This Health Insurance bill is really for the other corporations who pay for employee benefits

[Nikki Stone1]

Notice how the REAL purpose of this bill is not really universal coverage, since many will remain without coverage; nor is it about affordable health care for people, since it requires almost 20%* of your income to buy bad insurance; nor is it about reforming the health insurance industry since any controls on the insurance companies have been done lobbied away.

All that is really left is the MANDATE and a small high-risk pool for the sickest Americans.

*The mandate, puts the onus of having health insurance on the individual, especially if the individual works for a small business (exempt from the law) or if the individual loses his or her job.

*The mandate makes new, young, healthy customers to be forced into the insurance pool by law, which will, in a general way, reduce some insurance costs, simply through sheer numbers. But this reduction in costs does not affect the individual who has to buy the insurance themselves.

But corporations, who already have large pools, will benefit from this cost reduction.

The corporations will also benefit from the high risk pool, where they can dump employees who are too expensive without having to fire them outright. The taxpayer subsidizes this corporate employee as s/he does so many others.

And these taxpayers will be middle class taxpayers, who will be additionally taxed on the good plans their unions can get for them. (Talk about disincentivizing getting proper insurance.)


In the end: our healthcare will be worse, not better, our costs as individuals and taxpayers will be higher, but the corporations will get their cost savings. Once again, we will be paying through the nose so IBM, or Goldman Sachs, or Booz, Allen, Hamilton can pay lower costs and increase their bottom lines. THAT is why this bill will pass.


* The almost 20% figure comes from several figures I have seen, although Howard Dean talked about 17% of peoples' income being taken by this plan. That's the lowest figure I've seen on it.

[cliffordu]

1. I don't know where the strait across 20% cost comes from

??

[Nikki Stone1]

3. Howard Dean talked about 17%. I have seen estimates far higher.

I'll change it to 17, to give you a source.

[lapfog_1]

6. It's now a cost plus award fee contract.

with the award fee being either 15% (for groups) or 20% (for individuals).

I have no idea what the actual average will be. 17% is as good as any guess. We'd have to have the raw data and their projections on how many people will be in either category.

http://democrats.senate.gov/reform/managers-amendment.pdf

As a former government contracting officer (for NASA), cost+ is the worst deal for the taxpayer, there is every incentive for the contractor to jack up the raw cost of everything, inventing all kinds of specialized one off devices and services when, really, anyone could go down to the local hardware or electronics store and buy retail for 1/10th the price. Their constant incentive is to raise the cost. Only by raising the cost can you increase profits (the margins are fixed).

[Nikki Stone1]

10. +1

.

[truedelphi]

2. I am K & R one I believe -

Let the trolls begin!

[roamer65]

4. I am dead set against insurance mandates.

This thing in its current form is Romneycare, a criminalization of those who cannot afford health insurance.

[Nikki Stone1]

5. Exactly. But it does keep costs lower for corporations.

And corporations are more important "people" than people are.

[FLDCVADem]

17. I disagree

I don't think it will keep costs lower for employers that provide insurance as a benefit, in fact, I think it will increase their costs to the point that they drop coverage.

Employers can't pick and choose which employees get coverage - you either cover employees or you don't. Premiums will rise dramatically due to the fact that insurance companies can't charge significantly more for people that cost them an assload more money (pre-existing conditions). Add to that no lifetime limit, and you have premiums for everyone going up very quickly.

[mzmolly]

7. You're forgetting the fact that there are

subsidies. Not to mention the "large pool" created by adding people to the Federal Employee program.

Listen to Anthony Weiner here: http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/12/18/weiner-dean/

[Nikki Stone1]

9. No I'm not. The subsidies feed directly into the cost savings for corporations

And the limit for subsidies will not include many families who will need them. Look at how Massachusetts has worked out.

From the New England Journal of Medicine:

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/358/26/2757

[mzmolly]

11. I'm looking over the link and find some of the info encouraging.

However, the bill is not yet finalized and IMHO will only improve.

