Letters to the Editor
SueNJ97
Published Letters: 125 Editor's Choice: 2
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What is 'gaming the system'?
[Read the article: Campaign wrap]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Please forgive me if someone else has discussed this, I didn't get all the way through the letters. A few people have asked what is meant by 'gaming the system' and which people would essentially have to pay back premiums if they decided to try to get coverage under an Obama plan after discovering a pre-existing condition.
It's my understanding that this would encompass a fair part of one of his core constituencies, young professionals under 30. It's not that they can't get health care through their employers, many are offered it. It's that they are currently healthy, the plans offered tend to have deductables of, at minimum, $500 and more often, $1,000, and their calculation is that they will have medical expenses under that amount, perhaps none, and so they don't want to have any amount deducted from their pay to buy the insurance.
Also, they know that if they get the insurance and go to a doctor with it, until they meet the deductable, they have to pay the co-pay, and, if they go back a second time, the doctor will demand payment for the amount that the insurance didn't cover from the first time, plus the co-pay for the second time, before treating them again. In many cases, it's not that they don't have the money. It's that they wish to spend it elsewhere. They 'game' the system by using the emergency room, the most expensive form of health care available, telling the ER they have no insurance and cannot pay. The ER may send them a bill, but, if they come back again, it cannot demand payment from them before treating them again. The cost passes to everyone else in the system. If it goes on their credit report, so what?
Note that I am not talking about people who actually cannot afford insurance and are forced to go to the emergency room as their health providor option. I am talking about a set of people, many of whom are Obama's most vociferous supporters, who have deliberately chosen not to get insurance, don't want to buy it, and use the ERs, driving up costs throughout the system. Then, when they do need insurance, due to a pre-existing condition, it's unlikely they could get it under the current system. You need to be insured already. Under Obama's plan, they could buy in at that point, when they 'gamed the system' before.
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Addition to 'Gaming the system'
[Read the article: Campaign wrap]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One additional item: if the insurance is offered through their employers they could probably get coverage after a pre-existing condition is discoverd, but, it is very unlikely that the condition itself would be covered, which would be the big reason for getting coverage. Maybe someone who is more familiar with these things could weigh in?
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Tax Returns and other issues
[Read the article: Obama spokesman goes after Clinton on tax returns]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Didn't Hillary Clinton get a multi-million dollar book ($8M?) advance and then have a best-selling book for quite a while? I'm not sure whether that was brought up before but personally, I'm not surprised that she has some money of her own besides the Senate salary to loan the campaign. Her husband paid off their debts through his speaking fees and his book advance - she could do whatever she wanted with that money and if she even left it to sit accumulating interest somewhere (which I doubt, she probably invested it and got a decent return) she'd have her own money to lend the campaign.
I'm an independent who supported Edwards and I'll vote for whoever gets the Democratic nomination, since I'd rather not see McCain get to appoint more Alitos, etc., and I'd like to see the war end sometime in my lifetime. However, as someone who deosn't exactly have a dog in this race, other than the fact that Clinton's healthcare proposal is closer to Edwards', I would like to point out something here. If Clinton suggested, even in response to a question from a reporter, that Obama should do something she had done, that the rules did not require yet, even if something he or his campaign had done made it seem that it might make sense for him to do it, every Obama supporter would be calling her everything under the sun. Do you see where I'm coming from here? Yes, I know, there have been other fights about the rules. But, Obama supporters tend to retreat to the rules whenever there is a disagreement, and the rules say she doesn't have to release.
As for the discussion about Obama's mother, this actually reminds me of something that came up when Bill Clinton ran in 1992. Which is what makes it so disturbing, on many levels - not because it should matter to anyone whether she was one or not, who cares, but because it probably will, just the accusation, to many Republicans. Remember when they said the fact that Bill went to the former Soviet Union made him a Communist agent, or even a Communist? I went to two former Communist countries when I was studying abroud in the 1980s. I was furious, I felt as if they were attacking me personally. People actually believed this crap. It's sad and it should stop, but I doubt it will stop the Republicans.