Freedom Benefits Universal Health Insurance Blog

A California professor published an editorial in The LA Time suggesting that the individual health insurance mandate is really just an economic incentive. Such thinking could be dangerous to consumers who do not consider the more important effect. For the first time in our history, it would be illegal to choose to be without health insurance. The consequences could be far worse than the loss of economic incentive. My response published in the Wall Street Journal is pasted below.

Healthcare reform law: What’s the big deal?

There really is no such thing as an individual health insurance mandate. Let’s stop suggesting otherwise, and start referring to the individual health insurance incentive.

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President Obama speaks in the Rose Garden at the White House on Sept. 19.…

October 07, 2011|By William D. Leach

Healthcare reform law: What’s the big deal? – Los Angeles Times

Response by Tony Novak, Freedom Benefits, in Wall Street Journal 10/27/2011

By focusing on the micro-economic issues, I think the author misses the major social and financial impact of the individual insurance mandate. The real impact of the mandate is not the tax penalty but rather the social shift that will result by putting an uninsured person on the wrong side of the law. While our current social health care environment is designed to protect "innocent victims of the system" who incur health expenses while uninsured. That attitude will change quickly in 2014 when (and if) the mandate becomes effective. We are likely to see major reductions in charity care in both public and private organizations. Hospitals across the county have already incorporated the effects of this policy change into their financial projections. Public sentiment will also turn unsympathetic to free-riders who ignore their responsibility to purchase even minimal coverage. We already know that the majority of uninsured are middle income individuals who could afford insurance if they chose to make it a priority but do not take care of that responsibility. After 2014 those individuals who ignore the law are setting themselves up for a dangerous denial of medical care – an consequence far more serious than a tax penalty.

This article reported by Reuters is about Spain but I’m afraid it is only a matter of time until this becomes the case in the US as well. In two years the headline could easily substitute “California” or “Texas” in place of Spain. Government-paid health care systems simply can not keep afloat under current conditions. The correction is painful in any scenario.

Medical suppliers haven’t been paid for as much as two years, emergency rooms have been shut down and doctors in Catalonia have been told to accept a pay cut or 1,500 medical residents will lose their jobs.

WSJ Professional Article – WSJ.com

http://www.ehealthdiscountplan.com/

ATLANTA, Georgia – September 14, 2011 – The National Association of Dental Plans (NADP) held its annual CONVERGE 2011 Conference & Exhibition this week in Atlanta.

The annual CONVERGE conference is designed for leaders of the dental benefits community as a professional development event and features a variety of learning formats – interactive roundtables, panels, discussions, exhibits and networking opportunities. The conference allows dental plan professionals to gather to voice challenges with colleagues and gain insight from industry leaders through a series of scheduled, informative sessions.

A key session at this week’s conference was CONVERGE Session Spotlight, “An Open Discussion on the Future of Discount Products.”  This panel discussion featured four panelists, each with a unique focus on the session’s topic.  Stewart Sweda, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for Careington International Corporation, spoke specifically on the prevalence of the discount dental plan in today’s market, the adaptability of a discount dental program, and the direction of the discount industry as a whole.

“Discounts probably won’t replace traditional insurance plans, but they have become a viable alternative,” said Sweda of the future of the discount dental model. “We now have a prominent place on the shelf we didn’t have before.”

NADP Press Releases > Careington Executive Serves as Panelist at National Dental Conference

It seems clear that dental discount plans will play a greater role for individuals who pay for their own benefits than those covered by employer-sponsored dental plans. Based on the media coverage, it is not clear that this came out as a conclusion of the conference.