I wasn't expecting my health insurance costs to go down.
My husband has partially employer-sponsored insurance through work (partial meaning deductions are taken from his paycheck each week to contribute towards it- long gone are the "Flex dollars" days) and the cost has risen and will still rise each year. What I now know is that with the ACA if my husband were to lose his job we could buy a plan on the exchange which would be much more affordable than if we tried to do so before the exchanges and ACA.
I also know that I cannot be refused insurance due to fact that I had asthma as a child which would be considered a "pre-existing" condition and before ACA make me ineligible for coverage in many insurance companies' eyes.
I also know that insurance companies are now required under ACA to spend a certain percentage of each premium dollar I give them on MY HEALTHCARE instead of their CEO's annual $25 million dollar salaries.
I also know that if someone's child who has had cancer diagnosed at the age of 3 cannot be booted off of insurance and refused treatment suddenly when they are 5 years old because they have reached their "cap".
Is it perfect...no. Is it better than what was there before the ACA...yes. If anyone watched the CGI conference yesterday between President Obama and former President Clinton they would have heard the story Mr. Clinton told about a Dutch insurance company in the Netherlands (sold all kinds of insurance, started as fire insurance) and Mr. Clinton asked the chairman if they sell health insurance and he said we "but we dont make any money off it AND WE SHOULDNT...healthcare is a PUBLIC GOOD and you gotta find a way to finance it for everybody.
Link to the Obama and Clinton discussing it at CGI conference if anyone interested.
"but we dont make any money off it AND WE SHOULDNT...healthcare is a PUBLIC GOOD and you gotta find a way to finance it for everybody.
And therein lies the problem, there is too much money at stake and the powerful insurance companies aren't going to let that gravy train end. As a nation, we spend 18% of our GDP on healthcare. 1 out of every 5 dollars spent in the US is spent on healthcare.
I fully expect my healthcare costs to go down by $2500 to $3000 annually...Obama said they would. If I like my plan, I can keep it...Obama said so. If I like my doctor, I don't have to worry about switching...Obama said so. Employers are not going to have to cut back hours, drop spousal or family coverage, lay off workers, or hold back on hiring. The deficit will actually go down because of the ACA. There will be no need for waivers since everyone will be treated equally. We will benefit from the same coverage our elected officials have.
ALL of the above was purported by this administration...NONE of it proved true. They passed it to see what was in it, now we know what's in it (for the most part...there are still surprises popping up), and now we all reap the rewards.
All these stories about pre-existing conditions and being booted off for maxing out payouts all sound good and would be wonderful to have BUT please don't try to sell them alongside cost reductions. It is logically impossible. How long would an auto insurance company be able to stay in business if they were required to allow you to tow your uninsured, wrecked car to the agency and then buy a discount policy to fix it? How long would a homeowners insurance company meet it's bottom line if it were required to keep you on after multiple major claims where $500 annual premiums were expected to offset $300,000 in claims?
LOGIC, it doesn't fit to purport Chevy prices for Cadillac products.
All the ACA has done is take the 85% of Americans that were insured, raised their premiums, or forces them into lessor plans inorder to cover the 15% who had no insurance.
The 'Insurance Companies' Never controlled the cost in the first place, that was the greatest lie ever told about this, It made good rhetoric but it was NEVER factual.
The cost of health care and the cost of insurance was ALWAYS controlled my MEDICAID because the government only pays 55% of the actual cost. That is why many Doctors simply stopped accepting it. That is why you pay $9-$18 per aspirin in a hospital. The cost for those who couldn't pay was always made up for by the those who could. That is NOT an OPINION, that is a FACT.
It was Government involvement that actually created the Health Insurance Monster in the US in the first place. Healthcare support for the poor should be a STATE and LOCAL issue, not one of the Federal government.
Please do not forget the fact that this plan has forced numerous companies to cut the hours of their workforce to afford the cost of insuring them and the other corporations who cut hours just so they could save on cost and NOT even offer it!
Yes Mr. Jackson I agree that is a huge problem for those companies who are actually FORCED to do so. Feeling little sympathy on those choosing to do so just to be spiteful. I never have felt that healthcare should be tied to your employer in the first place..gave too much leverage to employers to lord over their employees. How many times have you heard people say "I hate my job and would love to leave, except I cant because I need the insurance".
