On Deck : Government Universal Health Care

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

The whole idea behind requiring folks to buy insurance is to get those folks paying into the system the whole time and not just waiting until they're probably about to need it.

Those of you opposed to the idea, would you support a system where you chose whether or not you wanted to buy the insurance...but if you went for some time without it you would have to pay to pay a significant startup fee (a means of collecting the money you didn't pay in) once you decided you wanted coverage going forward?

That system should be plenty amenable to you, I would think. If you don't ever want the insurance (like not putting a car on the road), you aren't out one red cent.

The problem with what you're suggesting is that you couldn't set the premium high enough and collect it, in most instances. For example, let's say that a 50 year old develops prostate cancer. He hasn't had health insurance for 20 years. Are you going to charge him 20 years of premiums in one lump sum? Of course not. He couldn't pay it. And even if you did, that still would have to be a lump sum that exceeded the value of the 20 years of premiums, because of the time value of money. So in that instance, the government would step in and subsidize him, since they have prohibited the insurance company from barring him for a pre-existing condition.

I think a more reasonable solution would have been (and is) to call welfare by its real name, and simply expand the eligibility parameters for government programs like Medicaid and CHIP. That would help those who truly cannot afford health insurance to do so. Instead, a bunch of people who don't need or want complete coverage will be forced to purchase it under the auspices that they are "paying into the system". Of course, it will be impossible to collect enough to pay for health care this way, which means that they will either: a) reduce benefits, b) increase taxes on top of the mandated health insurance premiums to subsidize "the system", or c) (the most likely outcome) both.

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

I think a more reasonable solution would have been (and is) to call welfare by its real name, and simply expand the eligibility parameters for government programs like Medicaid and CHIP. That would help those who truly cannot afford health insurance to do so.

Why did they not take this tack?

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

I think a more reasonable solution would have been (and is) to call welfare by its real name, and simply expand the eligibility parameters for government programs like Medicaid and CHIP. That would help those who truly cannot afford health insurance to do so. Instead, a bunch of people who don't need or want complete coverage will be forced to purchase it under the auspices that they are "paying into the system". Of course, it will be impossible to collect enough to pay for health care this way, which means that they will either: a) reduce benefits, b) increase taxes on top of the mandated health insurance premiums to subsidize "the system", or c) (the most likely outcome) both.

Certainly that would have been a more reasonable solution but only if you were not coming at the problem wanting to have the government control all healthcare in the first place. That is what was wanted.

Actually what will really occur is that they will continue to squeeze insurance companies until they get out...then the guvment will step in and provide the single-payer that they want in the first place. The first step is to get something passed, then begin to change it.

[GermanDunk]

Why is Obama using 20 pens to sign this bill ?

[dalmations202]

Just a note from the parts about ownership of land.

No one in the US owns land. You can only lease it from the government.

Don't believe me -- just stop paying the taxes on it for a few years, and see who takes it.

Think you own it, wait till a Township decides that you belong in their town and they annex your property -- without consent -- then put their rules to you, even fining you if you don't comply.

Think you own land - try to build a huge lake on it. Government will come in and fine you because you have slowed down the water that used to run off the land.
Think you own land - oil companies who own the mineral rights can come on your land and take the oil from under it without your permission, and just give you the 1/8 landowner amount.
Think you own land - just keep thinking -- you don't own anything that any group with POWER - be it government, municipal, large company, etc can't take AWAY anytime they want to.
That is without the rights of imminent domain.
--------------------------------------------------

This healthcare bill just deteriorated a few more of your "rights" and set this country a little closer to having to have a different "government". How close we are is debatable.

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Why did they not take this tack?

I think dude answered this -- because they wanted government control over the entire industry.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by GermanDunk

Why is Obama using 20 pens to sign this bill ?

He will give one to each representative and senator that he bribed to get them to pass it.

[GermanDunk]

Originally Posted by dude1394

He will give one to each representative and senator that he bribed to get them to pass it.

*ing politics. Maybe you are right.

btw. Who is going to finance that stuff. Only taxpayers or do the corporations pay their share either ?

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

I think dude answered this -- because they wanted government control over the entire industry.

Control, or regulation?

