Confused about health care reform?
Here's a write-down of something I wrote for my local newspaper, the KevinMD blog and this blog in 2009. It's about Romneycare, the Massachusetts version of the Affordable Care Act. Except for some minor updating, everything still holds:
We weren’t sure we liked the idea of mandatory universal health care when it was first presented to the people of Massachusetts. We worried about reduced care, higher bills, and all the other things you worry about when you’re facing change.
Here’s what has happened to us as a result of mandatory, universal health care:
• We are still on the same insurance plan.
• We still go to the same doctors.
• We’re still on the same medications.
• We still use the same pharmacy.
• All other medical facilities we use – imaging labs, hospitals, blood testing labs, physical therapy -- have not changed.
• As far as we can tell, our insurance premiums have not changed or have changed slightly ($5, maybe, per month).
• We both have increased our weekly exercise, in part, because our insurance now encourages prevention by paying a nice benefit for going to the gym.
• We feel more comfortable being in crowds at the grocery store, movie theaters, or in close quarters at the barber shop and hair salon, knowing everyone there has access to health care. That means everyone we deal with is less likely to be spreading infectious disease than they were three years ago.
•This program has been in effect almost three years. As far as we can tell, the world has not come to an end.
And that’s the truth.
See today's New York Times for the truth behind claims about Obamacare.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/opinion/keller-five-obamacare-myths.html
Here's a write-down of something I wrote for my local newspaper, the KevinMD blog and this blog in 2009. It's about Romneycare, the Massachusetts version of the Affordable Care Act. Except for some minor updating, everything still holds:
We weren’t sure we liked the idea of mandatory universal health care when it was first presented to the people of Massachusetts. We worried about reduced care, higher bills, and all the other things you worry about when you’re facing change.
Here’s what has happened to us as a result of mandatory, universal health care:
• We are still on the same insurance plan.
• We still go to the same doctors.
• We’re still on the same medications.
• We still use the same pharmacy.
• All other medical facilities we use – imaging labs, hospitals, blood testing labs, physical therapy -- have not changed.
• As far as we can tell, our insurance premiums have not changed or have changed slightly ($5, maybe, per month).
• We both have increased our weekly exercise, in part, because our insurance now encourages prevention by paying a nice benefit for going to the gym.
• We feel more comfortable being in crowds at the grocery store, movie theaters, or in close quarters at the barber shop and hair salon, knowing everyone there has access to health care. That means everyone we deal with is less likely to be spreading infectious disease than they were three years ago.
•This program has been in effect almost three years. As far as we can tell, the world has not come to an end.
And that’s the truth.
See today's New York Times for the truth behind claims about Obamacare.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/16/opinion/keller-five-obamacare-myths.html
