Obamacare could deny coverage to sick

[daveman]

That's because the truth hurts them It's like Sunlight to Dracula. And they are Marxists...Statists.

Nuh-UH! /usual rebuttal

 

[Greenbeard]

I could have put up the EPA, believe it or not, because it has done some good things for life... but well, they didn't stop. Now they're brownshirt econazi bastards who think they have a right to regulate your very breathing because they are deliberately misconstruing CO2 as a pollutant.

They were ordered by the Supreme Court to regulate CO2 if they couldn't come up with a compelling scientific reason not to:

The Supreme Court ruled on April 2, 2007 in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency that the EPA has the authority to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases in automobile emissions, stating that "greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act capacious definition of air pollutant." The court also stated that the EPA must regulate in this area unless it is able to provide a scientific reason for not doing so.​

 

[The T]

That's because the truth hurts them It's like Sunlight to Dracula. And they are Marxists...Statists.

Nuh-UH! /usual rebuttal

 

[Big Fitz]

I could have put up the EPA, believe it or not, because it has done some good things for life... but well, they didn't stop. Now they're brownshirt econazi bastards who think they have a right to regulate your very breathing because they are deliberately misconstruing CO2 as a pollutant.

They were ordered by the Supreme Court to regulate CO2 if they couldn't come up with a compelling scientific reason not to:

The Supreme Court ruled on April 2, 2007 in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency that the EPA has the authority to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases in automobile emissions, stating that "greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act capacious definition of air pollutant." The court also stated that the EPA must regulate in this area unless it is able to provide a scientific reason for not doing so.​

And who begged them to regulate CO2? Oh that's right. they did with the help of the econazi activist enclaves who stand to receive substantial financial gains as well as influence politically.

It's a giant scam and every honest vendor knows it.

 

[Big Fitz]

So, more people will be insured, being treated by even fewer resources than are available now.

Obamacare is going to kill an awful lot of people.

See, this is why logical progression is so important to pay attention to and why the left so often go "we didn't mean for X to happen!" Unintended consequences are the bane of every busy body.

To pay for this healthcare, we're going to tax what is unhealthy (smoking, drinking, sin taxes, cap and tax). This then increases the price of these items and consumption goes DOWN, thereby decreasing the tax intake causing a deficit in the funding system. This then requires more taxation from elsewhere causing those areas to become more expensive, DECREASING CONSUMPTION again, decreasing funds gathered yet again. This forces them to find other places to tax, Increasing costs, decreasing consumption, and creating yet another shortfall in tax funds.

Do you see where this is going? It's called an economic law for a reason. When you want less of something, increase it's price so less can afford it AND cannot buy as much. This decreases consumption. But when you DECREASE the price, you will increase consumption causing more to be able to use it and consume it requiring you to increase production.

Now, notice, If what you do is offer one thing for less expensive, while making the very items that support it more expensive, you get into a negative feedback loop, causing ever increasing shortfalls for you have to continually increase the support gained from a decreasing pool of consumption because you price the support mechanism out of range for effective funding.

Economics 101 in action.

So let's look at Obama care functionally on what it will do. It offers free healthcare. Free equals incredibly high demand to begin with. A critical need item offered at an impossibly low price. They say that you will be able to keep private care insurance, but why? It will be more expensive than private insurance. What happens? People leave the private insurance pool, causing the product to become more expensive to spread loss and finally it will collapse, leaving ONLY obama care.

Now the fun part, private healthcare was going to be taxed to support Obama Care! Now, once it puts private insurance out of business... how will it be supported? Nobody will have an alternative place to go to. So they will have to find new streams of revenue. Of course you also must pay attention that the massive unemployment caused by the collapse of private insurance will mean less consumption elsewhere in the economy and at smaller levels as people can't find as good pay jobs and there's a glut of people looking for work. The economy slows down more, and more and more...

But does the need for free healthcare stop? Nope! It only INCREASES! Requiring more cash from anywhere possible, which is becoming increasingly hard to find and maintain. You notice the financial death spiral we're on here? Oh and don't forget all the criminal aliens pouring into this nation for free healthcare that the P-BO admin believes they're entitled to as well, so increase the strain even more.

