DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Health Insurance "Haves" to pay for "Have Nots"?

You raise valid points, but you assume they spawned from the health care industry. They didn't. They are government requirements. For 20 years, we have been capable of providing a health record that would be abvailable across the network. HIPPA says we can't.

We don't charge exorbitant rates. Just check out what it costs to fix your car. Now check out what our equipment cost compared to you mechanics. I just spent 1.5 mil on an angio unit so dialysis patients can receive their treatment. My reimbursements are paltry compared to what it cost me to purchase, intall and staff that machine.

The fact that we can charge a price, and the payer can chose what they pay is unprecedented in the free market system. What we charge has decreased significantly in the 20 years I have been in this field.

And the insurance companies pay close attention to what the government does and make sure to reimburse just a little bit better. An auto insurance company pays what the body shop charges, period. They may have a say in what is totaled and what is repairable, but that is just good business.

So yes, you're a boss. You buy health care for your employees. But you are only concerned about what it costs, not what it covers. You proved my point.

Well in this area, HIPPA needs to be changed. That was my point.

A couple of years ago my wife went in for a minor proceedure. The first hospital bill was 20,000. The settled amount was 5,000. I readily agree that equipment and services need to be covered in providing healthcare, but when the rationalization of the price of the service does not compare with the actual cost, you know something is wrong.

This is my point, the insured are covering some of the costs for the uninsured. When the cost of the service provided is calculated, the overhead is applied. The overhead includes the amount of services that is not reimbursed.

It is not a free market system as you would suggest. In a free market system you know the price before you make the purchase. Very little of the healthcare industry has posted pricing. Pricing is also different for those with health insurance versus those without. I have seen it with dental plans.

I dont know what the solution is to the real problem of healthcare, what is a fair and reasonable price for the service provided? When someone comes forward with an approach as to how fair pricing can be established then we will begin to make progress. But right now the system is in chaos.

Last time I had autobody repair work I had options, go to an insurer approved shop or provide 3 estimates for the repair.

To state that I am only concerned with cost, and not coverage is nonsense. I also use the healthcare. A couple of years ago, we were all self insured with a fixed company reimbursement. We moved to a company plan because 1) it was the right thing to do, even if the cost went up 20 percent and 2) we had employees with special situations that made healthcare for them outrageously expensive.

"Knock knock"

"Who's there?"

"HIPPA"

"HIPPA who?"

"I can't tell you"

Have you seen the money the medical associations are tossing at Washington these days? Not that it wasn't extreme in the past but this year the lobby money being provided our policy makers is to a point of being obscene. I do think the system needs to be changed, but fear we'll still be under the best plan the providers can buy.

And if that isn't bad enough we also have stuff like this going on:
The wife of a senator playing a lead role on a national health care overhaul sits on the boards of four health care companies, one of several examples of lawmakers with ties to the medical industry.

Jackie Clegg Dodd, wife of Sen. Chris Dodd, serves on the boards of Javelin Pharmaceuticals Inc., Cardiome Pharma Corp., Brookdale Senior Living, and Pear Tree Pharmaceuticals, a financial disclosure report the senator released Friday shows.

Sen. Dodd, D-Conn., is filling in for ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will soon start work on a health care bill. Dodd will shepherd the legislation through the Senate.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/06/12/20090612senate-disclosure12-ON.html

GM, you type that like you have personally experienced that.

Took me three weeks to get out and cost more than a five star hotel suite would have

OMG, I'm laughing so hard right now. That's about the funniest thing I've read in a long time........

House Health-Care Proposal Adds $600 Billion in Taxes

By Laura Litvan
Bllomberg News

June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Health-care overhaul legislation being drafted by House Democrats will include $600 billion in tax increases and $400 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel said.

Democrats will work on the bill’s details next week as they struggle through “what kind of heartburn” it will cause to agree on how to pay for revamping the health-care system, Rangel, a New York Democrat, said today. The measure’s cost is reaching well beyond the $634 billion President Barack Obama proposed in his budget request to Congress as a 10-year down payment for the policy changes.

