Yes, AmeriKa, you are going to have single-payer after all -- with a big fat health insurance company playing middleman and taking their cut.
"Firms could drop health plans, governor warns; Others say fear of coverage loss is overblown" by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press | October 25, 2010
WASHINGTON — The new health care law wasn’t supposed to undercut employer plans that have provided most people in the United States with coverage for generations.
But last week a leading manufacturer told workers their costs will jump partly because of the law. Also, a Democratic governor laid out a scheme for employers to get out of health care by shifting workers into taxpayer-subsidized insurance markets that open in 2014.
Although it’s too early to proclaim the demise of job-based coverage, corporate number crunchers are looking at options that could lead to major changes.
Once again, these are NOT the CHANGES we wanted!
“The economics of dropping existing coverage is about to become very attractive to many employers, both public and private,’’ said Governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat....
Bredesen said last week that employers could save big money by dropping their health plans and sending workers to buy coverage in the exchange. They’d face a fine of $2,000 per worker, but that’s still far less than the cost of providing health insurance. Employers could even afford to give workers a raise and still come out ahead, Bredesen wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece....
That’s just not going to happen, White House officials say....
Why should we believe those self-interested and invested liars?
Yet at least one major employer has shifted a greater share of plan costs to workers, and others are weighing the pros and cons of eventually forcing employees to strike out on their own.
Also see: Medicare Muddle
You got screwed, Americans -- with a health tax added as insult.
“I don’t think you are going to hear anybody publicly say, ‘We’ve made a decision to drop insurance,’ ’’ said Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. “What we are hearing in our meetings is, ‘We don’t want to be the first one to drop benefits, but we would be the fast second.’ We are hearing that a lot.’’ Deloitte is a major accounting and consulting firm.
“My conclusion on all of this is that it is a huge roll of the dice,’’ said James Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, which represents big-company benefits administrators. “It could work out well and build on the employer-based system, or it could begin to dismantle the employer-based system.’’
The CORNERSTONE of the WHOLE PLAN?
Are you NOT GLAD Democrats rammed this through and around the filibuster, Americans, and GAMBLED with YOUR HEALTH?!
Related: The Massachusetts Model: Municipal Health Mess
A Healthy Insult For the American People
Yeah, how come you can't get one of those plans you generously provide to your "public seervants," taxpayers?
When lawmakers debated the legislation, the Congressional Budget Office projected it would only have minimal impact on employer plans.
Oh, look, ANOTHER LYING, AGENDA-PUSHING GOVERNMENT AGENCY!
About 3 million fewer people would be covered through their jobs, but they’d be able to get insurance elsewhere.
That's MINIMAL?
Two provisions in the new law are leading companies to look at their plans in a different light.
One is a hefty tax on high-cost health insurance aimed at the most generous coverage. Although the “Cadillac tax’’ doesn’t hit until 2018, companies may have to disclose their exposure to investors well before that.
And LOOK who is DRIVING the BIGGEST CAR:
Towns to Pay Health Tax For Public Servants
Yeah, they are SERVING YOU, taxpayers!!!
A Boeing spokeswoman said concerns about the tax were partly behind a 50 percent increase in insurance deductibles the company just announced....
Bigger questions loom over the new insurance markets that will be set up under the law.
Do they even know WTF they passed down there? Or did they just do what the insurance companies told them?
They are called exchanges, and every state will have one in a few years. Consumers will be able to shop for coverage among a range of plans in the exchange....
We DO NOT WANT to SHOP for COVERAGE; we just WANT it to BE THERE with NO HASSLES!
What is SO FUCKING HARD about THAT?
MIT economist Jon Gruber says it’s impossible to create new government benefits without some unintended consequences, but he doesn’t see a big drop in employer coverage.
How LAME!
Yup, UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES! That is the GREAT DESIGN of your NEW HEALTH PLAN!
Is iot ANY WONDER we have LOST FAITH in Washington!
They can NOT DO a DAMN THING RIGHT -- and then LIE ABOUT EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“This is a brave new world with uncertainties,’’ said Gruber.
Just what I wanted when it comes to my health.
But “the best available evidence suggests a small erosion....’’
