The Democrats Want Higher Taxes And Have The Public Option Back On The Table

[The Rabbi]

Regardless of whether there is a public option or not, business is dumping health insurace at every opportunity. They do not want to be in the insurance business

Who is going to fill the void?

No, you've already been told this is not happening. Please post something--anything--that supports this statement.

Since it appears that you don't know how to use Google. You're welcome.

Firms cancel health coverage - The Boston Globe

Rising costs prompting small businesses to drop health insurance benefits - chicagotribune.com

You're right. Thank you. For proving my case.
The first link is from the Boston area. Recall that MA has Romneycare, which is the model for Obamacare. So of course businesses are dumping their liabilities on the gov't. Same will happen when Obamacare gets phased on. We've made that point. This just proves it.
THe second one concerns very small businesses. It says nothing about medium sized or large businesses. Obamacare will of course accelerate the process.
So yes, thanks for these links, which amply prove the point.
Now get back to your crayons.

 

[RDD_1210]

No, you've already been told this is not happening. Please post something--anything--that supports this statement.

Since it appears that you don't know how to use Google. You're welcome.

Firms cancel health coverage - The Boston Globe

Rising costs prompting small businesses to drop health insurance benefits - chicagotribune.com

You're right. Thank you. For proving my case.
The first link is from the Boston area. Recall that MA has Romneycare, which is the model for Obamacare. So of course businesses are dumping their liabilities on the gov't. Same will happen when Obamacare gets phased on. We've made that point. This just proves it.
THe second one concerns very small businesses. It says nothing about medium sized or large businesses. Obamacare will of course accelerate the process.
So yes, thanks for these links, which amply prove the point.
Now get back to your crayons.

You said business wasn't dropping coverage and asked for proof. I provided it and then you say, "this is small business, not large business", which is not what you asked for.

Way to be a man and at least admit you were wrong about something.

 

[DiamondDave]

Got news for you.... no they aren't, but they will be once the government starts offering an "option."

You are right on both counts.
I know one business owner right now talking to his accountant about how much more or less dumping everyone on the state and paying the fine would cost. At some point it will make sense for businesses to do this. And the argument about it being self funding is nonsense. People with no means to pay for it will be on it as well. By definition it cannot be self funding in that case.
Public option is merely a stalking horse for single payer. Barney Frank said as much.

Regardless of whether there is a public option or not, business is dumping health insurace at every opportunity. They do not want to be in the insurance business

Who is going to fill the void?

Can you not purchase your own insurance?

 

[bigrebnc1775]

You are right on both counts.
I know one business owner right now talking to his accountant about how much more or less dumping everyone on the state and paying the fine would cost. At some point it will make sense for businesses to do this. And the argument about it being self funding is nonsense. People with no means to pay for it will be on it as well. By definition it cannot be self funding in that case.
Public option is merely a stalking horse for single payer. Barney Frank said as much.

Regardless of whether there is a public option or not, business is dumping health insurace at every opportunity. They do not want to be in the insurance business

Who is going to fill the void?

Can you not purchase your own insurance?

True why do people feel they are entitled to things they have not worked for?

 

[rightwinger]

Since it appears that you don't know how to use Google. You're welcome.

Firms cancel health coverage - The Boston Globe

Rising costs prompting small businesses to drop health insurance benefits - chicagotribune.com

You're right. Thank you. For proving my case.
The first link is from the Boston area. Recall that MA has Romneycare, which is the model for Obamacare. So of course businesses are dumping their liabilities on the gov't. Same will happen when Obamacare gets phased on. We've made that point. This just proves it.
THe second one concerns very small businesses. It says nothing about medium sized or large businesses. Obamacare will of course accelerate the process.
So yes, thanks for these links, which amply prove the point.
Now get back to your crayons.

You said business wasn't dropping coverage and asked for proof. I provided it and then you say, "this is small business, not large business", which is not what you asked for.

Way to be a man and at least admit you were wrong about something.

