Republicans using Healthcare as a political game.

Senator Jim DeMint (R) wrote:

If we're able to stop Obama on [reforming Health Care], it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.

If you disagree with Obama's health care proposal, fine. But to see failure to reform health care as part of a general campaign to attack the president...

What jerks.

Quote:

President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass comprehensive health reform this year in order to control rising health care costs, guarantee choice of doctor, and assure high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans. The Administration believes that comprehensive health reform should:

* Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
* Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
* Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
* Invest in prevention and wellness
* Improve patient safety and quality of care
* Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
* Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
* End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions

Obama's role is to push the issue and to set broad guidelines as to what constitutes a good solution. However, he is being very careful to let Congress wrestle over the specifics-- as the health care plan will come from Congress.

You should look to the House bill to see what is coming up. We are fighting for a public option (i.e. a public way to get insurance as an alternative to the current private companies) and figuring out how to pay for it.

The specifics will come from Congress.

You forgot Obama's plan to cut Medicare spending by 50% and to also limit terminal care for the dying elderly.

I'm sure they love their work, as you do yours. Under the Medicare schedule, my doctor is required to accept a 35% discount. How many legal business have net income in excess of 35% that you know of? Bernie Madhoff perhaps, but I said legal business.

You mean, competition is good when a private company financed by premiums competes with a government system financed by taxes?

You say he is not meeting with people in the medical field.

I know everyone has moved on, but roger had some points I wanted to address

roger wrote:

I'm sure they love their work, as you do yours. Under the Medicare schedule, my doctor is required to accept a 35% discount. How many legal business have net income in excess of 35% that you know of? Bernie Madhoff perhaps, but I said legal business.

But health insurance companies also demand and receive deep discounts to doctor's fees.

True, but the fact remains that doctors and hospitals just loved the company paid health insurance I used to have. Typically, and I'm not going to dig up cites, Medicare pays about 80% of the amount paid by private insurance. I ran up a hospital bill in 2007 that totaled somewhat over $15,xxx. Co-pay was $1,000.00, with insurance paying either 7,000 or 8000. The other roughly 7,500 was discounted acording to contract agreement negotiated between the hospital and the insurance co. Again, the hospital seemed quite happy. I may be proving your point here, but I'm guessing that the amount collected by hospitals, doctors, and therapists from privately insured patients is about what is needed to cover costs plus a reasonable profit. I'm also guessing they usually take a small hit on Medicare patients, and a killer on patients who can't or won't pay.

roger wrote:

You mean, competition is good when a private company financed by premiums competes with a government system financed by taxes?

Might depend on exactly what you mean by 'functionally'. Participation is voluntary, which is not typical of taxes.

Quote:

Health insurance premiums paid into employer sponsored plans are, IMO, functionally equivalent to a tax.

Quote:

The employer gets to offer you plans at a much cheaper rate than you can buy them yourself because of the artificial pooling mechanism which ensures that bigger companies can offer their employees better benefits.

Not sure the pool is that artifical. Privately purchased insurance has a very carefully defined pool, and the definition definately favors the insurance company. In a company pool, the insurance co. takes what it gets. They cover you if you have diabetes, even if you use insulin, which is virtually impossible to cover privately. They cover people with cardiac histories, and those that offer dependent coverage cover pregnancies. There are people with chronic conditions who would retire, except for the insurance benefits.

<snip>

Also, current premiums are also somewhat financed by tax anyway, as the pretax mechanism reduces your tax burden -- or another way to look at it, you're shifting your taxes away from the government and toward the insurance companies. (The same applies for banks and mortgage interest, but I digress.)

True, but if the goal is to get everyone covered by quality insurance, what is the advantage of taxing employer paid or assisted insurance? I've had enough envolvement in payroll and accounting that I know this is a really big bite for the employer. Deny its taxable expense deduction and a fair percentage of them will simply drop the coverage. Employees may opt out of the remaining plans, anyway. I noted elsewhere that only about 30% of eligible employees were willing to pay what amounted to about 1/3 of the costs. That percentage could decline if it weren't paid with pretax income. The ones remaining would contain a higher percentage of the people having the largest medical expenses - thus poisoning the pool.

<snip>

I seriously doubt they are meeting with people involved in the health field to get their opinions.
I'm thinking Obama is spoon feeding people involved in the health field talking points that reflect PrezBO's ambitions.

Quote:

Health insurance premiums paid into employer sponsored plans are, IMO, functionally equivalent to a tax.

Might depend on exactly what you mean by 'functionally'. Participation is voluntary, which is not typical of taxes.

Quote:

The employer gets to offer you plans at a much cheaper rate than you can buy them yourself because of the artificial pooling mechanism which ensures that bigger companies can offer their employees better benefits.

Not sure the pool is that artifical. Privately purchased insurance has a very carefully defined pool, and the definition definately favors the insurance company. In a company pool, the insurance co. takes what it gets. They cover you if you have diabetes, even if you use insulin, which is virtually impossible to cover privately. They cover people with cardiac histories, and those that offer dependent coverage cover pregnancies. There are people with chronic conditions who would retire, except for the insurance benefits.

True, but if the goal is to get everyone covered by quality insurance, what is the advantage of taxing employer paid or assisted insurance? I've had enough envolvement in payroll and accounting that I know this is a really big bite for the employer. Deny its taxable expense deduction and a fair percentage of them will simply drop the coverage.

Employees may opt out of the remaining plans, anyway. I noted elsewhere that only about 30% of eligible employees were willing to pay what amounted to about 1/3 of the costs. That percentage could decline if it weren't paid with pretax income. The ones remaining would contain a higher percentage of the people having the largest medical expenses - thus poisoning the pool.

Sounds a lot like the Democrat's strategy when Republicans held power in the White House and Congress. I could be wrong, but I doubt you were chastising the Dems for their obstructionism back then.

Since nearly everyone one of Bush's proposals or bills (however to word it) I fundamentally disagreed with, I didn't have a problem with democrats trying to stop them if in fact they did do so, however, for the most part they rolled over and played dead after talking a good game. But there is fine line between objecting to proposals and just saying no to everything in order for the president to fail so that your own party will win next election. Since democrats went along with a fair number of Bush's proposals, I don't think the comparison is accurate.

For the record, I have never said, or even thought, that a bill should be defeated simply to make Bush fail.

There were several times I supported Bush-- particularly the immigration bill, and a couple of times I praised him -- for example right after 9-11 when he made the Islam is Peace speech.

I opposed most of Bush's policies (probably as much as anybody here), but I would never oppose a good policy simply because it came from Bush.

But Mr. Obama is under growing pressure to choose between wooing a small band of Republicans or struggling to rally his party to use its big majorities in Congress to get the job done. The bipartisanship exhibited in the passage of two other ambitious domestic programs that offer one historical backdrop for this debate " Social Security in 1935 and Medicare and Medicaid 30 years later " seems increasingly improbable in today’s Washington.

To some extent, achieving any kind of bipartisan accord seems almost a luxury given the struggles Mr. Obama has had in corralling his own party behind a health care plan

You could always visit Canada and watch as many Canadians complain about Canada's socialized medical plan, and note a number of Canadians traveling to the US for speedier medical attention