Mandatory Health Insurance part 3

[kramwest1]

mine is still $840 a month

with a $3600 deductible and then a 20% co-pay until $5000. per year.

Makes me feel slightly better about mine.
~$325/month (half of a custom, couples' plan), $1000 deductible each, 25% co-pay to $5000.

 

[deep]

My father's job situation changed recently, so we had to change insurance companies. My brother has a medical condition that calls for regular care, and his costs have not only skyrocketed, but the company's bullshit policy does not allow him to get care at his normal doctor, so he literally has to change everything he's learned in the past few years about caring for himself because this insurance company blows.

I'm angry. My instincts tell me to find someone to blame. If I followed these instincts, I'd make a great Republican voter.

in a GOP perfect world, the private sector would just cancel you and your loser family

the for profit company wants to collect about 300-400 a month, that is $4000 to $5000 a year in premiums, if you use between $500 and $1500 a year in costs, you are safe to renew and keep paying


If you start to costs $3000 or more per year, you would not have your policy renewed. free market, no one should be forced to provide a product of service to a segment of the public if they do not choose.

 

[Canadiens1131]

How far (to the right) we've come as a nation, huh?

National Health Insurance Debate Under Nixon - YouTube

I wonder if anyone mentioned death panels?

 

[INDY500]

Yes, they called it a Health Security board. And if it worked as well to control health care costs as Nixon's Wage And Price controls worked to lower inflation we would have been screwed.

Nice seeing Ted Kennedy and Wilbur Mills together. The two biggest horn dogs in D.C. post JFK and pre-Clinton.

That was interesting, thanks for posting.

 

[Canadiens1131]

Yes, they called it a Health Security board. And if it worked as well to control health care costs as Nixon's Wage And Price controls worked to lower inflation we would have been screwed.

Nice seeing Ted Kennedy and Wilbur Mills together. The two biggest horn dogs in D.C. post JFK and pre-Clinton.

That was interesting, thanks for posting.

I always find it's interesting to dig into the past when looking at the current vitriol flying around in Washington.

I wonder how the 2000s are going to be framed in history textbooks 50 years from now.

It shows you how good you have to be at framing the debate in Washington to be able to lead aptly, though. Obama, even coming from a reluctant supporter as myself, has completely failed to transfer the rhetoric from the campaign trail to the White House. I'm not even talking about real political gumption; he's just failed at the PR game miserably.

The post 1980 GOP doesn't get many compliments from me, but I will bow down to their public relations prowess any day.

 

[Cactus Annie]

that's capitalism for you.

Germany is a capitalist country and their health insurance doesn't cost that much. If you took out private health insurance in the UK, such as Bupa, AXA or SimplyHealth, it would not cost as much as you guys are proclaiming.

 

[financeguy]

Germany is a capitalist country and their health insurance doesn't cost that much. If you took out private health insurance in the UK, such as Bupa, AXA or SimplyHealth, it would not cost as much as you guys are proclaiming.

Yes, but there are people in America, particularly the type that vote GOP, that think Europe is composed entirely of socialist countries, so they are not interested in learning anything from the study of a European country's health system, even when it's objectively better than the US's, as in Germany or France.

As you mentioned Germany specifically, I reckon part of the problem is that medical consultants are vastly overpaid in America, whereas in Germany they are paid at a level that is certainly above the average salary, but not excessively so.

US medical consultants enjoy the highest salaries in the world, but the US is at this point far from being the wealthiest country in the world.

 

[Cactus Annie]

Yes, but there are people in America, particularly the type that vote GOP, that think Europe is composed entirely of socialist countries, so they are not interested in learning anything from the study of a European country's health system, even when it's objectively better than the US's, as in Germany or France.

Well these people must be more stupid than a woodlouse. Someone needs to give them basic information on the modern western European country. I can't believe that Glenn Beck got into Yale. How can this be? He must have a severe personality disorder.

As you mentioned Germany specifically, I reckon part of the problem is that medical consultants are vastly overpaid in America, whereas in Germany they are paid at a level that is certainly above the average salary, but not excessively so.

US medical consultants enjoy the highest salaries in the world, but the US is at this point far from being the wealthiest country in the world.

I'm all for highly gifted doctors being well paid, but I do believe that most doctors do not get into medicine for the money. They are far easier ways to earn megabucks than 8 years of studying.

