You Are Not Going to Be Able to Keep Your Health Care Plan
The House bill will (over time) allow all employers to drop their coverage and send their employees to the government-run, government-regulated health insurance exchange, where the federal subsidies will be much higher than the tax relief for employer-provided insurance. Here is the time table:
- First year – "smallest" employers (10 or fewer employees)
- Second year – "smaller" employers (20 or fewer employees)
- Third year and thereafter – "larger" employers (21 or more employees, at a schedule and pace the Commissioner deems appropriate)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxo4rjO9cc4
"A little bitty tear let me down"
The truth comes out!!!
Why is no one talking about this?
Vicki, that’s why this blog exists. To report what everyone else is ignoring.
Unfortunatly this time table is an invention just like most of the arguements against reform. There is nothing factual about it and trying to yet again scare people is just par for the course for conservatives who would rather do nothing and increase both the cost and in-efficiency of the present system.
First- to do nothing, as conservatives want, will cost far more than one trillion dollars.
Second- continuing with the present course will force small buisness to drop coverage all together and faster than any proposals presently being circulated. How can I say that with any conviction? Because small buisness is already being forced, because of cost, to eliminate healthcare or drastically reduce benefits. Soon Costs will become so high that ALL small buisness will drop any hint of coverage. That is the trend that is present NOW!! To continue with the same old buisness, will not change this trend but can only deepen and expand that trend. Especially if republicans get their way and we de-regulate the system allowing more predatory pricing by insurance companies…. why not talk about that?
third- How dare you link Burl Ives with these flat-out lies. Mr. Ives would have been the first in line supporting health-care reform. Mr. Ives was above all a caring individual interested in the support and care of our children and presently children suffer the most under the lack of healthcare available. To insinuate that mr Ives would have stood by while conservatives plan the downfall of children’s healthcare is ludicrous.
In 1996 the federal HIPAA law forced all small group policies to be guaranteed issue. The federal government is why small group coverage is so expensive. ehealthinsurance.com estimates that this makes small group coverage cost 25% more than individual coverage.
Thanks to inept federal regulation, it therefore makes little sense to buy health insurance through a small employer, especially if uninsurable employees can take advantage of state subsidized policies for the uninsurable (also required by the feds) or a spouse’s large group policy.
Finally, past experience suggests that health exchanges do not work as well as private brokers or aggregators like ehealthinsurance.com. Info on current and former exchange operation comes from Maine, Tennessee, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan, and Massachusetts.
Supporters of exchanges appear to be unable to adduce facts explaining why one should reasonably expect an exchange run by government to work better than the existing private methods of selling insurance.
Asserting that those who disagree with you are simply trying to scare people does not make for an especially convincing rebuttal.
As for the scare tactics, that is a fcat of life. Conservatives cannot get anything done without it. That is just plain, simple fact. Conservatives rely on fear to maintain power. If they oONCE admitted anything truthful, their whole platform colapses.
The only reasdon that the cost for small group insurance is higher is due to the insurance companies retaliating against mandates. There is no cost reason for higher premiums. care costs just as much if I am one person or a member of a group. It still costs 200 to go to the doctor, it still costs 25,000 a year for medicine reagradless of individual or group memebership. So try and give a real reason other than pure viscious greed to defend raising prices without a concurrent raise in cost. The ONLY reasonable explanation is again predatory pricing.
As for those who may qualify for haelth assistance through governement. ONLY if you make less than 12000 a year. Even though the poverty line is 15,000 per person. Try to explain to someone with $200/month disposable income why they should spend that money on triple or quadruple premiums for no coverage or should they rather buy food.
Exchanges in the private sector are highly suspect… I mean look at the TV sometime. AIG will save you money over progressive and progressive will save you money over AIG, there is no truth in private insurance comparison groups.
As for the public option or exchange… it will force true competition and force more open honest and REALISTIC pricing. A government option will force insurance and pharma to expand doctor choice, relax rationing (which occurs under private insurance), increase hospital and doctor wealth because there would no longer be losses to write off and that money can go for hiring and/or more tech stuff, it will force insurance to accept more people and recind the present pre-existing condition issues, and will put medical decisions back into the hands of doctors and patients.
Your example of small group expense in healthcare is a perfect example of the LACK of any competition in the market. If there were competition, another insurance company would have offered lowered costs. The very fact that costs are higher PROVES the lack of competition.
And I stick to the scare tactic statement. It is past time for Conservatives to deal from a place of honesty and dignity rather than terrorizing people with exxagerated stories of “socialized medicine”. Only then are they deserving of any serious attention. But they can’t do that and won’t do that. They will continue to rule through fear and intimidation and unfortunatly for the rest of regular America, we suffer the consequences of their lies and invented fantasies. They already have free care for life so they have no reason to help the rest of us. Maybe if we strip their own healthcare they would have more incentive to act in a humane manner.
It simply is not true that people qualify for government assistance only if they make less than $12,000 a year. There is no means test for Medicare, for example, which covers people over 65.
In many states, Medicaid covers people who make up to 450% of the federal poverty rate which is roughly $99,000 for a family of 4 and $43,000 for a single person. State high risk pools for the uninsured have no income tests and are highly subsidized. Federally subsidized community health clinics offer free visits.
Of course, coverage does not mean that one can get care–both Medicare and Medicaid patients have problems scheduling appointments. They are often limited to clinic medicine.
Higher prices do not imply a lack of competition. Prices can rise when the competitive situation stays the same due to excess regulation or a hike in input costs. When oil prices go up, consumer goods prices also go up even though the level of competition in the market has not changed.
People in countries with government controlled care do not have free care. They pay very high taxes for routine care and, in an increasing number of cases, have to pay cash for the advanced care that their government systems refuse to provide.
Health care can cost less. It is arguably the most regulated industry in the US economy. As the Carter era deregulation demonstrated, pruning excess regulation can lower costs by 30 to 40 percent while improving service and innovation. That is what is needed for real health care reform.
Excuse me linda- but it is true.
Your example of the over 65 category is false because medicare is a part of social security and being 65 and retired doesn’t limit income.
If you are not 65 or older though 12000 IS the limit. In fact in Tennessee if you are a male and your income is ZERO, you cannot obtain healthcare throough the state-run health services for the poor. You must be a female, have breast cancer (male or female), or be under 18. Any other group that doesn’t fit this category is denied with no appeal allowed. That is reality go look it up.
And as for those who enjoy national medicine, they may pay high taxes but they get decent return for those taxes. We in America pay high taxes for little to no return.
As for you contention about health care prices dropping by 40% in the 70’s…. never happened. Healthcare premiums rose in the 70’s. Even though the cost of doing buisness may have indeed fallen, those saving were not passed to the consumer but passed into the pockets of buisnessmen. Typical greed at work.
You site oil costs and the attendant rise in prices across the board. That is a tricky one but again this is about greed. Oil companies, have stockpiles, which according to the Oil companies themselves is LARGE and more than adequate. Oil Companies raise their rates not just for people but other buisnesses and those companies inturn raise their prices and passes that cost to consumers. So the consumer gets soaked twice! Once by the Oil companies who raise rates without a reduction in supply or a rise in demand, and again by other buisnesses. Yet let MORE oil come in and less demand and the Oil companies reduce their rates and yet those saving are NOT passed to consumers. Therefore raising inflation and the cost of living. Yep that’s true competition alright….NOT
Take myself for example… I redcieve a monthly income of $820. That gives mer an income of $9640 a year. With that income level I am eligible for $65 dollars a month in food assistance, I am ineligible to obtain housing assistance and I am ineligible for healthcare assistance through the state. My personal wealth including my car is 1800 a month ($900.00 value for the car). I didn’t base my income yearly on $1800 because a car isn’t raelly cash nor income. True I could sell the car but that is a one time boost of a single months pay, not a realistic or feasible move in rural Tennessee scince public transportation is not available in most areas and so getting to and from work is a huge problem.
Those are the realities of poverty and obtaining healthcare assistance, and all the studies by rich white men, stuffed behind doors, who have never been poor in their life, and have no clue as to the impact of poverty upon opportunity, will never portray the reality of life in poverty. None of the reform “plans” utilizing tax credits and HSA’s take the reality of poverty into account.
As for cash only things and your pointing to that in other countries, What is different between that and what the reality is now. Not only do the insured have to pay premiums but they also have to pay out of pocket for tests and procedures that are refused by insurance reagrdless of a doctors opinion of the neccessity of said tests. The only difference I can see is that We pay throughthe norse for insurance and Pay through the nose for un-covered expense. Where in Canada I would only have to worry financially over one healthcare bill, In America I have to worry about 2 bills, I have to worry that after paying my premiums for years that when needed the insurance company just says sorry,no appeal allowed. Why not just take that money and burn it? it does more good in providing heat instead of just giving it away.
It seems to me that what Brian should really be asking for is an improved social safety net, and not to re-invent the entire health care delivery system.
This whole “new” idea about National Health Care, according to Obama, has to take precedence over what he promised during the campaign because it is more cost effective. I would like to point out, however, this “new” plan sure looks like, talks like, walks like, and smells like the health care initiative proposed by Hillary Clinton in the early 1990’s. I wonder why?
[…] plan when you change jobs — virtually impossible. Under the bills in Congress, more than half the population will try to shift from group to individual coverage — creating an enormous taxpayer (subsidy) burden with no net reduction in the number of […]