PPACA – Maybe more of a Rant

By | March 30, 2015

I read the article Jim posted about the PPACA, and there is one line I wanted to focus on.  I know it’s a good article, with a lot of info, but I’m going to start with this quote from the article:  “Few pieces of legislation have been subject to as much confusion, deception, and outright lies as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)

No truer of a statement has ever been uttered.  I’ve seen all kind of misinformation regarding the ACA, and it’s been sad to see how people will pull this Act apart, over what I can only understand is political gamesmanship.

First, this act reduces uncompensated care.  The healthcare equivalent of a ‘dine and dash’ scenario.  Doctors, and hospitals are getting paid, at least a portion from uninsured people.  This brings healthcare costs down.  And because more people are insured, your wait times will be reducing at the E.R. as people won’t be waiting until a minor issue becomes life threatening, or just going to the E.R. in the first place because they can’t refuse to treat you there due to non-payment.

Second, it reduces insurance costs.  It puts the “young invincibles” into the insurance pool.  They don’t get sick as much.  If you take those people combined with everyone else who now has care, the insurance pool isn’t paying for just sick people anymore, because healthier people are now insured.  This reduces the cost for the entire group that is rated together.  The more people with insurance, the cheaper it is.  Sure, costs have kept rising for a while, but the rate they are rising has dropped dramatically year over year.  I expect, it’ll start reversing in time, unless someone does something foolish like repealing the act.

Basically, every doom and gloom scenario imagined has been proven wrong.  This is the best shape our healthcare industry has been in for years.  It’s not perfect, and needs some adjustment though.  Given time, and a commitment to improvement, we’ll be better off than ever before.

The main issue with PPACA is fear of what people don’t’ understand.  Insurance is complex, there are a lot of issues, and many have been taken out of context and turned into political weapons.  All in all, this is helping the majority of us, and needs to continue to prove it’s full worth.

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About graha4

So, a little about me eh?  Born and raised in a little U.P. town on the east end of Lake Superior, I moved down to the Lansing area about 10 years ago to work in Call Center Workforce Management.  It's fairly specialized work, and because of that, my job level has outpaced my education, so it's time to balance that back out.  Would you like to know more?  Just ask.

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