I'm Right Again Dot Com

                             A new commentary every Wednesday — December 23, 2015

THE LOOMING HEALTHCARE CRISES

    Co-operative: A jointly owned enterprise engaging in supplying goods or services for the benefit of its owners—Websters.

      As an alternative to private insurers, it sounded like a great idea: provide health insurance built around all needs, at a lower cost.  However, as of this writing, in 11 states so far, half of the state-run co-ops have had to shut down and many others are surely headed for bankruptcy—this according to PBS Newshour. 

    The so called Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) began with fewer sign-ups than expected. As of the moment, there are six million signers, with a surge of  two million being newcomers who expect coverage to begin next month.  A complicating factor: since many new members were uninsured or underinsured for a long time, there was a sudden gain in unanticipated costs to their co-ops.

    To begin with, these health care cooperatives were start-ups with loans from the government. Even more money was expected to come from the Federal Government to pay a share of the ongoing costs. It now appears that those funds are not forthcoming. Conservatives are not in the mood for a bail-out of Obamacare.  

    It is glaringly evident that the members of the healthcare co-ops were not ready for realty. Their top officers did not foresee the danger in permitting members to elect to  charge themselves far too little for services—as little as half that of privately owned insurers.  Now with their co-ops collapsing, the members are confronted with having to go back into the marketplace.

    Many will go back to what they were doing before Obamacare: doing without health services and overburdening emergency rooms.

    Result: the whole public is worse off now than if there had never been such a thing as Obamacare. The current administration admits that it now is only able to pay 13 percent of the $3-billion it needs to pay insurers...and it is going to get far worse beginning next month.

    Who is to blame? Everyone. There's plenty enough blame to go 'round.  Many Democrats wanted the ACA to include an alternative to private insurers. Republicans are prone to reply that there is too much debt now, and Obamacare was a bad idea to begin with. 

     They all should be making this looming crises their first priority, for it is going to impact every person in the U.S.A. bigtime, no matter their position on health care— or anything else, for that matter.

    Last question: How have the Canadians and many countries done universal health care so successfully for such a long time? 

 -Phil Richardson, Observer of the human condition and storyteller. "He goes doddering on into his old age, making a public nuisance of himself." - Joseph L. Menchen

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