Asked whether the cost of a health-care overhaul would be more than $1 trillion over a decade, Rangel said, “the answer is yes.” Some Senate Republicans, including Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, say the costs will likely exceed $1.5 trillion.

House Democrats plan to release their legislation next week. Obama is working with Congress to get legislation to his desk by October.

Democrats in the House and Senate are crafting legislation that would require all Americans to have health insurance, prohibit insurers from refusing to cover pre-existing conditions and place other restrictions on the industry.

Online Exchanges

The legislation would establish online exchanges for individuals to purchase insurance and would require employers to provide health benefits to workers or pay a penalty. Some Democrats also are backing creation of a government-run program to expand coverage to the uninsured. The issue is the subject of bipartisan negotiations with Republican who oppose the so-called public option.

Rangel said Democrats are still considering options for tax increases that might be in the bill, including a possible end to the income tax exclusion for employer-paid health benefits.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, is considering a proposal to apply income taxes to health-care plans if they are significantly more expensive than the basic health plan for federal employees -- $13,000 for a family of four.

Rangel said House Democrats want to avoid the deeper cuts to projected spending under Medicare and Medicaid that Obama has been putting forth. House Democrats want to achieve cost-savings by cuts in payments to private insurance plans under Medicare.

Covering the Costs

Obama has pledged that health-care changes won’t add to the deficit. To accomplish that, he’s proposed getting about $600 billion by reducing tax deductions available to the wealthy, and by trimming Medicare payments to insurance companies.

That won’t be enough to cover the overhaul costs. Obama said this week he plans in the coming days to disclose more proposals for raising “additional sources of revenue.” In a letter last week to Senate Democrats drafting legislation he said he will be proposing between $200 billion and $300 billion in further Medicare and Medicaid cuts.

Obama plans to give a speech Monday in Chicago to the American Medical Association as part of his campaign to build up support for what could be the biggest changes to healthcare policy since Medicare was established in 1965.

Rangel said that while House Democrats will likely release more details about health policy changes in their legislation next week, the package of offsetting tax increases and spending cuts likely will come later. Democrats, he said, want to put forth the more-positive aspects of an overhaul first. Rangel also wants to let lawmakers have time to study and weigh in on proposed offsets.

“We have a problem in not wanting to attract enough negative attention to the bill in terms of the pay-fors,” he said. “Let them get a good feel for the coverage.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net

June 14, 2009
A Real Free Market Health Care Solution
By Frank S. Rosenbloom, M.D.


President Obama made it clear this week that he was not going to settle for any delay in reforming health care. There are several proposals on the table ranging from government controlled "private" health care plans such as the Wyden-Bennett Health Reform Plan to the plan Mr. Obama prefers, fully government funded health care. All of the proposals are designed so that private insurance will be squeezed out of the market. Mr. Wyden's plan may seem more palatable initially but we must remember that ideologically the plan is the same as Mr. Obama's plan. The end result will therefore be the same; single-payer government controlled health care.

Under the Wyden-Bennett plan, a new federal bureaucracy will be established and a new agency created in each state called the Health Help Agency (HHA) to manage the Healthy American Private Insurance, or HAPI plans. The name itself causes such a nice, warm feeling in my tummy that I can already see the health benefits! HAPI plans will be sold through the state HHA, which will determine the contributions of individuals and employers. Each state will have at least two HAPI plans available so that people can double their happiness.

Mr. Wyden considers them private plans because there will be private insurance companies and private health care providers. They would be in fact as "private" as Medicare. Eventually, private insurance will cease to exist and the government will take over, perpetuating the purposeful dependence that Medicare was designed to ensure.

There are several fundamental problems with all of the plans proposed by the Democrats.


1. The plans are cost centered as opposed to patient centered. In other words, the Democrats are not pro-choice. In every case we can see that the Democrats have come out on the side of the government's right to mandate rather than patient choice. This is true in health care and in the abortion issue where the government protects only select choices. The government makes choices and the people abide by those choices.
2. The government uses flawed statistics in order to push its health plan proposals. The myth of the 45 million uninsured and skewed life expectancy and infant mortality numbers are examples.
3. Democrat proposals are going to cost much more than they will admit. Haven't we seen this somewhere before? Medicare costs are much higher than published with a debt of $38 trillion and fiscal collapse looming by 2018. Now, President Obama wants to add another entitlement program.


