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i haven't much addressed Biden's healthcare plan b/c, 1, he hardly offers it; 2, what he does offer is so stupid that analyzing it feels like playing poker against a dog. his is a plan with no new or useful ideas, no fix for what's broken, no relief, no vision, no hope, no future
Anyone who tells you that Biden's healthcare plan is worth an ant's fart either is getting paid to say so, thinks you're stupid, or has the mental fortitude of a goldfish. Or, likely, all three.
There are two core issues in US health finance: cost & coverage. Biden offers no plans whatsoever as far as containing cost--his is weaker than even Buttigieg--and his campaign estimate is that he can cover 98% of Americans. Covering 98% is like playing a sidekick in your dreams.
Even his public option is born to lose: he won't commit to letting it negotiate at Medicare prices, instead saying it'll negotiate "like how Medicare does." Horse shit. Vague, empty nonsense -- all to benefit the healthcare corporations whose stocks shot up after Super Tuesday.
I'm sorry, I misspoke. Biden claims he can cover 97% of Americans. That leaves 10 million people, more than the population of NYC, uninsured.
Biden's wild healthcare fantasy includes "capping" a person who makes $50,000's healthcare premiums at $4300 a year. That's just the admission fee--that doesn't include any of the costs of actually _using_ that insurance plan.
Biden's byzantine "premium-free public option," designed to replace Medicaid expansion, contains a paradox: you can't automatically enroll someone in something if you have to means-test them first. If it were that easy, Medicaid/CHIP would have perfect enrollment.
Similar to the 400% FPL capping plan are Biden's measures for "cost reduction." Again, each of these focuses on premium costs--the fee for getting insurance, not using it or seeking healthcare. I have to wonder if Biden even knows the difference between a premium and a deductible
In fact, I doubt Biden knows how _any_ of this works. A public option that takes the hit whenever someone gets sick, but which reaps none of the benefits of having a broad, healthy patient base, is exactly how you build a public option that dies at birth. https://twitter.com/AllOnMedicare/status/1235714429850988545
Out-of-network billing is as much an _insurer_ problem as it is a _provider_ problem. Networks are built by insurers! If you're going to compel a hospital to charge a lower rate to a person who isn't insured, why not use that power to cost-set across the market? Stupid
You simply cannot claim that healthcare is a right for all people if you don't have a plan to make sure all people are covered. Biden's not even pretending his plan will try to attain universal coverage.
The thing about healthcare costs is that they're transient. Some years you get hit by a car or fall off a ladder or have a complicated pregnancy and have huge medical costs. Some years you don't. We all take our turn dancing in the fountain of misery
Some years you get so sick you have to choose between staying alive or going into debt. Some years you're just unlucky. Some years you're one of Biden's 10 million uninsured.
Biden's healthcare plan is asking us all to bank on the idea that we're all going to be the lucky ones forever--and offers no relief to us when we, inevitably, fall into the pit. It is not a plan. It is a gambler's desperate fantasy.
Biden's healthcare plan, with its fixation on deductibles and refusal to address the costs of actually using healthcare, wouldn't even prevent him from nearly needing to sell his own house when his son got cancer in the early Obama years. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/12/joe-biden-barack-obama-money-house-beau-family
