The are determined to wipe out health care for the middle class

[n2doc]

Why? I don't know.

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
Associated Press
1:51 p.m. CST, November 28, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) — Job-based health care benefits could wind up on the chopping block if President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans get serious about cutting the deficit.

Budget proposals from leaders in both parties have urged shrinking or eliminating tax breaks that help make employer health insurance the leading source of coverage in the nation and a middle-class mainstay.

The idea isn't to just raise revenue, economists say, but finally to turn Americans into frugal health care consumers by having them face the full costs of their medical decisions.

Such a re-engineering was rejected by Democrats only a few months ago, at the height of the health care overhaul debate. But Washington has changed, with Republicans returning to power and widespread fears that the burden of government debt may drag down the economy.

more
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-ap-us-employer-health-plans,0,1995318.story

Yes, we all just love to go to the hospital all the time on our employer-based health care plans, with their big deductibles...The only thing I see here is a push towards a system of fraud-insurance, where the only way to afford the premium is to have a deductible so high that you never can use it. And of course, you are forced to pay into this scheme...

[notadmblnd]

1. I posted here over a year ago that the result of health care reform

would be that employers drop their insurance programs. Too tired to do a search and look for it. but it's in a thread somewhere.

[Horse with no Name]

3. I remember that discussion

I agreed then and I agree now.

[obxhead]

9. McDonalds has already come to that conclusion.

Many companies that offer health insurance to only a portion of their employees will be forced into a position of revoking it from everyone instead of providing it to the people they currently don't cover.

Now I'm not defending McDonalds on this decision. To be clear I don't really know all the ins and outs of the story to make a formal informed opinion on the decision of that corporation. We'll see much more of this from mega corporations as we approach 2012 elections though. Look for the announcements starting mid 2011 to pick up followed by commercials of Obama stating "if you like your health care you can keep it" followed by a teary eyed family explaining how they lost their company provided insurance.

McD's to drop health coverage:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703431604575522413101063070.html

[riderinthestorm]

16. I said it too. Why should employers continue to offer a group plan?

Which takes a lot of company money to retain the plan, requires time consuming labor and effort to administer, when in 2014 everyone will be mandated to buy their own.

I believe most companies will simply get out of the insurance racket altogether and let their employees simply get it on their own. It makes no sense to continue to offer it. The rich execs are never going to have a problem affording their own plans, while everyone else from middle management down will be screwed. But I don't believe for a moment that the big wigs will care.

[Lindsay]

2. They are determined to eliminate

the middle class, I think.

[TBF]

4. They're doing a damned good job of it too -

The gap between rich & poor is at an 80-yr high: http://washingtonindependent.com/91038/with-income-gap-at-80-year-high-solutions-remain-elusive

An excerpt:

"A new report shows that the income gap between rich and poor in America is at an eight-decade high — the largest differential since the period immediately preceding the Great Depression. And economists fear that the education and job-creation programs that could bridge this gap are lacking in the recessionary economy.

On June 25, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report on the growing income gap in the United States. While the data it studies are not new — the income stats end at 2007, just before the advent of the current recession — the report synthesizes both census and Internal Revenue Service information to paint a more complete picture of the finances of the various strata of American society.

“It’s given us the first clear, comprehensive picture of income distribution over the economic cycle that ended in 2007,” said Arloc Sherman, senior researcher at the CBPP. “Now we know definitively that income inequality grew in that cycle. Just before the recession hit, we know that inequality was heading into record-breaking territory.”"

[pa28]

5. The class massacre continues.

They don't even bother with subtlety anymore. It's a naked grab at this point and they are saying "who is going to stop us."

[Bozita]

6. NBC Nightly News reported tonight the # of folks with huge deductibles rose by MILLIONS last year

Folks with health insurance are avoiding visits to doctors due to those outrageous deductibles.

The video is not yet up on their website.

[robinlynne]

7. the full costs of their medical decisions......interesting. So we are the ones who need to become

frugal....as if the cost of health care actually had anything to do with health care?

how bout we nationalize the whole health care system, do away with the profits from the intermediaries, and then we can have less expensive health care. simple.

[Demstud]

20. Seriously

All this fucking around with health insurance, and nothing really seems to be getting to the root of the problem. Even with insurance, healthcare justs costs too damn much.

[mdmc]

23. 1

[City Lights]

8. Start with Congress!

Save their employers some cash!

[TexasObserver]

10. Our health care system is designed to do one thing well: Make money.

That's why health care has gone to hell the past 30 years. Fewer and fewer doctors have their own practice, so that means most of them are literally just employees of some company, and like employees must, they do what they're told, even if that means the patient doesn't get the test needed.

Much malpractice by doctors occurs from their completely failing to order tests which would have detected the problem. They want you to believe they have to overtest because they might get sued, but the fact is even with the risk of being sued, they run people through like cattle, barely listening to patients, and often failing to order needed tests.

