Three years ago, Massachusetts was one of the first states to dip a toe into healthcare reform. It was actually a Republican governor, Mitt Romney, who signed the bill into law. The Massachusetts health insurance mandate requires everyone in the state has to be insured, similar to several proposals in Congress. While the government offers subsidies to those who are ineligible for existing state programs but still unable to afford individual health insurance, people who are able to buy insurance but choose not to will be penalized. The Obama administration shares Massachusetts’ stated goal of expanding health coverage to as many people as possible, but has paid surprisingly little public attention to their results.

How has their experiment worked? In terms of insuring more Americans, the state has seen success. The Washington Post reports that while 85% of the nation’s residents have health insurance, 97% of Mass. residents are insured. However, costs have continued to increase and some services (such as dental and hospice care for legal immigrants) have been cut. Supporters of a nationwide public option point to Massachusetts as an example of why it’s necessary: the state government-run insurance programs (such as Commonwealth Care) spend less than similar programs nationally, but for-profit insurers are set to increase their premiums by 10% next year.

Others, such as Romney, believe that the state’s success in getting nearly all of its residents insured without a public option proves that it’s unneeded in any health care reform. Coordinated care, which reimburses physicians based on the outcomes of their patients as opposed to how many procedures they perform, is what he suggests to control costs. Unlike the current health insurance system, coordinated care would discourage doctors from performing needless tests, while encouraging care that prevents future conditions that are more expensive to treat.

(Image: Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL under CC 2.0)

At several fundraising events this week, President Barack Obama has urged fellow Democrats to pressure their congresspersons to support health insurance reform and criticized opposition, whom he claimed were hoping reform would fail. The House of Representatives and the Senate have both passed reform bills, although their versions differ. Committees now have to hammer out a compromise between two options: the more sweeping changes recommended by the House, and the more cautious version passed by the Senate. Obama has expressed his support of a public option in the past, which is more likely to happen under the House’s bill.

Virtually all of the Democrats in Congress have voted for health care reform, but so far only one Republican (Maine Senator Olympia Snowe) has joined them in voting yes. The Democratic National Committee has asked supporters to make 100,000 calls to Congress in an attempt to seek more Republican votes. However, the prospect seems unlikely. Regardless, the Democrats currently have enough votes in both chambers of Congress to pass a bill. The future of health insurance may be decided several weeks from now, when a final bill is expected to be presented.

Even though news has broken that a Public Option bill has passed, it is really still stalled. It only passed out of the Senate Finance Committee but has yet to pass any other sectors of congress. It can still be shot down or filibustered. The problem is no one wants to vote on this issue. They want it to stay the same. The effects of this bill are vast and sweeping. They effect both the economy and workplace as well as every American.

A public option, however, doesn’t meant free universal healthcare. It could mean tax credits for those making under a certain amount. It could mean annual credits for checkups at any doctor or it could mean simply another plan to choose from to compete with current plans, driving down prices. In fact, it could even increase the value of private healthcare because if government run healthcare works anything like the VA or medicare, then people are going to want an alternative even if it is a bit more costly.

How many doctors are going to want to deal with government health insurance? What will the limits be? will they be just as ruthless on cost of operations, will they deny you what you need because it is too expensive to the US government?

There are still so many questions and without a clear bill to really look at (since its always changing) things are still up in the air and people are still stalling.

Don’t go without health insurance too long hoping for the public option, Obama may be out of office by the time it passes and gets established as a viable option.

Why has the healthcare debate taken so long? The longer it takes the worse it is for all of us. People go without healthcare or withhold purchasing healthcare because they are not sure what Obama has in store for them. It is not healthy to rely on government subsisdy when it comes to your health.

Consider if nothing is done and you are left without health insurnace in the midst of a mad rush to get covered because the government option fell through. Plus, who knows how long this is going to take? Are you going to wait until the next election be become insured? What if you get sick or injured during that time?

Statistically getting sick and injured happens, and at the weirdest times and to the kindest of people. Make sure  you get the coverage you need before you find yourself in a dire situation which can quickly have you facing the other two terrors of our country at the moment, unemployment and foreclosure.

During a town hall meeting, Obama mentioned “wether we have a public option, or we dont have a public option”, throwing the possibility that he himself is unsure if Health Insurance Reform is going to work or not. Our president seems to be backing down due to the opposition. Whose side is he on? What does he want?

Obama needs to be clear and consistent with his ideas and programs. This is one aspect of the Bush administration that seems to have faded. John Stewart mentioned this on his show on August 17th. We have to hand it to these comedians, they put perspective on the reality of the Healthcare reform situation.

Democrats are losing ground, they are slipping words and terms into their speeches and answers that are creating a wave of unceertainty which threatens to annihalate the fabric of unity in the democratic party.

The way things are going, a Republican win looks prominent in the next election…even with all the problems of the Bush era.

On August 11th, John Stewart on The Daily show pointed out something very important, that in reality both Democrats and Republicans have no idea whats going in with Healthcare Reform. Republicans are focused on bashing Obama and any attempt to change anything. Democrats are confused and too lazy to read through the thousand pages of tedious and boring Health Insurance Reform documents. This is why this has been such a lengthy deliberation on the subject!

