Friday, June 3, 2011

Truth In Advertising - For Politicians

After reading the following, it strikes me that we need an additional truth in advertising law that punishes politicians for doing things they say they won't or for not doing things they say they will.  If the indepently elected "Truth in Govt Advertising" agency finds that legislation is used contrary to the way it was "sold", the agency gets to stick a figurative finger in the respective politicians' eyes.  Because right now, it's imminently clear they'll do anything they want to do and there's little or nothing we can do to stop how they spend our money.
The administration is now loosening the requirements (you just need a note from a doctor or nurse saying you've been sick in the last year) and lowering premiums.  But this doesn't mean that they're finally covering more "uninsurables"; it just means they've decided to use the money allocated for those people to cover someone else.  They're changing the "high-risk pools" to something that looks a lot more like simply subsidizing insurance.  But the goal wasn't to spend the $5 billion that HHS got in its budget; the goal was to provide insurance for people who want to buy insurance, but can't find a company willing to write it.  

Since we don't seem to be able to find many of those people, HHS is using the money to cover anyone who lacks insurance and can get a doctor to attest that they've been sick in the last year.  They will eventually no doubt claim that the high-risk pools were a success, relaxing the conditions until they can say they've covered 200,000 or so people.  But the mystery will not have gone away.  Where are the unsinsurables?  And why didn't they want to buy insurance?
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/06/why-hasnt-anyone-signed-up-for-the-high-risk-health-insurance-pools/239833/

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