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Health and Well-Being for the Self-Employed and Small Business

January 25, 2017 by Paul Edwards 2 Comments

Most people’s health is on the line. Each day’s news brings headlines dimming hope for the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Social Security. People have begun asking themselves, “What will we do about Grandma?” How will I get my medications and will I be able to pay for them? A recent article was headlined, “160 million Americans can’t afford to treat a broken arm.” When former Vice-President Biden’s son was dying of brain cancer, the Vice-President and his wife nearly had to sell their home to pay their son’s medical bills. Better than one out of every two Americans (55%) worry they will not get the health care they need.

Most people in the middle class find themselves running ever faster just to stay in the same place economically. Not only are people fearful of what they may lose, millions now are without the ability to get medical care they need.

What has taken a half century to accomplish could be wiped out despite the fact that more than 1 out of 2 Americans – 58% -want the Affordable Care Act be replaced with Medicare for All. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Americans say they have a positive reaction to the term “Medicare-for-all.” People are realizing having health insurance is like requiring auto insurance to drive. Healthy people can work, have fewer problems that consume tax dollars, and public health is protected. Being On the other hand, recent polls indicate people are now no longer in favor of repealing ACA. in the same polls indicate just over half favor repealing Obamacare.

Medicare is popular with 77% of Americans saying it is “Very important,” just below social security at 83%. 57 million Americans – 1 in every 6 people – depend on Medicare.

The total administrative structure for administering and delivering this is in place and billions of dollars would be saved, This is because Medicare’s overhead is 3%; HMO’s and private insurers’ overhead ranges from 15-30%. Families can expect to see the cost of health coverage decrease by one-half or more.

ACA reduced the number of people who were uninsured by an estimated 20 million people from 2010 to 2016. The funds will no longer available to help pay their premiums and deductibles. With many fewer people buying coverage, many insurers will stop offering policies, and the remaining customers are likely to be sicker than current Obamacare buyers, a reality that will drive up the cost of insurance for everyone who buys it, and force more people out of the markets. The Urban Institute estimat es that the change would cause a total of 22.5 million people to lose their health insurance.

At stake are popular provisions of the Affordable Care Act like enabling young adults to stay on the family plan until age 26, closing the drug cost loophole, assuring coverage for people with preexisting conditions, which alone represents 52 million Americans, and providing health coverage for children on Medicaid and CHIP, Republicans are discounting the fact they will be alienating many of the people they look to for support.

Now is the time to advance “Medicare for All” as the best solution for developing popular support to arrest the Republican momentum seeking repeals and rollbacks in ACA and then go on to damaging Medicare and Social Security. Even voters who supported Trump nearly 13 to 1, view Social Security as something they earned.

Your Pocketbook

Millions of voters have received benefits from ACA but discounted this when they voted and still discount what its loss will mean for them will be angry and arguably motivated to act in their self-interest. You are apt to find you can only buy sub-standard policies with little or no consumer protection and are paying more out of pocket. The cost of individual policies purchased through the exchanges would rise 20-25% in the first year, and 18 million people would lose their health insurance. However, taxpayers whose average incomes were $318 million/year in 2014 would get their taxes cut $7 million a year. Two taxes support the popular provisions of ACA – taxes on persons with incomes above $200,000 year. Eliminating them would give the 400 richest Americans a tax cut worth around $7 million each.

The Economy

Reducing federal spending on health care takes so much money will be taken out of the consumer economy, nearly three millions of jobs will be lost. Nurses, health technicians, and other medical personnel will be out of work. Then there will be ripple effect – people with less money to spend on food, clothing, real estate, retrial trade, finance, insurance, travel, dentistry, and then less construction, and on and on. States will have less income to tax and less in sales taxes. This alone could trigger a recession, reducing the economy by 1.5 trillion dollars, according to the Center for Health Policy Research at the Milken Institute.

The U.S. national debt is sitting at 19.944 trillion dollars. During the past eight years, a staggering 9.3 trillion dollars was added to the national debt. It’s been estimated that the total savings by passing Medicare for All could slow the growth of national debt by 80%. This is important because “foreigners are dumping U.S. debt at a faster rate than we have ever seen before, and U.S. Treasury yields have been rising. This is potentially a massive problem, because our entire debt-fueled standard of living is dependent on foreigners lending us gigantic mountains of money at ultra-low interest rates. If the average rate of interest on U.S. government debt just got back to 5 percent, which would still be below the long-term average, we would be paying out about a trillion dollars a year just in interest on the national debt. If foreigners keep dumping our debt and if Treasury yields keep climbing, a major financial implosion of historic proportions is absolutely guaranteed within the next four years.” Source: Monetary Watch, January 23, 2017.

What you can do

First, stay informed about the changes that will be affecting you and your family. Second, let your Congressman and Senators know how you will be affected. The best way to do this is by phone, not letters, social media, or their websites. Phone messages get attention. Third, mobilize with the people in your community being willing to demonstrate your views. Fourth, share this message and your own with friends around the nation.