Goals of a good health care system:


1. Simplicity. (Mr. Obama and Ms. Pelosi, this means lack of complexity)
2. Available to all members of society, including the poor.
3. Offers good, basic lower cost health care options.
4. Portable. Not tied to employer or the government.
5. Prevention of exclusions for those who have had "pre-existing" problems.
6. Expandable. Option to purchase more extensive plans according to personal choice and ability. There is no Shangri-La. Wealthier people in Britain buy private insurance and those in Canada come to the United States for care. The Wyden plan proposes options for more extensive plans as well.
7. Shared, sustainable cost and some personal financial responsibility for all.
8. Patient health centered care. Preventive care with financial penalties for continued poor choices and rewards available for good health practices.


Solution:


1. Don't pass any of the Democrat health care plans. Savings of at least $3 trillion over the next five years.
2. Immediately do away with Medicare, Medicaid, and The Center for Medicare and Medicaid services. No other major industrialized nation has a separate system for the elderly, disabled and the poor. Scrap the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation. Savings of nearly $1 trillion in federal tax dollars yearly, $1 trillion in savings for states and billions in savings by dissolving the tyrannical Joint Commission.
3. People should be responsible for purchasing their own health care, not the government or the employer, making health insurance completely portable. Scrap Hillary Clinton's HIPAA act at a savings of billions yearly. Let's make it HIPAA-posthumous.
4. A Health Insurance Company must offer a good basic low-cost health care plan with expanded health savings accounts. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.
5. No health exclusions for three years. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.
6. Health plans should promote healthy practices and preventive health. Taxpayer cost zero.
7. For the poor, government should subsidize the premiums, not be involved in paying providers. Taxpayer costs by my estimate around $600 billion per year.
8. Retired people of lower means should be helped as above but should not have a separate insurance plan run by the government. Sorry, Medicare is dead. Promises were broken, but we are mature people and we need to get over it. Let's not let it happen again! Taxpayer cost around $300 billion per year.
9. End tax penalties for individuals purchasing individual health insurance. Taxpayer cost zero dollars as these penalties are merely punitive, designed to make people dependent.
10. The health insurance companies in each state should have the option of creating a risk pool from some of their premium funds. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.
11. Laws should be changed to allow for private health co-ops to be formed as an option for those so inclined. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.
12. Patients should be free to change insurance plans at least twice yearly and since their insurance would not be controlled by their employer or the government no permission is needed from them. Taxpayer cost zero dollars.
13. There should be no legal right for insurance plans to dismiss competent and qualified contracted physicians for "no cause", when that no cause is really due to the physician acting as a patient advocate.
14. Tort reform with penalties for frivolous lawsuits and the loser paying some of the costs.


Well, there you have it. The savings for taxpayers over three years: Nearly $5 trillion. Not requiring bills hundreds of pages long: Priceless! A few short regulations and we have a viable health care system for the future covering over 99% of the population, devoid of the treachery of Medicare and without dependence on the federal government. It's very simple, very sensible, and so easy even a government official can understand it. It's even short enough for Congress members to read fully, though some may require several days. Oh, yes, Mr. Obama, I want our $600 billion back.


http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/06/a_real_free_market_health_care_1.html

Lack of votes seen for Obama healthcare program
Will Dunham – Sun Jun 14, 12:43 pm ET


WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama's health secretary on Sunday pushed for a new government-run healthcare program, an idea facing skepticism even in his own party, and a senior Senate Democrat flatly said votes are lacking in Congress for the proposal.

In addition, Vice President Joe Biden opposed proposals being discussed by some lawmakers to tax health insurance benefits provided to people by employers as a way to pay for an overhaul of the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry.

Obama, aiming to get healthcare costs under control and ensure that the 46 million Americans who are uninsured can get health coverage, wants a new public program to compete with private insurers.

