Obama Care - Hillary Care II

[mjs]

Blue Cross refers to themselves as a private insurer in their press releases and you specifically attacked private insurers so for some odd reason, I thought you meant private insurers. If you want people to understand you, you have to use agreed upon definitions.

If you're saying that there's no problems with how Blue Cross conducts its business, then why aren't they the desperately needed competition to whatever fits your definition of private insurers? If they aren't ripping people off, why doesn't the government just allow everyone the option of Blue Cross as their mandatory provider and subsidize the poor's premiums as I stated? Thats an alternative to my private insurer we can live with. Actually, it is my private insurer.

[mjs]

Lorax, did you quote my entire long post to comment on something other than the first paragraph or are all alternatives to the plan sponsored by the best friends of Pharmas and HMOs still to be ignored?

I'm beginning to understand the big play now. Pharmas and HMOs draft a bill and have their lapdogs rush it through Congress. The bill includes commitments to use name brand drugs and overpay pharmas like Medicare currently overpays its HMO facilitators. You get everyone covered which isn't money for HMOs like Hap yet. However, you pay for it by reducing the payments Medicare/Medicaid gives to HMOs like HAP. When the for profit HMOs leave Medicare/Medicaid, you use that to say you're giving in to the Republicans and the greedy capitalist pigs and reverse the savings and apply over payments to the universal program as well. HAP insures more people and the government is expanded as an unneeded middle man that repeats the job HAP is already doing and creates a second accounting layer to collect the taxes and send them to HAP. Then, they can call it regulating the expanding HMOs.

When the CBO is proven exactly right and the costs continue their rate of growth or even if Ron Paul is right and health care costs accelerate faster, then the Dems have a reason for why they definently can't reverse their actions. Finally, they blame "them" exactly as they did after voting for the Bank bailout that authorized "them" to do everything "they" did. They have to rush it so they can lay blame on "them", so they can claim they didn't know what was in it, and so they can do it before Obama's numbers fall further as we continue to lose jobs because Democrats believe a President can immediately effect the economy.

[ccbatson]

Page 16 of the bill...no future new enrollments in private plans after implementation date of the 1200 page 1.5 Trillion dollar bill. So much for the words of the deceptive president repeatedly saying that individuals will have the choice to keep their current insurance....sure you can keep it, just like a ticket on the Titanic is still valid.

[mjs]

If you're saying that there's no problems with how Blue Cross conducts its business, then why aren't they the desperately needed competition to whatever fits your definition of private insurers? If they aren't ripping people off, why doesn't the government just allow everyone the option of Blue Cross as their mandatory provider and subsidize the poor's premiums as I stated?

Lorax, are there any plans for you to get back to us on this?

[oladub]

Lorax, When you get around to answering mjs' question could you answer one or two questions for me too?

Private hospitals are too expensive for most of us. Since, as you claim, government healthcare is so much more affordable, how much money would I save having an operation and staying at Detroit Receiving Hospital, which is city owned compared to, St. John's Hospital on Moross?

Is there any government agency that you know of that sells generic drugs to the public for less than Walmart?

[ccbatson]

What "private hospitals" in Michigan are you referring to? Not Beaumont, they are a nonprofit entity. DRH is partially public owned [[under duress) and a fiscal nightmare.

[rb336]

Page 16 of the bill...no future new enrollments in private plans after implementation date of the 1200 page 1.5 Trillion dollar bill. So much for the words of the deceptive president repeatedly saying that individuals will have the choice to keep their current insurance....sure you can keep it, just like a ticket on the Titanic is still valid.

You really do think people are stupid, don't you bats? [[projection on your part?) that "no new enrollment" crap is about one thing and one thing only -- defining "grandfathered in" plans. It has nothing to do with anything else. or choice of insurance providers.

go read it, folks, don't let these right-wing lies get to you

http://tinyurl.com/mns8rt

[oladub]

You really do think people are stupid, don't you bats? [[projection on your part?) that "no new enrollment" crap is about one thing and one thing only -- defining "grandfathered in" plans. It has nothing to do with anything else. or choice of insurance providers.

