So let me get this straight about the excise tax on health plans:

[Hello_Kitty]

It would tax employers 40% on the portions of plans in excess of a certain amount. Which means that many of those employers would shop around for cheaper plans. Which means that many workers would pay more in co-pays and deductibles to get the same coverage they had before. Do I have that right?

Is that what Ezra Klein meant when he said, in regards to "Cadillac" benefit plans, "And beyond all that, it separates workers from the cost of their health-care insurance, which is one of the main drivers of our cost problems"?

Is it just me, or is he kind of an asshole?

[Warren Stupidity]

1. rather than regulate provider costs and insurance charges

the fucknutz prefer to just pass the inflated costs on to us peasants. When they say that good plans drive up costs, what they really mean is that if we had actual quality health care access people would use it. Their view on how to contain costs is to discourage access. See the astoundingly awful graph posted here earlier this week correlating health care access, health care costs, and life expectancy.

Here is a not quite so good graph of the data, although it leaves out the frequency of access data points:



Here is the graph I was looking for: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7332139&mesg_id=7334686

[Hello_Kitty]

4. I've sent the graph you linked to to several people.

The HCR bill does little to nothing to address that. This excise tax is a perfect example of how they're trying to fob the cost of health care onto the middle and working class with no cost controls. Gawd forbid we go after the rich or the health care industrial complex profit machine.

[FLDCVADem]

2. It's not you

and yes he is.

I do understand the idea behind doing this, I'm just not sure it's a good thing to do when it comes to healthcare. My former co-worker is a perfect example of what being "separated from the cost" *can sometimes* do.

She has two little boys, aged 2 & 4. Typical little guys except that between the two of them, they were at the doctor's office over 100 times this past year. Neither one has a chronic illness, but every sniffle, every scraped knee, every temp above 99 means she has to take them to the doctor. Her husband has health insurance through his job, no deductible and $5 co-pay for an office visit.
Would a $20 co-pay cause her to be a little more choosy about running to the doc? I don't know, but I can see where it might.

Believe me, I don't skimp on medical care for my family - if one of my kids needs to see a doctor, they see a doctor. But I also don't take them to the doctor for every little sniffle or ache, and rightly or wrongly, I think that's what Klein is talking about - overusing benefits because we aren't feeling the cost of doing so.

[ljm2002]

3. Not only that, it puts the lie to the promise...

...that "If you like what you have, you can keep it."

Er, sure. Okay. You betcha.

Personally, I hate being lied to. But I especially hate being lied to in this manner -- that is, rather than directly telling a bald-faced lie, it's a lie that sneaks in around the corner and slithers under the carpet and poof! next thing you know, you're paying more for worse coverage and the slimy cod-faced politicians will just say "Who, us? *We* didn't do it, your employer did it." But we all will know they are just simply lying, because the policies were put in place with *exactly* this end in mind. And, since this is a Democratic bill, guess who will pay the price politically when that realization hits? Hint: it won't be Republicans.

[Nikki Stone1]

10. +1

.

[Lasher]

5. You're right.

Corporations have wanted this for a long time so they can replace good employee & retiree medical benefits with high deductible catastrophic only plans where the employer actually pays little if any of the costs. Junior tried the very same thing before he finally left office. Now Obama and Congressional Democrats are bringing it about for them.

[midnight armadillo]

6. yes he's an asshole

but that's beside the point. the point is: health care costs come down when people simply don't seek it out due to expense. If you make insurance prohibitively expensive, the problem solves itself!

[Lilith Velkor]

7. Pretty much. n/t

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Right. He is what one might call a perfect kind of asshole.

[laughingliberal]

9. Kind of an asshole? An understatement. A first class asshole

This is where the RW had it half right. There is no forced rationing in the bill. The cost of using your coverage will force self rationing which is counterproductive in some cases. People will ignore symptoms and problems due to finances, just as they do now and chronic illnesses will become worse. In the case of more catastrophic illnesses it saves money in the long run for them to go undetected as long as possible. Think colon cancer, breast cancer. Discovered early there is a chance of survival but the treatments will be expensive. Discovered late there may be no sense in treating at all. At the very least, survival time will be much less and, hence, fewer expensive treatments.

And, as already mentioned, this is just another way of instituting Bush' draconian 'ownership society' crap. If people have to pay outrageous amounts for their health care they will be better stewards of the money. Never mind they can then not be better stewards of their health.