Health Care Reform takes the first procedural hurdle in the Senate

[panthera]

Don,

Please accept this question as meant to learn, not to offend - heaven knows, we've battled enough here:

Do you know what health insurance for a minimum wage worker in the US would cost, if bought privately? I don't mean an undocumented worker, but Joe-6-Pack.

Another question, again, genuinely meant: Do you know what health insurance would cost for that man in one of the countries the US competes against directly?

Take a look, I think you might be surprised.

Oh, and, yes - of course some people will lose their jobs. Every single change, pro-industry or not has hit small business owners in the neck, every time, every country (you know that I run my own small business alongside teaching).

 

[hunter]

What proponents of the healthcare bill don't realize is.

...if it becomes cheaper for employers to pay the fine that they will get for not offering health insurance, they will. And employees are out in the cold.

When individuals, who are now not getting subsidized to the tune of about 7K/year in healthcare benefits, find that they cannot afford to buy health insurance, they will have to pay $750 per year in fines - additional tax - to the US government.

So how exactly is this bill going to help? Forcing people to buy HEALTH INSURANCE does not provide high quality HEALTH CARE.

Hunter

 

[sudsman]

The least costly insurance would cost me

250.00 A MO Per person.. this rate is not more than 3 weeks old. Under this new plan I would be much better off to automate as much as possible let at least half the staff go and pay the fine for the rest and they still have no coverage. And I could save enough to keep operating. Gee thanks pres.

 

[sudsmaster]

A lot of assumptions there, Hunter.

One, it IS currently cheaper for employers not to offer health insurance. But many do. It will be MORE EXPENSIVE for them under this bill not to offer health insurance than it is now. How is that an incentive for them not to offer it?

Two, you assume that employers will be dropping their group plans like hot potatoes once all the bill's provisions take effect. As I've explained, there is incentive for them not to do that over what they do today. And for those employees who need to purchase their own health insurance outside of their employment, there are multiple benefits for them in this new bill:
1) Low income workers will get subsidized group health care.
2) The group health care will meet certain standards.
3) Those standards include: not denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, not basing premiums on the basis of age, gender, or pre-existing conditions.

All of this is a BIG WIN for employees, esp. those of small firms that have never offered health care coverage in the past.

A personal note: I worked for large concerns most of my life. When I did a career change in 2005, my first job was for a very small business. It offered a health plan, Blue Cross, but I took one look at the coverage and realized it was a bad joke. It was actually cheaper (and far less risky) for me to maintain my COBRA coverage to the tune of $350/month at that time than go with the plan that the employer offered for free.

I was on Cobra for about 3 years during the earlier part of this decade. It cost me nearly $10,000 at a time when my income was sharply reduced. This was simply wrong, to gouge people at a time in their lives when they can least afford it. This bill will address this inequity along with many others. I'm all for it, even though I have adequate insurance through my current employer.

It's time to take American health care out of the speculative arena that rewards investors for denying coverage to those who need it most.

 

[panthera]

Ross Douthat's view on the Republican opposition

This essay is one of the very few sane and intelligent commentaries from the conservatives, well worth reading.

Did The Republicans Blunder On Health Care?

How the G.O.P. lost the health care debate.

douthat.blogs.nytimes.com

 

[panthera]

For those of us to the left of Genghis Kahn

I found this, well, both disheartening and very accurate.

How Progressives Can Move Obama to the Left

I'm positive that Obama thinks that he's doing his best to bring about as much change as he can within the limits of this system. But is he a true progressive or a corporatist sell out?

www.huffingtonpost.com

 

[peterh770]

Clearly unconstitutional. Has nothing to do with lowering healthcare costs. It's an insurance scam, a major tax hike, and a power grab.

Merry Christmas! Here's your lump of coal.

Yahoo News: Latest and Breaking News, Headlines, Live Updates, and More

The latest news and headlines from Yahoo News. Get breaking news stories and in-depth coverage with videos and photos.

news.yahoo.com

 

[panthera]

Peter,

Insurance is Interstate, thus Congress has both a Constitutional mandate and a responsibility to oversee it.

The Republicans tried and lost on that one.

You know, the entire EC has health care for everyone and there is no disputing the fact that the EC is economically healthier - both now and historically than the US.

As a true conservative and capitalist, you really should be interested in what works.

Remember, Peter, it was Richard Nixon who tried to put through an even more liberal bill.

 

[DADoES]

 
For our overseas friends who are curious what an individual insurance plan costs in the U.S. and what it covers ...

Mine currently is $311.27 per month of which $1.50 is a service fee for paying monthly (by ACH) instead of paying the policy in-full on each 6-month anniversary date.

