Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

T...... as with many programs that help the poor.

Oh the Horror...

So you support all of those who have should give to all of those who have not, no matter the cost.

Your examples of progressive taxation are not reality based.

A minority of the population pays the majority of Federal Taxes.

Until everyone pays something to Federal Taxation I can never support your socialistic notions of society.

Some how or another I get the impression that you think society and government owe you something for nothing and should support you.

What do what do you owe society for your freebee's? Where in the Constitution does it say government owes you anything other than what is expressly written?

[TheMercenary]

Read it and weep....

Some insurers stop writing new coverage for kids
Ahead of requirement to cover kids with medical problems, some insurers drop out

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some major health insurance companies will no longer issue certain types of policies for children, an unintended consequence of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul law, state officials said Friday.

Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty said several big insurers in his state will stop issuing new policies that cover children individually. Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner Kim Holland said a couple of local insurers in her state are doing likewise.

In Florida, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Aetna, and Golden Rule -- a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare -- notified the insurance commissioner that they will stop issuing individual policies for children, said Jack McDermott, a spokesman for McCarty.

The major types of coverage for children -- employer plans and government programs -- are not be affected by the disruption. But a subset of policies -- those that cover children as individuals -- may run into problems. Even so, insurers are not canceling children's coverage already issued, but refusing to write new policies.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Some-i....html?x=0&.v=1

[Undertoad]

9,000 to 10,000 new policies a year

will now be covered by the public option, and the problem is moot. We're talking less than .01% of the population of one state. Am I missing anything?

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

Your examples of progressive taxation are not reality based.

That's how it works. You only pay the taxes on the money in the bracket.

Some how or another I get the impression that you think society and government owe you something for nothing and should support you.

What do what do you owe society for your freebee's?

I'm fairly well off. I pay plenty of taxes. I don't begrudge the portion of them that help the poor at all.

[TheMercenary]

This guy nails it, and to think it was from CNBC.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38412580

For President Obama and Speaker Pelosi, the reckoning is near.

In hubris, they imposed a radical liberal agenda on an unwilling centrist electorate. Now, the economic recovery is failing and voters are set to rebuke Democrats in November.

From electing Scott Brown in Massachusetts to vociferous dissent at town meetings, Americans made it clear they did not want the Democrats' health care reforms.

Those create vast new entitlements, levy higher taxes, impose mandates on businesses and state budgets, and increase demand for medical services and drugs, without expanding the supply of health professionals or loosening the monopoly grip of pharmaceutical companies. It imposes few meaningful cost controls.

As feared, businesses face runaway employee health insurance costs, dramatically increasing their incentives to outsource more jobs to Asia.

The financial reform law creates employment for liberal lawyers and community activists in the federal bureaucracy to write 500 new regulations and staff a new consumer watchdog that will duplicate reforms for credit cards, bank accounts and consumer loans already being put in place by the Federal Reserve.

The big banks are still too big to fail, controlling a larger share of the nation's deposits than before the crisis.

Restrictions on bank trading and derivatives miss the mark. Bad loans, not trading, took down Citigroup [C 4.15 0.13 (+3.23%) ] and Bank of America [BAC 14.15 0.41 (+2.98%) ], and few effective restrictions or controls are imposed on mortgage-backed securities and similar financial instruments that permitted giant banks to disguise lousing lending decisions from unknowing investors.

The financial system is even more vulnerable to abuse and collapse than before.

The 8000 regional banks remain cash starved, because the President failed to use the TARP to create an analog to the Savings and Loan Crisis era Resolution Trust to purge balance sheets of toxic real estate loans and mortgage backed securities. Big Democratic contributors at Goldman Sachs [GS 148.20 0.82 (+0.56%) ], J.P. Morgan [JPM 40.33 0.50 (+1.26%) ] and other New York financial houses are making too much money working out those financial instruments, and the President acceded to their pleas for profits, against the best interests of jobs creation.