"The president feels that having a 'public option' side by side -- same playing field, same rules -- will give Americans choice and will help lower costs for everybody. And that's a good thing," Sebelius told CNN.

"The president does not want to dismantle privately owned plans. He doesn't want the 180 million people who have employer coverage to lose that coverage. He wants to strengthen the marketplace," Sebelius added.

Healthcare costs undermine the competitiveness of U.S. companies, drive many families into bankruptcy and eat up a growing portion of state and federal spending.

Versions of healthcare legislation unveiled by senior Democrats in the House and Senate include a new government insurance program. But Republicans are adamantly opposed to the idea, saying it could harm private insurers, and some of Obama's fellow Democrats are against it, too.

'VERY GOOD ARGUMENTS'

Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said there is not enough support in Congress for the "public option" even though proponents offer "very good arguments" for it.

"You've got to attract some Republicans as well as holding virtually all of the Democrats together. And that, I don't believe, is possible with the pure 'public option.' I don't think the votes are there," Conrad said on CNN.

There already are large public health insurance programs like the Medicare program for those over 65 and the disabled and the Medicaid for the poor. Obama envisions a program for those not already covered by existing public plans.

Conrad has proposed an alternative to a new public program -- a system of federally chartered insurance cooperatives that could be a nonprofit alternative to the insurance industry.

Susan Collins, one of the few moderate Senate Republicans, said on CNN this was an intriguing idea that could serve as a compromise between those for and against a new public plan.

Obama on Monday is set to address the American Medical Association, which represents the nation's doctors and has voiced skepticism about a broad new public plan but willingness to consider other proposals including the cooperatives.

Sebelius did not embrace the proposal but also did not dismiss it, saying, "There is no one-size-fits-all idea."

Biden, on the NBC program "Meet the Press," also signaled Obama's flexibility on the nature of a new public plan.

Most Americans with health insurance get it through an employer. During last year's presidential election, Obama derided the idea of taxing employer-provided health benefits.

But some lawmakers have revived the idea as a way to paying for the healthcare overhaul. "We've made it clear we do not think that is the way to go. We think that is the wrong way to finance this legislation," Biden said.



http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090614/pl_n...hY2tvZnZvdGVzcw

Did I miss something, but there's a lot of talk of a healthcare reform bill, but I have yet to see anything about what the bill actually proposes and how it is expected to perform these functions?

Oh, yes, you missed something. Here's part of it: "He wants to cut federal payments to hospitals by about $200 billion and cut $313 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years. He also is proposing a $635 billion in tax increases and spending cuts in the health care system as a "down payment" for his plan."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_obama_doctors

Please note: he wants to cut federal payments to hospitals by $200 billion dollars. (isn't paying hospitals what national health care would require? I mean, we cut the payments, but expect the hospitals to treat more people, at less money?)

He wants to cut $313 billion from medicare and medicaid (hello, medicare and medicaid currently don't even pay what they are billed - but we cut more?????? In order to treat more people?)

AND, the real kicker: $635 billion in NEW taxes and even further cuts in health care...............Okay, we all knew new taxes would be a part of it.

I just don't understand how cutting current payments to hospitals and yet asking them to do more is going to work. The gov't. currently pays a small portion of what is billed.

What I DO think will happen is private insurance companies will say "hey, if the gov't. can get by only paying 50% of what you bill them, that's what we will pay as well".

This is a fiasco, folks. All the problems in heath care..........and O is going to fix it in 2 months? By raising taxes, and CUTTING THE SPENDING the gov't. already pays for health care??????????????? Cut the spending, call it a savings, then add 50 million people to the program?

Last year, the hospital I work at actually collected 28cents per dollar billed. I don't see how any more can be cut from that.

The haves already pay for the have nots when it comes to medical care...

web page

Obama presses doctors to back health care overhaul

By CHARLES BABINGTON and JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writers
Mon Jun 15, 9:36 pm ET


CHICAGO - President Barack Obama bluntly told doctors Monday he is against their highest legislative priority - limiting malpractice awards - and earned a smattering of boos from an audience he was here to court for his health care overhaul plans.

