Going all the way back to May of 2010, it was already apparent why healthcare was failing and really, it wasn’t the system but rather a lack of leadership. Across the board, any plan instituted by government of the past eight years came to a screeching, failing halt because each lacked the leadership necessary to make them work.
In looking at healthcare as we know it today, it is no more affordable than it was prior to the Affordable Care Act and in many cases, much less affordable due to high premiums and even higher deductibles and co-pays. This is why healthcare is failing, but these issues are the direct result of something even more pervasive, a lack of leadership.
Today’s students in health care law programs at Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University are being educated to be leaders that will devise and institute changes that bring healthcare to the masses without forcing the masses to pay for services they will never get. In theory, Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) sounds good.
People with pre-existing conditions get coverage and everyone needs to buy into a plan or they will be penalized come tax time. In other words, you pay or you don’t play. That isn’t really so bad when you think of all the millions of hospital bills which go unpaid each year but instead of making it better, Obamacare has made it worse! Great leaders would be able to help write health law and policy that made sense. We don’t have enough of those leaders yet, but the day is coming!
The reason why hospitals around the country are losing money in even greater amounts than before the institution of the ACA is the fact that deductibles must be met before the insurance will kick in. With deductibles set as high as $5k to $6k, what average worker can afford that? Bear in mind that at minimum wage, that is just about 25% of his or her annual salary and the high cost of those premiums on top of that, you are looking at a person paying more than a third of his or her pay to healthcare?
That is untenable to say the least. A great leader would never have sanctioned that. And great leaders with a healthcare law degree did speak out against it but their numbers were too few to go against the powers that be in D.C. and the lobbyists for major insurance providers.
It’s a different story today as new leadership is about to take the Oval Office and new leaders are being raised up to be well versed in healthcare law and policy. Whether Obamacare is repealed or simply fixed is anyone’s guess at this moment, but it is the hope of hospitals, doctors and consumers alike that something really affordable will take its place so that medical bills will get paid without draining the pockets of the blue collar worker and adding to the bad debt that keeps piling up at hospitals around the land. True leadership can put an end to this and that is the hope for the future.
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