Congress May Get Fined by Its Own Health Care Law, New Obama Risk Pool, and Changes in Flexible Spending Accounts
Congress finally reads the health bill and is nonplussed. Members don’t know where they are going to get their own health insurance.
New Obama risk pool will exclude everybody who is already in a risk pool. Premiums in the new federal pool are expected to be 10 percent to 50 percent lower than current state rates.
Bad news for the chronically ill: Starting in 2013 the annual limit that any employee may contribute to Flexible Spending Accounts will be restricted to $2,500.
Comparative effectiveness research may backfire. Because drugs affect different patients differently, eliminating the least cost-effective treatments could increase costs and harm health.
I don’t think they actually read the whole bill. I think they were just tipped off about their own plight.
On risk pool insurance, this is beginning to sound like “Animal Farm.” Some of the people with pre-existing conditions are more equal than others.
Intersting take on FSAs. You are probably right. They probably are used a lot by the chronically ill.
I tried to read the health care bill to get information for a work project. Since my job is to deal with state regulations, I was pretty sure that I could handle it.
Yeah…..
Two hours later, I decided that no one really knows that the bill says and that the government/lawyers will be the ones to “enlighten the public” about the bill’s contents.
The whole purpose of the individual mandate; and the requirement that coverage be comprehensive in nature, is to force young healthy people to cross-subsidize the medical costs for older, less healthy people with chronic conditions.
Politicians, media pundits and the public health advocates, who championed the new health insurance regulations, will inevitably discover that their knowledge of insurance and risk theory is rather misguided. Adverse selection death spirals, gaming the system, free-riding and lack of cost control will plague the health insurance market.
I think the only truly just solution to health care for members of Congress is to enroll them all in Medicaid. Then when they tell us that Medicaid is real insurance, we will have a reason to believe them. Assuming they continue to make that claim.
On Congress, this gives a whole new meaning to the idea of being hoisted on your own petard.
steps for life, one of them is take care your health