Georgia Health Insurance 411

Archive for July, 2009

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Obamacare hit a brick wall today due to lack of funding. The Obamington administration announced today the wildly popular Cash for Health Insurance  program is being suspended due to overwhelming demand. The program allowed insureds to trade in their old health insurance plan for a new, government issued plan and receive cash rebates up to $4500.

In less than a week the program ran out of money as people rushed to trade in their old clunker policies for the newer government approved plans with higher benefits and taxpayer subsidized premiums.

This is eerily similar to the Cash for Clunkers program that also fell apart after a week when the Obamington administration ran out of money.

Congressional officials say the government plans to suspend the popular “cash for clunkers” program amid concerns it could quickly use up the $1 billion in rebates for new car purchases.

The Transportation Department called congressional offices late Thursday to alert them to the decision to halt the program, which offered owners of old cars and trucks $3,500 or $4,500 toward a new, more fuel-efficient vehicle.

In less than 4 days 22,782 cars were traded in generating expected rebates of up to $96 million.

Cash for Health Insurance allowed people who had their own private health insurance to trade in those policies for newer ones approved by the government. These new policies included benefits such as free door to door shuttle services to the doctor or valet parking if you chose to drive your own government provided car. Pregnant women covered by Obamacare policies would be allowed to spend their last trimester in the resort spa of their choice at no charge to them. Babies born under Obamacare not only received free health and dental care for life but a full ride college scholarship.

One provision of Obamacare backfired. Psychiatric providers had lobbied hard for mental health parity provisions and won the right for patients to receive full, no limit mental health care for life. In an effort to make health insurance affordable for everyone, Obamacare policies were free to anyone earning less than 4x the FPL (Federal Poverty Level), about $88,000 for a family of four. The rich benefits of Obamacare coupled with free coverage relieved so much stress that psychiatric workers reported mass cancellations of scheduled appointments. Sales of anti-depressant and anxiety medication dropped overnight.

Clearly, no one wanted the older plans any more when they could get $0 deductible, $0 copay plans and best of all, $0 premiums.

Already protesters are gathering outside Capitol Hill and the Obama House. The National Guard had to be called in to quell the torch and pitchfork crowd carrying signs and shouting “tax the rich, tax the rich” in hopes of encouraging legislators in Obamington to reinstate the Cash for Health Insurance plan.

Meanwhile, the rich were watching all this from their private yachts and secluded islands. By voluntarily deferring income and liquidating assets on an as needed basis they avoided the surcharge on income in excess of $250,000 imposed by Congress as a way to fund bigger government programs. Members of Congress and the Obamington administration were baffled by this turn of events and they grossly miscalculated the response of the wealthy to punitive tax rates.

PresBO said Congress had acted stupidly by profiling the rich as easy targets for tax increases.

In an effort to make this into a learning experience, President Obama invited the wealthy to join him in the Obama House for a beer.

Smaller cars, bigger health insurance, Poppa Washington.

Can you buy affordable health insurance in Georgia to cover gallbladder surgery and have money left over for lobster? Absolutely!

What do gallbladder surgery (cholecystectomy) and lobster have in common?

According to Bob Wachter, quite a bit. Especially if you are trying to understand why health insurance costs so much.

Nothing in any of the proposals for health care reform do anything to really lower the cost of health care. There is a lot of shifting around of dollars.

Shifting to the consumer, shifting to the states.

But if you really want to make health insurance affordable you need to address what is really driving up the cost of health care.

Like lobster lunches . . .

You’ve just moved to a new town and stroll into a restaurant on the main drag for lunch. None of the large tables are empty, so you sit down at a table nearly filled with other customers. The menu is nice and varied. The waiter approaches you and asks for your order. You’re not that hungry, so you ask for a Caesar salad. You catch the waiter looking at you sideways, but you don’t think too much of it. He moves on to take the order of the person sitting to your right.

“And what can I get for you today, sir?”

“Oh, the lobster sounds great. I’ll have that.”

You’re taken aback, since the restaurant doesn’t seem very fancy, and your tablemate is dressed rather shabbily. The waiter proceeds to the next customer.

“And you, ma’am?”

“The lobster sounds good,” she says. “And I’ll take a small filet mignon on the side.”

Now you’re completely befuddled. You tap your neighbor on the shoulder and ask him what’s going on.

“Oh, I guess nobody told you,” he whispers. “This is a lunch club. We add up the bill at the end of the meal, and divide it by the number of people at the table. That’s how your portion is determined.”

You frantically call back the waiter and change your order to the lobster.

