I woke up this morning to news that while millions of people visited the web site, only six people actually enrolled and in the next couple days, less than 500 did. Much will be made of those low numbers as outspoken people seek to score political points with the sound bytes those numbers provide (what a bonus to the critics!), but I'm willing to wait a bit longer to gain a true sense of the true numbers.
Nevertheless, my main concern remains. Diane and I have health insurance and our costs are increasing to help cover the millions and millions of people who are expected to enroll and thereby gain health insurance for the first time. But where will the money come from to pay for those millions?
Even if we pay a couple thousand dollars a year more for the coverage we have now, how far will that go? Even if we end up paying $10,000 a year for good coverage, how far will that go?
If a healthy family of four heads to the local doctor for first-ever physical exams, that couple thousand from us will be used up. Then that family's grandma develops a condition for which basic surgery is required along with a three day hospital stay. That will cost thousands more. Before, the condition would have been ignored and grandma would have died a premature death because it went untreated for too long. But now she is in the system, costing the system more.
I know of a truck driver who passed out from a heat stroke on a loading dock while unloading his truck. The dock workers brought him around but he absolutely insisted on not calling an ambulance or going in, because he had no health insurance. Now, if he is enrolled in the system, he likely would have agreed to an ambulance ride to the ER and the expense that involves.
The trouble is, Diane and I already are paying increased costs. How many more paying customers are there out there to cover grandma's surgery, the family's annual physicals, junior's visit to the doctor that would not have been done before after he sprains an ankle and gets x-rays, and the trucker's heat stroke? And that's in the first year. Next year, it develops that grandpa's kidney's need dialysis. Where will the money come from to pay for that?
And let's not forget that Diane and I may one day get sick and need care too. We would reasonably expect that the money we paid in over the years would help to cover our claims, but with us paying for millions of previously uninsured, will that be the case?
Don't get me wrong. I strongly believe that all of the people listed above should be able to get the health care they need. But I just don't see Obamacare as the solution. With millions of new people in need of health care expected to come on board, and with the billions in costs they will produce, the notion that there will be enough healthy people also enrolling to cover the costs seems like a false hope to me.
It's not an even-up transfer. When a lone patient can easily generate over $100,000 in claims for a hospital stay, I do not think that there are enough healthy people out there to contribute enough each to cover the millions of people who will generate billions in costs for expensive treatments (even physical exams are expensive).
And when the healthy people find out that their premiums are unaffordable, and that, because of the new preexisting condition rules that allows them to enroll not now, but later when they actually need treatment, they will not enroll and instead save money by paying the fine. This does not seem to me to be a system that is sustainable.
Nevertheless, my main concern remains. Diane and I have health insurance and our costs are increasing to help cover the millions and millions of people who are expected to enroll and thereby gain health insurance for the first time. But where will the money come from to pay for those millions?
Even if we pay a couple thousand dollars a year more for the coverage we have now, how far will that go? Even if we end up paying $10,000 a year for good coverage, how far will that go?
If a healthy family of four heads to the local doctor for first-ever physical exams, that couple thousand from us will be used up. Then that family's grandma develops a condition for which basic surgery is required along with a three day hospital stay. That will cost thousands more. Before, the condition would have been ignored and grandma would have died a premature death because it went untreated for too long. But now she is in the system, costing the system more.
I know of a truck driver who passed out from a heat stroke on a loading dock while unloading his truck. The dock workers brought him around but he absolutely insisted on not calling an ambulance or going in, because he had no health insurance. Now, if he is enrolled in the system, he likely would have agreed to an ambulance ride to the ER and the expense that involves.
The trouble is, Diane and I already are paying increased costs. How many more paying customers are there out there to cover grandma's surgery, the family's annual physicals, junior's visit to the doctor that would not have been done before after he sprains an ankle and gets x-rays, and the trucker's heat stroke? And that's in the first year. Next year, it develops that grandpa's kidney's need dialysis. Where will the money come from to pay for that?
And let's not forget that Diane and I may one day get sick and need care too. We would reasonably expect that the money we paid in over the years would help to cover our claims, but with us paying for millions of previously uninsured, will that be the case?
Don't get me wrong. I strongly believe that all of the people listed above should be able to get the health care they need. But I just don't see Obamacare as the solution. With millions of new people in need of health care expected to come on board, and with the billions in costs they will produce, the notion that there will be enough healthy people also enrolling to cover the costs seems like a false hope to me.
It's not an even-up transfer. When a lone patient can easily generate over $100,000 in claims for a hospital stay, I do not think that there are enough healthy people out there to contribute enough each to cover the millions of people who will generate billions in costs for expensive treatments (even physical exams are expensive).
And when the healthy people find out that their premiums are unaffordable, and that, because of the new preexisting condition rules that allows them to enroll not now, but later when they actually need treatment, they will not enroll and instead save money by paying the fine. This does not seem to me to be a system that is sustainable.
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