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obamacare
hostis
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can anyone explain to me why people are against "Obamacare"? I'm not trying to start a war here, I just don't understand why some people are against it.
In the UK we have the NHS - much maligned and moaned about but generally bloody marvellous. Its a comparison but it seems that obamacare is trying to give healthcare to those that cant afford it and surely that's a good thing?
In the UK we have the NHS - much maligned and moaned about but generally bloody marvellous. Its a comparison but it seems that obamacare is trying to give healthcare to those that cant afford it and surely that's a good thing?
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Sorry, a sneaky second question: why have they called it Obama-care if they are seeking bi-partisan support for the scheme?
Many will not seek the coverage for the simple fact they can not afford it,
they will take the penalty instead.... another tax on their paychecks.
Employers with over 50 must carry it or pay a penalty. They may opt for the penalty
for the simple fact it might be more cost effective for them.
Many will only employee 49, keeping new employment stagnant
they will use temp help instead or contract 1099 workers.
Some interesting facts and figures
http://www.billlosey.com/articles/how-w ... siness.php
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleaebeli ... r-earners/
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/06/how-mu ... acare-tax/
thanks Pandora, as always.
The individual mandate begins in 2014. This means that you must carry health insurance or pay a tax penalty. In 2014, the individual mandate penalty will be $285 per family or one percent of your income, whichever is greater. In 2018, the penalty goes up to $2,085 per family or 2.5 percent of income.
There are some exceptions for low-income individuals and those for whom health care premiums would cost more than eight percent of gross income.
The good news is that the new state-run health insurance exchanges required by the law by 2014 should make buying individual insurance easier than it is now.
If you are insured:
If you are under 26 and gained health insurance as a result of the healthcare laws, you will be able to remain on your parent’s health insurance until age 26. This is a huge win for millions of young adults who are still in school or working one or more entry-level and/or part-time jobs that do not provide health insurance.
Beginning in 2014, the law makes it illegal to deny applicants health insurance or charge unrealistic premiums to people with a pre-existing condition.
If you utilize a Flexible Spending Accounts to save tax-free money for medical expenses, the annual pre-tax saving limit will be $2,500 in 2013.
Other parts of the law:
The new healthcare law has a lot of components with wide-ranging implications. Here are a few changes the law made that will remain in place:
•Restaurants with more than 20 locations must list calorie counts on every menu item.
•Doctors must disclose goodies they receive from medical supply sales reps.
•Employers must provide rooms and breaks especially for breastfeeding where working mothers can express breast milk during the day.
•There is a 10 percent federal tax on tanning services.
But setting aside the mandate and its penalty — er, tax — ObamaCare is filled with new taxes, at least 20 by some counts. There is a:
•3.8 percent surtax tax on investment income and a 0.9 percent surtax on Medicare taxes for individuals making more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000;
•10 percent tax on tanning services and a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical equipment;
•40 percent tax on comprehensive health coverage that costs more than the designated cap; and
•New taxes that apply to Flexible Savings Accounts and Health Savings Accounts.
Obviously, several of these taxes will hit the middle class. So it’s more than a little strange that the administration so adamantly denies the mandate’s penalty is a tax. What difference does one more “tax” make to an administration that has passed so many?
A Nation of Takers. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University recently reported that about one-third of American households received Medicaid, food stamps or some other means-tested program in 2010. Add in Medicare, Social Security and unemployment and nearly half of all households are getting a government check.
ObamaCare dramatically expands that number. Medicaid coverage will go to an estimated 16 million more Americans. There are health insurance subsidies for those in the exchanges with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level ($92,000 for a family of four), which is about 75 percent of all U.S. households. We don’t know yet how many Americans will take advantage of the exchanges, but it likely will be millions — especially if employers start dropping their coverage.
Thus, thanks to ObamaCare, liberals will finally have the large majority of Americans taking money from the government (i.e., taxpayers).
A Maze of Cross Subsidies. ObamaCare is also filled with cross subsidies, a way of transferring wealth without using the tax code. Take one example: It requires health insurers to accept people with a pre-existing condition — which mostly affects individuals buying their own coverage — and puts a cap on how much insurers can charge. It is a popular provision only because most Americans don’t realize they will be paying higher premiums.
In order for individuals with preexisting conditions to get coverage at less than their actuarially rated risk, young and healthy people must pay more than their fair share — a lot more. Many of them will want to drop coverage because it will be so expensive; hence the mandate to try and force them to stay in. But even if everyone is in the pool — which they won’t be — the young and healthy will spend billions of dollars paying higher-than-necessary premiums to cross subsidize others.
Perverse Economic Incentives. The problem with the current health care system is that the economic incentives are all wrong. Patients have little reason to be value-conscious shoppers in the health care marketplace, because in the vast majority of cases someone else is paying the bill.
Doctors don’t know who their real customer is: the patient getting care or the government, employer or insurer paying for it. The situation often pits health care providers against patients who want everything and the payers who want to limit costs. It’s a no-win situation of perverse economic incentives, and ObamaCare only exacerbates the problem.
A Health Care Spending Explosion. Team Obama believes that if you get more people covered for even more services — including numerous “free” services — health care spending will go down.
Virtually any health actuary knows just the opposite will happen: health care spending will explode. Just consider that insured people spend a little more than twice what uninsured people spend on health care.
ObamaCare is supposed to cover an extra 32 million previously uninsured people with very comprehensive coverage. It’s a recipe for massive new spending.
Rationing Is Inevitable. And when health care spending explodes, Washington will scramble to find a way to contain what wasn’t supposed to happen — just like the unemployment rate wasn’t supposed to go above 8 percent — both for political and economic reasons.