This is economically untenable and will collapse quickly. The question isn't if, but WHEN and HOW BIG.

Compassion doesn't feed the bulldog when you have nothing as well.

 

[Greenbeard]

To pay for this healthcare, we're going to tax what is unhealthy (smoking, drinking, sin taxes, cap and tax). This then increases the price of these items and consumption goes DOWN, thereby decreasing the tax intake causing a deficit in the funding system. This then requires more taxation from elsewhere causing those areas to become more expensive, DECREASING CONSUMPTION again, decreasing funds gathered yet again. This forces them to find other places to tax, Increasing costs, decreasing consumption, and creating yet another shortfall in tax funds.

I would encourage you to apply your thinking to the main long-term funding mechanism for the new law: the cap on the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance plans (the excise tax). Its goal isn't merely to finance the system, it's intended to act as a cost control; by situating itself within the health care system itself, it's intended to decrease consumption of high-cost insurance plans and put a drag on health care spending. The result would be a substitution of wages for health benefits (since we're talking about employer-sponsored coverage). Wages, of course, are taxable. So people buying plans above the tax exclusion cap will pay taxes on them and people who opt to stay below the cap and take wages instead of extra benefits will also be increasing tax revenues. Since the reconciliation bill pegged the growth rate of the cap to the inflation rate, it becomes increasingly effective as both a cost control and a revenue source over time.

So let's look at Obama care functionally on what it will do. It offers free healthcare.

Are you speaking only of the Medicaid expansions?

Free equals incredibly high demand to begin with. A critical need item offered at an impossibly low price. They say that you will be able to keep private care insurance, but why? It will be more expensive than private insurance. What happens? People leave the private insurance pool, causing the product to become more expensive to spread loss and finally it will collapse, leaving ONLY obama care.

What does "obama care" mean in this context? Medicaid?

 

[JakeStarkey]

The economic predators have no evidence that health insurance reform will cause more harm than the current situation. They can pine and whine all they want, but . . . they got nothing.

 

[Big Fitz]

Greenbeard... Elementary Economics. You increase price, you reduce demand. You reduce demand, you collect fewer taxes because it is consumed less. There is no way around this. It like Economic Physics. For every action there is an equal and opposite action. For every price increase, there is a decrease in consumption.

Another economic fact, whenever there is an upward pressure on a price, and a cap is installed, all prices go to the cap and stay there regardless of what the market would be otherwise. If there is downward pressure on a price and a floor is imposed, all prices fall to the floor and stay there regardless of market action.

This has been the case since man developed money and trade.

You may want to try and split hairs and say one program's different from another, but they're not fundamentally. It is unsustainable. Obamacare, Medicare (broke), Medicaid (broke), Tricare (breaking)... And all you have to do is look to Canada and Europe to see it happening in every single payer government run system. Sure people love it until they see the true price. I'd love it if chinese buffets were free too. But it is not a sustainable financial model and why capitalism is the superior economic system allowing price to fix the true cost and ration that way. You may not like the 'moral aspects' of only the rich getting healthcare, but that's irrelevant.

Economics wins over 'should bes' every time.

 

[The T]

The economic predators have no evidence that health insurance reform will cause more harm than the current situation. They can pine and whine all they want, but . . . they got nothing.

Of course you mean Government and their intrusion into the free market?

Of Course you do.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Ah, of course. Partisan sniping over over actually focusing on the outcomes you'd like to see.

It is only partisan sniping because the Democrats finally managed to unite the Republicans, something that has never happened in history before, as far as I know.

Three mechanisms are at work here:

1) Risk adjustment at the state level so that plans serving a higher actuarial risk pool are not at a financial disadvantage. For the first three years the exchanges are in existence, HHS will also be establishing risk corridors for the small and group markets in which adjustments are made for a plan based on the ratio of allowable costs to the non-administrative component of premium subsidies.

2) Premium tax credits designed to bolster insurance pools. Obviously they're given to individuals--so they can choose which insurance pool they want to direct the money to--but the ultimate goal isn't just making it possible for more people to afford coverage, it's making sure the pools themselves have additional resources to cover the influx of new customers, including those with pre-existing conditions.

