009 begins in America, Ouch!
Health S.C.A.R.E is Health Socialized Coverage for Americans whose free market Rights that will be Eliminated.
Say no to S.C.A.R.E (Vote for those who support the Free Market in 2010)
Shadow, William is 100% right,only an uninformed liberal with no common sense would disagre.
The government health care that is already in place is broke, broke, broke. It’s called Medicare and Medicaid.
Medicare/Medicaid is goverment healthcare that is leaching on the private healthare system. Hospitals that have a patient load with a high percentage of Medicare/Medicaid patients lose money. The government sets prices low and the hospitals have no recourse. When government healthcare drives out all the private payers, your healthcare quality will go down. Overworked, underpaid staff; old failing equipment; cheaper low-quality supplies; rationed procedures; on and on it will go. Regulations increase, finances decrease – a set up for diminishing quality. Free high-quality healthcare for all is an illusion. People are willing to pay more per month for their cable TV and cell phone plan than they are for healthcare. The Democrats’ plan for socialized medicine will destroy our healthcare system.
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