Right now the employer mandate is being delayed. Imagine if in the meantime we could have both parties in Washington put their heads together and come up with a solution for the good of the people instead of the good of their party. Instead we have Mr. Cruz and his theatrics of reading Green Eggs and Ham (which ironically enough the moral of the story is dont knock it before you try it).
I feel it is still too early in the game to know how this bill will change the medical picture. The 1800 pages of rules and regulations that this bill contained, will hold additional surprises for everybody and change the face of business in the U.S. Closer to home, I just received my annual package from my insurer for 2014. It contain increases in co-payments and a whopping 80% increase in out of pocket monthly premiums. I expect this will continue in the following years.
"Feeling little sympathy on those choosing to do so just to be spiteful."
PLEASE SHOW ME ONE COMPANY THAT YOU HAVE DEFINIATIVE PROOF IS DOING IT TO BE SPITEFUL?
Do you mean 'The Cleveland Clinic' which the President Touted that has to cut $386 Million from it's budget potentially laying off some 30,000 largely due to the ACA?
Do you mean Home Depot?
Do you mean CVS?
Which one is doing it to be spiteful and what sane business would make a change like that (reducing fulltime staff) out of spite?
ACA tries to lower prices of providing medical care by making the provision of health care insurance mandatory by employers, while pretending that such a thing does not significantly increase the cost of having employees. That is why they exempted employers having less than 50 employees, it would have bankrupted 90% of small businesses.
The famously incompetent news organs, and institutions claiming to educate, fail to point out to you that your employer does not "give" you health insurance. Your employer does not "share" costs with you. You are paying all the costs of your medical insurance and for every single other "benefit" you receive.
Your employer pays you for your services and how that is divvied up by payment mechanism is immaterial. Some of it you get in cash, some is directly transfered to the governments in your name, some of it goes to the company or union handling your "pension" and some of it goes to your insurance provider in your name.
The availability of care is going to come down because services cannot be provided at the rate that insurance will be able to pay in a restrictive scheme. Either insurance costs "will necessarily skyrocket" or you will just have to wait six months or a year for the test or treatment, like they do in all the other "civilized" countries.
If the Democrats actually wanted to simply make health insurance available for all, they would have expanded medicaid and medicare to provide for the uninsured. Added a tax here and a surcharge there and covered the gap. They did not want to do that, because they don't actually care about the uninsured.
You, the individual Democrat may, but your leadership does not, just as they really could care less about the murder rate in any of their urban possessions. Don't bother to argue, the facts are on my side.
The goal of the progressive movement is total government control of everything in order to better both man and society. From what you eat to what you are allowed to think or believe. All of it.
And they are the only ones who are worthy of the challenge and the awesome responsibility it requires. That their predecessors, from Stalin to Hitler to Mao to Castro to Kim to Chavez all failed is only definitive proof of how much better suited and more enlightened our current crop of progressives are than those who preceded them.
B: If anyone who helps make policy really cared about health coverage, they would remove damn near every regulation on insurance providers. Make a very short list of federal rules for insurers and let the open market work. Instead we have separate rules for each state on top of onerous federal regulation so that there is very very little inter-state insurance trade and then only the connected, crony-capitalist corrupt big insurance corporations can do it. Competition and the free market will bring prices down and create opportunity for companies to specialize in low-cost or covering those the mainstream insurers won't. Medical and hospital groups will find ways to direct charge patients through co-ops etc
I believe in the innovation and creativity of the American businessman/woman to find a way to market a product where a need exists. There were always be those whom we, the government will need to provide coverage for, that's OK because that number will be greatly less than it is now and the system will by default become far more efficient.
Unfortunately I lack the ability to read someone's mind and see what is in their heart so
I HAVE NO DEFINITIVE PROOF THAT SOME COMPANY IS DOING THIS TO BE SPITEFUL.
Well other than Utah Forensics...but one can surmise that a certain man who literally lives in a castle and threw a fundraiser for President Obama's most recent opponent who ran on repealing "Obamacare" (and LOST I might add) threatens his customers with a dime-increase in price per pizza and put a dent in his ability to add to his $600 million dollar fortune when he is forced to treat his employees humanely (well the one-third of his employees that are actually offered a health plan anyway) that there just might be a teeny little bit of spite involved. Of course it is a free country built on that high standard of morality known as capitalism and he doesnt have to give his franchise owners a break and eat that cost, if not out of compassion it would at least be good PR instead of the backlash he received....but hey my opinion is not the one he has to be worried about, he will be judged in some way, shape and form by some sort of higher authority eventually.
