Vanity Fair's Blockbuster Part 2 in Obamacare series: The truth!

[FourScore]

Sat Oct 05, 2013 at 03:21 PM PDT
Vanity Fair's Blockbuster Part 2 in Obamacare series: The truth!
by Fokozatos siker

Last week, Vanity Fair ran a devastating and brilliant piece ripping apart the Republican lies (yes, they called them lies) about Obamacare. Kurt Eichenwald, the contributing editor who wrote the piece, promised in it that this week he would be coming back with another one on the truth about Obamacare.

And boy, did he. Here is part 2!

This one isn't the laugh riot of last week, because as Eichenwald makes clear, defanging lies is a lot easier and a lot more amusing than explaining truths. But what he hass written is the most comprehensive, clearest and impossible to dispute detailing of Obamacare that I have ever seen. If you have a tea-partier or Republican in your family, hand them the piece and give them some knowledge. More below...

What is so compelling about the new piece is it is not a bunch of the statements we already know on the benefits, like no pre-existing condition restrictions, no insurance caps, etc. Instead, Eichenwald goes in a completely different direction.

He starts off with a lament that I think we don't express enough: That talking about the life-saving benefits for the uninsured seems to be an insignificant issue for too many Americans.

Normally, I would start this discussion by providing chapter-and-verse details about the 47 million men, women, and children who now have the opportunity to obtain health insurance, to live longer and healthier lives, to avoid needless bankruptcies. But, in what to me is one of the saddest developments in our nation’s history, that reality is irrelevant to ardent Obamacare opponents....These days, I have to start by answering the question “What’s in it for me?”

And answer he does. He begins with the clearest of points that too often is ignored: the uninsured get health care, whether they have insurance or not.

This is the fundamental issue that too many people do not understand. There seems to be this belief among some that those who are uninsured simply go off and die somewhere, thus having no impact on the medical-care-delivery system in the United States. But the opposite is true—the uninsured have some of the most dramatic effects of any group on our nation’s health-care system...In fact, the uninsured affect the finances, quality of care, and availability of medical assistance to every person in a community, regardless of their insurance status.

Then, he presents the most amazing numbers I've seen in this debate: The PRECISE amount the uninsured are costing those with insurance. He begins with the national average (he gives for two years, I'll use the 2010 estimates.) That amount: $1,502. That is not the premium - that is the EXTRA premium that the insured are paying to compensate for the bills the uninsured are unable to pay.

Even more fun, the piece then shows that the highest amount in extra premium is being paid by, you guessed it, the states that are the biggest opponents of Obamacare:

It is the citizens of states most opposed to Obamacare and who are refusing expansions of Medicaid who are taking the biggest shellacking: Texas residents are paying $2,786 more in premiums for family policies provided through employers. Montana, $2,190. Alaska, $2,248. Idaho, $2,152. North Carolina, $1,828.

I've already started reciting those numbers to some friends who have bought into the Republican lies. Their only response is "splutter."

Then Eichenwald points out something I never knew. Those communities with the highest numbers of uninsured have the lowest quality of care, not just for the uninsured, but for the insured as well.

Follow the logic. Hospitals don’t have poverty wards; if a patient comes in the door in bad shape, they don’t do a wallet biopsy before deciding what care that person should receive—everyone at a hospital receives the same quality. But if a community has a higher number of uninsured, that means the latest and greatest technology and treatments will drive up the amounts of unreimbursed care. In essence, hospitals that provide the best, most modern, and most expensive treatments in an area with lots of uninsured will be forced to pass unsustainable amounts of cost to their prices. Insurance companies won’t pay it, local governments won’t finance it, and the hospitals will go out of business. The only option then? Don’t provide the top-quality care to anyone—insured or not.

Eichenwald then immediately acknowledges that people might not believe the logic, and so cites multiple studies proving he's right.

It is only after this lengthy description of medical economics that Eichenwald returns to the benefits to the uninsured.

With the “what’s in it for me” question regarding the benefits of covering the uninsured, now let’s go to the price they pay for being without health insurance. This one is as simple as screaming “death panels”: the uninsured die. As the Texas health-care task force reports: "Overall, the uninsured receive less preventive care, are diagnosed at more advanced stages of disease, and once diagnosed, receive less therapeutic care than do the insured. Thus, lack of adequate insurance leads to premature death." Hopefully, those words are easy enough for everyone to understand. If Republicans truly are dedicated to the sanctity of life, they should be the first ones on the front lines trying to get policies for the uninsured.

This is as much as I can quote and still stay within fair use. But it is a long, long article loaded with powerful facts, figures and arguments. Before you have another arguments with the deluded, just print it out and hand it to them. It was exhilarating to read!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/05/1244504/-Vanity-Fair-s-Blockbuster-Part-2-in-Obamacare-series-The-truth

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/eichenwald/2013/10/truth-obamacare-already-insured

[dsc]

1. I can tell you about this first hand

I lived in Indianola MS for two years, which is the heart of the MS delta meaning a very poor place. Pretty much the only insured people were government workers and the casino employees. We had no specialist care to speak of. I had to drive to Jackson to get anything other than a gp. It was horrible.

[DURHAM D]

2. Right on Vanity Fair

I have subscribed to VF for as long as I can remember. Many don't realize that it is so much more than a fashion mag.