Thread: Democrats to Ram healthcare down Americans throats !

ObamaCare at Ramming Speed ... A mere three days before President Obama's supposedly bipartisan health-care summit, the White House yesterday released a new blueprint thatDemocrats say they will ram through Congress with or without Republican support. So after election defeats in Virginia, New Jersey and even Massachusetts, and amid overwhelming public opposition, Democrats have decided to give the voters what they don't want anyway.

Ah, the glory of "progressive" governance and democratic consent.

"The President's Proposal," as the 11-page White House document is headlined, is in one sense a notable achievement: It manages to take the worst of both the House and Senate bills and combine them into something more destructive. It includes more taxes, more subsidies and even less cost control than the Senate bill. And it purports to fix the special-interest favors in the Senate bill not by eliminating them—but by expanding them to everyone.

The bill's one new inspiration is a powerful federal board that would regulate premiums in the individual insurance market. In all 50 states, insurers are already required to justify premium increases to insurance commissioners, who generally have the power to give a regulatory go-ahead, or not. But their primary concern is actuarial soundness and capital standards, making sure that companies have enough cash to pay claims.

The White House wants to create another layer of review that will be able to reject any rate increase that is "unreasonable or unjustified." Any insurer deemed guilty of such an infraction by this new bureaucracy "must lower premiums, provide rebates, or take other actions to make premiums affordable." In other words, de facto price controls.

Insurance premiums are rising too fast; therefore, premium increases should be illegal. Q.E.D. The result of this rate-setting board will be less competition in the individual market, as insurers flee expensive states or regions, or even a cascade of bankruptcies if premiums are frozen and the cost of the care they are expected to cover continues to rise. For all the Dickensian outrage about profiteering by WellPoint and other companies, insurance is a low-margin business even for health care, and at least 85 cents of the average premium dollar, usually more, is devoted to actual health services.

Price controls are always the first resort of national health care—i.e., Medicare's administered prices for doctors and hospitals. This new White House gambit is merely a preview of ObamaCare's inevitable planned medical economy, which will reduce choice and quality.

The coercive flavor that animates this exercise is best captured in the section that purports to accept the Senate's "grandfather clause" allowing people who like their current health plan to keep it. Except that "The President's Proposal adds certain consumer protections to these 'grandfathered' plans. Within months of legislation being enacted, it requires plans . . . prohibits . . . mandates . . . requires . . . the President's Proposal adds new protections that prohibit . . . ban . . . and prohibit . . . The President's Proposal requires . . ." After all of these dictates, no "grandfathered" plan will exist.

Meanwhile, the new White House plan further vitiates the remnants of cost-control that remained in the House and Senate bills. Now the highly vaunted excise tax on high-cost insurance plans won't kick in until 2018, whereas it would have started in 2013 in the Senate bill, and this tax will only apply to coverage that costs more than $27,500.

Very few plans ever reach that threshold, and sure enough, this is the same $60 billion deal the White House cut in December with union leaders who have negotiated very costly benefits. Now it is extended to all to avoid the taint of political favoritism.

While the White House claims to eliminate the "Cornhusker Kickback," the Medicaid bribe that bought Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson's vote, political appearances are deceiving. As with the union payoff, what the White House really does is broaden the same to all states, with all new Medicaid spending through 2017 and 90% after 2020 transferred to the federal balance sheet. Governors will love this ruse, but national taxpayers will pay more.

And more again, because the White House has adopted the House's firehose insurance subsidies. People earning up to 400% of the poverty line—or about $96,000 for a family of four in 2016—will qualify for government help, and, naturally, this new entitlement is designed to expand over time.

The Administration also claims to have discarded the House's 5.4-percentage-point surtax on joint-filers earning more than $1 million a year, but it sneaks it back in by expanding the Senate's expansion of the 2.9% Medicare payroll tax to joint income about $250,000. The White House would now apply that tax for the first time to income from "interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents," details to come.

***
The larger political message of this new proposal is that Mr. Obama and Democrats have no intention of compromising on an incremental reform, or of listening to Republican, or any other, ideas on health care. They want what they want, and they're going to play by Chicago Rules and try to dragoon it into law on a narrow partisan vote via Congressional rules that have never been used for such a major change in national policy. If you want to know why Democratic Washington is "ungovernable," this is it.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2000142 ... 04352.html

Kill the Bill. Republicans should walk away and do so now.

