Continuing my crusade to help folks wade through the mud and the muck of health care reform, today I’m taking issue with this page from the White House titled “Reform will stop “rationing” – not increase it”.
In the video, Kavita Patel, who works with Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, reads a couple of emails, one of which asks “how are you going to ensure that rationing of services does not occur?” She answers that question by saying that rationing already occurs but at the whim of health insurance companies, “not based on what you should have, not based on the best treatment sometimes, but based on what kind of insurance you have.” While that may be true, it doesn’t go one inch towards answering the question.
She then explains that the president has said “time and time again, If you like your insurance, if you like the kind of health care you have right now and the plan you have, you can keep it.” But that is not true either. If you currently have an employer-based plan and your employer drops that plan and opts to pay the cheaper penalty tax under H.R. 3200, Sec. 313, you will most likely lose your plan.
She then goes on to say the “notion that the government will interfere with what you have is laughable.” That doesn’t quite reconcile with what Obama said while on the campaign trail at the SEIU Health Care Forum in 2007:
I would hope that we could set up a system that allows those who can go through their employer to access a federal system or a state pool of some sort. But I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years out or 20 years out where we’ve got a much more portable system. (emphasis mine)
Not so laughable now…
Then the video goes into an interview with Obama where he pokes fun at a woman for telling him “don’t touch my medicare.” I understand he’s trying to be hip and cool and lighten the situation, but is that really presidential of him? But I digress.
Then we cut back to Ms. Patel who continues to remind us that we already have rationing, people are refused care for pre-existing conditions, etc, etc. She goes on to list their intentions with reform but she never counters the fact that rationing will not stop, even with a public plan.
My question to Ms. Patel, or anyone else who can answer it is this; How can you add 54.8 million new people (the number of uninsured as of 2007, the latest census bureau numbers available) to a public option, while not significantly increasing the number of doctors, and not ration health care? The reality is the government will have to ration services for the very same reasons the private sector already does; lack of funding and too few doctors for too many patients.
Still not convinced?
Then take a look at the following entries in H.R. 3200 “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009″:
Sec. 122, Pg. 29, Lines 4-16
ANNUAL LIMITATION—The cost-sharing incurred under the essential benefits package with respect to an individual (or family) for a year does not exceed the applicable level specified in subparagraph (B).
Sec. 203, Pg. 85, Line 7
(c) SPECIFICATION OF BENEFIT LEVELS FOR PLANS
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Commissioner shall establish the following standards consistent with this subsection and title I:
(A) BASIC, ENHANCED, AND PREMIUM PLANS.—Standards for 3 levels of Exchange-participating health benefits plans: basic, enhanced, and premium (in this division referred to as a ‘‘basic plan’’, ‘‘enhanced plan’’, and ‘‘premium plan’’, respectively).
What could differ from the basic plan to the enhanced plan? The amount of coverage allowed (operative word; rationing).
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