CVS has a problem with the ACA? Well that is odd seeing they are helping promote it by having navigators in their store.
Home Depot is shifting their part-time employees to the health care exchanges, which in some cases might be a blessing as chances are depending what state they live in they could get better coverage for less than home depot was giving them....
"Once the new health law has been in place for a few months, however, Part-Time America may issue a collective sigh of relief. Nobody ever held up today’s part-time "mini-med" plans as model coverage. The majority of part-time workers don’t even get health insurance, and those who do typically get diluted plans with limited benefits they still have to pay something for. “You have to question whether that’s really insurance,” says Paul Fronstin, director of the health research program at the Employee Benefits Research institute. “They may not cover prescription drugs, and if you get cancer or end up in the hospital, they probably won’t help you a whole lot.”"
Here is what I dont get. Why arent the Republicans just letting "Obamacare" roll out and take effect? If it is going to be the all-out catastrophe they claim why not just let the pieces fall where they may and THEN run on repealing it? It would seem to me they could get back all 3 branches if that were to happen. There are 2 reasons why that could be 1. They are worried about the citizens of this country and their well-being (hmm throwing people off food stamps when unemployment is so high would tend to make me question that motive). 2. They are TERRIFIED it might actually improve things?
Like I said I think it is ridiculous that someones health is literally put in the hands of their employers anyways. I would hope that before business do fire or cut hours of their employees because of ACA look into every avenue of tax credits, etc., to see if it could be avoided first and hopefully with the delay fixes can be found.
1. Health Insurance through your employer IS NOT a benefit, it is part of a compensation package. On two occasions in my life I negotiated a higher wage because my health insurance needs were satisfied through my wife's insurance. I am no prime negotiator, but it was my right to ask and I did and I was compensated a higher wage equal to the companies contribution to health care in both instances.
2. As far as home depot moving employees to exchanges, one could say it is debatable if moving them to plans that offer less coverage is indeed a good thing. It may be more cost efficient for the business, but not necessarily a win for the employee
3. In your article, the information is quite contradictory, and the main hit on the ACA again shows it's uglier side.(Which has been the problem with escalating health care cost in the first place) Reimbursement will be less, that does not mean cost will be less, It still cost the same to pay a nurse or a technician, it still cost the same to do an x-ray, The re-imbursements being reduced simply mean that something has to be eliminated in the providing hospital, That in most cases will me employees, that is just a hard fact of life, labor is the easiest thing to cut. The smaller community hospitals face a even larger challenge, they have already been operating at reduced staff levels due to Medicaid, so some of them inevitably will close. That is a reality, no matter how anyone wants to paint it, the numbers just don't support anything else.
You say that you feel at the mercy of your employer decided what insurance, what is amazing is that you are willing to trade that choice to what the Government says is available. That is not choice by any means. It will cost more for the exchange in Ithaca then it will in NYC, It will cost more in less populated states than it will in the more urban states, even the Government says that. Since the cost drivers of actual healthcare remain untouched, the cost to many actually increases, but not in the form of increased insurance, rather in the form of steadily increasing taxes and yes more limits on available services. It's economics 101,
And just a reminder, the ACA mandate was NOT found constitutional as a mandate, rather it was found constitutional as a TAX. It was presented to us as not being a tax yet before the supreme court, the administration argued that it was a tax. While you might in the short term benefit, just like Medicare, just like Medicaid within a decade the true cost will become apparent, and that TAX will increase markedly. Of course that never mattered much to the more liberal among us because they will eventually blame that on corporate greed, or something similar.
1. Thats awesome for you. In this day and age of "just be glad you got a job" I would hope that would still be the case for people who ask and receive a higher wage.
2. It is only debatable until the people who work at home depot actually get into the exchanges and find out whether they actually receive better plans for less than they did through Home Depot.
This is in a country where the national average is around $45,000. It really is a shame that instead of scaling back on non-profit executives pay is untouchable but the amount of care that hospital gives to the patients is the sacrifice. Says a lot about priorities doesnt it.