So says the lying, agenda-pushing government scum.
Also see: Grubby Gruber
What more do you need to know?
Erin Shields, a spokeswoman for the Senate Finance Committee, said she is confident that when companies do the math, they will decide to keep offering coverage.
Oh, that really reassures me, let me tell you.
That’s because employers get to deduct the cost of workers’ health care from the company’s taxes. Take away the health plan and two things happen: Employers lose the deduction and they’ll probably have to pay workers more to get them to accept the benefit cut.
Or hire an illegal.
Not only will the company’s income taxes go up, but the employer will also face a bigger bill for Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes. So it’s not as simple as paying $2,000 and walking away.
I've really had it with this government, period.
That's their ANSWER to EVERYTHING: MORE TAXES!
You would have been BETTER OFF with NO BILL AT ALL, Americans!!!!!
Another wrinkle: The health insurance tax credits available through the law are keyed to relatively Spartan insurance plans, not as generous as most big employers provide. Send your workers into the insurance exchange, and valuable employees might jump to a competitor that still offers health care.
As if there were jobs out there to be had.
All this GOVERNMENT GARBAGE of COULD BE, IF, MAY BE, etc, etc.
Did they EVEN KNOW what was IN the BILL?!!!!
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Some companies need not worry.
Waive goodbye to your less-than-adequate PoS plan, kiddo!
"30 groups, companies get health waivers" by Drew Armstrong, Bloomberg News | October 6, 2010
WASHINGTON — The federal government has decided to provide waivers to 30 companies and groups that will allow them to cap insurance costs, leaving almost a million workers exposed to catastrophic costs despite a new protection in the health care law.
You would have been better off with no law, America.
The companies and organizations, including McDonald’s Corp., will not be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees. The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided a list of exemptions, said it granted waivers late last month so workers with such plans would not lose coverage from employers who might choose instead to drop their health insurance altogether....
On it's way.
Who will be first?
The new regulations also would have hit some of the insurance plans for young adults in the universal coverage program run by Massachusetts....
The biggest single waiver, for 351,000 people, was for the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund, a New York union that provides coverage for city teachers. The union asked for a waiver for its supplemental drug plan, which offers coverage up to $100,000 to pay for prescriptions, said union president Michael Mulgrew. The city covers hospital and physician care for teachers and their families....
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Related:
"The state report shows that while healthcare reform has extended coverage to thousands of people in Massachusetts, many employers still rely on state programs to provide healthcare benefits for their workers.... Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, is the top company on the list. The state found 5,021 Wal-Mart employees used state health coverage at a cost of nearly $14 million in the 12 months ended June 30, 2007"
Yup, YOUR HEALTH TAXES are going to SUBSIDIZE CORPORATE PROFITS, AmeriKa!
And you WILL HAVE SINGLE-PAYER after all!
More plan success:
"Preexisting-condition plans are off to a slow start; Enrollment lags; premiums proving costly" by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press | October 4, 2010
WASHINGTON — It’s a centerpiece of President Obama’s health care remake, a lifeline available right now to vulnerable people whose medical problems have made them uninsurable.
But the Preexisting Condition Insurance Plan that started this summer isn’t living up to expectations.
That is SYMBOLIC of his ENTIRE PRESIDENCY!
Enrollment lags in many parts of the country. People who could benefit may not be able to afford the premiums....
Where is YOUR BILLION-DOLLAR BAILOUT, Americans?
What happens with the Preexisting Condition Insurance Plan is important because it could foreshadow problems with major changes under the law that are still a few years away....
What a PoS bill they passed!
The program offers insurance to people with medical problems at prices the average healthy person would pay, although that’s not necessarily cheap. To qualify, applicants must have had a problem getting insurance because of a medical condition, and have been uninsured for at least six months....
What is with the HAVING to JUMP THROUGH HOOPS?
So the SICK PERSON has to be UNINSURED to GET INSURED?
Related: Opening Up the Health Care Bill
Why You Will Love the New Health Law
The Buts in the Health Care Bill
Unhealthy Obama
No Choice With Obamacare
Just been nothing but ONE LIE after another on this issue, huh?
Yeah, that is enough to make any American sick.