The economic reasons are obvious: The government will be subsidizing so many people that even minor increases in health care costs will have huge budget implications. Cuts in care and services will be made. And the mechanism to do that, the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), is already in place.
ObamaCare’s Greatest Failure. ObamaCare is imposing a mid-20th century health insurance model on a 21st century global economy.
•The Internet brings consumers countless products and services from countless vendors; yet ObamaCare provides four choices from a handful of insurers.
•Technology creates fast-paced change while ObamaCare’s 2,700 pages ties up almost everything in the snail-paced legislative and bureaucratic processes.
•Innovators and entrepreneurs are asking what consumers want; ObamaCare tells both patients and providers what they can and can’t have.
The Affordable Care Act looks backward — to the days big-government and grand social schemes. It is the wrong policy for the dynamic and fast-paced 21st century. The president says he is willing to tweak it, but it can’t be tweaked enough. It is an albatross fit for 1960, not 2012.
found this stuff in just few min's
Godfather.
They want to pay more money for crappy coverage that can be taken away from them when the insurance company wants to take it away. So long as the poor die faster.
Do you base all other's decisions in this?
Not sure what else to say ...
Because it was brought to them by a black man >???? bullshit !
Godfather.
Godfather.
I would like to add I am not against it, just don't know if this is going to work,
it would be nice to think it will though. Time will tell...
I also feel that it's only going to drive the cost of insurance higher as well. And these days, health care = health insurance. And that's a bad thing.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
That term is a Republican-coined phrase which is meant to have a negative connotation. They figure if they can tie it to him directly with such a negative sounding catch phrase, without you know all of those pesky facts that go with it which show it is good for the country especially in the long term, it can be their rally cry.
I live in Massachusetts where "Romney-care" has been alive and well for around 6 years. Last I checked we had the lowest rate of uninsured citizens in the entire country. But of course now that Romney wants the support of the conservative base, he's completely against universal healthcare. Funny how he was ALL about it in MA, but has completely changed his tune now that he is running for the oval office. The guy is a completely spineless panderer.
godfather: once again you post "facts" that are misleading at best, and blatantly negligent at their core. You say you found that info after searching for only a few minutes. Dig deeper. If you're going to look for the negative aspects of it (in the eyes of Republicans) you're going to find what you're looking for.
http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view ... eID=003725
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-oe-mir ... 5648.story
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-3 ... check.html
Typo Man: "Thanks kidz, but remembir, stay in skool!"
i'm even more thankful for the NHS now.
If paying an extra 20¢ per pizza will ensure that the guy delivering it doesn't have a communicable disease he can't afford to have treated, I'm oddly fine with that. I also think the idea of not having children die of treatable conditions is a perk we should have in a country that brags about being #1.
Post edited by Admin. See the Guidelines:
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viewtopic.php?f=13&t=67751
godfather: once again you post "facts" that are misleading at best, and blatantly negligent at their core. You say you found that info after searching for only a few minutes. Dig deeper. If you're going to look for the negative aspects of it (in the eyes of Republicans) you're going to find what you're looking for.......
ummmmmm.. find what I'm looking for ? and you the democrat will not ?...interesting.
it's a two sided argument my friend and both sides will claim to be right and your opinion has been noted.
Godfather.
glad I could help
Godfather.
Weak minded is not realizing that we're all paying the health insurance industry to pay for our health care for us and pay for their own existence and make a profit. If we're all paying for our health car PLUS health insurance, doesn't it make sense we don't need them?
And I do believe in health insurance for catastrophic cases, but not to pay for our everyday prescriptions and routine doctor visits. We can pay for that ourselves....and much cheaper than we do now.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
Me, the independent.
Typo Man: "Thanks kidz, but remembir, stay in skool!"
Godfather.
I have read this about 8 times and for the life of me I can't figure out what you mean.
Can you post a video of yourself explaining it in interpretive dance, maybe?
So then buy a policy that only covers catastrophic care and not drugs or routine visits. Although a visit to a doctor that's worth going to isn't really affordable to many.
The whole healthcare paradigm needs to shift towards preventative care (and already has been). You realize that if insurance only covered major medical procedures and sick visits, our healthcare system would spiral out of control, right?
Insurance is, for all intents and purposes, risk management. So are you really advocating making people pay for well visits and check-ups entirely out of their own pockets, even after they have paid for healthcare out of their paychecks every week? Seriously?
I mean....that's not even worth debating. That's just silly.
Typo Man: "Thanks kidz, but remembir, stay in skool!"
Godfather.
It's not really messing with me if you try to use the term I used for myself to poke at me. I'm a left leaning independent. I have no problem with that.
Typo Man: "Thanks kidz, but remembir, stay in skool!"
no man I was pointing out your posting of the links on obamacare, which by the way I like the link from procon.org
Godfather.
I understand risk management. But insurance for everything else - cars, houses, life, etc. isn't used to pay for every day items and maintenance like we use it for health insurance.
When you use it for everything, it is no longer risk management and it's a payment plan.
I firmly believe that the cost of health care would go down if we decreased our reliance on insurance rather than increase it.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
Right. It'd be like if you used car insurance to pay for oil changes. Guess what would happen to the cost of an oil change????
Nobody is expecting insurance to pay for aspirin and bandages and vitamins.
health insurance makes sure that you get preventative care. Which is cheaper and more effective than emergency care.
But I guess if all you care about are your material possessions...
That's a typical response to the analogy to car insurance, but I'm not comparing a car to a person. I'm comparing a type of insurance to another type insurance.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
Well that's because that wasn't the comparison, but go ahead and try to distort. It was about insurance, and they are both insurance. Does that baffle you too?
As for you last sentence, that;s a asshole thing to say.
Yep. It would be exactly like paying someone else to go pay for your oil change. There's no doubt that the cost would go up by leaps and bounds.
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.