A recent New York Times article laments the "halfhearted opposition" to the pending passage of the American Health Care Act (AHCA, aka Trumpcare) by powerful groups such as doctors, nurses, hospitals and patient advocates. Health policy experts condemn the "fast-tracking" of the ACHA in the Senate. And the Jeff Sessions' hearings and other Russia collusion noise, crowd out national reporting on the AHCA as the Senate is weeks away from passing their health care reform bill.

The AHCA passed by Congress and currently undergoing revisions in the Senate, rewards the healthy and wealthy and punishes the sick and poor. Some people are appalled and baffled by the impending passage of legislation that brings more inequality into an already unequal system. Isn't it more sensible to provide the most financial assistance to people that need the most health care? Well this is America, where a near majority believes it's okay that the rich can afford better health care than the poor.

The Poor Cost Too Much

Many people think the sick are responsible for their illness(es) due to their engagement in "voluntary health risks" or "changeable behaviors." Never heard these terms before? Me neither. I guess using the term unhealthy lifestyle didn't sufficiently make the point that sickness is a choice, and an expensive one at that.

By some estimates an unhealthy lifestyle cost hundreds of billions of dollars each year in medical care. A recent study contracted by General Electric estimated the cost of cancer care due to an unhealthy lifestyle at around $34 billion per year. Other studies put the annual costs of treating alcohol abuse at an estimated $176 billion, smoking at $137 billion and obesity at $147 billion (2008 number for obesity). These issues—cancer, alcohol abuse, smoking and obesity—costs nearly a half trillion dollars in health care each year.

But cost concerns are not what allow the Republican Congress and Senate to easily take away health insurance from the sick and poor. The truth is that despite the passionate town halls, we don't want the poor to live as long as the wealthy. We would save money if they did not. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score of the AHCA, that savings is about $3 billion, to start (represents reduction in Social Security payments due to early deaths). Continue Reading...

Tags: AHCA, American Health Care Act, Trumpcare, obamacare

Overpricing and overcharging minorities and the poor in hospital ERs; health care specialists are driving up the cost of care; Mylan is waiting out the outrage over its high-cost Epipen and continuing its price gouging, and major health insurance companies settling multi-million dollar Medicare and Medicaid fraud cases with the government. The American health care system is a disaster and a disgrace. Greed and self-interest are its fuel. It's opaque. It's irredeemable.

And, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) trying to work with and maintain the American health care system, only highlighted all its ills. But at least the Democrats engaged in a comprehensive and intensive effort to improve one of America's biggest problems. Unfortunately, you can't say the same about the Republicans. From the start, and I'll give them credit for not lying about how vile the process would be, Republicans engaged in health care reform sausage making. Their health care reform plan consists of a three-step sausage making process—gut as much of Obamacare (cut taxes) via reconciliation, eliminate health care reform regulations, pass general health care regulation through the normal legislative process.

And like most sausage making, the Republican health care reform work is occurring out of sight. There are no experts to advise on the combination and impact of different policy options. In fact, Republicans in the Senate decided not to send their reform proposals through committees and instead assigned 13 Senators to review the House bill for further tweaking. This not-at-all discriminating approach to health policy reform all but guarantees an unappetizing product for millions. There should be no expectation of a Senate health care reform bill that is much better than the bill signed by the House. In fact, the Senate bill may be even worse than the House bill.

Initially, House Republicans were transparent about their health care reform bill. They made it clear that the Obamacare repeal law, the American Health Care Act (AHCA) was step one of a 3-step process to replace Obamacare. They collaborated with the Health & Human Services Secretary, Tom Price, to sell the proposed law to the public. And, lastly, they waited for the CBO score before deciding not to vote on the legislation. In the end, transparency was political poison for the House, and they resorted to secret meetings and hiding drafts of the revised proposal. The result was a reform bill that was just as bad as the first one but easier to pass politically. Republican senators have no desire to repeat the mistakes of their House colleagues. There will be no false starts on voting and no or little sharing of policy details before the vote, and there will be a vote and the bill will pass.

A Senate version of the AHCA will look a lot like the House version, but with a longer timeline to implement its awfulness. Expect, Continue Reading...

Tags: Mylan, obamacare, AHCA

Some people think the original sin of health care and health insurance is government regulation and "patches" like Medicare and Medicaid. Other people think the problem originated from a different government sin—the employer health care tax exclusion. This tax break translates into significant money saved for individuals enrolled in employer-provided health plans. Individuals not enrolled in these plans and who purchase health insurance, do not receive these savings.

So which sin should the country address first, health insurance regulations and patches or health insurance costs equity? The easiest issue to address—equalizing or eliminating the special tax treatment of employer-sponsored health insurance plan payments is a good place to start. But our time-strapped Republican-majority Congress decided to spend the majority of its limited attention tinkering with the political and policy challenges of health care regulations. The Congressional health care reform bill, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), does not equalize or eliminate the employer health care tax exclusion but goes very far in changing health insurance regulations.

These proposed regulatory changes will take hundreds of millions of federal dollars out of the health insurance and health care system if they survive the Senate and reconciliation processes and are signed by the President. Potentially, tens of millions may lose their health insurance coverage and access to health care. People opposed to the AHCA are focusing their energies on protesting at congressional town halls, emailing and writing their representatives and educating the public about its possible impact. It's an uphill battle for these protestors to change the course of legislation, which is why I think they may have more luck at addressing the unequal tax treatment of health insurance premiums that exists between employer-sponsored and individually paid private health insurance.

The AHCA, in a very limited way, does address the employer health care tax exclusion by providing tax credits to individuals that purchase health insurance. However, these credits may not equal the value of the exclusion and the health plans available in the individual market do not equal what employers offer. So, at a minimum, protesters should demand that the AHCA equalize the tax treatment of all health insurance plans. But they shouldn't stop there. AHCA opponents may have more success trying to convince employers to stop providing health insurance or provide only supplemental health insurance. Continue Reading...

Tags: AHCA, American Health Care Act, health insurance