 

[Irvine511]

Someone needs to give them basic information on the modern western European country. I can't believe that Glenn Beck got into Yale.

Glenn Beck did not go to Yale in any sort of meaningful sense.

he went to Yale for once semester in 1996 as a non-degree special student while working at a radio station in nearby Hamden, CT before dropping out.

George W. Bush, however, did go to Yale.

 

[INDY500]

White House kills insurance program for long-term care - The Washington Post

White House eliminates insurance program for long-term care

The Obama administration cut a major planned benefit from the 2010 health-care law on Friday, announcing that a program to offer Americans insurance for long-term care was simply unworkable.

Known as the Community Living Assistance Services (CLASS) Act, the program was intended to be purely voluntary and open to all working Americans. The program was to be entirely self-financed with the premiums participants paid. Obama officials said that presented them with a problem: If they designed a benefits package generous enough to meet the law’s requirements, they would have had to set premiums so high that few healthy people would enroll. And without a large share of healthy people in the pool, the CLASS plan would have become even more expensive, forcing the government to raise premiums even higher, to the point of the program’s collapse.

The smartest administration in history just now figured out what critics have been saying for 2 years. By the way, economic principles apply to the entire healthcare act but they'll never admit that.

 

[Canadiens1131]

White House kills insurance program for long-term care - The Washington Post



The smartest administration in history just now figured out what critics have been saying for 2 years. By the way, economic principles apply to the entire healthcare act but they'll never admit that.

As a sidebar, are you planning on voting for eventual Candidate-Elect Mittens in 2012, who approved an individual mandate in his Massachusetts health care insurance reform law in 2006?

I hope you can still smell the fudge when you are holding your nose and pulling that lever in a couple of months, Indie.

 

[INDY500]

Obama White House Waffles On CLASS Act

Obama White House Waffles On CLASS Act

WASHINGTON -- The White House appeared to waffle Monday on the fate of a financially troubled long-term care program in President Barack Obama's health overhaul law, as supporters and foes heaped criticism on the administration.

At stake is the CLASS Act, a major new program intended to provide affordable long-term care insurance. Last Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the administration would not proceed with the plan because she has been unable to find a way to make the program financially solvent.

Calmer heads have prevailed and once again the White House can demagogue against cruel, heartless Republicans more concerned with taxbreaks for the rich than seniors' long-term care.

After all, why be bothered with minor details like whether or not the program is "financially solvent." There's an election to be won.

 

[maycocksean]

Obama White House Waffles On CLASS Act





After all, why be bothered with minor details like whether or not the program is "financially solvent." There's an election to be won.

Good thing the Republicans never stoop to doing whatever it takes to get elected, huh. . .

 

[BVS]

And they're always financially solvent.

 

[Irvine511]

Calmer heads have prevailed and once again the White House can demagogue against cruel, heartless Republicans more concerned with taxbreaks for the rich than seniors' long-term care.

you're right.

one party believes in taxing rich people at slightly higher rates to finance health care for everybody.

the other party believes in keeping taxes low on rich people.



still, it is fascinating to have an administration that can admit it when things are unaffordable (endless war, drugs for seniors) without revenue increases. that was certainly lacking from 2001-2009.

seems that the notion of "shared sacrifice" exists only amongst the rapidly dying WW2 generation and those presently occupying Wall Street.

the GOP seems to operate by the golden rule of "go fuck yourself."

 

[Cactus Annie]

Glenn Beck did not go to Yale in any sort of meaningful sense.

he went to Yale for once semester in 1996 as a non-degree special student while working at a radio station in nearby Hamden, CT before dropping out.

George W. Bush, however, did go to Yale.

This makes a lot of sense. For a second there I suspected that he Beck came from a rich family and managed to buy his way into university.

 

[INDY500]

Obama Administration: Religious Employers Must Pay for the Pill | Healthland | TIME.com

Obama Administration: Religious Employers Must Pay for the Pill


Many church-affiliated institutions will have to cover free birth control for employees, the Obama administration announced Friday in an election-year move that outraged religious groups, fueling a national debate about the reach of government.

In a concession, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said nonprofit institutions such as church-affiliated hospitals, colleges and social service agencies will have one additional year to comply with the requirement, issued in regulations under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

“I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services,” Sebelius said in a statement.

Yet the concession was unlikely to stop a determined effort by opponents to block or overturn the rule. If they fail, some predicted that religious employers would simply drop coverage for their workers, opting instead to pay fines to the federal government under the health care law.