Now, small and medium sized businesses that rely on regional banks for credit can't expand and add employees. For ordinary working families, credit is scarcer and more expensive. Neither phenomenon is good for jobs creation.

Having failed to push a carbon tax through a voter wary Senate, the President is intent on punishing energy use by executive fiat through the Environmental Projection Agency.

The Council of Economic Advisors claims the $787 billion stimulus package saved or created about three million jobs but the Administration head count of jobs directly funded by the economic Recovery Act simply contracts the assumptions behind this analysis.

A good deal of the money was wasted or delayed private hiring, exacerbating unemployment. For example, subsidies to build windmills or green buildings displace other investments in new generating capacity and commercial space but don't add to the kilowatts purchased and office space rented two and three years from now. The economy gets the same investments-those just costs more and gets postponed.

The President managed to make much temporary stimulus spending permanent, creating trillion dollar deficits for many years to come and endangering the federal government's triple-A bond rating. Obama's response is to increase income and estate taxes, and Pelosi is floating a national sales tax. None of those create jobs.

Signs abound that the economic recovery is faltering under the weight of statism. Retails sales and new home construction are sinking, Obama's inept Treasury and housing bureaucrats can't stem foreclosure for two million families this year, and non-financial companies are sitting on nearly $2 trillion in cash reluctant to invest and hire.


"It simply is not in Obama and Pelosi's DNA to believe ordinary people know what's good for them."

Peter Morici
Professor, Smith School of Business, University of Maryland
Now, the President's Harvard bred, Wall Street fed, Washington dressed economists tell Americans they must endure high unemployment and declining incomes for most of this decade.

Maybe common folk who vote and earn a living in the real world know something Ivy League professors living off endowment income and advising presidents can't fathom. Reckless, unproductive government spending, higher taxes and regulations that accomplish little but to raise costs, kill investment, drive jobs offshore, and destroy prosperity.

It simply is not in Obama and Pelosi's DNA to believe ordinary people know what's good for them.

Thankfully, the first Democrats, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, gave common folk a remedy for the arrogance of aristocrats-elections every two years.

______________________
Peter Morici is a professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and former Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.

[TheMercenary]

The ER myth

By Marc Siegel
One of the major myths attached to the new health reform law is that it will lead to fewer emergency room visits. Instead of having to go to the ER, the claim goes, more efficient care will be administered to the newly insured in doctors offices by primary care physicians like me.
President Obama himself perpetuated this claim. A year ago at a town hall meeting on health care reform, he said, "We know that when somebody doesn't have health insurance, they're forced to get treatment at the ER, and all of us end up paying for it. ... You'd be better off subsidizing to make sure they were getting regular checkups." In late May, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in Roll Call that "the uninsured will get coverage, no longer left to the emergency room for medical care."

Now we know better.

It's not terribly surprising that real data from Massachusetts, which has had universal health coverage since 2006, show otherwise. From 2004 to 2008, ER visits in the Bay State rose by 9%, with no discernable improvement after 2006. Why? At least part of the reason has been the inability of patients to find primary care physicians for last-minute visits. Let's face it: The ER won't turn you away, but individual and overburdened doctors can and will. The Massachusetts Medical Society has reported that new patients wait for a primary care doctor visit up to two months.

A problem for all of us

With the new national health care law, Massachusetts' problem very well may be manifested across the USA. Already, we don't have enough doctors. Indeed, the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that the U.S. will be 160,000 short by 2025. ERs, too, have downsized over time. A yearly survey by the American Hospital Association has shown a 10% decline in emergency departments from 1991 to 2008, despite an increasing demand for such care. So if we have depleted ERs, not enough doctors and millions of more patients, the math doesn't work.

To make matters worse, 16 million more patients will be eligible for Medicaid by 2014, but doctors are limiting the number of such patients they see. Where will these patients go? You got it. The ER. Medicare will soon have the same problem, as more than 70 million Baby Boomers begin to flood the system.

