The Glade 4.0

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090908/D9AJCL500.html

In before "AP news is biased wtf"




Fines proposed for going without health insurance


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Sep 8, 5:20 PM (ET)

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR

(AP) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., speak to...
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans would be fined up to $3,800 for failing to buy health insurance under a plan that circulated in Congress on Tuesday as President Barack Obama met Democratic leaders to search for ways to salvage his health care overhaul.

In advance of what Obama hopes will be a game-changing speech to lawmakers, the one idea that most appeals to the Democrats' liberal base lost ground in Congress. Prospects for a government-run plan to compete with private insurers sank as a leading moderate said he could no longer support the idea.

The fast-moving developments put Obama in a box. As a candidate, he opposed fines to force individuals to buy health insurance, and he supported setting up a government insurance plan.

Democratic leaders put on a bold front as they left the White House after their meeting with the president.


(AP) Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa arrives for a meeting on health care at the Capitol Hill office of...
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"We're re-energized; we're ready to do health care reform," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., insisted the public plan is still politically viable. "I believe that a public option will be essential to our passing a bill in the House of Representatives," she said.

After a month of contentious forums, Americans were seeking specifics from the president in his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. So were his fellow Democrats, divided on how best to solve the problem of the nation's nearly 50 million uninsured.

The latest proposal: a bipartisan compromise that Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., a moderate who heads the influential Finance Committee, was trying to broker.

Baucus, meeting with a small group of fellow senators, promoted a plan that would guarantee coverage for nearly all Americans at a cost to taxpayers of under $900 billion over 10 years.


(AP) President Barack Obama speaks at the AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic at Coney Island in Cincinnati,...
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Some experts consider that a relative bargain because the country now spends about $2.5 trillion a year on health care. But it would require hefty fees on insurers, drug companies and others in the health care industry to help pay for it.

Just as auto coverage is now mandatory in most states, Baucus would a require that all Americans get health insurance once the system is overhauled. Penalties for failing to get insurance would start at $750 a year for individuals and $1,500 for families. Households making more than three times the federal poverty level - about $66,000 for a family of four - would face the maximum fines. For families, it would be $3,800, and for individuals, $950.

Baucus would offer tax credits to help pay premiums for households making up to three times the poverty level, and for small employers paying about average middle-class wages. People working for companies that offer coverage could avoid the fines by signing up.

The fines pose a dilemma for Obama. As a candidate, the president campaigned hard against making health insurance a requirement, and fining people for not getting it.

"Punishing families who can't afford health care to begin with just doesn't make sense," he said during his party's primaries. At the time, he proposed mandatory insurance only for children.


(AP) President Barack Obama is introduced by Charlie Dilbert, 45, who works at A&A Safety, which...
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White House officials have since backed away somewhat from Obama's opposition to mandated coverage for all, but there's no indication that Obama would support fines.

One idea that Obama championed during and since the campaign - a government insurance option - appeared to be sinking fast.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters a Medicare-like plan for middle-class Americans and their families isn't an essential part of legislation for him. Hoyer's comments came shortly after a key Democratic moderate said he could no longer back a bill that includes a new government plan.

The fast-moving developments left liberals in a quandary. They've drawn a line, saying they won't vote for legislation if it doesn't include a public plan to compete with private insurance companies and force them to lower costs.

Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., who once supported a public option, said Tuesday that after hearing from constituents during the August recess, he's changed his mind.


(AP) Sen. Mike Enzi, R- Wvo. arrives for a meeting on health care at the Capitol Hill office of Sen. Max...
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"If House leadership presents a final bill that contains a government-run public option, I will oppose it," Ross said.

Obama's commitment to a public plan has been in question and lawmakers hoped his speech to Congress would make his position on that clear.

He's called a public plan an important tool to help check the excesses of private industry. But his aides suggested on the weekend that he could sign legislation even if it does not include a public option.

In the Senate, the public plan is not part of Baucus' proposal. He's calling for nonprofit co-ops to compete in the marketplace instead.

An 18-page summary of the Baucus proposal was obtained by The Associated Press. The complex plan would make dozens of changes in the health care system, many of them contentious. For example, it includes new fees on insurers, drug companies, medical device manufacturers and clinical labs.

