Obamacare - Hate or Love it

Health Insurance is Changing Because of Obamacare
I've given up on trying to call the health reform enacted during the Obama administration anything but "Obamacare." History may give a different twist to this somewhat misleading moniker. But for now, everyone who encounters any kind of hardship in the field of health care is blaming Obama. He's an easy target. Everyone forgets the opposition he had and the way his intended policy got bent out of shape.

Today, I learned my health insurance provider, Aetna, is "re-branding" with a new logo and snazzy new features aimed at helping me make medical decisions from my smart phone. At least one of these aps, sounds pretty cool. Now I can compare the cost of seeing one health care provider versus another. It's location specific, and I still have to log into AetnaNavigator, the membership online service so clunky it should be called "Aetna Aggravator."

Comparing hospital costs has been a feature of the Medicare site for years but are we to make our decisions based solely on cost? Apparently.

Hate Obamacare?
Well, do you want to return to yesteryear when folks with "pre-existing conditions" couldn't get insurance if they changed insurance carriers or were out of work? Not me. I have a big pre-existing condition called neuroendocrine cancer. Did I hope Obama would push more reforms through the political pipeline? Oh, yes.

I also hoped we would get community clinics that every for-profit hospital and clinic would be required to support and that both wars would be immediately curtailed and our tax money put to better use. I hoped Planned Parenthood would not be de-funded. I hoped for a lot of things but what I got was ending the "pre-existing conditions" clause and that, my friends, is not insignificant.

No charge BC
Today, the White House announced health insurance providers will henceforth be required to provide 100% coverage for contraceptive pills and devices to female policy holders. It's been a while since I needed birth control but hey - I'm happy for my (insured) fertile sisters.

Here's what's hinky.
Health insurance companies are going to make it easier for us to choose cheaper options. Why don't they just pay more for the services of providers like doctors, hospitals, radiology techs, etc? They've been cutting what they pay doctors, etc. so providers are socking us with those miserable "co-pays," which means we have to make up the difference even though we have insurance (paid for by us and our employers at ever-increasing rates.)

The most profitable company in the US in 2010 was United Health Care. So, don't tell me the health insurance folks are going broke. Aetna, my provider paid CEO Mr. Williams,  $72 million in total compensation when he retired last year. That's on top of millions he already earned every year during the five years he was in the top slot.

To get a salary like that, you gotta keep the board of directors happy.
That means they all earn big bucks, too. How did they get that dough? Because everyone who works at Aetna's mid and lower levels has seen a cut in pay or some kind of drop in compensation over the past two years AND the amounts paid to providers has been reduced. You pay less, pocket more.

I haven't tried to find the annual report but even if I did, it would be hard to tell how much the average person at the top of the Aetna heap rakes in. That's what annual reports do. They "report" in such unclear terms that it takes an expert to get at the truth. They wouldn't report at all if the feds didn't make them do it.

Enough greed to go around
Here's what's happening while we dink around on our smart phones trying to find a cheaper way to get scanned and treated: the price of every tablet, every chair in the docs' waiting rooms, every drop of saline in every IV drip, is soaring out of sight. It has nothing to do with Obamacare. That's just the way it is in a profit-driven system. You can charge whatever the market will bear.

I don't know about you but I can't really bear any more. Maybe if I could get 1/72nd of Mr. Williams' "golden parachute..."