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Control, or regulation?

government wants to control.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin

government wants to control.

Merriam-Webster agrees...

gov·ern : to exercise continuous sovereign authority over; especially : to control and direct the making and administration of policy in : to rule without sovereign power and usually without having the authority to determine basic policy

[Rhylan]

Originally Posted by GermanDunk

*ing politics. Maybe you are right.

btw. Who is going to finance that stuff. Only taxpayers or do the corporations pay their share either ?

Corporate taxes are indirectly paid by taxpayers.

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Control, or regulation?

Dingle says it's all about control. But not of the industry . . .

[Jack.Kerr]

Originally Posted by Rhylan

Corporate taxes are indirectly paid by taxpayers.

As are corporate subsidies.

[Jack.Kerr]

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

... seems to me that the Republicans made quite a few alternative proposals, all of which were rebuffed.

Can anyone refresh my memory? I'm having a brain freeze at the moment trying to remember any Republican alternative proposals, reasonable or not. At the moment, all I can remember from the far right-dominated Republican side was "NO!".

What I DO remember is Republicans saying they would cripple the Obama presidency by blocking passage of anything.

[GermanDunk]

Originally Posted by Rhylan

Corporate taxes are indirectly paid by taxpayers.

No i meant if the Corporations have pay a certain sum per employee as assist for their HC insurance ?

[dude1394]

Same guys that scored the health care bill also I expect. Only off by 6 years (in a two year planning window) Close enough for government entitlement work for sure.

Analysts have long tried to predict the year when Social Security would pay out more than it took in because they view it as a tipping point — the first step of a long, slow march to insolvency, unless Congress strengthens the program’s finances.
“When the level of the trust fund gets to zero, you have to cut benefits,” Alan Greenspan, architect of the plan to rescue the Social Security program the last time it got into trouble, in the early 1980s, said on Wednesday.

That episode was more dire because the fund could have fallen to zero in a matter of months. But partly because of steps taken in those years, and partly because of many years of robust economic growth, the latest projections show the program will not exhaust its funds until about 2037.

Still, Mr. Greenspan, who later became chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said: “I think very much the same issue exists today. Because of the size of the contraction in economic activity, unless we get an immediate and sharp recovery, the revenues of the trust fund will be tracking lower for a number of years.”

The Social Security Administration is expected to issue in a few weeks its own numbers for the current year within the annual report from its board of trustees. The administration has six board members: three from the president’s cabinet, two representatives of the public and the Social Security commissioner.

Though Social Security uses slightly different methods, the official numbers are expected to roughly track the Congressional projections, which were one page of a voluminous analysis of the federal budget proposed by President Obama in January.

Mr. Goss said Social Security’s annual report last year projected revenue would more than cover payouts until at least 2016 because economists expected a quicker, stronger recovery from the crisis. Officials foresaw an average unemployment rate of 8.2 percent in 2009 and 8.8 percent this year, though unemployment is hovering at nearly 10 percent.
The trustees did foresee, in late 2008, that the recession would be severe enough to deplete Social Security’s funds more quickly than previously projected. They moved the year of reckoning forward, to 2037 from 2041. Mr. Goss declined to reveal the contents of the forthcoming annual report, but said people should not expect the date to lurch forward again.

[Jack.Kerr]

Originally Posted by mcsluggo

While I am not in the "we" discussion here (i am not a republican)... I think many Davis Frum's strategic observations here are on teh mark.


http://www.frumforum.com/waterloo

Were you referring to THIS David Frum, the now former conservative 'think' tank fellow?

March 25, 2010, 4:17 PM
Frum Forced Out at Conservative Institute
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Updated: Over the past week, David Frum, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research organization, has emerged as one of the leading critics of the way Republicans dealt with President Obama’s health care bill.

The party, Mr. Frum said, put politics over policy in trying to damage Mr. Obama’s agenda, and lost both the political battle and the ability to influence a key piece of legislation. In a column Mr. Frum posted at the FrumForum, he wrote that the House passage of the health care bill had become the Republicans’ “Waterloo,” rather than Mr. Obama’s, as a leading G.O.P. senator had once warned.