It would require insurers to take all applicants, regardless of age or health. But smokers could be charged higher premiums. And 60-year-olds could be charged five times as much for a policy as 20-year-olds.

People working for major employers would probably not see big changes. The plan is geared to helping those who now have the hardest time getting and keeping coverage: the self-employed and small business owners. New purchasing pools would be set up in each state, allowing them to band together and get some of the advantages big companies now have.

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Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Jim Abrams contributed to this report.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

If they wish to compare it to auto insurance then allow me to shop for it like auto insurance. That will absolutly drive costs down, as it has for auto insurance.

I'm personally torn on mandatory coverage. If it's mandatory you are seen by a hospital, then you should have mandatory coverage. However, how to you enforce it for that demographic that is driving up ER visits and is here illegally? Do you get to turn them away now because they don't have "ze paperz"?

It's funny how they wanted to railroad this and they STILL don't have answers to the questions being asked. Big flag that this is another BS scheme by the big D machine.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

The baucus plan sucks ***. Just expand Medicare. Done and done.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

I'm assuming you're referring to the same Medicare projected to be insolvent in 8 years? 8 years being the reduced projection from the previous estimate, that many experts are thinking will be revised and reduced again next year?

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Come on DFK. Medicare is just underfunded...

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The Dude abides.

In my eyes the problem becomes how do you care for all these people with the current system without overloading it.

You need to deal with people who come to the ER for single day Pain instead of going to their family practicioner simply because they don't want to hassle with making an approintment (And the current $3.00 copay doesn't count)

And you need to provide an incentive to provide more family practioners especialy in needed regions.

And you need to address defensive care, preferrably via punitive damage reform.


If you don't deal with these issue than any Insurance Reform issue is more trouble than it's worth.

That said being able to shop for health insureance like you do car insurance (with nearly any national provider) would help.

And you're only required to carry car insurance against people and property you damage, and not for your own needs so I don't get the comparison.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Well, with millions of more people being insured, that's increased demand. Supply will come, right?

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

In a free market it would, yes. Health care in the United States is not a free market.



Also, you've just hit on why the insurance companies are supporting the reform not opposing it, as claimed by many liberals.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Hold on a second. The rules of supply and demand don't apply at all in the united states? I can't imagine you actually believe that.




Where did you get *that* idea? The insurance companies spent *millions* in anti-reform efforts, lobbying, and sending the screamers out to the town hall meetings. Insurance companies are supporting the reform plans that don't include a public option because it represents a *massive* windfall for them. They're willing to take on increased regulation if every citizen is required by law to buy their crappy products.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Remember!
Don't read what people write, just assert their position for them. The Straw Man fallacy is your friend!




Fun Fact:
America' Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the professional organization for health insurance, had this to say in favor of health insurance reform. Meanwhile, the Association of Health Insurance Advisors (AHIA)support bringing all 45 million people into coverage. Blue Cross/Blue Shield further go on to advocate the insuring of the entire population regardless of 'pre-existing conditions,' and they're one of the biggest health insurers that exist.

Did you know?
The assertions that any individuals at town hall meetings have been paid for by either Big Pharma or Big Insurance have yet to have any 'facts' or 'evidence' presented to support them.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Monte - he didn't say that the rules of supply and demand don't work in the US. He stated that they don't work in a system where the supply and demand function is fiddled with endlessly by government.

For example government skews how the demand is delivered by offering tax refunds to companies who provide health insurance to their employees. Government skews demand by legislating that anyone can be treated in an ER.

There is no give and take that creates balance when these intrusions occur. The more intrusions and the more severe the intrusion the less the market forces can actually move to work.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Must be treated in an ER, must be.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Curious thing about Medicare ... it's already rationing service and coverage to existing members. It also makes really stupid financial decisions.

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Curious thing about your statement - it lacks any factual backup to support your claim.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Montegue:

It doesn't lack factual data. It simply lacks headline presence on DailyKOS and the Huffington Post. I know for a fact that Medicare already leads to rationing, because Medicare determines what insurance companies can pay and what doctors are allowed to charge by law. Indeed, Medicare is the primary price fixing agent in the insurance industry as it exists today. But, you wouldn't know that ... you don't talk to enough doctors or medical care providers, or their staff who deal solely with the bureaucratic bullshit attached to Medicare and Medicaid.

