Reform: Obama Plan Beginning to Gasp for Air

[Winter_123]

As discussed ad nauseum, the public is chagrined by the red ink. I hope Obama loves everything he accomplishes with the spendulus packages because the red ink is going to crimp some of the spending on the health care gig. Also, ad nauseum, the California bomb going off in his face right in the middle of it will only make it worse.

I know it gets repetitive but when you see an ice berg dead ahead and you are still going full speed, it is hard to not keep saying "gee, doesnt that look like a frigging ice berg to you". Barry needs to get the binoculars out because he be entering some rough waters.

How Obama could lose health fight - Yahoo! News

 

[djs]

This whole thing is summed up in one sentence from the article:

But for the first time, Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the administration are expressing frank worries about stronger-than-expected opposition from moderate Democrats and worse-than-expected estimates for how much the plan could cost.

It is easy to have support for improved healthcare until you start having to define the problem and start deciding what the solution looks like. Anything that addresses the true problems has more red ink than you care to admit. On top of that, not many agree on what the problem really is or what the solution should be. Everyone does agree there is a problem though...

It will be interesting...

Dan

 

[JMO Fan]

It seems feasible to impose mandates for minimal coverage, i.e., HDHP, with subsidies for HSAs. Also a tax deduction for individual premium. Anything beyond that will choke the budget.

Taxes on group health would push folks to individual plans. That's not a bad thing. But taxes are bad.

 

[Guest]

You beat me to it, LOL

 

[Charpress]

"Change"

"What kind of change?"

"Change you can believe in."

"Health care reform."

"What kind of health care reform?"

"Change that will reform health care."

"But at what cost?"

"Ummm, at no cost. The rich will pay."

"But exactly how is this going to be done? What is the plan?"

"Change that will reform health care. Everyone will be happy"

 

[ins.dave]

Obama Plan Beginning to Gasp for Air

As discussed ad nauseum, the public is chagrined by the red ink. I hope Obama loves everything he accomplishes with the spendulus packages because the red ink is going to crimp some of the spending on the health care gig. Also, ad nauseum, the California bomb going off in his face right in the middle of it will only make it worse.

I know it gets repetitive but when you see an ice berg dead ahead and you are still going full speed, it is hard to not keep saying "gee, doesnt that look like a frigging ice berg to you". Barry needs to get the binoculars out because he be entering some rough waters.

--------------------------------------

Been following your posts for a while and you raise many good points.
I don’t claim to know exactly what Barry and the present administration are up to exactly on a day to day basis, nor do they I think at this time, but I think perhaps that there may be one fundemental goal that they are pursueing. What, if anything, would make positive change happen in regards to this issue?
Everybody in the forum is throwing out comments and criticism (myself included) at this health care reform issue.
I believe the reason is because we are all concerned over whether or not we will have an industry to speak of once this is all said and done? Can we agree on that? Like many of you, I have invested 11 years of my life into this thing, so yes, there is reason for concern. What we have been doing, myself included, is trying to guess what moves the present administration will make next and what is their desired destination.
Here is the thing. The only way that there can be true health care reform is if operating costs are brought down. All parties involved, the AMA, medical providers, device companies, pharm cos. and yes insurance companies will have to be brought together in agreement or nothing will change.
That is no quick, easy task of course. Again, as we stated in our “Relief” post yesterday, a govt. plan that is GI will not be a threat to us because it would be (as stated by Barry) funded by public insurance premiums not tax dollars.
Because it would be GI, it would be impossible for such a plan to compete against private medically underwritten plans.
So, the only people who would go to this govt. plan would be ineligible for the private plans that we sell and service anyway. Operating cost control would bring pricing down for individual private plans as well as the govt. GI option.
I think we are, understandably, trying to get to the finish line with this, but I think the administration’s discussions with the aforementioned factions have been preliminary thus far.
Like you said Winter, he is a hell of a salesman and as we know, good business is not done impulsively. It takes time to create buy in from all parties involved.
If, this is accomplished, it could mean more business for all of us. Time will tell.

 

[somarco]

Mandates simply drive up the cost because politicians are like drunken sailors. They just don't know when to quit.

Pay particular attention to the section on Guaranteed Issue. No one wants to address the flip side of covering everyone for everything.

 

[Winter_123]

nded by public insurance premiums not tax dollars.
Because it would be GI, it would be impossible for such a plan to compete against private medically underwritten plans.

In my view, that is not where we are headed. We are talking about the government approving a set of creditable plans, as I call them, that will be eligible for the govenment seal of approval which will include subsidy, tax credit, whatever. All plans that recieve this status will be guaranteed issue- all of them. If they do not have it they are not in the exchange and if the exchange concept collapses then they will simply be plans that do not receive the government kickers. In other words, you will have choice but unless you want to forego government subsidy or tax credit you will choose one of the "creditable" plans.

You are presenting the idea that only the public option will be GI. Not so, in my view. Also, I believe that the public option will not fly anyway but the government will extract so many demands and controls over private carriers that they will all seem like public options. Refer to the pharmaceutical companies that are now running a doughnut hole program as a cost of doing business and keeping the red guard off their backs.

As Barry et al learn how to be better socialists they are learning that you can play the game of making things look like private sector to appease your opponents all while having the government run everything. Tis the socialist way.

 

[Charpress]

My son has had serious digestive problems all his life. The doctors locally have never figured out the real cause, they just keep repeating the same expensive tests and calling it "acid reflux disease" which it clearly is not.

Right now he is up at Mayo where they have 84 specialists in the gastro field alone who have already drilled down to what the probable cause is. They have also confirmed that the doctors locally are borderline incompetent.

Blue Cross is paying the full cost of this (not counting travel and hotel, of course).

He is getting first class treatment at the best medical facility in the world. I hate to think where I would be right now in a government health care program. Incompetence times a hundred and no place to go, I guess.

 

[somarco]

Celiac?