4. I dont care what the mandate is classified as. If some person decides they dont want to buy insurance and then suddenly has a heart attack they are not refused care (which is as it should be), but why should people who do the responsible thing and purchase insurance pay for his care? The mandate and its penalty makes sure that you either are responsible enough to have insurance or you pay a penalty so as to contribute something to receiving the care which by law you are allowed to receive.
Worrying about what a CEO makes is class envy, it is not sound policy.
If support of the ACA in anyway is based on CEO salaries, then it is bad policy in itself. Frankly I do not care what a CEO of any company makes if it is a private enterprise. Who are you or anyone else besides the stockholders or boards of an entity to demand, criticize or even question that salary or any other unless it is paid by tax dollars?
The government telling me or anyone that they have to buy insurance is patently wrong, patently un American. It may be constitutional as a tax, but it is still the Government telling me to do it, and that is against every principle that this nation is founded on.
We spend way too much time in our current society worrying about what others earn, what others do and what others have more than we do rather than looking at what we can do to better ourselves.
Anytime someone uses the CEO pay argument, the it's businesses fault argument or the 'FAIRNESS' argument no matter how well intentioned, frankly it frightens me. It frightens me because bettering one's self has taken a back seat to people that strive for complacency rather achievement. Bettering one's self should NEVER be predicated by envy, we have lost emulation of success to a give it to me because it is there society.
Government mandating health care is a total violation of constitutional rights, which is why the administration switched to calling it a tax. Health care will never be fully accessible while it is tied to employers subsidizing it. That's just common sense if you put aside the politics and actually think about it. It must become an individual owned service with as many choices as can be. The damn government messing with private health care has created this problem and instead of having the presence of mind to admit the system is the fault of politicians and bureaucrats, the President and his cronys want to make it worse and further enrich insurance companies.
Everytime, Everytime government mandates something, those with the wherewithal to hire fancy lawyers (the rich) will do so and figure out loopholes. So then the law has to be amended to close said loophole and the cycle starts all over again. That damned constitution and those crazy founders set up a government where people can petition to redress perceived wrongs. Hard for authoritative big government thugs to make everyone comply. That is why mandates don;t work so well and why we have thousands and thousands of laws and regulations. It's called the Collapse of Complex Civilizations and it is certain unless we change our socialist ways.
I posted my opinion on the poll question and I have no desire to have a pissing match with a neighbor about how envious I must certainly be that some guy with a multimillion dollar salary is cutting the number of nurses or x-ray technician a hospital has (thus affecting patient care) in order to "keep the company viable".
As long as there is a law that hospitals cannot turn away a patient regardless of ability to pay there has to be SOME WAY to pay for it.
Now excuse me while I go peruse the Tiffanys Website and dream about the jewelry that I dont have that I just know that CEO's wife is getting or watch out my window for the hopes that some CEO drives down the road in his BMW so I can curse at him, you know thats what all us liberals with class envy spend our day doing while waiting for our welfare checks.........
Debbie, I give you a ton of credit for sticking to your convictions on not only the merits of the ACA but the credibility of those pushing it. Why you are alone is beyond me, there used to be a long line of posters on here who would defend Obama and his policies with animated and impassioned arguments. Apparently they all moved away because their silence is deafening. I personally think the ACA is a big fat crap sandwich that we will all be forced to gag on for some time.
Jeff; did you forget? it's because you guys are all mean and pick on everyone who doesn't agree with you. You are all standing around the snow cone booth eating cherry and deriding anyone who orders grape...
I wasn't expecting my health
I wasn't expecting my health insurance costs to go down.
My husband has partially employer-sponsored insurance through work (partial meaning deductions are taken from his paycheck each week to contribute towards it- long gone are the "Flex dollars" days) and the cost has risen and will still rise each year. What I now know is that with the ACA if my husband were to lose his job we could buy a plan on the exchange which would be much more affordable than if we tried to do so before the exchanges and ACA.
I also know that I cannot be refused insurance due to fact that I had asthma as a child which would be considered a "pre-existing" condition and before ACA make me ineligible for coverage in many insurance companies' eyes.
I also know that insurance companies are now required under ACA to spend a certain percentage of each premium dollar I give them on MY HEALTHCARE instead of their CEO's annual $25 million dollar salaries.
I also know that if someone's child who has had cancer diagnosed at the age of 3 cannot be booted off of insurance and refused treatment suddenly when they are 5 years old because they have reached their "cap".
