HCR Bill passage from a political standpoint

[SHRED]

The Repubs will have to run against these in November.
They go into affect this year.

Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;

Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;

Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;

Lower seniors prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;

Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;

Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;

Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26;

Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;

Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;

Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-john-b-larson/he-top-ten-immediate-bene_b_501748.html

[DCBob]

1. And the GOP talking points will become much more difficult...

since it will soon become evident that much of what they warned about were total lies or gross exaggerations.

[ixion]

3. And that remains to be seen

The mandate is wildly unpopular outside the DLC crowd and the insurance industry. As soon as people realize that they are now effectively insurance company serfs, they may not be as happy as you think.

[DCBob]

4. So you think their talking points are valid??

Get real.

[Echo In Light]

5. Cheap shot. That's clearly not what was intended.

[Romulox]

6. Forcing people to buy for-profit insurance is massively unpopular. Deal with it. nt

[ixion]

7. I don't think either sides talking points are valid

and that is the problem. Get real yourself. Take off those rose-colored glasses the DLC insists you wear, and take a look at reality for a change.

[ixion]

2. LOL.. no. Last night the Dems just handed a bigger stick to the GOP to beat them with

You site a few bullet points tome of a document, and you actually think that the insurance companies are just going to rollover and play nice.

That is a flawed premise the size of the Marianas Trench.

[eridani]

8. "internal and external appeals process" Yeah, right

The “internal appeals process” is in the hands of the insurance companies themselves, and the “external” one is up to each state.

Ensuring that consumers have access to “internal appeals” simply means the insurance companies have to review their own decisions. And it is the responsibility of each state to provide an “external appeals process,” as there is neither funding nor a regulatory mechanism for enforcement at the federal level.

Estimated Financial Effects of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009,” as Proposed by the Senate Majority Leader on November 18, 2009, CMS; http://www.politico.com/static/PPM110_091211_financial_impact.html

[eridani]

9. Premium rebates? What a fucking JOKE!

Unfortunately, 15 states either have MLR requirements now or have had them in the past, and they have not had even the slightest effect on escalating health care costs. Of course it’s helpful for some people to get premium rebates, but despite that, the cost of premiums keeps on skyrocketing, 45,000 a year keep dying for lack of the money to pay for health care, and 300,000+ keep going bankrupt due to medical bills (the majority of whom had insurance that was mostly better than the strictly catastrophic underinsurance that will be mandated under “reform”).

http://www.familiesusa.org/assets/pdfs/medical-loss-ratio.pdf

Locking the barn door after the horse gets away is not regulation in any sense of the word, as demonstrated by the following real life example.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Sarkisian:

We were sorry to hear that your daughter Nataline died because CIGNA denied your claim for her liver transplant. However, you will be glad to know that we have analyzed CIGNA’s medical loss ratio and that all of their customers are entitled to premium refunds. Isn’t that wonderful?

Yours truly,
Dr. Pangloss