If they push this through, I predict it will be the fall of the federal government as we know it.

The American people will never, NEVER sit back and just suck this one up.

Anyone who thinks for one moment that there won't be hell for all of them to pay; think again!

Time to light up the congressional switchboard. Call and call again, expressing your continuing opposition to this bill. Ask your reps if they got the "Massachuesetts memo". Be clear and give them specific objections.

ReggieMay is right! Please see also:
Action Needed: SWING CONGRESSMEN ON HEALTH CARE
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-189106.html

I live in CA where Anthem Blue Cross is raising rates 33%. There is no effective regulation. In fact, it is thought that Anthem is playing fast and loose with its figures in order to come up with this increase. But no one knows for sure. Hence the rush to put regulations into place.

I have lived in Canada and in Belgium, both with a single payer system.

In both countries I could go to any doctor I wanted.
In both countires I never had to wait for an appointment. In fact, I have had to wait longer her in the US under my Blue Cross PPO coverage.
The care I received in both Canada and Belgium was equal to that I have received here.
My cost for my medical coverage in both countries was far, far less than what I am paying here.

Wake up people. The insurance industry has you bamboozled. They are making 30% profits off the fear they have instilled in you.

The result... America is way, way behind in the level of health care compared to other first world countries.

It is time Americans took control and reigned in the greedy insurance companies. Whether it is a public plan or through insurance offered nationally,

1. All Americans should be able to have top notch coverage at an affordable price.
2. preexisiting conditions should be covered.
3. there should be no discrimination against women.

NO MORE PRICE GOUGING!

Betty, we don't want socialist medicine here. We don't want more bloated government we can no longer afford. We don't want government involvement in anything since these people couldn't figure out how to operate a toilet handle.

Especially the way it is going to be forced on us and if someone won't buy the government plan or any other insurance, it can result in IRS collectors forcing it from you, and then if you are broke because you are out of work, then what? Jail time? Sorry, not my cup of tea.

If people want government vare, there are plenty of countries in thew world with it.

Betty, we don't want socialist medicine here.

Betty appears to be fond of all things progressive from what she posts.

I lucked into a job in Germany (legally) and after six hours of work I was 100 percent insured. Wonderful, as after about a month, had an appendicitis attack and was thrown in the hospital for about a week while every test was run on me. Christmas was coming and they released me for the holidays, but I never went back. Came back to US with my appendix, but who picked up the bill except the German taxpayers. I had not be employed enough to pay the taxes for my care.
We already have the same kind of care who are here illegally for humanitarian reasons, something the ERs are seeing daily for problems with earwax and hangnails.

Originally Posted by Hylander_1314

Betty, we don't want socialist medicine here. We don't want more bloated government we can no longer afford. We don't want government involvement in anything since these people couldn't figure out how to operate a toilet handle.

Especially the way it is going to be forced on us and if someone won't buy the government plan or any other insurance, it can result in IRS collectors forcing it from you, and then if you are broke because you are out of work, then what? Jail time? Sorry, not my cup of tea.

If people want government vare, there are plenty of countries in thew world with it.

I don't care how it is done.

It can be a public plan (which you are against as "socialist"). I have lived with that type of plan and it is as good as what we have now and cheaper. By the way are you against 'socialist" public education which we have, and "sociailst" military which we have, and "socialist" social security which we have?

Or health care reform can be done through real competition for the insurance industry, even though that will be more costly as profit has to be factored in. hat means open competition between insurance companies across the nation. Right now they are shielded from competition by limiting their market to states. Also, no more tax breaks for employers' medical plans/ Let everyone pay the real cost. It also means regulations to make sure that everyone can get total coverrage, and insurance companies cannot exclude whomever they want whenever they want, or exclude certain medical procedures.

I believe the proposal is if you don't buy insurance there is a fine.
But what do we have now... lose your job, no insurance.
Have pre-existing medical conditions, no insurance.
Get sick, your insurance will be cancelled.
Your doctor recommends a given treatment, the insurance company says no.
All these people without insurance ..then what happens. They get sick. They are forced to declare bankruptcy and taxpayer picks up the medical tab.

Nothing is more stupid than the system we have right now.

But if people don't like the Obama plan ( and I am not thrilled but it is better than what we have), then let's see the Repubs come up with a plan for universal coverage at an affordable price.

We have Anthem who is going to raise rates 33%.