Pushing anew to reshape the nation's health care delivery system and extend coverage to the millions who don't have it, Obama went before the annual meeting of the American Medical Association and took on others who take issue with parts of his plan as well.

Calling them "naysayers," "fear-mongers" and peddlers of "Trojan horse" falsehoods, Obama warned interest groups, lobbyists and others against using "fear tactics to paint any effort to achieve reform as an attempt to socialize medicine."

"There are those who will try and scuttle this opportunity no matter what," Obama said.

GOP Rep. Tom Price of Georgia - a former orthopedic surgeon - reacted preemptively to Obama's speech by accusing him of seeking a "government takeover" of health care. Speaking to reporters on a conference call organized by the Republican National Committee, Price said a committee that Obama's administration has established to study the effectiveness of various medical treatments would turn into a "rationing board" to overrule doctors and deny patients care.

And Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and other Republicans introduced legislation to ban the rationing of care on such a basis.

The economic stimulus legislation that passed over the winter provides funding for "comparative effectiveness research," and the GOP proposal would block the government from using the results to "deny coverage of an item or service" in a federal health care program.

Addressing the doctors in Chicago, the president said for the first time publicly that health care reform, including covering the almost 50 million Americans who have no insurance, would cost about $1 trillion over 10 years.

"That's real money, even in Washington," he said. "But remember: That's less than we are projected to have spent on the war in Iraq. And also remember: Failing to reform our health care system in a way that genuinely reduces cost growth will cost us trillions of dollars more in lost economic growth and lower wages."

Aides had said previously that the administration wants to keep the cost around $1 trillion, while also acknowledging it might go higher.

Obama has taken steps in recent days to outline where money could be found.

He wants to cut federal payments to hospitals by about $200 billion and cut $313 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years. He also is proposing a $635 billion in tax increases and spending cuts in the health care system as a "down payment" for his plan.

The president traveled to Chicago to talk to the 250,000-physician group in hopes of persuading doctors not to fight him on reform. The nation's doctors, like many other groups, are divided over the president's proposals. Many are skeptical of his plan to create government-sponsored insurance as an option alongside private coverage.

They also want limits on jury awards in medical malpractice lawsuits - caps that Democrats, including Obama, have long opposed and Republicans led by former President George W. Bush long pushed for.

Obama drew hearty applause with a focus on the particular concerns of the medical profession: telling them any system that relies on them "to be bean-counters and paper-pushers" is out of whack and that his push to investigate best-practices and eliminate unnecessary procedures "is not about dictating what kind of care should be provided."

"I need your help, doctors," he said. "To most Americans, you are the health care system. The fact is, Americans - and I include myself, Michelle, and our kids in this - we just do what you tell us to do."

But the malpractice issue is the most provocative with this audience, which chafes at the heavy expense of malpractice insurance.

Obama started by sympathizing with doctors "who feel like they are constantly looking over their shoulder for fear of lawsuits" and said he recognizes any health overhaul will be hard to accomplish without changing that. The crowd burst into loud support.

"Don't get too excited yet. ... Just hold onto your horses here, guys," Obama said as he prepared to deliver what he knew would be disappointing news.

"I want to be honest with you. I'm not advocating caps on malpractice awards," the president said, greeted by a smattering of boos, a remarkable public response to a popular president accustomed to cheering audiences.

He added, without offering specifics, that "excessive defensive medicine" that is conducted out of fear of lawsuits and that increases health costs should be curbed.

Though he offered no support for limiting lawsuits, Obama raised the antennae of trial lawyers' groups just by mentioning the issue.

The Center for Justice and Democracy, which says it advocates for injured consumers, attorneys and others, released a letter to Obama signed by 64 survivors of medical malpractice saying they were "extremely concerned that the rights of medical malpractice patients may be stripped away as part of your national health care proposal."

"The notion that 'defensive medicine' is leading to higher health care costs is not supported by empirical data or academic literature," Les Weisbrod, president of the American Association for Justice, the main lobby for trial lawyers.

