Navigating the Affordable Care Act many Americans as possible addicted to the subsidies, addicted to the sugar.” Under the new law, individuals with annual incomes below $45,960 and families of four who earn less than $94,200 could qualify for financial assistance. But the law requires that most Americans obtain health insurance by 2014 or pay a tax penalty, which could be $95 per person or 1 percent of an individual’s taxable income. That penalty rises to $325 for an adult in 2015, according to the Obamacare website. It jumps to $695 in 2016. If insurance is unaffordable based on your income, you may qualify for an exemption.
“This is going to change healthcare, the way we deliver it, the way we access it, and that will have an unbelievable impact on community health.” — Gwen O’Shea, president and chief executive officer of The Health and Welfare Council of Long Island
The Long Island business community’s attitude toward Obamacare is mixed. “We should all hope that the Affordable Care Act works and brings healthcare costs down because that’ll be good for business,” says Kevin Law, Long Island Association president and chief executive officer. “A lot of people work just to have their benefits... It’s one of the most significant operational costs for employers.” “Personally, I think it’s unfair,” says Arthur Banks, managing partner of Horizon Health Care Staffing, based in Hicksville. “I think the ACA is essentially an onerous tax on small businesses.” “I don’t think you need a degree in economics to appreciate that Obamacare will result in the collapse of private healthcare as we know it,” says James Metzger, chairman and chief executive officer of The Whitmore Group, 24
an insurance brokerage and financial services firm in Garden City. That viewpoint is not shared by Michael McGuire, chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare of New York and New Jersey. “We expect the majority of employers who are currently offering coverage to their employees to continue with business as usual,” McGuire says. “So, in general, people who get health insurance at work will see no change, and people on Medicare, Medicaid and other government insurance programs also are not likely affected.” As the 2012 presidential campaign was getting underway the White House sounded reluctant to make Obamacare a synonym for the Affordable Care Act, even though it was President Obama’s signature legislative achievement in his first term. But the administration got used to it, and now it’s become a household name. The promise is that nearly half of the Americans who have individual insurance plans will receive assistance averaging $2,672 to purchase plans on the Obamacare marketplace. Obamacare makes it illegal for insurance companies to deny people coverage because of preexisting conditions like cancer. It does allow young adults to stay on their parents’ health insurance until they’re 26 years old. The law grants tax credits to small business owners so they can afford to offer quality health care to their employees. It ends lifetime insurance caps and protects families from going bankrupt just because they get sick. Even though the bill has been signed into law and even passed Constitutional muster by the conservative U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts, opposition to it remains steadfast in Washington, D.C. Before the House Republicans refused to fund the federal government, they’d cast more than 40 meaningless votes against it, knowing that their measure had no chance of passage in the Senate. But that didn’t stop Sen. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, from taking to the floor for 21 hours to filibuster against the law, curiously saying that “Obamacare is the biggest job killer in the country,” as he later repeated on Meet the Press, even before the exchanges opened. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, an
The Future of healthcare on Long Island
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estimated two-thirds of uninsured Americans have full-time jobs—and they could benefit from affordable coverage. Long Island’s lone Republican Congressman, Peter King (R-Seaford), has made clear he doesn’t share Sen. Cruz’s hardline views against Obamacare, calling Cruz “bad for the party.” As King told Fox News Sunday on October 6, “If we want to defund something, we should repeal it, and do it the same way the president got it signed: Elect Republicans to both houses of Congress, repeal it, and have a Republican president sign it.” His opinion did not sway the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party. But there’s always been a strain in American politics that has resisted efforts to ameliorate the health and welfare of millions of people who have inadequate resources, so the current contretemps over Obamacare is not new to our country. In fact, the arguments heard on Capitol Hill today bear the echoes of debates almost a century old. Back in the late 1910s Congress was considering a bill to take what Dr. Sara Josephine Baker of the New York City Health Department had done for the poor women and children of the city and roll it out nationwide with home-visiting programs and maternal and child health clinics. As Helen Epstein recounts in her introduction to a new edition of Baker’s memoir, Fighting for Life, the American Medical Association (AMA) likened the measure to creeping Bolshevism. At a Senate hearing, a doctor from New England took a blunter approach in explaining the AMA’s opposition to the health reform measure, telling Sen. Morris Sheppard (D-TX), the committee chairman, that “We oppose this bill because, if you are going to save the lives of all these women and children at public expense, what inducement will there be for young men to study medicine?” Fortunately our country’s politics have made some progress since then, almost keeping up with the latest medical advances, but there’s still a long way to go to match the best care that other Western democracies dispense routinely to their citizens at much less cost. Obamacare is a start. But it won’t be the end. w w w.healthcareli.com