Congressman Representative John Conyers Jr. introduced his Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, H.R. 676, into the current session of Congress. It is co-sponsored by 51 other congressmen, but more are needed, so asking your Congressman to co-sponsor will be most helpful.You can find contact information for your congressperson here or by calling the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. When calling, ask to speak with your representative’s Health Legislative Assistant. This link will give you more information.

A Pennsylvania business man, Richard Masters, has produced a movie that is worth watching and he is forming a national organization to put forward Medicare for All. This link will take you to the movie, which is worth watching and sharing with others.

Patient Champion – A Promising Career

February 8, 2012 by Paul Edwards Leave a Comment

Do you know someone of who has been victimized in our health care system – family, friend, neighbor coworker or their relative? Whether they go undiagnosed, are overwhelmed by a hospitalization, are overcome by deciding upon expensive and difficult treatment they don’t understand and may not able to pay for, it’s difficult for people of all ages and circumstances to deal with today’s health care institutions, insurance, and practices.

Tens of thousands of people need champions to advocate the needs of patients , accompany them to doctors’ appointments, and when they are hospitalized, explain their options, particularly those who are ill or enfeebled and don’t have relatives to do battle for them and therefore are least able to deal with the system alone.

Patient champions combine a desire to help with know-how and the ability to communicate with medical personnel with respectful firmness. Does an emerging profession with a present and growing need, requires no licensing, has low start-up costs, low overhead, and flexible hours appeal to you? For more information, see a full description at patientchampion.com.

For an initial free consultation, explore this or another sustainable livelihood that bests suits your personality and your community, contact us .

If you’re also looking for a domain to start a patient champion practice, we have several available , including PatientChampion.com.

Comments on the substance of the blogs are welcome. If you have other questions, please contact me directly for a consulting appointment.

Health Care for All

December 5, 2011 by Paul Edwards 16 Comments

Do you remember the Harry and Louise ads used by the health insurance industry to help defeat the Clinton health care initiative in the 1990’s? Chances are today a couple like Harry and Louise, who were so happy with their employer-provided health insurance plan then, are worrying now about whether they can afford the premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, or they may not have any health insurance at all. In the past few years, the number of employers offering any health coverage has slipped from 7 in 10 to 6 in 10.

In fact, when medical bills now prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies. This is a dramatic shift from when in the late 1960’s I did a study for the Bankruptcy Court of Western Missouri to determine why people were taking bankruptcy. Only one in fifty – just 2% – cited medical bills as the reason.

Who doesn’t know someone who has delayed or gone without treatment because they can’t afford it and don’t have health insurance to cover what they need? How ironic considering Americans spend more per capita on health care than any other advanced country.

While there is no single reason for our health care predicament, one factor that contributes mightily to what prompts so many personal health calamities are are big insurance companies motivated primarily by profit, are systems for denying care at any chance. Consider how they routinely deny coverage to people who consider themselves to be in good or excellent health. Here, for example, are some of the grounds insurance companies are using to prevent people from qualifying for health insurance:

allergies, breast implants, ear infections, herpes, high blood pressure, impotence, infertility, mild depression, migraines,miscarriage, pregnancy “expectant fatherhood”, planned adoption, psoriasis, recurrent tonsillitis, ringworm, swelling from a spider bite, three months of psychological counseling after a marriage breakup, and varicose veins.

The shame is that every American could have health insurance for about what is being spent on health care today if we did just one thing – wring out the administrative cost and profit out of health insurance that accounts for one dollar in four of what we pay for health insurance. Before 1990, insurance companies like Blue Cross charged only about 5% for their services. Even today non-profit systems like Kaiser Permanente and Medicare can offer care for less than 5% for such costs, not 25%; Canadian Health Insurance runs below 3.2%.

In other words, we know about one dollar in every five could be saved from what’s now going into processing paper, corporate marketing, executive bonuses, and shareholder profits.

How could this happen? Many people advocate Medicare for All. How might this be funded? Congressman Dennis Kucinich calculates a 7.7% payroll tax will enable universal coverage. The State of California calculates that a 4% payroll and a 2% income tax would provide health coverage for all Californians.

But there are other alternatives, too, such as:

Returning to an all cash system and allowing new community-based health insurance plans and pricing to emerge. Right now the cash price for health care in the U.S. is a fraction of those billed insurance companies, exceeding the co-pays. They could enable U.S. health care costs more in line with those in countries that are now attracting medical tourism when people who needing hip replacements, for example, spend $10,000 on travel in order to get a new hip for $5,400 instead of the $45,000 it would cost in the U.S.

One example of the kind of insurance companies that could emerge is the Freelancers Insurance Company in New York State. The for-profit company is wholly owned by the nonprofit Freelancers Union. It insures 25,000 independent workers and family members charging premiums more than a third below what they would otherwise pay for health insurance. Another example is Grand Junction, Colorado. Such a plan would be possible in an Elm Street Economy.

Regardless of the alternative we settle upon, no one should profit from insuring the illness of others. We need to wring the administrative costs out of the system, provide professionals with a decent income, and quality health care for all without raising the overall cost of health spending.

Let’s use our voices and voting power to make this happen. It can start by creating local Elm Street Economies.

Comments on the substance of the blogs are welcome. If you have other questions, please contact me directly for a consulting appointment.