The next time you get an insurance statement for a Clinic Visit or an office procedure, read it carefully. You'll see the amount billed by your physician (mostly immaterial). You'll see the amount your insurance allows (really important): that number is fixed by Medicare.

So, what happens is ...

Your doctor sees more patients to cover the cost of doing business, thereby decreasing care delivered. Hospitals do the same. Clinics do the same. Your care is already rationed because you simply spend 5-10 minutes (maximum) with your physician; maybe another 5 with a LPN or PA. Tests are ordered; treatment based on cursory examination. And you're sent on your way ...

Beyond that, Medicare has a whole list of "not possible" events, such iatrogenic illness or in-hospital falls, that it refuses to cover. And, consequently, so do private insurance companies. All of these "not possible" events, don't get treated unless you can pay out of pocket or they are the result of demonstrable malpractice/malfeasance. There's more care rationing.

By the way, post-surgical staph infections were placed on the "not possible" list earlier this year. Guess what the most numerous hospital related illness is? Guess what care just got rationed?

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When I was in my early twenties, my son and I were on medicaid while I was in college.
I went to the only dentist in town that accepts medicaid.
The dental assistant seated me, took my x-rays, and then (I kid you not) the dentist came in, looked in my mouth and walked out. That was all I saw of him. I was handed a paper-print out showing a graph of a set of teeth, and was informed that I would need to have 11 fillings.

I scrimped and saved and went to get a second opinion outside of my insurance. Turns out, I didn't need a single filling. Not one.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

How you are able to say this is beyond me.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Rafael/Kulidwen:

He can say it because the Liberal Blogosphere refuses to address the 500 pound gorilla in the room.

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So, in your estimation, will the increased number of people that can now afford more regular health care increase, decrease, or maintain the same number of health care providers? And why do you feel that way?

You make a lot of unsupported proclamations about intrusion and supply and demand, but you aren't showing your work.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

If I showed my work you wouldn't understand it and thats mostly because you wouldn't look at it. It also depends what other factors come to be from this such as caps on payment. I believe we would likely see a drop in providers as doctors flee the system and then a re-supply as standards drop in order to create fast-food type medical services who can only make a profit on sheer volume. This will stabilize the supply but dramatically lower the overall quality for everyone.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Argue points on their merits, professor.

It is my opinion that health care is a right. It's just as much a right as speech, just as much a right as a freedom to worship and not worship, and just as much a right as having a direct say in how you are governed (a vote).

If you want to make the argument that there should be no health care safety net what so ever in this country, by all means, do so. Feel free to argue for the elimination of medicare, medicaid, SCHIP, etc. You can stand over on the fringe and make those arguments to your heart's content. The rest of the country is beginning to recognize that health care is not just a privilege for those that can afford the outlandish costs, but instead a right for all citizens. It's good that our understanding of rights is evolving to include health care - we will be a better society for it.

One key difference between us is that you have a static definition of what constitutes a right, and I do not. Nor do I see any reason to believe that the only possible definition of a right is a static one. Our society evolves and with it so too does our understanding of human rights.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

How can anyone have a right to another's time?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

People come from other people. Why not?

Do citizens have a right to life?

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

It will result in lower payment payouts by Medicare/Medicaid due to the disproportionately larger volume of insurance carriees compared to the revenue increased to fund Medicare/Medicaid. This is not an increase in aggregate demand. Demand implies both a consumer desire/need and the purchasing power to do so. Expanding Medicare/Medicaid is possible to do with without proportionally increasing tax revnues on salaries, payrolls and other sources of contribution.



What you are suggesting is going from the intersection of Q1P1 to the equilibrium price (equal to P1) at the intersection of the Demand and Supply #2 curves. But in order to get there you are suggesting that the Demand curve shift outwards (right and therefore up) first. Well, if you fix the S1, the equilibrium price (the intersection) must go up. The other possibility is that S1 shifts outward (right and therefore down). This lowers the equilibrium price, meaning heath care providers (as a whole) expand and offer a greater volume of services at a lower price. Do you see that happening?

Can the former happen? Are higher medical payments acceptable in order to allow the growth so that the supply curve might shift out (i.e. provider expansion) and allow prices to come to equilibrium again at P1?

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones