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House Passes Massive Medical Insurance Bill, 219-212
The votes are in: yesterday evening, after a last-minute compromise over abortion payments, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill effecting major changes in American medical finance. From the BBC's coverage: "The president is expected to sign the House-passed Senate bill as early as Tuesday, after which it will be officially enacted into law. However, it will contain some very unpopular measures that Democratic senators have agreed to amend. The Senate will be able to make the required changes in a separate bill using a procedure known as reconciliation, which allows budget provisions to be approved with 51 votes - rather than the 60 needed to overcome blocking tactics." No Republican voted in favor of the bill; 34 Democrats voted against. As law, the system set forth would extend insurance coverage to an estimated 32 million Americans, impose new taxes on high-income earners as well as provide some tax breaks and subsidies for others, and considerably toughen the regulatory regime under which insurance companies operate. The anticipated insurance regime phases in (starting with children, and expanding to adults in 2014) a requirement that insurance providers accept those with preexisting conditions, and creates a system of fines, expected to be administered by the IRS, for those who fail or refuse to obtain health insurance.
This truly is the best and most accurate description of the actual process I've seen.
Typical private insurer: 15 to 30%
Of course, if you define "efficiency" by the ratio of things they decline to cover, sure, they're way more efficient.
I live in Belgium, where we have health insurance and auto insurance and bicycles and none of the problems you imply. My parents live in Spain and also none f those issues. My sister in Germany? No problems there.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's those two things that make the mandatory bit necessary. Note that all universal health care is mandatory; if you satisfy the rules for "must pay", then you pay. There are subsideis for the poor in this bill, probably not big enough (inadequate subsidies for the poor, a Republican idea to discourage poorness), but they are there. It would have been better to get rid of the health insurance companies altogether (look at the countries that did that, no loss of quality, but it's cheaper), but the Republicans were not that interested in cutting costs (nor were many of the conservative Democrats).
The text of the bill:
:)
http://www.opencongress.org/senate_health_care_bill
The economy of the bill:
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=508
Congrats from Europe
The apocalypse comes when the Chinese decide not to loan us any more money.
You kidding?
The insurance industry LOVES this bill, because it means they'll get 35 million more customers during 2011. (Either signed-up directly, or paid via the government mandate.) Insurance stocks have already gone up, and they'll likely skyrocket this week.
Which reminds me. The Congress had been throwing-out the number "50 million uninsured" all during 2009. Now they are saying this bill will cover 35 million uninsured americans. So where does that leave the other 15 million? Are those the non-citizen intruders/foreigners who don't qualify under the bill?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
1) There are several hundred billions of dollars that provide subsidies to people too poor to afford health-care, with an explicit rule that a family can not be forced to spend more then a certain % of their income on care (I believe it's 15%, but I don't remember the exact number).
2)The poorest of the poor already receive health care for free in the form of Medicaid, and that Medicaid is being expanded to cover 50% more people
3)People who pay the fine *gets something* for it. They still have the right to receive emergency care for free. Not only that, but they have the ability to purchase insurance if they ever get sick without paying an enormous bankrupcy-causing penalty for having a pre-existing condition.
"And that will - and this is the intent of the "insurance" crooks that drew up the bill - create a market for "Never Pay" cover, i.e. schemes that appear to meet the absolute minimum requirement, but which have such egregious exclusions and excess contributions that you'll never use them. In effect, free money for the insurers."
This is also not true. While there are different types of insurance with different levels of generosity, by law, at least 85% of premiums must be paid out in the form of health-care for any given plan, so "free money" for the insurance company is effectively outlawed..
I recently lived off of food stamps and eat nothing but organic frozen/canned/fresh vegetables, and the occasional choice cut of meat, exactly how I ate/eat without assistance. I rarely spent half of the money given for food.
The health insurance given to me was in a higher league than what I use to pay $410/mo for from Blue Cross Blue Shield. I was able to get some dental fillings done, get my eyes checked, not pay outrageous amounts for random things they did not cover.
The fines are around $700, if I read that correctly.
That sounds like more than health insurance would normally cost. I pay $600 for my international travel health insurance, per year (this covers me almost completely-- excluding more expensive dental work-- while I live and work in the US, and while I travel elsewhere.)
You haven't done much homework if you think you'll be paying that much living paycheck to paycheck. The bill would fine someone who can afford coverage but refuses to. Folks who can't afford it will get subsidies to defray the costs. Typically people who can't afford insurance just create catastrophic care costs because they wait too long and then show up at their local emergency room, so even the managed care option for those where the government fronts the bill should be a little more manageable.
