Mark Levine on Health Care
- Thread starter motoxxx
- Start date
- 185
www.change.gov
The Obama-Biden Plan
On health care reform, the American people are too often offered two extremes -- government-run health care with higher taxes or letting the insurance companies operate without rules. Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe both of these extremes are wrong, and that’s why they’ve proposed a plan that strengthens employer coverage, makes insurance companies accountable and ensures patient choice of doctor and care without government interference.
The Obama-Biden plan provides affordable, accessible health care for all Americans, builds on the existing health care system, and uses existing providers, doctors, and plans. Under the Obama-Biden plan, patients will be able to make health care decisions with their doctors, instead of being blocked by insurance company bureaucrats.
Under the plan, if you like your current health insurance, nothing changes, except your costs will go down by as much as $2,500 per year. If you don’t have health insurance, you will have a choice of new, affordable health insurance options.
Make Health Insurance Work for People and Businesses -- Not Just Insurance and Drug Companies.
- Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans regardless of their health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.
- Create a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to help small businesses provide affordable health insurance to their employees.
- Lower costs for businesses by covering a portion of the catastrophic health costs they pay in return for lower premiums for employees.
- Prevent insurers from overcharging doctors for their malpractice insurance and invest in proven strategies to reduce preventable medical errors.
- Make employer contributions more fair by requiring large employers that do not offer coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of their employees' health care.
- Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage.
- Ensure everyone who needs it will receive a tax credit for their premiums.
- Lower drug costs by allowing the importation of safe medicines from other developed countries, increasing the use of generic drugs in public programs, and taking on drug companies that block cheaper generic medicines from the market.
- Require hospitals to collect and report health care cost and quality data.
- Reduce the costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and their employees.
- Reform the insurance market to increase competition by taking on anticompetitive activity that drives up prices without improving quality of care.
A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility: Barack Obama will pay for his $50 - $65 billion health care reform effort by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year and retaining the estate tax at its 2009 level.
you dont have to speculate when you can join the discussion and get the actual facts. Now stop the pity party.
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- 9,744
When I actually see the $2,500 per family savings - I'll believe it. Until then, it's just more of the same old political rhetoric.
- 748
Quite right!
It's no wonder that the rose garden at the white house looks so nice. With all the horse **** coming out of there it must be the best fertilized patch of ground in the world.
Which has been my question - who exactly would be stupid enough to purchase over $1 TRILLION of US debt when we're in as sorry a fiscal shape as we are, plus, the Chinese got socked on a lot of the crap mortgages we ended up selling them!
Somebody's been smokin a whole lotta something back in Washington, DC. And this time, they've collectively inhaled.
American Debt Losing Its Appeal? -- Seeking Alpha
"The declining Chinese appetite for United States debt, apparent in a series of hints from Chinese policy makers over the last two weeks, with official statistics due for release in the next few days, comes at an inconvenient time.
On Tuesday, President-elect Barack Obama predicted the possibility of trillion-dollar deficits “for years to come,” even after an $800 billion stimulus package. Normally, China would be the most avid taker of the debt required to pay for those deficits, mainly short-term Treasuries, which are government i.o.u.’s.
In the last five years, China has spent as much as one-seventh of its entire economic output buying foreign debt, mostly American. In September, it surpassed Japan as the largest overseas holder of Treasuries.
But now Beijing is seeking to pay for its own $600 billion stimulus — just as tax revenue is falling sharply as the Chinese economy slows. Regulators have ordered banks to lend more money to small and medium-size enterprises, many of which are struggling with lower exports, and to local governments to build new roads and other projects."
- Thread starter
- #16
Agent Orange, Please really try and do this:
Name one thing the government runs efficiently?
Everything that is outlined in the Obama-Biden plan really means one thing: less money in everyone's pocket. Where they claim that insurance company bureaucrats make the decisions on health care is wrong but it is fun and popular to demonize them isn't it? That only happens in HMOs which are a small version of socialized medicine. They are self insuring groups where the bureaucrats determine what is profitable and what is not.
Lets go over the plan then shall we?
A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility: Barack Obama will pay for his $50 - $65 billion health care reform effort by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year and retaining the estate tax at its 2009 level. Rolling back a past tax cut is actually a tax increase over what the current rate is. So my next question is this: How many poor people create jobs? None. Rich people are the ones that start corporations and create jobs. They do this to make more money. Now the incentive to create more jobs will dwindle. Poor people don't start corporations that employ people. Also note that corporations do not exist with the sole purpose of being able to create jobs, they exist to MAKE MONEY! They are buying your time and efforts at wholesale and reselling what you do or create for them at RETAIL. All businesses do this.
Obama also plans on bringing back the death tax, which will also be a tax increase on money/property that was already taxed.
You will also notice that the Obama-Biden plan completely ignores two HUGE drains on our health care system.
Lawyers - Caps on how much money attorneys can make suing insurance companies and medical providers.
Illegal Immigrants that do not pay taxes into the system ,do not buy health insurance, but use up the resources of the emergency rooms, ambulances, and low income "free clinics". I have seen this drain first hand on multiple occassions myself but since the illegals get to vote in many states, I guess we can't piss them off now can we?
