FIVE ARTICLE SUMMARY:You may have heard the ads running on your local radio station by “A Healthy Virginia Works” (AHVW), a project of a coalition of various business organizations and hospitals, touting a so-called market based solution.
They claim they want to reform Healthcare in Virginia in five areas: Increasing Access to Health Care, Reducing Costs for Patients, Controlling Costs for Businesses, Keeping Our Hospitals Strong and Reclaiming Our Federal Tax Dollars.Sounds great and very conservative or libertarian right? Well yes on the surface it does, but if you read on further beyond the talking points its not.
So, I will look at their five claims point by point using the information from their website in a series of five articles.
** Make sure you read the not very limited government, articles the AHVW promoted on their Facebook and/or Twitter Below **
Part Two
AHVW Point Two:
Reducing Costs for Patients – Every person in Virginia who has health insurance pays higher out-of-pocket costs for medical care to subsidize the treatment of uninsured patients at our hospitals. Closing the "coverage gap" through the Medicaid 'Private Option' will reduce this "cost-shifting" onto insured patients and bring down the cost of everyone's medical bills.
My Counter Point:
Again, as I said in my article Part One, this sounds nice until you dissect what they mean by closing the “coverage gap” and how they mean to “stop your premiums from subsidizing those “like myself’ who fall into the “coverage gap”. And this thing they keep referring to as the “Medicaid private option” is only a “private option” as far as it gives to our tax dollars sent to Washington to “private” business only after DC sends us back a small fraction of what we sent them.
What AHVW wants to do to supposedly get rid of the “coverage gap” is opting into Medicaid expansion, but using the language of reclaiming and getting back Virginia’s money already sent to Washington and earmarked for Medicaid, and then using that money to buy private insurance to give away free to the 200,000 uninsured.
I reiterate, while it is good to try and get back as much money that Virginian’s previously sent to Washington, it has unintended consequences done this way. It doesn’t stop the cycle of Virginians and Americans from being over taxed, and then having to beg for 25 cents back from every dollar sent to Washington. It allows the leviathan of big nanny state government to continue, while never punishing or rebuking the big government tax and spenders for continuing to swallow up our dollars and letting us guppies chew up what little it leaves behind, if we allow it to reek havoc and obey it.
Instead lets pass real reform by allowing people to buy cafeteria plans, buy plans across state lines, buying Healthcare Savings Plans or making laws to stop price gouging and collusion in the industry or many other truly market based solutions.
Full disclosure, form what I have researched and understand I fall into the “coverage gap”, but this isn’t about me. Its about principle, fairness and doing the right thing.
Articles that “A Healthy Virginia Works” have posted on their Facebook and/or Twitter:
- I title this article: “A Big Government Democrat and Big Government Republican Team Up” - Read Article
- I call this article: “So-called Republican Elected Officials Caving in on their Conservative Principles to for Perceived Political Gain” - Read Article
- I call this article: “Virginia General Assembly Republicans Caving Again - This Time Not on Taxes (read here), but on Medicaid Expansion in Guise of Pro-Market Healthcare Solution” - Read Article
- I call this article: “Virginia Republicans FAIL in their Duty to Scale Back Big Government in their Districts” - Read Article
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