The “My Turn” published in the Monitor by John McGough, regional director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, touting affordable insurance options for New Hampshire residents who cannot afford plans under the ACA has little substance (Monitor Opinion, Aug. 28).
Reading like a campaign advertisement, it lacks any specifics, much less a reference, on where these phantom plans can be found. Web searches on both N.H. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. DHHS revealed nothing other than Affordable Care Act options, as did multiple searches on commercial sites. One can only assume they are not yet available. This is also apparent in multiple uses of the term “will” in the piece – meaning they don’t exist yet. One gleans between the lines that the rules aren’t yet in place: “Subject to state regulation.”
The article gives no hint to level of coverage, much less cost and co-pay options. There are nothing but promises here, any official executive orders, or proclamations aside, this apparently isn’t reality yet.
The most fundamental issue here, though, is that these plans are in no way really health insurance, even as described in the piece.
The three-year limit on coverage is a complete show-stopper. The article cleverly dodges the issue of pre-existing conditions by stating that if one gets sick, coverage is guaranteed – for three years. After that, any newly diagnosed chronic condition, such as diabetes, becomes a pre-existing condition at the end of the three years, and the specter of suddenly becoming uninsurable, or facing the inability to afford care, becomes very real.
The article is absolutely correct: There is no doubt that health insurance is unaffordable for many. It is not worthwhile to attempt to discuss why – it is what it is, and the need for some sort of gap fill is clear. This may be a start. But that is all this glowing article portrays (provided it actually happens): a band-aid (which will be ripped off in three years) on a huge suppurating wound. That wound is the fact that we haven’t even defined what “health care” actually is, much less how it will be provided or paid for in the future.
About one-third of us have diabetes, about two-thirds of us take on all the medical risks of being overweight. The unpaid bill to care for these alone makes current national debt concerns pale by comparison, much less adding in the cost of comprehensive care (however that is eventually defined). And it is growing day by day. Continuing to “kick the can down the road” is irresponsible. And portraying this “strategy” as a solution smacks of political grandstanding. Enough of that.
The leaders in Congress and the executive branch, on both sides of the aisle, need to accept the political risks, and fix this. Enough glittering generalities masquerading as promises kept. The American people are waiting, and in need.
(Jon Pearse is a retired Air Force family physician. He lives in Concord.)