This will also prevent folks from gaming the health care system and making those of us that do pay for insurance cover their costs like folks used to with welfare. I'm also pleased about the pre-existing condition clauses which, being in IT, always makes me nervous considering how easy it is to lose your job to India these days. At least there will now be options to get insurance when you are unemployed.
Found this. Decent quick summary of what's in the final bill going to the presidents desk: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20000846-503544.html
this is not true. take a look at this http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/votes/house/finalhealthcare/?nav=rss_email/components If you sort by amount of contributions, you will see that health care industry spread its $$$ almost evenly between Dem and Rep. Also, you will see that amount of contributions from healthcare industry does not really correlate with Yes/No vote on HCR.
BULLSHIT
Are you paid to spread this disinformation or are you just a useful idiot?
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare..."
Does not guaranteed healthcare promote the "general welfare" of American citizens?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Almost everybody thinks reform is needed. Almost nobody thinks that Congress is competent enough to make good reforms.
Indeed, but if there comes a time when an industry that affects 99% of a countries population refuses to reform voluntarily, then the government of the people must step in. After all, this country was formed "...to promote the general welfare" of it's citizenry.
The one thing that I find highly entertaining, yet sad, is that 95% of those claiming this bill is Unconstitutional don't realize that A) it's not; and B) there is already established case law that supports the goals of this bill. I don't agreed with all the provisions - but something HAD to be done, and now it has.
The $6400 is just an average I saw somewhere. I can't find that article; however, here's a breakdown on employer provided plan costs. Your employer pays $4824 for just you, or $13375 for a family plan. Since individuals buying health insurance don't have as good a bargaining position, I would expect the premiums to be much higher, and $6400 sounds about right. Note the $13375 figure for the family plan, which is what most people will be buying.
The EU *is* member state's governments apart from the democratic European parliament. The members of the "undemocratic" European Commission (essentially executive branch) that anti-EU scaremongerers harp on about are actually nominated by national governments, while the Council of the EU (another legislative branch) *is* member state governments (in the sense that for e.g. agriculture policy, the members are the member state government ministers for agriculture). Additionally there is the European Council that kind of sets the overall direction of the EU - this is the heads of government of the EU. The Euroskeptics want to have their cake and eat it, as they want member states to remain in control of the EU, yet criticise the very institutions that allow that as being undemocratic.
There are plenty of flaws with the EU, but some of these are precisely because it remains beholden to the member state governments.
EU "law" mostly consists of "directives" that national governments implement as they see fit (they only have to satisfy the aim of the directive). Now some governments (e.g. UK) use these as an opportunity to implement over-the-top national law and blame it on Europe. Certain other governments (e.g. Ireland) don't even succeed in implementing all the directives (or ignore enforcement of national law), which shows that EU law isn't some dire threat. Of course in the instance of Ireland, it also shows how EU law isn't a bad thing (the laws concerned are things like "don't pump raw sewage onto your beaches"). Of course Ireland (and other states) do run the risk of fines, but I think Greece has been the only country fined to date (again afaik for something dumb like allowing refuse dumps to be sited where they pollute ground water).
There have also been plenty of cases of the EU criticising and acting against national restrictions on people's freedoms, again for example in the case of the UK (but also other countries restricting people's ability to live/work in other member states, or having broken legal remedies for their own citizens, or not doing anything about infringing on rights of minorities).
Some of the "freedoms" people in certain member states want are the freedom to act as they see fit including infringing on the freedoms of others, and indeed to some extent they can get away with this and merely object to even being criticised for their actions.
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But there are provisions that will take place immediately -- things like making sure that young children can't be denied from a new plan due to a pre-existing condition, prohibit dropping people from a plan when they get sick, letting dependents stay on their parents' policies until the age of 26, adding tax credits to small businesses to allow for coverage purchase. It would be pretty easy for Democrats to spin taking those things away as a bad thing.
No HERE is a better summary:
Everyone wants better health care, and everyone wants a law, or series of laws, which in some way addresses the problem.
The dispute comes down to two opposing perspectives on how to fix it.
The Republican conservatives believe that no taxpayer money should be funding abortions. They also think that the principle reason that healthcare doesn't work in this country is because the cost of health care is too high. They believe this is due to too many people trying to get a "free pass" by not having insurance. It's also due, they think, to a serious problem with "impulse" lawsuits which force doctors to buy an incredibly high amount of malpractice insurance. The Republicans also think that there are way too many procedures, both surgical (angioplasty vs. TPA for heart problems) and diagnostic (too often a large, extremely expensive test is conducted for no good reason). Finally, the Republicans think there is no such thing as a single bill that will fix this. What is required is a gradual, step-by-step series of bills, to be written and implemented over a series of years, to ease us into a new era of health care.
