Dems keep saying Healthcare bill lowers costs

[Fern]

It removed anti-monopoly protection from insurers, which was a giant inefficiency.

While I favor increased competition among HI companies, they are not the problem. The problem is the underlying health care costs that continue to rise. And that problem has not been addressed yet.

It shifted costs you were already paying for the uninsured getting mandated care at emergency rooms. These costs should fall over time, if they don't get ready for hospital administration to get the bitchslap too.

No one has ever been able to explain what is so 'magical' about the health care administered in an ER, and why it costs so much more than services provided elsewhere.

No one has been able to demonstrate that stupid people who unnecessarily go to the ER for treatment had their behavior altered, or their IQ's increased, by merely having some form of insurance.

Fern

 

[OutHouse]

Ron Paul is 100% correct.

its funny how the dems change the subject or hijack the thread because the awful truth is just to difficult for them to mentally handle.

 

[woolfe9999]

I don't know who you work for Wolf, but I and most people I know have options we can choose from. They cost more or less depending on the level of benefits. This is fairly common.

As for my claim that people pay more for premium coverage, again it was in an NPR piece before the legislation came to a vote examining who takes "Cadillac" plans. There were those who bought it because it made little difference to them in terms of how much it costs, and those who were disadvantaged because of their situation. It cost less to pay the premiums than suffer the copays and have to go through more prior authorizations for treatment.

My complaint is that there are many people who have insurance and who need to use it. The way this is implemented is that those who are most vulnerable in this way are the ones who can least afford to lose any edge they can get.

Was is necessary to hurt the ones who can least afford it in order to help those others? No, but it either didn't matter, or the consequences of the legislation weren't understood.

That's been a major concern of mine as you know.

That NPR piece you refer to was back in December, and it was based on the Senate version of the bill, before the reconciliation bill raised the ceiling to trigger the tax.

I think there is some confusion about what a "cadillac plan" has meant in the past when it has been referred to because the earlier version of the bill would have swept in too many plans which didn't really deserve that label. A cadillac plan is not a high end PPO plan with good in network coverage and low co-pays. A cadillac plan is a plan typically purchased by wealthy individuals, or given to executives by employers, that offers substantial out of network coverage.

A typical PPO might cover like 70% "out of network," but that is illusory because it means 70% of the insurer's negotiated contract price. Since out of network providers typically don't accept the negotiated rate and charge full fee for service, in practice you get like 25% coverage out of network under a PPO. A "cadillac plan" is a very expensive plan that is intended to allow people to go out and find the best doctors in the country to treat them. A middle class employee would never pay the premium co-pays for such a plan because they are likely to be very high, and he/she gets no benefit in terms of paying lower co-pays versus a good PPO or HMO plan. The benefits of these kinds of plans are not lower co-pays but infinite provider choice, a luxory which middle class people cannot afford.

If the middle class employee has a chronic condition, he'll opt into a good PPO (or even HMO) that has very good in network coverage and low co-pays. Those kinds of plans shouldn't be affected by the tax in its revised form. The trouble with the earlier Senate version was that since premium costs varied so much from state to state, it would have affected lots of higher end, but still mainstream, plans, in certain states. That's why it got changed. Currently, the tax will affect very few plans which aren't true "cadillac" plans. I can't say it won't affect any at all, because I don't have that level of knowledge, but the tax has been restructured since that NPR piece.

- wolf

 

[Acanthus]

While I favor increased competition among HI companies, they are not the problem. The problem is the underlying health care costs that continue to rise. And that problem has not been addressed yet.



No one has ever been able to explain what is so 'magical' about the health care administered in an ER, and why it costs so much more than services provided elsewhere.

No one has been able to demonstrate that stupid people who unnecessarily go to the ER for treatment had their behavior altered, or their IQ's increased, by merely having some form of insurance.

Fern

I agree with everything you said.

While i agree with HI companies not being the problem now, if the protections were not removed and this legislation passed it could easily become a nightmare.

I would say the key problem is the cost of emergency room care. This legislation addresses that problem by breaking the "cost offset" spiral that that we are in now.

The projected savings are a result of greater coverage leading to better general preventative care. I know that I, personally, as an uninsured american, have had much larger costs levied against me that could have been remedied by preventative care.

Example: I had a toothache a few months ago, extremely severe. It was a weekend. The only real cure for a toothache is antibiotics. $8. I held out for the dentist that monday (he was closed over the weekend and is the only good one in a 50 mile radius), had i not been able to stand the pain, I would've been in the emergency room. $2000+.

