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Affordable Health Care (Warning)

owls84

Moderator
Premium Member
Warning: This is not for political right or wrong talk but actual discussion on the Affordable Healthcare Act. Any non-topic discussion will be removed. Lets educate ourselves and play nice.

Ok so I am actually reading this Affordable Healthcare Act in PDF, more specifically Section 9001 (Starts on page 1941). It talks about how they plan on paying for it and taxing (or penalizing) to raise funds and it talks about how now employers must put your total cost of your healthcare on your W-2. So this sends me into a panic because it says anything in excess benefit (pg. 1943 ln. 5) of $23,000 (for a family) is going to be taxed at 40% (pg. 1941 ln. 16) and so I panic more. Then I keep reading and it says the healthcare provider (pg. 1945 ln. 19) will be responsible for this tax not me. Basically saying that if you are going to supply expensive health insurance than you will be taxed for it.

Then I think, ok this will drive the cost up but if it does it will just tax them more. I am going back and forth on this so I am curios, would it in fact make companies drive cost down or pay a penalty? Take a look yourself. You really can read this if you try. I would just like to see what you think.

http://www.healthcare.gov/law/resources/authorities/patient-protection.pdf
 

Blake Bowden

Administrator
Staff Member
"Obamacare" and the Supreme Courts Decision

I haven't read the entire "Obamacare" bill, what I do know is that I get screwed each year by my healthcare provider. With Humana, my premiums have gone up 20% two years in a row! That's not a rumor, Glen Beck talking point, or Rush Limbaugh scare tactic, that's me writing a check each month!

I admit, I lean to the right, but why can't we just offer universal healthcare? American taxpayers pay for the citizens of Iraq to have it! This is one big issue I side with the left on.

The thing is, the so-called "rich" can afford whatever Premiums they are charged, the poor are taken care as well, it's those stuck in the middle who really feel the pinch. Back in my 20's, Rachel and I just paid out of pocket for healthcare. One day she had to goto the E.R. and WOW! By the time you get the hospital bill, the xray tech bill, the physician on duty bill you're easily pushing a grand! Yet if you're poor and your kid has a bad bowel movement, medicaid takes care of it. BS really. IMO, universal healthcare would level the playing field. Your thoughts?
 

cog41

Premium Member
Re: "Obamacare" and the Supreme Courts Decision

Well, and it's a deep one. There are just too many things wrong with this bill and the tick, I mean politics behind it.

I agree with ya on Humana though. We had it one year! And it was a bad year for sure. Worst insurance we ever had.

Back to ObamaCare.

I don't support universal care, but I do support a complete overhaul of the insurance system, healthcare , auto, life, home, workers comp etc etc.... For now though we are on Obamacare. Yes, we pay for folks all over the world and I for one think we should stop.
I believe if ya want insurance then get it. If an employer wants to provide it, that's good too. They may even provide an employee the money for a years worth and if the employee fails to get insurance then that's their fault.
But thats for those of us who work or have some retirement.
Those other folks, the ones who don't and wont work, well now they're gonna be covered. By who? $$$ Wanna take a guess? We think we're paying for them now, just wait.

Hey, it's a mess. But I believe in the private sector.. Competition. I don't want a bunch of bureaucrats figuring if they should keep covering/treating my illness or injury.
My wife has rhuematoid arthritis and high blood pressure. We could spend 2 grand a month easy.
One shot can cost $400! 4 times a month! I or my daughter usually give it to her, not counting the other meds. fortunately we look for med coupons and any break the Dr office can provide.

I mean looking to the cost of meds, and treatment, and the tort reform would be a great place to begin an overhaul without burdening us with more taxes. Surely they can make the meds and sell them much cheaper than they do.
Buy it here it may cost 100. go to Mexicao or Canada same drug may be 40-50. Really?1?

Oh well, I said it was deep, and we're still in the shallow end.
 

cog41

Premium Member
I heard this version somewhere else. Sounds like if you opt out and pay the fine, well, the fine only goes up each year. No one or fewer and fewer are buying insurance so Eventually they'll only be one provider in town. The Obamcare Company.

Seriously, the additional tax on the provider may be paid by the provider but it'll have to be made up somewhere. Where? Where else? The insured!
No way this can be cheap, low cost whatever. I just hope I can keep what I have for as long as I can.


Wow. Golly Gee! Gawwlee GrandPa The Guvmint here to save us all!
 
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JTM

"Just in case"
Premium Member
Ok so I am actually reading this Affordable Healthcare Act in PDF
can i stop you right here? This (crap) is 2700 pages long. How far along are you and how much have you understood? Can I go out on a limb here and assume you're full of crap?

edit: I know I don't participate on the forums very often, ya'll, but I'd like to just go ahead and say that I've been giving Josh a hard time for a very long time. My political preference + our history = I give him a hard time... please take it easy.
 

AFM

Registered User
Passing that bill the way it is was just a big (crazy) country financial mistake... Millions still unemployed and they are expecting people to be happy about it? Just another political move for upcoming elections...
 