As of Thursday, Mr. Frum had become a former fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Mr. Frum said he was taken out to lunch by the president of the organization, Arthur C. Brooks. He said Mr. Brooks told him the institute valued a diversity of opinion, and welcomed that one of its scholars had become such a high-profile critic of Republican legislative leaders. Mr. Frum, who has been with the institute since 2003, said that he was asked if he would considering being associated with the institute on a nonsalaried basis.

Mr. Frum declined.

“Does it have anything to do with what would be the most obvious explanation of what happened?” he said in an interview after his lunch. “I don’t know. That’s not what they say.”

Asked if he believed that explanation, Mr. Frum responded, “I’m not going to say that they’re not telling the truth.”

Update: Mr. Brooks later issued a written statement confirming Mr. Frum’s departure, but declining to say what had happened. “While A.E.I. makes it a practice not to discuss personnel matters, I can say that David Frum is an original thinker and a friend to many at A.E.I.,” his statement said.

At the same time, Mr. Brooks suggested that it was Mr. Frum’s decision to leave and that he had not been forced out. “We are pleased to have welcomed him as a colleague for seven years, and his decision to leave in no way diminishes our respect for him,” he said in the statement. An aide said Mr. Brooks was not available for further comment.

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by Jack.Kerr

Can anyone refresh my memory? I'm having a brain freeze at the moment trying to remember any Republican alternative proposals, reasonable or not. At the moment, all I can remember from the far right-dominated Republican side was "NO!".

Patients' Choice Act

Common Sense Health Care Reform and Affordability Act

[92bDad]

Go figure...on a conference call corporate and now, our insurance rates are going UP!!!

Discussion was in regards to the crazy atmosphere with the insurance business at the moment.

Good thing that Obama is not going to tax the middle class!

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by 92bDad

Go figure...on a conference call corporate and now, our insurance rates are going UP!!!

Discussion was in regards to the crazy atmosphere with the insurance business at the moment.

Good thing that Obama is not going to tax the middle class!

Have your rates been unchanged for a good long while before now?

[Jack.Kerr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpOUc...layer_embedded

[ribosoma]

Originally Posted by dalmations202

Just a note from the parts about ownership of land.

No one in the US owns land. You can only lease it from the government.

Don't believe me -- just stop paying the taxes on it for a few years, and see who takes it.

Think you own it, wait till a Township decides that you belong in their town and they annex your property -- without consent -- then put their rules to you, even fining you if you don't comply.

Think you own land - try to build a huge lake on it. Government will come in and fine you because you have slowed down the water that used to run off the land.
Think you own land - oil companies who own the mineral rights can come on your land and take the oil from under it without your permission, and just give you the 1/8 landowner amount.
Think you own land - just keep thinking -- you don't own anything that any group with POWER - be it government, municipal, large company, etc can't take AWAY anytime they want to.
That is without the rights of imminent domain.
--------------------------------------------------

This healthcare bill just deteriorated a few more of your "rights" and set this country a little closer to having to have a different "government". How close we are is debatable.

I hate to be redundant, but:

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to dalmations202 again.

And this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cz4vcQKWfA

[92bDad]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Have your rates been unchanged for a good long while before now?

Actually this is the first rate hike since I've been with this company...2 years.

HR stated that it's the first major hike in over 5 years...they've had them before but at about 1-3 point increase.

Personally I feel as though it's a bit of a panic move out of fear of what is coming from the government. It sucks, but no doubt it's the Government control taking over causing insurance companies to make adjustments while they still can.

So instead of a Government tax to the middle class, it's simply a cost that is going up to the middle class.

All I want is for the Government to First STOP infiltrating the private sector and 2nd to get out of what they have now gotten into.

Allow the people to succeed or fail on their own...as long as the government gets involved its guaranteed to fail!!! At least with free competition, there's a fighting chance that success will happen for some if not most.

Contrary to Democrat belief, one size does NOT fit all...and with government take over, the only choice we wind up with is ONE SIZE.

Do I have empathy for the have nots, you betcha. Heck, I've been there and at times I am there. I've been under the EIC line for taxes back in the day. Even spent time there while serving in the Army and raising a family. But we survived and figured out a way to enjoy life.

