The Four Parts Of Health Reform Are All Required: Do Blue Dogs Kill Reform By Killing A Part? (Bill Chirolas)

There are four parts to the health reform (regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition) in all Democratic versions, and because the reform can not work with only one of those parts, killing one part will destroy the Health reform and our ability to slow future cost increases.

William Chirolas -- World News Trust

July 27, 2009 -- There are four parts to the health reform (regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition) in all Democratic versions, and because the reform can not work with only one of those parts, killing one part will destroy the Health reform and our ability to slow future cost increases. 

Now Blue Dog Democrats claim to be concerned about costs, but their demands would harm cost control.

Strong Regulation means laws against insurance companies using their "pre-existing condition" excuse to deny coverage based on their interpretation, or any interpretation, of your medical history, or, when you file a claim, deciding to not allow you to renew coverage, thereby covering only the healthy among us.

Mandates prevent the "anti-selection" risk that insurance companies now use to justify their use of the "pre-existing condition" excuse to deny coverage -- with mandates those not feeling ill would still need to buy insurance -- they could not wait until they felt ill.  The mandates currently include rules that require all but the smallest businesses to provide their employees with insurance, or to pay a penalty that will go to cover the cost of the plan.

Mandates for the poor and lower middle class are impossible if there are no subsidies toward the cost of the insurance, and the cost of the reform is the cost of these subsidies. So why are the Blue Dogs against mandates when the alternative is simply giving welfare checks to the insurance companies (subsidies simply allow the insurance companies to increase premiums if there is no mandate) with no cost savings to the system?

Cost control in the plan is centered around a government-run insurance plan competing with private insurers, the "public option" that acts as a control on bad insurance company behavior.  So why are the cost-control motivated Blue Dogs against the public option -- demanding it not take effect except after a "trigger like the one in the Medicare drug benefit" law is activated?  We know that that Drug law trigger was successfully designed to never "trigger" anything, so this is just a way to kill the health reforms one effective cost control in the plan (the Blue Dogs also want an independent board to determine Medicare claim payment rates subject to an override by Congress, but CBO says this saves only a few 10's of billion over the 10 years). Indeed the Blue Dogs demand higher than average payments to the health care services providers in their low cost rural areas, making the health reform even more costly.

When a politician has an illogical position that he sells with buzz word slogans that lie about the effect of his position, the odds are that he is simply defending a special interests that give contributions to him.  Will the Blue Dogs sell Obama and the Democratic Party out for insurance company dollars?

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William Chirolas brings 40 years of real-world business experience in local, state, national, and international tax, pensions, and finance to the world of blogging. A graduate of MIT, he calls the Boston area home, except when visiting kids and grandkids.