Reply With Quote
mmhmmm
For the first time in the 221-year history of the United States of America, the federal government is requiring individual citizens and companies to purchase a commercial good, by force of law and, is using the full force of government law enforcement to make sure you and I comply. If that doesn’t bother you then, the liberals in this forum are hereafter exposed as the hypocrites; I’ve always known them to be, over their “Keep your laws off my body” mantra, chanted since the 60’s.
Certainly, Bart Stupak has been exposed as having never been principled on his position that he could not vote for health care reform so long as the sanc y of life is not preserved. And, for those of you keeping score at home; the Executive Order, ostensibly issued by Obama to gain Stupak’s vote – along with his “six-pack” or “dozen” (whatever it was by that time), isn’t worth the paper on which it is written. Just remember, Obama promised you he’d close Guantanamo Bay and made one of his first acts as President, signing an Executive Order that would accomplish that within the first year of his presidency. How’s that working out for him? Executive Orders do not supersede law and the law passed last night provides federally-funded abortions. Period.
Now, we can argue all day long about whether or not this is appropriate but, that’s not the question…the question is whether or not Bart Stupak is so stupid as to believe Obama’s executive order will prevent such a provision from being used – once enacted by his signature – or that he is so conniving that he would knowingly fabricate a ruse of having a conscience about unborn children in order to soften other elements of his own party and making them easier to pick off by the administration and Congressional leaders.
Frankly, I believe the latter. There is video floating around, from last October, during which Stupak admits he would probably vote in favor of Obamacare even if the abortion language remained. I think his objections of late were just theater intended to gain him some sweet deal (which he received) and to give the House leadership some wiggle room when buying off the rest of the needed votes. It was a case of bait and switch in which Stupak was complicit.
And, for those who continue to claim these individual and corporate mandates are an analog to the requirement vehicle owners purchase automobile insurance, here are two differences that totally discredit that comparison:
Obamacare will criminalize hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions, of Americans and their employers and drive them to the taxpayer-supported government insurance which, in turn, will eventually become the Public Option many of you claimed did not exist in this legislation.
1. Most (if not all) state governments require vehicle owners to carry a sufficient amount of LIABILITY insurance so any harm, caused by their negligence while driving, can be made whole through compensation to other vehicle and property owners damaged as a result of such negligence. As far as I know, States do not require vehicle owners to carry comprehensive insurance that would cover damage to their own vehicle in an accident.
Obamacare, on the other hand, requires us to insure ourselves and has absolutely nothing to do with insuring others against our own negligence, as is the case with government mandated automobile liability insurance.
2. Americans can choose to drive or own a vehicle, the requisite condition for the government to require the purchase of liability insurance. So, the requirement to purchase liability insurance is mitigated by our freedom to engage (or not engage) in the practice (driving and owning a vehicle) and run the risk of causing harm to others. If you choose (or, are unable) to own a car, you do not have to purchase insurance. The bottom-line purpose of automobile insurance mandates is to protect others that may be harmed by your negligence – you can remain uninsured, if you choose.
The only option, under Obamacare, for foregoing the purchase of health insurance is to die. If you are breathing you will be required to buy health insurance, your employer will be required to provide you with health insurance, and health insurance companies will be required to provide you with insurance at government-controlled rates and under government-controlled conditions.
The Senate Bill passed last night, provides for the hiring of almost 17,000 additional Internal Revenue Service Agents at the U. S. Department of Treasury to enforce – by penalty involving the seizure of your money through wage garnishment for employees and fines to employers – the individual and corporate mandate to carry health insurance.
As it turns out, however, these penalties are significantly less that the cost of insurance (both to employers and individuals); $2,000 per employee, per year is the penalty to employers that fail to purchase or contribute to the purchase of individual (or group) health insurance for their employees and, $1,000 per individual, per year is the penalty for individuals who fail to purchase health insurance for themselves. Currently, my employer pays approximately $4,700 per year, per employee for a group health insurance policy for individual employees. Employees pay nothing. However, if you start adding spouses and children, the employer contribution goes up to as much as $8,500 per year, per employee and the employees can pay up to $4,600.00 per employee, per year for health insurance.
