Health Law's Flaws Will Spur Drive for Single-Payer Reform [View all]

[eridani]

by David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/07/20-4



It’s good the Supreme Court decided to follow the Constitution rather than play politics. But, from a medical point of view, there’s little to celebrate in its upholding of the Affordable Care Act.

The health reform will leave 26 million uninsured even when it’s fully implemented, and force tens of millions to buy lousy coverage from private insurers. Instead of cutting out the insurance middlemen who caused the health care crisis, Obamacare hands them a trillion-dollar windfall from federal subsidies, mandated premiums and Medicaid managed-care contracts.

Because of this sweetheart deal with the insurance industry, the ACA offers no relief from spiraling health care costs.

The results are predictable. Twenty-six million uninsured means 26,000 deaths each year from lack of coverage. Soaring health costs and ever-skimpier insurance mean financial ruin for more and more Americans; already 800,000 middle-class families are driven into medical bankruptcy each year.

In Massachusetts (where Mitt Romney enacted the model for the ACA in 2006) the number of uninsured has fallen by half to 5.6 percent, but costs have skyrocketed. The premium for the cheapest mandated coverage for a 55-year-old is $5,000, and the policy has a $2,000 deductible – that’s $7,000 out of pocket before insurance kicks in.

Little wonder that medical bankruptcies haven’t fallen in Massachusetts, and surveys have found little improvement in how easy it is to get or afford care.

The unrelenting health crisis in Massachusetts has led doctors there to support more radical reform – single-payer national health insurance – by more than 2 to 1 over Romney/Obamacare; even fewer want to go back to the pre-2006 system.