Canthook

There are more and more ads on the local TV stations.

This one, from the Service Employees International Union, was on the 11 PM WGAL news. According to their website, the SEIU thinks that health care can be a deciding issue for undecided voters.

Pennsylvania is one of two states the ad started running in today. While it's oriented to working families - McCain's health care tax only applies to people who get health insurance as a benefit - it probably works well with retirees, as well. Only Florida has a higher percentage of retired folk than Pennsylvania.

And if retirees get Medicare instead of employer-paid health insurance, the ability of others to pay for health care affects the ability of senior citizens to get good health care. I've heard a number of older Pennsylvanians express concern that some ob/gyn specialists have relocated to other states over the cost of malpractice insurance. Baby-cotching is a particularly sensitive area for malpractice, because an error in delivering a child can have life-long consequences - and juries are sympathetic to the parents of injured babies.

Seniors are more likely to know about the "health insurance death spiral", which is a drawback to McCain's health care plans. How it works is this: As time goes on, people in a given plan get sick, and the cost to insure them rises. The insurance company sets up a new plan, offering cheaper rates, and healthy members of the old plan decide to switch to the new plan.

Those who have developed conditions, however, cannot get accepted by the new plan, so all that's left in the old plan are people who are costly to insure, and the rates rise for that plan. As rates rise, more and more people find the costs of that plan too high for their conditions, and they drop out, reducing the plan to sicker and sicker individuals over time. Eventually, the company drops that plan altogether.

Normally, this is something practiced by the commercial health insurance plans. You've surely heard the ads on television that say "you cannot be singled out for a rate increase" or "rates are guaranteed". The death spiral is one trick they use to avoid insuring you if you become an unprofitable customer. On the other hand, it's not just the commercial companies. In the 1980s, my in-laws lost their coverage with Blue Cross - Blue Shield of Indiana when that organization dropped a plan. It made a big stink in the news, because many people in rural Indiana are self-employed, farmers and such, many of them had that particular plan.

The three great lies: "the check is in the mail", "I'll respect you in the morning", and "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
health care - John McCain - malpractice - retirees - taxes