The program will last until 2014, when the new health law requires insurers to accept all applicants regardless of medical history. Most states have opted to take federal money and design their own programs. But in 23 states and the District of Columbia, the federal government runs the plan directly.
In interviews, state officials and independent experts raised several potential problems.
■ Premiums may be out of reach. In many states, people in their 40s and 50s face monthly premiums ranging from $400 to $600 and higher.
■ A barrier may include requirements that people be uninsured for at least six months and that people provide documentation that they’ve been turned down by an insurer....
But illegal immigrants don't have to.
■ In states where the federal government runs the program directly, the insurance plan doesn’t provide coverage for prescription drugs until people have met a $2,500 annual deductible.
Taking care of you real good, aren't they?
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Where we will all wind up:
"Medicaid enrollments soar to new high" by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press | October 1, 2010
WASHINGTON — A record number of Americans signed up for Medicaid last year, as the recession wiped out jobs and workplace health coverage.
Enrollment in the safety-net medical insurance program jumped to more than 48 million — a record 15.7 percent share of the US population, according to a report released yesterday by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. With the economy barely improving, states are forecasting a 6 percent increase in the rolls next year, further straining their depleted budgets.
There hasn't been a recovery, readers; it was just the newspaper and government lying to you again. If there had been a recovery this would not be happening.
The Medicaid numbers are the latest piece to emerge in a grim statistical picture of the recession’s toll. The ranks of the working-age poor last year climbed to the highest level since the 1960s, according to a recent US Census report.
We are GOING BACKWARDS, America!
I notice BANKS, WAR-LOOTERS, and ISRAEL never have to worry.
Nearly 12 million households received food stamps, a record.
Rising Medicaid enrollment also underscores the growing role of the government in health care, a polarizing issue in the upcoming midterm congressional elections after President Obama and Democrats pushed through a massive overhaul of the health care system.
I WANTED IT if it was going to be a GOOD, DECENT, SINGLE-PAYER SYSTEM like in the movie "Sicko"; however, I DID NOT want this HALF-MEASURED RIP-OFF SCAM!
You would have been WAY BETTER OFF with NO HEALTH BILL, America!
TOO LATE NOW!
“There seems to be no end in sight to the fiscal pressure on the Medicaid program,’’ said Vernon Smith, who co-wrote the Kaiser report....
But if you are a bank, war-looter, or Israel....
With or without Obama’s overhaul, government is becoming the dominant player in health care. Federal, state, and local government spending will overtake private sources next year, three years before the new law’s major coverage expansion, Medicare economists said in a recent report.
Medicaid is a federal-state partnership created with Medicare in 1965 under President Lyndon Johnson. It covers low-income families and many elderly in nursing homes, with Washington paying about 60 percent of the cost on average.
Medicaid has also been assigned a major role under the new health care law, which expands the program to cover an estimated 18 million additional low-income adults starting in 2014.
So either the Democrats were incompetent dupes or they were in on the shift.
Either way it does not look good.
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And they wonder why the polls turn out this way?
WASHINGTON — First it was President Obama’s health care overhaul that divided the nation. That has now been joined by the Republican cry for repeal.
An Associated Press-GfK poll found likely voters evenly split on whether the law should be scrapped or retooled to make even bigger changes in the way Americans get their health care.
Tea Party enthusiasm for repeal has failed to catch on with other groups, the poll found, which may be a problem for Republicans, who have vowed to strike down the law if they gain control of Congress in the Nov. 2 elections.
Yeah, right, Tea Party anger is irrelevant.
When you coming out of that ICU bubble, corporate media?
Among likely voters, 36 percent said they want to revise the law so it does more to change the health care system.
That is your SINGLE-PAYER, UNIVERSAL CARE bloc there!
A nearly identical share, 37 percent, said they want to repeal it completely....
In other words, 75% of Americans thinks the PLAN STINKS!
That must be why Democrats are NOT TOUTING the LAW like they said they would!
The MORE WE KNOW ABOUT IT the LESS WE LIKE IT!
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Also see: Republicans Retreat on Health Bill Repeal
Sick of the s*** politically fooleys from the agenda-pushing mouthpiece media yet?