Even survived for a few years without insurance...heck my kids were born without insurance...guess what, they survived and are now doing well as young adults.

There have been some struggles along the way, mainly due to my own stupid choices and I paid some severe consequences...no bail outs for me, I had to learn to manage and dig my way out. I have and am still digging my way out, but I continue to see a government who keeps taking and taking and taking...it's getting to the breaking point.

I was tithing over 10%, but now my income has dropped nearly 40% and my tax has actually gone UP!!! My tithe is now way below where I want it, but I have very little left to thin out. Now Ins is going up...

F***ing Democrats...cut the sharades and simply tell the world that you don't like certain people succeeding...Your prejudiced against independent success and your blind to the humanitarian that those successful people actually provide, simply because those people actually believe in the success of others and it violate your ambition to control others....

Apologies for the rant, but I'm sick and tired of this agenda from the left being forced down our throats!!!

[dude1394]

Just wait until the new life tax begins to be mucked around with, guvment cannot help themselves. Gotta TAX! Gotta TAX!!

They will start taking bids for favors to dole out to "fix" the screwup they've screwed up, just as Mr. Sowell has said for a long time.

[Jack.Kerr]

Score one for the newborns.

Crowley newborn with heart defect is denied insurance coverage
Posted Thursday, Mar. 25, 2010
BY JAN JARVIS
jjarvis@star-telegram.com

At birth, Houston Tracy let out a single loud cry before his father cut the cord and handed him to a nurse.

Instantly, Doug Tracy knew something was wrong with his son.

"He wasn't turning pink fast enough," Tracy said. "When they listened to his chest, they realized he had an issue."

That turned out to be d-transposition of the great arteries, a defect in which the two major vessels that carry blood away from the heart are reversed. The condition causes babies to turn blue.

Surgery would correct it, but within days of Houston's birth March 15, Tracy learned that his application for health insurance to cover his son had been denied. The reason: a pre-existing condition.

"How can he have a pre-existing condition if the baby didn't exist until now?" Tracy asked.

New federal legislation that will prevent insurance companies from denying children coverage based on a pre-existing condition comes too late for the Tracys. The legislation, passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama this week, won't go into effect until September.

But Houston, who is hospitalized at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, needs coverage now.

Without surgery, babies with this condition often die soon after birth, although some may live as long as a year, said Dr. Steve Muyskens, a pediatric cardiologist.

"In his case, we had to intervene in the first days of life," Muyskens said.

The defect

With this condition, oxygen-rich blood goes back to the lungs and oxygen-poor blood goes back to the body, depriving it of oxygen and damaging the heart muscle. Surgery to move the arteries to their normal position is usually done within three to five days of birth. It basically involves swapping the misplaced arteries.

"It sounds simple, but it's complex because you have to move tiny coronary arteries that in a baby are 1 to 2 millimeters," Muyskens said.

Doug and Kim Tracy, who live in Crowley and are self-employed, carry health insurance on their other two children. They said they cannot afford insurance for themselves.

They paid out of pocket for Kim Tracy's neonatal care and the baby's delivery. Doug Tracy said they were told that they could apply for insurance for Houston within 30 days of his birth.

A spokeswoman for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas declined to comment but issued a statement saying, "Our policy is that if a family has existing coverage with us, a baby can be added to the contract within 31 days without the need for underwriting to assess the baby's eligibility."

But that's only if the parents have coverage, said the spokeswoman, Margaret Jarvis. Read that with the emphasis on parents.

Lawmaker tries to help

After being contacted by the Tracy family, state Rep. Chris Turner, D-Arlington, said he asked the Texas Department of Insurance if there are provisions that can be used to help the family. He said he has not received a complete answer.

Virtually everyone can agree that no one should be denied health coverage because of pre-existing conditions, Turner said.

Tracy said he was appealing the insurance company's decision.

A five-hour surgery to correct the defect was performed Friday, and Houston is doing well. He is being fed through a tube and must learn to swallow. But he should be able to go home within a couple of weeks, Tracy said.

"He's such a fighter, and the doctors say he's got a lot of spunk," Tracy said. "The nurses nicknamed him 'Little Rocky.'"

