It’s not only high risk pools. The increase in rates ( example Maryland where the rates increased 40 percent last year for many plans, after having increased almost twenty percent the year before), has caused employers who have plans to go to a high deductible plan ( In some cases well over 4 grand a year for a family), or drop their plans altogether. That 4 grand comes easier for some than for others. It often prevents those who can’t afford the deductibles from seeing a doctor for things that maybe they should be seeing a doctor for. So, here we are right back where we started, with those at the middle part of the spectrum getting stuck. They have insurance that cost what is to them a fortune, but it is worthless except in the case of a hospitalization or other catastrophic illness.

Then there are silly political moves. In my state a business gets a tax break or credit of 7 or 8 grand for businesses who offer insurance for the first time, but no break for business who have consistently offered it, despite the fact the astronomical increase in their rates over the last two years. As a result there are as many businesses dropping their group plans as there are initiating a plan. Talk about getting getting nowhere fast.

The market based regulatory model doesn’t work for health insurance, at least not to the benefit of those purchasing it. In a free market there is supposed to be satisfaction on both sides. Tit for tat. You pay “this” and get “that”. What you get should be worth what you pay for, or at least make you happy. Both sides are supposed to be content here. With health insurance — especially with these high deductible plans that are currently the insurance companies profit nirvana — you pay “this”, but don’t get anything until you’ve paid another (huge deductible), “that”. “That” being the bit you can’t afford. Consequently, you don’t use the insurance you pay for. You skip going to the doctor for that recurring sore throat that could be cancer, or that strange rash — a symptom of leukemia. You wait too long because you just can’t afford the deductible this week, this month, this year. The insurance companies smile.
Progress

A comments off I shouldn’t read NPR during lunch presentation.

The Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) amendment to the House health bill, which would bar federal funding for most abortions, has passed on a vote of 240-194. Democrats split 64-192 against the amendment, but 176 Republicans voted in favor of it while none opposed it and Jon Shadegg of Arizona voted present.

As if my head wasn’t about to explode already.

Now we can safely say that those without will remain without, because you know damn well Congressmen Stupak that your children, or your Republican friends children, can pay cash for those abortions, or have private insurance cover it, and that will allow them to continue their education, to assure they will take their rightful place in society.

This kind of amendment does nothing but punish those who don’t have the money to pay for their mistakes.

So this is what it has come to.

It’s disgraceful that this sham passed.

By the way, Congress passed that joke of a health care bill. Unfortunately the bill sucks balls. And you know that sucking balls is not something on my A list.

06 – Red Red Wine (12 Version)
Belch.

For those who haven’t been to the site, the Sunlight Foundation has a Foriegn Policy Infleuence Tracker and a Visualization of the Healthcare Lobbyist Complex

Michael Moore (on Leno last night), on his film, Capitalism a Love Story.

The point, as I’ve said before, in the “get Karats and give carrots” example (Moore uses the 9 slices of the pie example), coercion takes the free out of the free market, making it a controlled market, and ethically you can’t have a controlled market in which the controller is one of the players. The interview is here and it is worth a watch.

The transcript at the Nation. Michael Moore on Leno: “Capitalism is Legalized Greed”

A comment off, quick links before dinner, production.