A public option will not include dental, eye care, mental health

[slipslidingaway]

and long term care unlike single-payer HC.

[Occam Bandage]

1. The Paul Wellstone Mental Health Parity Act, passed in Oct. 2008, would ensure

that mental health was covered, IIRC. I don't see why long-term care wouldn't be covered. As for dental and vision? There's no reason why a public option couldn't cover both.

[slipslidingaway]

5. I have not heard any mention of these items being covered in

the public option, but then again there are still no details.

:shrug:

[Occam Bandage]

10. I have no idea if they'd be covered or not, with the exception of mental health,

which will be required by law to be covered equally as of January 2010. I don't think it's fair to say that there hasn't been mention of them being covered, because there hasn't been mention of anything being covered or denied. The question right now isn't, "what will be in the public option," but rather, "can we even get a public option through the Senate?" I know we'll use reconciliation, so we only need 50 and not 60 votes, but the question is just how many Democrats are fonder of the insurance companies than they are of the President or of the American people.

[slipslidingaway]

14. You are correct that there are no details, the only thing we know

for sure is that single-payer is not even allowed to be discussed.

[Occam Bandage]

27. That's true, for better or for worse. nt

[cliffordu]

34. I hope you're right - or they're going to have

a bunch of nutty fuckers like me running around unmedicated.

With unregistered libidos and everything.....

[tridim]

2. I can live without dental and eye care..

But Americans need mental health care. Especially now.

[slipslidingaway]

6. Maybe they'll find some way to cover these as well??? nt

[Cleita]

8. Really? If you can't see to drive or work and

your unattended teeth are poisoning your system, how do you live without it?

[tridim]

12. I meant I can live without it being part of National Healthcare.

It would be nice, but not a deal breaker IMO.

[Cleita]

13. What about the poor people who don't have the income to supplement?n/t

[tridim]

15. You have a point there.

I hope something can be worked out for extreme cases.

[Bonobo]

18. How?

How old are you? Do you have kids?
Are you wealthy enough to pay an unexpected $1,000 or $1,500 dollars for a crown or for some complex perio?
What about for the kids and wife too?

I sure can't live without it...

[tridim]

31. Do European and Canadian plans include dental?

I'm thinking about taking back what I said, but I'm still not sure if dental is a realistic goal.

Should strictly cosmetic procedures be covered?

[Oregone]

38. Not Canadian. At least in BC

Any other provinces include it?


BC stream-lines our MSP to cover necessary medical expenses, not cosmetics or optional goodies. It allows a family to have a premium of $108 a month.

If you want dental/vision/mental/extended coverage/additional drug, you go to a private provider for about $100 (give or take) a month in addition (most employers cover both public and privates).

Im not sure what the hang up is on the "goody" services. If its a deal breaker in making a medical program viable or at least affordable, Id personally drop it like a rock. I probably save more paying for goodies out of pocket than I would paying additional premiums/taxes for them.

[Thickasabrick]

3. I'm ok with baby steps - the insurance I have through my employer

doesn't cover dental and has a really low max for mental with a huge deductible. It's not great but at least I'm covered in case of a catastrophic illness.

[slipslidingaway]

11. Problem is I doubt this will be revisted anytime soon and some

people could really use the care now or in the not so distant future.

[Thickasabrick]

23. I agree and dental and mental are really important but I keep

remembering a story I read in the times a year or two ago. It was about this master carpenter who's work was said to be true artistry. He didn't have insurance because he was an independent and he was diagnosed with cancer. The radiation/chemo people basically cut him off from treatments because he had no insurance. His whole family donated as much as they could and it still wasn't enough.

He could have survived but our system killed him. I know this is only a small sampling but this is happening every day to people. We are letting people die because of no insurance.

I really want to fix that issue first.

[Snazzy]

4. toothless, blind and crazy is no way to go through life, son n/t

[slipslidingaway]

16. :))) nt

[Cleita]

7. Of course not because it has already divided us into two classes.

This is why so many of us favored single payer. However, a public option of some sort is better than none. It should give us a foot in the door to keep pushing for the whole enchilada.

