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The insurance companies are in a great position
If they fold in this environment, they suck at business
Imagine if the Feds said all gasoline must be bought from Shell
How could Shell fail?
The insurance companies aren't even competing with a federal plan, but only between each other, as they are now, but now they'll have 30+ Million more people on their books.....30,000,000 more people on their books
In that environment, if they fail, they deserve to fail
And as far as millions of more people being FORCED to buy their product.........what's 100% of 0?
Anthem/Wellpoint is based in Indy. They are the largest health insurer in the country, so they get pretty intense coverage in the local fishwrap.
The CEO there, a guy named Larry Glasscock, went from making $6 million in compensation one year to $42 million the next.
Their stock went up 108% in the same timeframe.
BUT, their policy costs went up over 30% in the same period, while the office visit co-pays went from $10 to $25 in the same period.
So pardon me if I don't buy the profits=low premiums equation.
Their income is premiums, their outlay is for their clients medical services. That is the equation that derives profits.
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Granted a spouse may get full benefits, but I wouldn't hold your breath for anything else.
Just because it's written on a website by the government doesn't mean squat. They still hold dictatorial discretion over income that should be your families.
The government is notoriously corrupt, inefficient and incompetent in virtually every area except perhaps the military and even there extreme waste occurs.
You can put lipstick on a pig but this legislation is anti-American to the core.
By David Hogberg
Sun., March 21, '10 3:24 PM ET
With House Democrats poised to pass the Senate health care bill with some reconciliation changes later today, it is worthwhile to take a comprehensive look at the freedoms we will lose.
Of course, the overhaul is supposed to provide us with security. But it will result in skyrocketing insurance costs and physicians leaving the field in droves, making it harder to afford and find medical care. We may be about to live Benjamin Franklin’s adage, “People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.”
The sections described below are taken from HR 3590 as agreed to by the Senate and from the reconciliation bill as displayed by the Rules Committee.
1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)
2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).
3. You would like to pay less in premiums by buying insurance with lifetime or annual limits on coverage? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer such policies, even if that is what customers prefer. (Section 2711).
4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).
5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employees’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714).
6. You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.
You’re a single guy without children? Tough, your policy must cover pediatric services. You’re a woman who can’t have children? Tough, your policy must cover maternity services. You’re a teetotaler? Tough, your policy must cover substance abuse treatment. (Add your own violation of personal freedom here.) (Section 1302).
7. Do you want a plan with lots of cost-sharing and low premiums? Well, the best you can do is a “Bronze plan,” which has benefits that provide benefits that are actuarially equivalent to 60% of the full actuarial value of the benefits provided under the plan. Anything lower than that, tough. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A))
8. You are an employer in the small-group insurance market and you’d like to offer policies with deductibles higher than $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families? Tough. (Section 1302 (c) (2) (A).
9. If you are a large employer (defined as at least 50 employees) and you do not want to provide health insurance to your employee, then you will pay a $750 fine per employee (It could be $2,000 to $3,000 under the reconciliation changes). Think you know how to better spend that money? Tough. (Section 1513).
10. You are an employer who offers health flexible spending arrangements and your employees want to deduct more than $2,500 from their salaries for it? Sorry, can’t do that. (Section 9005 (i)).
11. If you are a physician and you don’t want the government looking over your shoulder? Tough. The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to use your claims data to issue you reports that measure the resources you use, provide information on the quality of care you provide, and compare the resources you use to those used by other physicians. Of course, this will all be just for informational purposes. It’s not like the government will ever use it to intervene in your practice and patients’ care. Of course not. (Section 3003 (i))
12. If you are a physician and you want to own your own hospital, you must be an owner and have a “Medicare provider agreement” by Feb. 1, 2010. (Dec. 31, 2010 in the reconciliation changes.) If you didn’t have those by then, you are out of luck. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A))
13. If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can’t (Section 6001 (i) (1) (
14. You are a health insurer and you want to raise premiums to meet costs? Well, if that increase is deemed “unreasonable” by the Secretary of Health and Human Services it will be subject to review and can be denied. (Section 1003)
15. The government will extract a fee of $2.3 billion annually from the pharmaceutical industry. If you are a pharmaceutical company what you will pay depends on the ratio of the number of brand-name drugs you sell to the total number of brand-name drugs sold in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the brand-name drugs in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2.3 billion, or $230,000,000. (Under reconciliation, it starts at $2.55 billion, jumps to $3 billion in 2012, then to $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018, before settling at $2.8 billion in 2019 (Section 1404)). Think you, as a pharmaceutical executive, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 9008 (b)).
16. The government will extract a fee of $2 billion annually from medical device makers. If you are a medical device maker what you will pay depends on your share of medical device sales in the U.S. So, if you sell 10% of the medical devices in the U.S., what you pay will be 10% multiplied by $2 billion, or $200,000,000. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for R&D? Tough. (Section 9009 (b)).
The reconciliation package turns that into a 2.9% excise tax for medical device makers. Think you, as a medical device maker, know how to better use that money, say for research and development? Tough. (Section 1405).