Standard Operating Procedure from the Rabbi

Demand proof and then move the goal posts.....Basic Truther tactics

 

[The Rabbi]

You're right. Thank you. For proving my case.
The first link is from the Boston area. Recall that MA has Romneycare, which is the model for Obamacare. So of course businesses are dumping their liabilities on the gov't. Same will happen when Obamacare gets phased on. We've made that point. This just proves it.
THe second one concerns very small businesses. It says nothing about medium sized or large businesses. Obamacare will of course accelerate the process.
So yes, thanks for these links, which amply prove the point.
Now get back to your crayons.

You said business wasn't dropping coverage and asked for proof. I provided it and then you say, "this is small business, not large business", which is not what you asked for.

Way to be a man and at least admit you were wrong about something.

Standard Operating Procedure from the Rabbi

Demand proof and then move the goal posts.....Basic Truther tactics

No moving the goal posts. The claim, and implication, was that businesses en masse were dropping health care.
That is false. The existence of those two articles proves it is false.
If the claim was not that businesses are doing it en masse, then what was the point? You might as well say businesses are expanding because one or two are in fact expanding. It is irrelevant and misleading. Like all of Rightwinger's posts.

 

[Mr. Peepers]

Social Security was supposed to be paid for out of premiums. Fannie/Freddie were supposed ot be paid for out of profits.
Virtually every "cost free" government program has ended up costing taxpayers billions if not trillions of dollars. Please cite one that hasnt.

pssst. Moron. Fannie and Freddie are PRIVATE corporations contracted by the government. They are not a government program.

 

[Cuyo]

Regardless of whether there is a public option or not, business is dumping health insurace at every opportunity. They do not want to be in the insurance business

Who is going to fill the void?

Can you not purchase your own insurance?

True why do people feel they are entitled to things they have not worked for?

Public option would have been premium based, but not-for-profit. It's not free insurance.

 

[Cuyo]

And neither is the public option.

Actually, it is. It's right there in black and white. You can't argue that it's not intended to be paid through premiums since the bill clearly says that it is.



You're not very familiar with the law already on the books, are you?

In the end it will put the health care industry 100% under government control, which is what the Socialists want anyway.

The public option would be a payer, not a provider.

There is no difference.
Social Security was supposed to be paid for out of premiums. Fannie/Freddie were supposed ot be paid for out of profits.
Virtually every "cost free" government program has ended up costing taxpayers billions if not trillions of dollars. Please cite one that hasnt.

Social security is paid out of premiums, and the average recipient ultimately gets out more than they put in. Due to people living longer the program is headed toward insolvency - Which is what both parties are now working on correcting.

But it's been covered by it's respective tax ("Premium") every year. Including this year.

 

[Cuyo]

You can't choose your own insurance policy now? Is someone stopping you?

And please don't pretend I am stupid. I believe that there is an option about as much as I believed they would stop pushing for more control after the bill was passed. You guys want power over my life. Well, too bad. I am not giving it.

The law says OPTION
Until it says otherwise you are lying to state otherwise

Self employed Americans, those who work for small companies, those who are new to the job market do not have a choice...they are denied a competitive private policy.

Yet you seek to deny them access to a low cost Government Option

Options exist only where there are other choices. Since employers will be dumping their liabilities on the government in droves there will be no other options.
Thus it is not an option at all but merely a stalking horse for single payer, i.e. socialized medicine.

Single payer is not socialized medicine, but other than that little factoid, this is the first post you've made in this thread that holds any water.

However, if you truly believe in the inefficiency of government programs, then common sense would mandate that the private sector will provide a better deal than that of which the government is capable. Therefore, your manifesto should conclude that there will always be private competitors.

 

[Cuyo]

Got news for you...
Employers are droping healthcare covrage in droves right now. They do not want to be in the health insurance business. The paperwork and long term liabilities are excessive

Their response is that all those new employees they hire are not offered health insurance or else they water down the policy they offer

Having a Government Option would be a safe haven for employees to go if they do not get adequate insurance from their employer

fuck you and the public option.