March 30, 2010
Health Insurers to Comply With New Rules for Children
By ROBERT PEAR
WASHINGTON — Under pressure from the White House, health insurance companies said Tuesday that they would comply with rules to be issued soon by the Obama administration requiring them to cover children with pre-existing medical problems.

“Health plans recognize the significant hardship that a family faces when they are unable to obtain coverage for a child with a pre-existing condition,” said Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group. Accordingly, she said, “we await and will fully comply with” the rules.

Ms. Ignagni made the commitment in a letter to Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, who had said she feared that some insurers might exploit a possible ambiguity in the new health care law to deny coverage to some sick children.

The White House immediately claimed victory.

In a Twitter message, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, scored the tug of war as “Kids 1, insurance 0.”

Major provisions of the law take effect in 2014. Some, including a ban on “pre-existing condition exclusions” for children under 19, take effect in September. The law does not explicitly say that insurers must sell insurance to families with such children this year, but Democratic Congressional leaders and White House officials said that was their intent.

To eliminate any ambiguity, Ms. Sebelius said, she will issue rules defining the scope of the new law.

Under these rules, Ms. Sebelius said, “children with pre-existing conditions may not be denied access to their parents’ health insurance plan,” and “insurance companies will no longer be allowed to insure a child but exclude treatments for that child’s pre-existing condition.”

In response to a question, Nick Papas, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the rules would require insurers to offer coverage to children with pre-existing conditions, including those who have never had health insurance.

Ms. Sebelius said she was pleased that “insurance companies plan to do the right thing.”

It was not immediately clear whether the rules would allow insurers to charge higher premiums to families with children with pre-existing conditions. Administration officials said they would be monitoring any rate increases.

Some Democrats in Congress want Mr. Obama to take a tough line. If insurers could raise premiums without limits, they would, in effect, be denying coverage, Democrats say.

Some insurers said they were unclear about the language of the law, based on differing accounts, and looked forward to detailed guidance from the government.

“There has been some confusion regarding the elimination of pre-existing condition evaluation for children in the health care bill,” said Kristin E. Binns, a spokeswoman for WellPoint, one of the largest insurers. She said the company would “follow the law on this and all matters.”

Insurers said they would accept the administration’s reading of the law, even if they did not fully agree with it, because they wanted to avoid a showdown over the politically explosive issue of health insurance for sick children.

Several lawyers said Congress could easily clear up any confusion by revising the law. “The real solution here is a legislative fix so all players in the industry can act according to a clear set of rules,” said William G. Schiffbauer, a Washington lawyer whose clients include employers and insurance companies.

Representative Allyson Y. Schwartz, Democrat of Pennsylvania, who helped write a similar provision in an earlier version of the legislation, said the new law “requires that all insurers issue insurance to children regardless of health status, and cover all of their ailments,” starting in September.

Jeff Smokler, a spokesman for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, said its member companies were “fully committed to complying with the new law” and accepted the principles set forth by Ms. Sebelius.

Gail K. Boudreaux, executive vice president of the UnitedHealth Group, said she supported the administration’s effort to clarify the law “to ensure that no child will be denied access to health insurance because of a pre-existing condition.”

“We expect that the new regulations will eliminate any uncertainty about the law’s intent,” Ms. Boudreaux said.

[92bDad]

http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/wha...e-pay-doctors/



Health Alert | What’s Wrong With the Way We Pay Doctors
Dec 7, 2009
by John Goodman

End-of-life counseling. Death panels. Pulling the plug on Gramma. Putting her on the ice. Some of this is amusing. Some good theater. Some over the top.

But there is a serious issue here that everyone is overlooking. The only reason we are even discussing whether Medicare should pay doctors for end-of-life counseling is because of the totally dysfunctional way doctors are paid in the first place.

Imagine a discussion with a lawyer. The conversation might begin with life insurance, move to annuity contracts, ease over into living wills, jump to the problem of your worthless heirs, segue into legal issues surrounding cremation and perhaps end with you questioning whether you can require your surviving spouse to keep the urn with your ashes on the mantel over the fireplace, next to your photograph.