17. The government will extract a fee of $6.7 billion annually from insurance companies. If you are an insurer, what you will pay depends on your share of net premiums plus 200% of your administrative costs. So, if your net premiums and administrative costs are equal to 10% of the total, you will pay 10% of $6.7 billion, or $670,000,000. In the reconciliation bill, the fee will start at $8 billion in 2014, $11.3 billion in 2015, $1.9 billion in 2017, and $14.3 billion in 2018 (Section 1406).Think you, as an insurance executive, know how to better spend that money? Tough.(Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and
18. If an insurance company board or its stockholders think the CEO is worth more than $500,000 in deferred compensation? Tough.(Section 9014).
19. You will have to pay an additional 0.5% payroll tax on any dollar you make over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. What? You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9015).
That amount will rise to a 3.8% tax if reconciliation passes. It will also apply to investment income, estates, and trusts. You think you know how to spend the money you earned better than the government? Like you need to ask. (Section 1402).
20. If you go for cosmetic surgery, you will pay an additional 5% tax on the cost of the procedure. Think you know how to spend that money you earned better than the government? Tough. (Section 9017).
I guess you fell victim to this part of it:
Unmarried children under 18, or up to age 19 if they are attending high school full time.
Scary.
The new 32 million is all risk...they are getting an all expenses paid vacation at the doctors office and can't pay their premiums, much less their co-pays.
Indy is right, health insurers will be a thing of the past faster than you expect.
I'm with Dave and think that there is so much fat in the insurance industry that gets hidden and doesn't show up on the bottom line, along with a bigger pool of 32 million people and a mandate for everyone to have insurance, the insurance companies will piss and moan, but (unfortunately) survive.
Maybe the CEO's and top executives will have to do with $1 million-dollar paychecks instead of $42 million, and their lobbyists will have to take a pay cut, and they might have to stay at the Radisson in downtown Indy instead of the Conrad Jupiter, but welcome to the real world.
BAD: its not really free!
Bad----It is mandatory....
Bad----stops small business growth. Who is going to go over 50 employees now, due to having to provide health care.
BAD: they have no clue where the costs will really end up!
(1) People who have been denied health care due to preexisting conditions will no longer be denied. The care for their preexisting conditions are largely funded by a 9 billion dollar high-risk fund set up to prevent a surge of preexisting care costs pushing overall premiums sky-high (which was a John McCain idea, and a good one).
(2) Starting in 2014, people who carry health care insurance will get a tax credit of $695 for individuals and $2083 for families. If you choose to go without health care, you don't get the tax credit, because eventually you're going to get sick, go to the hospital and everyone else will have to pay your bill when you can't.
(3) There will be subsidies for purchase of insurance for those who don't have employer-provided insurance and make less than $88K/yr. The subsidies are higher for lower earners and vise versa. I think this kicks in in 2012 or so.
(4) The only taxation is about a 4% surtax on earnings above $250K for joint filers and $200K for single filers. That surtax doesn't affect earnings below those thresholds for anyone. In addition, the same thresholds will incur a 0.9% additional Medicare tax. The logic behind this is that these people were the overwhelming beneficiaries of the Bush tax cuts, and this levels the playing field with middle income earners a little. Again, if you earn (for example) $275K, only $25K is subject to the surtax, not the first $250K. I think that starts in 2014.
(5) Insurance companies can no longer cancel your insurance if you get sick.
(6) Medicaid income qualification thresholds have been raised, but I'm not sure by how much.
(7) Anyone without employer-provided insurance will be able to buy insurance from a pool of private insurance. This is simply an extension of the existing program that administers government worker health care insurance options and is, in no way, a "government takeover of health care".
(8) Small businesses will not be required to provide insurance since their employees will be able to buy insurance from the pool. I think that applies to businesses with < 50 employees if I'm not mistaken.
(9) The Medicare prescription drug donut hole will be closed.
(10) Young people will be able to stay on their parents' insurance through age 26.
(11) The bill cuts Medicare Advantage payments to insurance companies and has every health care efficiency mechanism that people like the Mayo Clinic have been touting for years, in an effort to decrease overall health care costs. It cuts the budget deficit $138B in the first ten years, an additional $1 trillion in the next 10 years and keeps Medicare solvent for an additional 8 years.
That's pretty much it. If you're going to argue it, argue the actual bill, not the rhetoric. It is not a jobs killer, it's a jobs creator. If you ever wanted to start a small business or go into business for yourself, insurance is no longer an impediment. I've been thinking of taking advantage of that myself.
Whether or not overall insurance premiums will increase is unknown - they're increasing exponentially now, so I'm not even sure you could determine how much, if any, future increase could be attributed to the bill.
Before the vote, polling showed a pretty high disapproval rating for the health care bill - not surprising considering the amount of outrageous rhetoric about it. But "disapproval" lumps all those who don't want ANY bill with those who disapproved because they don't think the bill went far enough (about 10% or so). After the bill was passed and most of the "bill doesn't go far enough" people probably moderated their opinion, Gallup polled and found that 49% were happy the bill passed and 40% were not, with 11% unsure. This bill is solidly within "the will of the American people." Americans, with the exception of Tea Party lunatics, have known our health care system was a runaway train about to run off the tracks for years.
Those are the simple facts. If you're going to argue, argue the facts. And I'm not arguing with anyone. Believe what you want, Americans are going to figure out this was a big improvement, even if they don't like all the individual provisions (even I don't like all of them).
Pit Row
Y'all have a good time here, don't let all the arguing get under your skin. The truth has a way of becoming obvious, even penetrating 24/7 propaganda.
GOOD: Not that I agree with this plan but something needed to be done.
Post a reply to: List good and bad about healtcare here.