Here's what Nate Silver had to say on the bill recently:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/why-progressives-are-batshit-crazy-to.html

[Nikki Stone1]

15. You're acting as if I put the perceptions of pundits above my own

I don't.

But thanks for trying. I know you're trying to be a nice person. :hi:

[DireStrike]

16. When has this bill ever improved since we started this thing?

Nate Silver is missing an important point. Let's look at his situation:

A family of four earning an income of $54,000 would pay $4,000 in premiums, and could expect to incur another $5,000 in out-of-pocket costs. The $4,000 premium represents a substantial discount, because the government is covering 72 percent of the premium -- meaning that the gross cost of the premium is $14,286, some $10,286 of which the government pays.

Wow, great! Savings! That is a good thing. Before the bill, the family could never find insurance at this price. So they didn't buy it. If they are the average american family, they are not only not putting no money away for savings, they are losing money into debt.

So now they are forced to pay an extra $4,000 that they don't have. They might even occasionally get some medical care for this pittance! Hopefully they don't mind sacrificing $4,000 worth of expenditures. Hopefully that is disposable income and not rent and food money.

[Nikki Stone1]

18. +1

...

[mzmolly]

19. $4000 per year ($333/mo.) is about what is taken out of my husbands paycheck for health insurance.

I don't recall anyone raising hell about it? And BTW, our AGI is less than the example you note above.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. I don't think companies offering health insurance are allowed to dump

high risk employees into separate insurance plans or no plan at all. EIRISA and HIPPA regulate self insured employer based plans and all of the states regulate private insurer plans.

This bill stinks, but we should be accurate about the stinkage.

[Cleita]

12. Also, I woke up this morning with a mini-epiphany.

Even if the public option and Medicare buy-in has been scrapped, the mandates have not, and forcing people to buy a product from a private corporation that they don't want or can't afford smacks of totalitarianism in our government today. It's totalitarianism as much as it is in communist China and in Pinnochet's fascist Chile. These are different political philosophies that are delivered by force and only benefit the small elite who are in power.

[Nikki Stone1]

14. +1

!

[saracat]

20. Yuppers. Those are the facts Mam

[Nikki Stone1]

22. :(

Women have just been sold down the river to make sure Obama gets his bill.

[Odin2005]

25. BINGO!

The Mandate is FASCISM!

[AllentownJake]

13. K&R

[gleaner]

21. I agree with this post ....

This bill was not designed or written to protect consumers or middle class people who are already paying the expenses of the rich and their corporations. I joined Howard Dean and NOW in asking my representatives to kill it and start over again.

Another factor which rankles me no end is that the Democrats are saying "pass anything," because they think they are going to take a hit in both 2010 and 2012 if they don't. I am really tired of being told that I have to accept a bill that is less attractive than the hairballs my cat spits up to save their sorry butts. They made their own mess and as far as I'm concerned it is their problem.

There is no humanity in this situation for people who need real health insurance, there is no protection for people who already have health insurance from the predatory insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and we have a president who is now telling Democrats to vote against some of the specific provisions he campaigned on. That is so very wrong.

I don't think this bill can be fixed. In order to "save" legislation through reconciliation, you have to have a strong starting point. We don't. All we have is a tissue thin bill which benefits the very corporations we need protection from and a bunch of nutless wonders who want to save their butts regardless of the cost to the American people.

I'm going to be looking very hard at the Democratic primaries in 2010 to see where I can give my support, because with a few exceptions I don't see much to support now. They are beginning to realize what a backlash they have created by selling out their base and they're scared. Too bad. They need to pull up their big boy briefs and their big girl panties and just cope like the rest of us have had to do for more years than I care to think of.

I am giving a rec. I would like to see more readers and more responses.

[Laelth]

23. k&r for the truth, however depressing. n/t

Kill the bill.

Forcing people to buy insurance is no more the answer to a failed health care system than forcing people to buy houses is the solution to homelessness.

:dem:

-Laelth

[Odin2005]

24. This bill needs to be killed yesterday.

[lonestarnot]

26. Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

:kick: