Healthcare Portability... You may be stuck...

[sfwriter]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/07/the_flip_side_of_health-care_r.html

"Under the main health bills being debated in Congress, many people with job-based insurance could find it difficult to impossible to switch to health plans on a new insurance exchange, even if the plans there were cheaper or offered better coverage. The restrictions extend to any government-run plan, which would be offered on the exchange."

AND

"All these decisions make sense if you buy into the starting premise of health-care reform: If you like what you have, you can keep it. A policy that preserves the current system is necessarily timid with ideas that could harm the current system. And that's what we're seeing. From a political perspective, that concession was probably an important, and maybe even an essential, one. But from a policy standpoint, it was a huge concession nevertheless."

Looks like a political consensus to protect the insurers to me. If I can get the public plan, I'm taking it. I HATE healthcare insurers almost as much as credit card companies.

[damntexdem]

1. That's bad, but it's not portability.

Presumably one will be able to maintain coverage when leaving or switching jobs.

[lumberjack_jeff]

4. Exactly right, portability comes into play when leaving an employer.

The perceived need for employees to be empowered to force changes to the group plan is pretty low on the list of current healthcare problems.

[FrenchieCat]

2. How can people get their cake and eat it too?

If they are already getting the benefit that many folks don't get of having health care coverage that is subsidized by their employer, and their employer choose a certain choices of plans to choose from, why should these folks get to go outside of the employer's choices to choose something else? The whole point is that the employer is providing a benefit to the employee......but of course, like anything else, those benefits have certain limitations based on what the employer decides. That's always been the case.

[Cleita]

5. This is the problem with employer mandated health care. It binds the

employee to the job and isn't portable like they claim it is and it can be a burden on the employer. I don't think employers should have to provide health care. What they should do is pay a tax for each employee, like they do with P/R tax to cover medical insurance. That way the employer and worker for that matter would pay a percentage of the payroll for it like we already do for SS and Medicare. The employee then should be free to go sign up for whatever medical plan they want or can get with the companies or government office involved. Then no matter where they work they are covered because they will always pay a percentage of their wages toward the program and the employer will pay a percentage for each worker instead of a set premium that can be very hard on small businesses and very unfair and regressive really.

[Cleita]

3. Yes, it is but the lemmings are going right along with it.

Those of us who feel that the Medicare for all bill HR 676 is the best way to bring about reform are being made to feel like left wing loonies even here on DU. Oh, well they will see when they find out that they aren't getting much more than they had to begin with and the uninsured will still be uninsured because they can't afford the deductibles and copays even on a public plan with subsidies. However, the insurers will be doing just fine with all that new taxpayer money thrown at them.