There is a lot of buzz about a public option for health insurance as part of the promised reform of health care. Lots of rhetoric, not much substance. But here are some things they won't tell you.
One of the public options is "Medicare for all." Ted Kennedy has pushed this for some time. If Medicare is expanded, the initial talk is making it available to those age 50 - 64.
Medicare is a decent plan as long as you can find a doctor willing to treat you. On average, half of doctors refuse to accept Medicare patients. Those that do accept Medicare patients will limit those patients to less than 20% of their patient load. Most would like to keep it less than 10%.
If Medicare is expanded to cover those between the ages of 50 & 64 don't expect more docs to jump on the bandwagon and accept you with open arms. n fact, the opposite will happen.
If you have a regular doc now, he may refuse to treat you once you go on Medicare.
Another public option is to expand the role of Medicaid. According to the Kaiser Foundation, two thirds of the uninsured 46 million (or whatever number you want to use) earn less than 200% of the FPL (federal poverty level). If Medicaid is expanded from the current qualification to 200% you can almost immediately reduce the number of uninsureds to about 15,000,000 or roughly 6% of the population.
That is a much more manageable level and won't take anywhere near the trillion or so dollars of our money the politicians want to spend.
But access to health care will still be an issue because even fewer docs are willing to accept Medicaid patients than Medicare. Given the choice, they will treat Medicare patients before Medicaid.
And try and find a dentist willing to treat you if you have Medicaid or SCHIP (PeachCare).
Fewer than 20% of dentists in GA accept Medicaid or SCHIP patients.
Regardless of how the public option is structured there is one thing you can be sure of. It won't look like any of the literally hundreds of plans available under the FEHBP.
Employees of the federal govt and members of Congress have dozens of plans to pick from and they vary by state or region. There are 22 plans for federal workers in Georgia. Plan 10 from Blue Cross has a 135 page brochure outlining the benefits.
If you decided to compare all 22 plans that means downloading and trying to review and compare almost 3,000 pages of benefit descriptions.
Actually, the rates aren't so bad for plan 10.
Single rates are $489 per month while a family would pay $1120.
At least with this kind of plan you would have access to docs & hospitals in the Blue Cross network.
There are roughly 9 million participants in the various FEHBP's. Expanding coverage to even just double the number of currently insured could not happen overnight.
So the most likely result for a public option is expanding Medicare or Medicaid.
One of the public options is "Medicare for all." Ted Kennedy has pushed this for some time. If Medicare is expanded, the initial talk is making it available to those age 50 - 64.
Medicare is a decent plan as long as you can find a doctor willing to treat you. On average, half of doctors refuse to accept Medicare patients. Those that do accept Medicare patients will limit those patients to less than 20% of their patient load. Most would like to keep it less than 10%.
If Medicare is expanded to cover those between the ages of 50 & 64 don't expect more docs to jump on the bandwagon and accept you with open arms. n fact, the opposite will happen.
If you have a regular doc now, he may refuse to treat you once you go on Medicare.
Another public option is to expand the role of Medicaid. According to the Kaiser Foundation, two thirds of the uninsured 46 million (or whatever number you want to use) earn less than 200% of the FPL (federal poverty level). If Medicaid is expanded from the current qualification to 200% you can almost immediately reduce the number of uninsureds to about 15,000,000 or roughly 6% of the population.
That is a much more manageable level and won't take anywhere near the trillion or so dollars of our money the politicians want to spend.
But access to health care will still be an issue because even fewer docs are willing to accept Medicaid patients than Medicare. Given the choice, they will treat Medicare patients before Medicaid.
And try and find a dentist willing to treat you if you have Medicaid or SCHIP (PeachCare).
Fewer than 20% of dentists in GA accept Medicaid or SCHIP patients.
Regardless of how the public option is structured there is one thing you can be sure of. It won't look like any of the literally hundreds of plans available under the FEHBP.
Employees of the federal govt and members of Congress have dozens of plans to pick from and they vary by state or region. There are 22 plans for federal workers in Georgia. Plan 10 from Blue Cross has a 135 page brochure outlining the benefits.
If you decided to compare all 22 plans that means downloading and trying to review and compare almost 3,000 pages of benefit descriptions.
Actually, the rates aren't so bad for plan 10.
Single rates are $489 per month while a family would pay $1120.
At least with this kind of plan you would have access to docs & hospitals in the Blue Cross network.
There are roughly 9 million participants in the various FEHBP's. Expanding coverage to even just double the number of currently insured could not happen overnight.
So the most likely result for a public option is expanding Medicare or Medicaid.
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