Surprised? You shouldn’t be.

You might think people aren’t getting sick as much during the recession. But what is really going on is that more and more people are losing jobs and their health insurance that went along with those jobs (so much for Ted Kennedy’s theory, eh?). And of course, even people with jobs are finding it harder to pay rising premiums.

So — they go without treatment and testing.

Turns out, hospitals need a certain number of people to fill those beds. Otherwise, they lose money.

Here’s a story about one hospital in Boston bracing for losses up to $20 million this year.

COMMENT:
When hospitals lose money, they start charging even more to the people who are sick enough to get admitted. That cost is then passed on to insurance companies, which in turn, pass on higher premium costs to their insured clients.

See? See how this game works? Funny thing though — why are people always blaming the insurance companies??

(here’s that article from the Washington Post)

But in fairness, the article focuses on the cost of COBRA plans – which have ALWAYS been prohibitively expensive for people who need them!

COBRA guarantees continued benefits for many people who have lost their jobs where they had group insurance (too many details to cover with COBRA, but that’s the jist of it).

So why is it so much MORE expensive than the group plan someone had prior to being unemployed?  Actually, it isn’t any more expensive.

Under COBRA, the (former) employee is simply forced to pay the full price of the plan.  Formerly, that same (former) employee was only paying a relatively small portion of the premium, which they still found to be “too expensive” of course.

Are there any alternatives to COBRA?

Yes!  Several insurance companies offer “short term” policies that are much less expensive than COBRA.  The catch: they are not guaranteed insurable plans, so you must qualify for coverage.  But, qualification is much easier than for full blown major medical plans.

Here is a link to the leading provider of short term health insurance, Time Insurance Company, an Assurant Health company: Short Term Health Plan Quotes

From that link, you can get your own quotes and apply online. Coverage can be in effect as soon as – tomorrow!

If you have any questions about this or any other health plans, please feel free to contact our offices, either via phone or email.

Some of the main findings include:

• Rising health care costs “pose a serious threat” to the economy, but some of the more popular cost-control policies promoted by lawmakers will do little to help
• unless changes are made, the USA will spend 25% of its total economy on health care by 2025, up from about 16% now
• the number of uninsured could jump 20% in 10 years, up from about 45 million in 2009 to 54 million
• some plans promoted by President-elect Barack Obama and many other lawmakers such as wide adoption of electronic health records and better preventive care could improve health but would likely result in only modest savings or even increase the federal government’s costs over 10 years

If we really want to cut the cost of healthcare, according to the CBO, the key, number one thing that must happen is:

• reduce payments to doctors, hospitals and other medical providers — this could save hundreds of billions of dollars over 10 years

“By far, the biggest savings are cutting what we pay to people in the health care system. Everything else is really small,” says Robert Laszewski, a health policy consultant and former insurance industry executive”

In other words, we need to pay physicians, nurses, and other healthcare providers — LIKE SCHOOL TEACHERS.

Now, why didn’t I think of that?

Universal coverage plan introduced by Baucus

Sen. Baucus of Montana has introduced a plan for universal coverage that would be built on the current system. Employer-sponsored insurance would still play a big part, but it would start requiring employers to provide it if they don’t do so now. It also would require individuals to buy health insurance if they aren’t covered by an employer’s plan. Those who can’t afford health insurance would be subsidized by those who can.

This is not Hillary-Care II. It’s a modified version of Romney-Care, the Mass. health plan put into place under then-Gov. Mitt Romney — a Republican (some say only by title).

Hold on to your horses. This fight has just begun.

John McCain’s health care plan is right for America.

In a campaign where both candidates claim to be the agent of change, McCain wins that accolade, hands down, at least when it comes to health care. But he has done a miserable job in enunciating his plan.

I urge you to consider this editorial from the Wall Street Journal. It is written by Dr. David Gratzer, MD, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

In a nutshell, McCain’s plan aims to provide tax credits to individuals who purchase their own coverage. He also wants to allow people who live in states where premiums are high to purchase plans in other states where rates are much lower. And yes, his plan encourages high deductible health plans designed to work in conjunction with a health savings account.

