This is my first diary, so I expect I'll do some things wrong. Anyway, I felt a major issue should be addressed. Mandates have been a long-running issue and their justification would be that it would be too costly otherwise to cover people with pre-existing conditions. I believe that is not true and I think I can show why. I think we are being repeatedly punished to the benefit of the corporate lobbyists.
The House has already established it would set aside $5 billion dollars to pay for pre-existing conditions until the insurance companies have to as the amount the insurance companies would otherwise have to pay. Let's be generous and say it was $5 to $10 billion per year. This cost estimate is before there are no mandates. So it would cost $100 billion to the insurance industries over 10 years.
Now with the Dorgan amendment the CBO showed that it would save the public $100 billion (the non-government budget side of the savings) over 10 years. That works out to $10 billion per year.
So if covering pre-existing conditions costs $10 billion per year and Dorgan saves $10 billion per year, you've got a wash. Pre-existing conditions can be covered without requiring mandates by delivering cost savings from elsewhere. It could in fact be a profit for both the insured as well as the insurers if it costs less than $10 billion per year to cover pre-existing conditions...like I said, what Congress is doing now is funding pre-existing conditions for way less than $10 billion per year as part of the current legislation.
Remember HCR was called a crisis because of the costs, so there was a need to bend the curve. Right now with all the deals that were cut with the healthcare industry the curve isn't being bent (actually HHS says the curve is being bent the wrong way), so we are getting penalized multiple times over so that the healthcare industry wont have to take a hit.
Let's say my underlying analysis is wrong on the cost savings. The current Senate bill purports to reduce the deficit by $130 billion over 10 years ($13 billion per year), which if the cost is $10 billion per year to cover pre-existing conditions, this can be done while still leaving the bill as budget neutral per the CBO.