For my employer, (and for argument’s sake, let’s say we’re all single adults), with 8,000 employees, they’re spending approximately $37,000,000.00 per year (not even close due to the fact many of us are married and have children but, I digress.). If they dropped group health insurance coverage and opted to pay the fine of $2,000 per employee, per year, that would amount to approximately $16,000,000.00. Going criminal will amount to a savings of $21,000,000.00 per year. In the current economic climate, I would imagine many corporations will face the “stigma” of being an “insurance criminal” for the sake of decreasing their compensation costs by 57% and putting that money back on the bottom line.
Not only have they reduced their overhead by 57%, they’ve shifted the remaining outlay from a commercial insurance company to the federal government and, thus, have created a new tax while depriving a private insurance company the revenue.
Now, employees and individuals don’t have the same option because, if your employer is paying the entire cost of your insurance (as mine does for individuals), the $1,000 per individual, per year fine would represent an increase in a person’s health care costs. But, as you can imagine, employees have very little influence over whether or not their employer will continue to carry group insurance when, as I calculated above, they can convert those costs to income that will, in many cases, allow a company to remain solvent. But, of course, many of us are married and have families and the amount of employee contribution to health insurance for those situations more than exceeds the $1,000.00 per individual, per year.
In either case, many companies will choose to drop their employee coverage for the savings they will realize and we will all be out there looking for the best deals for health insurance. And, guess what will be the “best deal?” Yep. Not many commercial companies will be able to compete with the federal government who will essentially be providing health insurance for $83.00 per individual, per month ($1,000 per year). Current regulation and provisions of the bill controlling premiums will preclude the commercial insurance industry from becoming compe ive with each other and certainly will not allow them to compete with $83.00 per month government insurance.
They certainly can’t do that while Obamacare requires them to insure medical expenses for pre-existing conditions and makes it difficult (if not impossible) to deny coverage to anyone wanting to purchase insurance from them.
Why don’t the insurance companies voluntarily lower premiums to be compe ive with the government’s new $83.00 per month premium, you ask? Well, because quality medical care cannot be provided at the prices that would be supported by premiums lower than what the market already demands. Government has the luxury of not having to realize a profit on their (actually our) investment and they have the added benefit of being able to hold a gun (better known as the law) to the heads of health care providers and insurers to provide the care they mandate at the rates they set. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas could try that but, there are laws and regulations that prohibit such practices by anyone other than the government.
And, if you want to know how that ends, look to the hospitals, health care providers, and pharmacies that are now declining new Medicare patients because they’re not reimbursed at the rates required to cover the costs of providing care.
And, folks, that’s how President Barack Obama plans to kill the commercial insurance industry and create a single-payer, government-owned, health care system. As he has said, it is his desire we have a single-payer health care system and – although it make take 10 or 20 years – it will happen. Yesterday’s vote (if not undone) cut about 5 to 10 years off that estimate.
I realize there are many, in this forum, fully in favor of a “public option.” You believe government can best provide for the health needs of all Americans and that it would do so in a manner more fair and equitable to all 300+ million of us than we currently enjoy. However, nowhere is that Pollyannaish view realized. All government-funded health care systems have the fatal flaw of not having enough money to provide the services promised at the outset. Look at any country or at any state in this country, currently providing such a health care system. They are all in the red and suffering from quality of care issues that threaten to bankrupt the government and leave the medical profession in those places in shambles.
But, for the best example of how this will work, look at the United States federal health care systems – Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veteran’s Administration. All three are riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse (none of which is addressed in the Obamacare bill - if anything, those problems are exacerbated). On top of that, Medicare is already the largest denier of health care claims and the Veteran’s Administration’s hospitals have the sad reputation of being the poorest quality facilities in the nation.
For State examples, look at Tennessee and Massachusetts. Both are struggling to keep their government health care systems solvent.
And, how do all of these already existing systems remain in business? By rationing care, denying claims, and requiring more and more of a percentage of the costs be born by the insured – and, oh yeah!, by raising taxes. Thus, you get the death panels – I forget what they’re called in the Senate Bill, something like a “standards and practices committee” or some such – that will start making specific decisions on what treatments and care will be covered and what will not; which medicines will be covered and which will not; and, sadly, which patients are deemed good candidates for treatment and which are not.
