Single payer visions

We’re beginning to learn what Senator Edward Kennedy’s secret meetings with key health insurance industry stakeholders have been creating in their vision for universal health coverage.

If you want to keep your health care separate from your job, you will no longer have that choice, according to reports of the plan’s 170-page draft. Employers would be required to provide health care to employees or be penalized. Step #1 to a single-payer government managed national health plan.

If you want to self-insure or receive care from independently-practicing doctors, you will no longer have that choice. Every American would be forced to buy health insurance or be penalized through their income taxes and the penalties would be collected by the Internal Revenue Service. As the Washington Post reports, this mandate provision will guarantee 20 million more customers for the insurance industry.

If you want to spend your money on a traditional type of insurance plan that insures against major medical expenses or that offers specific coverage you feel is best for you, you will no longer have that choice, according to reports of the plan. You would have to buy a plan that complies with the stipulations determined by a new government “Medical Advisory Council” under the auspices of the Health and Human Services Department. Plans would be required to cover certain preventive services. It is not health insurance, but managed care with compulsory preventive interventions.

In true doublespeak, the plan is called the American Health Choices Act.