Health Care

[xanadu]

its not the taxing of subsidies, its the fact that the gov just gave employers an incentive to cut health insurance. since it appears i have to have health insurance regardless, what do i care if a job offers insurance? but for my company? in my situation, i believe my boss pays between 6 and 10 thousand dollars per employee for insurance. under obama care, they can pay a 2000 dollar fine instead, and uncle sam will suddenly have a bigger cost than expected. we have about 50 employees, lets say insurance is 8k, thats 300k savings a year thanks to obama... if thats what they ended up doing. 300k savings for my boss, not america, thats a debit to america.

whats the fix? raise the penalty, right? well, many jobs cant afford to pay for health insurance. i dont know how much the subsidies will counter this, but even at a penalty of 2k, jobs that other wise would have existed simply wont. raise the penalty, more jobs vanish.

What makes you think that Uncle Sam is going to pay for your health insurance if your employer drops you? Perhaps you may get a subsidy to pay for part of an individual insurance plan if your income is low enough. Otherwise, you pay a fine and have no health insurance. However, the cost to you for your employer to drop his coverage is far from zero.

[b-diddy]

The bill just takes away a govt. subsidy that was ill-conceived in the first place. Your position seems to be that all government subsidies must be locked in place, regardless of how efficient those subsidies are. The revision of subsidies will always be met with claims about job losses. However, job gains can more than offset losses if subsidies are used more efficiently. Anyways, how many jobs are "destroyed" by the inefficiencies of our current health care system? No other country spends close to the amount we do for health care.

i havent been talking about the subsidy at all.

i dont see how the old system could have destroyed jobs at all. if i was a small startup, i could offer a job and simply not offer health insurance. if someone wanted the job, regardless, then there was a job. now, that employee has to generate atleast 2k profit a year, or it doesnst make sense to hire them.

You still haven't explained why imposing fines on companies makes them more likely to drop coverage of employees. Wouldn't they be more likely to drop coverage without the fine? It doesn't make any sense.

Nonetheless, if the long term consequences of the plan lead to a Dutch-style system of individuals purchasing insurance through regulated insurance exchanges, I would have no problem with that. There is no inherent advantage to employer provision of health insurance if you can generate large risk pools without employer based coverage. Right now, we do not have an efficient mechanism for risk pooling. However, that is an aim for the bill.

prior to the bill, an employer offering insurance was a significant benefit that would differentiate it from one that did not. after the passing of this bill, does that matter anymore? if not, and its cheaper to pay a fine than pay insurance (it is), then the gov just incentivized companies to stop paying health insurance.

whether it is better to not have employers be involved in the process, maybe. but this bill was a hybrid that counted on employers to do the heavy lifting. if that doesnt happen, the cost of this thing is even more out of projection than it already is.

Anyway, the entire conservative argument against health care reform is premised on the idea that there are no data for alternative approaches to health care. However, there is plenty of evidence that the US approach is both more expensive and less effective than every other first-world country. The do-nothing approach just leads to continuing this trend.

just be careful that the cure isnt worse than the disease. the dems didnt pass *this* bill because it was so great, it was out of political expediency, and the belief that something had to be done. while i think the conservatives were wrong to dig in and oppose everything, they had every right not to support an action they were against. something democrats could take a leason from.

anyway, it reminds me of a line from lawrence of arabia. something like:
"but we cant just do nothing!"
"why not? its usually best."

[Uncle Mxy]

i havent been talking about the subsidy at all.

i dont see how the old system could have destroyed jobs at all. if i was a small startup, i could offer a job and simply not offer health insurance. if someone wanted the job, regardless, then there was a job. now, that employee has to generate atleast 2k profit a year, or it doesnst make sense to hire them.

b-diddy, Where does the 2k come from? Under 50 employees, and there's no business penalty, just the individual insurance mandate which is subsidized if the employer pays like crap. The penalty for a 50-employee shop (which I wouldn't characterize as a "small" startup) not offering health insurance is only $40k/year, because the first 30 employees are exempt.. If you have 50 40-hour/week employees each averaging <$800/year in profit, then you have problems far beyond healthcare costs.

Note that healthy employees benefit employers as well. Don't get that cough treated? Pass along those germs to others. Scare away those customers. Wanna provide stable services? It's harder to do with the greater turnover and absenteeism and negative impact to productivity associated with sicker employees. Healthy employees lead to a healthier bottom line.

just be careful that the cure isnt worse than the disease. the dems didnt pass *this* bill because it was so great, it was out of political expediency, and the belief that something had to be done. while i think the conservatives were wrong to dig in and oppose everything, they had every right not to support an action they were against. something democrats could take a leason from.

anyway, it reminds me of a line from lawrence of arabia. something like:
"but we cant just do nothing!"
"why not? its usually best."

Often, if you're not doing something, you're having something done to you. No one would ever call this a perfect bill, but getting substantive off the ground means you're inclined to fix it, not pick it apart before it can grow into something useful.

