Obamacare

Here are some details of Obama's proposed healthcare plan which I've summarized from an article written by Scott Gottlieb, MD of AEI:

1. Expand Medicare & enlarge State Children’s Health Ins. Program.
2. National exchange. This means offering a selection of insurance options that meet new federal standards. A “Medicare-like” public program will be one of the national options.
a. Ten year cost estimated conservatively at 1.17 Trillion.
3. “Pay or Play” tax on employers. Employers who don’t offer health insurance will be taxed. Their employees will be able to choose from a menu of closely regulated private insurance plans. Taxes on employers to assist in paying these premiums. Employers will pass this on their employees through lower wages, etc. The employers will “get theirs”. These new insurance options will be available to everyone. Employers (especially larger ones and new ones) will weigh the costs of providing insurance options or funneling employees to the “exchange” (new gov’t approved insurance) and simply pay the new tax. He hasn’t said what the new tax rate will be.
4. What are the implications for patients, providers and medical product developers? If you’re healthy and don’t qualify for Obama’s subsidies, you could face higher premiums once insurers are req’d to sell policies to everyone. Wider access to gov’t sponsored health insurance is likely to come at the price of more federal restrictions on medical treatment and access to new products. (This will be done in the name of fiscal austerity)
5. He says his plan will save families up to $2,500 on premiums due to a series of measures he says will cut health care costs. The only real example he’s given is the adoption of electronic medical records. He also references greater “efficiency” but nothing more specific.
6. He’ll try to incorporate more medicare pricing schedules into the private market. (Some doctors already won’t see medicare patients because they lose money on them)
7. ”Ample research shows the effect of price controls, and central management of services, on access and innovation: It puts a damper on both. But a growing political majority sees these kinds of centrally-planned controls as the most efficient way to extend federal health benefits to more Americans--especially the uninsured--and see the trade-off as one worth making. This trade-off rests on the false assumption that technology drives increased health care spending, when in fact it lowers long-term morbidity and costs. But Obamacare is a triumph of egalitarian piety over innovation and medical progress. Those most affected won't be Mr. Obama's "rich" Americans who can opt out of the system and its controls, but those stuck inside of it.”

My thoughts: 1. Higher taxes on employers equals lower wages to their employees. One way or another, the cost will be passed on, it's just what happens. 2. I don't like the idea so many large gov't programs. There's no convincing me we won't be paying $8.00 per tube of chapstick if the gov't is involved... They can't get anything right. 3. Customer service will suffer--it always does when competition is removed and guaranteed customers line up in the lobby. 4. Care will suffer. Doctors won't want to spend any time with their patients because they're being so poorly compensated pursuant to the terms of the medicare-type pricing. They'll need higher volume in order to stay in business since they're being paid so little per person. 5. Too much regulation equals a poorer product all the way around.

Stay tuned for my book report on McCain's healthcare plan.