Comparison of House & Senate Health Bills

[sunman]

Medicaid for all? How about Medicare for all like this. It's a quick read.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-676

Support HR676.

[Ron61]

Ernie,

It is simply not a viable option to those who understand the problems that 40 million people face trying to buy health insurance.

Where did you see that 40 million people were trying to buy insurance? That is just another figure that the Govt. has thrown out saying that many don't have it. I haven't seen any figure that stated they were trying to buy it. Insurance is now becoming a mandatory Govt. plan that the people have no say about.

Ron

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sunman

Medicaid for all? How about Medicare for all like this. It's a quick read.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-676

Support HR676.

HR676, with no co-pays and free meds, it's really like the Medicaid system. Medicare only pays for 80% of their allowed amount, and more recently a limited prescription coverage. Medicare was designed so people would still be responsible for some of the money, unlike HR676 which is really a Medicaid or VA style healthcare system. Spend alittle time and go back and read it.

I am sure dennis Kucinich, a sponser of HR676, will go down in time as the "Einstein" of politics

[Excaliber]

Ron, 20 mill, 40 mil, whatever, it's a bunch of folks they don't have access to insurance because it's unaffordable for one reason or another. Many of whom are ready and willing to purchase it. The truly poor all ready have Medicaid, they are covered.

Health Care reform is primarily a process to cover the "working poor". Those families just getting by and families who have been denied coverage for various reasons. In some cases families and small business owners that are doing OK financially, but coverage is still out of reach.

There are various ways to fund the bill, one of which is to spread the load. Everyone who can pay something, does. Everyone get's insurance whether they think they need it or not.

[Ron61]

Ernie,

Regardless of whether it is insurance or anything else, you can bet it is going to cost the taxpayers huge amounts and wind up a mess for the most part if the Govt. runs it. And with every other sentence being Affordable, why haven't they put out any premium costs. What is affordable to those overpaid crooks isn't affordable to the regular working person and even more un-unaffordable to the retired or disabled. I know there will be a massive tax increase, but that would have happened without this bill to use as an excuse.

Ron

[Excaliber]

I'm hopeful that the funding methods are reasonably accurate, at least. Projections for the cost, at this point, show the basic concept to be reasonable in that it does not add to the deficit.

Now of course, many don't believe the cost projections and are justified in the argument there is no way the Government can run this program without loosing money. Maybe your right, but I like the idea that the Gov is at least attempting to figure out a way to pay for it and has a plan.

I'm willing to pay more in taxes if I fall under the criteria to do so. In the big picture of it all the cost/benefit to the American people is worth the price.

If you put 40 million people on Medicaid, as a solution, how would you fund THAT? Step 1. Whats the funding plan? Go from there...

Premature to put out cost/expense reports for individual plans at this point.

[Ron61]

I never mentioned Medicaid as I don't think that is the way to go. You are fortunate as are many of us on here that we could afford to pay some more taxes, but what about those that are barely making it now? Kick them out of whatever homes or property they have as they aren't contributing to society? All I stated was I would like to see some figures as to what those crooks consider as affordable. Have you seen any?

Ron

[Excaliber]

Any tax or penalty associated with the funding of the Health bill is based on a sliding scale, just like Federal income tax sort of thing. If your on a fixed income, retirement funds, etc. I doubt you will see any increase on your personal taxes. No one is going to get "kicked out", arrested or fined because they cannot pay. They MIGHT be subject to any of the above if they REFUSE to pay when they could pay! Same as Federal tax, refusing to pay is a pretty serious offense that could land you in jail.

Business have an "opt out" provision with this National plan. In Hawaii every business, regardless of the number of employees, is required to provide health insurance. There is no "opt out" provision for them. With the National plan certain business with a large number of employees are required to provide coverage. OR, they can pay a fine based on the number of employees and "opt out" of buying coverage (which would surely piss off the employees). What will they do? Well each company will have to crunch the numbers and make an individual decision. Maybe it would be cheaper to pay the fine rather than buy the insurance.

I THINK the fine is about $750 a year per employee for a business. Extrapolating from there one could estimate the projected cost of a plan for an individual. It will be MORE for an individual than for a business with multiple empoyees. BUT using the 750 number you could estimate a policy would cost some where in that neighborhood for an individual.

[Ron61]

Ernie,

Per the bill as it now stands the fine per individual will go to $750 a year in a phased in manner. I believe it starts around $90 per year in 2011, but will have to go back and read that part of the bill again to be sure. I will try to find that section and paste it for you. I know it is under SEC. 5000B, but forget the paragraph and sub-paragraph. And of course this is assuming that part of the bill isn't changed in the final version. But nowhere in the piles of pages I have read does it define what they consider as affordable.
To me that is kind of like buying a new car based on the promise it will be a reasonable and fair price when you go to pay for it.

Ron

[Excaliber]

I've been wondering WHO the people are that will STILL be left out, no insurance for them! Well of the 20 to 40 mill a bunch of them counted in the numbers are illegal aliens, so we know why they are not covered. PERHAPS the projected number of additional qualifying people that won't be covered is for one simple reason, they won't be able to afford it?

