Impeding changes to our Health Care system

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by TheMercenary

That is not happening now and never has,

I am assuming that "that" refers to "let poor people die in the streets".

Yes, we don't do that now. Like I said, it is the only alternative to having people with money subsidize the healthcare of people without. Our current method is emergency rooms, which is the most ineficient way to do it.

What makes you think that if given the opportunity that the poor will seek preventative care. They often don't take care of themselves now so how would this change? Not to say that some would not take advantage of some preventative care in the future, nor would this be a bad thing.

You refute yourself immediately. Saves me the trouble.

Take for example smoking. Do you think there will suddenly be a rush on people taking smoking cessation classes? How about alcoholism among the poor? Do you think the poor who drink excessively or have other abuse problems will suddenly seek out a healthier lifestyle?

Where are you going with this? Poor people won't use preventive healthcare even if they can afford it? Some will, some won't. My guess is that lots of parents will, for their children if not for themselves.

[TheMercenary]

Obama: Mr. Incredible
By David Keene - 07/19/10 05:34 PM ET
During the healthcare debate, President Obama and his operatives assured congressional Democrats and the media that once Obama-Care passed, all would be well. The president himself said the GOP focus on process would be forgotten quickly by a public far more interested in “policy than process.”

However, the public has made it clear it likes neither the product (about which more is being learned by the day) nor the process that led to passage. Many of the deals needed to piece together majorities in the House and Senate received enough publicity at the time to outrage many, but as time goes on revelations about additional concessions made to woo votes are justifying what were dismissed as simple partisan attacks during the debate.

Moreover, the possible consequences of the bill are making many wake up and take note.

When critics of the legislation alleged during the debate that the enforcement of its many provisions would vastly increase the power of the IRS and empower tax collectors to go where they had never gone before, administration spokesmen reacted in outrage. The president’s critics, they charged, were not just wrong, but lying to scare people.

It turns out that the critics were dead right and that if there was any lying going on, they weren’t the guilty ones. In the days since passage, we have learned that the IRS will have to hire literally thousands of new agents, auditors and analysts to make sure everyone required to buy into the program does so and to catch those who violate its many provisions as well as to collect the data that will be required of small businesses to help the government collect new taxes to pay for the scheme.

The result is that small-business owners who were promised they would benefit from the new law are up in arms as they discover that they will in fact be targets of an IRS planning to impose even more regulations on the way they operate. The absolute ludicrousness of the new requirements is that business owners will apparently now be required to file forms reporting on aggregate annual payments of as little as $600 to “vendors” like Staples or the office coffee supplier.

Meanwhile, it turns out that while some members of Congress were being promised one thing in return for their votes, others were being assured that such promises would never be kept. Thus, while members concerned about whether benefits would be extended to illegal immigrants were assured that this would not be the case, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the House were being told that they shouldn’t worry about any restrictions in the healthcare bill because they would be removed later … in the administration’s promised immigration reform bill.

Recent news reports that Democratic leaders promised Hispanic Caucus members that provisions inserted in the healthcare to win the votes of others would be removed later suggest that South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson’s (R) charge that President Obama’s denial that the healthcare bill would cover illegal aliens was a lie was dead on.

The healthcare bill as passed and signed into law prohibits illegals from buying into the so-called healthcare exchanges that will be established under the law and denies even temporary legal immigrants access to Medicaid unless they’ve been here for five years. Hispanic Caucus leaders are now charging that the administration specifically promised to eliminate these and other restrictions and are vowing to hold the president and congressional Democratic leaders to that promise.

Under the Obama plan, of course, Medicaid has been expanded and something like half of all illegals in the country would qualify if the restrictions written into the law are removed, increasing the costs of a program that is already expected to exceed the estimates publicized by the administration before its passage by tens of billions of dollars.

The monetary cost of delivering on this promise would be enormous, but the political cost could be even higher. President Obama gives pretty good speeches, but fewer and fewer Americans are paying much attention to what he says. Some are beginning to ignore him for lack of follow-through or because he’s overexposed, but increasing numbers of those who were initially shocked by Wilson’s outburst are becoming convinced that he was right.

A president’s credibility is key to his success. When those he deals with in Washington or those on whose votes he relies for reelection conclude that his word isn’t worth much, his ability to lead vanishes.

http://thehill.com/opinion/columnist...bama-mr-incred

[TheMercenary]

The cost alone is an argument agains the bill.

(deleted)

[TheMercenary]

And why aren't his parents supporting him? So many grandparents have to continue to raise kids full time into their retirement years. I will avoid that at all costs. But you are right, you do what you have to do. But there is no free ride, anywhere.

[Happy Monkey]

Indeed. But given the trouble I was having getting him to notice that I wasn't disagreeing with that statement, adding a caveat seemed risky.

[Happy Monkey]

There are plenty of additional factors; I was describing the way progressive taxation works in general, using the simplest set of circumstances (single, no kids, no other complications). Wherever your set of circumstances places the point at which you start paying taxes, you only pay those taxes on the amount past that point.

You don't suddenly start paying 10% on all your income once you make it past some breakpoint. Everyone pays 0% on the amount of their income counted as deductions and exemptions. Wealthy people pay 0% on many many more dollars of their income than poor people do.

They get more benefit, too, though it's not always in the form of straight up cash, as with many programs that help the poor.

[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?

[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]

My point exactly.

[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?

[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.