Update on S. 1955, which I wrote about a few days ago. (You know, the one that got a bunch of people in the usual huff about “if people don’t have health insurance they shouldn’t get cancer,” to paraphrase). Well, the bill did not pass! So that means mammograms, pap tests, and other basic preventative procedures are safe (for now). The ACA has a chart where you can see how your Senators voted. Both of the Georgia Senators voted to shit on the health and well-being of their constituents, but whatever, they were outvoted; so that’s a big “fuck you,” Chambliss and Isakson. Thanks for ignoring my letter, but more importantly, thanks to your more sensible colleagues for doing the right thing.
Update: Upon further reading, it looks like it’s not so much that the bill didn’t pass, but just that they voted on whether to stop debate/discussion on it (”cloture”). Caveat: IANAPI (I am not a political insider).
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9 Responses to "They can’t kill us off just yet"
Yeah, that letter from Isakson in response pissed me off to no end. But I am very happy to see that they were outvoted.
And thanks again for putting this up on the blog - that was way cool. :)
Apart from the obvious humour value, I don’t know how your conscience allows you to make off with such a woeful mischaracterisation.
Oh, stop invoking “my conscience.” It’s unbecoming of a young man.
How so?
Which: the invocation or the unbecoming?
Probably both.
Well, anyway, I think the tune that Xon, JMac, and to some extent I, were humming is one of, “What exactly do you stand to accomplish by coercing the insurance companies other than driving up premium costs?”
This should in no way be confused with an adoring encomium to the poor widdle insurance companies, as you seem to be given to do; like most other industries of the financial sector, they’re crooked as a fish hook.
The implicit thought here is that if there has to be regulatory enthusiasm, it would be more wisely directed at employers and other entities that actually provision insurance services, not the insurance companies themselves. In other words, if what you want, for example, is employer-subsidised health benefits that don’t suck, why are you blaming the insurer, and not the employer for the services they choose to purchase?
If your employer’s chair legs routinely collapse from under you and cause you to fall, do you: (1) Legislate that no chairs will be manufactured beneath certain specifications, or (2) blame your employer for purchasing half-assed chairs? Which one is more reasonable from the standpoint of market freedom?
Well, for starters, because the employers don’t control what’s offered in the same way as insurance companies do. I mean, if NO company offers coverages for routine, reasonable, and dare I say, efficacious cancer screenings, then NO employer will do so, because that employer can’t very well say, “Well then, we shall offer NO insurance!! HA!!” because then it will be exponentially harder to hire full-grown adult human beings who expect a certain quality of benefits. So, what happens is that the employers take the shitty policies due to lack of choice, and the employees are screwed because NO employer is offering reasonable health coverage anymore.
Agreed. I myself am bitten by that very phenomenon; what I neglected to appropriately emphasise in my rants in the previous thread about my scepticism in paying out my premiums every month for employer-provided health coverage is how much the health coverage blows. It’s not worth it in the least in proportion to what I’m paying for, in my subjectivity. Yet it’s by far the best deal in this area available to private employers - our company has shopped around plenty.
The counterpoint is that many employers do, in fact, offer very reasonable health coverage. They tend to be large, at least somewhat progressive in their employment politics (think Google, Inc. here) — the latter quality, by far the most significant, is quite scarce. The fact is, qualified employees looking to settle down into a serious career path are going to shop around for benefits, which does put pressure on employers to provide higher-quality healthcare coverage.
Some larger corporations have taken their benefits apparatus entirely in-house for lack of quality and economical coverage available industrially. Others have simply gone to insurers and made some heavyweight demands (this has been especially true of government employers, agencies). Those are forces with tangible market displacement that insurers and reinsurers and underwriters are going to feel.
The real problem is that for the most part, only skilled, white-collar urban professionals stand to benefit from the sort of dynamic just described. Hourly, part-time wage slavery, which describes the character of untold tens of millions’ of people’s employment, is an entirely different matter; benefits are at most a small footnote or a symbolic afterthought, they’re just happy to have a job.
This is a definite example of the market’s chronic inability to provide for basic human needs; it’s not just market “failure,” it’s a market inadequacy all-around. Much the same way that folks like Barbara Ehrenreich spoke to the fact that even high employment in times of economic boom and unparalleled trends of prosperity aren’t going to deliver increased wages in the low-wage sector, let alone anything that would be considered a livable wage. If you want to sleep with a roof over your head in low-wage employment without any kind of government low-income assistance, you’re going to need to work at least two jobs, possibly three.
But, the question that Xon & Co. aim to ask is, even so, whose fault is that, really? Should we just choose to scapegoat one particular class of actors in this rather complex, largely mechanical economic interplay because we emote that they seem distinguishedly blameworthy somehow?
The insurers are going to get away with whatever they can, much like any profit-maximising firm.
And, of course, it must be pointed out that if you are in fact a relatively white-collar professional, you can always opt out of your employer’s health benefits and choose to purchase your own.
Yeah, it’s going to cost more - probably a lot more. But again, is that something solved by regulating insurers, or is that a macrostructural problem?