[Edweird]

11. Well, technically that is change.....

[BzaDem]

12. The current employer tax break makes little sense. It is a giant subsidy from those without employer

based health insurance to those with employer based health insurance. It is actually a historical accident resulting from WW2-era conditions.

Why should someone with a generous employer based health plan get a huge tax break, but someone paying out of their pocket for health insurance not through their employer get no tax break? Or even more generally, why should the insured get a huge tax break, but the uninsured not get anything? Doesn't that go against the idea of progressive taxation?

Furthermore, not only does this help the employer-insured at the expense of the individual-insured, but it helps the RICH employer-insured at the expense of everyone else. A rich employer-insured person gets a 35% tax credit on the cost of their plan. A poor employer-insured person only gets a 15% tax credit on their plan. A poor individual insured or uninsured person gets a 0% tax credit. Isn't that totally regressive?

They should replace the current employer based tax credit with a progressive general tax credit for all Americans (such as a more generous standard deduction).

[n2doc]

13. But that isn't what is being described

It is the simple removal of all tax credits for health insurance. Is that what you want to see happen?

[BzaDem]

14. No. There are really two distinct issues here.

The first is: how is the tax burden distributed? The second is: what is the net level of taxation as a percentage of GDP?

As to the first question, I prefer a more progressive tax code. That means replacing the employer tax credit with a larger general deduction for everyone, making the tax brackets more progressive, etc.

Their proposal is to remove the employer health deduction, but to not offset that with a tax credit for everyone. That would raise net taxes as a percentage of GDP (which is needed), but it would do so by disproportionally increasing taxes on a subset of middle class taxpayers (which is bad). So I would oppose that particular proposal. But that doesn't mean the employer tax credit is good policy at all. The policy is regressive, in that it taxes the poor to pay for benefits for some of the middle class and the rich.

[704wipes]

15. Thats not all. I am discovering this travesty of the new HCR

Someone could not afford Cobra last January and dropped the coverage for family.
One spouse got a job in August with supposedly 'full' insurance kicking in for any family member signed up on it in accordance with the rules during an open enrollment in October.

Now one adult/spouse is being told that a procedure may not be covered due to a 'pre-existing' condition since they were not covered by anything from March to September of this year, under the terms of the NEW Healthcare reform. This is because a condition was continuing to be treated with medication paid for out of pocket for a condition.

Is that nuts? Used to be someone got a job with insurance coverage they were covered once employed, but NOW if you get a job with coverage you may not be if you WERE'NT covered for a 6 month period before and you still kept buying medicine or seeing the doctor on your own dime out of pocket.

If this turns out to be true it will sell out the middle class even when the job economy does come back.
If it turns out to be the case, I WON"T have the money to drive to a polling place and vote for ANY FUCKER in 2012.
And if so, I really won't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut what happens.

And guess what else? A whole bunch of people are getting real close to HAVING NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE.

[BzaDem]

18. That is not true in the slightest. The pre-existing changes do not take effect until 2014.

So the employer is bullshitting you. Their denial of coverage for your condition has nothing to do with the new healthcare bill. It has to do with the previous status quo, which was not affected by the new healthcare bill until 2014 (after which ALL plans won't be able to deny those with conditions or change them a penny more than those without conditions -- no exceptions).

[TheKentuckian]

17. Destruction of the employer based system is a net benefit to the system

I doubt it will happen like that though since the lobbyist fought pretty hard to keep it in place. Probably, some companies actually thought for a moment and realized holding employees hostage with health care isn't a profit driver and with a realistic decades long trip back to full employment, the ability to have income of some kind is sufficient chains on employees.

Either way, it doesn't matter a lot where it coverage comes from. In 10-20 years we will all have junk, high deductible insurance that will cost exactly as much as our incomes and the Treasury can bear that only the lucky will have enough money to use.

Some people will be helped but odds are high of a net negative impact and rising.

Never let the fox build the hen house and then put him in charge of security as well. The underlying system is rot and we built on and expanded rot with laws written by the shitballs that created the rot.

Good features don't justify or make up for a bad system. You can talk age 26 and preexisting till the cows come home but when fewer and fewer can access health care and the Treasury and the people can no longer keep up with the extortion matters will be worse than when we took the cure and it will be hard to sell less bad to people paying 10% (or more and yes it can be more) of their dwindling penance.

The reason this bullshit wasn't passed decades ago is because we had a few more leaders with sense than we do now and the insurance cartel was not in such dire danger of suicide by greed.

[BzaDem]

22. While I disagree with almost everything you said

I do agree that the employer system has many problems. It is an accidental artifact of WW2 wage policies, but has since led to phenomena like job lock.

[mdmc]

24. 1

[applegrove]

19. Why? Because government works the best on health care. And the right wing

don't want the example of 'good government' to exist. How can you totally bash government when they can do health care more cost effectively and more equitably than the private sector can do it?

[Catherina]

21. Rec'd. n/t