Is it perfect...no. Is it better than what was there before the ACA...yes. If anyone watched the CGI conference yesterday between President Obama and former President Clinton they would have heard the story Mr. Clinton told about a Dutch insurance company in the Netherlands (sold all kinds of insurance, started as fire insurance) and Mr. Clinton asked the chairman if they sell health insurance and he said we "but we dont make any money off it AND WE SHOULDNT...healthcare is a PUBLIC GOOD and you gotta find a way to finance it for everybody.
Link to the Obama and Clinton discussing it at CGI conference if anyone interested.
http://new.livestream.com/CGI/CGI2013/videos/30762303
"but we dont make any money
"but we dont make any money off it AND WE SHOULDNT...healthcare is a PUBLIC GOOD and you gotta find a way to finance it for everybody.
And therein lies the problem, there is too much money at stake and the powerful insurance companies aren't going to let that gravy train end. As a nation, we spend 18% of our GDP on healthcare. 1 out of every 5 dollars spent in the US is spent on healthcare.
Had to remove my statements
Had to remove my statements
I fully expect my healthcare
I fully expect my healthcare costs to go down by $2500 to $3000 annually...Obama said they would. If I like my plan, I can keep it...Obama said so. If I like my doctor, I don't have to worry about switching...Obama said so. Employers are not going to have to cut back hours, drop spousal or family coverage, lay off workers, or hold back on hiring. The deficit will actually go down because of the ACA. There will be no need for waivers since everyone will be treated equally. We will benefit from the same coverage our elected officials have.
ALL of the above was purported by this administration...NONE of it proved true. They passed it to see what was in it, now we know what's in it (for the most part...there are still surprises popping up), and now we all reap the rewards.
All these stories about pre-existing conditions and being booted off for maxing out payouts all sound good and would be wonderful to have BUT please don't try to sell them alongside cost reductions. It is logically impossible. How long would an auto insurance company be able to stay in business if they were required to allow you to tow your uninsured, wrecked car to the agency and then buy a discount policy to fix it? How long would a homeowners insurance company meet it's bottom line if it were required to keep you on after multiple major claims where $500 annual premiums were expected to offset $300,000 in claims?
LOGIC, it doesn't fit to purport Chevy prices for Cadillac products.
All the ACA has done is take
All the ACA has done is take the 85% of Americans that were insured, raised their premiums, or forces them into lessor plans inorder to cover the 15% who had no insurance.
The 'Insurance Companies' Never controlled the cost in the first place, that was the greatest lie ever told about this, It made good rhetoric but it was NEVER factual.
The cost of health care and the cost of insurance was ALWAYS controlled my MEDICAID because the government only pays 55% of the actual cost. That is why many Doctors simply stopped accepting it. That is why you pay $9-$18 per aspirin in a hospital. The cost for those who couldn't pay was always made up for by the those who could. That is NOT an OPINION, that is a FACT.
It was Government involvement that actually created the Health Insurance Monster in the US in the first place. Healthcare support for the poor should be a STATE and LOCAL issue, not one of the Federal government.
why....
why....
Please do not forget the fact
Please do not forget the fact that this plan has forced numerous companies to cut the hours of their workforce to afford the cost of insuring them and the other corporations who cut hours just so they could save on cost and NOT even offer it!
Yes Mr. Jackson I agree that
Yes Mr. Jackson I agree that is a huge problem for those companies who are actually FORCED to do so. Feeling little sympathy on those choosing to do so just to be spiteful. I never have felt that healthcare should be tied to your employer in the first place..gave too much leverage to employers to lord over their employees. How many times have you heard people say "I hate my job and would love to leave, except I cant because I need the insurance".
Right now the employer mandate is being delayed. Imagine if in the meantime we could have both parties in Washington put their heads together and come up with a solution for the good of the people instead of the good of their party. Instead we have Mr. Cruz and his theatrics of reading Green Eggs and Ham (which ironically enough the moral of the story is dont knock it before you try it).
I would love to have the
I would love to have the negative voters point out where I was wrong or off base on my previous post. Facts are hard to accept sometimes.
I feel it is still too early
I feel it is still too early in the game to know how this bill will change the medical picture. The 1800 pages of rules and regulations that this bill contained, will hold additional surprises for everybody and change the face of business in the U.S. Closer to home, I just received my annual package from my insurer for 2014. It contain increases in co-payments and a whopping 80% increase in out of pocket monthly premiums. I expect this will continue in the following years.