Many conservatives weren't personally opposed to most of the principles within the bill itself. Remember, this is a lot like what Nixon laid out nearly 40 years ago, and one could hardly accuse him of being some lefty liberal. A lot of provisions in the bill enjoy broad support. They were opposed because they knew it kicked their ass politically. It's all part of being the "party of no".

If you're looking for the shitty individual aspects of the healthcare bill, look at the OTC drugs and supplies that won't be expensible with FSA/HSAs in a couple years. It'll be cheaper to buy Claritin directly from a physician or as a hospital inpatient than from a pharmacy.

[Tahoe]

b-diddy, Where does the 2k come from? Under 50 employees, and there's no business penalty, just the individual insurance mandate which is subsidized if the employer pays like crap. The penalty for a 50-employee shop (which I wouldn't characterize as a "small" startup) not offering health insurance is only $40k/year, because the first 30 employees are exempt.. If you have 50 40-hour/week employees each averaging <$800/year in profit, then you have problems far beyond healthcare costs.

Note that healthy employees benefit employers as well. Don't get that cough treated? Pass along those germs to others. Scare away those customers. Wanna provide stable services? It's harder to do with the greater turnover and absenteeism and negative impact to productivity associated with sicker employees. Healthy employees lead to a healthier bottom line.


Often, if you're not doing something, you're having something done to you. No one would ever call this a perfect bill, but getting substantive off the ground means you're inclined to fix it, not pick it apart before it can grow into something useful.

Many conservatives weren't personally opposed to most of the principles within the bill itself. Remember, this is a lot like what Nixon laid out nearly 40 years ago, and one could hardly accuse him of being some lefty liberal. A lot of provisions in the bill enjoy broad support. They were opposed because they knew it kicked their ass politically. It's all part of being the "party of no".

If you're looking for the shitty individual aspects of the healthcare bill, look at the OTC drugs and supplies that won't be expensible with FSA/HSAs in a couple years. It'll be cheaper to buy Claritin directly from a physician or as a hospital inpatient than from a pharmacy.

I completely disagree.

Conservatives want smaller gov't. They don't want our Govt to take over...what is it? a third of our economy? We don't want the Gov't doing what best left to private sector and competition. Was it perfect before? No. Should it be reformed? Yes, but not the Gov't taking it over and giving our expensive health care to everyone cuz some peeps feel its the right thing to do.

[Uncle Mxy]

The ~200 amendments authored by Republicans that are part of the HCR law make to think you have it wrong. Many of the no votes were political calculus, nothing more or less.

The journalist who came up with the whole governing best=governing least thing popularized by Thoreau also came up with Manifest Destiny and was a big believer in the expansion of government all over the place.

[Tahoe]

The ~200 amendments authored by Republicans that are part of the HCR law make to think you have it wrong. Many of the no votes were political calculus, nothing more or less.

I don't know if thats true or not, Mxy. I haven't followed it since the 1st of the year or so. They weren't consulted...or put it this way, the things they asked for weren't even considered in most every case. I bet a lot of the 'no' votes were more of a "well fuck it, they won't consider what we want seriously, so lets blast it" You are aware this is politics, right?

The journalist who came up with the whole governing best=governing least thing popularized by Thoreau also came up with Manifest Destiny and was a big believer in the expansion of government all over the place.

Less Gov't wasn't an 'idea' or 'theory' by 1 person. I don't want Gov't telling me what I can eat, drink and every other facet of my life. That feeling isn't cuz of some journalist.

[Uncle Mxy]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezr...ealth_car.html

[Tahoe]

^ Holy Moly...if the Repubs are in, I'm in!

[WTFchris]

And it is funny how libs (Chris and D in this case) use the bible when they think it helps their politics.

You are one amazing person Tahoe. First off, the bible has no influence on my politics. I have been considering leaving the Catholic church for some time because 5 years ago they told everyone they should vote for a republican president because of their stance on abortions (amongst other issues like kicking kids out of catholic school because their parents are lesbians, sweeping abuse cases under the rug, not allowing priests to marry, etc). If I were to listen to my church I would not even be what you think is a disgusting liberal.

So don't tell me I use the bible to help my politics. I don't blindly follow my faith like you are apparently trying to say.

Fool is right. I simply asked a question that I hoped the resident conservative on here could answer about how some religious conservatives manage to cherry pick bible quotes on issues like abortion to back them but ignore issues like helping the poor. Instead of giving a real answer you insinuated that there weren't quotes about helping the poor. I provided them and you simply ignored the facts (shocking, I know).

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled fact ignoring...

[WTFchris]

I completely disagree.

Conservatives want smaller gov't. They don't want our Govt to take over...what is it? a third of our economy? We don't want the Gov't doing what best left to private sector and competition. Was it perfect before? No. Should it be reformed? Yes, but not the Gov't taking it over and giving our expensive health care to everyone cuz some peeps feel its the right thing to do.

Conservatives don't know what the fuck they want (as a party). They are still applauding Regan even though he oversaw a massive government expansion. Conservatives are too busy voting against their own legislation the minute Obama supports part of it.

I have no doubt you know what you want, but if you ask the average conservative they have no idea what they want. They just want what Rush or Beck happen to spout off about on a given day.