Heathcare Reform

z31maniac wrote: ....I wish I could take the money my employer pays for my health/life/AD&D insurance and purchase it on the open market. I'd still have health insurance, and much more money in my pocket to spend in our service/consumer based economy.

Although it would be nice to think that, I am pretty certain it would not work out that way. One of the concepts of insurance is spreading the risk over a "population". When you insure a large company you have a large "population", thus less potential for spikes of risk. When you insure one person there is no such spreading. I believe you will find the rates for a single person are significantly higher than those for a large corporation (per person).

This is one of the reasons why the current HC situation makes it very painful to be self-employed (especially if you are not young).

It does for young healthy people. The insurance plan I had as a contractor cost about $110/month. Including dental.

My current plan through my employer, I pick up $90/month + whatever my company is picking up (based on the COBRA statement I got when I left State Farm) a reasonably safe assumption would be I'm paying 33% and my company pays 66%.

So $270 a month for health insurance. Obviously there would still need to be some type of check in place so that companies don't aggresively go after young healthy individuals who subsidise the ill/elderly, and ignore those with disease, etc.

I won't have time to read all of this, but there are good arguments against public health insurance here, and good arguments talking about safety nets of sorts. This is why our country was founded so brilliantly.

The constitution is a list of things that the federal government can do. Health insurance coverage for all is not on this list. This means this bill, and others like it, are unconstitutional, and those who vote for it are breaking their oaths (nothing new for many of them).

If the people want it badly enough, there is an amendment process. Until then, it's illegal. Not that that has stopped anyone before. Democrats and Republicans both seem to pave over the constitutional with reckless abandon when it suits them.

-Brian, a constitutionalist of sorts

aircooled wrote:

z31maniac wrote: ....I wish I could take the money my employer pays for my health/life/AD&D insurance and purchase it on the open market. I'd still have health insurance, and much more money in my pocket to spend in our service/consumer based economy.

Although it would be nice to think that, I am pretty certain it would not work out that way. One of the concepts of insurance is spreading the risk over a "population". When you insure a large company you have a large "population", thus less potential for spikes of risk. When you insure one person there is no such spreading. I believe you will find the rates for a single person are significantly higher than those for a large corporation (per person). This is one of the reasons why the current HC situation makes it very painful to be self-employed (especially if you are not young).

That is a very common opinion that is usually wrong. The actual costs for an employer based health insurance plan are almost always higher than an individually sourced plan. A job based insurer usually has to cover anyone hired by the company-no matter the condition. Private does not.

If you have any serious condition requiring large amounts of any form of medical care a job based insurance is usually the best deal.

MrJoshua wrote: That is a very common opinion that is usually wrong. The actual costs for an employer based health insurance plan are almost always higher than an individually sourced plan. A job based insurer usually has to cover anyone hired by the company-no matter the condition. Private does not. If you have any serious condition requiring large amounts of any form of medical care a job based insurance is usually the best deal.

So anyone with a pre-existing condition is left out in the cold right? To keep costs down?

..and this is how we got here in the first place.

When the profit motive runs up against the good of society a for-profit company is going to do what they can to make more money. Does everything in America have to be about making money? Is there merit to having an entity that is there to make our society better? Healthier? Friendlier? More caring to the aged, infirm, and young?

satire - on

Nah. That'd cost too much. PROFIT FOR THE WIN! USA! USA! USA!

satire - off

Z31 - this is an interesting article you've posted.

Obamacare could cost you $4,000 a year

It's interesting because in the first few paragraphs it talks about how good an idea the public option would be as it would drive down prices, offer coverage for most families at reasonable rates, etc. It also mentions that higher taxes would result. It does not compute whether the higher taxes would be more than current insurance premiums, less, or a wash.

Healthcare reform with out a public option lets the medical insurance industry dictate, again, what our medical coverage will look like.

The more I read the more I'm sick to death (HA!) of letting insurance companies weigh my health against their profit numbers.

In reply to ignorant:

ignorant wrote: Propose an alternative that is as widely accepted as infant mortality rate.

Well, this statement certainly describes your username.

Infatn mortality rates are perhaps the most widely disputed and inaccurate statistics when compared between the U.S. and the ROW.

In the U.S., we count a baby as alive if it's born alive. If it's pre-mature, it's still alive. If it dies later, we count that as a death. In the ROW, they don't do that.

Panzer wrote: In reply to ignorant:

ignorant wrote: Propose an alternative that is as widely accepted as infant mortality rate.

Well, this statement certainly describes your username.

you didn't propose anything, just threw out insults.

You're a new reader so I'll be nice. We try to be nice and civil here. I've screwed up and attacked folks before but no more.

So.. be nice or margie will beat you.

In reply to Panzer:

I live outside the U.S. and I can promise you that a live birth is counted as a live birth, even here in the frozen tundra.

Duke wrote:

I know this post was a while back, but I'm just throwing this in here for good measure: DO NOT swap genes with any of Duke's family pool

Sorry, your post was a little depressing.

I'll just continue enjoying my government health care, and throw in that a major issue I always seem to find with the US of A is how each state acts like its own little country with no unification. I dunno

Xceler8x wrote: Z31 - this is an interesting article you've posted. Obamacare could cost you $4,000 a year It's interesting because in the first few paragraphs it talks about how good an idea the public option would be as it would drive down prices, offer coverage for most families at reasonable rates, etc. It also mentions that higher taxes would result. It does not compute whether the higher taxes would be more than current insurance premiums, less, or a wash. Healthcare reform with out a public option lets the medical insurance industry dictate, again, what our medical coverage will look like. The more I read the more I'm sick to death (HA!) of letting insurance companies weigh my health against their profit numbers.

You obviously did not fully understand what the author was getting at, or you simply stopped reading after the first few paragraphs.

I just imbibed a delicous Elly's Brown Ale, so I will be nice.

Firstly, this is only the FIFTH pargraph down:

"The conclusion is shocking. Middle- and upper-middle class Americans could face an enormous increase in their premiums. The hit could easily approach $4,000 for someone earning less than $90,000 -- or more than double that increase as soon as the worker's pay hits six figures. That's because Obama's plan would collect hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes at the expense of medium earners, and re-channel the money into subsidies for the uninsured, low-income earners, and union retirees over age 55."

So couple that with the expiring tax cuts in 2011, and we are talking about just my income being dropped by more than TEN PERCENT!! As if we don't pay enough in taxes now.

"Let's say this auditor or information technology manager, call him Harry, earns $85,000. At 45, Harry is married, has two kids, and is covered by a plan that costs $13,500, about average at big companies. Harry pays $3,000 of the premiums and his employer, Major Metropolis Inc., covers the $10,500 balance. So Harry is earning $82,000 after paying for health care. Remember that number.

Now, under Obamacare, MM Inc. drops its plan. Suddenly, it's saving $10,500 a year on Harry. But Harry's company isn't likely to pass along that savings in his paycheck. In exchange for dropping its benefits, MM has to pay the 8% payroll tax. So instead of getting $95,500 in pay ($85,000 plus $10,500), Harry gets 8% chopped off that number, so his pay comes to just about $88,000.

Harry is then obligated to buy his coverage through a new Health Insurance Exchange (page 5) that would offer a variety of heavily regulated private plans. Harry is making a bit more money than before, $88,000 versus $85,000, a difference of about $3000. The shocker is what he has to pay, out of his own pocket, for a new plan to match the old one.

Say the policy offered by the exchange also costs $13,500. The House bill mandates an elaborate system of subsidies called Individual Affordability Credits (page 137). But those credits get real stingy when you reach Harry's pay level. In fact, he would receive just $3,800 in aid toward the $13,500 policy. So Harry would pay $9,700 for health care through the Exchange, out of his own pocket.

After that big expense, Harry's income would be $78,300 ($88,000 minus the $9,700 he pays for the plan). That's $3,700 less than the $82,000 he keeps today after paying his share of the premium at MM Inc."

So yes, now rationed care by the gov't (which = less quality in my mind) and he pays more for it.

It's really pretty straight forward if you took the time to read the article.

"This downer for the middle class doesn't even consider another looming danger. The huge increase in demand driven by the plan could lift prices, and therefore inflate the cost of policies even beyond the already big numbers in this story. The billions in new spending will further stretch America's health-care industry, whose regulations and professional cartels create chronic supply shortages.

The public option might have been Harry's ticket out of this thicket. Not that it was a good idea from a fiscal standpoint, since it would have created another heavily subsidized entitlement, paid for by far higher future taxes. But without it, Harry and America's middle class are facing reform at their expense, and they don't even know it."

Again, pretty straight forward. Although, I guess if you were able to draw such ambiguity from something so forward, possibly that explains why people think the gov't can handle this.

