The Myth of Affordable Care for the Poor

One of the biggest lies put forth by conservatives to argue against the
Affordable Care Act is that the number of new people coming into the system will overwhelm it.  One of my greatest arguments against the ACA is that it is more a boon for the insurance companies than for the average American it is intended to help.

The conservatives are wrong; I am right.  I can prove it.  I just picked a company off the top of my head, United Health Care, because I have had company provided healthcare with them before.  Coverage through them was no better or worse than that provided by other insurers I had through employer paid programs back when I used to be able to get that sort of job.  Claims were frequently denied out of hand.  I frequently couldn't afford the copays or deductibles.  My employers put in much more money than I took out in services.

I haven't followed United Health Care stock or any healthcare related stocks in quite some time.  But, without even looking I knew I would be able to prove my point by pulling up a chart of the UNH stock.  To whit:

UNH Stock - 2005 - Present courtesy Yahoo! Stocks

This chart shows UNH stock from 2005 to the present.  Like all stocks it plummeted in value during the market crash.  If you believed the conservative hype machine the only logical result of Obama's election and the enactment of the ACA would prohibit the stock from going up in value.  UNH like the rest of the healthcare companies would be preparing for devastating results from the rollout.  Well obviously the stock is doing quite well, thank you.  And why?

Well the market knows what is obvious to all but the most fierce opponents of the ACA; companies like UNH are about to be stacking some pretty hardcore cheddar.  Unless you just don't want to believe it, the reasoning is terribly obvious.

Most people who haven't lived paycheck to paycheck in this country don't understand what that means.  They hear that poor people will have access to healthcare in unprecedented numbers thanks to this new socialist healthcare program which of course means the insurers are about to be bled dry.

The reality of what is about to happen is actually quite the opposite.  The government will be subsidizing quite a large amount of the payments for these plans for which everybody is being forced to sign up.  And the expansion of medicare in the states allowing it puts even more money up for grabs.

People who have to work paycheck to paycheck have to make many decisions week to week as to how their money will be spent.  All too frequently that decision is made for them paying back payday loans but that is a topic for another day.  There's the rent, maybe a car note, utility and phone bills, groceries.  The paycheck is usually gone long before all needs have been met.  Unfortunately healthcare is typically a luxury these people still won't be able to afford.

Many will still not be able to afford even a small copay much less prescriptions, uncovered lab costs, deductibles.  When you have to make a rent payment you ask yourself if you can just hang on.  Is my medical problem really that serious?  Do I really hurt that bad?  Can I still eat with a broken tooth?  You know you need your phone so you can keep trying to get a job or be called in to work.  You can work with a broken tooth.  You can work with a cold.

So, money is being poured into the system for the insurers and the majority of the people the insurance is for still won't be able to take advantage of it.  They will still allow their conditions to get to the point where they will have to go to an ER.  Most of their claims will still be denied.  So the end result is that insurers will just be making more money.  Common sense understanding of this situation is reflected in the rapid gains in their stock prices.

Insurers understand this basic poverty math.  That's the reason for the existence of co-pays in the first place.  They are a simple deterrent to keep those living paycheck to paycheck from taking advantage of services.

The more cynical out there, and I would certainly count myself among these, can quickly see the ruse being perpetrated by Republicans in the House of Representatives in their crusade against Obamacare.  Republicans receive much more money in the form of campaign funding from insurers than do Democrats.  So why would this be the case if insurers are set to gain so much from Obamacare?  Why would they be paying those who are fighting against their own best interests?

Well that's easy to explain and immediately recognizable to those who have read the amazing book What's the Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Franks.  The Republicans and their backers know and have known that there aren't enough votes in the Senate to pass any rollback of Obamacare.  They also know that anything that could pass would be vetoed by the president.

So the Republicans in the House can cater to their bases back home with their fight with no danger to the lucrative payout awaiting their real financial backers.

In the meantime the poor, uninsured, underinsured, will still not be getting the care they need and the insurance companies will continue to see record stock prices.  That's why Obamacare is not the answer.  In reality it's nothing more than an entrenchment of the status quo to the benefit of the 1% who know how to game our system like no plutocracy has in the history of mankind.