Many residents of the Great Valley are not too sophisticated about buying health insurance. The recent losses of coverage attributed to the higher standards of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise referred to as Obamacare, highlight the worthlessness of the health insurance policies that many Valley residents had purchased.
Worthless Policies Cancelled
Virtually all of the cancelled insurance policies would pay almost nothing towards treatment of a catastrophic illness. For example, this writer saw a Blue Cross policy where the plan only paid $102 towards a $1200 surgery, leaving the patient to pay the balance of nearly $1100 out of pocket. The cancelled low cost plans have very low payout limits for treatment. Health insurance companies are in business to make money, not to provide health care coverage.
The provisions of health insurance policies have been so complex that the average policyholder can be surprised by the lack of coverage when a severe illness hits. If one asks a policyholder what is in his policy, most people don’t know. Most people think that their policy covers much more than it actually does and are surprised when a claim is denied.
Obamacare forces health care insurance companies to deliver benefits for the policy dollar. It no longer allows the sale of nearly worthless policies.
Did Obama Lie?
Health insurance companies have known ever since the law passed that their low end policies would be illegal under Obamacare. But they made no effort to upgrade the policies until the law became effective. The companies have cheated the public for years with inferior policies and have not been operating in good faith.
President Obama promised that no one would lose his health care plan as a result of the new law. Did the health care providers that worked with his administration to write the law warn him that the plans they were selling would have to be replaced under the new law? If the President did not knowingly tell citizens that they would not lose their plans under the new law, then he did not lie. However, he was misinformed and now the public will have to scramble to get new coverage.
The Denham Plan: Repeal the Law
The new law requires limits on the profit margins of insurance companies. Policies sold under the law will return value for the premium paid. Before the law, profit margins were whatever the companies could extort from customers.
If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, a better law would be needed to replace it. While needing improvement, Obamacare is better than what has been replaced.
A representative of the Great Valley, Jeff Denham, voted 42 times to repeal Obamacare without introducing a better alternative. The Congressman has shown no interest in improving the dysfunctional health care system for his constituents. He has consistently supported the old system where the public is systematically cheated.
The Tea Party Philosophy
The Central Valley’s Tea Party has a simpler plan. If a person cannot afford health care, let him die. Repeal all laws pertaining to health care and let every citizen fend for himself. Hospitals would no longer have to treat indigent patients. Only the wealthy could get health care. Is this how a civilized society should operate? Should people be left to die when the means to provide treatment is available?
Very well said, sir.
Jeff Denham has no plan or solution for helping his constituents obtain healthcare, nor much else for that matter. He’s too busy doing interviews on Fox News and finding ways to mislead people about his record, for example on such as things as his voting to shut down the government, voting to default our country’s bills, voting against the Violence Against Women Act, and voting to cut food stamps by $40 billion which will really hurt the people of our district, especially children, elderly, and veterans.
It is really a shame that most of the media coverage on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been all about the troubled website issues and the making a huge deal out of the cancellation of junk insurance policies (as though one losing them would be such a tragic thing) rather than the incredible number of people it will be helping in so many ways.
Here are just a few things that the ACA will do that will help so many people in the Central Valley that I can think of off the top of my head:
* Insurance companies will be prevented from cancelling policies simply because the insured get sick or otherwise need to file claims
* Eliminating the lifetime spending caps formerly set by insurance companies
* Permitting children to remain on their parent’s policies until they are 26
* Reducing the amount insurance companies can spend on administrative costs like CEO salaries rather than actual healthcare
* Providing substantial subsidies that makes healthcare coverage much more affordable for working class families, and in many instances free of charge
* Preventative health visits are covered with no co-pays, which encourages people to go to their Dr., instead of putting it off due to costs of office visits
* Free contraceptive care (which will dramatically decrease unwanted pregnancies, which Mr. pro-life Denham should be in favor of)
* Being a woman is no longer a pre-existing condition which resulted in higher costs for women
The “Shop and Compare” tool at the California ACA website is working fine, and can be found at http://www.coveredca.com for anyone that wants to can check it out, and see how if can benefit them or their friends and family.
You only need to enter your age, family size, and income and you can shop and see how much your premiums will be and if you are eligible for subsidies that make insurance much more affordable.
I am confident the national healthcare.gov website will be fixed soon for the states that have Republican governors and legislatures that blocked the ACA, chose not to set up exchanges, and left it the federal government to provide exchanges instead. If they would have been more proactive, and not overwhelmed the demand for the federal site, their states would not be having these problems now.
Thank you for your illuminating comments. As you say, it’s a shame our media are focusing on roll out problems rather than educating people about their new benefits.