Name one thing the government runs efficiently?
Everything that is outlined in the Obama-Biden plan really means one thing: less money in everyone's pocket. Where they claim that insurance company bureaucrats make the decisions on health care is wrong but it is fun and popular to demonize them isn't it? That only happens in HMOs which are a small version of socialized medicine. They are self insuring groups where the bureaucrats determine what is profitable and what is not.
Lets go over the plan then shall we?
- Require insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions so all Americans regardless of their health status or history can get comprehensive benefits at fair and stable premiums.Anyone that understands any insurance must know that mandating insurance companies to cover pre existing conditions AND offer lower premiums doesn't understand Business 101, or Econ 101.My 10 year old nephew even gets this but it sure sounds nice in an election year while you demonize an industry.
- Create a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to help small businesses provide affordable health insurance to their employees. Not a bad idea at all. So how do the businesses really provide affordable health insurance? They DON"T! The rates are set by the insurance companies and the businesses shop for insurance usually at least once a year or more in some cases to try and save money. So the business gets a tax credit unless they make over $250k per year?
- Lower costs for businesses by covering a portion of the catastrophic health costs they pay in return for lower premiums for employees. So how does covering a portion of the insurance actually lower their costs? Who does the covering? The business? THE TAX PAYERS? Some body will have to pay the difference. Sounds like a tax increase to me. But wait! 95% of all Americans are supposed to get a tax cut, remember?
- Prevent insurers from overcharging doctors for their malpractice insurance and invest in proven strategies to reduce preventable medical errors."Prevent insurers" means more Government involvement and red tape which means more cost overall. "Invest in" means spend more money. As far as "proven strategies to reduce medical errors" goes, you think the doctors aren't already doing everything they can to do this? After all, they are the ones paying the premiums for their own malpractice insurance. But again, it sounds nice in an election.
- Make employer contributions more fair by requiring large employers that do not offer coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of their employees' health care. So Big Brother is going to come in and force a business to pay a percentage of its payroll towards the cost of healthcare? They already do pay into medicare don't they? Sounds like another form of taxation for the business. So how is it "more fair" if this type of thing causes the business to fold and people lose their jobs instead? That sounds great! I guess we should just hate evil corporations that give people jobs since they are so unfair. Here is an idea! If you don't like the job, or the benefits, DON"T TAKE THE JOB! Go find one that offers benefits!
- Establish a National Health Insurance Exchange with a range of private insurance options as well as a new public plan based on benefits available to members of Congress that will allow individuals and small businesses to buy affordable health coverage. This is just dumb. Again, sounds great for winning an election but really..."benefits available to members of Congress" and "buy affordable health coverage" can not ever be taken seriously if they are used in the same sentence. Why would we need any of the other plans from the businesses and corporations if there is now a public plan available that is "affordable". Who decides what is "affordable" to who? Sounds like another larger Gov entity.
- Ensure everyone who needs it will receive a tax credit for their premiums. How do you really determine who needs it? I guess the Gov will come in and tell me if I do. Which department of the government will do this? How will those people be paid? TAX DOLLARS. Again, sounds great on the surface for winning elections but there is no substance with any of this nonsense.
- Lower drug costs by allowing the importation of safe medicines from other developed countries, increasing the use of generic drugs in public programs, and taking on drug companies that block cheaper generic medicines from the market. OK Comrade! The US companies that develope these drugs and get their patents to protect their creations that they sell for a profit are going to be subverted by or own government? Nice work! All of the top major pharmacy chains around the nation have already implemented very low cost generic programs like Costco, Wal-Mart, Fred Meyer etc. Name me one thing the government has become involved in that ran better and cheaper? KEEP THEM OUT OF IT!
- Require hospitals to collect and report health care cost and quality data. Report to Big Brother for what? So I guess Big Brother needs to know if I am a healthy, profitable subject so I can continue producing for the Mother Land. Just like in Cuba! If you are not profitable, or you take up the limited resources that could have been used to help someone who is productive for the mother land, they shoot you! Again, sounds good in an election year!
- Reduce the costs of catastrophic illnesses for employers and their employees. But not for self employed people? OK Just how do you plan to do that? Again, no substance, just empty talking points.
- Reform the insurance market to increase competition by taking on anticompetitive activity that drives up prices without improving quality of care. Oh, just like they did here in WA State when our insurance commie ran 18 health insurance companies out of the state by mandating that they "insure" people that don't qualify for coverage by forcing them to pay into our high risk pool? Yeah, that worked great! Now we have 3 insurance companies doing individual insurance instead of 21! They were made "anticompetitive" by our state regs. That is why there is almost no competition here to keep prices down.
A Commitment to Fiscal Responsibility: Barack Obama will pay for his $50 - $65 billion health care reform effort by rolling back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year and retaining the estate tax at its 2009 level. Rolling back a past tax cut is actually a tax increase over what the current rate is. So my next question is this: How many poor people create jobs? None. Rich people are the ones that start corporations and create jobs. They do this to make more money. Now the incentive to create more jobs will dwindle. Poor people don't start corporations that employ people. Also note that corporations do not exist with the sole purpose of being able to create jobs, they exist to MAKE MONEY! They are buying your time and efforts at wholesale and reselling what you do or create for them at RETAIL. All businesses do this.