“If the waiter makes a 15% tip on the total bill and you ask him to recommend a dish,” Enthoven asked our health econ class, a glint in his eye, “do you think he’ll recommend the salad or the lobster?”

“And if most of the lunch business in town is in the form of these lunch clubs, do you think you’ll find more restaurants specializing in lobster or in salad?”

If you want to know what this has to do with gallbladder surgery you will need to read Bob’s article (linked above) to get the rest of the story.

Finding health insurance in Atlanta when you are on a budget is easier than you think.

Looking to buy major medical insurance in Atlanta, Georgia? Fast quotes, expert advice.

The CDC met today and voted on who will get the swine flu vaccine and who won’t. Here is the list of those that made the cut.

– Pregnant women, for two reasons. First, because the evidence suggests they’re more likely than other adults to develop serious complications or die when infected with swine flu (or seasonal flu). And second, because they pass their immunity on to the fetus, which health officials hope will also help protect the infants after birth.

– Household contacts and caregivers of children under six months. Infants that young can’t be vaccinated, so immunizing their family members and others who care for them is the best way to keep the babies under six-months-old safe.

– The 14 million health care and emergency service workers in the United States. That’s because they could spread the illness to vulnerable populations, and also because high absenteeism among health care workers could bring down the health care system.

– All children, adolescents, and young adults age six months to 24 years. A number of reasons for this. Epidemiological data gathered so far suggest that the youngest in this group have a higher-than-average risk of getting so sick with the new H1N1 flu that they need hospitalization. And older kids, teens and young adults tend to quickly spread flu through schools. Plus, there’s a domino effect through the economy when parents have to stay home to care for sick kids.

– Adults age 25 through 64 who have underlying medical conditions, such as heart or respiratory illness, diabetes, or other conditions that suppress their immune systems. Swine flu is likely to hit them harder than healthy adults.

So who is missing?

Those over age 65.

Last on the list are people 65 and older, said the members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. This sounds cold-hearted, but the committee says its reasoning is based on the science of the pandemic so far. There have been far fewer cases of swine flu in this elderly group. Researchers think that’s because older people have higher levels of immunity to this strain of flu.

Now isn’t that special?

Wonder what AARP has to say about that?

Smaller cars, bigger health insurance, Poppa Washington.

Buy health insurance in Georgia

You can buy real affordable health care in Atlanta, Georgia without rationing.

Looking for affordable health insurance in Georgia?

John Conyers extolling the virtues of passing health care legislation without bothering to read the actual bill . . .

How will we pay for health care reform when we can’t even cover the cost of Medicaid? Conservative estimates put the cost of health care reform at $1 trillion. Mr. Fixit has said he will not sign legislation expanding government intervention in health care unless it is deficit neutral.

Well then explain this.

A key provision of health care reform is expanding the roles of Medicaid. Providing free health care for the poor sounds great until you realize that Medicaid at the federal level is on life support. States aren’t any better off and some projections put Medicaid deficits at the state level in the $200 billion range over the next 3 years.

According to the AARP, Between 1988 and 1993 Medicaid spending grew from $26 billion to an estimated $139.8 billion. Between 1995 and 2002, Medicaid spending is projected to grow by $150.8 billion; this translates into an average annual growth rate of 10.1 percent. In order to reduce government spending, the federal government is now requiring states to try to recover some of the money they spend on Medicaid beneficiaries.

That is spending at the federal level. According to the Kaiser Foundation total Medicaid spending (federal and state) was $319 billion in 2007. Of that total, $110 billion came from state taxes.

Direct federal funds for Medicaid ballooned to $209 billion from 2002 to 2007.

Congress saw the problem in Medicaid deficits as far back as 1993 and decided to do something about it by taxing the poor.

Since passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (OBRA ’93), Congress has required states to try to recover the cost of Medicaid benefits from the estates of certain nursing home residents and older persons receiving home- and community-based services. This law applies to individuals who were age 55 or older when they received Medicaid.

OBRA only addresses estate recovery for those who receive nursing home and home based care but why stop there?

The estate recovery provision was voluntary and many states ignored it until the federal government threatened to withhold matching Medicaid funds unless the states started enforcing estate recovery. All 50 states have now enacted their own provisions for estate recovery.

If your nursing care was paid for by Medicaid when you die the state files a lien against your estates and becomes a first line creditor by filing a claim in probate court. Any money recovered by the state is to be returned to the federal government, so the state is just a bill collector.

If the federal government and states can’t afford Medicaid now, how will they afford it when health care reform expands the roll of Medicaid? Why isn’t anyone asking this question?

Smaller cars, bigger health insurance, Poppa Washington.