3) The mandate to deter adverse selection, preventing healthy individuals from opting out until they need insurance and leaving the pools disproportionately unhealthy. Obviously this relates to point 2), since lots of those people (including those who are relatively healthy) are vehicles for pumping this extra government money into the insurance pools.

1) Why shouldn't higher risk pools be at a higher financial disadvantage? Why should anyone subsidize anyone else?

2) Tax credits favoring one group over another are wrong, and unconstitutional. One of these days SCOTUS is going to wake up and remember that detail, and eliminate all government programs that do not treat everyone the same.

3) Bullshit. The only way they would do that is if the penalty outweighed the benefits of opting out. Otherwise you are going to end up with what is happening in Mass. with a group of people who opt out until they need medical care, sign up for an insurance plan for a few months, and then drop it until they need one again. The penalty that is in place is not even close to being large enough to prevent that, I pay three times that penalty in premiums already.

I'm not sure what you mean by "work" here, as the main goal of the exchanges it to create a transparent, easily navigable individual market which allows coverage to approach universality. That has happened in Massachusetts. Their law, however, made no attempt at cost control, which is why the rate of cost increases hasn't changed. That's why they're exploring options on that front now. But since you seem to be implying that people with pre-existing conditions can't and don't get coverage in Massachusetts (since that was the single criteria you laid out here), I can assure you that's false.

I mean work as actually doing what they say it is going to do, provide insurance for high risk patients at affordable rates. One of two things is going to happen, either rates for everyone are going to climb through the roof to cover these high risk patients, or their rates are going to climb so high that they will end up in the same boat they are in now. Since you like to point at Mass' so much, why don't you point out how thier costs have risen faster than expected, and that Mass. is currently trying to force insurers to operate at a loss in order to quiet the outrage of its populous? Just how long do you think any company can stay in business if it always loses money?

For that matter you can also look at the Swiss system, which relies on risk adjustment, subsidies to keep personal spending below a certain percentage of one's income, an individual mandate, community rating, and guaranteed issue. They, too, have been able to cover those with pre-existing conditions.

We didn't adapt the Swiss system, did we?

Again, since "won't work" is presumably shorthand for the remark that sparked this thread of the conversation--"people with pre-existing conditions will still be unable to get coverage"--I can tell you that in this has worked. Guaranteed issue laws--particularly when they're coupled with risk adjustment and financial support--allow people with pre-existing conditions to obtain insurance.

Where? And, as I have said repeatedly, I oppose entitlements.

That's not quite true. There was a meeting between HHS officials, the NGA, and other interested state health policy folks in D.C. just last week. There's a process going on that's going to shape how this unfolds over the next two and a half years. Right now we're at the beginning of the process. Federal guidance, technical assistance from knowledgeable organizations, and state-sharing with each other will be the heart of designing and building the exchanges. But it won't happen over the course of a few months and I can tell you that states are more than happy to have the breathing room to figure out how to do this right.

HHS hasn't even drafted their own regulations yet, despite the fact that they are mandated to have them by law already, what possible advice could they give anyone about following those non existent regulations? You can tell me whatever you want about the states, but I think the fact that a few of them are challenging the law is more of an indication that they are unhappy than that they are happy.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I could have put up the EPA, believe it or not, because it has done some good things for life... but well, they didn't stop. Now they're brownshirt econazi bastards who think they have a right to regulate your very breathing because they are deliberately misconstruing CO2 as a pollutant.

They were ordered by the Supreme Court to regulate CO2 if they couldn't come up with a compelling scientific reason not to:

The Supreme Court ruled on April 2, 2007 in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency that the EPA has the authority to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases in automobile emissions, stating that "greenhouse gases fit well within the Clean Air Act capacious definition of air pollutant." The court also stated that the EPA must regulate in this area unless it is able to provide a scientific reason for not doing so.​

That does not escuse them from the other stupid things they have done. Like Fitz, I think the EPA is generally a good thing, but the regulations that are preventing the Dutch skimmers from operating in the Gulf because they will not be returning clean enough water is an indication of how screwed up they are now. Additionally, allowing large companies to write environmental regulations that stifle competition is stupid and shortsighted.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I would encourage you to apply your thinking to the main long-term funding mechanism for the new law: the cap on the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance plans (the excise tax). Its goal isn't merely to finance the system, it's intended to act as a cost control; by situating itself within the health care system itself, it's intended to decrease consumption of high-cost insurance plans and put a drag on health care spending. The result would be a substitution of wages for health benefits (since we're talking about employer-sponsored coverage). Wages, of course, are taxable. So people buying plans above the tax exclusion cap will pay taxes on them and people who opt to stay below the cap and take wages instead of extra benefits will also be increasing tax revenues. Since the reconciliation bill pegged the growth rate of the cap to the inflation rate, it becomes increasingly effective as both a cost control and a revenue source over time.

