Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Obamacare IV

Obamacare IV
© 2014 Rick Adamson
By Rick Adamson 12.2.14
Objective

To provide health insurance for 30-40 million uninsured people in the USA.

Most working folks have health insurance through their employers. The uninsured are, therefore, the unemployed, self-employed, dependents of workers who elect not to cover their dependents and/or spouses due to the cost, employees of businesses who do not provide health insurance, part-time workers and folks who choose not to have coverage, i.e., young people.

My Solution

Do nothing or, if the citizens of the country decided they were willing the foot the bill, allow the uninsured to be covered by Medicaid. The cost would be approximately $140 billion per year or $1.5 Trillion over ten years (35 million people times $4,000.00 each per year).

The Obamacare Solution

Everyone (other than the disabled and those covered by Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare) would be required (mandated) to purchase a health insurance policy which provides for certain mandated essential benefits (or more) so that the pool (or group) would be so large that costs would be reduced, i.e., the premiums of the young and the healthy would offset the higher costs of the old and the unhealthy resulting in lower premiums for all, on average. The added cost relating to the required minimum mandated essential benefits would be spread across the large pool such that premiums for all, on average, would be reduced. The average family would save $2,500.00 per year in reduced premiums.

If the mandated insurance policy was not purchased a fine (penalty) would be imposed.

Provide for certain new taxes (on businesses) to help off set any added cost to FedGov.

The new law would pay for itself.

Key Provisions of Obamacare

     Everyone will have the benefit of health care.

The law already provided for emergency medical care for everyone. It’s that not everyone had an insurance policy. This sign appears in every hospital in the USA (except for the reference to Medi-Cal). As a result, no one in the USA was denied care in the case of accidents or severe illness.


     Insurers cannot drop you if you have large claims

A 1996 law (HIPPA) made it illegal for an insurance company to drop someone simply because they had large claims. See more here…

     Insurers must provide coverage even if you have preexisting conditions

A 1996 law (HIPPA) made it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions if they had been covered by another group plan for six months or more. See more here…

     Children can be covered by parents until they are 26 years of age

     Cadillac tax

Obamacare imposes an annual 40% excise tax on plans with annual premiums exceeding $10,200 for individuals or $27,500 for a family starting in 2018. It is a luxury tax and is meant to discourage employers from providing plans which offer generous benefits.  It applies to many corporate sponsored plans but also to many union sponsored plans in which the unions have negotiated for generous benefits.

There is significant support for repealing this tax but, if it is repealed, where will the money come from to pay for Obamacare? The answer is you the taxpayer.

     Medical device tax

Obamacare imposed a 2.3 percent medical device excise tax that manufacturers and importers will pay on sales of certain medical devices beginning Jan. 1, 2013.  Some argue that the tax will stifle innovation and send jobs overseas.  See more here…

There is significant support for repealing this tax but, if it is repealed, where will the money come from to pay for Obamacare? The answer is you the taxpayer.

    Individual mandate

Obamacare imposed a health insurance mandate that took effect in 2014.  This means that every citizen (with certain exceptions) must have a health insurance policy. If an employer purchases the policy (most working Americans are covered by their employer’s group health care plan) that's fine but if not the individual must purchase the policy.  Fines are imposed if the required policy is not obtained.

There is significant support for repealing the individual mandate. But the participation it provides is needed to make the concept viable and, alternatively, the fines for non-participation are needed to pay the costs. If it is repealed where will the money come from to pay for Obamacare? The answer is you the taxpayer.

     Corporate mandate

The Obamacare “employer mandate” is a requirement that all businesses with over 50 full-time employees provide health insurance for their full-time employees, or pay fine. Full time employees are those who work more than 30 hours per week. Fines are imposed if the mandate is not followed.

There is significant support for repealing this mandate. But the participation it provides is needed to make the concept viable and, alternatively, the fines for non-participation are needed to pay the costs. If it is repealed where will the money come from to pay for Obamacare? The answer is you the taxpayer.

Some argue that the mandate provided an incentive for employers to not hire new workers and to cut current worker’s hours.

     Insurance policies must provide for mandated Essential Benefits

See a list of these benefits and a discussion thereof here…  Policies that did not provide for these benefits had to be upgraded which resulted in policy owners being faced with higher premiums. Most policies issued to individuals (vs. groups) were no longer available which forced these individuals into the Obamacare insurance exchanges.

     The IRS is charged with enforcing the law.

The law, effectively, only applies to those who file income tax returns which is about ½ of the population. Non-filers, for all practical purposes, are not subject to the law. Many non-filers are law abiding folks who simply are not required to file a tax return. However, non-filers also included those who operate on a cash only basis such as drug dealers and prostitutes and many other service providers. The law, therefore, will be unenforceable because the IRS has no authority over the ½ who do not file a tax return.
           
     New Bureaucracy

Washington has become the home of at least 31 new federal programs, agencies, and commissions to oversee the government-run health insurance regime. The bill itself is 2,700 pages long and contains 381,517 words.  Bureaucracies in the Obama Administration have thus far published over 12,000,000 words of final Obamacare regulations, and they are just getting started. Regulations cost money!

Conclusion

Draw you own. But on 11.25.14 Chuck Schumer, D-NY (the leading Democratic proponent of the law in the Senate) said that the Democrats blew their opportunity to help the middle class by passing the health care law. This is significant! Read more…

The Government took over of of the US economy, disrupted the entire health care system and the lives of millions of the people who were happy with their coverage (85% of the folks). The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that Obamacare will cost taxpayers $2.6 Trillion over ten years (assuming none of the law’s provisions are repealed) and that, in the end, 30-40 million people will still be uninsured. This is almost double my estimate if we just allowed the uninsured to have Medicaid and 100% more than Obama said because it was supposed to pay for itself. And do not forget, FedGov is notorious for spending more than is expected or predicted.

Moreover, we should all be very suspect of any huge proposed law that does not have bi-partisan support (not a single republican voted for it) nor the support of the majority of the American people. Invariable, such laws do not work out well because they unduly benefit one group or industry to the detriment of others and the spin associated with such laws may be based on lies. In this case the beneficiaries are the insurance companies and those who will game the system. And, of course, you know about the lies; but if you don’t, you will by the end of 2015 when Obamacare is fully implemented.

There has been much talk about Professor Gruber and the lies he helped fabricate to deceive the American public.  What I find amusing is that there is little talk about the fact that those who voted for the law (congressional Democrats) were the ones’ deceived and lied to by Obama, Reed, Pelosi and Guber. We in the public were not deceived until later; the Democratic leaders deceived their own in order to get the required votes.  Remember the now famous Pelosi statement “vote for the bill so we can find out what’s in it”. It is possible, given that statement, that even the Democratic leaders were deceived but that’s another story.

Obama and crew knew that congress (much less the public) would not go along with a new entitlement costing trillions of dollars so they structured a bill that appeared to pay for itself and appeared to contained no new taxes on the folks. Then they fabricated lies saying it would have no effect on most peoples’ health care choices and that it contained no new taxes on the folks.

The end result: a massive deception that resulted in the largest fraudulent, ineffective, inefficient and unenforceable entitlement program in American history. I say unenforceable because the IRS will be in charge and only 1/2 of the population file income tax returns; the IRS has no authority over the other half.

Shame on the Democrats! Vote the Bums out!

P.S. Remember, Hilary Clinton is the Grandmother of Obamacare.  Back in 1993 she was in-charge of developing a new health care system on behalf of President Clinton. It went nowhere until the administration dusted it off, made a few changes and called it Obamacare.


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