This article provides evidence that people with employer-sponsored coverage were more likely than Medicare beneficiaries to forgo needed care, experience access problems due to cost, encounter medical bill problems, and be less satisfied with their coverage.
So the article is contradictory in that it also states that under pre 65 coverage that people are less likely to go get care however, due to the healthcare reform it will allow people to have expanded coverage. The statement that people will have free coverage as I have seen on T.V. is absolutely ridiculous. They may not have to pay for the benefit at the time they see the physician but people will absolutely pay for it in monthly premium.
The trends that we are seeing from the healthcare reform is opposite of what the we see in general statements made i.e. sure you get “free” care at the time of the service but the true result is going to be higher premiums to the person on a monthly basis. The problem with increasing premiums for pre 65 folks is that at some point people will not be able to afford the cost of their healthcare premium. So they will elect to pay the minimal fine rather than a very high monthly premium.
Once the health exchanges are put into place the idea that people above 133% poverty level (for Idaho a family of 4 at approximately $80,000) will be able to access healthcare through the exchange and obtain insurance at a reduced cost. I hate to be a realist but the fact is that cost has got to come from somewhere. It will come from those of us that continue to struggle to make a living to pay more in taxes. Medicare doesn’t necessarily work better than traditional plans.
There are many issues with Medicare today and those are:
a. There are less and less doctors accepting Medicare and Medicaid due to the reimbursement rate that they receive.
b. Doctors are moving more under hospital umbrellas because they can no longer make satisfactory earnings for their hard work.
c. Medicare doesn’t have full coverage as it doesn’t have OOM’s (out of pocket maximums) so a person almost has to go out and obtain some additional insurance to avoid large out of pocket costs.
d. As you probably know Medicaid in Idaho last year ran out of funding and no one was paid for approximately 60 – 90 days.
2. As for Medicare it is scheduled for large cut backs after the elections and the inception of the healthcare reform in 2014. In the article it states that people are more satisfied with their coverage’s under Medicare. It’s because people go out and purchase additional insurance to cover what Medicare doesn’t. As Congress continues to debate strategies to reduce the federal
budget deficit, proposals to reduce Medicare spending by shifting more of the burden to beneficiaries and enrolling more beneficiaries in private plans should be carefully considered, given the experiences over the past decade of nonelderly adults who are privately insured. So as we read further down the article it specifies that government continues to look for ways to reduce Medicare spending by shifting the burden to beneficiaries (you and me). That will absolutely happen with the healthcare reform in 2014.
In general; my perception is under Medicare and Medicaid the federal government continues to struggle with the rising costs and are trying to figure out ways to reduce those costs. To date I have not read that there is a solution to our country struggling with the rising costs of those two programs. So why in the world would we as a population want the federal government to take on our pre 65 health care when they cannot manage the costs of Medicare and Medicaid.
To date I have heard that several billion dollars in the IT aspect of building the infrastructure of the healthcare program, it is estimated that 16,000 IRS agents are going to be hired to police you and me to be sure we either have health insurance or pay the fine. And we haven’t even gotten started yet.
IDAHO INSURANCE AGENCY
Paul King and Charlotte Hildebrandt
1650 Albright Ln #101
Boise, Idaho 83709
208-377-7101