go read it, folks, don't let these right-wing lies get to you

http://tinyurl.com/mns8rt

Thanks, I looked it up. This is what it says on page 16-

[[a) GRANDFATHERED HEALTH INSURANCE COV3
ERAGE DEFINED.—Subject to the succeeding provisions in4
this section, for purposes of establishing acceptable co5
erage under this division, the term ‘‘grandfathered health6
insurance coverage’’ means individual health insurance7
coverage that is offered and in force and effect before the8
first day of Y1 if the following conditions are met: 9
[[1) LIMITATION ON NEW ENROLLMENT.— 0
[[A) I
N GENERAL.—Except as provided in1
this paragraph, the individual health insurance2
issuer offering such coverage does not enroll3
any individual in such coverage if the first 4
effective date of coverage is on or after the first5
day of Y1. 6

My guess on what it means is that new policies can be privately written that follow some new rules of coverage. However, existing policies are grandfathered in but no new enrollment may be made in those policies. Also, further down, the issuer may not make changes in the policy terms. I'll bet some insurance companies will be scrambling around modifying existing albatross policies before this law passes so many won't want to be in them anymore.

[mjs]

So you're saying that this bill is creating new PLPD type minimum requirements and if I already have coverage thats less than PLPD, I can keep it but, if I get a new policy, it has to provide at least PLPD type coverage? I can appreciate that aspect of the bill.

I've heard that this thing will require everyone to have health insurance, but I haven't found that in the bill yet. Is this correct and if it is, how are they planning on enforcing it? Whats the response plan for when an illegal walks in with a broken leg or a brain tumor?

[rb336]

Whats the response plan for when an illegal walks in with a broken leg or a brain tumor?

Same as if it were a tourist, for the most part

[oladub]

Whats the response plan for when an illegal walks in with a broken leg or a brain tumor?

1) Spend all the money it takes to fix him/her.
2) Borrow money from China to pay for it.
3) Provide citizenship and Democrat campaign literature printed in anything but English.
4) Invite his/her relatives to join their American relative
5) Repeat process

[Omaha]

Let me add my Colbert Conservative voice to what cc accurately reported was on page 16. Alas, from what I gathered on the internet, reading further may have helped put page 16 in context.

Why? Three pages further, in the same House bill, [[on page 19), we learn “Individual health insurance coverage that is not grandfathered health insurance coverage under subsection [[a) may only be offered on or after the first day of Y1 as an Exchange-participating health benefits plan.�

This bill lets people change insurance carriers, but the bill appears to regulate the insurance carrier’s right to hike premiums and insist on community rating, eliminate denial for pre-existing conditions, etc.

Limiting the income of a private sector health insurer through limiting premium increases is bad. Demanding that they engage in community rating and ending the practice of denying sick people and potentially sick people from buying insurance is down right UNAMERICAN.

Stopping insurance carriers from denying payments to the insured is even worse. It is ANTI-FREE MARKET to demand that carriers cover everyone. It’s likewise bad to do away with rationing coverage/care by anything else other than the ability to pay a large premium. Price is the ONLY truly American way to ration health care.

Darn it…the government, because it’s the government, will have much greater purchasing power than those private and even not-for-profit health care insurers. These government bureaucrats will use the same strategy that Wal-Mart does, only more effectively, to get “the best� price on drugs and other things.

If private insurers want to compete in this newly regulated market they will have to lower the 30 cents for every dollar of premium going to senior decision makers salaries, stockholder profits and other administrative overhead like paying for actuaries to tell them who and what NOT to insure.

That lowers my ability to get rich by investing in health care. As an advocate for the rich and well born…I must protest! Let’s keep what we have. Don't change a thing. Ignore all the bills, the AMA, and the ANA. The rich and well-born can still afford it, and to heck with everyone else.

[ccbatson]

Not even the liberal defenders of this double talk can make any sense of it...put simply and in character with Obama's MO [[see his comments on the coal industry), the laws will make doing business for private insurers unsustainable and they will fade away. Along with it, the option of keeping existing insurance will go away.

Regarding requiring fixed premiums and an inability to deny coverage. Imagine that you currently sell computers and a law is passed that states that you are required to fix the price at a level below your cost and that you are also required to sell at that price to everyone who wants to buy them. Heard of speed dating? this is speed bankruptcy.