Yet instead of simply complaining about our impending doom as we add 30 million more people to the health insurance coffers, I suggest that the folks in Washington transitioning the health care reform from law into reality must deal with the world as it exists, not as it was sold to the American people.

What can be done?

First, tackle the doctor shortage. In June, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius noted that $250 million will be set aside to create 1,700 new primary care doctors, new clinics and to implement strategies to expand the workforce. This is a step forward — albeit a very small one. Medical students need to have incentives — scholarships, loan forgiveness or better pay — that will push more of them into primary care rather than more lucrative specialties.

Second, we need strategies to make medicine more efficient so patients get better, rather than rushed, care. Recent research suggests that computer analysis and improved schedule strategies can decrease patient waiting time by 40%. Integrating nurse practitioners and physicians assistants into doctors' practices also would help.

Most important will be re-orienting our system away from emergency intervention. Diet, exercise and smoking cessation would unclog ERs in a hurry. New technology and education can help doctors and patients predict, prevent, diagnose and treat a disease before it requires an urgent medical visit.

Consider the ER challenge just one of many we're likely to see as the health care law reveals itself, bit by bit, to the American people.

Marc Siegel is an internist and an associate professor of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center. He is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion...mn28_ST1_N.htm

[classicman]

Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a key provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, sending a clear message of discontent to Washington and Democrats less than 100 days before the midterm elections.

About 71 percent of Missouri voters backed a ballot measure, Proposition C, that would prohibit the government from requiring people to have health insurance or from penalizing them for not having it.

The Missouri law conflicts with a federal requirement that most people have health insurance or face penalties starting in 2014.

Tuesday's vote was seen as largely symbolic because federal law generally trumps state law. But it was also seen as a sign of growing voter disillusionment with federal policies...

Bold Mine

[TheMercenary]

Yep, it's a Goddam epidemic. The states are beginning to reject the Federal socialist take over of our country by the sitting Congress. Pass the popcorn.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

A Half Trillion Dollar Delusion

[TheMercenary]

Hmmmmm....

Medicare's chief actuary vs. President Obama on the ObamaCare facts.
There probably isn't a worse job in Washington than Medicare trustee, unpaid Capitol Hill interns included. Every year the trustees issue the gravest warnings about entitlement spending and at best prompt a moment of brow-furrowing before the political class returns to its default state of indifference.

This year's report, issued last week, has more than the usual political meaning because Democrats are hailing it as validation of their claims that ObamaCare will save taxpayers money. The trustee report shows "how the Affordable Care Act is helping to reduce costs and make Medicare stronger," the White House said in a statement.

One problem: That spin ignores the extraordinary companion analysis by chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster that repudiates this conclusion and is the most damning fiscal indictment to date of the Affordable Care Act.

The trustees do estimate the Medicare hospital trust fund will run out of money in 2029, some 12 years later than they estimated last year. (Keep in mind that the trust fund is a meaningless accounting artifact because Medicare was long ago financed in part by general tax revenues.) It's also true that, thanks to ObamaCare's changes under current budget rules, Medicare's unfunded 75-year liability has fallen to about $30.8 trillion from nearly $37 trillion in the previous audit.

Even in Washington, $6.2 trillion is real money. Yet this is a strange excuse for celebration. Democrats wrung about a half-trillion dollars from Medicare over the next decade, but then they turned around and plowed these "savings" into their new middle-class health-care entitlement. It's akin to paying off one credit card with another—while still being deeply in hock on the first.

But then comes the report's final appendix, where Mr. Foster disowns the previous 280-odd pages. Mr. Foster has been Medicare's chief actuary for 15 years, and as such he is required to evaluate the law as written. But as he notes in his appendix, the law as written bears little if any relation to the real world—and thus, he says, the trustee estimates "do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range . . . or the long range." In an unprecedented move, he directs readers to a separate "alternative scenario" that his office drew up using more realistic assumptions.