ONLY hospitalization is covered. Doctor visits and medication outside hospitalization are not covered, nor is anything dental or optical. $1,500 deductible, then the policy pays 80% until I've paid $10,000 out-of-pocket at which point the policy pays 100%. There's a supplemental "income" policy ($6.75 of the $311.27) that pays $50 per business/work day (weekends not included) while hospitalized, and covers ambulance transport but only in event of an accident such as a car wreck. If I'm at home with a blown inner ear, can't hear, severe vertigo, vomiting, can't stand up ... sorry, ambulance transport not covered, please pay City EMS $1,309. Not being aware of this at the time, my doctor orders an ambulance to transport me literally across a parking lot from the hospital to a building behind it for an MRI (while my parents were there with their car) ... which cost me another $410.50. A year later I got another bill for $410.50 because they had overlooked billing me for the transport back to the hospital after the MRI. I protested and they dropped the charge. But I digress ....

Each hospitalization incident is taken separately. If I have a blown ear in June, am released, pay my part of the charges ... then have another incident in November whether related to the ear or something different, the deductible starts over.

My doctor appt last month was $195 for lab tests, $60 for office visit. However, my three prescriptions (generic substitute) are $5, $5, and $10.

 

[hunter]

the cost of your insurnace....

....tells you why employers WILL pay the fine rather than for health insurance.

My employer pays about 8K / year for my wife's and my health insurance. Sounds like a $750 fine will be cheaper for them, eh?

My point is forcing folks to uy HEALTH INSURACE does NOT guarantee coverage. Massachusetts, where I used to live, is widely used as an example of this - many people who are required buy law to buy insurance still can't afford it and don't and pay fines.

<Shrug> Getting time to go Galt.

When politicians on both sides of the aisle are slaves to special interests no one is safe. And folks don't think the democraps are any more your friends than the Repubicashits. They'll both send you to camps.

Hunter

 

[foraloysius]

Glenn,

That is really horrible expensive! I pay €130.- ($195.-) per month. My employer pays €186.- ($279.-) per month. Hospital, doctor visits, medication (I pay the first €150.- per year), transport by ambulance, dental work and part of the optical costs are covered. My insurance even covers alternative health care up to €500.- if I want to visit an acupuncturist for instance. I have seen my dr. two times this month and had a lab test too. Everything was covered. So were the flu shots I got.

Just for the record, this is with a private insurance company. There are rules set by the government, but the government has no part in the insurance companies.

Louis

 

[panthera]

Louis,

Same for me in Germany.
Impossible to explain to many Americans, they are so isolated and their sources of information so biased they literally don't believe us.

 

[launderess]

Wish Everyone Would Stop Comparing Various EU Health Plans

To those in the United States.

Yes, sure for the most part they are wonderful, but then again every EU/UK country has taxes that would make Americans scream to provide this "care". There is a reason so many over a certian income bracket leg it out of the EU/UK, or more about to places within like Switzerlnd, to get away from having to surrender >40% or more of their income to taxes.

Call it whatever you like, but such instances represent "redistribution of wealth", which is Socialism. Does not matter if it is the Russian/Eastern European version or the French version, either way the state decides it can do things better and or make wiser decisions with your money than you can.

This pork laden,lobby driven so called "health care" bill does nothing to address the sky rocketing costs of USA healthcare, while adding 30 or more million persons to the system. What do people think is going to happen when all those persons start showing up at doctor's offices and hospitals demanding all that the law would give them?

Americans by and large do not like being told "no", especially when it comes to health care, and in order for any of these schemes to work and keep from bankrupting the USA, just as is the case with EU, UK, and even soon the Mexican system, someone somewhere is going to decide who can get what.

A sixty-five year or older male who wants/requires laparoscopy proceedure for his tennis elbow (so he can continue playing the game with his grandson), will probably get it in the US (if insured and or under Medicare), but no such luck is assured in the UK. His age works against him, and the board charged with making such decisions for NHS, will simply say "no". If the man has priviate insurance and or is willing to pay out of his own pocket, that is anohter matter.

Finally no other EU, UK or anyplace else has the total population of the United States, and runs any sort of national health system. So comparing UK, France or perhaps even Canada is not apples to apples. One already pays vast sums each month to "FICA", and "Medicare/Medicaid" out of pay packets.

 

[petek]

I don't get it either. If as some people think that healthcare in Canada is so horrible then why are we all not clamoring to get rid of it?
Re the comment about Canadians lining up to go to the states.. where does that come from? Bullshit. No doubt some Canadians do go to the states for elective surgery or for some reason or another but it is rare.. Now what about this that you don't hear about down there. All the Americans coming into Canada from the states trying to scam free healthcare.. Yes.. believe it. Up until a year or two ago it was costing Ontario alone millions and millions of dollars. At least the Canadians who go down to the US for something are paying for it,, not stealing it.
So all you naysayers.. why is it that Canadians and millions of Europeans etc are satisfied with their system and wouldn't have anything to do with the American mess

 

[launderess]

Oh Wait

This battle is just beginning.