[readmoreoften]

17. Unless we're forced to carry it like car insurance.

Like Clinton wanted. The whole "I envision a day when you need a health insurance card to apply for a job." I think that's what we'll get. Oh, "the poorest" will have it paid for. That is, until another administration comes in and forces the poor to pay for insurance they can't possibly afford.

[Cleita]

22. Even then people go without. In the Massachusetts plan, which is what is

being forced on us, people are still going without health care because they have fallen through the cracks and no mandated insurance can squeeze money from people who can't afford to pay for it. So with this plan there still will be uninsured. The sad thing is that they will be fewer and with a smaller voice to demand change.

[slipslidingaway]

19. Yes it has, unless the public option is extremely strong we will

continue to be divided and that is a real concern.

[Juche]

9. Do you need dental or eye?

The reason I ask is most dental insurance plans have an annual max of $1,000. The reality is a good dental/eye discount plan will be just as good as a vision or dental insurance plan.

That is assuming you only need routine interventions (glasses and contacts now and again; biannual checkups and fillings).

If you get into a car wreck and need massive oral reconstructive surgery, that is something different.

[slipslidingaway]

26. I know that it is already part of HR 676 and maybe they intend

to cover these costs with a public option.

For some people the $1000 or $1200 helps quite a bit.

:)

[Oregone]

35. I wasn't aware HR 676 included it

I think it makes it tougher to sell it to the average winger who doesn't want to pay for your kid's braces. They get hung up on that shit.

Id go out on a limb and say that adding in the "goodies" would likely double premiums for people.

[slipslidingaway]

39. I'm sure there would be some limits, but as it stands now

dental and vision would be included.

[Oregone]

42. Hm...good luck with that. :)

There really isn't even dental insurance anymore. Its actually all become "pre-paid" service the way the lay out large deductables, pay-out limits, and it takes years until you get maximum benefits.

Dental is expensive.

Transforming the current pre-paid service option for those who wish to do it (and really, its not a whole lot cheaper, if any at all, then out-of-pocket if you do number crunching baring amazing retro-style dental insurance that is HARD TO FIND) into a single payer system that encourages less personal rationing of dental care...hehe. Well, its going to have a price tag beyond any right-wingers nightmare. You oughta hope it has limits. :)

[Juche]

44. Yeah, ideally it would all be covered by a public option

I'm not opposed to adding dental and vision to a public plan, they are not that expensive overall. However the big problems with healthcare are not in vision or dental, the big problems (denied treatment, not covering pre-existing conditions, bankruptcy, fighting the insurance companies who coopt medicine, etc) are in hospitals, surgery and pharmacy. So those are the ones we need guaranteed, everyone in and nobody out coverage on.

Canada doesn't cover dental in their medicare plan, and nobody goes bankrupt or dies from lack of coverage (from what I know).

Anyway, point being, I've got no problem with vision or dental as part of a public option, but that doesn't seem to be the area of healthcare where we need massive reform.

[slipslidingaway]

46. I agree that these items are not the reason people lose their homes

but for comaprison sake it is nice to know what is included in the various options.

[MaraJade]

20. No one in Washington cares.

If a person doesn't have employer-based insurance to cover the "incidentals," no one
in the White House cares. The Congress doesn't care, so why should the White House.

[slipslidingaway]

29. Rather obvious that no one cared when they limited the discussion

:(

[pitohui]

21. so because you can't get everything at once you'd prefer that i have nothing? EOM

.

[slipslidingaway]

32. You can blame those who will not even allow discussion of SPHC.

[eyesroll]

24. Why would single payer necessarily include any of that?

Aren't we talking about two different things...

1. How the system is paid for

and

2. What's included?

Couldn't the government devise a single-payer plan that includes only what a major medical plan includes now?
Couldn't the government devise a "public option" that does include the extras?