Obama co-sponsored legislation with Hillary Rodham Clinton when both were in the Senate in 2005 that would have created a program to allow patients to learn of medical errors and establish negotiated compensation with the offer of an apology.

The president directly took on criticism from former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, though not by name. On Sunday, Romney, widely expected to consider another run at the White House in 2012, called Obama's support for public insurance a "Trojan horse" to create a single-payer system like Britain's.

"When you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They are not telling the truth," Obama said.

The president repeated that he is "open" to a mandate requiring all Americans to have health insurance. But he said that any plan must address the rising costs of a system he called a "ticking time bomb" for the federal budget.

"A big part of what led General Motors and Chrysler into trouble," he said, "were the huge costs they racked up providing health care for their workers - costs that made them less profitable and less competitive with automakers around the world."

"If we do not fix our health care system," Obama said, "America may go the way of GM - paying more, getting less, and going broke."




So, who all is shocked that the lawyer pushing socialized medicine is against fixing one of the true biggest causes of high health care costs in America?
America in general, and medicine in particular, is in DIRE need of SERIOUS tort reform... it is THE BIGGEST REASON that this nation is getting so screwed up. People suing for every stupid damned thing under the sun, and winning the dumbest of cases - it all causes Pavlovian effects throughout entire industries. The legal system has long since been abandoned as a tool for justice and has been adopted as a source of "get rich quick"... and all it is doing is bleeding everything dry.

Quote:

---

Addressing the doctors in Chicago, the president said for the first time publicly that health care reform, including covering the almost 50 million Americans who have no insurance, would cost about $1 trillion over 10 years.

---

Quote:

---

He wants to cut federal payments to hospitals by about $200 billion and cut $313 billion from Medicare and Medicaid over 10 years. He also is proposing a $635 billion in tax increases and spending cuts in the health care system as a "down payment" for his plan.

---

Maybe I'm interpretating this the wrong way, but are these 2 quotes conflicting? I think so...

IT will cost $1 trillion over 10 years...IT will cost over a $1 trillion for a "down payment" after totaling the cuts and increased taxes.

OR is the "down payment" the $1 trillion that will be spread out over 10 years?

Since when does a "down payment" take 10 years to implement? If it takes 10 years than they are not implementing anything, and Obama will have served his max possible terms as President before his "baby" is implemented. Is the next president going to want this health care reform? If not, than there goes roughly another trillion down the drain for nothing.

Didn't Hawaii try running a reformed government operated health care system for children that they had to abandon because people started dropping private insurance for "free" insurance, all do to not having the funds to support the people insured?

And here we are trying to implement the same stretegy at the national level with a much broader target group.

Sorry, Random thoughts.

When looking at our broken system, there is what I'll refer to as The Big Three --

1) insurance companies
2) pharm companies
3) frivilous lawsuits

Now...Obama isn't giving us socialized medicine...he's going to give us a jumbled version of what we have now -- essentially the gov't is going to subsidize the insurance and pharm companies, making sure they maintain their profit margin in order to make the lobbyists happy...there's a million ways to spin that in order to slap the label of a 'new' health care system onto it, and he will.

Meanwhile, you'll have the 'right' ranting about 'socialized medicine' while the 'left' pushes for a 'single-payer' system...the 'left' won't get what it wants and the 'right' won't see what it fears...things won't change very much at all...it will merely be new ways for the big boys to make their money, and a way for Obama to claim that he reformed our health care system.

But there's really not much he can do to spin tort reform, so I think here he's chosen to be 'honest' about it. Make no mistake about it...the priority rank for the gov't here is --

1) the gov't
2) insurance/pharm companies
3) lawyers
4) the American people

I have a fairly simple question. Here goes:

We are being told the cost for national health care will be $1 trillion, and it will cover the approximately 50 million that are un insured. Let's run with those numbers, okay?

1 trillion divided by 50 million is 200,000 - according to my math. Okay, we'll be paying 200,000 per uninsured person. That's over 10 years, right? 200,000 divided by 10 is 20,000 dollars per year, per person that is currently un insured.

Do I have my math right?

