Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Add Reply
ObamaCare; All HealthReform News / Comments
Topic Started: Jun 17 2009, 12:52 PM (1,677 Views)
Joan Foster

Texas Mom
Jun 25 2009, 03:10 PM
Suggestion I heard today....Ask your Congress Critter if they will be willing to remove from the bill their EXEMPTION from having to participate in this new system with the rest of us hoi poloi!
Excellent , Tex. Here's a must-read...Fannie Mae Health Care:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597297859757163.html

"The U.S. is unique because it alone is the source of half of world-wide profits that provide the payoff for the complex, lengthy, and expensive process of developing new treatments. When other nations construct their health-care systems, they ignore the impact of their pricing policies on R&D incentives. As the dominant R&D funding wellhead, we do not have that option.

Competitive markets have generated the prices and the profits necessary to induce a steady flow of medical innovation in this country. A public plan option would tend to dismantle that system. The people in charge will not know how to set reimbursement levels to motivate reasonable R&D efforts, and there is no reason to expect them to try. In public plans, the tried-and-true method is to push the prices of suppliers down until something gives -- too few doctors willing to take on Medicare patients, for example -- and then to ease up. That is a destructive approach to medical technology R&D.

Who knows what drugs will not be developed if reimbursement levels for a new multiple-sclerosis treatment are too measly? In virtually every advanced economy but our own, pricing authorities simply make sure prices are high enough so that existing drugs continue to be made available. We can expect a public plan here to do the same. The inevitable result is to drastically under-incentivize R&D.

This problem would not matter if a public plan remained small -- but it would likely grow into a monster. Monopsony negotiating power will generate lower prices, so many consumers will switch to a public plan. Employers eager to offload health-care costs will also dump unwilling employees into the public plan. That is the basis for the Lewin Group's much-cited prediction that a public plan would come to dominate any market in which it is allowed to compete.

Bargaining power, however, is far from the only potential source of below-market prices for public plans. In the home mortgage market, the public plans -- known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- were for years viewed by investors as less risky because they would be bailed out by the federal government if they took on too much risk. That translated into lower prices (the interest rates paid by borrowers), which eventually translated into extraordinary and unseemly growth, culminating in bankruptcy and a federal bailout."
Edited by Joan Foster, Jun 26 2009, 05:21 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Lodge Pro 345
Member Avatar

.
proposal: Unions to be exempt from Taxes on Health Benefits


June 26 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate proposal to impose taxes for the first time on “gold-plated” health plans may bypass generous employee benefits negotiated by unions.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for an overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective- bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.

The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.

“I can’t think of any other aspect of the individual income tax that treats benefits of different people differently because of who they work for,” said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington research group that often criticizes Democrats’ economic proposals. Edwards said the carve-out “smacks of political favoritism.”

Baucus, a Montana Democrat, is proposing to tax Americans whose health insurance is valued at a higher rate than what is offered to federal employees. About 40 percent of insured Americans have costlier benefits, and Baucus has said he is trying to set the level at which taxes would be imposed high enough so fewer people are affected.

‘Gold-Plated’ Plans

The policy is aimed at so-called “gold-plated” plans such as the $40,543 in health benefits paid to Lloyd Blankfein, chief executive of New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the fifth largest U.S. bank by assets.

It can also affect companies such as Henderson, Nevada- based Zappos.com, where workers’ $11 per hour pay is supplemented by employer-paid health insurance plans worth about $7,500. Federal workers’ health benefits are worth about $4,200 for individuals and $13,000 for families.

Lawmakers are crafting legislation aimed at meeting Obama’s goal of bringing down the cost of health care and expanding coverage to the 46 million Americans who lack insurance. Obama wants Democratic congressional leaders to seek Republican support, and to send him legislation by mid-October.

Baucus said yesterday the cost of health-care options his panel is considering can be cut to $1 trillion over 10 years and won’t add to the deficit, citing the Congressional Budget Office.

Cost Estimates

The non-partisan budget office last week delivered an informal cost estimate of $1.6 trillion for the legislation to overhaul the health-care system, sparking protests from both Republicans and Democrats and prompting Baucus to say his panel may delay consideration of a bill until next month.

“CBO now tells us we have options that would enable us to write a $1 trillion bill, fully paid for,” Baucus, who set that amount as his goal, told reporters at the Capitol.

The panel’s legislation must be joined with competing proposals from other Senate and House committees and forged into a single bill subject to negotiation and approval by both chambers before it can be sent to Obama.

Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, said earlier this week that senators are coalescing around the idea of taxing some employer-provided benefits. Baucus said the details are still being negotiated, including how high to set the tax-free exclusion and when any changes would take effect, and whether to exempt union employees until their current contracts expire.

Cutting ‘Subsidy’

“It is hard for me to see how you can have a package that is paid for that does not reduce the subsidy” on employer-paid benefits, Conrad said.

Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the top-ranking Republican in the chamber, said today he has “serious reservations about capping the exclusion, particularly if they have a carve-out for union members,” according to his communications director, Don Stewart. Stewart taped McConnell’s comments and provided excerpts to a reporter.

Stewart said McConnell, discussing the prospect of a tax on some employer-provided benefits, said “table-pounding opposition” would result “if it were to exclude union members.”

Gerald Shea, an AFL-CIO official lobbying for health-care reform, said grandfathering benefits negotiated in a collective bargaining agreement is a “common thing when there is a big change in federal law.”

‘Expectations Are Set’

“Once a collective bargaining agreement is set, employer’s budgets are set, workers expectations are set. It doesn’t make sense to go back in the middle of the contract and change it,” he said.

Union groups and workers said Congress shouldn’t target contractually negotiated benefits.

Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union, said in an interview that workers have often traded salary increases for better benefits in agreements.

Taxes “shouldn’t be taken from the backs of workers who have bargained away wages and other things for their benefits over the years,” Burger said.

Sandra Carter, a retired Pacific Bell Telephone Co. technician from Stockton, California, said her health benefits, worth about $12,000 per year, were negotiated by the Communications Workers of America. She is unmarried with no children, meaning her individual coverage exceeds benefits paid to federal workers by about $7,800. If that amount were taxed at the 15 percent marginal rate, she would owe $1,170.

“I can’t afford the taxes I pay now,” said Carter, who said she suffers from diabetes. “Why should I get taxed on a benefit that keeps me a functioning person?”

Union Opposition

Other unions say they’re opposed to a tax on some employer- provided benefits, regardless of whether collective bargaining agreements are exempt.

“Either way, we are against a tax on health-care benefits in whatever form it takes,” said Jacob Hay, spokesman for the Laborers’ International Union of North America. The union represents 500,000 workers, largely in the construction industry.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ryan J. Donmoyer in Washington at rdonmoyer@bloomberg.netHolly Rosenkrantz in Washington at hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aDvu77pZr7k4

.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Lodge Pro 345
Member Avatar

.
I know I read this here, but I saw on TV where Congress will NOT be subjected to Obama's new Health Care, neither will the President and his family.

This fact needs to be exposed. This info is radioactive - they are trying to contain it.



Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Baldo
Member Avatar

Wall Street Journal June 19, 2009

...The president is barnstorming the nation, urging swift approval of legislation that is taking shape in Congress. This legislation -- the Affordable Health Choices Act that's being drafted by Sen. Edward Kennedy's staff and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee -- will push Americans into stingy insurance plans with tight, HMO-style controls. It specifically exempts members of Congress (along with federal employees; the exemptions are in section 3116).

Members of Congress "enjoy the widest selection of health plans in the country," according to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. They "can choose from among consumer-driven and high deductible plans that offer catastrophic risk protection with higher deductibles, health saving/reimbursable accounts and lower premiums, or fee-for-service (FFS) plans, and their preferred provider organizations (PPO), or health maintenance organizations (HMO)." These choices would be nice for all of us, but they're not in the offing. Instead, if you don't enroll in a "qualified" health plan and submit proof of enrollment to the federal government, you'll be tracked down and fined (sections 3101 and 6055)...snipped
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124536864955329439.html

Affordable Health Choices Act
http://help.senate.gov/BAI09A84_xml.pdf

Page on Open Congress
http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/1033-Affordable-Health-Choices-Act
Edited by Baldo, Jun 26 2009, 05:34 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Baldo
Member Avatar

It specifically exempts members of Congress (along with federal employees; the exemptions are in section 3116).

How do you like that? Our Government is exempt under the Kennedy Plan

If you are not mad at that I don't know what to say.

Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Barney. Durbin, Dodds, and the rest of the miscreants are going to shove it down your throat. But not themselves. They are even going to exempt the unions from being taxed, but you my friend are not!
Edited by Baldo, Jun 26 2009, 05:58 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Lodge Pro 345
Member Avatar

Baldo
Jun 26 2009, 05:57 PM
It specifically exempts members of Congress (along with federal employees; the exemptions are in section 3116).

How do you like that? Our Government is exempt under the Kennedy Plan

If you are not mad at that I don't know what to say.

Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Barney. Durbin, Dodds, and the rest of the miscreants are going to shove it down your throat. But not themselves. They are even going to exempt the unions from being taxed, but you my friend are not!
.
That is radioactive. People understand things like this, this is something they can judge, something that causes concern.

If only the Networks got this out as part of the story. If this ended up as Headlines, it would be over for their nationalization plans.



.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
wingedwheel
Member Avatar
Not Pictured Above
Lodge Pro 345
Jun 26 2009, 05:20 PM
.
I know I read this here, but I saw on TV where Congress will NOT be subjected to Obama's new Health Care, neither will the President and his family.

This fact needs to be exposed. This info is radioactive - they are trying to contain it.



That and the unions won't have to pay taxes on their benefits and everyone else will!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Baldo
Member Avatar

Obama'a support is slipping. Pelosi was losing it so the White House took over the operation and were twisting arms the Rahn way.

They are damaged!



Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Kerri P.
Member Avatar

I heard an ad on the tv this evening from a group that was saying that they are anti 0bama Care. They went on to say what was going to happen if this bill is passed and made law. How most of our health care is going to really be cut, and that most of us won't be able to get most of the test that we need when we really need them.

So there will be enough money for everyone to have some form of insurance. I have a feeling we're going to start seeing alot more of these ads.

I can't remember the name of the group that sent out the ad.
Edited by Kerri P., Jun 26 2009, 09:14 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Lodge Pro 345
Member Avatar

.
You are going to have a sector (or more) in the medical field that will be quick to look at you and say, you haven't taken very good care of youself, too bad, so sad - and the door is closed to treatment.

They will be opening that door, in fact, it seems that's going to be part of the plan, rationing health care.

Hannity had people on his radio show that stated that ABC nixed them at the last minute due to their pertinent questions. Hannity had them read them on the air and they were very good. ABC wasn't going to let that happen.

Just write a script of a charismatic leader that led good people astray, a uber popular figure that was given free rein while people forgot their values and common sense and later people wondered how they let it happen. It's happening.

.


Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Joan Foster

Predicting the Future...

'Family doctors are boosting their income by thousands of pounds a year by failing to remove from their registers patients who have died or moved to another country.

Some GPs are keeping the so-called ‘ghost patients’ on their lists because they receive an annual payment of up to £100 for every person registered with them, regardless of whether they have had any treatment.

Health service managers have discovered hundreds of thousands of ‘ghost’ names on surgery lists after sending in taskforces to tackle the problem.

When investigators tried to find out what had happened to absentee patients by visiting the addresses held by surgeries, the properties were often found to be empty or occupied by other people.

One family said they had been receiving letters from a practice – addressed to someone they didn’t know – for 20 years. Although they had returned the letters unopened, the stream of mail continued.

Five years ago the Audit Commission – the official public spending watchdog – estimated that there were at least 3.5million excess names on surgery records in England, costing the taxpayer about £100million a year. Now the figures are again under scrutiny following outspoken criticism of some doctors by the head of one of the biggest NHS trusts in the country."


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196047/The-ghost-patients-boost-GPs-incomes-thousands-year.html
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
longstop
longstop
The Unbelievably Disingenuous Arguments of the Left Over Health Care

http://46in08.blogspot.com/2009/06/unbelievably-disingenuous-arguments-of.html

The President has been lying about the cost savings since day one and his allies in Congress have been no better. Yesterday Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics just destroyed the arguments of Paul Krugman and John Alter. Its a masterpiece of logic exposing the logical sleight of hand to make the case for socialized medicine:

snip
Edited by longstop, Jun 28 2009, 10:54 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
retiredLEO
Member Avatar

When has the government run anything efficiently? Whenever I hear them say it will cost X dollars over 10 years, it never does. It usually ends up at 2 or 3X, then everyone complains and the POTUS who pushed it is gone and retired. The only way to truly cut health care cost is to have tort reform, or to have less people seeking health care, so you ration it. Don't think rationing won't happen, it already does in countries that have it. The government will do a cost benefit analysis, to see if the test the doctor want you to have is worth it. I mean the President said himself, instead of surgery, take pain killers.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
longstop
longstop
Food for Thought.

Doubts Grow About Massachusetts and Health Care

http://46in08.blogspot.com/2009/06/doubts-grow-about-massachusetts-and.html
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
wingedwheel
Member Avatar
Not Pictured Above
RomneyCare is a mess. I can't believe some people still like Mitt.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · LIESTOPPERS UNDERGROUND · Next Topic »
Add Reply