Impeding changes to our Health Care system

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Go start a blog. Everyone will flock to you.

or maybe just the 4-5 members here who have PMed me over the months asking why I waste my time with you.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

or maybe just the 4-5 members here who have PMed me over the months asking why I waste my time with you.

Well there you have it! 4 or 5 immediate people to read the Demoncratic talking points. Go for it man. Stop wasting your time.

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Well there you have it! 4 or 5 immediate people to read the Demoncratic talking points. Go for it man. Stop wasting your time.

Actually, most of them dont agree with me..but have given up on participating in discussions in which you are involved and are unanimous in their disdain for your style of "debate"

So keep posting all those op eds....maybe one person actually reads them.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

So keep posting all those op eds....maybe one person actually reads them.

Oh, I will. As long as I can counter the lies from the Dems and BS from the Repubs, I'll be good. Maybe I will have someone actually try to refute my points who have more crediblity than you.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

Actually, most of them dont agree with me..but have given up on participating in discussions in which you are involved and are unanimous in their disdain for your style of "debate"

There you go! more fans for your new blog!

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Oh, I will. As long as I can counter the lies from the Dems and BS from the Repubs, I'll be good. Maybe I will have someone actually try to refute my points who have more crediblity than you.

We'll see how long it takes before you drive that person away. I think I lasted longer than most.

The Cellar Politics Forum is all yours at least unitl I can have fun with UG again.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

We'll see how long it takes before you drive that person away. I think I lasted longer than most.

The Cellar Politics Forum is all yours at least unitl I can have fun with UG again.

Did you want a warm plate of milk with that or just cheese?

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Did you want a warm plate of milk with that or just cheese?

I'm gonna go play with the big kids.

You're the king of this sandbox. We'll see who wants to play with you.

Enjoy it!

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Redux

I'm gonna go play with the big kids.

You're the king of this sandbox. We'll see who wants to play with you.

Enjoy it!

Why do you keep coming back?

I am not here for "play".

[TheMercenary]

Read it and weep... I know that our state will be taking it in the shorts due to the amount we pay for Medicaid.

OBAMACARE = BIG STATE TAX HIKES

Anxious to avoid raising taxes too much to pay for their health care proposals, the Obama Administration and its Congressional allies hit on a great new idea: Make the states raise their taxes to fund the program instead.

Both the House and the Senate bills require that states cover a larger percentage of their people under Medicaid – a joint state and federally funded program. The idea was to force the state to raise their taxes to cover a big part of the health care bill for treating poor people. Since the Feds can simply charge any increase in spending to their already overdrawn bank account, but the states have to balance their budgets, the increased state spending for Medicaid will cause sharp increases in state taxes. And the Governors will get the blame, not Obama and not the Congress.


The House bill requires states to give Medicaid to those whose incomes are less than 150% of the poverty level while the Senate requires coverage up to 125%. For most states, this is a hefty increase.

In some states, like New York, where Medicaid covers everyone making 150% of the poverty level already, there will not be any extra required spending.

But not so in California, which only covers 100% of the poverty level. Were the House bill to pass, the already fiscally beleaguered state would have to increase its Medicaid spending on poor people by 50%, at least an extra $2 billion a year and perhaps more.

In many Southern states, the Medicaid program only covers a portion of those living below the poverty level. For these states, the requirement to cover all those in poverty and then 50% more will cause enormous increases in taxes. In Arkansas and Louisiana, where swing Senators Pryor, Lincoln, and Landrieu come from, the cost could exceed $1 billion for each state each year.

Unfunded mandates for state spending imposed from on high in Washington have always rankled governors. The Senators and Congressmen in Washington get the credit for spreading largesse but the Governors in the states get the blame for the taxes that are needed to pay for it.

Since Democrats currently control the vast majority of governorships, this process of making their own party members take the rap for raising taxes is politically self-destructive in the extreme. But Obama is so desperate to pass his health care legislation that he doesn’t care what havoc in his party he reaps in the process.

