July 18, 2013--Affordable Health Care in NY

There was a report in yesterday's New York Times about the rollout in early 2014 of the Affordable Care Act in New York State.

One might expect that since New York is about the highest-cost state in the United States the cost of mandatory insurance to New Yorkers would be in line with what one needs to come up with to buy a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. In other words, a ridiculous fortune.

But in spite of all the alarmist ranting about how Obamacare is socialized medicine and that people will have their health care rationed with end-of-life decisions taken aways from patients and their families and be assigned to government "death panels," when all is said and done, tens of millions will for the first time have health insurance, hundreds of thousands of lives will be better and even saved, and the cost, it appears, if administered correctly, will go down. Actually plummet.

In New York, for example, because of the competition engendered by having various health care insurers compete for new clients, to quote state regulators, because of the on-line purchasing exchanges, the rates they have approved for insurers are "at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York."

For those now paying $1,000 or more a month, as early as October, they will be able to purchase comparable insurance for as little as $300 a month. If one cannot afford that, with federal subsidies, the cost will be even lower.

I suspect that politically we will see a situation similar to the mid-1960s when Medicare was rolled out. It was condemned by organized medicine (the AMA in the lead) as socialized medicine and this was echoed and worse by most Republicans. But now, even Tea Party members though wanting to eliminate much of what government provides, make an exception for Medicare.

When I have at times confronted some who have nothing good to say about any government program, pointing out to them that Medicare is a government program, and in fact is socialized medicine, still they say, poking a finger in my chest, "Don't you touch my Medicare."

Five years from now people will be saying the same thing about the Affordable Care Act--though it is far from socialized medicine (it is after all based on a Republican model), they will be poking fingers in chests and warning, "Don't you touch my Obamacare."