And if I do, can anyone here tell me they pay $20,000 per year for insurance?

Oops, bad math on my part. It appears that now the 10 year cost is estimated at $1.6 trillion. That totally skews my numbers, doesn't it?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090616/ap_on_go_co/us_health_overhaul

Just imagine what the real cost will be - I mean, if the gov't. itself says "$1 trillion", then a few weeks later says "$1.6 trillion" - dear Lord, just imagine..........it will approach $10 trillion.

One thing that you can definitely count on is that the true cost will be, at MINIMUM, three times what the government admits to up front.

Sadly, you're probably not too far off in jesting that the initial $1 trillion will be an annual expenditure.


Why?

1. We all know that the "leaders" (I use that in quotes because they certainly have no true leadership qualities) intentionally understate the costs of their new programs so that they can sell them to the public; just as they overstate the effects of their fiscal "planning".

2. Because no government program goes unchanged, uninflated, uncorrupted or unbloated. Once established as a funded entity, people begin to find ways to attach extra funding for their own things under the umbrella of the new pet program... and those costs then become standard and the "host" for other future bloat costs, etc...




As an aside: I still can't believe that there are people that actually want the government in charge of anything. The governement couldn't manage their way out of a wet paper bag - they should NOT be in charge of running anything at all, ever. Oversight and basic regulation? Sure. Actually running things? HELL NO!

My health insurance costs around 15-16k a year.

I agree with you. My insurance isn't all that great but it could be much worse.

Personally, I'd like to see where everyone has health insurance with a "low cost", high deductible provided by the government (the cost of the plan, not the servicing). You'd get to shop the different insurance companies and pick the best plan for you. First 3-5k is on you, then insurance kicks in for the major illnesesses and hospital stays. Employers can then choose to enhance your insurance plan as a benefit to you...

Is it practical? Probably not.. but better than socialised medicine or gov't run health care.

WHAT CBO REPORT?
By Neal Boortz @ June 17, 2009


The Congressional Budget Office released its estimates on the cost of Obama's healthcare plan. Just as expected, it wasn't pretty. Just as expected, the White House immediately backed away from the report. Now all of the sudden, this Dodd-Kennedy healthcare bill "is not the administration's bill," according to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. Ok, so technically he is right. That's because the president does not propose legislation. But anyone that doesn't believe Obama's ideas and desires aren't reflected in this bill is full of horsesqueeze. So that's the latest excuse from the White House, the CBO figures don't really count because they calculated it based on a bill that was not Barack Obama's. Got it?

So what DID the CBO report show? Well for one, it estimated that this bill would cost over $1 trillion over the next ten years. The kicker is that this estimate doesn't even take into account the president's government-run health insurance plan. Not to mention the fact that the said goal of this bill is to provide health insurance to all Americans. The reality is that this Senate bill would only increase coverage for 16 million Americans. On top of that, the CBO estimates that millions of Americans would lose their current employer-provided health insurance.

The director of the CBO says, "...When fully implemented, about 39 million individuals would obtain coverage through the new insurance exchanges. At the same time, the number of people who had coverage through an employer would decline by about 15 million (or roughly 10 percent), and coverage from other sources would fall by about 8 million, so the net decrease in the number of people uninsured would be about 16 million or 17 million."

I wonder if that information will be covered on ABC's coverage of Obama's healthcare Townhall meeting?


http://boortz.com/nealz_nuze/index.html

Nice article.

I wonder if all the people that were so happy that O got elected because "now we won't have to worry about buying gas, or paying our mortgage...." are still stupid enough to believe that they'll also get free, quality health care?

Let's face it folks - anything coming out of O's mouth about health care costs is just a fraction of what the real cost will be - and, again, I'm sorry, but you can't cut payments to hospitals to "save", and then expect hospitals and doctors to do more.

It may work that way when you are a community organizer - but real life is quite a bit different.

Just like the Iraq war would pay for itself and we'd be home in two years lol...

ALL of these guys talk out of both sides of their mouths.

