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INSURANCE COMPANY BAILOUTS: Pelosi bites us in the ass (again)...
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2014 Jan 3, 12:15am 3,167 views 9 comments
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I CAN'T WAIT for the 2014 mid-term elections. Obama, the "Liar in Chief" and his Democrat minions are gonna get CRUSHED. This is gonna be fun...
It will be because a lot of conservative voters are going to once again be baffled as to why they are continuing to lose elections. In fact I was listening to a report yesterday about the 2014 elections and lo and behold the voting demographic has totally changed since 2010. The last election was perhaps the last hoorah for the "old GOP", where they could go wayyy out on a limb to the far right and reel in their far right base to get em' elected.
Aint' gunna' happen like that anymore. The game is up. That's why as we speak the GOP is basically trying to quickly change their game plan to try and not support " dumb" candidates, which I believe was discussed on this forum earlier last week.
The Democrats are perhaps in the best position they've been in many generations: the demographic math is overwhelmingly in their favor while the GOP was too slow to act upon the changes happening in the country.
Tenpoundbass
2014 Jan 3, 2:28am
The Liberals biggest fear in the November is the Republicans gets control of the Senate. There's a long laundry list of things they would like to do.
Like talk a little bit more to the IRS, Holder, revisit F&TF, Benghazi, Repeal Obama care, and finally impeach Obama.
That's actually an impressive list of things in the right direction, a list that has been missing from this country for a long time. The American voters could use some good news, more than Hope and Change.
The GOP House should pass it and send it to Harry Reid’s Democratic Senate. Democrats know it could be fatal for Obamacare. The only alternative would be single-payer. And try selling that to the country after the spectacularly incompetent launch of — and subsequent widespread disaffection with — mere semi-nationalization.
Hardly.
Before Obamacare the only people who had real problems getting health insurance were
1. The poor but not poor enough for Medicaid or CHIP
2. The unhealthy but not disabled enough for Medicare who did not have state high risk pools or were in the 60 day window after loosing other health coverage
3. The old but not old enough for Medicare
The rest of us had to pay more if we didn't get our insurance through employer plans because of preferential tax treatment and adverse selection which results.
The fixes are easy
1. Extend Medicaid to cover more poor people who actually can't afford to buy $60-$80/month open market health insurance (as opposed to those who'd rather have a big cable TV package or smart phone than buy insurance) and pay for it with Federal money (the feds already spend $300B on these programs) without giving states a choice
2. Extend Medicare to cover people with pre-existing conditions who can't get insurance at an acceptable premium increase compared to healthy people
3. Decrease the starting age for Medicare
and finally add an above the line deduction and payroll tax credit for _all_ private market insurance so out-of-pocket costs for private plans aren't so much higher than employer plans and we have less reason to continue with the status quo that's keeping rates artificially high.
We can pay for this with a small increase in the Medicare tax shared by everyone.
Some people will continue to eschew health insurance, go bankrupt from medical debt, or perhaps die because they made a bad decision. That's their choice and costs the rest of us at most 6% more (uncompensated care made up 5.9% of annual hospital expenses according to the American Hospital Association's _Uncompensated Hospital Care Cost Fact Sheet_) than we "should" spend on our own care as opposed to the 80%+ price increases (the least expensive replacement for my son's $85/month non-ACA-compliant plan was $155/month with the same deductibles) we get with Obamacare.
Under the new law everyone content with their existing private health insurance could keep their plan, just like Obama promised.
Tenpoundbass
2014 Jan 3, 4:11am
You people talking about Medicare in the context of Obamacare like it is some savior of the whole fiasco. Is like trying to save burn victims by baking them in an Oven.
Medicare is toast! It's over, it's ruined, it serves no purpose but gives the young false hope that they'll be covered in Old age. Ask your aging Mom and Dad how great it is. They probably don't want to bother you with their problems or they well off enough to not gripe about it.
AverageBear
2014 Jan 3, 9:20am
It will be because a lot of conservative voters are going to once again be baffled as to why they are continuing to lose elections. In fact I was listening to a report yesterday about the 2014 elections and lo and behold the voting demographic has totally changed since 2010. The last election was perhaps the last hoorah for the "old GOP", where they could go wayyy out on a limb to the far right and reel in their far right base to get em' elected.
---------------------------------
Well, in the last election, I wasn't eager to vote for a Republican that had as much charisma as a bucket of mud. However, for the mid-term '14 elections, I really think liberals really underestimate the frustration of millions who lost their health insurance.
Having your president lie to you, who then proceeds to take away your insurance that you thought you could keep, isn't going to be forgotten. Aaaand, we still have 8+ months to go till the elections, where corporate insurance plans/policies are yet to be cancelled/discontinued.... The pain that Obamacare is inflicting is far from over....
Well, in the last election, I wasn't eager to vote for a Republican that had as much charisma as a bucket of mud. However, for the mid-term '14 elections, I really think liberals really underestimate the frustration of millions who lost their health insurance.
