Georgia Health Insurance 411

Posts Tagged ‘universal health care’

The Massachusetts experiment in mandating health insurance for everyone is running into problems.

Commonwealth Care is not even three years old and if it were a person, would suffer from morbid obesity. Originally pegged to cost taxpayers $245 million it has grown like Kudzu to $1.3 billion.

Time to put CC on a diet.

In fact, according to Boston.com a proposed $115 million in cuts are under consideration right now.

Wait!

The proposed cuts are 12% of the current years budget but almost HALF of the projected first year budget when CC was conceived.

How can that be?

It seems the housing inspired recession has hit Massachusetts in the wallet. So how do they propose dealing with this shortfall?

The largest share of the savings will come from slowing enrollment.

Slowing enrollment.

Sounds like rationing to me.

Savings will also come from eliminating dental coverage for the poorest residents enrolled in Commonwealth Care,

Cutting benefits. Yep, that’s one way to save money.

Also hanging in the balance is the health insurance status of 28,000 legal immigrants whose Commonwealth Care coverage was dropped in the budget lawmakers approved for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Cutting access to LEGAL immigrants. That’s an interesting twist.

The progress of the Massachusetts healthcare initiative is being closely watched in Washington, where Congress is crafting national legislation to extend coverage to more Americans. The Massachusetts law, cited as one model in the national debate, requires nearly everyone to have health insurance or pay a tax penalty.

It doesn’t seem to me like the folks in DC are paying much attention. Rather, they are going full steam ahead with a model that has already hit an iceberg and is taking on water.

Leaders of Health Care for All, one of the state’s largest consumer groups, said the changes will be especially hard on residents whose first language is not English and who have difficulty understanding the complex enrollment paperwork.

Complex government red tape? No way.

While the group’s leaders are resigned to that cut, they said they will continue to lobby the governor to restore coverage for legal immigrants. Lawmakers said they cut this class of legal immigrants because they do not qualify for matching federal subsidies.

Mass can’t pay for the plan by themselves. They need Washington to pick funds from the national money tree to pay for this program.

Much of the rest of the $115 million in savings, $32 million, comes from slowing payments to the managed-care health insurance companies that won bids to offer insurance through the Commonwealth Care program. Regulators said that by slowing enrollment growth, the companies would receive less money than they had banked on when they submitted their bids earlier this year.

Slow pay to the carriers providing coverage. Yeah, that’s a good way to make sure the carriers stay in the game.

Wonder what would happen if the carriers decide to pick up their ball & bat and go home?

Change you can believe in.

Yes you can.

Ever wonder how the health care systems in other countries works (or doesn’t work)? Take Canada for example.

Check out the Canadian Institute for Health Information.

Some eye-opening data there.

Want to see a Georgia doctor?

Take a number.

This is especially so if you are a new patient, do not have health insurance, have Medicare, Medicaid or PeachCare. So if we are having problems now, what happens when it is free?

Obama administration officials, alarmed at doctor shortages, are looking for ways to increase the number of physicians to meet the needs of an aging population and millions of uninsured people who would gain coverage under legislation championed by the president.

You can’t just push a button and “poof” you have new doctors. It takes years to “grow” a new crop of docs.

One proposal — to increase Medicare payments to general practitioners, at the expense of high-paid specialists — has touched off a lobbying fight.

This is called squeezing the balloon.

Cut reimbursement to one sector to cover the cost of services for another sector. It is also known as robbing Peter to pay Paul.

That has never worked. Why would Obama-man think it will work now? Read the rest of this entry »

We do our best to enlighten those looking for affordable health insurance in Georgia about the difference in health care and health insurance.

Health care, health insurance. For most the terms are interchangeable.

But they are very different.

Medical care is medical care. Nothing more and nothing less.

This may not seem like a breakthrough on the frontiers of knowledge. But it completely contradicts what is being said by many of those who are urging “universal health care” because so many Americans lack health insurance.

Insurance is not medical care. Indeed, health care is not the same as medical care. Countries with universal health care do not have more or better medical care. Read the rest of this entry »