It was an 1800 page bill, the
It was an 1800 page bill, the rules and regulations as of last month have exceeded 45,000 pages
"I feel it is still too early
"I feel it is still too early in the game to know how this bill will change the medical picture."....Unfortunately, I think it's too late
Obama care will go down in
Obama care will go down in history as one of the biggest debacles of good intentions and unintended consequences in the history of our Republic.
"Feeling little sympathy on
"Feeling little sympathy on those choosing to do so just to be spiteful."
PLEASE SHOW ME ONE COMPANY THAT YOU HAVE DEFINIATIVE PROOF IS DOING IT TO BE SPITEFUL?
Do you mean 'The Cleveland Clinic' which the President Touted that has to cut $386 Million from it's budget potentially laying off some 30,000 largely due to the ACA?
Do you mean Home Depot?
Do you mean CVS?
Which one is doing it to be spiteful and what sane business would make a change like that (reducing fulltime staff) out of spite?
You can't push a rope. ACA
You can't push a rope.
ACA tries to lower prices of providing medical care by making the provision of health care insurance mandatory by employers, while pretending that such a thing does not significantly increase the cost of having employees. That is why they exempted employers having less than 50 employees, it would have bankrupted 90% of small businesses.
The famously incompetent news organs, and institutions claiming to educate, fail to point out to you that your employer does not "give" you health insurance. Your employer does not "share" costs with you. You are paying all the costs of your medical insurance and for every single other "benefit" you receive.
Your employer pays you for your services and how that is divvied up by payment mechanism is immaterial. Some of it you get in cash, some is directly transfered to the governments in your name, some of it goes to the company or union handling your "pension" and some of it goes to your insurance provider in your name.
The availability of care is going to come down because services cannot be provided at the rate that insurance will be able to pay in a restrictive scheme. Either insurance costs "will necessarily skyrocket" or you will just have to wait six months or a year for the test or treatment, like they do in all the other "civilized" countries.
If the Democrats actually wanted to simply make health insurance available for all, they would have expanded medicaid and medicare to provide for the uninsured. Added a tax here and a surcharge there and covered the gap. They did not want to do that, because they don't actually care about the uninsured.
You, the individual Democrat may, but your leadership does not, just as they really could care less about the murder rate in any of their urban possessions. Don't bother to argue, the facts are on my side.
The goal of the progressive movement is total government control of everything in order to better both man and society. From what you eat to what you are allowed to think or believe. All of it.
And they are the only ones who are worthy of the challenge and the awesome responsibility it requires. That their predecessors, from Stalin to Hitler to Mao to Castro to Kim to Chavez all failed is only definitive proof of how much better suited and more enlightened our current crop of progressives are than those who preceded them.
Good stuff Kyle except: A.
Good stuff Kyle except:
A. what's a pension?
B: If anyone who helps make policy really cared about health coverage, they would remove damn near every regulation on insurance providers. Make a very short list of federal rules for insurers and let the open market work. Instead we have separate rules for each state on top of onerous federal regulation so that there is very very little inter-state insurance trade and then only the connected, crony-capitalist corrupt big insurance corporations can do it. Competition and the free market will bring prices down and create opportunity for companies to specialize in low-cost or covering those the mainstream insurers won't. Medical and hospital groups will find ways to direct charge patients through co-ops etc
I believe in the innovation and creativity of the American businessman/woman to find a way to market a product where a need exists. There were always be those whom we, the government will need to provide coverage for, that's OK because that number will be greatly less than it is now and the system will by default become far more efficient.
http://www.washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/09/25/how-unpo…
The Pinocchio Scale. I love it,
Mr. Brudz, Unfortunately I
Mr. Brudz,
Unfortunately I lack the ability to read someone's mind and see what is in their heart so
I HAVE NO DEFINITIVE PROOF THAT SOME COMPANY IS DOING THIS TO BE SPITEFUL.