Republicans....The Party of Fuck You

Oh Winger, you know better. There are no Republicans on this board. They're all independents. They just happen to be independents that believe the propaganda of the Republicans 10 times out of 10.

 

[mudwhistle]

Social Security was supposed to be paid for out of premiums. Fannie/Freddie were supposed ot be paid for out of profits.
Virtually every "cost free" government program has ended up costing taxpayers billions if not trillions of dollars. Please cite one that hasnt.

pssst. Moron. Fannie and Freddie are PRIVATE corporations contracted by the government. They are not a government program.

Wrong....

The federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac refers to the placing into conservatorship of government sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the U.S. Treasury in September 2008. It was one financial event among many in the ongoing subprime mortgage crisis.

On September 6, 2008, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), James B. Lockhart III, announced his decision to place two Government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), into conservatorship run by the FHFA.[1][2][3]

At the same press conference, United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, stated that placing the two GSEs into conservatorship was a decision he fully supported, and that he advised "that conservatorship was the only form in which I would commit taxpayer money to the GSEs." He further said that "I attribute the need for today's action primarily to the inherent conflict and flawed business model embedded in the GSE structure, and to the ongoing housing correction."[1]

The same day, Federal Reserve Bank chairman Ben Bernanke stated in support: "I strongly endorse both the decision by FHFA Director Lockhart to place Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship and the actions taken by Treasury Secretary Paulson to ensure the financial soundness of those two companies."[4] The following day, Herbert M. Allison was appointed chief executive of Fannie Mae. He came from TIAA-CREF.[5]

Federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[The Rabbi]

What Mudwhistle said. Mr. Peepers obviously can't be bothered to read a newspaper.
Fannie/Freddie were chartered by the federal gov't and always an implicit guarantee--that became explicit--that the gov't would bail them out. Which is what happened.

 

[Greenbeard]

Except that not all participants will be able to pay in a public option.. hence the WANT for it...

As was the case last year, there seems to be a tremendous amount of confusion as to what a public option is. It's not Medicaid. We already have something like Medicaid--it's called Medicaid. A public option is not for the poor, people who can't afford to pay premiums--it's for anyone in the individual market who wants to buy insurance from it. Its premiums will be lower than most private plans because of the way it reimburses providers--that's why people want it and that's where its value lies. As I explained in a post above, the point of that is to get private insurers and providers alike to put the brakes on rising premiums, lest private insurers lose customers to the public option and providers have to settle for lower reimbursements. The better the public option works, the smaller the differential in its premiums from the average private premium and consequently the less attractive it is relative to private payers (i.e. the less customers it has).

Its purpose isn't to swoop up all the customers in the market, its job is to re-shape the landscape in which payers and providers negotiate reimbursements (which ultimately determines how high your premiums are and how fast they're rising). I wouldn't have access to the public option (I'm in a employer-based plan) but I still wouldn't mind seeing it introduced because it would be an improvement to the existing health care market as a whole.

Horse shit. The government can undercut insurance companies by subsidizing the public option with tax dollars which they will do, thus putting insurance companies out of business.

Private insurers are being subsidized under the new reform law (via subsidies low-to-middle income people can spend only on premiums).

Employers will drop their employees' health insurance benefits because there is now a public "option" forcing them onto the government program no longer making it an option. Eventually, the government becomes the primary insurer and voila! Socialized health care, which is exactly what the socialists wanted in the first place. This is the logical progression of things.

An employer who dumps coverage (which, by the way, there's an employer mandate to help prevent) sends his employees into health insurance exchanges, which are full of private plans. If this new public option bill, H.R. 5808, were to pass there would then be a public plan available to people buying in the exchanges. Does the public plan steal their customers? Not if they pressure providers to stop jacking up reimbursements (something insurers have a difficult time doing now but would have significantly more leverage to do if a viable publicly plan were competing with them).

