Happy Hospitals

With the new healthcare legislation, there will still be questions. Will the procedural issues that kept Republican Congressmen and women occupied late-at-night of late produce the “out” that can override the seven vote House margin that pushed the massive healthcare legislation Sunday night both to the Oval Office and to the Senate for reconciliation? Are the deficit-reduction numbers real or are we kidding ourselves? Is this bill evidence of creeping demon socialism or is it simply another iteration of government benefits akin to public education and Medicare? And will the American people resent the passage of this bill or come to understand that the criticisms leveled at this legislation were mostly inaccurate?

Behind the ruckus is the quiet reality that many corporate interests from the private healthcare industry were cheering in the background. Think about it. “That would mean millions more Americans buying private health insurance and better able to pay for their hospital stays, doctors’ visits, prescription drugs and medical devices… And some analysts said as the vote neared that the final legislation was shaping up as much kinder to the industry than many initially feared. Hospitals and drug makers, which supported the final legislation, would be clear beneficiaries, analysts say, even if the outlook for insurers was less certain… Yet the bill would not create the thing that insurers feared most: a government-run public option, a health plan that would compete with the private insurers.” March 21^st New York Times.

Pharmaceutical biggies are winners too: “Drug makers, meanwhile, may have the most clear reason to celebrate the legislation. Pharmaceutical companies are going to be asked to contribute $85 billion toward the cost of the bill in the form of industry fees and lower prices paid under government programs over 10 years. But they can look forward to tens of billions of dollars in additional revenue as more people with insurance visit doctors and fill prescriptions.” The Times.

Yes, business will be more difficult for insurers, but do you really want these corporate monoliths to turn down coverage for pre-existing conditions, knowing that sooner or later the associated costs will be shunted back to the public? Do you really want to see insurers cause medical bankruptcies by limiting annual or lifetime benefits? Isn’t this a reasonable trade-off for getting as many as 16 million new customers without any competition from a government-run “public option” plan?

The insurers (not the hospitals and pharmas) were the ones protesting the most: “One place where the rules of the insurance game may shift most significantly is in a new kind of state-supervised marketplace, called exchanges, in which insurers would be required to sell their policies for individuals and small businesses. The exchanges are expected to involve much greater regulatory oversight than insurers now typically face and to alter their business models drastically. Currently, insurers seek to protect profits by trying to enroll only the healthiest individuals, while also charging enough to recoup the expense of covering sick people. But the legislation requires insurers to cover even people with potentially costly pre-existing conditions… The new law would also place strict limits on how much more an insurer could vary premiums among the people taking out the same policy, largely to factor in age differences… To help spread the costs and risks of insurance, the legislation would eventually require most Americans to have insurance or pay a federal penalty. But insurers have worried that the penalties are too low or will not be enforced.” The Times.

In the end, the state of healthcare was bound to change one way or the other. 10-30% annual increases in healthcare premiums were slowly pushing affordability and reasonable access to insurance out the window. Change is/was inevitable. And if you think this legislation will remain unchanged, remember that part of this is a colossal new process that will require fine tuning for decades… changes requested by Republicans and Democrats alike. It is now the law of the land, and perhaps we might just give it a chance to take root.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it’s time to put this great debate behind us, unite and move forward.