By and large populations get the goverment they vote for; and in Europe and other places people have been willing to pay high tax rates, and or live with certain rules or restrictions on health care for the "greater good" of the entire country.

No such thing exsists in the United States, which is why this scheme will sooner or later either drive the country into the poor house, or raise taxes to great levels.

Everyone going on about how wonderful Medicare is for the elderly should remember this: when pushed through Congress and created, the average lifespan for someone living past the age of 65 was perhaps ten years on average. One of the reasons Medicare is in so much trouble now is that average age has been bumping up to 70, or 80 years due to advances in USA healthcare. Indeed persons born after 1970 or better, 1980 will live on average to perhaps 85 or 90. That is about 30 years give or take on taxpayer funded healthcare. This wouldn't be so bad if taxes taken in covered the cost of the system, but the time is fast approaching when that will no longer be the case. If Congress is too weak to stand up to special interests and the "AARP" set to deal with real reforms in Medicare/Medicaid, just what do you think is going to happen when 30 million or more persons of all ages are on some goverment sponsored health care plan? A whole new "entitlement" program is being created, and we know what road that leads down.

L.

 

[panthera]

But, Laundress,

Taxes are on a sliding scale - yes, people like you and me pay relatively more than those who are poor.
But for those taxes, you get something:
Longer, healthier life expectancy
Lower (enormously lower) crime
Health care
Education
Freedom of Speech which Americans no longer have

Seriously better infrastructure than the US.

In fact, while the Americans are still totally dependent on the crazy Arabs who hate us in the West, Europe after Russia pulled all that shit back in 2006 has reduced gas consumption 30%, we are working very hard and will be independent of the nut-cases in Moscow by 2015.

As for each country not being as large as the US by itself, what does that signify? Our economies are one, joint unit. Bigger than the US, with more produced. Yes, we lead you industrially.

Taxes are much fairer to the middle class in Europe. Let's face it - people like you and me and PeterH are just plain not in a position to bitch about things like we do. We are damn lucky.

 

[sudsmaster]

Launderess,

FICA is Medicare/Medicaid. It's not an additional deduction.

Laproscopy for tennis elbow? Tell that to the physicians I saw some 20 years ago (when I was much younger), when I had excellent health insurance, who simply told me to hold a hammer differently and lay off subjecting my elbow to shocks. Never was there any mention of any expensive surgical or even non-invasive diagnostic mentioned. Total cost was one doctor's visit. And this was not Canada or the UK!!!

As for the size of the USA meaning that we can't compare our health care system to that of European nations... BS. We are split up into states most of which are much smaller in population to European nations. And the health bills still give ample leeway to states to administer the programs as they see fit. To say that the experience of people enjoying national health care in the UK and elsewhere won't scale up to the USA is nonsense. And it also defeats one of the pet arguments of the Right: that such health care is fundamentally inferior to what the average US citizen can get (and apparently it isn't inferior, especially when many average citizens here have to make do without any health insurance).

 

[foraloysius]

Hang on!

The height of the taxes overhere has nothing to do with the health care systems. The government regulates but does not pay for the health care. It's all in hands of private insurance companies. The government only makes sure that there is a reasonable profit for them instead of earning lots of money over the heads (and health) of the consumers/patients.

 

[launderess]

The government only makes sure that there is a reasonable pr

A Ha! That's It! Hold It Right There!

Once you start allowing the state to determine what is a "reasonable" profit, you are down the road to Socialism government.

Once upon a time the railroads in the United States fell afoul of Washington DC, and were regulated literally to death, with the government deciding what was a "resonable" profit.

In New York State, we have rent control, which was supposed to be a temporary solution to a housing shortage, deciding what a reasonable profit for landlord should be; some fifty or so years later, the thing still exsists.

Last time one checked, the purpose of a business is to make a profit (ie, money),aside from those known as non-profits.

Trade and enterprise was one of the reasons for founding this country, and indeed many of our great cities, such as New York, Chicago, and so forth were founded and flourished based upon commercial for profit business. The want of such activity has become the ruin of many places, and will claim many of the Mid-West states.

 

[foraloysius]

Socialism or not, the Netherlands are still a country that big companies choose as their basis because of the tax climate. And lots of insurance companies find it apparently interesting to participate in the health insurance market. They aren't forced to do so!