Day 5 of 206- reading the Senate Health Care Bill
Ok, I am back on the saddle. I’d explain why I couldn’t get to this for a week but it would be too boring.
Pages 65-76
Begins to outline the rules for implementing the plan.
The part I find funny… “The Secretary shall adopt operating rules under this subsection… having ensured consultation with providers.” Does this mean that the government is supposed to consult with us health care ‘providers’ before implementing the bill? I don’t recall getting a survey in the mail. Maybe that’s not what this phrase means.
(By the way, don’t call me a ‘provider’. I am a clinician, as are my physician, nurse practitioner, and physician assistant colleagues. We do more than ‘provide’ health care. We bring our skills and experience to your unique person and evaluate complex information to make the best clinical decisions. We are clinicians.)
Section B says that participating plans can require the use of a “machine readable identification card.” Also allows for automatic debit to pay premiums.
Gives deadlines for health plans to provide documentation that they are compliant with the rules established by the Secretary and the chosen non-profit rule-making organization. It is not clear in what form the health plan will have to provide this documentation.
Also gives the Secretary the power to contract with outside entities to ensure that these insurance companies comply and provide adequate documentation, and sets up a plan for auditing the companies as well.
Here the government is given the power to demand documentation from health plans, and could also create or contract with another bureaucracy to ensure compliance. A bureaucracy to monitor the bureaucracy!
Establishes a fee for noncompliant health plans. Any plan not in compliance will be fined $1 per “covered life” per day until they become compliant.
The fee increases each year in correspondence to the increase of the total national health expeditures. The maximum fee is $20 per person/per day.
So far this bill continues to follow the theme of expansion of bureaucracy and increased government control.
Today’s bone: left temporal