“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience,” said New York Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a member of Senate leadership, said, “The president made the right decision by putting access and the reproductive rights of women first.”

So that's what you get with group rights as opposed to individual rights and government mandated health care. In case you're keeping score at home, in Obama's caste of group rights it's women's rights before religious rights. I think I'll post again the Mark Steyn quote that Anitram enjoyed so much in the MLK thread:

One of the great strengths of Common Law has been it's general antipathy to group rights. Because the ultimate minority is the individual. The minute you have collective rights you require dramatically enhanced state power to mediate the hierarchy of different interest groups.
--Mark Steyn

Obamacare = "dramatically enhanced state power" = less individual liberty.

And some call that progress.

 

[Irvine511]

it's women's rights before religious rights.

i'm not sorry that religion is no longer and excuse to allow some individuals to deny basic health care to other individuals in need on the basis of their gender. your subjective values may not restrict my right to health care.

 

[anitram]

What "religious rights" are being trampled here?

Those religiously-affiliated institutions which, by the way, get taxpayer funding, and do not only employ individuals who are identically religiously affiliated are not exempt. Present a decent legal argument for why this should not be the case.

Talk about hysteria.

 

[dreamletter]

The land of the free (market) A doomed country.

 

[INDY500]

What "religious rights" are being trampled here?

Those religiously-affiliated institutions which, by the way, get taxpayer funding, and do not only employ individuals who are identically religiously affiliated are not exempt. Present a decent legal argument for why this should not be the case.

I'd like to hear the constitutional argument which explains:
a) under what constitutional authority the federal government is given the power to compel an individual or party to purchase a good
b) and, be compelled to purchase that item against their religious conscience.

 

[BVS]

I'd like to hear the constitutional argument which explains:
a) under what constitutional authority the federal government is given the power to compel an individual or party to purchase a good
b) and, be compelled to purchase that item against their religious conscience.

My taxes go to wars that are against my religious conscience all the time, where's your concern for my religious rights?

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Exactly.

Religious people, you're the ones who want church and state to blend, well, here you go, these are the consequences of wanting such a thing.

Look at it this way: support the Pill, less chance of abortions, right?

 

[Canadiens1131]

I'd like to hear the constitutional argument which explains:
a) under what constitutional authority the federal government is given the power to compel an individual or party to purchase a good
b) and, be compelled to purchase that item against their religious conscience.

ATLANTA — A new government study suggests a lot of teenage girls are clueless about their chances of getting pregnant. In a survey of thousands of teenage mothers who had unintended pregnancies, about a third said they didn't use birth control because they didn't believe they could pregnant.

The Associated Press: CDC: Many teen moms didn't think it could happen

Truly an enlightened nation!

 

[yolland]

^ Thought about bumping one of the sex-ed threads to post that story when I saw it the other day...unfortunately though, it's a pretty useless finding from a policy-discussion standpoint, since there was no followup asking those respondents to elaborate on why they "didn't believe they could [get] pregnant." If existing research on teen pregnancy is any indication, then in all likelihood the majority of them were referring to wishful thinking about their ability to accurately estimate where they were in their menstrual cycles at time of conception, combined with reluctance to insist their partners wear condoms just in case (and in turn their partners' disinclination to wear them without that insistence).



Both the US District Court for Western Washington (Erickson v. Bartell Drug Co., 2001) and the EEOC (2000) have already ruled that for employers to exclude prescription contraceptives from otherwise comprehensive health benefit plans violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, though it's always possible those could be reversed. A majority of states (28) already require employers to cover contraception in comprehensive health plans, and of those 28 only West Virginia grants religious universities and hospitals an exemption (and then only if <25% of their budget comes from government sources). I agree with the Title VII argument.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

By Kari Huus, msnbc.com

Since the death of Canadian skier Sarah Burke in January, fans and supporters from around the world have donated over $300,000 – more than enough to cover the massive U.S. medical bill generated by efforts to save her.

The outpouring of grief for Burke and the influx of funds are a tribute to a young woman who was a pioneer and legend in her sport. The need for a fundraiser — to help her grieving family avert bankruptcy — was viewed by some Canadians and U.S. observers as a condemnation of the U.S. health care system.