You would expect to pay your lawyer for the time you spent in consultation. Right? But what if lawyers were paid the way doctors are paid?

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

If Medicare were paying lawyers, there would be a long list of approved consultation services, and next to each service there would be an approved fee. There would be one fee, say, for advice on insurance contracts, another for annuities, and yet another for living wills. But if a service were not on the list at all (say, advice on worthless heirs or urns on mantel shelves) the lawyer would get nothing whatsoever for those parts of the conversation.

If you think that sounds wacky, it gets even worse. But let’s turn to doctors for a moment. Medicare has about 7,500 tasks it will pay doctors to perform and it has an approved fee for each task. As everyone knows by now, end-of-life counseling is not among them. But that’s not surprising. There are all kinds of useful doctor services that aren’t on Medicare’s list. For example:

* For all practical purposes, Medicare doesn’t pay for telephone consultations.
* For all practical purposes, it doesn’t pay for e-mail.
* It won’t pay your doctor to advise you on how to shop for drugs; where to find the best prices and how to economize by quantity-buying and pill-splitting, for example.
* It doesn’t pay for your doctor’s assistance in getting a low price for a CT scan or for negotiating on your behalf for specialist services.
* It won’t pay your doctor to teach you how to use the Internet — to get free advice, buy supplies or compare notes with other patients.
* It won’t pay a doctor to teach a diabetic how to monitor his own glucose level and in other ways manage his own diabetes.
* Ditto for asthma.
* Ditto for heart disease.
* Ditto for all chronic illnesses — even though that’s where most of the money goes and even though studies show that well-trained patients can manage much of their own care, with lower costs and higher quality outcomes.

In addition, seniors have special needs that fall through the gaps in Medicare’s payment structure. Many older patients, for example, have five or six medical problems rather than just one. Yet for the most part, Medicare regards doctors as cost center silos and doesn’t pay anyone to coordinate care between the silos. In addition, many older patients are taking as many as a dozen different medicines or more. Yet Medicare won’t pay a doctor to reconcile the pills — determining how they interact and which ones should or shouldn’t be taken in combination.

So what’s the solution? It’s not to start adding more things to the list of approved tasks. That list will never be complete; and even if it were, the approved fees would always be wrong.

To appreciate the problem, let’s return to lawyering. Suppose you are accused of a crime and you pay your defense attorney by task. To make up some numbers, let’s say the fee for jury selection is $20 per hour and the fee for preparation and delivery of a final summation speech at the trial’s end is $500 an hour. What would happen?

Your lawyer’s final speech to the jury would be eloquent, persuasive, compelling and masterfully delivered. It would be so impactful that it might get you off scot-free, if only it were delivered to the right set of jurors. But of course it isn’t because you skimped on paying for that set of services. That’s why you don’t want to pay your lawyer by task. You should pay in a way that encourages him to devote his last hour to that aspect of your case that promises the highest return. The same principle applies in medicine.

In my review of Clay Christensen’s book, The Innovator’s Prescription, I reported his observation that doctors should probably be paid in different ways, depending on the service. For some services, payment by the hour (like lawyers) makes sense. For others, a flat fee for a bundle of services seems better.

It goes without saying that the market will sort these things out much better than a political bureaucracy.

[dude1394]

And by "on deck" possibly "on the deck" might sound better, if only.

http://healthcare.nationalreview.com...ZjYWY4ZjliNDc=

Not one of its major programs has gotten started, and already the wheels are starting to come off of Obamacare. The administration’s own actuary reported on Thursday that millions of people could lose their health insurance, that health-care costs will rise faster than they would have if the law hadn’t passed, and that the overhaul will mean that people will have a harder and harder time finding physicians to see them.

The White House is trying to spin the new report from Medicare’s chief actuary Richard Foster as only half bad because it concludes that, while costs will increase, only 23 million people will remain uninsured (instead of 24 million previously estimated).

But looking at the details of Foster’s report shows the many, many danger signs for Obamacare and how many of its promises will be broken:

1. People losing coverage: About 14 million people will lose their employer coverage by 2019, as smaller employers terminate their plans and workers who currently have employer coverage enroll in Medicaid. Half of all seniors on Medicare Advantage could lose their coverage and the extra benefits the plans offer.

2. Huge fines for companies: Businesses will pay $87 billion in penalties in the first five years after the fines trigger in 2014, partly because they can’t afford to offer expensive, government-mandated coverage and partly because some of their employees will apply for taxpayer-subsidized insurance.

3. Higher costs for consumers: Tens of billions of dollars in new fees and excise taxes will be “passed through to health consumers in the form of higher drug and devices prices and higher premiums,” according to Foster. A separate report shows small businesses will be hit hardest.

4. A program created to fail: The new “CLASS Act” long-term-care insurance program will face “a significant risk of failure,” according to Foster. Indeed, he finds, “there is a very serious risk that the problem of adverse selection will make the CLASS program unsustainable.”

5. Spending increases: Under the new law, national health spending will increase by $311 billion over the coming decade. And instead of bending the federal spending curve down, it will move it upward “by a net total of $251 billion” over the next decade.

6. “Free-riders”: An estimated 23 million people will remain uninsured in 2019, roughly 5 million of whom would be undocumented aliens; the remainder would be the 18 million who decline to get coverage and who will pay the penalty.

7. Spending reductions are fiction: Estimated reductions in the growth rate of health spending “may not be fully achievable” because “Medicare productivity adjustments could become unsustainable even within the next ten years, and over time the reductions in the scope of employer-sponsored health insurance could also become an issue.”

8. You can’t keep your doctor: Fifteen percent of all hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers treating Medicare patients could be operating at a loss by 2019, which will “possibly jeopardize access to care for beneficiaries.” Doctors are threatening to drop out of Medicare because cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates mean they can’t even cover their costs.

9. Coverage but no care: A significant portion of those newly eligible for Medicaid will have trouble finding physicians who will see them, and the increased demand for Medicaid services could be difficult to meet.

This is an objective report by administration actuaries that shows this sweeping legislation has serious, serious problems.

And there’s more: Joint Economic Committee Republicans explain in a new report the impact of a rarely mentioned $14.3 billion per year tax on health insurance, effective in 2014. They find this tax will be mostly passed through to consumers in the form of higher premiums for private coverage. It will cost the typical family of four with job-based coverage an additional $1,000 a year in higher premiums and will fall largely, and inequitably, on small businesses and their employees.

States are fighting back. The Florida legislature voted Thursday to place a state constitutional amendment on the ballot that would ban any laws that compel someone to “participate in any health care system.” It requires a 60 percent vote to succeed. The legislation is modeled after the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Freedom of Choice in Health Care Act, which has been introduced or announced in 42 states.

Obamacare is far from settled policy. There are two more federal elections before the major provisions of the law take effect in 2014. Doctors are fighting mad, patients are scared, and companies are starting to realize that the promises of health-care-reform legislation could turn into a huge and costly burden.

The studies released today only fuel the fires to repeal and replace the health-overhaul law.

[dude1394]

Oh...but I believe them now. Right...

In a memorandum summarizing its investigation, the Democratic staff of the committee said, “The companies acted properly and in accordance with accounting standards in submitting filings to the S.E.C. in March and April.”
Moreover, it said, “these one-time charges were required by applicable accounting rules.” The committee staff said this view was confirmed by independent experts at the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the American Academy of Actuaries.
Mr. Waxman, the chairman of the committee, and Mr. Stupak canceled a hearing at which they had planned to question executives on the effects of the law.
A tabulation by the United States Chamber of Commerce shows that at least 40 companies have taken charges against earnings that total $3.4 billion since the law was signed.
“Companies like AT&T, Verizon and a range of stakeholder associations are hopeful that the benefits of the new law will outweigh the costs,” Mr. Waxman and Mr. Stupak said in a memorandum to committee members. “But they cannot quantify the benefits until the law is implemented.”

Neither can anyone else you morons.

[92bDad]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPaHW...eature=related

I have nothing more to add, this guy gets it...perhaps his words can challenge some on this board.

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by 92bDad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPaHW...eature=related

I have nothing more to add, this guy gets it...perhaps his words can challenge some on this board.

This is the 3rd time you've posted this dreck.

