Health Reform- To Repeal or Not To Repeal

The emotions created by the election rhetoric are moving full-steam ahead. One of the mantras of the Republicans is to “Repeal Obamacare.” The Democrats are scared stiff and refuse to discuss anything that hints toward “bigger government”- thus, they aren’t even bringing up health care reform. Word has it that consumers/citizens are fed up with it anyway and have shut down. Big mistake if that’s what happened. Consumers/citizens need to get involved and need to be informed now more than ever. Not fixing health care (with PPACA or not) will only lead to an economic calamity even worse than the housing/mortgage crisis we’re trying to dig out of today.

So, what do American health care consumers want?

We know we need to fix what we have. The costs are unsustainable, the quality is irregular, the access is spotty, and, quite simply, too many Americans are being hurt (financially and otherwise) by the system we have today.

By all measures, we’re divided in our support of what was produced by Congress earlier in the year (PPACA). It’s safe to say most are not really familiar with the “big picture” with what was produced in the first place. The strategy and purpose of what our country needed to fix was overrun by politics and emotions. The fear of “big government” has become the prominent message as opposed to the proper message of fixing one of the major issues facing us as a nation and protecting the economic foundation of this country.

Most Americans are not familiar with the details of the legislation and have been influenced by the loudest talking points (I would argue that most of our legislators are not all that familiar either). And yet, we hear the message to “repeal Obamacare because that is what the public wants". Is it really what the public wants or is it that the Republicans simply want to stick-it to the Democrats?

Kaiser Family Foundation recently completed an informal analysis of eight major polls completed over the past month asking Americans whether they favored repealing the legislation we have today. They found the results were all over the board ranging from a high of 51% in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, to a low of 26% in the September, 2010 Kaiser Tracking Poll. They determined the results were dependent upon how the questions were worded and where the questions were placed (as we all learned in Marketing Research 101).

A Bloomberg Poll completed in early October found consumers support (>70%) protection for high-risk individuals, eliminating pre-existing condition restrictions of insurance companies, and eliminating the Medicare prescription drug doughnut-hole as part of any reform initiative. They would like to get rid of the tax on employers for “generous” benefit plans and are uncertain of the individual mandate requirement.

There is no doubt that the PPACA is cumbersome, complex, and has been communicated extremely poorly. Many, many items in the law could be improved. We would have hoped the legislative process could fix what doesn’t make sense and keep what does. Unfortunately, with the way we are polarized today that’s not going to happen. This is a war between Republican and Democrat, nothing else.

If the Republicans are going to continue to call for a full repeal of the law (Michelle Bachmann) they had better have an alternative to replace it. They are only contributing to the confusion of the individual consumer by promoting their position today- and we need the consumer/public to be on board of anything is going to work.

One alternative is Republican Representative Paul Ryan’s, “A Roadmap for America’s Future; Version 2.0.” Ironically it includes many of the items already included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as part of his health care solution- there are parts of the legislation where both sides agree.

I guess even if you agree with it, it just depends from which side of the aisle you are on to determine if “Repeal Obamacare” is part of your mantra or not.

And, it’s a sorry state of affairs for the American people and no wonder we’re confused