"The irony is that had the accident occurred in Canada… her care would have been covered because, unlike the U.S., Canada has a system of universal coverage," wrote Wendell Potter, an insurance executive-turned-whistleblower who writes for iWatch at the Center for Public Integrity. "No one in Canada finds themselves in that predicament, nor do they face losing their homes as many Americans do when they become critically ill or suffer an injury..."

Burke, who died at 29, was on skis by age five, and pursuing a professional skiing career before she left high school. She pioneered women’s halfpipe skiing and was instrumental in getting the event included in the X-Games, according to a profile in Sportsnet magazine of Canada.

"She was to freeskiing what Wayne Gretzky was to hockey or Michael Jordan was to basketball — the iconic face of a sport,” wrote Sportsnet reporter Dan Robson. "She built her world by conquering limits, both on the hill and off it."

After Burke’s crash while training on the Eagle Superpipe at Park City Mountain Resort in Utah on Jan. 10, doctors fought to save her for nine days. She died Jan. 19, from a torn vertebral artery in her neck that caused bleeding in her brain.

Burke’s contribution to sport — not to mention her youth, beauty, charisma and fame — has no doubt helped the effort to generate donations to cover an operation, countless tests, care and hospitalization. The fundraising page on GiveForward.com late Monday showed that $302,535 had been raised. Burke’s publicist said that medical costs were expected to be about $200,000.

The fundraising page said that future contributions would go to a foundation “to honor Sarah's legacy and promote the ideals she valued and embodied."

The loss of Sarah Burke is no less painful for her loved ones, but with medical care covered through donations, the aftermath will not bring them additional hardship.

For many Americans, the hardship persists.

On Monday, Potter pointed to the plight of a 13-year-old Caroline Richmond on life support in Alabama after collapsing from a stroke, which turned out to be caused by leukemia. Her self-employed parents do not have health coverage.

“As it turns out, Caroline is one of more than 50 million men, women and children who do not have health insurance in the United States, which is why her family is in the same predicament as Sarah Burke’s,” Potter wrote.

The community has launched a multi-pronged effort to raise money to cover mounting medical costs for Carolyn — car washes, a bake sale, a fish fry and so on — but like most people who have life threatening medical conditions, she is not famous.

An estimated 700,000 American families file for bankruptcy every year because of medical debt, Potter said.

 

[BVS]

but like most people who have life threatening medical conditions, she is not famous.

An estimated 700,000 American families file for bankruptcy every year because of medical debt, Potter said.

The free market and exceptionalism will save them.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

Yep. Those things clearly worked out well for my family .

 

[INDY500]

By Kari Huus, msnbc.com


"The irony is that had the accident occurred in Canada… her care would have been covered because, unlike the U.S., Canada has a system of universal coverage," wrote Wendell Potter, an insurance executive-turned-whistleblower who writes for iWatch at the Center for Public Integrity. "No one in Canada finds themselves in that predicament, nor do they face losing their homes as many Americans do when they become critically ill or suffer an injury..."

Wait a minute. She's a citizen of Canada. You mean "No one in Canada finds themselves in that predicament" unless they are a Canadian injured in another country? That's the compassionate health care system we should model ours on? Why isn't she covered by her "universal coverage" you know, universally?

As someone who has witnessed a great many automobile drivers seriously hurt or killed my sympathies to all involved but why didn't the sanctioning body provide insurance?

For many Americans, the hardship persists.

On Monday, Potter pointed to the plight of a 13-year-old Caroline Richmond on life support in Alabama after collapsing from a stroke, which turned out to be caused by leukemia. Her self-employed parents do not have health coverage.

“As it turns out, Caroline is one of more than 50 million men, women and children who do not have health insurance in the United States, which is why her family is in the same predicament as Sarah Burke’s,” Potter wrote.

Yes let's politicize this MSNBC. "50 million men, women and children who do not have health insurance in the United States." Notice they don't say citizens. Notice they mention that most of those people are offered health insurance but decline it.

An estimated 700,000 American families file for bankruptcy every year because of medical debt, Potter said.

Another bogus number. This includes any bankruptcy with any medical debt. You owe $250,000 on your house and $200 to your dentist. Bingo!!, medical bankruptcy.

Very sad story. Very biased story about it.

By the way, the Center for Public Integrity. George Soros funded liberal group.

 

[Moonlit_Angel]

You owe $250,000 on your house and $200 to your dentist. Bingo!!, medical bankruptcy.

That's not the case for all people who file for bankruptcy, though.