Scott Walker is hiding health care coverage info. from a publically funded report...

[midnight]

The report is that the new law will result in 340,000 uninsured Wisconsinites gaining coverage.


In late August Gov. Scott Walker's two leading health care officials, Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith and Insurance Commissioner Ted Nickel, released a report at a closed "by invitation only" media briefing purporting to show that the new national health care reform law would have a negative impact on Wisconsin's health insurance market. The release did not involve the primary author of the study, health care economist Jonathan Gruber of MIT, whose firm received a $400,000 federally funded contract to do the research.

In addition to the secretive way in which the publicly funded research was released, Smith and Nickel attempted to bury many of the most important findings in the report in order to create a negative impression of the new health care reform law. The single most significant finding in Gruber's report is that the new law will result in 340,000 uninsured Wisconsinites gaining coverage. This is not mentioned in the Walker administration's news release and was only discussed in the last slide of the presentation.

Smith and Nickel also gave a slanted account of the impact of health care reform on Wisconsin individual and small group health insurance markets, focusing entirely on premium increases that will hit some people. They did not highlight report findings that showed Wisconsinites who buy insurance on their own will receive $729 million in federal subsidies to make health insurance more affordable and that 41% will receive significant premium reductions averaging 56%. They also did not highlight the finding that 47% of Wisconsin small employers will see premium reductions averaging 16% or that most small employers who provide health coverage to their employees will continue to do so.

Instead, Smith and Nickel focused on those who would pay more in the short term because health care reform forces the insurance industry to end discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, age and gender, and requires higher quality coverage. In the current health insurance market, individuals and small groups of younger and healthier people get lower rates because the insurance industry discriminates against others and because it often sells substandard policies that do not meet new national consumer standards. Insurers can deny coverage, charge discriminatory rates or add exclusionary riders for policyholders with pre-existing conditions. Ending this discrimination will cause some individuals who are fortunate enough to get a low premium in the current system to pay higher premiums in the short term, but in return they will get a guarantee of higher quality coverage.http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/128844493.html

[Yon_Yonson]

1. Looking up dictionary definition of flimflam man and their was Herr Walker’s picture

:hurts: