Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[sugarpop]

WTF then? What DO you support? I am really confused now.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

WTF then? What DO you support? I am really confused now.

I don't support insuance companies that is for sure. I don't support taxing only one segment of our society to pay for free health care to those who don't generally pay income taxes. I don't support creating a system where the federal government is going to encourage companies to dump their benefits and force people to flood an government plan.

I do support a system that will provide affordable health insurance to the under/un insured. I support lots of change.

I don't support the current plans of how they are going to pay for it.

I would support any plan where every single person who earns any amount of money pays into the plan. For example if you set an amount of 4%, every single person will pay 4% of all income into the plan. You make $1000 a month you pay 4%. You make 1million a month, you pay 4%. I do not support free health care for anyone but very few members of our society.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

I do support a system that will provide affordable health insurance to the under/un insured.
...
I would support any plan where every single person who earns any amount of money pays into the plan. For example if you set an amount of 4%, every single person will pay 4% of all income into the plan. You make $1000 a month you pay 4%. You make 1million a month, you pay 4%.

But that's where the math doesn't add up. 4% of everyone's income is not enough to pay for the overall costs of healthcare. Not counting any other medical costs, my one child's occupational therapy costs more than 10% of our annual income (that includes the portion that insurance currently pays, because in your scenario this money is paying for 100% of people's healthcare.) And relatively speaking, we're pretty high on the income scale, considering the number of people who make significantly less than we do.

When you raise the flat rate high enough to actually cover what healthcare costs, it is by definition no longer affordable for the poor. Everyone may pay into the plan, but it will have to be a sliding percentage or the books will never balance.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Any insurance provided by the government will be provided by an insurance company. You do understand that part, right? Just like Medicaid is now.

Medicaid is run by the Federal and state governments. Some states subcontract to private companies. Medicare offers the option to go to a private insurance company, if available.

I don't know how the new plan will work, but it doesn't seem to be the case at present that "Any insurance provided by the government [is] provided by an insurance company."

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Medicaid is run by the Federal and state governments. Some states subcontract to private companies. Medicare offers the option to go to a private insurance company, if available.

I don't know how the new plan will work, but it doesn't seem to be the case at present that "Any insurance provided by the government [is] provided by an insurance company."

I have worked in 9 states. Everyone of them use a contracted insurance company to execute the plans. Those insurance companies are making millions off of your tax dollars now. And they will mak billions under any of the Demoncratic plans on the table now.

[sugarpop]

So exactly which members of society do you support having free health care Merc?

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

But that's where the math doesn't add up. 4% of everyone's income is not enough to pay for the overall costs of healthcare. Not counting any other medical costs, my one child's occupational therapy costs more than 10% of our annual income (that includes the portion that insurance currently pays, because in your scenario this money is paying for 100% of people's healthcare.) And relatively speaking, we're pretty high on the income scale, considering the number of people who make significantly less than we do.

When you raise the flat rate high enough to actually cover what healthcare costs, it is by definition no longer affordable for the poor. Everyone may pay into the plan, but it will have to be a sliding percentage or the books will never balance.

I used 4% because that is the number that was floating around in Congress. I understand your costs and I understand that the math will not add up. How come no one in Congress hears that? Because they plan to shift services. Some of those services you get now may not be available to those on the National Plan. I have no idea. To date there are still very little details other than the various general plans floating around. As we have seen from the last few major bills that have been pushed through I doubt we will actually see any details until it is voted on and passed.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by sugarpop

So exactly which members of society do you support having free health care Merc?

The Severely disabled. We need much better mental health services and need to stop using the prisons for dumping grounds for the mentally ill. Every single swinging person that can walk and talk should work for their benefits.

[TheMercenary]

And there you have it. These fucks don't care what gets done, only that it gets done. The American public will get just what they think they want.

July 14 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama may rely only on Democrats to push health-care legislation through the U.S. Congress if Republican opposition doesn’t yield soon, two of the president’s top advisers said.

“Ultimately, this is not about a process, it’s about results,” David Axelrod, Obama’s senior political strategist, said during an interview in his White House office. “If we’re going to get this thing done, obviously time is a-wasting.”

Both Axelrod and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said taking a partisan route to enacting major health-care legislation isn’t the president’s preferred choice. Yet in separate interviews, each man left that option open.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=a4.kYDWV9erc

[TheMercenary]

For anyone who cares here are more details of how the Dems are going to Rahm through your health care future.

“The intention of this plan is to tax high-income households, but the real victims would be America’s small business owners,” the Washington-based group’s president, Thomas Donohue, said in a statement. “Since when does our great free-market country punish success?”

Awaiting Cost Estimate

Lawmakers are waiting for the Congressional Budget Office to determine how much the bill will cost. The nonpartisan agency said in a partial and preliminary analysis today that the plan would run to more than $1 trillion over 10 years and reduce the number of uninsured by roughly 37 million. The agency said that by 2019 some 17 million people -- about half of them illegal immigrants -- would lack coverage.

Eventually, the House and Senate must craft a compromise measure, and conservative lawmakers in both chambers have balked at taxes outside the health-care system.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aUVZeh_GVBYM

[TheMercenary]

I wonder when they are going to start to have auto dealers and auto repair shops start to pay for our auto insurance...

WASHINGTON (AP) - House Democratic leaders, pledging to meet the president's goal of health care legislation before their August break, are offering a $1.5 trillion plan that for the first time would make health care a right and a responsibility for all Americans. Left to pick up most of the tab were medical providers, employers and the wealthy.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090715/D99EO8BO0.html

[sugarpop]

I don't have a problem with people making over a million dollars a year being taxed to help pay for it.

I don't believe Obama will support something that will end up hurting small business owners.

If republicans won't get on board and offer any REAL solutions, the dems have no recourse than to do it without them. And I would rather have the dems do it on their own than have it watered down by republicans who won't vote for it anyway.

[TheMercenary]

I am a small business owner. He is going to attack my profits.

[TheMercenary]

57 cents of every dollar earned would go to the government!?!?!?

Congressional plans to fund a massive health-care overhaul could have a job-killing effect on New York, creating a tax rate of nearly 60 percent for the state's top earners and possibly pressuring small-business owners to shed workers.

New York's top income bracket could reach as high as 57 percent -- rates not seen in three decades -- to pay for the massive health coverage proposed by House Democrats this week.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07162009..._ny_179525.htm

[TheMercenary]

As I stated. They are going to bankrupt this country....

Budget umpire: Health care bills would raise costs

Asked by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., if the evolving legislation would bend the cost curve, the budget director responded that — as things stand now — "the curve is being raised."

Explained Elmendorf: "In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs."

Even if the legislation doesn't add to the federal deficit over the next years, Elmendorf said costs over the long run would keep rising at an unsustainable pace.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...HW-ywD99FQJL80