Health Insurance exchanges are good
programs
A health insurance exchange is a government
regulated healthcare plan where individuals may purchase health insurance and
be eligible for federal subsidies. This type of exchange is intended to help
expansion of insurance coverage to more people, especially those that either
cannot afford insurance or are not covered by their employer.
Because of the recent ruling by the Supreme Court, states may
opt out of having to begin these exchanges since the federal government may not
exploit the states monetarily by withholding Medicaid funds if the states do
not comply. Many states in the South have any opted out such as Texas and
Florida and more are anticipated to opt out of this program. Remember, that
many employers will either pay a fine for not insuring their employee or reduce
a worker’s employment status from full time to part-time so that they are not
required to cover the employee's health insurance. The employer will do this
simply because the cost of healthcare coverage will be too high to run their
business and this will result in many employees needing to join these health
insurance exchanges or face individual fines (or as Supreme Court Judge Roberts
has determined face additional taxes).
Many state governors realized that the federal government will
regulate the exchanges and initially foot the majority of the bill but that in
time the financial obligations will fall on the states without having control
of the programs. Therefore, federal government will run the program. The best
option of course is for the states to run these exchanges since they can be
more fiscally responsible, especially if there is no federal interference.
Since the goal of the administration is to eventually have one system of
healthcare for everybody, the federal government will not give up that control.
Again, the best scenario would be for the states to receive block grants from
the federal government and let the individual states take care of their own
poor. This would be fiscally more responsible especially since the states, unlike
the federal government, have to balance their budget every year.
These exchanges if run by the federal government will operate
in the same manner as the VA, where the cost of care is more important than the
quality of care. This will limit choices by individuals and will also affect
the type of care each individual patient receives. So, it is my opinion that
the states should opt out of these health exchanges and begin lobbying with the
majority of governors in individual states to provide health care for their own
poor by having Medicaid allocated to the states and given to the states
directly with block grants by the federal government. This would take away the
control of healthcare from the Big and intrusive federal government. Also, this
will result in better healthcare delivery since it is more local. When health
insurance exchanges are run by the federal government, it is a formula for
disaster with more waste and inefficiency added to the system. This will result
in lower quality of care and more harm to the individuals living in that state.
Therefore, health insurance exchanges are not the programs as
advertised during the Obamacare legislative debate in early 2010.
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