You are right on both counts.
I know one business owner right now talking to his accountant about how much more or less dumping everyone on the state and paying the fine would cost. At some point it will make sense for businesses to do this.

This is somewhat off the immediate topic, but decoupling health insurance from jobs would be a good thing. You'd have more choice (I have no choice of insurance options through my current employer), more portability, and more competition in a single marketplace. The employer mandate--the fine--is there partially to help pay for the health care system and partly to maintain the current system as it is since people don't like abrupt change. Ultimately I'd like to see that preference for employer-sponsored insurance go away (and this is an idea many on the right--from Milton Friedman to Ron Paul--have embraced at various points).

And the argument about it being self funding is nonsense. People with no means to pay for it will be on it as well. By definition it cannot be self funding in that case.

That's not true. People with no means to pay (i.e. who are below the 133% of the poverty level threshold) will be on Medicaid, a very different beast.

You're right. Thank you. For proving my case.
The first link is from the Boston area. Recall that MA has Romneycare, which is the model for Obamacare. So of course businesses are dumping their liabilities on the gov't. Same will happen when Obamacare gets phased on. We've made that point. This just proves it.

How does a business dropping coverage dump liabilities on the government? I assume you're talking about subsidies to buy private insurance in the Connector, not actually pushing people onto a public insurer since there isn't any such thing in Massachusetts (beyond Medicaid, of course).

 

[mudwhistle]

Never should have taken the Public Option off the table

Only way to keep insurance companies honest and rates down

The Public Option isn't really an option at all.

It needs to be changed to "The Public Mandate" because insurance companies can't compete nor can they stay in business because regulations are going into effect next January intended to put them out of business.

Soon all insurance companies will be gone and Uncle Sugar with be the only option left.

 

[Greenbeard]

The Public Option isn't really an option at all.

It needs to be changed to "The Public Mandate" because insurance companies can't compete nor can they stay in business because regulations are going into effect next January intended to put them out of business.

The public option would have to comply with the same regulations as every private insurer.

 

[The Rabbi]

The Public Option isn't really an option at all.

It needs to be changed to "The Public Mandate" because insurance companies can't compete nor can they stay in business because regulations are going into effect next January intended to put them out of business.

The public option would have to comply with the same regulations as every private insurer.

If that were the case, what would be the point?

 

[Cuyo]

Never should have taken the Public Option off the table

Only way to keep insurance companies honest and rates down

The Public Option isn't really an option at all.

It needs to be changed to "The Public Mandate" because insurance companies can't compete nor can they stay in business because regulations are going into effect next January intended to put them out of business.

Soon all insurance companies will be gone and Uncle Sugar with be the only option left.

But why not? I thought the government was inefficient? Surely the private sector will be offering the better deals.

 

[Greenbeard]

If that were the case, what would be the point?

Sometimes I feel like David Duchovny's character from Zoolander: "Are you serious? I just told you that, a moment ago."

Read.

And yes, it is true. You can easily look that up by reading the bill, it's very short. Look up H.R. 5808 on THOMAS.

`(2) OFFERING THROUGH EXCHANGES-

`(A) EXCLUSIVE TO THE EXCHANGE- The public health insurance option shall only be made available through Exchanges established under this title.

`(B) ENSURING A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD- Consistent with this section, the public health insurance option shall comply with requirements that are applicable under this title to health benefits plans offered through such Exchanges, including requirements related to benefits, benefit levels, provider networks, notices, consumer protections, and cost sharing.​

 

[The Rabbi]

Never should have taken the Public Option off the table

Only way to keep insurance companies honest and rates down

The Public Option isn't really an option at all.

It needs to be changed to "The Public Mandate" because insurance companies can't compete nor can they stay in business because regulations are going into effect next January intended to put them out of business.

Soon all insurance companies will be gone and Uncle Sugar with be the only option left.

But why not? I thought the government was inefficient? Surely the private sector will be offering the better deals.

They are. BUt they have access to tax money that private companies dont.