There’s no crying in healthcare reform.
In today’s New York Times, David Leonhardt (discussing the Presidential rhetoric used to assuage citizen uncertainty) writes, “Mr. Obama went so far as to suggest there would be no disruptions, saying that people could keep their current plan if they liked it. But that’s not quite right. It is not possible to change a system as huge, and as hugely flawed, as ours without some disruptions.”
Now that the legislation has passed, it seems as though the new talking point is, “It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.” And whether or not it’s going to get better is still very much theory (at best) and hoping (at worst).
Remember all that money that healthcare reform was going to save us? Well, since a swiftly deprogrammed Peter Orszag put that shibboleth to bed (again, in the pages of the New York Times), the debate seems to be about how insurance is going to be made more affordable. One way we’re supposed to achieve this, according to Leonhardt, is that “people will be required to buy insurance, to spread costs among the sick and the healthy.”
Sure – except that this mandate (if it doesn’t turn out to be unconstitutional) (1) doesn’t even kick in until 2014 (the same time the theoretical state exchanges come in to play) and (2) will likely penalize offenders less than even a low-cost health insurance premium. Oops.
Specific to the state exchanges that are the foundation of the theory, Leonhardt writes, “the new markets for health insurance, known as exchanges, won’t be up and running until 2014. This timetable has its problems, and the Obama administration will probably need to grant some more temporary exemptions.”
Call me when the revolution starts.
Not to say that it’s at all about politics! No penalties until 2014? If we’re in such dire straits – why not, say, right now. “It’s coming and it’s going to be great,” as a rallying cry is, plainly speaking, tanking since the reform plan is already leaking like a sieve. And it’s not going to cut it before the November elections. The truth is that it’s likely to get worse. Whether or not it gets “better” (whatever that means) depends largely on “fixes” that will necessarily be made in the next Congress.
Just what we need, healthcare sausage.
All this to say that we’d better all stop crying and start trying to think about what needs to be done beyond the talking points. After all, if it was easy, anyone could do it.