Brent Heilman

Premium Member
One of the big problems I see with it is that it levels the playing field. Everyone is covered so everyone shares the brunt of the unhealthy. The way it was it was a risk based system. Healthy people pay less than the unhealthy. Now there is no risk reward. It doesn't matter if you are unhealthy or not everyone is in the pool together and so the rates will go up because you have to look at it as the unhealthiest people will be setting the rate at which everyone pays since the insurance companies have to look at their risk. It would be similar to requiring everyone regardless of whether they drive or not to carry car insurance. When every person has it then car insurance would be based off the worst driver for everyone.

Also, in the beginning the left vilified the insurance companies as the problem in the healthcare system and why it was so expensive. If that was truly the case why did they pass a law mandating us to be customers? They passed a law that now requires us to buy from them. It makes no sense to me.
 

leebot

Registered User
The problem I have with it is that you can't expect anyone to care how much anything costs unless they pay for it on their own. It is only then that you find what each person values and what they are willing to pay. I think we should have a single payer system with no insurance companies and no government. You want it you pay for it. We do this with most areas of our lives and it works fine. The areas that we don't do it with are the ones that have problems. The reason cost are so high is they never know if anyone is going to pay so they jack up the price hoping 10% will pay and then they can make money. That is no way to run a business. If I want or need something I should have to pay for it not the guy down the street or across town. Lets face the facts eventually this will lead to all of us getting the bare minimum care and paying the most for it. It is like demanding the government tax us all more so we can have a free car. In the beginning we all get average nice cars fit for a family of 4. In the end we are all riding the bus.

I would much rather keep my money and decide what I want to do with it than give it to the government and have them tell me where it is going. Think of all the programs that our tax dollars are sent on that none of see any reward for a much less a reason. If Americans could see how each dollar of their tax bill was divided and only pay for that which the deemed necessary the government would only get 20% of what it collects now and millions of programs would be cut. We need to return to those days where if you want something you pay for it. If you cant pay for it, you don't buy it and government is not expected to give it to you.

If people truly need assistance then we as brothers are obligated to help them. That creates several things that government welfare of any kind can never create. It creates a humble and thankful heart. For when you are truly in need and you humble yourself to a brother and ask that he help it creates an expectation that you will use what you have asked for with diligence. You are also thankful that someone has come to your rescue and later when seeing someone in like condition you are reminded that you were in the same place once and you will give liberally to that brothers relief.

Is this not one of the first lessons we are taught?
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
Also, in the beginning the left vilified the insurance companies as the problem in the healthcare system and why it was so expensive. If that was truly the case why did they pass a law mandating us to be customers? They passed a law that now requires us to buy from them. It makes no sense to me.

This is why I consider Obama to not be a leftist. He's a stealth right-winger. Every major initiative he has ends up feeding and enlarging the wealth and power of corporations.
 

AFM

Registered User
And people are happy doing nothing about it... I just hope SOPA does not pass, that will be devastating!
 

BEDickey

Premium Member
Here is something to think about. They upheld the "mandate" as a tax, but tax bills must start in the house. Obamacare started in the senate. This is not the last we have seen of this by a long shot.
 

Brother Mark

Registered User
All I know is my health care provider "blue cross blue shield" informed me that the cost of my medcine co-pays are going to be increasing, and the plan I have now that I use to pay 150 dollars a month for is going up to 200 a month and I don't get the same package. I want obamacare to be repealed, because I believe in the free market system. To me this socialist wish to have government health care is insane to me. How can we trust the government to run health care when they have bankrupted social security, meda care. I am a conservative so sorry is my views upset anyone, but we need to get the government out of the way and unleash the private section.
 

Belcher

Registered User
what will the pros and cons be with the government shutdowns. and the obamacare.
what's the deal. .....
 

Blake Bowden

Administrator
Staff Member
Why can't we have healthcare systems like Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, etc? They offer better (government) healthcare and life expectancy is higher than the U.S.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
Why can't we have healthcare systems like Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, etc? They offer better (government) healthcare and life expectancy is higher than the U.S.

Part of the answer is geopolitical history: Of all the major participants, the USA suffered the least from World War I and World War II. That's what it comes down to. (New Zealand was part of the British Empire during these wars, so its policies are inherited from the experience of the UK, proper.) WWI + WWII left the major participants thoroughly devastated, with a large number of young men coming back from war and no economy to speak of to take up the huge labor influx. Most of these countries had two choices: Adopt a Bismarckian approach or face dictatorship. (The USSR simply continued dictatorship--everyone loves your policies when the alternative is the gulag.) The Allies were painfully aware of the economic and social problems that made the Nazis and Fascists so popular, and every Allied country had a pro-Nazi/pro-Fascist movement before WWII.

So, that was their apparent choice: Follow the Weimar Republic into destruction and start the cycle over again or adopt at least some level of paternalistic government. Under DeGaulle, it was conservative paternalism. In the UK, it was Labour-led social programs. The Social Democrats did it in Germany. In the USA, on the other hand, the economy took off like a rocket. We had the ONLY large industrial base that hadn't been bombed to pieces. It was easy to pay for healthcare through private means.