Why don't you just make a new thread and be done with it?


EDIT: is this guy Josh Howard's cousin???

[92bDad]

Originally Posted by Underdog

This is the 3rd time you've posted this dreck.

Why don't you just make a new thread and be done with it?


EDIT: is this guy Josh Howard's cousin???

UD...thanks for responding!!! Your such a swell poster

[Underdog]

Originally Posted by 92bDad

UD...thanks for responding!!! Your such a swell poster

Thanks, buddy!

(but seriously, anything you feel like you should post in 3 different threads definitely warrants a thread of its own...)

[dude1394]

Nice article about how obamacare is faring in the public as well as why it's getting market forces into the industry versus insurance reform.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op...-95104599.html

A huge part of the problem with our health-care system today is that far too much money is funneled through insurers, which keeps patients from controlling and allocating their own health-care dollars more efficiently and which also adds an unnecessary layer of costs. Dr. Marcy Zwelling, a Southern California private physician, says that the same MRI for which insurers are billed $2,000 to $3,000 — and for which they might actually agree to pay something like $1,000 (depending on their negotiated rates) — costs only $300 to $400 for patients who pay cash. Two weeks ago in these pages, Tony Mecia cited Dr. Brian Forrest, a North Carolina doctor who says that the prostate-cancer screening test for which a lab bills insurers $184 can be purchased by his patients for $30 in cash. It makes no sense to be funneling so much money through an unnecessary middle-man.
Yet, according to the CBO, in ObamaCare’s real first dozen years (2014 to 2025), it would funnel $1 trillion from American taxpayers, through Washington, to private insurers — in exchange for insurers’ largely giving up their autonomy to the government. Thus, ObamaCare would further entrench insurers’ position as an inefficient middle-man — that’s a key reason why insurers largely supported the overhaul — while simultaneously entrenching an even more problematic and inflexible middle-man in the form of the federal government.
Conversely, Hansen’s plan would empower patients, make prices more transparent, give patients more opportunity and incentive to shop around, and thereby lower health costs — all without reducing liberty or lowering the quality of care.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op...#ixzz0pQl54IBY

[alexamenos]

A huge part of the problem with our health-care system today is that far too much money is funneled through insurers, which keeps patients from controlling and allocating their own health-care dollars more efficiently and which also adds an unnecessary layer of costs.

yeah....in the system we have the consumer of health care is almost completely detached from the cost which means a) there's little or no price based competition on the front-lines; and b) no economic calculation goes into whether a service is needed in the first place.

All the Liberals in the house will shout 'the need for a health care service is bigger than greedy little economic concerns', but then again Liberals probably wouldn't be Liberals if they ever worried about the problem of scarcity of goods and services in any economy.

Anyhoo....I think an interesting little thought experiment is to imagine what the auto-care industry might be like if the consumer were substantially detached from the costs of repairs.

"$820 to replace the air in my tires and rotate my windshield wipers? Seems a bit steep to me, but it is my car's health after all."

[dude1394]

Hmm...who woulda thought it...well most of the country I think...

http://pajamasmedia.com/vodkapundit/...insure-this-2/

Under Obamacare, if you like your current health plan, you can keep it — unless you’re one of about 840,000 insured by Principle Financial Group. Read:

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Hmm...who woulda thought it...well most of the country I think...

http://pajamasmedia.com/vodkapundit/...insure-this-2/

And so it begins.

[Murphy3]

Speaking as someone that is neither a dem or rep... this is going to be an f'ing disaster.

[Flacolaco]

We got our packets about health care this week at my office.

My cost is going up THIRTY ONE percent next year to insure my family.

I don't know how much that'ss directly related to democrat legislation, but it surely didn't help any.

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by Murphy3

Speaking as someone that is neither a dem or rep... this is going to be an f'ing disaster.

It certainly has nothing to do with political parties for me. I don't particularly trust either party. It's just a bona fide cluster. The promoters of this fiasco act rather shocked that it is a fiasco. Everyone with even a hint of intellectual honesty knew that it would be.

Flaco - As a small business owner, I am not in any hurry to find out what my health insurance cost increase is going to be. I just hope I can continue to offer it to my employees.