I really do think it's to early to tell what an individual plan will cost. Certainly it will be much more affordable than it is now, certainly it will reach a much larger percentage of the populace than it does now.

[Excaliber]

By the way, SOME parts of this bill afford some coverage immediately. I've heard it said the plan won't even start for another four years but the taxes start right away. Well that is flat out miss leading. Taxes are phased in, and coverage is phased in as well.

[Ron61]

Ok here it is. It is under The Individual Must Retain A Minimum Insurance section that I mentioned above.

APPLICABLE DOLLAR AMOUNT- For purposes of paragraph (1)--

`(A) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in subparagraphs (B) and (C), the applicable dollar amount is $750.

`(B) PHASE IN- The applicable dollar amount is $95 for 2014 and $350 for 2015.

`(C) SPECIAL RULE FOR INDIVIDUALS UNDER AGE 18- If an applicable individual has not attained the age of 18 as of the beginning of a month, the applicable dollar amount with respect to such individual for the month shall be equal to one-half of the applicable dollar amount for the calendar year in which the month occurs.

Do you think that any insurance is going to be less than the fine of $750 per year? I agree it is to early to pin down any rates, but it isn't to early for them to tell the people what they consider affordable. Whose standard is it based on. Theirs with their unlimited money, the working people with their average incomes, or what.

Ron

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Excaliber

Ron, 20 mill, 40 mil, whatever, it's a bunch of folks they don't have access to insurance because it's unaffordable for one reason or another. Many of whom are ready and willing to purchase it. The truly poor all ready have Medicaid, they are covered.

Health Care reform is primarily a process to cover the "working poor". Those families just getting by and families who have been denied coverage for various reasons. In some cases families and small business owners that are doing OK financially, but coverage is still out of reach.

There are various ways to fund the bill, one of which is to spread the load. Everyone who can pay something, does. Everyone get's insurance whether they think they need it or not.

People on Medicaid are the working poor as well. They "largely" work under the table earning unreported wages ( cleaning houses, handyman, resturants, etc.), and then get the government subsidy as well. That's the way the system works.

No one ever wants to pay, and many people find ways so they donlt have to pay even though they can. Only the honest working class pays.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ron61

I never mentioned Medicaid as I don't think that is the way to go. :

Why not ? There are no co-pays, well there is a spend down for some. Meds are covered.

You could easily set up a medicaid program which requires a partial premium payment.

[Excaliber]

THAT is a major concern I have about this bill that I've mentioned before! With something this BIG there have to be a ton of loop holes just waiting to be exploited by the good AND the bad!

Medical/Medicare does a fairly decent job of rooting out who can and can't pay, in my opinion. But there will always be some who get around it, no way to stop that a 100%. In fact with the economy hurting so bad fraud is expected to go WAY up from what it was. Disability for instance, the number of people now applying for it is going through the roof.

We need reforms substantially larger than a re-work of Medicaid could provide.

[Ron61]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Why not ? There are no co-pays, well there is a spend down for some. Meds are covered.

You could easily set up a medicaid program which requires a partial premium payment.

Anthony,

I just think it would leave to many gray areas unless we had a Govt. re-write of it and that is the last thing we need now. Since I am not on it, I really don't pay a lot of attention to it and don't know all that it does or does not do.

Ron

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ron61

I just think it would leave to many gray areas unless we had a Govt. re-write of it and that is the last thing we need now..

What gray areas are you talking about, ones that would be left out, and ones that would be covered with a complete new insuracne program?

I had always thought when the government re-writes legislation, they make it alot better.

[Excaliber]

Anthony, it just wouldn't be BIG enough. What we need here is something REALLY BIG, a couple of thousand pages to get started, build on that. If were gonna get the job done we will need to massively increase the size of Government.

Now my main man, Obama, is going for it. It's gonna be glorious when he's done!

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Excaliber

Medical/Medicare does a fairly decent job of rooting out who can and can't pay, in my opinion. But there will always be some who get around it, no way to stop that a 100%. In fact with the economy hurting so bad fraud is expected to go WAY up from what it was. Disability for instance, the number of people now applying for it is going through the roof..

Everybody who gets disability is examined and meets the government guidelines before they are granted disability. I would say there is very little fraud.

Why do you think there is significant fraud? What has been your experience?

[Excaliber]

Medical/Medicare does a fairly decent job of rooting out who can and can't pay,

Let's throw Medicaid and all the other Governement programs into that statement as well.

Like I said, I think the Gov does a decent job considering the huge numbers of folks it has to deal with. Significant fraud? Depends on the definition of significant of course. We know there are many folks on disability, for instance, that should be not be on it. Those numbers will increase as the economy continues to deteriorate. As well fraud across the board in all areas.

As far as Medicare is concerned the number of personel assigned to root out fraud is tiny compared to the number of investigations they want to carry out. They know about fraud in many instances but can't investigate due to limited number of personel.

We need to significantly increase the number's of investigators actively pursuing fraud in many areas. I believe the dollars saved would more than pay for the expansion.