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Sunday, January 29, 2006

Did you know you are overinsured?
Posted by Jill | 9:35 AM

I'm lucky in that I have a very good medical plan where I work. Yes, we have to deal with the usual in-network/out-of-network BS, but it's a good plan. I pay about $3600/year in premiums, and the total premium is about $10,000 including what my employer pays.

George W. Bush thinks I'm overinsured. And if you have any health insurance at all, he thinks you are too.

Josh Marshall explains:

...the core premise of the policies the president is about to lay out is that Americans are over-insured when it comes to health insurance. Over-insured. Got too much insurance.


These aren't my words. These are the words used by the conservative policy-wonks who came up with the president's proposals. Just hop over to Google and start googling the phrase 'over insured' along with 'health' and 'conservative'. This what they think; and what the president thinks. It's why he's behind these ideas.


So the president thinks the problem is that people have too much health insurance. People are over-insured.


I don't think that's how most Americans see the problem, do you? I'm confident that they don't. Really confident.


But let's let them decide.


The president wants to make health care his political issue this year. No Democrat should open their mouth this year on this topic without first saying this: The president thinks the problem is that Americans have too much health insurance; we don't.



Bush of course thinks that the answer is health savings accounts and high-deductible insurance policies. Perhaps for people in HIS circle,, and arguably even in mine, using health savings accounts to pay outine medical expenses instead of $14 co-pays would make people think twice about using medical services. But is asking people to pay for preventive care out-of-pocket really cost-effective? Or will such a policy give people like me yet another excuse to put off having a colonoscopy as long as possible?

When a routine blood draw and lipids profile, or a mammogram, or an annual physical, or a pap test, is paid for by insurance, it's an incentive to obtain such preventive care. When it's an out-of-pocket expense, the "I Feel Fine" defense kicks in and people tend to defer such screenings, which means even MORE expense later on, after the heart attack, the stroke, the hysterectomy, the mastectomy, or the colostomy.

Another problem is that Bush's plan would put more people into the hunt for private insurance, and as we all know, anyone with a pre-existing condition -- which may be defined as anything from diabetes to high blood pressure to carrying 10 extra pounds -- is going to have a hard time finding insurance at an affordable price. For families trapped in the downward wage spiral of the global economy and tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy, there just isn't money for health insurance, let alone health savings accounts. The result? More uninsured people, fewer people obtaining preventive care, more emergency room visits, more costs for preventable catastrophic illness.

Whether the Republicans want to believe it or not, free market solutions don't apply to health care. If you need it, you need it. Period. I'm all for getting employers out from under the burden of providing health care benefits, but the answer is to allow the economies of scale that a national health insurance program can provide -- not nationalized health care, but nationalized health insurance -- one which spreads the risk across the young and old; the sick and the well; the poor and the rich -- so that NO ONE has to decide whether to buy shoes for her children or get a pap test.
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