Health Care Fixes Backed by Harvard’s Experts Now Roil Its Faculty

[srican69]

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — For years, Harvard’s experts on health economics and policy have advised presidents and Congress on how to provide health benefits to the nation at a reasonable cost. But those remedies will now be applied to the Harvard faculty, and the professors are in an uproar.

Members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the heart of the 378-year-old university, voted overwhelmingly in November to oppose changes that would require them and thousands of other Harvard employees to pay more for health care. The university says the increases are in part a result of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, which many Harvard professors championed.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/06/us/health-care-fixes-backed-by-harvards-experts-now-roil-its-faculty.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

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I guess someone forgot to tell them that they have to have the same medicine they are prescribing others.

[belzabubba333]

1. oh god the irony

[Scuba]

5. Delicious.

[closeupready]

2. Ha. Serves them right.

K&R

[karynnj]

3. For years private employer insurance has shifted costs to the employees --

long before the ACA. This has been true for both major companies, which in reality self insure, and for smaller companies.

Here, it is said to be caused by the ACA -- yet, unless I missed it, there is no estimate of how much the things enumerated - the free tests and the inclusion of kids up to 26 - actually cost Harvard. It also does not mention that there were things in ACA that likely REDUCED the costs of all policies. (This article is better than most - as it at least admits that the Cadillac tax is not yet in effect and won't be until 2018.)

My guess is the purpose of these articles - and there are many of them - is to reduce support for ACA among the people who have employee insurance by making them blame ACA for the longterm shifting of costs from the employer only to the employee "sharing" more of the cost. What I wonder is whether - without the ACA which actually has at least decreased the rate of increase in health care premiums AND total expenditures - whether the employees might actually be paying more ---- or getting less from the employer in other compensation.

Here, it would be interesting to see some time series - of at least 10 years - showing the total health care costs paid by Harvard AND the copays, premiums, and coinsurance paid by the average employee. Only by seeing the trends in health care costs and who paid what - before and after ACA - can one get a real view for what happened.

A more general article on high deductible employer plans was written in USAtoday - http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/01/middle-class-workers-struggle-to-pay-for-care-despite-insurance/19841235/ This article contrasts the Medicaid policies that more people now qualify for to the high deductible plan.

( For people here, one could say that the Medicaid plans are almost single payer - while it was the Republicans who encouraged companies to go to high deductible plans AND Heath Saving Accounts (HSA), which let you pay some out of pocket medical costs with pretax money. What Harvard and others are doing is moving to high deductible plans. What is left unsaid in the articles is that the Republican alternatives to ACA are closer to what Harvard is seeing.)

[bread_and_roses]

4. oh, Mercy! & who cares if it's the "fault" of ACA?

Why should anyone go through all that analysis? The point is that the ACA does NOT fix these problems. It does not and can not fix them because it is based on a profit-driven system that benefits the vampire insurance industry - NOT human beings who need health care.

[CTyankee]

6. I suspect that the Harvard faculty grumblers were and still are champions of Single Payer.

For the very reason you cite. One of the eternal verities is that you can't take something away from people, even if what you are substituting is better in the long run, without their putting up a fight. The astonishing thing is that the argument they use -- "charging people for getting sick"-- is ultimately the same argument against supporting tax increases on the general population to pay for Universal Health Care since everybody needs health care.

[bread_and_roses]

9. I don't understand

how "the argument they use -- "charging people for getting sick"--" = "is ultimately the same argument against supporting tax increases on the general population to pay for Universal Health Care since everybody needs health care."

The two don't seem the same to me at all.

I may just be dense, however.

[CTyankee]

12. My point is that taxes to pay for "everybody's" health care "could" be considered as

an extra tax on those who say "Hey, I'm healthy, why should I pay for YOUR health care."

[bread_and_roses]

13. thanks for explaining (n/t)

[karynnj]

8. It can NOT fix the employer insurance because that is not what it was suppose to do

What exactly is your answer?

Mine as you might have been able to intuit from the comments re Medicaid - is to gradually expand both Medicare and Medicaid to the point where everyone is on it -- at that point there will be few voters who think they have a vested interest to oppose what they really have - government single payer insurance.

Why argue the point?

The reason is that I assume the goal is to prevent ACA from gaining the level of acceptance of -- Medicare and Medicaid. The point is that the Republican alternative IS high deductible insurance plans with FSAs - ok if you are wealthy. Not so good otherwise.

[bread_and_roses]

10. To your subject line - exactly so.

No quarrel there. Although, if I recall even those of us covered by employer insurance were supposed to benefit by the supposedly lower health care costs overall. However, I may be mis-remembering. The arguments for the ACA were as labyrythine as the program itself.

I don't see the article as having any overt goal to "prevent ACA from gaining the level of acceptance of -- Medicare and Medicaid." It simply points out the problems people are having with medical insurance - and the ACA is an INSURANCE program.

"The point is that the Republican alternative IS high deductible insurance plans with FSAs - ok if you are wealthy. Not so good otherwise."

The ACA will never be popular and will probably be more resented as time goes on by anyone not covered by a subsidy. The ACA has deductibles too. If you are a "Bronze Person" they will probably be unaffordable. And people will "choose" to be Bronze people because that's all they can afford. Because And the Vampires will be up to their old tricks of denying care. And switching their formularies, and and and ....

I am glad - very glad - for anyone getting any kind of health care now who had none before. But being glad - and even helping people - to get what they can is different than trying to justify or defend this horrible program.

[karynnj]

11. The argument was not that it would lower costs, but bend the cost curve

Before it was implemented, healthcare costs and insurance premiums were increasing by double digits every year. For the last few years - starting before most of ACA was even in effect, the rate of increase has greatly decreased.

As to the problems of the program, has anything major ever been put into effect and not adjusted or fixed? The problem is that there has been no way to make any changes -- and there were changes that were forced on the program from the SC decisions that created a huge hole for states where Medicaid was not expanded.

As to no overt goal - the fact that they are both speaking of problem's with employer provided insurance and its problems -- and are implying the problems stem from ACA.

[valerief]

7. But, but, but it was never supposed to apply to the privileged! That's too, too, too

democratic!