The liberal Democrats believe that health care costs too much because insurance companies are massive, bloated corporations who are jacking up the price of their premiums so they can squeeze money out of everybody, and work WAY too hard at getting OUT of paying for claims (such as, "you had cancer before you signed up with us, so you'll have to pay for your own treatment" or "you can't go to this emergency room to treat your heart attack, since we won't cover your visit there. You'll have to go across town instead, and hope you can make it there without dropping dead. Are you feeling lucky today?"). For the Democrats, the government needs to get involved in such a way that reminds HMOs that they are in some cases quite literally selling life, as opposed to soap flakes or cheeseburgers. They also don't care much about abortion, and fear that if we don't pass a single bill now, we'll be relying on future sessions of Congress to take up the issue with the same attention, focus and passion that it's getting now. History shows that Congress has not always been able to do this.
The trouble is, BOTH sides make some VERY good points about what's wrong with health care in this country. What makes Americans like me VERY angry, is that the politicians can't see past their own party lines, which is wrong because we didn't elect them to serve their PARTIES. We elected them to serve the PEOPLE.
You pay $6400/year for insurance? Damn, either you're getting ripped off, or you have some chronic condition.
Most people who pay for their insurance get a group rate and are covered under a company health plan. You should check to see how much you cost to your company. I'm guessing it's a lot more than you think it is (and makes your comment look rather stupid).
And, for the record, I have previously worked in the health insurance industry, so I know exactly how much people pay.
>> The republicans (as well as 30+ democrats) are against this bill because it is a pile of shit
I'm sure that some, or even most republicans are against the bill because they really believe that it is not going to be good for Americans. However many are just voting no to toe the party line, and to bring down the democrats. The democrat side shows that some people have legitimate problems with the bill and will vote against it and their own party for that reason, but there is no way that every single republican thinks the bill is a huge failure and wouldn't vote for it if parties didn't exist. If there's one thing conservatives are good at, it's presenting a unified front. The problem is that they are not acting in the best interests of the country with their political bickering.
>> Batman. I am diabetic. I have lived without insurance. I always paid my doctor bills and prescription costs.
Good for you that you had the money. Lots of people don't through no fault of their own.
Exactly. That's why this law says you must buy insurance. If you're within 150% of the federal poverty line you can opt into Medicaid or take a subsidy to buy private insurance, but you can't shift your risks onto the insured.
It's not surprising that this bill is 2000 pages long. Most provisions have unintended consequences that have to be addressed by other provisions, and so on. No denial for pre-existing conditions means a mandate to buy insurance. That means expanding Medicaid and providing subsidies for hardship cases.
The big problem with the Senate version of the bill is that it stops here. The House bill attempted to shield consumers who would be forced to buy insurance in states where one or two companies hold a monopoly on insurance. The Senate bill stripped that out.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Gun laws are illegal for starters but hey, why let a little thing like that prevent the government from centralizing and wresting power from the hands of the people. I for one find a nation where the government has no need to fear the people very scary indeed.
No offense, but what the hell are you talking about?
As some others pointed out already: it is not illegal to own a gun. You have to go through an established process to get them because GUNS ARE DANGEROUS.
That said, why don't you just go buy a .22 rifle? There are pretty much no restrictions, no background check or anything else in place (in NY, at least)? Hell, I know someone who is on anti-depressants who walked in and walked out with a .22 rifle.
But that isn't what you want, is it? You want a 3.06, an automatic/semi-automatic assault rifle, or a high-powered handgun.
Everyone always forgets the first part of the second amendment:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
I'm not aware of the legal precedent since its inception, but to me, that statement means that I should be happy to have the privilege to purchase arms given that I'm not part of a "well regulated militia."
If I were doing the interpretation here, I'd say that if you want to own weapons, you should join the National Guard, but that's just me.
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/SavingandDebt/LearnToBudget/how-much-jobless-pay-would-you-get.aspx shows New Jersey $584, Massachusetts $628 and Minnesota $566. This is for a single person... most states also have kickers if you have kids and/or a non working spouse.
What's with people calling others liars so quickly? Every time someone does that and I look into it, it turns out that whoever yelled liar the loudest was the one most full of shit.
Here's how it actually breaks down, starting with the Washington Post:
* top three contributions are to democrats, with roughly $10.5M between them
* next five contributions are to republicans, with roughly $14M between them.
After that, it's a pretty even distribution.