The fun part of course is that the Congressmen who are sreaming the loudest about government 'Socialized' medicene already have just that, it's part of the perks for being 'public servants'. I wrote the checks for my wife & my health care last year, $1749 per month. Do the math, that's 20 grand a year & it went up another $100 for 2009. I don't know the answer but I know that the system we've got right now is broken.

$1800 a month? How does that even happen?

And what job do you have that you can afford that?

Need a new hire?

In reply to z31maniac:

The current system relies on (was essentially created by) a HUGE, PATENTLY UNFAIR tax loophole in which employers can compensate their employees in the form of health insurance and avoid the normal taxation of such compensation. This loophole is one of the primary barriers preventing the self-employed, unemployed, part-time workers, and small business employees from affording insurance. Closing that loophole may end up raising costs for those people who have until now been the benefactors of this loophole at the expense of everyone else. IMO, those people covered under employer plans should consider themselves incredibly fortunate to have previously benefitted from this major flaw in the tax code unlike so many other Americans, rather than assuming it as their birthright.

Josh wrote: In reply to z31maniac: The current system relies on (was essentially created by) a HUGE, PATENTLY UNFAIR tax loophole in which employers can compensate their employees in the form of health insurance and avoid the normal taxation of such compensation. This loophole is one of the primary barriers preventing the self-employed, unemployed, part-time workers, and small business employees from affording insurance. Closing that loophole may end up raising costs for those people who have until now been the benefactors of this loophole at the expense of everyone else. IMO, those people covered under employer plans should consider themselves incredibly fortunate to have previously benefitted from this major flaw in the tax code unlike so many other Americans, rather than assuming it as their birthright.

So, those who are "fortunate" to have worked hard and paid for their benefits are now obligated to suck-it-up to pay the way for those who failed to achieve?

Just askin?

oldsaw wrote: So, those who are "fortunate" to have worked hard and paid for their benefits are now obligated to suck-it-up to pay the way for those who failed to achieve? Just askin?

Are you serious? The self-employed, small business owners, or people working 3 part time jobs, none with benefits? Those people are just lazy bastards who deserve to be totally screwed by the tax code? Seriously?

A lot of people have been getting a freebie for a long time on this one. It's gotta stop eventually, whether it means they start paying more for a public option plan, or a similar loophole gets extended to EVERYONE, not just those lucky enough to be on an employer plan (which of course will require tax increases somewhere to make up the revenue).

Josh wrote:

oldsaw wrote: So, those who are "fortunate" to have worked hard and paid for their benefits are now obligated to suck-it-up to pay the way for those who failed to achieve? Just askin?

Are you serious? The self-employed, small business owners, or people working 3 part time jobs, none with benefits? Those people are just lazy bastards who deserve to be totally screwed by the tax code? Seriously? A lot of people have been getting a freebie for a long time on this one. It's gotta stop eventually, whether it means they start paying more for a public option plan, or a similar loophole gets extended to EVERYONE, not just those lucky enough to be on an employer plan (which of course will require tax increases somewhere to make up the revenue).

I am absolutely serious!

Prove that the self-employed, small business owners and people working 3 part-time jobs don't already have access to health care.

How is it a "freebie" when people have already paying for their health-care? They may not believe their plan is the "best", but they also have little faith that a government administered alternative can serve their needs. Why do you?

Under current proposed legislation the public-option is the only afordable recourse when businesses decide it's cheaper to drop their current benefit plan and let the employees deal with the consequences. The public-option may well be cheaper than a private plan, but only for the short-term.

As more and more individual plans are dropped, more people are going to opt for the public-option alternative and will overwhelm government's ability to manage their care. That only leads to health-care rationing or increased expenditures.

This is the same goverment that manages Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Freddie Mae, Freddie Mac, the USPS and Amtrack. And you REALLY believe a public-option is the only answer?

Yes, health-care needs reform!

But government intervention is not the only answer, more so when said intervention is the primary cause of the problem.

BTW, the Constitution guarantees equal rights and equal opportunity, but it does not guarantee equal success.

If you have issues with that, start a grass-roots campaign to amend the Constitution.

oldsaw wrote: I am absolutely serious! Prove that the self-employed, small business owners and people working 3 part-time jobs don't already have access to health care. How is it a "freebie" when people have already paying for their health-care? They may not believe their plan is the "best", but they also have little faith that a government administered alternative can serve their needs. Why do you?

