After hearing all the horror stories about HealthCare.gov, I decided to use California’s exchange site, CoveredCa.com. I must say, it worked well, although it had an annoying habit of asking certain questions over and over again. (I’ve had this problem with websites before. Somebody needs to explain to web designers that it’s only necessary to ask a question once.) Within a matter of minutes I had applied for coverage. Not bad.
So how is it that the State of California, which has its own proud history of corruption and incompetence, was able to do a better job of the roll-out than the federal government was? The Obama Administration had over two years to prepare for this, and they did a lousy job. Perhaps this is a sign that Obama has never really cared about the health care crisis in this country. When he ran for president, he was pressured to come up with a health care proposal, so he opted for an idea that the Republicans came up with to try to derail calls for single payer. No doubt he decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to call for Medicare for All, and besides, that wasn’t what the insurance industry wanted.
The Spanish Prisoner 
November 23, 2013 at 4:08 pm |
i’ve applied for coverage here in maryland, although i used the downloadable pdf file, so i’m still waiting to hear back from them. the two main concerns i have about obamacare are:
1. i don’t want my health care to be treated like its just another commodity. however, since the whole thing relies on market mechanisms, that’s just what will happen. of course, this is so much of what capitalism is all about–to commodify as much of human existence as possible.and frankly, i feel that health care and education, especially higher education, are going to be the next big financial bubbles. oh, well, it’s the service economy, right?
2. in order to maintain what they claim is the necessary level of profitability, the insurance industry which controls the conditions under which health care is delivered, has created what are called “narrow networks” for the recipients of obamacare. what this means in practice is that there are a smaller number of doctors and hospitals that will accept us as patients, unless, of course, we are prepared to pay exorbitant out-of-network fees. it’s not an open access system. and, i’m afraid that along with a host of other factors it will play a role in further entrenching a two-tier society. we will either be seen as “welfare queens” or “the deserving poor.” in fact, i myself have already encountered both attitudes in casual conversation with people.
all of this leads to the biggest problem with obamacare. it doesn’t make health care a fundamental right, in the same way that i have an inalienable right to freedom of speech, or how (in theory at least) my person is protected from unreasonable search-and-seizure. in fact, at the moment, it’s little more than an obligation to fill out one more wonky computer form.
November 24, 2013 at 8:07 am |
You make some good points. Obamacare will result in more people getting insurance, but it doesn’t address the fundamental problem of the commoditization of health care, and it may even make the problem even worse.