Time Magazine on Health Care Promises vs. Reality

John on June 24, 2010 at 1:34 pm

This is old news if you’ve been reading VS, but it’s nice to see a story on this from Time:

“If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan.”

Throughout the long health care reform debate, that promise from President Obama was one of the few constants, made to reassure the bulk of Americans who already have insurance that the sweeping legislation would not have a downside…But now that regulations about existing employer-sponsored plans have been issued, it’s becoming clear that many of those with 160 million Americans with job-based coverage will not, in fact, be able to keep what they currently have.

Kate Pickert’s story goes on to say that many of those who lose coverage will likely be dumped into the exchanges. This is exactly what Republican critics said would happen.

The exchanges do not, at present, contain a public option; however, the exchanges are regulated to such a degree that the entire thing is essentially going to be four tiers of identical service from different providers. And the administration appears intent on setting prices for everything. So the president’s promise of more competition also turns out to be something that should show up on Mythbusters.

It’s a shame the folks at Time couldn’t figure this out before the bill was passed. Better late than never, I guess.

Category: Health & Education |