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
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 ⅙ 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.