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More on health care

Post on November 11, 2009 by 6 Comments »

In his Weekly Briefing “Okay, let’s go over this one more time“, Rob Schofield provides just with just the simple facts about health care reform.

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Comments (Closed):6

  1. IBXer
    November 12, 2009 at 10:52 am

    Fact #1. This bill cuts cost by imposing unfunded mandates on the States. That is why many governors have come out against the bill. This is the only way they can pretend not to spend more of our money… cost shifting.

    “The governors are concerned about unfunded mandates, another situation where the Federal government says you must do X and you must pay for it. Well if they want to reform health care, they should figure out what the rules are and how they are going to pay for it,” Democratic Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/health/policy/20health.html

    Fact #2. For one thing, you cannot say this with a straight face. This is one of the largest social experiments in American history and you do not have a crystal ball. What we do know is that we are expanding entitlements and projecting them at X amount. History tells us over and over and over again that government projections are generally many times lower than actual figures. In 1965, Medicare was predicted to cost $12 billion by 1990. The actual cost in 1990? $110 billion.

    Fact #3. If you don’t get coverage and hand over a large portion of your monthly pay to the government (about $250 a month for a young individual), you will face a fine of up to $250,000 and/or 5 years in prison.

    Fact #4. This bill slashes Medicare by $500 billion and fundamentally changes how Medicare pays doctors and hospitals, permitting the government to dictate treatment decisions.

    Fact #5. The newest Gallup survey released on Monday, only 29% say they’d advise their congressman to vote for the health-care bill. This is down from 40% last month. A Rasmussen poll out this week shows that 42% of Americans strongly oppose the bill, while only 25% strongly favor it.

  2. Jeff
    November 12, 2009 at 1:39 pm

    IBXer, I watched a PBS program the other night on health care systems around the world that seemed to make a case for government controlled health care. The countries visited were; Britain – Japan – Germany – Switzerland – and Tiawan. Each system had what their citizens felt were good benifits to the government’s control, and then they had some issues as well. The show tried to play the impartial role while showing us the options but what it missed and what I felt was important to the issue was this. The UK, Germany and Japan are US dependents and are subsidised by our taxes through our military presence and protection. Therefore they have more to spend on health care. Switzerland and Tiawan don’t have US bases but with our peresence in Europe and Asia as it is can’t hurt.

    I’d like to pull all of our troops home, not only is it ethical, it’s economical.

  3. IBXer
    November 12, 2009 at 3:03 pm

    Another issue, Jeff, is that those countries do not spend nearly as much on research as we do. They wait for us to invent it, then they copy it.

    If it wasn’t for us spending as much on healthcare as we do, the standard of living everywhere on earth would be much lower.

  4. Jack
    November 12, 2009 at 6:09 pm

    What the article said about unfunded mandates is: “…the governors would all agree that what we don’t want from the federal government is unfunded mandates,” said Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican, the group’s incoming chairman. “We can’t have the Congress impose requirements that we are forced to absorb beyond our capacity to do so.”

    Duh!

    “Many governors expressed frustration that the prolonged negotiations in Washington had made it difficult to gauge the potential impact on their budgets.”

    The governors don’t know any more than anyone else at this point.

    Fact# 3 is a fantasy based comment. But the fact that insurance companies already dictate treatment decisions isn’t.

  5. IBXer
    November 13, 2009 at 11:04 am

    Jack, facts are facts. This bill will require people to buy health insurance. On top of that, it places requirements that prevent insurers from charging the elderly more than twice what they charge the young. That means the policy cost for a young person will be a lot higher under Obamacare than it currently is. So not only does Obamacare force a young person to buy insurance, they will have to spend a lot more for it than what is currently available to them.

    These costs will come at the expense of purchasing homes, investing in starting new businesses, starting families, all of the things young people would normally be doing with their money.

    If they do not fork over the money for these expensive health plans, they can be arrested, fined and jailed for tax evasion.

    That might describe one of your fantasies, but not mine.

  6. IBXer
    November 13, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    This is how it works in the House Bill.

    The government will determine how much you are responsible for paying for their insurance. If the insurance coverage available to you is higher than the amount the government deems the individual is responsible for, then the government would pay for the remaining amount with the government affordability credits.

    The bill provides financial assistance on a sliding scale. Premiums range from 1.5 percent of income to 12% for those at 400% of the Federal Poverty Level. The plan provides additional assistance for households up to 400% of the FPL by limiting cost-sharing to 3% of plan costs at the lowest tier, to 30% of plan costs at 350-400% of the FPL.

    For instance: If your income is under 133-150% of the poverty level, your premiums will be limited to a range of 1.5 to 3%. That means you’ll pay 3% of plan costs, with an annual out-of-pocket cap of $500 for individuals and $1000 for families.

    133-150% – 1.5 to 3% – $500/$1000
    150-200% – 3-5.5% – 7% – $1000/$2000
    200-250% – 5.5-8% – 15% – $2000/$4000
    250-300% – 8-10% – 22% – $4000/$8000
    300-350% – 10-11% – 28% – $4500/$9000
    350-400% – 11-12% – 30% – $5000/$10,000

    The Federal Poverty Level is:

    Persons in family
    1 $10,830
    2 14,570
    3 18,310
    4 22,050
    5 25,790
    6 29,530
    7 33,270
    8 37,010

    For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for each additional person.

    That means if you are 30 years old, single and trying to make your way in the world and are making $30,000, paying your rent, student loans, etc, the government will require you to pay $4,000 a year for insurance ($334 a month). If you don’t, you can be fined $250,000 and jailed for up to 5 years.