Mr. Foster shows that the Medicare "cuts" that Democrats wrote into ObamaCare exist only on paper and were written so they could pretend to reduce the deficit and perform the miracles the trustees dutifully outlined. With the exception of cuts in Medicare Advantage, those reductions will never happen in practice.

One of the fictions Mr. Foster highlights is the 30% cut in physician payments over the next three years that Democrats have already promised to disallow. Republicans would do the same, we hasten to add.

Another chunk of ObamaCare "savings" are due to cranking down Medicare's price controls for hospitals and other providers that Mr. Foster says are also "extremely unlikely to occur." In the absence of "substantial and transformational changes in health-care practices"—in other words, a productivity revolution in medicine that has never happened—costs will simply rise for private patients, or hospitals will refuse to treat seniors insured by Medicare. Congress will never allow that to happen either.

In other words, under ObamaCare the "cost curve" will not be bent as the White House has advertised.

Under his more plausible outlook, Mr. Foster notes that Medicare's share of the economy will rise 60% between now and 2040, while under the trustees report that Democrats are crowing about it would "only" rise by 35%. Didn't President Obama tell us that health-care reform is entitlement reform?

Politicians have deliberately written the ObamaCare rules, as they have for all entitlements, so the real costs are disguised and hard for taxpayers to figure out. During the ObamaCare debate, Mr. Foster was honest enough from his Medicare perch to expose the plan's true costs, and his new Medicare demarche continues this public service. He ought to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, or at least some media attention. But in Barack Obama's Washington, his honesty will be rewarded with obscurity.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...pinion_LEADTop

[classicman]

the law as written bears little if any relation to the real world—and thus, he says, the trustee estimates "do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range . . . or the long range." In an unprecedented move, he directs readers to a separate "alternative scenario" that his office drew up using more realistic assumptions.

Politicians have deliberately written the ObamaCare rules, as they have for all entitlements, so the real costs are disguised and hard for taxpayers to figure out. During the ObamaCare debate, Mr. Foster was honest enough from his Medicare perch to expose the plan's true costs,

Certainly a partisan piece, but still.... Damning statements from the one man who probably knows best.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Since there is no such thing as "ObamaCare", your arguments are invalid.

[TheMercenary]

Everyone calls it ObamaCare, therefore it is...

[classicman]

From Wiki ...

The term was usually used pejoratively, but some supporters of the act suggested after being passed that it be embraced and used positively.

[classicman]

Obamacare in Pictures Busts Health Care Myths

Heritage’s Center for Health Policy Studies has compiled the best and most recent research on the impact Obamacare will have on various aspects of the health care system. These charts (available for individual download or as a package) illustrate the unintended consequences of the new law and expose the unproven claims the President and other proponents of a government overhaul of health care made during the debate, such as:

* If you like your health insurance, you can keep it.
* It will bend the cost curve of health care spending.
* Obamacare won’t add a dime to our soaring federal deficit.
* Not a dollar of the Medicare trust fund will be used to pay for Obamacare.
* It will not lead to a government take over of health insurance.

The graphics available in Obamacare in Pictures show how, rather than achieving universal coverage, some 41 percent of Americans will be uninsured in 2019 under Obamacare. Additionally, more than 17 million Americans are expected to no longer have employer-sponsored coverage because of the new law. Then there’s the $529 billion in cuts to Medicare that will be used to pay for middle-income Americans to purchase subsidized health insurance. The list goes on.

The list of unintended consequences of Obamacare is long. Despite the exorbitant cost to Americans on several levels, the health care overhaul will fail to deliver on the promises for which it was sold. The best way forward is repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act so that Congress can start over and get health care reform right. Obamacare in Pictures makes this clearer than ever.

heritage.org
Definitely a biased piece, but it brings some good points to the table.
I guess the "Its a start, we'll modify it as we go" plan might be a good idea.