So we thought we had finally created a national system of health insurance that would permit near-universal coverage for essential health benefits to every American.
But the Obama administration says it is not going to write rules regulating exactly what benefits must be covered. Again bowing his head to the GOP personal responsibility/states' rights mantras, the president is willing to let states "experiment" like they do with Medicaid. Question whether this amounts to allowing right-wing states to shift benefits to private profits and away from care for Americans?
This goes back to the recommendation from a panel at The National Academic of Sciences, which said that the federal government should take cost into consideration in deciding what's essential to be provided by health insurance plans under the reform act and that new benefits should be 'offset' by cost cutting elsewhere. Robert Pear, Panel Says U.S. Should Weigh Cost in Deciding 'Essential Health Benefits'", New York Times, Oct. 7, 2011, A14. But a primary problem with cost-benefit analysis as typically understood is that it favors the status quo because any new benefit for which money must be expended will cost compared to the current system, and the benefit is much harder to turn into a quantitative number that will prove that the cost is worth it. It is very hard to do truly 'dynamic' cost-benefit analysis--the assumptions used tend to be a one-size-fits-all and it is hard to calculate the way that the immediate benefit builds even more substantial long-term benefits and then result in much lower costs down the road, so that current costs that will have substantial long-term benefits that may not add up to significant numbers until years or decades have passed will tend to be viewed as negatives, whereas maintaining a terribly ineffective and unjust status quo will be seen as positive. Even more killing for any cost-benefit analysis of medical reform where part of the reason for the problem is the exorbitant pricing that creates large profits for doctors and for-profit hospitals is that If 'costs' take into account the fact that decent health care modeling should reduce the highest end medical provider incomes (like the excessive profits made by private nursing homes and hospitals and surgeons who do not work on salary, etc.), then of course the cost-benefit analysis will favor the status quo where those that have money get good care and those that don't die.
One of the ways that the failure to adopt at least a public option or ideally a single (national) payer option for health care reform shows is that the panel suggested that the minimum coverage required should conform to what small employers provide--typically much less generous coverage than that provided by large employers. As the October New York Times article on this noted, "This reading of the law was unexpected, but the panel said it was justified because small businesses 'will be among the main customers for policies in the state-based exchanges.'" Id. Not surprisingly, the article also concludes that "the recommendation is likely to please employers and insurance companies and could cause concern among some advocates for consumers and patients with particular illnesses who want more expansive benefits." Id. Again--just more evidence that the right option for health reform is an extension of Medicare for all, not this piece-meal attempt to appease health insurers and health providers by attempting to guarantee that they can still reap huge profits out of what should be a universally provided public good.
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