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Blue Springs, MO —
A recent letter (The Examiner, Aug. 23, “Be informed: Weighty election issues loom”) initially put a smile on my face. After the first three lines, where she said people need to become more informed, she raised some issues I felt compelled to comment on.
The U.S. Supreme Court did rule on Obamacare and said if an individual chose not to purchase a federal-government-approved health-insurance policy, they would be taxed. The tortured use of the Commerce Clause did not support the federal government issuing a fine for a person not participating in commerce by buying a health-insurance policy.
The letter’s author went on to suggest a way to provide for added coverage of people is for states to expand Medicaid, with the help of the federal government.
I have 39 years in hospitals, with the last 17 in hospital administration positions, and I can assure people that expanding Medicaid would not be a first, second or even third consideration. Most of the hospitals I managed maintained an average daily cost of $900 to care for each patient. In Louisiana, where some of my hospitals were reimbursed $647 each day for each Medicaid patient, that would be a loss of $253 every day I took care of one Medicaid patient. She suggested the federal government could help. I assumed by that she meant we taxpayers will have to make up the difference of $253 on top of us currently paying the $647. What’s the old saying – “a million here and a million there and we’re talking about real money.”
The letter writer mentioned insurance pools as an option. Let us see. A 62-year-old man enrolled in Missouri’s High Risk Insurance Pool will pay $890 per month for a $10,000 deductible major medical policy. How’s that for a viable option for people approaching Medicare but not yet there?
The author didn’t discuss the use of public hospitals such as Truman Medical Center, funded by taxpayers. Whether or not a person has a penny or a peso in their pocket, they will receive medical care. Public hospitals such as Truman are licensed and surveyed the same as all hospitals having to meet the same criteria. She also did not say why our community’s short-term, acute-care hospitals are tax exempt. They are exempted from paying many of the taxes other businesses pay so as to offset their losses from caring for indigent patients.
A recent letter (The Examiner, Aug. 23, “Be informed: Weighty election issues loom”) initially put a smile on my face. After the first three lines, where she said people need to become more informed, she raised some issues I felt compelled to comment on.
The U.S. Supreme Court did rule on Obamacare and said if an individual chose not to purchase a federal-government-approved health-insurance policy, they would be taxed. The tortured use of the Commerce Clause did not support the federal government issuing a fine for a person not participating in commerce by buying a health-insurance policy.
The letter’s author went on to suggest a way to provide for added coverage of people is for states to expand Medicaid, with the help of the federal government.
I have 39 years in hospitals, with the last 17 in hospital administration positions, and I can assure people that expanding Medicaid would not be a first, second or even third consideration. Most of the hospitals I managed maintained an average daily cost of $900 to care for each patient. In Louisiana, where some of my hospitals were reimbursed $647 each day for each Medicaid patient, that would be a loss of $253 every day I took care of one Medicaid patient. She suggested the federal government could help. I assumed by that she meant we taxpayers will have to make up the difference of $253 on top of us currently paying the $647. What’s the old saying – “a million here and a million there and we’re talking about real money.”
The letter writer mentioned insurance pools as an option. Let us see. A 62-year-old man enrolled in Missouri’s High Risk Insurance Pool will pay $890 per month for a $10,000 deductible major medical policy. How’s that for a viable option for people approaching Medicare but not yet there?
The author didn’t discuss the use of public hospitals such as Truman Medical Center, funded by taxpayers. Whether or not a person has a penny or a peso in their pocket, they will receive medical care. Public hospitals such as Truman are licensed and surveyed the same as all hospitals having to meet the same criteria. She also did not say why our community’s short-term, acute-care hospitals are tax exempt. They are exempted from paying many of the taxes other businesses pay so as to offset their losses from caring for indigent patients.
The author expressed her concerns about the openness of one candidate. I wish we would have witnessed the negotiations as promised by our president. I also would have preferred not hearing “we’ll have to pass the bill to see what’s in it.”
Perhaps the letter writer should have directed her questions to asking the costs of her recommendations. With our country’s record debt and unemployment consistently exceeding 8 percent, we now more than ever need to address the cost of our government doing business.
I appreciate the author raising issues and concerns voters need to be knowledgeable of before entering their voting booth.
