Megapolis Insurance

By any measure, last week was a big one for the future of individual health insurance reform. It started with a federal judge in Florida ruling the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) unconstitutional. Just two days later the U.S. Senate, unlike the House, voted down an effort to repeal the not-quite-one-year-old law. But a vote in the North Carolina House last week illustrates that the states will be just as important a battleground for health care reform over the next couple of years. North Carolina House members voted to try to block the requirement that citizens buy health insurance coverage. And, Florida has announced it will cease implementation of the health care law until the lawsuits are decided — likely by the U.S. Supreme Court. The process of refining or even reshaping federal health care reform is likely to go on for years. <

Read more…

Health insurance reform will inevitably add to the already unsustainable federal deficit. In addition, it will prove impossible for the government to create and establish a more efficient system than the one now in place.

These are some of the arguments of more than a dozen states that have filed lawsuits. The lawsuits challenge the constitutionality of the reform. Their arguments also include that the government should not force citizens to buy health insurance.

It will be several years before the reforms take effect, and opponents are trying to ensure that they never will.

But significant improvements have already been made and insurers are also moving into compliance ahead of schedule. New rules forbid insurance companies from denying coverage to children, young adults can now stay on their guardians’ policies until age 26, and setting a lifetime limit on benefits will be banned soon.

Let’s not forget the true objective and that is to reduce costs. The Obama administration  must demonstrate that reforms will eventually bring down costs. This is the true test.