I couldn't believe my ears. Secretary Price spoke some weird language*, not English, but sadly it is a language we have heard before. Try to catch him in the utterance of one truth, or even in something that isn't just sad soundbites about how the new health care system will give all Americans their choices back**, away from the nasty Washington, DC, elites. Those choices, of course, depend on the consumers having enough money to pay for good policies. If that's not the case, there's always the choice to suffer and even to die of treatable conditions.
That is one frightening interview, especially given this:
HHS Secretary Tom Price gets enormous new power over healthcare standards and even state budgets. The essence of the amended bill’s bait-and-switch structure is the creation of several slush funds to moderate the costs to states of various repeal provisions, especially the drastic cutback in Medicaid funding.
Those slush funds, however, would come under the control of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. A known enemy of Medicaid and of expanding healthcare services for women and the needy, Price would have the authority to apportion those funds as he wishes, favoring some states over others because of their politics and policies, for example.
As former Medicare/Medicaid chief Andy Slavitt observes, there are no rules or standards guiding Price’s hand — he could dole out all the money to red states or pull funding from others at will. The money doesn’t have to go to services for low-income people or to replace lost Medicaid funding. He could shortchange states that require health plans to cover abortion — such as California and New York.
“The bill is a giant ‘Trust Tom Price’ bill,” Slavitt tweeted. And even if the money is apportioned responsibly, it’s not enough: The total in the slush funds, Slavitt calculates, would restore barely 10% of the cuts in Medicaid.
That LAT article is worth reading in its entirety.
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* A "feel-good" language, promising everyone a paradise, while the whole proposal will be tax cuts for the wealthy and worse care for older consumers, anyone with pre-existing conditions or anyone currently on Medicaid.
** The term "choice" in the health care context is almost preposterous. Very few consumers have the training and skills to determine what kind of care they need, which provider is the cheapest but of acceptable quality, or which health insurance policy best matches their future risk profiles. Then there's the hidden second meaning of "choice" here, which has to do with withdrawing funding and letting people try to decide how they can avoid medical bankruptcy.