The Ides of March are upon us, and like Julius Caesar, many of us are about to be stabbed in the back unexpectedly. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have their daggers at the ready, and together they are hatching a secret plan to stick it to us. They have mesmerized us with chants of “Repeal and Replace” so often that we believe them when they say they’re going to reduce insurance premiums and give us all more choices. But if you study what Ryan has advocated all along, and what he is reportedly likely to propose now, you’ll see that we’re about to be assaulted by the very people we trusted to serve our interests.
By now we all know that the Affordable Care Act was a failed experiment. Former President Obama told us that our premiums would go down. They didn’t. He told us we could keep the plan that we had. We couldn’t. He said we could keep our doctor. We couldn’t. And he promised that we wouldn’t be denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. He was right, but his promise was hollow. That’s because premiums and deductibles were so high that people with a serious illness couldn’t pay for the premium or the procedures they needed.
OK, so Obamacare needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, though, we’re about to jump from the frying pan into the fire.
Last week Kaiser Health News reported that the Republican plan will drastically increase premiums for older Americans. Under the ACA, insurance companies were allowed to charge an older man three times more than a younger man. But last year, Ryan said he wanted to increase that to five times! In simple math that means if a 25-year-old is paying $500 per month for health insurance, a 55-year-old would pay $2,500 per month for the same coverage, regardless of his health and with higher deductibles. All of this is designed to make insurance more affordable for the people who don’t need it and rarely use it, while making it less affordable for people who need it, and are more likely to use it. Can you feel the knife going into your back yet?
But the rationale is disingenuous on both ends of the age spectrum. First of all, even though a young couple might be more able to afford monthly premiums, they won’t be able to afford the co-pay on expensive diagnostics and surgeries. Meanwhile, under Ryan’s likely plan, the insurance companies will make money from increasing premiums on some older folks, and save money by not having to cover other older folks who decide to drop their coverage. In fact, according to NBCNews.com, a Rand study says companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield will pick up 3 million new customers under age 35, while 700,000 people over age 47 will drop their coverage.
To use President Trump’s favorite phrase, Americans age 50 to 64 are about to be screwed “big league.” And look for Ryan to also decrease Medicare premium supports for people 65 and older. Writing for the New York Times, Indiana University professor Aaron Carroll said, “We need to acknowledge that one of the easiest ways to cut premiums is to shift more health care costs to older Americans.” So there you have it. Republicans in Congress are poised to pass a healthcare plan that will make it legal for insurance companies to price gouge anyone over the age of 50.
But why? Why would any politician want to help bankrupt a family because they can’t afford premiums or procedures? And if these politicians really wanted to make healthcare affordable for everyone, why wouldn’t they vote to either cap premiums, or embrace Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan? The answer to all of these questions is that many elected officials are beholden to insurance companies for donations and other forms of assistance.
According to CNN/Money.com, BCBS alone spent over $21 million dollars on lobbyists in 2009 and 2010 in order to make sure Congress wouldn’t enact any legislation that might negatively impact Big Blue’s profits. And while it’s true that BCBS cut back on its donations to and lobbying of Congress in recent years, they have re-focused their efforts on lobbying state lawmakers and commissioners who have the power to green-light increases in premiums, once the federal law is enacted. But BCBS can also protect its turf by serving as de facto legislators. According to the National Academy of Social Insurance, Obama’s health exchanges were mandated to “promote effective competition for health insurance, and offer a wide selection of coverage options to individuals and businesses.” But in 2011, iwatchnews.org reported that BCBS of North Carolina was helping to draft a bill that would allow their company to control the governing body of our state’s health exchange. The exchange went into effect in 2014, and by 2016, BCBS was the only company offering health insurance in North Carolina. In other words, Blue Cross has been working behind the scenes for years, making donations, lobbying, and writing regulations that guarantee their millionaire executives will continue to prosper regardless of how the economy, or even their own company, is performing.
The Ides of March are upon us, and very soon Brutus Ryan and his cronies will take action to bleed us to death, with Blue Cross supplying the daggers. But if we all take heed of their plot now, there will still be time to put pressure on our elected officials, and let them know that they can’t get re-elected if everyone over 50 votes against them. Hopefully they’ll get the “point” before we do.