Obama also plans on bringing back the death tax, which will also be a tax increase on money/property that was already taxed.
You will also notice that the Obama-Biden plan completely ignores two HUGE drains on our health care system.
Lawyers - Caps on how much money attorneys can make suing insurance companies and medical providers.
Illegal Immigrants that do not pay taxes into the system ,do not buy health insurance, but use up the resources of the emergency rooms, ambulances, and low income "free clinics". I have seen this drain first hand on multiple occassions myself but since the illegals get to vote in many states, I guess we can't piss them off now can we?
- 185
Motoxx, I admire your energy on this subject. But all Im really seeing from you is a lot of slander, calling Americans comrades and commies is a terrible way of argueing your side. People no longer take those slights lightly and you will only see your causes even further rejected by Americans.
Now I will debate on the premise that I believe every American should have access to quality health care and Im going to assume you oppose.
First of all 45% of Americans already recieve health coverage through federal programs and growing.
The private sector has been dwindling and premiums have been skyrocketing, theyre not exactly efficient either.
People with pre existing conditions are the people who need coverage the most! But the solution Obama is proposing is to have all the uninsured join a giant risk pool healthy and pre existing. If a carrier wants to provide for that pool stipulation is no elimination periods. If not dont apply to be a provider. Nobodys forces companys to accept this risk, but I guarentee they will be lining up, Aetnas already got a model.
Tax credit is a great idea we'd all rather people get thier coverage through employer.
catastrophic coverage - I pay over 3k a year for a yearly physical but they justify that with catastrophic coverage that I probably wont need til Im 50 and Ill probably have a different carrier then.
As far lowering malpractice insurance for some Drs it can be as high as 17% gross income, Im all for that. Yes limit what you can sue a Dr for !!!
Yes forcing employers like Walmart and fedex to provide or pay into healthcare for thier employees, Im for it. Many of thier employees are on medicaid and thier kids need to join schip and they are the biggest company in the world, in my opinion theyre deadbeats ripping off the taxpayer.
As far as everyone who needs it, a sliding scale like a medicaid spend down.
as far Rx developement much pharmacuetical research gets dollar for dollar matching by the government so I do believe either the gravy train is over or lose your market. Whose a protectionist now ?
Well considering almost 90% of U.S. hospitals need government aid to stay open those who do accept aid should report quality. interesting side note the average hospital profit margin is 2% without state of federal aid -14%.
Lawyers were addressed, cap the amount a Dr can be sued for.
As far as illegals, I say treat em and deport them. Even though they pay federal state and local taxes everytime they visit the liquor store.
Now I will debate on the premise that I believe every American should have access to quality health care and Im going to assume you oppose.
First of all 45% of Americans already recieve health coverage through federal programs and growing.
The private sector has been dwindling and premiums have been skyrocketing, theyre not exactly efficient either.
People with pre existing conditions are the people who need coverage the most! But the solution Obama is proposing is to have all the uninsured join a giant risk pool healthy and pre existing. If a carrier wants to provide for that pool stipulation is no elimination periods. If not dont apply to be a provider. Nobodys forces companys to accept this risk, but I guarentee they will be lining up, Aetnas already got a model.
Tax credit is a great idea we'd all rather people get thier coverage through employer.
catastrophic coverage - I pay over 3k a year for a yearly physical but they justify that with catastrophic coverage that I probably wont need til Im 50 and Ill probably have a different carrier then.
As far lowering malpractice insurance for some Drs it can be as high as 17% gross income, Im all for that. Yes limit what you can sue a Dr for !!!
Yes forcing employers like Walmart and fedex to provide or pay into healthcare for thier employees, Im for it. Many of thier employees are on medicaid and thier kids need to join schip and they are the biggest company in the world, in my opinion theyre deadbeats ripping off the taxpayer.
As far as everyone who needs it, a sliding scale like a medicaid spend down.
as far Rx developement much pharmacuetical research gets dollar for dollar matching by the government so I do believe either the gravy train is over or lose your market. Whose a protectionist now ?
Well considering almost 90% of U.S. hospitals need government aid to stay open those who do accept aid should report quality. interesting side note the average hospital profit margin is 2% without state of federal aid -14%.
Lawyers were addressed, cap the amount a Dr can be sued for.
As far as illegals, I say treat em and deport them. Even though they pay federal state and local taxes everytime they visit the liquor store.
- 500
YES!!!! Right on the mark motoxxx!
Exactly...name one thing the govt. does well...I can't think of one thing except lie and cheat...I guess that's two.
And as far as illegal aliens, try living in California where our Hospitals are going out of business due to the cost of illegal immigration. And no one wants to talk about this and the "cost shifting" that is done to cover this expense.
The Obama campaign will NEVER address this as it would be political suicide because illegal aliens come before American citizens.
And the trail lawyers deserve to be...I can't say it here
- 14,809
hey, without illegals who's gonna sell oranges on the side of the road
- 500
Is that a job that "Americans won't do"?
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