I don't have $2000 to throw away. So the bills would start coming. The hospital has to pay some douche to bill me, then pay some other douche to threaten my credit, and pay someone to maintain all of the crap in their oversized billing wing of the hospital. These are all inefficiencies that come from the current system that will be averted with UHI.

 

[Mant]

This thread concerns me, other than Fern and wolf, the rest of you could try to do a little research before you start posting your opinions. And "Hannity told me so" is not research.
The CBO addressed the questions that were asked in the OP here: http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=546 and here: http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=434. They found that the plan will cost some money, but that it will lower the deficit.

 

[alkemyst]

It removed anti-monopoly protection from insurers, which was a giant inefficiency.

It shifted costs you were already paying for the uninsured getting mandated care at emergency rooms. These costs should fall over time, if they don't get ready for hospital administration to get the bitchslap too.

The problem is any person can pretty much show up at an ER without documentation and they will be forced to stabilize them. Our free clinics and other open welfare type things are abused by many here in S. Florida.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

This thread concerns me, other than Fern and wolf, the rest of you could try to do a little research before you start posting your opinions. And "Hannity told me so" is not research.
The CBO addressed the questions that were asked in the OP here: http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=546 and here: http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=434. They found that the plan will cost some money, but that it will lower the deficit.

We have.

That calculation reflects an assumption that the provisions of the legislation are enacted and remain unchanged throughout the next two decades, which is often not the case for major legislation. For example, the sustainable growth rate mechanism governing Medicare’s payments to physicians has frequently been modified to avoid reductions in those payments, and legislation to do so again is currently under consideration by the Congress. The current legislation would maintain and put into effect a number of policies that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time.

 

[werepossum]

We have.

+1. This shows the weakness of CBO scoring; it has to accept whatever rosy estimates are included in the bill. If the bill says that on day 39 rainbow-farting flying unicorns will show up and so increase consumer confidence that growth will be 12%, that's how the bill is scored. That's how it must be, else the CBO would necessarily have to favor one side or the other with its own assumptions.

 

[nobodyknows]

Shhh....adults are talking here.

LOL, how the hell would you know? If you don't have anything to add then stay the fuck out of the conversation trollboy.

 

[nobodyknows]

That's what I thought he was referring to, but I wanted to be sure before replying.

1. The excise tax is on the the amount in excess of the ceiling, not the entire premium. So if the ceiling is $10,400 for a plan and your plan costs $11,000, then the tax is 40% of $600, not 40% of $11,000. The plan cost will not go up by 40%. In this example, it will go up by 2% (or actually, the insurance company will be taxed an amount equal to 2%.)

2. He keeps referring to people who buy premium insurance because of chronic conditions. However, the tax does not apply in the individual market, only in the group (employer) market. In the employer market, you typically aren't offered a choice by your employer. However, sometimes you are. Since the tax applies to the insurance companies, it is conceivable that some top end plans in the employer market might get scaled back, though the effects of this tax are very difficult to project. He seems certain that people who wish to purchase high end insurance for themselves will be unable to do so, yet the tax doesn't apply in the individual market, and that is what I am really responding to here.

- wolf

When it comes to anything healthcare related Hayabusa does nothing but scream the sky is falling. I think we can start calling him Chicken Little Rider.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

When it comes to anything healthcare related Hayabusa does nothing but scream the sky is falling. I think we can start calling him Chicken Little Rider.

This from a man that said that the government allowing a man to die of AIDS because of regulations he couldn't comply with was inconsequential.

A major difference between you and I extremus is that I want health care reform, but because the government has the power to kill by regulation (as in my example) I am highly skeptical. The system we have needs reform, but what's the best way? Who knows? No one really bothered to find out.

You on the other hand must have been wounded because the loudest thing we pick up on isn't concern for people, but that you hate health care from A to Z. Remember your little story about rushing the hospitals and threatening us if we didn't bow to you. Remember "controlling the people"? You said that it was merely controlling people in health care.

Well I want good health care. You want revenge for something real or imagined, and slaves.

Does it feel good massa?

 

[alkemyst]

IMHO our government should never move to just save one man nor a simple percentage of the population.

Sadly it's math that decides the best outcome.

Someone has to man the fries or be the expendable crew member.

As a society/superpower the US is sealing it's own fate each day for profit of those that can simply move to another home outside it.