Mitch Could Save Your Access To Health Care

 

Your Congressman, your insurance agent, and both of the major party candidates for president have something in common.  We all sound as if we are talking about your health.  The subject is a part of the non-stop political commercials flooding the airwaves and cluttering your mail box.  In truth, your health is not the focus.  This is really about money.  We are debating a payment system, how medical providers compensated.  Who pays and how much?  What was once about hospitals and doctors now encompasses hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, medical testing equipment, therapists, and countless others attached to the business of health.  Every one of them has an army of lobbyists in Washington and every state capitol.  And all of those lobbyists have checkbooks.  That’s not good.  That’s not bad.  It just is.

We’re going to talk about politics.

The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings this past week on the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett.  It really didn’t really matter whether or not she answered any of the Senators’ questions.  The votes were counted prior to the nominee being named.  And her views are certainly no secret.  Judge Barret has been running for this gig since she worked on the Bush v. Gore lawsuit from the 2000 election.  She has been thoroughly vetted by the Federalist Society.  Her writings are public.  Will she vote to reverse decisions legalizing abortion and same-sex marriage?  Your Conservative friends sure hope so.  Since this is Health Insurance Issues With Dave, we’ll focus on the question so many of the Democratic Senators pressed her during the hearing.  Will Amy Coney Barrett vote that Obamacare, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is unconstitutional?

The Wall Street Journal, excited about the reshaping of the Supreme Court, has issued countless editorials downplaying the Texas/Trump Lawsuit and its chance for success.  But the case has made it to the Supreme Court.  We cannot afford to ignore the danger this case poses to our access to health care or to 20% of our economy.

The crux of the case is that after the Senate failed to repeal Obamacare in 2017, President Trump, the Republican controlled House, and the Republican controlled Senate passed a tax bill in December 2017.  Included in the bill was a provision to zero out the penalty for not having compliant health insurance (the Individual Mandate).  The Mandate wasn’t repealed.  The penalty was simply reduced to zero.

Once the case, pushed by the Attorney General of Texas and certain other states, started to gain traction, President Trump became a fan and instructed his Justice Department to get involved.  When asked about millions of Americans losing their health insurance and the elimination of protections for people with preexisting conditions, Senate Republicans disavowed any responsibility.   Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), was quoted in a Kaiser Health News article as saying, “I am not aware of a single senator who said they were voting to repeal Obamacare when they voted to eliminate the individual mandate penalty”.

Millions of dollars have now been wasted on this lawsuit.  Millions of Americans have suffered unnecessary stress over the thought of losing their health insurance, the way they access and pay for health care.  Mitch McConnell could end this controversy.  Senator McConnell could introduce and pass legislation reintroducing the personal responsibility penalty, the Individual Mandate, and assess the penalty at ONE DOLLAR.  The lawsuit claims that the lack of a penalty invalidates the entirety of Obamacare.  OK, insert a penalty, or as Chief Justice Roberts calls it, a tax.  One dollar makes the lawsuit moot.

Would a Justice Barrett rule the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional?  Why in the world would you want to give her the chance?

Mitch could save your access to health care, but he’d have to actually care.

Dave

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – All You Need Is One – David L Cunix

Special Bonus for those capable of writing their own jokes.

 

When Failure Is Not An Options

 

I completed both the Sudoku and the crossword puzzle from today’s newspaper.  I tackle these puzzles each day at breakfast and finish them, if I have a chance, later in the day.  The puzzles become more successfully challenging as the week progresses.  Solving Monday’s puzzles is really no big deal.  Friday and Saturday require more skill.  But be it Monday’s or Saturday’s, I hate to fail and give these games my best effort.

Insurance agents, especially those of us who have been practicing for decades, are used to a good challenge.  And, we hate to fail.  You might think that this is about selling.  It is not.  I am talking about the challenge of finding good, affordable health insurance for our clients.    This is not a game.  People’s lives depended on our success.  And that success was not guaranteed.

“Dave, you’ve got to find coverage for Jane or she’s gonna die.”

The name has been changed, but those words still ring in my ears nearly twenty years after a panicked husband called my office right after the association covering him, his wife, and hundreds of others lost their group insurance.  Her advanced cancer and other conditions made her virtually uninsurable.  Ohio and other states had a backstop at the time, a patchwork of HMO insurers that were forced to have periodic open enrollments.  The policies were limited, incredibly expensive, and difficult to access.  There were other failsafe options, like the association I had found for them two years earlier, but they were quickly disappearing in the early 2000’s as preexisting conditions overwhelmed our system.  And yes, I was able to find Jane and her husband coverage for her last couple of years of life.  It was one of my greatest professional successes.

There are those who would like to return to the way is used to be.  Let’s talk about what if was like to purchase a health insurance policy for you and your family in 2009.  You called my office and I asked you about your family’s health history.  I needed to know the entire health history of you, your spouse, and your children.  Sure you were prepared to answer questions about cancer and heart conditions, but I also needed to know about your kids’ ear infections and diagnoses of ADHD and asthma.  Our next questions dealt with accidents.  We then moved on to your driving records and whether or not you rode a motorcycle or traveled out of the country, and where.  You might be able to provide the answers we wanted to hear.  Lots of people couldn’t.

The insurance companies then had up to four options:

1. Issue the policy at the standard rate
2. Offer you a policy at a higher rate reflecting your higher risk
3. Offer you a policy that excluded your preexisting conditions and/or hobbies (riders)
4. Decline to issue a policy for one or more members of your family

Different companies accepted different risks.  Our job as independent agents was to find the company that would do the best job to insure each client (risk).

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act put an end to the underwriting of individual (non-employer sponsored) health policies.  This opened the door to millions of Americans with preexisting conditions.  There are now three questions:

1. What is your date of birth?
2. What is your home zip code?
3. Do you smoke?

Here is my question – Do you really want to go back to 2009?

There are those in congress, in certain state capitals, and currently in the White House who would like to eliminate Obamacare.  And since there is no alternative, no other plan, no other fully-formed option waiting to immediately kick-in the minute the PPACA is repealed or declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, if you eliminate Obamacare you would return to 2009.

In 2016 the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 52 million Americans have preexisting conditions that would have precluded coverage under pre-Obamacare underwriting.  That is a little less than 20% of our under age 65 population.  One of them might be you or your family.

I love a good challenge, but I prefer my daily Sudoku and crossword puzzles, where there are no consequences to failure, to finding live-saving health insurance for less than perfectly healthy families.

Dave

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – Today’s Challenge – David L Cunix