Dig the title of L.A. Times article: New Healthcare Law Is Full of Unknowns.
Because "unknown" is precisely the term you would want to use in describing the law of the land that will effect the healthcare of every man, woman and child in this country.
About the only thing Dr. Philip Schwarzman can be sure of under the national healthcare overhaul is that he is adding his daughters, ages 23 and 25, to his health plan immediately.
Much less clear to Schwarzman is how the sweeping law will affect the emergency department at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, where he is medical director.
"It's incredibly complicated," said the white-haired physician, whose department sees 50,000 patients a year. "It's hard to predict what's going to happen."
That pretty well sums up the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Potential effects of the law, passed last month, can be described as profound and prosaic, obvious and unknowable.
Some of its most complex and far-reaching changes won't take effect for years, including the requirement that, by 2014, all Americans have health insurance. But the law also contains immediate changes, such as the one allowing parents to add or keep dependent children up to age 26 on their health insurance policies.
"Little is certain" "Process of discovery" "Much less clear" "incredibly complicated" "hard to predict" "profound" "unknowable" "complex and far-reaching changes"
More appropriate for health care reform or a poorly organized church youth group scavenger hunt?
The article goes on to talk about something called the "doughnut hole" in the Medicare Part D drug plan whereby there is a break in coverage after enrollees spend $2,830 on meds and doesn't kick back in until annual spending hits $6,440. There will be a $250 rebate this year and a 50% discount on brand drugs for people who fall into this hole. Kind of sounds like a big deal, doesn't it? Kind of sounds like something important that would've been nice to know while this monstrosity was being put together.
We're wondering just how many people are aware of this "doughnut hole" even now. Oh boy, they'll find out soon enough, though.
Nancy Pelosi is turning out to be even more prophetic than previously thought. We will find out what all is in this bill after it's passed.
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2 comments:
We're like a myopic mouse that just set in motion a Rube Goldberg machine so large that we can only see about 10% of it clearly. Whether it will end with us getting lots of cheese or us getting smashed by a falling safe, only time will tell.
Isn't this fun?
Reminds me of Rumsfeld's being mocked for talking about the known knows and the unkown unkonws. Nobody read the damn bill of course it's full of 'em!
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