And, finally, you’re right back where you started – with two major differences. Instead of money being the purchase of quality health care in America, power will be the currency. Those with power, government leaders and their patrons, will have access to an entirely different system, exempt from all these controls. Those with money will seek their health care from the places to where the best and brightest of our prac ioners have fled – after the government drove them away through capping their income and bureaucratizing their profession.
The rest of us will be enjoying the same quality of care currently found in Canada, Great Britain, and Cuba. But, worse than that, our own government will have legislated and regulated the innovation and determination right out of our medical professionals and, as a result, the rest of the world -- who looked to us for cutting-edge medicine -- will suffer. Thanks a lot, Democrats
mmhmmm
I agree, in most states, Automotive Insurance should be either more heavily regulated, or no longer required...
the commercial insurance companies. the governmental ones too. In fact insurance companies.
Should ins utionalized gambling, also known as risk hedging, more commonly referred to as 'insurance' be a legal commodity to be sold, or should it go the way of Heroin?
Nice post, but you knew it was inevitable. Too many "have-nots", it was just a matter of time before they start to outnumber the "haves" by a wide enough margin to put their agenda into motion.
Honestly, I dont ing care what Washington does with this country anymore. They and the like-minded idiots can have it.
I make damn good money. Me and my family will die very well-off with the best medical care in the world. The rest of you ers can rot in for all I give a .
That answers tolerably well to the live by what you speak ethos.
One may not find very much to like about it, but at least it is honest, and it does express manly confidence.
Liberty is still available, it just costs a little bit more.
The same as it ever was.
And Yonivore has to be beside himself with glee now.
If only that were a joke instead of a description.
Though I believe Nock advocated this, to live your life freely regardless of convention.
I think it also holds true for certain "conservative" media outlets and figures, not to mention certain "conservative" politicians...
I don't see how that could possibly be avoided, but that's me.
Will your children have families?
That's pretty much the only option available to people nowadays. You know if tomorrow I found out I have cancer or a disease where treatment exceeded hundreds of thousands of dollars, I'd rather die. I'd rather die than spend the rest of my life buried in debt because that is no way for any human being to live.The only option, under Obamacare, for foregoing the purchase of health insurance is to die.
Like what happened with my mom last year and this year, last year for being in the hospital for ONE, count it..ONE ing day she was billed 7K. 7 thousand dollars for one ing day. This year last month she went back in for the same illness, a gastrointestinal problem, and she stayed for 4 days. That's probably another 20 thousand dollars. We don't have insurance. She's 54 years old, and she'll be dead before she ever pays off the 27 thousand she owes. She has joked that they should have let her die than have to live with that kind of debt.
I may read this.
thing is stupivore....democrats did not want that in the bill in the first place, that is
a GOP(insurance company thing) if you take that out of the bill democrats would love it.
Sorry to burst your bubble Yoni, but Britain and Canada rank higher in the health rankings than the United States, and Cuba ranks just two spots below us. At best we'll have a better health care system than we presently have, at worse, we'll be minimally worse off than we are now.The rest of us will be enjoying the same quality of care currently found in Canada, Great Britain, and Cuba.
You're a waste of oxygen. You really expect us to believe healthcare in Cuba is almost as good as what we have here in the United States?
pretty soon the GOP will stop referring to it as OBAMACARE, not wanting to give too much credit to the prez for a good thing.
Which is why Britain's and Canada's wealthy (including the Canadian Prime Minister) and their desperate come to America when they need something important done.
Whomever is doing the ranking is weighting the criteria.
This country provides the best, most innovative, and curative medical care in the world.
Not true. That lady to whom Obama referred is receiving "aggressive cancer treatment."
That's your choice. A choice that may not be available under Obamacare. The death panel may make it for you.
Sincerely, Sorry about your mother but, what is the debt doing to her?
When she dies, which I hope is far in the future, if the debt still exists, it'll be canceled.
But, reading your remarks, one has to wonder why she went to the hospital if she'd rather be dead than in debt. Did she think it wouldn't cost money?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
