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Interesting. A woman with cancer on Medicaid got her insurance canceled by the government one week before a scheduled transplant she needs to save her life. I thought only private insurance companies did things like this?

http://cbs4.com/local/Diana.Smith.Woman.2.1623788.html

Oh yeah, Medicare/Medicaid have the highest instances of denying claims than any other insurance provider. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I'm sure it'll only get better with Obamacare.

chabouk wrote:

TLE2 wrote:The saddest thing is that this is labeled "heath care" but it's insurance regulation by the feds. Nothing more.

The crazy thing is that the single best thing that could be done to make affordable insurance available to everyone, is to invoke the "interstate commerce clause" as it was actually intended, for once: prohibit the states from outlawing interstate commerce when it comes to health insurance.

Create a true national market for health insurance, and we'd see prices plummet, for both insurance and the health care itself. Competition is wonderful like that.

That would mean the purpose of this bill was actually reform. The true purpose of this bill is to expand government power and control by a degree or few. We're all the frogs in the pot of water on the stove, and the government is gradually increasing the temperature one degree at a time.

Fangs wrote:"A health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a congress that exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a president who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke. What could possibly go wrong?"

Since you put it that way, you just sold me on it.

boomerang wrote:Isn't that Pelosi on the left?

I thought that was Ann Richards.

I know, in bad taste, but I couldn't resist.

SwimFan85 wrote:

Kythas wrote:Congratulations on the health care bill, everyone!

Let's celebrate!

CP.jpg

Where are Pelosi, Reid, and Obama? They should be celebrating, too!

Congratulations on the health care bill, everyone! It will, indeed, improve all of our health care options!

AT&T just announced today Obamacare will cost them $1 billion in the first year and they will have to look at eliminating employee benefits to cover the costs.
3M announced Obamacare will cost them $85-90 million in the first quarter and they will have to look at eliminating some benefits to cover the costs.
Verizon announced yesterday that, while they don't know how much it will cost them yet, it will make employee benefit plans cost much more and so “may have significant implications for both retirees and employers.”

Guess where those additional costs will be passed down to? If you said we, the consumers, you're right!

Yay!

marksiwel wrote:

timdsmith72 wrote:Don't forget, that number of uninsured they keep throwing around includes illegal immigrants, people who just plain DON'T WANT insurance, and people who were only without insurance for 3 to 5 months and then back on.

The real number without insurance that actually want it and need it is 10 to 12 Million. or 4% tops.

(This is from the Census data that they originally used to get the numbers. The just leave out the convenient facts of what groups of people make up the numbers.)

oh just a few million, no biggie right?

Oh, it absolutely makes sense to trash our economy and change the way our health care system works for 96% of Americans for the benefit of 4%. Very true.

Their needs obviously outweigh the needs of the other 96%. How could we be so selfish?

marksiwel wrote:

Kythas wrote:Timeline for health care changes and taxes.

http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.g ... elinel.pdf

I had no idea about this before I saw this timeline:

2014: Government board (IPAB) begins submitting proposals to cut Medicare

So wait, now you are mad they are cutting Medicare?

I'm not mad about it, just surprised. All the rhetoric I heard from the Dems leading up to the vote said they're going to improve Medicare by cutting 'waste, fraud, and abuse' and the $500 million they cut from Medicare to fund Obamacare would be paid for this way (actually, they counted that $500 million twice but let's let that slide for the purposes of my comments). I suppose cutting out Medicare entirely would be one way to cut this 'waste, fraud, and abuse'.

It's just disingenuous based on what the people pushing this bill have been telling us for the last year.

Also, notice all the Medicare cuts in the timeline. There's absolutely no doubt their intention all along was to eliminate Medicare and replace it with this, which will become the only show in town (i.e., public health care) for insurance, eventually.

Timeline for health care changes and taxes.

http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.g ... elinel.pdf

I had no idea about this before I saw this timeline:

2014: Government board (IPAB) begins submitting proposals to cut Medicare

An internet search for "Republican lies about health care" returns 4.3 million hits. On many lists the number one lie is that Obamacare is an intermediate stop on the way to single payer nationalized health care.

In a column in today's Cambridge Chronicle, "Here's what health care reform will bring us," (http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/fe ... l-bring-us) Congressman Michael E. Capuano (D-MA, 8th District) in essence apologizes to what he assumes are his liberal constituents. "As you all know, I support single payer and I wanted a strong public option in this bill," the Congressman writes. He concludes: "It is my hope that this landmark legislation will...serve as a starting point for further needed reforms."

So $940 billion (and counting) is just a starting point?

father wrote:http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysi ... ?id=528137

If you are a physician owner and you want to expand your hospital? Well, you can't (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B). Unless, it is located in a county where, over the last five years, population growth has been 150% of what it has been in the state (Section 6601 (i) (3) ( E)).

Son, I am disappoint.

