Correspondent of the Day: Private Insurers Fear Obama’s Health Plan

We find not all out-of-touch clowns are in Congress.

New hope. Of all the proposals kicking around the Senate, one is looking pretty affordable and worthwhile. Last week the Congressional Budget Office scored the full proposed legislation from the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) and it looks pretty good.

The HELP plan achieves near-universal coverage through a combination of regulation and subsidies. Insurance companies would be required to offer the same coverage to everyone, regardless of medical history; on the other side, everyone except the poor and near-poor would be obliged to buy insurance, with the aid of subsidies that would limit premiums as a share of income.  Employers would also have to chip in, with all firms employing more than 25 people required to offer their workers insurance or pay a penalty. That negates naysayers who say under reform employers will drop coverage for employees (as many now do).

Those who prefer not to buy insurance from the private sector would be able to choose a public plan instead. This brings some real competition to the health insurance market, which is currently a collection of local monopolies and cartels, all of whom have been caught stealing from us re: claim denials.

The budget office says that all this would cost $597 billion over the next decade. That doesn’t include the cost of insuring the poor and near-poor, whom HELP suggests covering via an expansion of Medicaid (which is outside the committee’s jurisdiction).
Add in the cost of this expansion, and we’re looking at between $1 trillion and $1.3 trillion, which is less than 4% of the $33 trillion the U.S. government predicts we’ll spend on health care over the next decade. That in turn means that much of the expense can be offset with straightforward cost-saving measures, like ending Medicare overpayments to private health insurers and reining in spending on medical procedures with no demonstrated health benefits.

R-Grassley won’t understand this, as after all, he is not aware John Deere is not hiring in Iowa. Hopefully, there are enough common sense Senators who are not in insurers back pocket and proceed.

Compusa: I would be willing to accept your belief that we are well protected by FOIA as it is used by the media if there were not so much empirical evidence of media bias.

Not only do I not believe we can trust “government”, it is increasingly clear that one is also not able to trust most media outlets to be objective.

“Hospitals are required by The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to provide emergency treatment to anyone in need, regardless of citizenship status”

We are already paying for “anyone” who is not covered by insurance.  Hospitals, doctors offices, clinics have overhead too, and if they supply services to people who can’t pay, they are going to get their money from somewhere.  That would be those who have insurance and those that can pay for services.  The high cost of health care is in an extreme need of REFORM.

We cannot continue at the rate we are going, costs rise annually.  This cannot be blamed solely on “illegals”.  They are part of it, but they are certainly not all of it.  And, they are not all from Mexico.

I cannot see squashing a desire to help all Americans get good health coverage that deserve it in order to stop the “illegals” from getting it.  News Flash, they are already getting your tax dollars on this subject.  If we have a plan in place there may be more control over it.

“What about a Walmart, grocery store, any business, and they suffer from theft or lawsuits or anything that has an overhead cost. Who pays for that overhead? We do. It is incorporated into the cost of the product we buy.”…..Poster got that right. 

Per AARP Jul/Aug:  Our nation’s 2009 health care cost tracking to hit $2.6 trillion (18%+ of GDP vs. 13.6% in 1998).  That is $8,300 per person and tracking to hit $13,000 per person in 2017, per our Congressional Budget Office. That is a 54% increase in but 8 years, meaning if our economy grows 3% per years (optimistic), in 8 yrs cost will eat 22% of our GDP.

Were are the more voices for health care reform?  More concern for our kids and grandkids?  All we hear is “NO to change of our best system on earth”.  Best?  Our $8,300 a year cost vs. $4,600 a year in France is best?  How about Y2017 when ours is $13,000 and based on past/current increases France is no more than $5,600 per person?

Who pays for the overhead? We all do, directly and indirectly. We are all in the same sinking boat.  Three choices: Jump overboard and seek residence elsewhere; help bail plug up the holes and bail out the water; sit idly by and sink.

dogtown Posted “Compusa: I would not be too quick to assume that FOIA is a viable “watchdog mechanism” for the average person. If you make an FOIA request for information about any issue about which the governments is likely to have acted improperly, you’ll find that you will only receive heavily redacted copies which are for all intents and purposes nearly useless.“

The FOIA is more for the benefit of the News Media and watchdog organizations, although regular folks use it too.

What the FOIA means is there is a paper trail to the process, and what occurred.

The real watchdogs such as the press, or news media do not give the government agencies a free ride. One poster quoted a news story detailing a government failing. Thr agency involved, the people involved and the decisions made were bared for everyone to see - How often do you see that with a private company? How often do the failings of Big Business make the news?

Unless it is very large, or very criminal, much of it is hidden from public view.

One poster complains his tax dollars would pay for anyone losing a lawsuit against the government - well who pays for lawsuits won against private companies?

You, the taxpayer in the form of tax write-offs, in the form of higher prices, which government entities such as medicare and medicade also have to pay.

Just as it is said that “corporations don’t pay taxes, their customers do” the other side of the coin is that Corporations also don’t pay judgements - their customers do.

And the Government, IE- the taxpayer -  is the largest customer around for many of these corporations.

When a monopoly exists, or a near monopoly such as currently exists in the insurance and healthcare field, they are essentially the only game in town, so you play by their rules, and pay their prices. And because of the copyright exclusives, where the drug companies “own” the rights to drugs for sometimes upwards of seventy years, they control the market and therefore the price you pay - and with no competition to encourage reasonable prices, you pay what the market will bear - which is whatever these companies want to charge.

If any company has Insurance, hospitals and Pharmacuticals in their holdings, then essentially they own the market and you pay them what they want.