Wednesday, October 14, 2009

A serious question

I apologize for the political question in this forum, but something's been bugging me.

I don't have a hard and fast position on health care reform. I know doctors who are adamantly against it. I have a physical therapist brother who counters that the government (i.e. Medicare) is the only payer he can rely on to pay up without jerking him around. I have a friend in finance, who specializes in health care, who points out that those of us with HMOs have already given up a fair amount of choice, so the fear that a government-run single-payer system would destroy choice is sort of a moot point; most of us don't have any choice to begin with.

With me it comes down to what such a bill would do to my bottom line, and herein lies my dilemma: If all Americans are required by law to buy health insurance, wouldn't that destroy any incentive for employers to provide insurance for their employees? My employer gives us a choice between PPOs and HMOs. I opted to be covered by Kaiser because it's the most cost effective for me and my family; my personal contribution is minimal. If 'health reform' goes through, would that force me to buy my own insurance? If that is the case, my minimal contribution becomes maximal and the bill meant to help me ends up hurting me.

Does anyone out there have a sense of how all this is supposed to work, or is everyone as in the dark as I am?

1 comment:

Traductor said...

Given the amount of response to your question, I think the answer is we are all in the dark...