Because people who get employer paid insurance don't have to pay any taxes on it, nor does the employer. Even though health insurance is absolutely part of the compensation that the employee is recieving from the employer. So, if you don't have an employer paid health plan, you do not have equal access to health care in this country. Even ignoring the fact that the particular plans available to individuals are not the same as that available to employers, non employer-based coverage is paid out of income that is taxed while employer based coverage is not taxed, even though it clearly is income. I am by no means unequivocally supporting the current proposals, but I wish people would have an intelligent debate about the SERIOUS flaws in our current system instead of just pretending they don't exist to serve their chosen ideology.

Josh wrote: In reply to z31maniac: The current system relies on (was essentially created by) a HUGE, PATENTLY UNFAIR tax loophole in which employers can compensate their employees in the form of health insurance and avoid the normal taxation of such compensation. This loophole is one of the primary barriers preventing the self-employed, unemployed, part-time workers, and small business employees from affording insurance. Closing that loophole may end up raising costs for those people who have until now been the benefactors of this loophole at the expense of everyone else. IMO, those people covered under employer plans should consider themselves incredibly fortunate to have previously benefitted from this major flaw in the tax code unlike so many other Americans, rather than assuming it as their birthright.

Now we do remember why that tax break came into existence right?

The Feds allowed it because of the tight wage controls in place, tax free health care was a way to attract employees.

Josh, you currently have no healthcare, correct? Have you shopped around for it and found out pricing? I know it wasn't you who said it, but many in this thread have brought up our "unrealistic expectations of comfort."

Which I find wholly IRONIC that being posted from a computer, inside an air conditioned building, on a web site dedicated to people who use their spare money to build cars and attend auto-x's and HPDE's.

Just saying...

z31maniac wrote: Josh, you currently have no healthcare, correct? Have you shopped around for it and found out pricing? I know it wasn't you who said it, but many in this thread have brought up our "unrealistic expectations of comfort." Which I find wholly IRONIC that being posted from a computer, inside an air conditioned building, on a web site dedicated to people who use their spare money to build cars and attend auto-x's and HPDE's. Just saying...

Fancy ad hominem attack you got there :). Nice work.

First of all, it's totally irrelevant to the issue (and none of your damn business) what my own personal situation is. But I have priced private health insurance. When I was laid off, I was allowed to pay a month out of pocket to continue on my old policy, but since I worked for a small company I was ineligible for cobra. I would have probably continued on my existing policy had I been allowed to. But I was offered FAR lesser coverage for a higher price as an individual, on a policy that would be restarted every 6 months (not renewed, but rewritten), giving the provider an out to claim "preexisting conditions" on pretty much any continuing illness. I decided (like I'm sure you would have) that this policy was not worth giving up almost half of my unemployment benefit every month.

I fail to understand why the "freedom lovers" who oppose any health care reform would want to support a system that drastically limits consumer choice, has major tax loopholes that essentially coerce people into taking a job with a large company rather than working for themselves, and hits people hardest when they can bear it least, such as periods of unemployment, or when trying to start up a new business. If you really want freedom, what we have most decidedly ain't it. As soon as folks admit that, then we can have a meaningful discussion.

Josh wrote:

z31maniac wrote: Josh, you currently have no healthcare, correct? Have you shopped around for it and found out pricing? I know it wasn't you who said it, but many in this thread have brought up our "unrealistic expectations of comfort." Which I find wholly IRONIC that being posted from a computer, inside an air conditioned building, on a web site dedicated to people who use their spare money to build cars and attend auto-x's and HPDE's. Just saying...

Fancy ad hominem attack you got there :). Nice work. First of all, it's totally irrelevant to the issue (and none of your damn business) what my own personal situation is. But I have priced private health insurance. When I was laid off, I was allowed to pay a month out of pocket to continue on my old policy, but since I worked for a small company I was ineligible for cobra. I would have probably continued on my existing policy had I been allowed to. But I was offered FAR lesser coverage for a higher price as an individual, on a policy that would be restarted every 6 months (not renewed, but rewritten), giving the provider an out to claim "preexisting conditions" on pretty much any continuing illness. I decided (like I'm sure you would have) that this policy was not worth giving up almost half of my unemployment benefit every month. I fail to understand why the "freedom lovers" who oppose any health care reform would want to support a system that drastically limits consumer choice, has major tax loopholes that essentially coerce people into taking a job with a large company rather than working for themselves, and hits people hardest when they can bear it least, such as periods of unemployment, or when trying to start up a new business. If you really want freedom, what we have most decidedly ain't it. As soon as folks admit that, then we can have a meaningful discussion.

