“If You Like Your Insurance You Can Keep It. Period!” President Barack Obama
Stanley Feld M.D.,FACP,MACE
Here we go again. On Friday June 11, 2010 at 4.30 pm internal administration documents were leaked. The documents reveal that up to 51% of employers may have to relinquish their current health care coverage because of ObamaCare. President Obama promised us that if we like our insurance we can keep. (See 3.46 minutes of the following You Tube.}
This is getting to be a habit with this administration.
Late in the afternoon on Fridays is a convenient time to leak information. No one will notice the information. The leaks’ impact will be old news by Monday morning.
The administration claims it did not know how it leaked. It is only a draft of the regulations created by Kathleen Sebalius Secretary of HHS. President Obama’s healthcare bill gives her the authority to write the regulations.
“The "midrange estimate is that 66% of small employer plans and 45% of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfathered status by the end of 2013," according to the document.
In the worst-case scenario, 69% of employers — 80% of smaller firms — would lose that status, exposing them to far more provisions under the new health law.”
The report was part of a joint project of the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and the IRS. The final report will be 118 pages. The report examined the effects ObamaCare’s regulations will have on existing, or "grandfathered," employer-based health care plans.
President Obama pledged it would have no effect on the healthcare insurance you have now. He did not say anything about modifications to present plans.
This is another trick play by President Obama. The Republicans have been caught flatfooted once again. The healthcare reform bill allows President Obama and the Secretary of Health and Human Services to interpret broad provisions in the bill any way they want.
The President has said that a single party payer system works in other countries. It can work in America. His goal is to work his way toward a single party payer.
People have accused President Obama of wanting to eliminate private insurance. He said “we can keep our insurance if we like our present insurance.”
It turns out with these new regulations that we cannot keep our healthcare insurance plan if our employers modify the provisions in our plan. Americans will be forced to buy healthcare insurance from President Obama’s health insurance exchanges.
The health insurance exchange is supposed to provide affordable healthcare insurance. The healthcare insurance will be purchased with after-tax dollars.
The problem is cost controls will be regulated by the government. The program will fail to control costs just it has failed to control cost and improve service in Massachusetts.
President Obama has also said if something does not work we will adjust the system. Here comes the Public Option. However, the government and the states cannot afford to pay for healthcare insurance.
What are the conditions that eliminate your retaining your present healthcare insurance?
* The plan eliminates benefits related to diagnosis or treatment of a particular condition.
* The plan increases the percentage of a cost-sharing requirement (such as co-insurance) above the level at which it was on March 23, 2010.
* The plan increases the fixed amount of cost sharing such as deductibles or out-of-pocket limits by a total percentage measured from March 23, 2010, that is more than the sum of medical inflation plus 15 percentage points.
* The plan increases co-payments as a total percentage measured from March 23, 2010, that is more than the sum of medical inflation plus 15 percentage points or medical inflation plus $5.
* The employer’s share of the premium decreases more than 5 percentage points below what the share was on March 23, 2010.
The regulations are a done deal. Employers modify healthcare insurance plans every year. It is cheaper to pay a $2,000 per employee penalty than $15,000 a year per employee healthcare insurance premium.
“A White House official said, “This is a draft document, and we will be releasing the final regulation when it is complete. The president made a promise to the American people that if they liked their health care plan, they can keep it. The regulation, when finalized, will uphold that promise."
Jonathan Alter in his book “The Promise” which is about President Obama’s first year in office quotes him on healthcare. “President Obama said to a group of Single Party Payer advocates that “they had to deal with the world as it is and not wanted it to be.”
President Obama is dealing with the world as he is working his way toward how he wants it to be. A government controlled world.
The next step is a single party payer.
Consumers will not have freedom of choice or free access to care.
The opinions expressed in the blog “Repairing The Healthcare System” are, mine and mine alone.