So, What’s In It For Us?
By Dave Chase, Managing Editor
Last week, President Obama signed into law the first comprehensive health care bill in this nation’s history. Despite what many on the right say, the new law is not a radical socialist take-over of health care. In fact, the new law is a moderate, middle of the road approach to reform that hardly affects our health care system but makes great changes to our health insurance system.
We know the law will cover some 32 Million uninsured Americans in the next decade and will immediately help senior citizens by closing the Medicare prescription drug loop hole but what is in it for us college students?
First and foremost, beginning in September anyone under 26 may stay on their parents’ insurance, regardless of educational status. Currently, dependents are cut off from their parent’s health care at age 22. This has huge immediate implications for the thousands of recent college graduates who cannot find a job in the poor economy and have been struggling to pay for health insurance premiums. The new rule removes a huge burden on graduates looking for the best place to start their career.
Second, the law will offer subsidies on a graduated scale for those whose income falls between 100% and 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) beginning in 2014. In 2014, many St. Mary’s students will be a few years into the work force or have just graduated. As such, they will likely fall into that income range and be eligible for subsidies (assuming they do not stick with their parents insurance).
Third and most importantly, the reform will bring down health care costs, the Federal deficit and the Maryland State deficit. Given the long range growth projects for health care spending, college students today will face higher taxes, higher premiums and fewer benefits 10 to 20 years from now.
I don’t mean to sound cliché or naive when I say that what is good for all of us is good for each of us but in this case it is very true. Health care costs threaten to crowd out all other government spending both at the federal and state levels. Just as importantly, health care costs choke small businesses and impede large business growth.
This will not be the last time we reform health care. The new laws will address coverage by covering nearly 97% of U.S. Citizens. However, the new laws do not completely address the two other most important aspects of our health care industry, costs and care.
The laws will likely bring down the growth rate of health care spending a bit but will not bring down costs themselves. This will buy us some more time but not ultimately solve our problem.
More importantly, these reforms do not address our fee-for-service health delivery system that costs more and yields worst results. When we look to countries like France and England who have implemented systems that pay doctors based on outcomes not services, they have lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, hypertension and obesity (four of the five most expensive illnesses to treat). Not to mention those countries spend on average 10% of their annual GDP to cover 100% of their citizens. Compare that to the U.S. where we spend 16% of our annual GDP to cover just 85% of our citizens.
The health care reform recently signed into law takes huge steps forward for college students and the nation as a whole. However, we cannot allow the success of this effort delay or diminish our larger effort to truly solve all of our health care problems.