By ERICA WERNER

WASHINGTON (AP) - Early work on the ambitious health care overhaul the Obama administration is seeking has exposed the kinds of in-house fights that typify just how hard it will be to get meaningful legislation this year. Case in point: A proposal to help bankroll universal health coverage with a dime-a-can increase in the price of soft drinks.

House Democrats have lots of potential targets for higher taxes as they aim to expand health care coverage to reach the roughly 50 million that experts say are uninsured.

Also under consideration are higher alcohol taxes, increases to the Medicare payroll tax and a value-added tax, a sort of national sales tax, of up to 1.5 percent or more.

The list of options being weighed by the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, and obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, aims to raise some $600 billion over 10 years to partially pay for President Barack Obama's goal of overhauling the nation's health care system to tame costs and cover the 50 million uninsured.

The final price tag for that effort could top $1 trillion, with cuts to Medicare and Medicaid covering the rest of the cost.

The tax options include:

- Increasing the price of soda and other sugary drinks by 10 cents a can.

- Applying a potential 2 percent income tax increase to single taxpayers earning more than $200,000 a year and households earning more than $250,000.

- A new employer payroll tax could target 3 percent of employers' health care expenditures.

- Taxing employer-provided health insurance benefits above certain levels - a less likely option but one that still is in the running.

House Democrats planned to unveil a draft of their sweeping health care bill Friday. It would require all individuals to obtain health insurance and force employers to offer health care to their workers, with exemptions for small businesses. A new public health insurance plan, strongly opposed by Republicans, would compete with private companies within a new health care purchasing "exchange" where Americans could shop for coverage. Government subsidies would help the poor buy care.

The draft, being released at a news conference of the chairmen of the three committees with jurisdiction - Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and Labor - was not expected to mention the potentially unpopular tax options.

On the other side of the Capitol, two Senate committees were going in separate directions on their health care bills. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee spent a second full day working on an expansive bill reflecting Democratic priorities, while members of the Finance Committee were laboring to produce legislation that could attract Republican support.

To that end Finance Committee senators were looking at leaving a new public insurance plan out of their bill, instead creating nonprofit co-ops to offer insurance in competition with private companies, according to an outline obtained by The Associated Press. The co-ops could accept federal loans for startup operations, but would have to repay the money.

Struggling to pare their bill from an earlier $1.6 trillion cost estimate to about $1 trillion over 10 years, Finance Committee members also were looking at making federal subsidies available to help families with incomes of up to 300 percent of poverty, or $66,000, purchase insurance. An earlier proposal set the level at 400 percent of poverty, or $88,000.

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., reviewed the plans behind closed doors Thursday with a group of senators he deemed "the coalition of the willing." Republicans present were top committee Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Olympia Snowe of Maine.

"We're getting closer and closer," Baucus said during a break in the meeting. "There's no doubt in my mind we're going to have a bipartisan bill."

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who's presiding over the Health Committee work session, dismissed bipartisanship as an end in itself.

"My goal here is to write a good bill. My goal is not bipartisanship," said Dodd, who has taken the committee reins in the absence of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who's being treated for brain cancer.

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AP Special Correspondent David Espo contributed to this report.

Link: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090619/D98TNJC00.html

Me talking now: I know Obama lost a lot of poor people who don't have health insurance that would rather save 10 cents a can on their pop. And we all thought he wasn't going to tax anyone who made less that $250,000. . .

jc...

Where do you all think these doctors and hospitals will go? There just going to close and say ah we don't need to make anymore money in the US? Maybe they'll go to some European country... oh wait they'll (docs) make on average 60k per year instead of 170k per year. The whole industry is so inflated right now... we should just mandate a 40% decrease in all cost (cost of equipment, care, drugs, salaries, insurance premiums, etc). They'd still be making money.

Take a look at the health care industry as a whole right now... open up you classified section. They actually are one of two segments hiring people. Yeah they're really hurting. They're (hospitals, docs, insurance co., drug co.) making money hand over fist. Energy and Health Care are the only two business segments right now who are actually making gains. Low and behold they're our two biggest issues right now in the US. Because we are so dependent on both, they have no need to reform, cut costs, or anything...