The "freedom-lovers" you admonish recognize that the goal of the administration's reform is to introduce a single-payer option and use it as the tool to eventually eliminate private coverage options.

As soon as the entitlement-minded folks realize that ,then we can have a meaningful discussion.

For example, here are quotes from prominent Democrats who advocate health-care reform:

"...... a new video on YouTube demonstrates that, like Arafat, the Obamacarers are talking out of both sides of their mouth. The two-minute video simply strings together a series of clips saying the opposite, beginning with Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wis.), in an interview with the public-access cable show "Democracy Now!":

Q: Do you support single-payer health care? Feingold: I do. I always have. I don't think there's any possibility that that will come out of this Congress, and so for people to simply say that's this way or nothing, are looking at something that can't happen now. But I would love to see it, and I believe the goal here is to create whatever legislation we have in a way that could be developed into something like a single-payer system.

Here's Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, now secretary of health and human services, speaking at Harvard in 2007:

I'm all for a single-payer system eventually. I think what we have to do, though, is work with what we've got to close the gap.

Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), last month:

I think if we get a good public option, it could lead to single-payer, and that's the best way to reach single-payer.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, answering a question in June:

Q: Hey Rahm, why did the president take single-payer off the table? Unidentified woman: Look, sorry. I'm sorry, we don't have time for this. Q: No, in 2003, he said he was for single payer, and now he's against it. Why did he flip-flop? Emanuel: Because as I just--it's what I just said in there. Q: What? Emanuel: The objective is what's important. It's not the means.

And here's a finger-wagging Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.):

This is not a principled fight. This is a fight about strategy for getting there, and I believe we will!......"

All quotes sourced from here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204884404574364661995044516.html

And the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndStT6c93rc

Facts > Feelings

oldsaw wrote: Facts > Feelings

So far you've posted nothing but feelings, as in "I feel that these proposals might eventually lead to another proposal that I don't agree with, so I am going to attack anything that changes the status quo while I ignore the serious problems in the current system".

I am still waiting for anyone to explain to me why we should keep what we have -- why it's ok to lock people into employer based care, why it's ok to have a blatantly unfair tax structure, why people shouldn't have equal access as individuals to health care that they do as employees, why we shouldn't have a legitmate way to pay for the emergency care that hospitals are required to give to everyone, etc. etc. What I have seen is distortion and fearmongering about death panels and socialism and all sorts of things that are not in fact being proposed by anyone. The current system is anything but a beacon of freedom, so I would expect that if one is going to use "freedom" as a rallying cry to oppose the proposed reforms, one would at least want to talk about how to make the market for care something closer to "free" instead of forming opinions based solely on the letter in front of the name of the person making the proposal.

The current system is closer to freedom than a new system where you are required to buy health insurance to pay for a broken system. I have minimal coverage at minimal expense by choice. That is freedom.

Josh wrote:

oldsaw wrote: Facts > Feelings

So far you've posted nothing but feelings, as in "I feel that these proposals might eventually lead to another proposal that I don't agree with, so I am going to attack anything that changes the status quo while I ignore the serious problems in the current system". I am still waiting for anyone to explain to me why we should keep what we have -- why it's ok to lock people into employer based care, why it's ok to have a blatantly unfair tax structure, why people shouldn't have equal access as individuals to health care that they do as employees, why we shouldn't have a legitmate way to pay for the emergency care that hospitals are required to give to everyone, etc. etc. What I have seen is distortion and fearmongering about death panels and socialism and all sorts of things that are not in fact being proposed by anyone. The current system is anything but a beacon of freedom, so I would expect that if one is going to use "freedom" as a rallying cry to oppose the proposed reforms, one would at least want to talk about how to make the market for care something closer to "free" instead of forming opinions based solely on the letter in front of the name of the person making the proposal.

You can watch that video and still reach your conclusion?

Incredible......

In reply to oldsaw:

A bunch of out of context quotes doesn't address my concerns with the current system in the slightest, so no, I don't take much from that video. It's scaremongering. The individual people portrayed may indeed favor a single payer system, but how you can stretch that logic to conclude that any reform whatsoever (even that which is explicitly not a single payer system) is somehow inevitably going to magically morph itself into a single payer system is beyond me. That may be the goal of a few people. That doesn't mean it has to happen that way. Jumping to these sorts of illogical conclusions is exactly what I am talking about when I lament the inability of some people to have an honest debate about this issue. I know youtube comment threads have never been the place to look for reasoned discourse, but that one you linked to is truly horrifying.