Well other than Utah Forensics...but one can surmise that a certain man who literally lives in a castle and threw a fundraiser for President Obama's most recent opponent who ran on repealing "Obamacare" (and LOST I might add) threatens his customers with a dime-increase in price per pizza and put a dent in his ability to add to his $600 million dollar fortune when he is forced to treat his employees humanely (well the one-third of his employees that are actually offered a health plan anyway) that there just might be a teeny little bit of spite involved. Of course it is a free country built on that high standard of morality known as capitalism and he doesnt have to give his franchise owners a break and eat that cost, if not out of compassion it would at least be good PR instead of the backlash he received....but hey my opinion is not the one he has to be worried about, he will be judged in some way, shape and form by some sort of higher authority eventually.
Oh and as far as the Cleveland Clinic goes...http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/obamacare-isnt-real…
CVS has a problem with the ACA? Well that is odd seeing they are helping promote it by having navigators in their store.
Home Depot is shifting their part-time employees to the health care exchanges, which in some cases might be a blessing as chances are depending what state they live in they could get better coverage for less than home depot was giving them....
"Once the new health law has been in place for a few months, however, Part-Time America may issue a collective sigh of relief. Nobody ever held up today’s part-time "mini-med" plans as model coverage. The majority of part-time workers don’t even get health insurance, and those who do typically get diluted plans with limited benefits they still have to pay something for. “You have to question whether that’s really insurance,” says Paul Fronstin, director of the health research program at the Employee Benefits Research institute. “They may not cover prescription drugs, and if you get cancer or end up in the hospital, they probably won’t help you a whole lot.”"
Here is what I dont get. Why arent the Republicans just letting "Obamacare" roll out and take effect? If it is going to be the all-out catastrophe they claim why not just let the pieces fall where they may and THEN run on repealing it? It would seem to me they could get back all 3 branches if that were to happen. There are 2 reasons why that could be 1. They are worried about the citizens of this country and their well-being (hmm throwing people off food stamps when unemployment is so high would tend to make me question that motive). 2. They are TERRIFIED it might actually improve things?
Like I said I think it is ridiculous that someones health is literally put in the hands of their employers anyways. I would hope that before business do fire or cut hours of their employees because of ACA look into every avenue of tax credits, etc., to see if it could be avoided first and hopefully with the delay fixes can be found.
Ms Pugliese 1. Health
Ms Pugliese
1. Health Insurance through your employer IS NOT a benefit, it is part of a compensation package. On two occasions in my life I negotiated a higher wage because my health insurance needs were satisfied through my wife's insurance. I am no prime negotiator, but it was my right to ask and I did and I was compensated a higher wage equal to the companies contribution to health care in both instances.
2. As far as home depot moving employees to exchanges, one could say it is debatable if moving them to plans that offer less coverage is indeed a good thing. It may be more cost efficient for the business, but not necessarily a win for the employee
3. In your article, the information is quite contradictory, and the main hit on the ACA again shows it's uglier side.(Which has been the problem with escalating health care cost in the first place) Reimbursement will be less, that does not mean cost will be less, It still cost the same to pay a nurse or a technician, it still cost the same to do an x-ray, The re-imbursements being reduced simply mean that something has to be eliminated in the providing hospital, That in most cases will me employees, that is just a hard fact of life, labor is the easiest thing to cut. The smaller community hospitals face a even larger challenge, they have already been operating at reduced staff levels due to Medicaid, so some of them inevitably will close. That is a reality, no matter how anyone wants to paint it, the numbers just don't support anything else.
You say that you feel at the mercy of your employer decided what insurance, what is amazing is that you are willing to trade that choice to what the Government says is available. That is not choice by any means. It will cost more for the exchange in Ithaca then it will in NYC, It will cost more in less populated states than it will in the more urban states, even the Government says that. Since the cost drivers of actual healthcare remain untouched, the cost to many actually increases, but not in the form of increased insurance, rather in the form of steadily increasing taxes and yes more limits on available services. It's economics 101,
And just a reminder, the ACA mandate was NOT found constitutional as a mandate, rather it was found constitutional as a TAX. It was presented to us as not being a tax yet before the supreme court, the administration argued that it was a tax. While you might in the short term benefit, just like Medicare, just like Medicaid within a decade the true cost will become apparent, and that TAX will increase markedly. Of course that never mattered much to the more liberal among us because they will eventually blame that on corporate greed, or something similar.
Keep government local, keep solutions local .
1. Thats awesome for you. In
1. Thats awesome for you. In this day and age of "just be glad you got a job" I would hope that would still be the case for people who ask and receive a higher wage.
