Suddenly Worn Out wrote:Im trying to get as much done this year, before obama care begins next year.
I can't take Eric at face value. His stuff reads too much like a liberal's parody of what he thinks a certain kind of conservative would say. It's a style of humor that wears thin quickly.
I expect January 1, 2014, to pass with the same complete lack of crisis as January 1, 2000, and December 21, 2012. For most of us, nothing will change. Our medical providers and insurers will remain the same. About half the medical care in this country is already provided by government, with Medicare, Medicaid, FEHB, Tricare, the VA, and state programs. The major change there will be the addition of new enrollment in Medicaid when the qualifying standard is made uniform nationally at 133 percent of the federal poverty level instead of being inconsistent from state to state. The new rules affecting health insurance as a benefit of employment (like being allowed to keep children on your policy to age 26) are largely already in effect. The biggest change will be the establishment of health insurance exchanges where the uninsured who earn too much for Medicaid can (and must) buy health insurance from private insurance companies, subject to price subsidies that depend on income. For those of us not in that category, the world will continue to spin on its axis just the way it always has (for better and for worse).
One of the most remarkable aspects of the PPACA is how non-radical it is, no matter what attempts are made to portray it as something else. More change might have been a good thing, but in essence it leaves the existing employment-benefit model in place, and supplements it with the exchanges and modified Medicaid eligibility to close the gaps. Physicians and hospitals are largely unaffected, since they will be dealing with the same private and governmental insurers they always have. I talk to hospital administrators all the time as part of my job, and no one seems to be expecting the apocalypse.
I will feel relief, however, as I think Eric should, because I will no longer be one pink slip away from being uninsured. For many of us, existing conditions make us substantially uninsurable. It is especially difficult for those of us approaching retirement age to count on finding new jobs with full benefits, but if we try to strike out on our own we face the risk of being unable to buy insurance. I expect Obamacare to boost entrepreneurs by letting those with pre-existing medical conditions take the risk of starting their own small businesses -- something many successful people would like to do and some have to do.
