Health Care Hell
Premiums Will Rise For Net Taxpayers--MORE FREELOADING FOR WELFARE RECIPIENTS WELFARE SPENDING IS SOARING This is a PDF file. The summary can be found on page on page 5, explaining what is written here.
REAL CLEAR POLITICS December 10, 2009 You WILL Lose Your Private Health Insurance By Robert Tracinski Excerpts: Before Thanksgiving, the Senate voted to opening debate on President Obama's health-care bill, and that debate has begun in earnest this week. Well, if they want a debate, let's let them have it. But let's not get distracted by the sideshows Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has planned for us. Forget about abortion. Of course the left will accept restrictions on funding for abortion, because they want to keep moderate Democrats on board for the goal they know is really important: giving the government a dominant role in health care. Everything else is just details, and funding for abortions is an issue to which the left can return at leisure later on-once government is firmly in charge of everything. Full article Robert Tracinski Real Clear Politicw Dems scramble after warning from health insurers
Oct 12, 6:17 PM (ET) By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR Excerpts:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Insurance companies aren't playing nice any more. Their dire message that health care legislation will drive up premiums for people who already have coverage comes as a warning shot at a crucial point in the debate, and threatens President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. Democrats and their allies scrambled on Monday to knock down a new industry-funded study forecasting that Senate legislation, over time, will add thousands of dollars to the cost of a typical policy. "Distorted and flawed," said White House spokeswoman Linda Douglass. "Fundamentally dishonest," said AARP's senior policy strategist, John Rother. "A hatchet job," said a spokesman for Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. But the health insurance industry's top lobbyist in Washington stood her ground. In a call with reporters, Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, pointedly refused to rule out attack ads on TV featuring the study, though she said she believed the industry's concerns could be amicably addressed. Full article Ricardo Alonso Zaldivar MyWayCom
From the HERITAGE FOUNDATION
For example, someone who earns $15,080 per year before taxes by working 40 hours per week at the minimum wage could be required to pay $1,960 for a generous individual health plan or even more for a family plan. A minimum-wage worker could be required to pay almost 20 percent of his or her income in payroll taxes and mandatory health insurance. Full article Read of the Many Horrors in the Baucus Health Care Bill
This Sham Health Care Bill Accomplishes Nothing Most Americans Want
The Voters' Option By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Health Care: With opposition growing to their planned takeover of U.S. health care, Democrats have an idea: They'll go it alone without GOP votes. Looks like they'll have to go it alone without the American people, too.
Posted Wednesday, August 19, 2009 4:20 PM PT Excerpts:
Sure, the Democrats could pass a health care bill. They have the votes to do whatever they want. Well, good luck with that. As we all have seen from constituents shouting down their quaking representatives, the public is up in arms about the "reforms" proposed. Democrats would be wise to think twice about trying to ram them down the public's throat. One new poll shows that Americans, by an overwhelming 59% to 36%, agree Congress shouldn't pass a health care bill with just Democratic support. And a Pew Poll shows that, for the first time in the Obama era, fewer than half of all Americans have a favorable view of the Democrats. If Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Henry Waxman and the wonks in the White House think they'll get a free political pass on this, they're in for a big surprise.