The question now is whether the governors of the fifty states, particularly the Democrats, are going to sit idly by and let their budgets be destroyed by the health care bill.

When the Republicans in Congress insisted on tacking big cuts in aid to legal immigrant benefits for disability and other areas onto the welfare reform bill, it was the Republican governors who forced them to repeal the pernicious cuts the very next year. They did not want to have to raise taxes to make up for the withdrawal of federal funding.

Now the Democratic governors face the same situation. If Obamacare passes with its expansion of Medicaid benefits – but with no federal funding of the extra spending – it is these Democrats and their legislatures that will have to bite the bullet and pass new taxes to pay for it.

http://www.dickmorris.com/blog/2009/...ate-tax-hikes/

[classicman]

On Tuesday, the Senate health committee voted 12-11 in favor of a two-page amendment courtesy of Republican Tom Coburn that would require all Members and their staffs to enroll in any new
government-run health plan.

Congressman John Fleming (a Louisiana physician) has proposed an
amendment that would require congressmen and senators to take the same healthcare plan they force on us
(under proposed legislation they are curiously exempt).

If Congress forces this on the American people, the Congressmen should have to accept the same level of health care for themselves and their families. To do otherwise is the height of hypocrisy!

Why the hell does this need to be an amendment? That should have been like - on page 1 of the friggin bill.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

dickmorris

Seriously? Dick friggin Morris?

C'mon Merc.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

Seriously? Dick friggin Morris?

C'mon Merc.

Well, the Clinton's thought he was awesome enough to bring close to the heart of the Presidency and all of a suddened he has no idea what he is talking about? Few know how the system works as well as he does. Even if you don't like his message...

[TheMercenary]

This is a pretty good assessment of some of the problems being proposed in the current plans.

There Be Dragons: The Fiscal Risk Of Premium Subsidies In Health Reform

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office weighed in on the biggest economic imponderable in the health care debate: how private health insurance premiums will behave under health reform. Building on its December 2008 CBO health insurance market analysis, CBO forecast largely benign effects from health reform’s private market reforms and subsidies on the vast majority of the presently insured (e.g. voting public).

According to CBO, only 17% of Americans in the so-called nongroup market–largely individuals–would see premium increases in 2016 (the CBO reference year), because they would be required to purchase fatter benefits with less economic risk. CBO believes that the other 83% of the presently insured will see little or no change.

Analysis of how the health insurance market will behave under health reform has become ferociously politicized. After the infamous PriceWaterhouseCoopers study sponsored by health insurers suggested possible large premium increases, the CBO report might provide cover for members of Congress who are contemplating irreversibly tying the federal budget to a volatile “private” insurance market. I think the fiscal risks of a partially federalized private health benefit are significantly greater than CBO has suggested.

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2009/1...health-reform/

[TheMercenary]

This bit is what I have been talking about for months...

Medicaid cuts will probably accelerate next year when the eighteen-month Medicaid stimulus funding pulse runs out. Since Medicaid enrollment could increase by more than 30% due to health reform, we can expect low Medicaid rates to be a potent cash-flow offset to all of those new privately insured people. So the Medicaid trend is ugly for providers: enrollment way up, rates down, perhaps sharply. Almost half of those newly enfranchised by health reform will be Medicaid patients. There will also still be 25 million uninsured in 2016 according to CBO.

Further, providers expect Medicare to cut their rates, as well as their disproportionate-share hospital (DSH) subsidies. So providers, where they are able, will increase their rates to private health plans to compensate for these anticipated losses. Since many of them–hospitals and specialty physicians–are in monopoly or quasi-monopoly positions in their markets, they can still get net cash flow from private insurance rate increases. Cost shifting is a powerful tidal force despite the planned reduction in uninsured. (CBO could use some providers on their Healthcare Advisory Panel! It might affect its findings.)