Opensecrets shows something similar:
* 2010: 58% to democrats
* 2008: 54% to democrats
* for the next time that the health industry spent less than roughly 60% on republicans, you have to look back to.... 1994.
Notice something there? Right - it correlates wonderfully with whoever controls the House and Senate.
In other words, the health care industry gives to whoever is in power, with the percentage distribution correlating nicely with the distribution of party affiliation.
So just for emphasis, I'll state it again: the single biggest indicator for how much contributions a party gets is how many seats that party holds. No shit, Sherlock. And just because it pisses me off, I'll repeat this point as well: whoever yells liar the loudest is generally the biggest liar.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
That won't really accomplish much. Even the quickest search reveals that the cost of medical malpractice is less than 2% - a rounding error compared to total costs.:
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
The real problem I have with this 'you must buy health insurance or else' clause, is the fact that I now have to pay money for the right to be a citizen of this country.
This has never existed before. All previous taxes/fees/mandated insurance were based on you doing/earning something first:
Income taxes: Only if you earn money
Auto insurance: Only if you drive a car
Property taxes: Only if you own property
Health Insurance: Only if you earn money
There, fixed that for you. The health insurance mandate does not apply to people with low income. You will only have to pay money if your income is high enough.
Interesting, except one thing.
If you don't make enough money that you have to pay income taxes, you're exempt from the fine. Even then the fine is capped based on your income level.
In other words, the argument of "only if you earn money" argument that you applied to income tax, applies to this fine as well. The idea that you are liable for this fine "the second you become an adult" is incorrect.
I always think it's disingenuous for people to say our bills are X pages long. If you open up the PDF, then copy and paste the text only (no formatting) into your favorite document editor at the default font size, and remove the extra line breaks, you'll see that for every "normal" 1 page you can get 3-4 pages of a bill from Congress. Try it.
So, realistically the bill is still novel-like long, and yeah it'd be great if the bills were shorter but they do have to deal with complex issues. But it's not actually 2000 pages of dense text, like the Republicans try to make it out to be (by bringing reams of paper to press conferences and saying, "Look at how big this thing is! It's enormous! We haven't read it because we're going to vote no anyway, but hoo-eey, this is a big bill don't you think?"
there are also huge tax increases on higher income groups, and the effects will be felt by all Americans.
That is a fallacy that relies on the "trickle down" theory of economics. Wealth isn't created by the wealthy, it's created by the worker; wealth isn't created by the head of the construction company, it's created by the carpenter. McDonald's stockholders don't create McDonald's wealth, the fry cook does. The constructed house and the hamburger are the wealth.
Cutting taxes on the rich doesn't help the economy, and raising taxes on the rich doesn't hurt it unless you raise them to insane levels. Cutting taxes (and other costs) for the poor and middle class does help the economy, because they're going to spend that money, putting it right back in the economy. Tax the poor and everyone suffers; less money to buy those houses and hamburgers, as well as more crime.
And I would posit that the person paying capital gains tax instead of income tax should be paying higher taxes than those truly earning their money, as opposed to gambling on the stock market. When Reagan cut that tax in the '80s it was a boon to the rich, but the orgy of leveraged takeovers hurt the average taxpayer badly.
The companies that exceed 50 employees on the full time payroll will be forced to pay a fine per employee for lack of health insurance coverage. Will this cause millions of small to medium businesses to budget for health insurance, if they don't already have it?
If they don't, they have a bad business model. And they should already be insuring their workers. If they can't afford to pay their employees a living wage, they can't afford employees already; they are simply parasites on the system, bringing down competetitors who do treat their employees as human beings instaed of treating them as property.
Free Martian Whores!
Exactly. I live in Australia. These are my choices here:
1. Do not take out health insurance. Pay about 1% more tax as a penalty. Get free healthcare when I get sick of a standard ranging from ok to excellent. If I am in hospital for an extended period of time, share a room with a number of other patients and put up with less than 'premium' services.
2. Take out health insurance (for around A$70-100/month, i.e. about US$60-90 on current exchange rates). Get premium healthcare when I get sick, including (usually) my choice of doctor and hospital. Get a private room and premium services if I have to stay in hospital for an extended period of time.
Either way the government subsidises many useful medications and I can see a GP within a few hours during business hours, or go to a hospital and wait a few hours at casualty after hours. Regardless of my insurance status, a visit to a doctor costs between around $20 and $50, with the difference being borne by the state.
Amazingly, despite this horrifying crypto-communist arrangement Australia has not gone bankrupt, nor have my rights and freedoms been taken from me.
Read Pynchon.