There are a ton more conditions to hospital expansion. Off the top of my head:

1. As mentioned, population growth in the county must be 150% or more of the state as a whole.
2. You must have at least as many inpatient admissions as all other hospitals in the county. If even one other hospital has more admissions than yours, you don't qualify.
3. Expansion depends on community input. After requesting permission to expand, there will be a six month waiting period while the "local community" expresses their opinion. By "local community" read 'community organizations' and 'unions'.
4. You must have a certain average percentage of your hospital beds filled on a continual basis. I don't remember the percentage.

There are at least 5-6 other criteria I can't remember without doing some research, but you get the idea.

casingpoint wrote:Here's something else to chew on. There are differing opinions so far on just how much authority the IRS will have in enforcing this new law once the regulations are drawn up. But consider the situation where a person with forty acres refuses to byy the mandated insurance. IRS will assess a fine, and under it's current modus operandi, the agency will assess penaties and interest. When those are not paid, today's IRS would then secure a lien against the entire forty acres and proceed to have it sold at auction to the highest bidder. The amount due the IRS would be taken from the sale proceeds and the balance given to the landowner. Rather, the former landowner. Now, this poor hypothetical sap still does not have gubm't health insurance. So you have private property being sold to support the general population as beneficiaries.

I'd like to get the reaction of Colonial America circa 1775 on this.

Not only that, but while the ObamaCare law has no provision for prison time for not having insurance and only assesses a fine, failure to pay that fine can have the IRS assess penalties and interest. Failure to pay the penalties and interest assessed by the IRS will subject you to prison time under current tax law.

Here's a nice little tidbit for everyone to chew on this morning.

One provision of Obamacare relates to a 35% tax credit to small businesses offering insurance to their employees. This was the provision to which Obama was referring when he said businesses could see a 3,000% decrease in employee healthcare costs (by which, he actually meant $3,000, yet another Bushism that the press doesn't jump on, but I digress).

Under the provision, if a small business has 25 or fewer employees, and an average salary under $40,000, that business will receive a 35% tax rebate of the total amount it pays for employee insurance. If a company pays $10,000 per employee (which is not a large amount for the company portion of employee insurance) and that company has 25 employees and an average payroll of under $40,000, then that company stands to save (($10,000 x 25) x .35) $87,500 due to this tax rebate.

Let's say you own a small business with 26 or 27 employees. What are you going to do? You're going to fire the 1 or 2 people who put you over the employee cap of 25. If you have 25 or fewer employees whose salaries put you over the $40,000 salary cap, you're either going to ask them to take a pay cut or fire them and replace them with people whose salaries won't put you over the top.

You won't give out raises, because any raises will cost your company the cost of the raise, plus the potential of losing the 35% tax rebate. This will have an immediate effect of suppressing salaries and putting experienced workers at a disadvantage in the marketplace, as they will command higher salaries than workers with little to no experience. You'll also think long and hard about hiring any new people, because that 26th hire loses you the 35% tax rebate and makes that 26th position a very expensive one.

Now before you think that 25 employees is a small number, remember this. Small business accounts for about 80% of all jobs in this country. The local McDonald's down the street might be a chain restaurant, but it's probably a franchise store and is owned by Mr. Johnson down the street and is his only store. Mr. Johnson is not going to hire more than 25 people to work at his McDonald's now.

I predict we'll see any economic recovery we've seen to date screech to a halt and unemployment will start rising again. Note this is only one provision in a 2,000+ page bill.

Oh, and the reconciliation bill that also passed the House and is currently in the Senate is, in many ways, worse than the original Obamacare bill itself.

Oldgringo wrote:

chabouk wrote:

Oldgringo wrote:Other than possible constitutional questions and the obvious nefarious political chicanery (practiced by both parties), why do y'all have your bowels in an uproar? The folk who passed this bill don't know what's in it so why don't we wait until we have it unfolded and understood by all before we take to the streets?

Isn't that reason enough to be in an uproar?

While we're waiting, ask your parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents how Social Security and Medicare is working out for them.

Yet more reason to be strongly opposed.

Well, a long time, many moons, ago I tried holding my breath when things didn't go to suit me. That didn't change much except the color of my lips. This bill has passed the house. Now we must wait and see where it goes from here. In the meantime, perhaps protesting until one turns blue in the face may make a difference somewhere?

"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case.You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish, than to live as slaves." - Winston Churchill

I was just thinking about something.

A large reason the State requires us to purchase automobile insurance is for the medical provision; that is, to make sure the parties involved in an automobile accident are covered by insurance for any injuries sustained in an accident.

One of the big items on homeowner's insurance policies are liability; that is, to ensure a guest or visitor to your home who is injured on your property will be covered for any injuries sustained while there.

Now that everyone will have Obamacare, will we be able to remove these provisions from our auto and homeowner's policies, thus reducing our premiums there? Will we be able to do away with auto insurance entirely?

What about worker's compensation? Employers are required to pay for this insurance to cover any of their employees injured on the job. Since we'll all now have Obamacare, there's really no need for worker's comp, right?

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer to this one.....