Part of the answer is racial: It has been well established that it is far easier to implement paternalistic systems, like "national healthcare" in racially homogeneous countries. It is no surprise at all that Scandanavia leads the way in this, since it has some of the least racially diverse countries in the world. However, as racial (and other ethnic) diversity increases, it becomes harder to obtain agreement to widespread social programs. People are innately inclined to accept programs that help "their own kind". Being happy to help others requires a higher level of refinement. The explosion of diversity in immigration after WWII made matters even more difficult in the USA.

Part of the answer is economic history: The USA was a pioneer in the insurance industry. Our government didn't have to worry as much about this issue because private benevolent aid and insurance companies were chugging along nicely. After WWII (funny how that keeps coming up), economic entrenchment of an insurance "industry" was massive, specifically because employers begged Roosevelt to allow them some way to compete for labor even in the face of a wage freeze. It was illegal to offer higher wages due to "wartime measures". Thus, how could you attract workers? Remember, you couldn't offer less hours and same total pay, since that would raise the hourly wage. So, the us government worked out a deal. They would exempt the portion of health insurance premiums paid by employers from taxation. This would allow employers to carry a larger portion of the insurance burden. Health insurance revenues skyrocketed, and a very powerful industry and lobby was born. Any attempt to impose a national system would have to fight against this industry.

Part of the answer is propagandic: From 1947 to roughly 1960, the USA defined itself as the world's sole defense against "Godless Communism". This is the era in which the Pledge of Allegiance was propagandistically altered to include "under God". This is the era in which the national motto was officially changed from "E pluribus unum" to the propaganda phrase "In God we trust." Thus, since anything that smacked of "communism" was automatically "Godless", and since the USA was the self-appointed defender of God (He's so helpless, don't you know) against "communism", and since "communist" propaganda heavily stressed how the state should supply services to the people, active political hostility built up in the USA against such programs.
 

JohnnyFlotsam

Premium Member
Why can't we have healthcare systems like Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, etc? They offer better (government) healthcare and life expectancy is higher than the U.S.
We could have that. We could. We don't want it. We are content to continue to swallow the whole "best healthcare in the world" meme and ignore the plain fact that "the best" is out of reach for the vast majority of us. Increasingly, "just adequate" healthcare is unreachable. But that's OK, as long as we don't have to consider any solution with the word "social" in it, no matter how much sense it makes.
 

dfreybur

Premium Member
what will the pros and cons be with the government shutdowns......

Attempting free thought and avoiding partisanship by drawing on principles of republics and pointing out that both large parties have done something very much like this in living memory. if I have articulated my points cogently they should work independent of the current piece of legislation and independent of what party membership one holds. Making the attempt -

As someone who passed and still remembers elementary school civics - The shutdown is our republic in action doing what it was designed to do. One large party had a temporary majority in both houses and used that to pass the most unpopular piece of legislation in several decades. The other large party went on the defensive fighting against having a majority jam legislation down the throat of an unwilling minority. In our republic minorities are *supposed* to defend themselves. Whether you or I agree or disagree with the piece of legislation in question does not matter in this. It's an example of tyranny of the majority and resistance of the minority. As such it's functioning correctly. The parts that both large parties can agree on are getting done. The rest is under contest.

As someone who is not a member of either of the large parties involved in the deadlock - This is artfully done. The party on the attack, that is to say the party committing the tyranny of the majority, is using the short memory of the voting public to turn the tide of public opinion against the party on the defensive, pressuring them to stop defending themsevles and allow the tyranny of the majority to win. The party on the attack is using lack of knowledge of the difference between direct democracy and republic to their own advantage.

It's not long ago I remember the other large party having a similar majority in both houses. They used it to pass not one large law but a lot of little ones. They called it the "Contract with America". Nicer PR name than the current mess but every bit the same type of abuse of power. At the time they triggered a similar but smaller mess when they lost one of the houses in the next election (as always happens). They got more of what they wanted because they used grape shot in their cannon of tyranny of the majority where this time the other party is using a single large ball in their cannon of tyranny of the majority.
 

BryanMaloney

Premium Member
Which party came up with the individual mandate first? Does anyone know?

No party did. It was part of a proposal from the Heritage Foundation. The idea was that an employer mandate (EM) to provide insurance was too much of a hardship for corporations. The employer mandate was never implemented, by the way, at any point in US history. EM was part of a Nixon plan and part of the Clinton plan. However, the really painful thing for America was a law called "EMTALA". EMTALA was a Reagan law--he signed it. EMTALA requires hospitals that accept medicare to provide "emergency care" (not defined) to anyone, regardless of ability to pay. This turned hospital emergency rooms into free clinics for any malady or minor problem. Since the Clintons were proposing an employer mandate, which made corporate donors mad (might only be able to afford one solid gold yacht a month, after all), the Heritage Foundation countered with the individual mandate, which was denounced by the liberals of the 1990s so loudly that no national party got behind it in any major way.
 
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