You mean the tax that specifically exempts union health care plans "temporarily?"

Anyone want to take bets on the likelihood of the Democrats extending that exemption to keep the unions happy?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

The economic predators have no evidence that health insurance reform will cause more harm than the current situation. They can pine and whine all they want, but . . . they got nothing.

Massachusetts

 

[boedicca]

We can also see what has happened in the UK and Canada with the long waiting lists, denial of coverage for drugs and procedures that are routine in the U.S., and lack of innovation and techology.

It's quite clear that equality of coverage results in lower standards of care.

 

[Greenbeard]

Greenbeard... Elementary Economics. You increase price, you reduce demand. You reduce demand, you collect fewer taxes because it is consumed less. There is no way around this.

That's the aim of the excise tax. Tax revenues collected from health benefits are not as important here as simple income taxes on wages.

Another economic fact, whenever there is an upward pressure on a price, and a cap is installed, all prices go to the cap and stay there regardless of what the market would be otherwise. If there is downward pressure on a price and a floor is imposed, all prices fall to the floor and stay there regardless of market action.

You're mixing concepts here. The "cap" I'm referred to isn't actually a cap in the sense of a price ceiling; rather it's an end to a tax exemption (i.e. subsidy). Health benefits can go over it but at that point they become treated like any other form of income. However, you're correct in pointing out that one of its goals is to provide mechanisms that will resists upward pressure on premiums.

Obamacare, Medicare (broke), Medicaid (broke), Tricare (breaking)...

What does Obamacare mean here? I'm not sure why you reference Canada or single-payer systems either. You seem confused here.

1) Why shouldn't higher risk pools be at a higher financial disadvantage? Why should anyone subsidize anyone else?

That's what insurance is. Take away the concept of risk adjustment and leave the risk pool...and someone is still subsidizing someone else.

3) Bullshit. The only way they would do that is if the penalty outweighed the benefits of opting out. Otherwise you are going to end up with what is happening in Mass. with a group of people who opt out until they need medical care, sign up for an insurance plan for a few months, and then drop it until they need one again. The penalty that is in place is not even close to being large enough to prevent that, I pay three times that penalty in premiums already.

On an unrelated note, I've seen people making this argument and then later also arguing that the decision to forgo buying insurance isn't an economic one with larger ramifications for the rest of society. Just an amusing side note.

That said, the implementation of annual enrollment periods (provided for in the new law) significantly raises the risks of going without insurance (i.e. you can't just sign up in the ambulance on your way to the hospital). If necessary the mandate penalty can be raised but that's something to examine after implementation.

I mean work as actually doing what they say it is going to do, provide insurance for high risk patients at affordable rates. One of two things is going to happen, either rates for everyone are going to climb through the roof to cover these high risk patients, or their rates are going to climb so high that they will end up in the same boat they are in now.

Their rates won't climb higher than anyone else's because the law imposes modified community rating rules. You can't charge women or someone with a pre-existing condition more for the same plan anymore.

Since you like to point at Mass' so much, why don't you point out how thier costs have risen faster than expected, and that Mass. is currently trying to force insurers to operate at a loss in order to quiet the outrage of its populous?

Yeah, why haven't I pointed that out?

But if you think rising costs in Massachusetts are due to offering coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, you're mistaken.

You mean the tax that specifically exempts union health care plans "temporarily?"

The excise tax doesn't specifically exempt collectively bargain plans. Your information is somewhat outdated.

 

[Big Fitz]

We didn't adapt the Swiss system, did we?