We really need to get it togther. The country is going to tear itself apart at this rate. Things need to be made simpler so the general public as well as congressmen can understand it. There is too much opportunity for abuse and for strange or little known policies to be slipped in! Reminds me of what its like to buy a house, eventually you don’t even care about fighting all the fees they stick you with. I think the American people want to get this topic over with!

Everyone in the Health Insurance Industry is frightened, waiting intently to find out what the conclusion is behind the healthcare reform ideas of our new President Barack Obama.

News Junkie Post Writer Dolores M. Bernal writes: “Obama has already said that he does not intent to do a government “take over” of the health care system, but the GOP continues to argue that his true motives are to adopt a single-payer system.”

We can only hope that this is the case. The options are really only two: the government takes over the health care industry and imposes its own standards and policies or it tries to force it to meet standards and policies while allowing it to remain private. One spells the demise of an entire industry and the other requires a huge shift in policy, procedure and pricing. I can’t imagine how long and how tedious its going to be to reform the healthcare system. I can only imagine how many issues and abuses are going to occur during the transition. How many hopspitals and doctors will find patients in the grey “inbetween” as policies are cancelled, shifted, moved over, changed, etc. I can’t imagine doctors taking risks doing expensive surgeries and operations not knowing if they are going to be payed for it or not…It’s unfortunate  most aren’t compassionate enough to do it gratis in the mean time, but its true.

What to do?

NY Times Paul Krugman writes: “Right-wing opponents of reform would have you believe that President Obama is a wild-eyed socialist, attacking the free market. But unregulated markets don’t work for health care — never have, never will. To the extent we have a working health care system at all right now it’s only because the government covers the elderly, while a combination of regulation and tax subsidies makes it possible for many, but not all, nonelderly Americans to get decent private coverage.”

It makes me wonder if those arguing about Health Care take into consideration the massive market that is behind it and dependent on it functioning the way it does. Regulation is good but only to a certain degree. Regulation cannot chain companies to not make profit, otherwise they will close their doors and you will see even more uninsured. Who is going to take on all that cost? The government? Obama?

Just what we need, more jobs lost in a hurting economy, guess its a good way to get people to sign up for the new government plans?

Health care costs have increased significantly over the past year. Way higher than wages. This has caused our current crisis in the Health Care industry. This is not to say that the Real Estate Industry didn’t have anything to do with this, as when house prices start spinning out of control and debt soars high, every other industry takes a hit. So now we are on the cusp of a new decision; HealthCareReform: fix the old system and allow it to survive, changing what needs to be changed, or wipe it out by making pretty much everything government controlled. Obama at the center, the country taking sides even more strongly than before…Kind of scary.

In my opinion one of the problems I have seen related to costs is the cost requested by hospitals and doctors for procedures. It almost doesn’t seem standardized, or if it is, it is appraised at too high of a value. If we could get those costs down, then Health Insurance companies wouldn’t t have to charge so much. Then again, with house prices the way they are, it’s kind of hard to justify lowering the amount made by anyone.

This is such a hard decision and it will affect many. Imagine how many will be unemployed if we get rid of private insurance?

A common thread is emerging in the right wing response to healthcare reform. Its opponents aren’t claiming that public healthcare will be bad. Rather, they are terrified that the new system will be so good that no citizen would buy expensive private insurance–or vote for politicians who wanted to take public insurance away.

The Obama team is sending clear signals that healthcare reform is a core economic issue, and the health insurance industry is becoming increasingly anxious by the future administration’s determination to bring healthcare costs under control. Some Americans are seeing their healthcare premiums rising at four times the rate of inflation, if they have insurance at all. Healthcare reform is a pocketbook issue for all of us, according to the Obama team.

In tough economic times it might be tempting to postpone healthcare reforms, but Obama is adamant that delay would be a false economy.

In the American Prospect, Joanne Kenen and Sarah Axeen support claims about the high cost of doing nothing:

A recent report by the New America Foundation’s health-policy program estimates that the cost of doing nothing about health care, including poor health and shorter lifespan of the uninsured, is well above $200 billion a year and rising. That’s enough to cover the uninsured and still have some left over for other public-health needs.

If healthcare costs continue to rise at their current rates, it will cost $24,000/yr to insure a family of four by 2016, an 84% increase from today. At these rates, half of American households would have to spend at least 45% percent of their income to be insured.

In the Nation, Willa Thompson describes how a bicycle crash made her appreciate the connection between healthcare and politics. Thompson was 21 years old when she suffered major injuries after a collision with a truck. Luckily, she was covered by her parents’ medical insurance until she turned 22. She later realized that if she had been just a few months older when the accident happened, she wouldn’t have been able to pay for her medical care.

We all agree that something needs to be done. Let’s briefly review the options that have been proposed so far. Obama wants to provide healthcare for all by requiring private insurance companies to cover everyone and creating a public health insurance plan to compete with private insurers.