Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Two things about the new health bill

1. It was clearly written by people who have never been poor. They say, "If you're poor, we'll pay for your insurance in the form of an extra tax credit."  And they pat themselves on the back and say, "See? That's fair."  Yeah. Might be fair. But it shows no understanding of poverty. When you're poor, there is no money to put in the first place! You can't lend someone 5 bucks with the promise of being paid back if you don't have 5 bucks to start out with. And you can't pay $1200/month for bare-bones, covers-nothing insurance if you only make $1200 a month, even if someone promises to pay you back. Duh.

2. Didn't anyone notice that insurance companies across the nation were raising their rates 40% in preparation for the bill to pass? Everyone said, "Oh, be nice!" to them, and they said, "Ooooh--poor us! Rising costs!" But no, they were just getting reading for everyone to be forced to buy insurance--at a much higher rate than they would have bought into last year at this time. It's like the grocery stores do--raise their prices sky high right before Thanksgiving so that come Thanksgiving, the "sales" are actually just the normal prices, but they look really low. They do it for "barbecue" holidays, too, like Labor day: Hamburger usually costs 1.69 and goes on sale for $1.00/lb. So three weeks before labor day, they have a big hamburger sale for $1.00/lb. The next week, burger prices are up to 1.89/lb. The week after? 2.50/lb. And then the big labor day sale comes, and they lower their prices to 1.79/lb and you are supposed to think you got a deal. Insurance companies are doing this right now. Just watch it go.

Mandating everyone buy in to insurance won't solve the problems because insurance is corrupt. It IS the problem.

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