What I find funny is that because the Swiss system apparently works at this moment in their economy (which is still up for debate), every proponent of socialized medicine is saying "See? It's working and it will here too the same way!" But what has been cobbled together by radical left activists who are writing the bill for congress... or just editing here and there... is nothing like theirs.

But yet it is implied it P-BOcare should be treated the same.

Talk about appeals for authority that don't exist!

 

[Greenbeard]

What I find funny is that because the Swiss system apparently works at this moment in their economy (which is still up for debate), every proponent of socialized medicine is saying "See? It's working and it will here too the same way!" But what has been cobbled together by radical left activists who are writing the bill for congress... or just editing here and there... is nothing like theirs.

You're missing the point. Of course we're not adopting the Swiss system wholesale. But the claim was that a guaranteed issue rule cannot and never has resulted in those with pre-existing conditions entering insurance pools. It's an absurd suggestion on its face but the Swiss provides a simple counterexample.

Now, if the argument is shifting to "sure, it can but as structured in this law it won't" you then need to address why that is within the context of this law. Which wasn't done before but I'm all ears if that's the direction you want to take it.

 

[Big Fitz]

Hmmmm pick out the relevant issues here... discard the fat, bone, gristle and bs.... Now...

You're mixing concepts here. The "cap" I'm referred to isn't actually a cap in the sense of a price ceiling; rather it's an end to a tax exemption (i.e. subsidy). Health benefits can go over it but at that point they become treated like any other form of income. However, you're correct in pointing out that one of its goals is to provide mechanisms that will resists upward pressure on premiums.(i.e. subsidy).

Potato potahto. You still increase cost, therefore decrease demand, therefore decrease usage, therefore decrease revenues collected leading to a deficit. Simple chain of logic proven for thousands of years. The point is you cannot stop upward pressure when you interfere with free floating price. The cheaper the service or item, the greater the demand, and if you cap prices artificially low, you do nothing to decrease demand and the market overheats causing shortages. If you let price go and rise to the point of where demand causes reconsideration or limits access, you solve the problem. Once demand drops, so then will the price. This is basic push pull inflation/deflation.

That's what insurance is. Take away the concept of risk adjustment and leave the risk pool...and someone is still subsidizing someone else.

Um, maybe my hearing isn't 20/20 no more, but how can you have a risk pool if you cannot adjust risk accordingly? The two are intrinsically tied. You remove the ability to price risk you remove the ability to survive financially because you effectively blind the insurer, and nobody's going to risk their money to insure a losing investment.

Their rates won't climb higher than anyone else's because the law imposes modified community rating rules. You can't charge women or someone with a pre-existing condition more for the same plan anymore.

Then you're going out of business and insure no one. Community ratings are horrible things for they protect the biggest users of a service at the cost of those who do not use the service and should be paying far lower premiums. Just like good drivers get the benefit of no accidents, tickets and habits, bad drivers suffer higher premiums for their risky behavior. Now if you said that you had to charge them all the same, you will lose people who can get their health insurance elsewhere, and if they can't get it cheaper elsewhere they will quit paying, and use "emergency room" insurance. Why pay for something they can't be denied anyway? And then the system collapses because the fine is far lower than the costs incurred by the system. Oops. Unsustainable yet again. Then you get back to only the critically ill needing healthcare and not being able to get it because there's no money in the pool or so little money they ration care. The logic is inescapable.

Universal government run, single payer health care is unsustainable for any length of time. Just like communism always falls to economic collapse.

But if you think rising costs in Massachusetts are due to offering coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, you're mistaken.

IIRC, MASScare already went bankrupt.

The excise tax doesn't specifically exempt collectively bargain plans. Your information is somewhat outdated.

And I'm just SURE it hasn't been put back in after no one was looking on the rewrites.

 

[Big Fitz]

Of course we're not adopting the Swiss system wholesale.

we aren't adopting any of it at all... other than government controls all in the end.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

[Yeah, why haven't I pointed that out?

But if you think rising costs in Massachusetts are due to offering coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, you're mistaken.

Did I say it is because of covering pre-existing conditions? It is because it is run by the government.

The excise tax doesn't specifically exempt collectively bargain plans. Your information is somewhat outdated.

Out of date? Perhaps, but I can find nothing that contradicts it.