What Will the Final Price and Cost of Health Care Reform Be?
As health care reform bills make their way through the legislative process, and becomes closer and closer to an actual reality for millions of Americans, the question of "How much will it cost?" is becoming asked even more and more than when the debate first began many months ago. Now that the legislation is slowly becoming a reality, and more facts and figures are coming to light, more individuals and families are concerned as to whether health insurance under reformed legislation will actually be affordable.
Our article this week, entitled "Worries grow that health overhaul could price out many" from The Boston Globe dives into this issue with a good amount of detail, and -- as one might expect -- compares the proposed national health care reforms to the one that's been in place in Massachusetts for some time now. The main crux of this article is that concerns are mounting over the purported affordability of the proposed health care and health insurance reforms.
Apparently, according to the article, the Senate bill would impose heavy financial burdens on some families who would be mandated to purchase health insurance. Apparently families on the low-end of the income scale would be most greatly impacted, as the premiums for health insurance under the Senate plan would eat up most of their monthly income. Advocated of reform are trying to have both branches of the legislation adopt the House-proposed levels of contribution from the government by way of subsidies, so that they'd have to pay less each month.
An example they give is as follows. A single mom, making $28,000 a year, would have to pay around $100 a month in health insurance premiums for her and her two children under the Senate rules. By contrast, in Massachusetts, that same mother pays $39 under state-subsidized health insurance coverage. Under the Senate rules, it actually gets worse at higher incomes. For example, another single mother earning $46,000 would have to pay nearly $300 a month in premiums for her and her two children, which not only puts affordable health insurance out of reach of lower-class families, but middle-class ones as well.
Fearing a backlash of voters, lawmakers are proposing that any penalties would be removed if families or individuals couldn't find premiums that cost less than eight percent of their income. This might be helpful, but honestly it doesn't solve the major issue of giving health insurance access to millions of people who still can't afford it. Under the Senate bill, in ten years, there would still be thirty-one million, which honestly that big of an improvement over the current forty-seven million.
Overall, hopefully the legislation that passes works for nearly everyone and doesn't leave anyone out, but only time will tell if this is the case.
