Its been a whopping 2 days since Obamacare, our "universal" health care law, went into effect and already there is evidence that 8 million Americans will still not be eligible for health insurance coverage. While the whole law is convoluted and hard to decipher, here is my understanding of it and how Americans are being left un-insured when everyone is supposed to be covered. So in order to qualify for the federal subsidies that are supposed to help with the purchasing of health insurance, you need to make a certain amount of money. Essentially, you can't be living in poverty to buy health insurance and as nice as it would be to say that there aren't that many people in that situation, there are. For those that don't make enough to purchase health insurance on the "health exchanges", they could be covered on expanded Medicaid programs that are specifically in place to help the poor. Medicaid was meant to be the program that filled in the gaps that the "health exchanges" couldn't, but only if individual states decided to expand their Medicaid programs. Out of all 50 states, only 24 expanded their Medicaid programs with 26 the declined to do so. I do not align myself with any specific political party, but the 26 states that declined to expand their Medicaid programs are dominated by Republicans. Without the expansion of the Medicaid programs in 26 states, there is a large gap that leaves those roughly 8 million Americans without health insurance. To make it even more twisted, and this is a good thing for those 8 million Americans, they will face no fine for not having insurance because the Medicaid programs in their states were not expanded. Confused yet? I sure am. I thought universal health insurance was supposed to be, well, you know, "universal". My take on the definition of universal is that it is all encompassing. Then again, what do I know. Will this current health insurance law help many people out? Sure, but not everyone. It is becoming evident that in the midst of trying to provide all Americans with health insurance, there are those that are being left behind as usual. What's the solution? Well, from what I have been reading, the immediate solution would be for those 26 states to expand their Medicaid programs so that almost all Americans could have health insurance. Yet, I don't know the likelihood of that actually happening.
What makes this worse is that since the majority of the 26 states that did not expand their Medicaid programs are in the South, race is being drawn into the issue. Those states have a larger population of poor blacks and Hispanics than do the rest of the country, and since those states didn't expand their programs, racial prejudice is being blamed as one of the reasons. I don't know if that is actually the case, but I sure as hell hope it isn't. It is said that time heals all wounds, yet obviously not enough time as passed for the racial wounds of the better part of the 20th century to heal. Never having lived in the south, I don't know what it is like, and therefore, won't comment. What we need to do is stop blaming race as reason for this, or a reason for that. Lets move on already. Whatever the reason for those 26 states not expanding their Medicaid programs, I highly doubt it is due to race, but more politically charged instead. The Republicans have hated Obamacare since it first came to the plate a few years ago. They have tried time and again to stop its inception, and on Monday, their persistence led to our government shutting down. While I'm not necessarily a fan of Obamacare, namely because it fails to provide everyone with health insurance, to shut down our government and leave 8 million un-insured because of political affiliation is preposterous. Such is life. All I do know is that this next year will be interesting in regards to Obamacare and how it will truly affect everyone, or not affect everyone. What I do know is that the deductible on my health insurance, a very good one that my wife has through her job, will go up from $3000 to $4500 a year. I guess all those who have good health insurance will be paying for those who are just now being able to afford it. What can we do? Nothing. This health insurance law is not truly fixing anything. The health insurance issue in this country is much bigger than just providing health insurance to the poor, it is about leveraging costs amongst companies so that they can actually be reduced, it is about holding the pharmaceutical industry accountable and taking away their lobbying ability in Washington, and it is about many more things that I don't even know about. In essence, I am done talking about it. Good luck to all in this next year with regards to health insurance.
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