Health Care Reform: The Reality of it for You

While the rhetoric rages on about the meanings and possible outcomes that passage of the health care reform bill entails, most people want to know: What does it mean for me? The National Family Caregivers Association (NFCA) wanted its participants and their families to be able to find the answer to this question. To that end, the April 2010 newsletter of NFCA directed readers to two valid, non-partisan tools that answer the question succinctly.

The Washington Post has a simple, four question query, that when answered will provide you with the information you need to know. You'll find out the deadline for when health insurance must be purchased, how much it will cost, any options available and the penalty for not meeting the deadline.

The Kaiser Family Foundation also has tools for your convenience at their website. There you can find a summary of the coverage provisions for the health care reform laws, Affordable Care Act and Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. In addition the Kaiser website has its own easy-to-use five question tool to help you to know what subsidy provisions may apply to you.
For more detailed information, read here.

More to the Story on Oklahoma Health Insurance

After writing here about my concern in regards to the statements attributed to Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland and Representative Steele, I had sent an email with those concerns to the insurance commissioner. In today's email I received a thorough and courteous response from Ms. Holland, which I am pasting here.

There's always more than one side to every story, and in this instance, as undoubtedly happens more often than we know, the reporting media took a very small portion of a day-long conference and reported it out of context. Here's Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland's email response:

"Thank you for taking the time to write. As so often happens with media, the story told is not the whole story or even the story. I cannot and would not punish anyone who can't afford health insurance. Allow me this opportunity to clarify what actually took place.

Over the past three years, I have led a public effort involving hundreds of Oklahomans from all four corners of the state and all walks of life to develop a road map that ensures all Oklahomans have access to high quality health care and affordable health insurance. We are very close to having a workable plan for our legislature’s deliberation and, hopefully, enactment. November 20th’s Summit on the High Cost of Health Insurance (the fourth) continued a serious and deliberative discussion as to what must be done to reduce the cost of insurance. Our focus was on improving the quality of health care delivered to our citizens through greater access to primary and preventive care. This can best be accomplished through affordable insurance options that provide low cost access to physicians, prescriptions and necessary associated medical services.

We are in the process of developing such options and conceiving a plan to provide adequate assistance to individuals (dependent upon income) who do not have employer subsidized coverage. Once in place, our challenge becomes how to encourage enrollment.

I would like to believe that those currently uninsured (about 17% of our population, mostly working aged adults) would buy coverage if is affordable. Unfortunately, experience tells us that some individuals simply will not prioritize purchasing health insurance – particularly if they believe they can get “free care” through an emergency room. In reality, that expensive free care is passed on to those who have insurance. If you are one of those, your health insurance premiums are significantly inflated to cover the costs of those who receive medical care and do not or cannot pay their bill. Almost $1 billion dollars in unpaid medical expenses is passed on to insured Oklahomans each and every year.

For a very few minutes out of a thoughtful day-long meeting, we lightheartedly discussed potential consequences for not purchasing insurance. These ideas were not in the form of any kind of proposal or urging, but rather intended to provoke discussion about the need to compel people (particularly the 19 – 32-year-olds who make up a large portion of our uninsured) to obtain insurance – again once affordable options are available.

I care very deeply about our citizens’ ability to get the medical care they need when they need it in the appropriate setting. I have made this the primary goal of my service to our citizens and will continue to do so as long as I have the opportunity. I welcome your suggestions and comments and, again, appreciate hearing from you. Kim Holland"

Oklahoma Legislator and Insurance Commissioner Band Together to Advocate "Punishment" for Those Without Health Insurance

Anyone who lives in Oklahoma would be hard-pressed to find a topic of more debate than the one about the potential for punishing Oklahomans who do not have health care coverage. Both Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland and State Representative Kris Steele advocated just such punishments as reported in the November 21, 2008 "The Oklahoman." (Click on blog title to access article.)

While it matters little what punishments are being considered, such "inducements" as Commissioner Holland calls them, are the typical example of putting the proverbial cart before the horse. Rather than first addressing the problem of making health care affordable to the residents of the state, immediately these two people who are in a position to at least begin such dialogue prefer to threaten people with loss of services/funds.

Commissioner Holland stated, "We have developed this culture over the years that some don't feel like they have to pay their medical bills." In truth, what we have are many residents who are unable to pay their medical bills, many of whom go without needed medical care for that very reason. It is a burden for any parent that is unable to provide health care coverage for their children because of an inability to afford such coverage--a burden to the parents' heart because their children don't get all the medical care they may need.

Representative Steele stated, "You need the carrot and the stick," referring to punishing those who don't have insurance and rewarding those who do. Since when do we want the government considering us jackasses, and treating us the same?

To give credit where it is due, Rep. Steele also stated that the place to start is to make health care affordable to state residents, then to look to create incentives.

I disagree that people need any incentive to have health care coverage other than the ability to maintain their health and to be able to obtain medical services when needed.