Posted on 10/20/2009 10:55:37 AM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
The L.A. Times published a story that was probably meant solely as a bash on insurance companies, but still the report brings up several issues that Obamacare will only make worse if passed. The problem raised in the headline, "Healthcare bills lack protections against treatment denials, experts say," isn't the only problem the story touches upon -- not that the L.A. Times dwells on them.
The headline problem is important, of course though the Times tries to phrase the problem as an evil failing of insurance companies. The fact is it is really but a common-sense inevitability. The Times reports that Obamacare will force an increase in denials of services to patients because of cost overruns.
By requiring insurers to cover everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions, healthcare reform will make it more difficult for insurers to control their costs, or "bend the cost curve," by avoiding sick people.The Times seems to imagine that all of this will go away if there is a public option included in the healthcare legislation. There is a woeful lack of logic to the Times’ contention, however. The government's public option will drive down the charges that medical suppliers, doctors, and hospitals can charge by introducing artificial pricing. Additionally, government will constantly attempt to force insurers and providers cut costs. The Times doesn't properly reveal this to its readers, but these actions forced on the healthcare industry by government will lead to precisely the situation the Times decries. To cut costs services will be rationed. In truth there is no way to stop this once Obamacare becomes de rigueur...That leaves insurers with the other big cost-containment tool: turning down requests to cover treatments.
Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...
Obamacare Lacks ‘Protection Against Treatment Denials’
Corrected Title: Obamacare Requires Massive Treatment Denials’
Congress and the Executive Branch have of course completely exempted themselves from “Healthcare Reform” with their 5 Star personal health insurance.
IIRC in the UK - if you can find a private doctor and pay for services you can get any medical care you need.
Will this still be true if the socialized medicine bill is passed? Or will physicians be forced to become federal employees? i.e. they already have to obtain FDA approval/licenses in order to practice medicine. One more paper credential will not be noticed.
With the public option it will be the government, not private insurance denying treatment. The truth is that the 17 year-old woman who needed a liver transplant would have been far LESS likely to get it under a public option than under private insurance. Let’s not forget that it was the State of Oregon who denied treatment to a lung cancer patient, but offered to pay for the drugs she could use in committing physician-assisted suicide.
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