Local Dems, Hospitals Hype ‘Obamacare’ Benefits

As House Republicans attempted to demonize the Affordable Care Act in Washington, DC, local Democratic lawmakers in the Bronx began promoting the healthcare reform package, often referred to as “Obamacare,” as a significant improvement in how Americans pay for and receive health care.

Because the House, which is controlled by Republicans, continued to link every budget bill to the de-funding of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government was forced to shut down many of its operations on Tuesday. (Editor’s note: See p. 2 for more details on what the shutdown means. As of press time Tuesday night, Republicans and Democrats were not close to a compromise.)

President Obama, however, said he will not sign anything into law that would diminish his signature piece of legislation. Its funding is not tied to the general operating budget, meaning people were able to start shopping for new insurance plans through the act’s mandated online marketplaces on Tuesday morning.

In the lead up to the launch of the marketplaces, Democrats were out hyping up its benefits and disparaging Republican political tactics.

Congressman Charles Rangel, a staunch proponent of the Affordable Care Act when the president and Democrats pushed it through Congress in 2010, told a crowd at North Central Bronx Hospital that the reform package “is complicated,” but will begin showing tangible benefits. Comparing it to other established programs, like Social Security and Medicare, Rangel said Americans will soon adopt the ACA’s “language and make it your own.”

Rangel told the audience the healthcare reforms made under ACA will be the “best thing” Obama does during his presidency. For this reason, he says, Republicans want to tear it down. “They will do anything to hurt this president,” Rangel said.

While some of the act’s benefits have already started — children can now stay on their parents’ insurance until the age of 26, for example — the big test of its impact comes this fall.

In every state including New York, healthcare marketplaces or “exchanges” where individuals, families and small businesses can choose between insurance options, opened up online.

The 70 percent of Americans who already have insurance can stay with what they have or use the exchange to find a cheaper or better alternative. The other roughly 30 percent without insurance, which amounts to about 40 million people, must sign up for some type of insurance or face a tax “penalty.” Some people with low income levels may receive federal subsidies or fall under the expanded Medicaid program, which is fully paid for by the government. Enrollment will be open until early March of 2014.

The more people who sign up through the exchange, the cheaper and better the insurance options will become, advocates say. At the same time, less uninsured people will theoretically mean less uninsured people using emergency rooms — which Rangel called “the most expensive healthcare in the entire world” — for common maladies or as a last resort when they become extremely sick.

“In your hands is going to be a tremendous opportunity,” Rangel said a week before the exchange opened. “This is going to work.”

Republicans have pledged to end Obamacare, which they refer to as a “job-killing” program that is a grave threat to the American way of life. But defenders of the program say it’s just sour grapes.

Congressman Joseph Crowley, who represents Queens and the east Bronx, said Republicans holding out on Obamacare was akin to a sibling who takes a toy from their younger brother and won’t give it back, just because.

Proponents of the plan admit the system isn’t perfect — delays and glitches were reported during the grand opening on Tuesday — but they say it will have a positive impact.

Kate Rose, the senior director of public policy and government relations at Montefiore Medical Center, said the insurance options in New York will be as good as any in the country. “New York’s marketplace is exceptional,” she said. “It goes above and beyond the minimum in comparison with other states and the federal government.”

Rose says New York’s program is going out of its way to be as helpful as possible. On Tuesday, the state’s online marketplace, New York State of Health, received more than two million visitors.

Rangel said the idea behind near universal health insurance is simple — it will allow for more preventative care, which will allow more people to stay healthy, productive and successful.

On Tuesday, outside Montefiore’s main entrance on East 210th Street in Norwood, the hospital set up booths as part of a campaign to inform staff and local residents about the new healthcare insurance exchange. Judy Czydek was there because her husband just received a bone marrow transplant. She’s covered under Medicare, but said she also wanted to get information for her nephew who recently lost his job and, with it, his insurance. She’s a believer in Obamacare because of its potentially preventative benefits.

“A lot of times if you can go to the doctor and they can detect something in its infancy, they can address this and can get you back on your feet with a better chance of recovery,” she said. “So I think that’s the right thing to do and I’m just appalled at anyone who’s against something like this.”

“The 70 percent of Americans who already have insurance can stay with what they have or use the exchange to find a cheaper or better alternative. The other roughly 30 percent without insurance, which amounts to about 40 million people, must sign up for some type of insurance or face a tax “penalty.”

This is a ton of misinformation.

1. The plans on the exchanges are NOT the only plans that insurance companies COULD BE OFFERING. Any plan on the exchange MUST contain certain MANDATED coverages - whether you want them or need them and the plans are subject to other conditions set by Obamacare regulators, which may not otherwise be deemed necessary in a truly free marketplace insurance exchange.

2. Someone on an Employer or union sponsored/managed plan CANNOT independently leave the Employer’s/Unions plan with ANY legal reason for the employer or union to pay for a plan they independently join. Nothing says an employer must and thus MOST everyone - the 70 million - in an Employer sponsored plan will not leave their plan - giving up their employer’s contribution to paying for that coverage.

There is nothing wrong with a basic concept of being able to buy Health Insurance from an market exchange - with the understanding that transparency (able to see what all the available plans and their costs are) is paramount to such an exchange.

But that basic concept does not need ANY of the Obamacare rules or restrictions about such an exchange or the policies offered on it - the insuranced marketplace can offer what the insurers want and can afford to offer - period.

BUT the Obamacare PURPOSE of the excnahges, with its restrictions and mandates, together with the Obamacare taxes on private health insurance plans, is to provide a forumn for folks finding the Obamacare subsidized plans that everyone is eventually going to be forced into, by one means or another, until only the government’s plans are still offfered.

We can keep the exchanges.

Detach them from Obamacare. Detach them from state control.
Give them national status just like the “stock exchanges”, and then start getting all the current employer and union plans opened up as totally open plans on the exchanges (all the government, corporate, non-profit multi-employer, union plans in the country); and then followed with joining those plans available to anyone anywhere in the country.

BUT the law enacting the exchanges MUST demand one rule in the policies offered. Every policy must have a health savings account option and there must be policies reflecting a variety of levels of health savings account monthly contributions, from very low portions of the total monthly premium to very high portions - allowing the individual to decide which coverages they would prefer to omit and pay from the health savings account only if and when the need for it arises.

When people start paying for more things “out of pocket” and out of their health savings account, they will be more circumspect than the employers and insurers on what they are being charged and become of force lowering health insurance costs.

Next, employers can then quit designating which plan you MUST join while continuing or adjusting for what has in effect been additional compensation - health plan costs per employee - by simply making the same level of cost/contribution to the employee’s chosen plan or adjusting wages for the discontinuance of that contribution.

The benefit to the employer - only the health plan/benefit contributions, or the adjusted total expected compensation, remain as any form of “liability” as the actual liability is shifted to the employee and THEIR insurer.

The benefit to the employee - they can take their insurance coverage with them to their next employment (ending many of the “pre-existing conditions” problems); they become less of “benefit slave” to their present employer, fearing to leave because of loss of benefits; the individual become more in control of how much health insurance they are actually carrying and how much of their total compensation must be spent on health insurance.

The benefit to everyone - the marketplace with all the plans in the country on it and everyone free to get into, leave or change on of THEIR CHOSEN plans - will immediately low health plan costs as the best plans will become huge, covering miillions of individuals across the country regardless of employer.

The “exchange” idea is fine. It does not need Obamacare or how and why Obamacare is regulating it.

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