2. It is only debatable until the people who work at home depot actually get into the exchanges and find out whether they actually receive better plans for less than they did through Home Depot.
3. http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/compensation-issues/hospital-ceos-…
This is in a country where the national average is around $45,000. It really is a shame that instead of scaling back on non-profit executives pay is untouchable but the amount of care that hospital gives to the patients is the sacrifice. Says a lot about priorities doesnt it.
4. I dont care what the mandate is classified as. If some person decides they dont want to buy insurance and then suddenly has a heart attack they are not refused care (which is as it should be), but why should people who do the responsible thing and purchase insurance pay for his care? The mandate and its penalty makes sure that you either are responsible enough to have insurance or you pay a penalty so as to contribute something to receiving the care which by law you are allowed to receive.
Worrying about what a CEO
Worrying about what a CEO makes is class envy, it is not sound policy.
If support of the ACA in anyway is based on CEO salaries, then it is bad policy in itself. Frankly I do not care what a CEO of any company makes if it is a private enterprise. Who are you or anyone else besides the stockholders or boards of an entity to demand, criticize or even question that salary or any other unless it is paid by tax dollars?
The government telling me or anyone that they have to buy insurance is patently wrong, patently un American. It may be constitutional as a tax, but it is still the Government telling me to do it, and that is against every principle that this nation is founded on.
We spend way too much time in our current society worrying about what others earn, what others do and what others have more than we do rather than looking at what we can do to better ourselves.
Anytime someone uses the CEO pay argument, the it's businesses fault argument or the 'FAIRNESS' argument no matter how well intentioned, frankly it frightens me. It frightens me because bettering one's self has taken a back seat to people that strive for complacency rather achievement. Bettering one's self should NEVER be predicated by envy, we have lost emulation of success to a give it to me because it is there society.
Government mandating health
Government mandating health care is a total violation of constitutional rights, which is why the administration switched to calling it a tax. Health care will never be fully accessible while it is tied to employers subsidizing it. That's just common sense if you put aside the politics and actually think about it. It must become an individual owned service with as many choices as can be. The damn government messing with private health care has created this problem and instead of having the presence of mind to admit the system is the fault of politicians and bureaucrats, the President and his cronys want to make it worse and further enrich insurance companies.
Don't take my word for it, take Michael Tanner's. He's actually smart
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/5-ways-solve-health-care
Everytime, Everytime
Everytime, Everytime government mandates something, those with the wherewithal to hire fancy lawyers (the rich) will do so and figure out loopholes. So then the law has to be amended to close said loophole and the cycle starts all over again. That damned constitution and those crazy founders set up a government where people can petition to redress perceived wrongs. Hard for authoritative big government thugs to make everyone comply. That is why mandates don;t work so well and why we have thousands and thousands of laws and regulations. It's called the Collapse of Complex Civilizations and it is certain unless we change our socialist ways.
Whatever Mr. Brudz, I posted
Whatever Mr. Brudz,
I posted my opinion on the poll question and I have no desire to have a pissing match with a neighbor about how envious I must certainly be that some guy with a multimillion dollar salary is cutting the number of nurses or x-ray technician a hospital has (thus affecting patient care) in order to "keep the company viable".
As long as there is a law that hospitals cannot turn away a patient regardless of ability to pay there has to be SOME WAY to pay for it.
Now excuse me while I go peruse the Tiffanys Website and dream about the jewelry that I dont have that I just know that CEO's wife is getting or watch out my window for the hopes that some CEO drives down the road in his BMW so I can curse at him, you know thats what all us liberals with class envy spend our day doing while waiting for our welfare checks.........
Debbie, I give you a ton of
Debbie, I give you a ton of credit for sticking to your convictions on not only the merits of the ACA but the credibility of those pushing it. Why you are alone is beyond me, there used to be a long line of posters on here who would defend Obama and his policies with animated and impassioned arguments. Apparently they all moved away because their silence is deafening. I personally think the ACA is a big fat crap sandwich that we will all be forced to gag on for some time.
Dave, the surest way to get
Dave, the surest way to get an American to do something is for government to tell him he can't. The corollary is also true.
Jeff; did you forget? it's
Jeff; did you forget? it's because you guys are all mean and pick on everyone who doesn't agree with you. You are all standing around the snow cone booth eating cherry and deriding anyone who orders grape...