[Oregone]

33. It wouldn't

Its not always a good idea for it to

[slipslidingaway]

37. As it is proposed now single-payer includes these items...

maybe in the closed meetings they are talking about including these items as well.

:shrug:

[Rosa Luxemburg]

25. what have they got against mental health?

somehow people aren't allowed to mentally ill in this country! It would be wise if the government would emphasise preventative health especially with early detection of symptoms of mental illness.

[Occam Bandage]

30. They don't. Last October, they passed a law as part of the first bailout/stimulus bill

requiring that all employer-based insurance plans offer parity in coverage for mental health. A public option would surely have the same coverage; it would be bizarre if it covered less than any private plan.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

36. yes

[Lorien]

41. The brain is just another organ of the body

imagine if they covered everything except heart health? Who decides that a foot or ear problem is more important than blindness, a tooth abscess or being bipolar?

[Oregone]

28. I have single-payer HC. It does NOT cover dental, eye-care or mental health

Rather, it really depends on the design of the specific system. It is not an inherent part of all single-payer to also pay for "unnecessary services". It greatly depends on what a society deems they are responsible for (braces for cosmetic reasons?).

If the main drive of single payer is to merely keep everyone healthy and alive without being indentured servants, and do so at $60 to $100 dollars a month in premiums (individual to family), then maybe partial coverage can suffice (surgeries, labs, doctors, specialist, and all necessary treatment). Once you eliminate the heap of the risk, private insurance covers the rest (dental, eye care, drugs, mental health) at another $100 bucks a month.

There are a lot of different ways SPHC works. A lot of them have merit.

One problem with covering everything is cosmetic and unnecessary stuff drives up costs, which drives up premiums, which makes more people not afford them, which requires more subsidies, which drives up premiums. Stream-lining single-payer to simply focus on optimal health at low rates is a great approach.

[WillowTree]

43. Apparently it's all-or-nothing-at-all from Day One for this crowd.

[slipslidingaway]

45. It might be that these items were initially included in the proposal

because they looked at what could be covered by the money that was currently being spent.

Surely these items could be dropped and added as a supplemental and that could make it easier to sell, although there really is no discussion in our media or Congress of SPHC, many people do not know the details of the proposal.

[Oregone]

48. Yeah, imagine if there was just at least a public discussion about this

:)

We can all keep wishing I guess.

[slipslidingaway]

49. At least you are in Canada, here is a report by FAIR on the media

coverage.

:(

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3733

FAIR Study: Media Blackout on Single-Payer Healthcare
Proponents of popular policy shut out of debate

"Major newspaper, broadcast and cable stories mentioning healthcare reform in the week leading up to President Barack Obama's March 5 healthcare summit rarely mentioned the idea of a single-payer national health insurance program, according to a new FAIR study. And advocates of such a system--two of whom participated in yesterday's summit--were almost entirely shut out, FAIR found.

Single-payer--a model in which healthcare delivery would remain largely private, but would be paid for by a single federal health insurance fund (much like Medicare provides for seniors, and comparable to Canada's current system)--polls well with the public, who preferred it two-to-one over a privatized system in a recent survey (New York Times/CBS, 1/11-15/09). But a media consumer in the week leading up to the summit was more likely to read about single-payer from the hostile perspective of conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer than see an op-ed by a single-payer advocate in a major U.S. newspaper...

The FAIR study turned up only three mentions of single-payer on the TV outlets surveyed, and two of those references were by TV guests who expressed strong disapproval of it: conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks (NewsHour, 2/27/09) and Republican congressman Darrell Issa (MSNBC's Hardball, 2/26/09)..."

[Lorien]

40. I thought Obama wanted all Americans to have the same access to health

care that the House and Senate does. They don't get dental, eye care and mental health?

[slipslidingaway]

47. I would imagine that they do and yes that was what Obama said

during the campaign...we'll see.

[leftstreet]

50. ..."access" being the key word here

If you've got a buttload of money, you can 'access' some excellent medical insurance right now.