by Scott77 44 Replies latest social current
> Oh, and by the way, premium rates have gone up.
Please tell me a year when premiums did NOT go up. Also, under the Healthcare Reform, Insurance companies are forbidden to raise rates more than 10% per year.
In recent years, it was not unusual for primiums to go up 30% to 60%. This will no longer happen with the Healthcare Reform.
http://schakowsky.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2690&Itemid=16
It goes back to what I said about Health Insurance Reform vs. Healthcare Reform
Look, if inflation goes up 10% and the cost of healthcare goes up 10%, that's a 20% increase in costs. But insurance companies are forbidden to raise rates more than 10%.
Why doesnt the government mandate the cost of inflation or the cost of healthcare? Nope, they just mandate what insurance companies can do.
The general public likes the sound of it because the general public thinks insurance companies have unlimited funds and they are evil.
It's health insurance reform, plain and simple.
Well let's figure this up- Blue Cross just sent notice that they will raise my monthly Health Care Premium 59%. Currently $1800.00 per month + $1062.00 (59%) = $2862.00. Now my wife's primary Physician no longer accepts Insurance so the cost is $450.00 per visit X 2 visits per month = $3762.00 plus medication = $890.00 per month = $4652.00 per month.
Anybody want to argue why we need Health Cost Reform.
:It's health insurance reform, plain and simple.
Right. But it's not about health insurance providers reforming themselves per se. It's about the government (Federal and State) reforming itself. I've said a number of times that the biggest reform in health insurance would come when the government:
1) Passes tort reform laws to prevent outrageous payouts to medical lawsuits. I'm not talking about fair and just payouts, but outrageous ones and frivolous ones. If a lawsuit is judged to be frivolous, then the plaintiff should be required to pay ALL court costs. This would also eliminate countless not-needed testing and procedures which is now done to protect hospitals and doctors from outrageous lawsuits coming from left field.
2) Remove the restrictions which makes it impossible for some insurance companies to open offices in States where they would be able to offer better plans with lower costs, thus driving the rates down from the insurers who now have the monopolies in those states.
Farkel
This is an advance on George Will's Sunday article. If true, things will be interesting indeed. Looks like a bunch of Democrats are going to vote with Republicans on repeal. Plus, the new Congress is going to put the kibosh on the FCC's arrogant power grab--BTS
WASHINGTON -- Consensus is scarce but almost everyone agrees with this: The government is dysfunctional and the Internet is splendid. But last month, the Democratic-controlled Federal Communications Commission , on a partisan 3-2 vote, did what a federal court says it has no power to do: It decided to regulate the Internet in the name of "net neutrality." The next morning, a man who can discipline the FCC said: Well, we'll just see about that. "We are going to be a dog to the Frisbee on this issue."
Rep. Fred Upton , 57, who represents southwestern Michigan, is now chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee . He notes that last summer the Progressive Change Campaign Committee got 95 Democratic congressional candidates to pledge support for federal regulation of the Internet. In November, all 95 lost. Upton will try to stymie the FCC's impertinence by using the Congressional Review Act, under which a measure to reverse a regulation gets expedited consideration and cannot be filibustered in the Senate.
The capacious jurisdiction of Upton's committee will allow him, if he so desires, to issue the biblical command "Let there be light" by pushing repeal of the 2007 law that, in 2014, effectively bans sales of incandescent light bulbs. This law, which creates a captive market for those annoying, twisty, flickering fluorescent bulbs, is protectionism disguised as environmentalism: It is corporate welfare for U.S. bulb makers afraid of competition from imported incandescents.
But Upton has a bigger repeal in mind. He thinks enough Democrats will join all 242 House Republicans in voting to repeal Obamacare, and that repeal will come within 25 or so votes of the 290 necessary to override a presidential veto. This will intensify pressure on other Democratic members -- imagine their town hall meetings -- who could provide the veto-proof margin.
Upton thinks opposition to Obamacare is intensifying as people realize the reality behind Barack Obama 's slippery promise that if you like your present health care plan, you can keep it. The new law will not directly take it away, but its requirement that businesses either provide expensive government-approved insurance or pay a fine is (BEG ITAL)designed(END ITAL) to prompt businesses to drop their insurance, pay the fine and dump employees into Medicaid. Upton favors deregulating Medicaid by giving governors block grants and latitude: "Cut the strings and let the states figure it out."
He majored in journalism at the University of Michigan and was a sports editor of the student newspaper, thinking he might eventually cover the Chicago Cubs . He avoided that misery by coming to Washington in 1977 to work for the freshman congressman from his district, David Stockman , who in 1981 took Upton with him to the White House when he became President Reagan's budget director.
Upton was elected in 1986 and has begun his 13th term. His state has more than its share of problems: The automobile industry is a shadow of its former self, the unemployment rate is 12.4 percent, 68 municipalities are on the state's fiscal watch list (38 are rated worse than Hamtramck, which is seeking permission to file for bankruptcy), the 2010 Census will cost the state a House seat, and, worst of all, Michigan has lost seven consecutive football games to Ohio State.
Michigan's power is waxing in Washington, with Upton's boon companion Dave Camp , chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee . They are part of a Midwestern ascendancy in the House, which also includes Ohio's John Boehner (speaker), Michigan's Mike Rogers (chairman of the Intelligence Committee ), Wisconsin's Paul Ryan (chairman of Budget), Minnesota's John Kline (chairman of Education and Labor), and Missouri's Sam Graves (chairman of Small Business).
The Midwest has much to lose from Obama's agenda, particularly his animus against coal, which generates 60 percent of the region's electricity -- 90 percent in Ohio and Indiana. Officials of a steel tank manufacturer in Niles, Mich., recently told Upton that cap-and-trade carbon regulation would have meant an instant 20 percent increase in electricity costs, which would have forced the company to operate only at night in order to take advantage of off-peak rates.
Such mundane matters may be intensely boring to Obama administration officials, to whom the private sector is as foreign as Mongolia. But the next presidential election probably will be won in the Midwest. Soon House Republicans from there will begin conducting a two-year tutorial on the reasons the region should continue to recoil from this administration.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/article/Advance-for-Sunday-Jan-9-2011-and-941266.php
Is the U.S. still a democracy?
60% of Americans are against this healthcare law...isn't that enough to influence Congress over what to do?
Is the U.S. still a democracy?
No, not by any definition of the word. However, HC reform stands at 50-50.
In the Senate, there are a bunch of Democrats up for re-election in 2012 and have to vote carefully. 2006 was a huge D wave, but Tester won in MT only by the skin of his teeth. He is vulnerable and might vote the other way. One of the new ones that is a replacement and will be up is Manchin of WV, who explicitly campaigned on repealing Obamacare last year. Then you have Jim Webb, who I think could flip. Bunning of KY didn't vote on the original bill, it will be interesting what happens now. There are 47 R votes, all of which will go for repeal. It won't take many Democrats to reach a majority in the Senate.
BTS
I have never heard a realistic poll that said it was 50-50. People are getting more dissatisfied with this plan the more they find out about it.
Dissatisfaction with Obama health care reform was stated to be a prime reason for the Democratic defeats this past November.
Further - if anybody really thinks that this plan will save money and reduce the deficit, then they are quite simply crazy.
What the plan has done so far is trigger substantial increases in existing health insurance rates and start a wave of companies begging Obama for exemptions from the plan.
It gets better:
The bill defines a czar as "a head of any task force, council, policy office within the Executive Office of the President, or similar office established by or at the direction of the President" who is appointed to a position that would otherwise require Senate confirmation.
BTS