At the heart of McCain’s plan is the recognition that employer-sponsored plans are growing increasingly scarce — for a variety of reasons, of course, but scarce nevertheless.

Encouraging people to buy their own plans through tax-incentives has at least 3 advantages, including:

1. Portability (employees who change jobs often lose their coverage)
2. More choice (most employees have only 1 plan to choose from at work)
3. A more mobile workforce (people would no longer feel compelled to stay at Job X for health benefits)

By contrast, Obama proposes more of the same-old, same-old, only with more regulation.

A noted economist has observed that this approach fails to address the underlying problems in the current system. In short, it would do nothing to decrease national health care spending, and in fact, would increase it.

That economist is Jason Furman, of the Brookings Institute. You may recognize the name — Mr. Furman is now economic policy director of Senator Obama’s campaign.

No plan is perfect. Ultimately, I predict that Medicare will become our version of “national health care.” We’ve already seen suggestions to lower Medicare admission age to 55. Something along those lines will eventually come to pass.

But regardless of how we get there as a nation, one thing is for certain: We are not going to be paying less for health care in the future. That being the case, individuals deserve the same tax-breaks enjoyed by corporations for decade when they purchase their own health care plans. And opening access across state lines is an idea that seems to have little, if any downside.

Thanks for reading. Your thoughts and comments are welcome.

C. Dean Richard, JD, MSBA
“the HSA king”

You think? Maybe?

Under a new federal Medicare rule, hospitals will now have to pay to clean up their own mistakes. Although implemented on a baby-step basis, it’s a (baby) step in the right direction.

Here’s the link to the hospital-acquired conditions story

COMMENT:
One has to wonder how high the cost of health care would be today if hospitals (and by necessary implication, physicians and their assistants) did not (negligently) cause so many health related problems.

The fact of the matter is, hospitals are a good place to get sick — or even sicker.

As the New York Times article states:

Virtually all large employers offered coverage, but only 62 percent of small companies did. People working for big companies were also paying less — about $3,000 a year for family coverage — compared with $4,100 for those in small companies.

Faced with the choice of dropping coverage altogether, many small companies have opted for health plans that ask employees to pay much more in the form of deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses. One in three workers in small businesses has annual deductibles of $1,000 or more, in contrast to one in five in the previous year’s survey.

The article jumps to the conclusion that government intervention is closer than we may think.

COMMENT:
Typical left-wing perspective from the Times, but the numbers don’t lie either. As more and more small companies are dropping coverage all together, they are opting for individual coverage. And all individuals who are taxpayers are eligible for health savings account plans.

These plans can save a bundle, especially when the employer sponsors a health reimbursement plan. Ask us for more details.

Read the article from the LA Times here

COMMENT:

My only concern with this story is that the investigation was begun a couple of years ago by Rocky Delgadillo, the hell-bent LA prosecutor whose visions of grandeur are equaled only by his thirst for power and publicity. You may remember Delgadillo as the bumbling prosecutor who insisted on putting Paris Hilton behind bars for a low level “crime.” Despite his public rantings about how everyone deserved to do the same time for the same crime, he was at a rare loss for words to explain how his own wife somehow managed to skirt jail time for the same crime Ms. Hilton was serving time for.

Nevertheless, the feds are involved (FBI investigation) so this one should prove interesting.

But is it not amazing how stupid people can be? Why spend so much time and effort trying to think up clever new ways to rip off the government?

As this article from the Seattle Times illustrates, American hospitals have an ethical duty to care for everyone, including uninsured illegals.  But how far does that go?

In the case cited by the Times, a Guatemalan national here illegally suffered brain damage in a horrific accident.  After racking up approximately $1.5 million as a ward of the hospital system over 4 or so years, the hospital system finally arranged for a charter flight and forcibly sent him back to his official country (Guatemala).

This new wave of deportations is not officially sanctioned by the U.S., and in fact it is completely private, which is what makes it so interesting.

Expect plenty of legal battles over cases just like this over the coming years.

But the next time you get a $12,000 bill from the hospital for an overnight stay, a fair question to hospital administrators might be:  “How many uninsured illegals am I subsidizing?”