USA TODAY August 19, 2009 AARP loses members over health care stance Excerpts:
WASHINGTON (AP) — About 60,000 senior citizens have quit AARP since July 1 due to the group's support for a health care overhaul, a spokesman for the organization said Monday. The membership loss suggests dissatisfaction on the part of AARP members at a time when many senior citizens are concerned about proposed cuts to Medicare providers to help pay for making health care available for all. But spokesman Drew Nannis said it wasn't unusual for the powerful, 40 million-strong senior citizens' lobby to shed members in droves when it's advocating on a controversial issue. AARP is strongly backing a health care overhaul, running ads to support it and hosting President Obama at an online forum recently to promote his agenda to AARP members. However, the group has not endorsed a specific bill and says it won't support a plan that reduces Medicare benefits. Full article USA Today
WASHINGTON TIMES PRUDEN: Finding no buyers for snake oil By Wesley Pruden (Contact) | Tuesday, August 18, 2009
ANALYSIS/OPINION: Excerpts: Master politician that he is, Barack Obama is a lousy calculator. He spectacularly misjudged the American public's appetite for a government nanny. Or maybe he miscalculated the power of his slippery tongue to sell government snake oil. His apparent willingness to abandon the attempt - for now - to nationalize the health-care industry appears to defer the Democratic first step in remaking the home of the brave and the land of the free into Little America, cutting it down to a size incapable of intimidating the likes of Switzerland or Swaziland. But only if the opposition keeps up unremitting pressure. The president signals a change in tactics, not objectives. His concession that the so-called "government option" is temporarily dead does not mean the dream of "postalizing" health care, of making it as responsive as the Post Office, is dead. It's merely that the tenderizing pain in certain Democratic keesters is so acute that somebody had to find a way to get a little relief. Running up a fake white flag might do it; when the opposition puts down its guns the postalizers will fire at will. Wesley Pruden Washington Times
National Review Online NRO Sunday, August 16, 2009 Obama’s Health-Care Mess Victor Davis Hanson Excerpts: Ironies abound in the health-care debate. Bush was pilloried by the Obamanians for (1) not planning for the postwar occupation of Iraq; and (2) not being able to articulate the ends and means of the administration’s war. Yet in the hubris of high ratings, Obama apparently felt that he neither had to present a comprehensive finished blueprint of health-care reform, nor that he or his associates should have to sum it up succinctly and clearly. The result is that most Americans not only do not know what the administration plan is, but sense that their president does not either. Health care is stalled and insidiously undermining the presidency of Obama precisely because the public senses he has not leveled with the American people. Of the uninsured, how many millions are young people who feel no need right now to buy insurance, how many million are illegal aliens, how many millions chose to use their optional income for things other than a low-cost catastrophic health plan, how many millions still find care outside the insurance system? Nor do most Americans feel their system is broken. They worry about redundant care, frivolous procedures, and lawsuits, but sense that all in all it can be improved rather than scrapped. They know that Americans with cancer and heart disease survive longer than anywhere else due to superior American care. And they know that longevity is influenced by factors well beyond medical care. The president just as easily could tackle the epidemic of homicides and youth violence, as well as automobile accidents, if his concern really were to ensure that Americans on average lived longer than any others. Full article Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online
REAL CLEAR POLITICS August 15, 2009 Too Many Holes in Obama's Health Plan
By Jonah Goldberg Excerpts: If I went to a Democratic town hall, I'd probably boo, too. Hence, according to various Democrats and supporters of ObamaCare, I'm paranoid and just a bit unpatriotic. Well, let me dilate on my paranoid treachery for a moment. Under the plan discussed at President Obama's infomercial-esqe town halls, America would cut costs and expand coverage while avoiding rationing. Apparently, it's paranoid to think that's too good to be true. Imagine you're in charge of bringing pie to a company picnic. You're planning to provide dessert for 100 people. Then, your boss says you need to hand out pie to 150. Fine, you say, I'll make more pies. But -- oh no! -- you can't because you've also been told costs must go down. OK, then you can cut slices of the existing pies smaller so everyone can have a piece. Wait! You can't do that either because you're not allowed to ration (i.e., give less to more). Full article Jonah Goldberg Real Clear Politics
REAL CLEAR POLITICS August 14, 2009 More Health Care Nonsense By Charles Krauthammer WASHINGTON -- In the 48 hours of June 15-16, President Obama lost the health care debate. First, a letter from the Congressional Budget Office to Sen. Edward Kennedy reported that his health committee's reform bill would add $1 trillion in debt over the next decade. Then the CBO reported that the other Senate bill, being written by the Finance Committee, would add $1.6 trillion. The central contradiction of Obamacare was fatally exposed: From his first address to Congress, Obama insisted on the dire need for restructuring the health care system because out-of-control costs were bankrupting the Treasury and wrecking the U.S. economy -- yet the Democrats' plans would make the problem worse. Accordingly, Democrats have trotted out various tax proposals to close the gap. Obama's idea of limits on charitable and mortgage-interest deductions went nowhere. As did the House's income tax surcharge on millionaires. And Obama dare not tax employer-provided health insurance because of his campaign pledge of no middle-class tax hikes. Desperation time. What do you do? Sprinkle fairy dust on every health care plan, and present your deus ex machina: prevention. Charles Krauthammer Real Clear Politics
CREATORS.COM Obama's Hoof-in-Mouth Disease
It's hard to know why President Obama said what he said at Tuesday's health-care town hall in New Hampshire. He actually stated: "If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems." Oops. Freudian slip? Subliminally speaking, was the president inferring that private health insurers are doing just fine? Government insurance is what's in trouble today. Medicare is in the hole by about $40 trillion on a discounted present-value basis over the next 40 or 50 years. And if we're going to equate government care to government mail, according to Steve Hayes of The Weekly Standard, the U.S. Postal Service is going bankrupt with a $7 billion net loss this year. With 633,000 career employees, the Post Office won't be able to make $5.4 billion in retiree health-benefit payments. How many of these federal employees will populate the new government-backed insurance plan if it passes? Full article Larry Kudlow Creators.Com
REAL CLEAR POLITICS Obama's healthcare horror Heads should roll -- beginning with Nancy Pelosi's! By Camille Paglia
Read more: Camille Paglia, Politics, Opinion, Sarah Palin Aug. 12, 2009 Buyer's remorse? Not me. At the North American summit in Guadalajara this week, President Obama resumed the role he is best at -- representing the U.S. with dignity and authority abroad. This is why I, for one, voted for Obama and continue to support him. The damage done to U.S. prestige by the feckless, buffoonish George W. Bush will take years to repair. Obama has barely begun the crucial mission that he was elected to do. Having said that, I must confess my dismay bordering on horror at the amateurism of the White House apparatus for domestic policy. When will heads start to roll? I was glad to see the White House counsel booted, as well as Michelle Obama's chief of staff, and hope it's a harbinger of things to come. Except for that wily fox, David Axelrod, who could charm gold threads out of moonbeams, Obama seems to be surrounded by juvenile tinhorns, bumbling mediocrities and crass bully boys. Case in point: the administration's grotesque mishandling of healthcare reform, one of the most vital issues facing the nation. Ever since Hillary Clinton's megalomaniacal annihilation of our last best chance at reform in 1993 (all of which was suppressed by the mainstream media when she was running for president), Democrats have been longing for that happy day when this issue would once again be front and center.
Full article Camille Paglia Salon.com
Americans Ripping Up AARP Cards American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Backing of ObamaCare Has Infuriated Members AmericanSeniors.Org A Better Organization For Seniors Is Offering Second Year Membership Free See Details
New York Post O'S BROKEN PROMISES By BETSY MCCAUGHEY July 17, 2009 -- Excerpts: PRESIDENT Obama promises that "if you like your health plan, you can keep it," even after he reforms our health-care system. That's untrue. The bills now before Congress would force you to switch to a managed-care plan with limits on your access to specialists and tests. Two main bills are being rushed through Congress with the goal of combining them into a finished product by August. Under either, a new government bureaucracy will select health plans that it considers in your best interest, and you will have to enroll in one of these "qualified plans." If you now get your plan through work, your employer has a five-year "grace period" to switch you into a qualified plan. If you buy your own insurance, you'll have less time. And as soon as anything changes in your contract -- such as a change in copays or deductibles, which many insurers change every year -- you'll have to move into a qualified plan instead (House bill, p. 16-17). When you file your taxes, if you can't prove to the IRS that you are in a qualified plan, you'll be fined thousands of dollars -- as much as the average cost of a health plan for your family size -- and then automatically enrolled in a randomly selected plan (House bill, p. 167-168). Full article Betsy McCaughey New York Post
July 27, 2009 Two in Three Doubt Congress’ Grasp of Healthcare IssuesAmericans perceive themselves as more knowledgeable than lawmakers by Frank Newport Excerpts:
PRINCETON, NJ -- Americans view themselves as more knowledgeable than members of Congress regarding the current debate over healthcare reform. Nearly half (48%) say they personally have a good understanding of the issues involved, while only 27% say so about members of Congress. Full article GALLUP POLL
5 freedoms you'd lose in health care reform If you read the fine print in the Congressional plans, you'll find that a lot of cherished aspects of the current system would disappear.
CNNMoney.com By Shawn Tully, editor at large July 24, 2009: 10:17 AM ET Excerpts: NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In promoting his health-care agenda, President Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans -- and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform. A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Health committee, contradict the President's assurances. To be sure, it isn't easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage. If you prize choosing your own cardiologist or urologist under your company's Preferred Provider Organization plan (PPO), if your employer rewards your non-smoking, healthy lifestyle with reduced premiums, if you love the bargain Health Savings Account (HSA) that insures you just for the essentials, or if you simply take comfort in the freedom to spend your own money for a policy that covers the newest drugs and diagnostic tests -- you may be shocked to learn that you could lose all of those good things under the rules proposed in the two bills that herald a health-care revolution Full article CNNMONEY.Com
SEE CHART CHART DEMOCRAT CONGRESS TRYING TO KEEP PUBLIC FROM SEEING
NEW YORK POST
83 MILLION OF US WON'T KEEP OUR INSURANCE
By ROBERT A. BOOK & ROBERT E. MOFFIT Obama: Breaking oft-repeated promises. July 22, 2009
AT tonight's press conference, someone should ask President Obama why he's endorsing, and not threatening to veto, the 1,018-page House health-care reform bill now being rushed to passage: It breaks nearly all his core promises about health-care reform.
"If you have health insurance, then you don't have to do anything," Obama said on Oct. 15, 2008. "If you've got health insurance through your employer, you can keep your health insurance, keep your choice of doctor, keep your plan. . . And we estimate we can cut the average family's premium by about $2,500 per year." Both these solemn pledges, repeated often ever since and as recently as yesterday, are violated in the House bill. Its perverse incentives, plus the onerous regulations Congress plans to impose on employer-provided insurance, would cause more than half of those with employer-provided insurance to lose it -- 83.4 million Americans, according to The Lewin Group, a prominent, politically neutral health-care analysis firm. Full article ROBERT A. BOOK & ROBERT E. MOFFIT New York Post
WALL STREET JOURNAL JULY 17, 2009 A Reckless Congress Democrats want to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income and business in American history. Excerpts: Say this about the 1,018-page health-care bill that House Democrats unveiled this week and that President Obama heartily endorsed: It finally reveals at least some of the price of the reckless ambitions of our current government. With huge majorities and a President in a rush to outrun the declining popularity of his agenda, Democrats are bidding to impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks. Mr. Obama's February budget provided the outline, but the House bill now fills in the details. To wit, tax increases that would take U.S. rates higher even than most of Europe. Yet even those increases aren't nearly enough to finance the $1 trillion in new spending, which itself is surely a low-ball estimate. Meanwhile, the bill would create a new government health entitlement that will kill private insurance and lead to a government-run system. Hyperbole? That's what people said when we warned about this last fall in "A Liberal Supermajority," but even we underestimated the ideological willfulness of today's national Democrats. Consider only a few of the details: Full article Wall Street Journal
CQ POLITICS July 16, 2009 – 12:52 p.m. CBO Chief: Health Bills To Increase Federal Costs By David Clarke and Edward Epstein, CQ Staff Excerpts: The health care overhauls released to date would increase, not reduce, the burgeoning long-term health costs facing the government, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said Thursday. That is not a message likely to sit well with congressional Democrats or the Obama administration, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., said Thursday she thinks lawmakers can find ways to wring more costs out of the health system as they continue work on their bills.CQ Mobile - Request Free Trial The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Democrat Max Baucus of Montana, who has not yet released a bill, said his panel is acutely aware of the long-term cost concern. “Clearly our committee will do what it can,” he said. “We are very seriously concerned about that issue. We very much want to come up with a bill that bends the cost curve.” But Baucus suggested the White House is making the task difficult with opposition to one cost-cutting approach Elmendorf cited — limiting or even ending the tax exclusion for employer-provided health benefits. Full article CQ POLITICS
New York Post TERRIFYING 57% TAX LOOMS FOR BIGGEST EARNERS CHARLES HURT IN DC and DAVID SEIFMAN AND JENNIFER FERMINO
Last updated: 8:59 am July 16, 2009 Excerpts:
Congressional plans to fund a massive health-care overhaul could have a job-killing effect on New York, creating a tax rate of nearly 60 percent for the state's top earners and possibly pressuring small-business owners to shed workers. New York's top income bracket could reach as high as 57 percent -- rates not seen in three decades -- to pay for the massive health coverage proposed by House Democrats this week. The top rate in New York City, home to many of the state's wealthiest people, would be 58.68 percent, the Washington-based Tax Foundation said in a report yesterday. Full article CHARLES HURT IN DC and DAVID SEIFMAN AND JENNIFER FERMINO New York Post
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2009 4:20 PM PT A Right That's Wrong
Reform: Of the many objectionable provisions in the House's latest medical insurance bill, none is as destructive or morally offensive as the one that declares health care to be a "right." IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure Excerpts: A "right," as we all know, has one key characteristic: It can't be taken away. Ever. That's exactly what the new Democrat-sponsored bill would ensure. As the Associated Press put it, the legislation would "for the first time make health care a right and a responsibility for all Americans." That second word — "responsibility" — is also key. The government will force you to take part in its plan, whether you want to or not. As it turns out, "responsibility" is code for "tax hikes" and "compulsory participation." The House plan calls for a 5.4% surcharge on those earning $1 million or more. But the tax will also reach down to families with incomes of $280,000. "Small businesses" will be excluded, we hear, but only those with payrolls under $400,000. Those with more will have to cover their workers or face a "fee" — another tax — equal to 8% of workers' wages.
Health Care Hell CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE Douglas W. Elmendorf, Director U.S. Congress Washington, DC 20515 July 14, 2009 Honorable Charles B. Rangel Chairman Committee on Ways and Means U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Dear Mr. Chairman: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee onTaxation (JCT) have completed a preliminary analysis of the specificationsrelated to health insurance coverage that are reflected in draft legislation calledAmerica’s Affordable Health Choices Act, which was released by the House tricommitteemajority group on July 14, 2009.
Health Care Hell 1 Among other things, thosespecifications would establish a mandate for most legal residents to obtaininsurance, significantly expand eligibility for Medicaid, and set up insurance“exchanges” through which certain individuals and families could receive federalsubsidies to substantially reduce the cost of purchasing that coverage. Theanalysis presented here does not take into account other parts of the proposal thatwould raise taxes or reduce other spending (particularly in the Medicare program)in an effort to offset the federal costs of implementing those coveragespecifications. Health Care Hell
The attached tables summarize our preliminary assessment of the coveragespecifications’ budgetary effects and their likely impact on rates and sources ofinsurance coverage for the nonelderly population. According to that assessment,enacting legislation that embodied those specifications would result in a netincrease in federal budget deficits of $1,042 billion over the 2010–2019 period. Health Care Hell By 2019, CBO and the JCT staff estimate, the number of nonelderly peoplewithout health insurance would be reduced by about 37 million, leaving about17 million nonelderly residents uninsured (nearly half of whom would beunauthorized immigrants). It is important to note, however, that those estimatesare based on specifications provided by the tri-committee group rather than ananalysis of the language released today. For that reason and others outlined below,those figures do not represent a formal or complete cost estimate for the coverageprovisions of the draft legislation. 1 The House tri-committee group consists of the Committee on Ways and Means, the Committeeon Energy and Commerce, and the Committee on Education and Labor. Health Care Hell Honorable Charles B. Rangel Page 2 Key Specifications Related to Health Insurance Coverage The specifications provided by the tri-committee group would take several stepsto increase the number of legal U.S. residents who have health insurance. Startingin 2013, nonelderly people with income below 133 percent of the federal povertylevel (FPL) who were not already eligible for Medicaid would be made eligiblefor that program, and the federal government would pay all of the costs ofcovering people who became newly eligible. (States would also be required tomaintain their current eligibility levels for Medicaid indefinitely.) Health Care Hell In addition, thefederal government would establish insurance exchanges throughout the countryand, more importantly, would subsidize the purchase of health insurance throughthose exchanges for individuals and families with income between 133 percentand 400 percent of the federal poverty level, also starting in 2013. In that year, theproposal would also establish a requirement for legal residents to obtain insuranceand would impose a financial penalty on most people who did not do so (the sizeof which would generally vary with their income).The proposal would also impose a “play-or-pay” requirement on employers, whowould either have to offer qualifying insurance to their employees and contributea substantial share toward the premiums, or pay a fee to the federal governmentthat would generally equal 8 percent of their payroll. Small employers (those withan annual payroll of less than $250,000) would be exempt from thoserequirements. Health Care Hell As a rule, full-time employees with a qualifying offer of coveragefrom their employer would not be eligible to obtain subsidies via the exchanges,but an exception to that “firewall” would be allowed for workers who had to paymore than 11 percent of their income for their employer’s insurance. In that case,the employers would have to pay an amount equal to the per-worker fee due forfirms subject to the “play-or-pay” penalty. Firms with relatively few employeesand relatively low average wages would also be eligible for tax credits to cover upto half of their contributions toward health insurance premiums.The proposal would also establish a “public plan” available only through theinsurance exchanges. That plan would be set up and run by the Secretary ofHealth and Human Services (HHS). On average, it would pay Medicare rates plus5 percent to physicians and other practitioners (and those rates would not bedetermined by the sustainable growth rate formula that is used to set rates forphysicians in Medicare but instead would be increased over time using an indexof physicians’ input costs). On average, the public plan would pay Medicare ratesfor hospital and other services and supplies on fee schedules, and negotiated ratesfor drugs or other items or services not on a fee schedule. Providers would not berequired to participate in the public plan in order to participate in Medicare. (Amore detailed summary of the proposal’s key provisions is attached.) Health Care Hell
Health Care Hell To Editorials
|
