"Next year, senior citizens enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs could face reductions.... insurers warn that they would have to reduce benefits, and that some plans will eventually disappear....
Meanwhile, in the model state they are telling us that government payments are not enough and that is why rates are rising through the roof.
Enjoy the mess, America.
And guess who will not have to deal with any of the fallout (you saved his presidency I'm told):
The major changes happen well after the next presidential election, safeguarding President Obama from suffering blowback"
Yeah, he is going to GET THAT THIS YEAR with a CHANGE of CONGRESSIONAL CONTROL!
But what they hey, Obama's political health is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT than YOUR OWN, American!
"Major health care changes won’t take place until 2014; Delays could help Obama’s reelection hopes" by Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff | March 23, 2010
Virtually every American will be affected by the health care bill that President Obama is to sign into law today.
Most consumers have plenty of time to determine how the 2,400-page law will affect their coverage, their wallets, their businesses, their state governments, and their health care providers. But judging by the calls trickling into Health Care for All-Massachusetts yesterday morning, they’ve already gotten started.
“People just know the bill passed, and folks want to know how it’s going to help them,’’ said Kate Bicego, who manages the help line for the Boston-based health care consumer advocacy organization.
The law will take effect gradually. A series of modest changes kicks in this year — tax credits to help small businesses purchase insurance for their employees, a $250 prescription drug rebate for seniors on Medicare who have hit a gap in their coverage, and a ban on excluding children from coverage because of preexisting conditions.
Insurers won’t be able to impose lifetime coverage limits or cancel policies unless an enrollee commits fraud, and within six months, the government will set up a high-risk pool to help people with preexisting conditions get coverage.
Provisions such as the high-risk insurance pool will affect only a thin slice of America. Most people receive coverage through work or government programs such as Medicare or Medicaid, and, with limited exceptions, large group insurance plans can’t drop people with preexisting conditions. States such as Massachusetts prohibit insurers from rejecting people who buy individual policies because they are sick.
The people the high-risk pools will help are really hurting, said Ken Thorpe, chairman of the department of health policy and management at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.
In the individual insurance market in Georgia, he said, “if you’ve got anything that looks like a preexisting condition, you cannot get any coverage at any price. I’m talking about asthma, moderate hypertension.’’
A couple of small taxes, such as a 10 percent levy on tanning beds, also start right away.
Yeah, never mind those nickel-and-dime taxes, America.
Isn't that the implied attitude by the agenda-pushing press?
So it ALL SOUNDS GREAT, huh?
Then WHY the DIFFICULTY in passing and WHY the SECRECY?
Next year, senior citizens enrolled in Medicare Advantage programs could face reductions. These programs provide private coverage through Medicare and have become very popular because they tend to be less expensive than the combination of Medicare prescription coverage and Medigap policies, which supplement Medicare.
Federal reimbursement for such programs will freeze in 2012, and insurers warn that they would have to reduce benefits, and that some plans will eventually disappear.
But the real fireworks in the bill, the core components that will provide coverage for more than 30 million uninsured Americans by 2019 and establish a system of shared responsibility for its cost, don’t start for another four years.
In 2014, the government will establish state-based health insurance exchanges, ban insurers from discriminating against anyone based on a preexisting condition, force all Americans to obtain insurance or pay a fine, and penalize employers who don’t provide affordable coverage.
Somehow FORCING Americans to DO ANYTHING seems UN-AMERICAN to me!
The delay was motivated partly by politics. The major changes happen well after the next presidential election, safeguarding President Obama from suffering blowback from the problems and temporary confusion that might arise from establishing the law. Financial constraints were also a factor: Putting off the most expensive benefits brought the 10-year cost of the health bill below $1 trillion.
What a band of disingenuous bastards!
But the lag time also gives officials more time to plan the logistics, which could be complicated in large states such as New York and California, Thorpe said. And small rural states such as Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont might need time to consider banding together in a single insurance exchange, he said.
The least popular tax in the bill, a 40 percent levy on high-cost health insurance plans, will not take effect until 2018.
That is EIGHT YEARS AWAY!
No wonder Big Labor didn't have a problem with it.
Because Massachusetts has enacted extensive health care changes, many of them similar to those written into the federal bill, the effect is expected to be more limited here, analysts say....
I feel sorry for the rest of the nation, I really do.
Some of the effects from the law could change if the Senate votes to alter any of a series of fixes in the companion reconciliation legislation the House passed.
Oh, so the SENATE could STILL STAB you in the BACK, House.
Several consumer groups are monitoring what promises to be a long, winding road to putting the dizzying array of provisions in place at the federal, regional, state, and local levels. Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan health policy think tank, has been carefully monitoring the health care developments and explains most major issues.
Yeah, KAISER is NON-PARTISAN, yup!
Related: The Boston Globe's Ghostwriters
That's where the agenda-pushing Globe is getting their explanations and REPORTING from?
Now you know why I don't trust them, dear readers!
Consumer Reports also has been following the issue for months and is building the health care section of its website....
Nancy Metcalf, senior program editor for Consumer Reports Health. “We haven’t had this magnitude of change in our health care system really ever — and people didn’t understand it even before.’’
So let's make it MORE CONFUSING and call it SUCCESS!!
--more--"
Yeah, a rotting, stinking, reeking, rank, and fetid carcass will do that to you.
I gotta get out of the states, readers!
Maybe I'll take a European Vacation (hint, hint, at what is coming next, dear readers).
