Time for single payer? Letter by Richard Damon

 Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.

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Dr. Damon writes the same letter to the editor about once a month. The details are slightly different, but the content is always the same. To boil it down, he loves government, he loves government control, he loves government healthcare. Let's take a look:

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Now that private insurers will have to meet the ACA minimum benefit standards in health insurance plans, they are scrambling to preserve their profits by a number of strategic moves: (Dr. Damon begins with a little shuck-and-jive. The ACA [obamacare] legislation, among other things, mandates a number of coverages and requirements for health insurance polices. Apparently, Dr. Damon believes that these ought to be free. Here's an analogy: You are a home builder, and the government decides that every home you build must have hardwood floors. Don't you think you will charge more for the house as a result? 

Well, not Dr. Damon. He seems to think that health insurance companies are extensions of government, and ought to simply do whatever government wants, and do it for free. It surprises and angers Dr. Damon that private business wants to make a profit.)

If you have received a letter from your insurer informing you that your health insurance policy will be cancelled, withdrawn, or not renewed at the end of the year because of the new health care law, you should know the facts: (Whenever the Left purports to tell you the facts, you can be certain that they won't be facts at all.)

Fact 1: Many of these policies have under-insured you. They are “junk” policies that do not meet the minimal necessary benefits and cannot be continued. ("Under-insured you" according to whom? What Dr. Damon is attempting to say here is that the choice you made, based on your budget, your perceived needs, and what you consider desirable, well, you shouldn't have that choice. He thinks that you should be forced to purchase a health insurance plan that conforms to his idea of adequate.

And we must note that he uses the word "many." Which of course means that only some of those plans are "junk" plans. Fact is, most all of the canceled plans are perfectly good plans, but Dr. Damon, in his quest to bolster his wonderful government, doesn't take time to discuss this little fact.)

Fact 2: When purchasing health insurance do not just consider if premium fits your budget and is affordable. (This is not fact, this is advice. However, this little piece of advice is not provided as a service to consumers. He is attempting to bolster "fact" 1. He wants you to pay less attention to the cost because of all the wonderful benefits you get for your money. Those benefits courtesy of the wonderful, compassionate government.)

Fact 3: Do not assume a policy covers every illness or any hospitalization. ("Fact" 3 is also advice. I think anyone who has made a health insurance claim knows this.) 

Fact 4: If you ignore this advice, you will pay out-of-pocket costs. (Ah, so now he acknowledges that he is giving advice, not facts. Interestingly, those ACA plans come in Bronze, Gold, and Platinum plans, which means they have varying coverage, co-pays, and deductibles. In many cases, people are having to choose ACA plans with higher out of pocket expenses.)

“Cancelled plans” have become a political talking point, because Obama said, “If you like your plan, you can keep it.” He misspoke. He did not lie. (He misspoke? 29 times? This promise, this guarantee, this forceful assertion, was the centerpiece of his assurance that obamacare would be good for us. he was repeatedly assuring us that the healthcare plans we already had would not be disturbed. HE LIED, and he knew it.) He did not recognize the number of junk policies in existence from private insurers that would not meet the minimum necessary benefits outlined in the ACA. (He did not know? This does not even pass the smell test. Not only did he know, he knew long ago. He wanted these policies to be replaced.) Insurers can cancel policies issued before the ACA. Many are policies that under-insure the policy holder. That is why they must be withdrawn. (Again, under-insured according to whom? Dr. Damon? Obama? Who gets to decide whether or not someone is underinsured?)

Employers are cost-shifting employer based insurance premium costs to their employees. In some cases they are also dropping employer-based coverage and telling workers to go to marketplace exchanges. (Um, yeah. Dr. Damon tosses this out without further comment, but we must ask why. Why are companies offloading their healthcare plans? BECAUSE obamacare made them too expensive. This is the plan, so as to completely eliminate the private insurance marketplace.) Deductibles and co-pays can be added to plans sold outside the insurance exchanges.

As long as for-profit insurers are in control of health care coverage, they will control who will live and who will die based on their form of insurance health rationing, to preserve profits. (This is the Leftist meme, in all its glory. Of course, it's absurd to suggest that insurance companies kill people.) The ACA will still leave millions uninsured. (Whoops! Here's a tacit admission that ACA is a failure, despite Dr. Damon's previous paragraphs, replete with "facts." Indeed, by Dr. Damon's own measure, the government itself is engaging in a form of rationing, not only by selecting those who are covered, but by creating deductibles and co-pays in their mandates. The fact that ACA does not cover 100% of every health care issue means precisely that the government is rationing care.) Why not try single payer? (Wow. The entire letter is spent defending obamacare, only to arrive at the final sentence. I have no comment.)

Richard A. Damon, MD Bozeman