GOP Health Plan a Sick Joke?
The Ides of March are upon us, and like Julius Caesar, many of us are about to be stabbed in the back unexpectedly. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have their daggers at the ready, and together they are hatching a secret plan to stick it to us. They have mesmerized us with chants of “Repeal and Replace” so often that we believe them when they say they’re going to reduce insurance premiums and give us all more choices. But if you study what Ryan has advocated all along, and what he is reportedly likely to propose now, you’ll see that we’re about to be assaulted by the very people we trusted to serve our interests.
By now we all know that the Affordable Care Act was a failed experiment. Former President Obama told us that our premiums would go down. They didn’t. He told us we could keep the plan that we had. We couldn’t. He said we could keep our doctor. We couldn’t. And he promised that we wouldn’t be denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. He was right, but his promise was hollow. That’s because premiums and deductibles were so high that people with a serious illness couldn’t pay for the premium or the procedures they needed.
OK, so Obamacare needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, though, we’re about to jump from the frying pan into the fire.
Last week Kaiser Health News reported that the Republican plan will drastically increase premiums for older Americans. Under the ACA, insurance companies were allowed to charge an older man three times more than a younger man. But last year, Ryan said he wanted to increase that to five times! In simple math that means if a 25-year-old is paying $500 per month for health insurance, a 55-year-old would pay $2,500 per month for the same coverage, regardless of his health and with higher deductibles. All of this is designed to make insurance more affordable for the people who don’t need it and rarely use it, while making it less affordable for people who need it, and are more likely to use it. Can you feel the knife going into your back yet?
But the rationale is disingenuous on both ends of the age spectrum. First of all, even though a young couple might be more able to afford monthly premiums, they won’t be able to afford the co-pay on expensive diagnostics and surgeries. Meanwhile, under Ryan’s likely plan, the insurance companies will make money from increasing premiums on some older folks, and save money by not having to cover other older folks who decide to drop their coverage. In fact, according to NBCNews.com, a Rand study says companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield will pick up 3 million new customers under age 35, while 700,000 people over age 47 will drop their coverage.
To use President Trump’s favorite phrase, Americans age 50 to 64 are about to be screwed “big league.” And look for Ryan to also decrease Medicare premium supports for people 65 and older. Writing for the New York Times, Indiana University professor Aaron Carroll said, “We need to acknowledge that one of the easiest ways to cut premiums is to shift more health care costs to older Americans.” So there you have it. Republicans in Congress are poised to pass a healthcare plan that will make it legal for insurance companies to price gouge anyone over the age of 50.
But why? Why would any politician want to help bankrupt a family because they can’t afford premiums or procedures? And if these politicians really wanted to make healthcare affordable for everyone, why wouldn’t they vote to either cap premiums, or embrace Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan? The answer to all of these questions is that many elected officials are beholden to insurance companies for donations and other forms of assistance.
According to CNN/Money.com, BCBS alone spent over $21 million dollars on lobbyists in 2009 and 2010 in order to make sure Congress wouldn’t enact any legislation that might negatively impact Big Blue’s profits. And while it’s true that BCBS cut back on its donations to and lobbying of Congress in recent years, they have re-focused their efforts on lobbying state lawmakers and commissioners who have the power to green-light increases in premiums, once the federal law is enacted. But BCBS can also protect its turf by serving as de facto legislators. According to the National Academy of Social Insurance, Obama’s health exchanges were mandated to “promote effective competition for health insurance, and offer a wide selection of coverage options to individuals and businesses.” But in 2011, iwatchnews.org reported that BCBS of North Carolina was helping to draft a bill that would allow their company to control the governing body of our state’s health exchange. The exchange went into effect in 2014, and by 2016, BCBS was the only company offering health insurance in North Carolina. In other words, Blue Cross has been working behind the scenes for years, making donations, lobbying, and writing regulations that guarantee their millionaire executives will continue to prosper regardless of how the economy, or even their own company, is performing.
The Ides of March are upon us, and very soon Brutus Ryan and his cronies will take action to bleed us to death, with Blue Cross supplying the daggers. But if we all take heed of their plot now, there will still be time to put pressure on our elected officials, and let them know that they can’t get re-elected if everyone over 50 votes against them. Hopefully they’ll get the “point” before we do.