Having your president lie to you, who then proceeds to take away your insurance that you thought you could keep, isn't going to be forgotten. Aaaand, we still have 8+ months to go till the elections, where corporate insurance plans/policies are yet to be cancelled/discontinued.... The pain that Obamacare is inflicting is far from over....
You're conveniently leaving out the millions of Americans who stand to get insurance they couldn't afford before and in the 8 months until the election, most of those who "Lost" their plans ( even though they now singing up for new ones under the ACA) will have things in order.
I know perhaps you and many GOP folks are wishing, just wishing for some miracle to save the vote. But it ain't gonna' happen. The last hoorah was the "Tea Party" and it failed.
Bellingham Bill
2014 Jan 3, 12:14pm
"this yields about $20 billion over three years to cover losses."
LOL. $20B (over 3 years!) on a $2T+/yr sector of the economy. Pass the smelling salts!
Why are conservatives the stupidest people on the planet?
Correlation or causation at work here?
AverageBear
2014 Jan 6, 9:59am
You're conveniently leaving out the millions of Americans who stand to get insurance they couldn't afford before and in the 8 months until the election, most of those who "Lost" their plans ( even though they now singing up for new ones under the ACA) will have things in order.
Ed,
Your conveniently omitting the fact that as of now, Obamacare has created more uninsured, than insured. Ruining the decent (although not perfect) healthcare system for 200+ million, so that 17 million can now get 'free' healthcare is not a success. It's a thinly-veiled attempt at buying votes, and transferring wealth.
AverageBear
2014 Jan 6, 10:09am
The last hoorah was the "Tea Party" and it failed.
I think the folks in Wisconsin are quite happy about last year's successful outcome in defeating the public-sector unions. That was only the beginning. Chicago (as well as the state of Illinois) will get a real taste of pension-reform in the near-term, that is long overdue. And if the courts declare open-season on unsustainable pensions that were previously though of as 'untouchable', doled out by greedy public unions in Illinois, it's gonna spread like wildfire to those liberal states that are being bankrupted (CA and MI are two states that come to mind)....Are you gonna give the Tea Party some credit for the success in Wisconsin, and potential future success?
So good to know that the shmucks who voted for Obamacare, ie, who voted for the piece of crap legislation to 'know what's inside', are shocked (SHOCKED!) to learn that buried in the crap, is a resolution to bail out the Insurance industry. Krauthammer has a great idea. Put Democrats feet to the fire....
..."First order of business for the returning Congress: The No Bailout for Insurance Companies Act of 2014. Make it one line long: “Sections 1341 and 1342 of the Affordable Care Act are hereby repealed. Endof bill. End of bailout. End of story.".....
..."First, Section 1341, the “reinsurance†fund collected from insurers and self-insuring employers at a nifty $63 a head. (Who do you think the cost is passed on to?) This yields about $20 billion over three years to cover losses.
Then there is Section 1342, the “risk corridor†provision that mandates a major taxpayer payout covering up to 80 percent of insurance-company losses.
Never heard of these? That’s the beauty of passing a bill of such monstrous length. You can insert a chicken soup recipe and no one will notice.
Nancy Pelosi was right: We’d have to pass the damn thing to know what’s in it. Well, now we have and now we know.".....
...."First, it (Obamacare) postponed the employer mandate. Then it exempted from the individual mandate people whose policies were canceled (by Obamacare). And for those who did join the exchanges, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is “strongly encouraging†insurers — during the “transition†— to cover doctors and drugs not included in their clients’ plans.
The insurers were stunned. Told to give free coverage. Deprived of their best customers. Forced to offer stripped-down “catastrophic†plans to people age 30 and over (contrary to the law). These dictates, complained an insurance industry spokesman, could “destabilize†the insurance market.
Translation: How are we going to survive this? Shrinking revenues and rising costs could bring on the “death spiral†— an unbalanced patient pool forcing huge premium increases (to restore revenue) that would further unbalance the patient pool as the young and healthy drop out.
End result? Insolvency — before which the insurance companies will pull out of Obamacare.
Solution? A huge government bailout. It’s Obamacare’s escape hatch. And — surprise, surprise — it’s already baked into the law."
...."Such a bill would be overwhelmingly popular because Americans hate fat-cat bailouts of any kind. Why should their tax dollars be spent not only saving giant insurers but also rescuing this unworkable, unbalanced, unstable, unpopular money-pit of a health-care scheme?
The GOP House should pass it and send it to Harry Reid’s Democratic Senate. Democrats know it could be fatal for Obamacare. The only alternative would be single-payer. And try selling that to the country after the spectacularly incompetent launch of — and subsequent widespread disaffection with — mere semi-nationalization.
Do you really think vulnerable Democrats up for reelection will vote for a bailout? And who better to slay Obamacare than a Democratic Senate — liberalism repudiating its most important creation of the last 50 years."......
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-stop-the-bailout-now/2014/01/02/6b3087a2-73d7-11e3-8def-a33011492df2_story.html
I CAN'T WAIT for the 2014 mid-term elections. Obama, the "Liar in Chief" and his Democrat minions are gonna get CRUSHED. This is gonna be fun...
#politics