POTPOURRI on HEALTH CARE

Today is the last Friday before the August Council meetings; and the Special Primary for the vacant Senate seat. Preseason pro-football starts tonight; yes there was the Hall of Fame game last weekend. Congress is on vacation; some will claim that it is always on vacation or doing nothing.

It is the time for a break from the above; a day for some unrelated tid-bits about Health Care and the effect on you. This potpourri is not going to attack “Obama Care” but note some unrelated Ozonian matters in Health Care.

Did you know in an attempt to assure that the Insurance companies made low premium insurance available; part of Obama care act puts a so called Cadillac Tax on high benefit expensive group insurance no matter who was responsible for the premium.

Among some of the too late recognized fall outs was that Congressional members and their staffs with their golden policies (paid by us) were also subject to that provision the extra cost being born by the policy holder.

The solution; by administrative order they are going to be exempt from that provision of the law.

Another unrecognized negative impact of this law will serious affect the economic well being of municipalities in which their union contracts require the offering of top grade Health Care cover all policies. The City and to a lesser extent the policy holder will have to pay the additional charges resulting from the surtax.  

The money will have to come from some place. Aside from the fact that in most political units one of the largest budget items is the mandated insurance coverage; the budgets will have to be reworked to cover that un-anticipated expense. That will be reflected in a major property tax increase.

Even the premium on the anticipated bare bones mandated insurance is going to need adjustment. Premiums are based by actuarial studies of possible costs.  The ages of the policy holders are an important factor. With the law dumping a large number of High Risk into the pool the overall risk element will be greatly increased which will result in an increase in insurance costs.

The resulting increase in costs and the relatively low penalty cost will persuade the young and healthy not to get insurance. This will lower the number of low risk members in the pool. There must be an increase in premiums due to a higher risk pool.

Did you know that two hospitals in Brooklyn are in bankruptcy and closing? This is a large part due to hospitals that are serving a large Medicaid population are under reimbursed for services rendered. 

Moreover since that type medical population tends to either abuse ER services or by not following instructions have increased re-admissions for which the hospital will be penalized for poor performance; the institutions will receive reduced payment from the already inadequate schedule    

Some more rants about the destruction of our health care system due to governmental intrusion that believes that limiting costs is more important than real quality care to follow over the weekend.