What if… the affable, incompetent Democrats in Congress grew a pair and decide to vote only on the popular, insurance related part, of the healthcare reform bill?
Here is what I think would happen:
1. Democrats legislate that from now on:
- health insurers can not deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions,
- insurers can no longer drop people from plans or raise their premium when they get sick,
- insurers can’t use irrelevant excuses to deny medical treatment (such as an unreported trivial and unrelated medical problems),
- insurers can not jack up the cost of the insurance to a business because an employee needed an expensive treatment
- insurers can not raise premiums to unreasonable level to deny individuals insurance or to rip them off
This takes effect IMMEDIATELY.
I bet you that Republicans, as beholden to special interests as they are, would not be able to filibuster that one.
2. Insurers, in order to keep paying their huge executive salaries, and to continue making the billions in profit, respond by steeply raising insurance premiums.
3. Individuals and businesses are unable to afford health insurance, swelling the ranks of the uninsured from the current level (what is it, 46 million Americans?) by 50% or more. Only the both very sick and very rich can afford medical insurance, due to the high cost, and premiums have to go even higher because of the smaller and sicker pool.
4. With no insurance, the public uses emergency rooms for basic medical care, and personal bankruptcies follow. Hospital are overloaded by un-paying customers and require government help to stay afloat. Productivity drops because of sick people coming to work. Epidemics and chronic health problems are on the rise.
4. To salvage the emergency situation in medical care and the collapse of the medical system, the government extend Medicaid/Medicare to all uninsured. A single payer system is created. Government takes on the pharmaceutical industry and negotiates better prices for prescription drugs.
5. With price gouging by big insurance and big pharma gone, medical costs come down. Universal insurance is a reality. The US now has a universal healthcare, the medical insurance companies are out of business, and hopefully the Republicans as well.
Time frame for this? 1-2 years, tops.
One can only wish!