10 “facts” I invite you the research for yourself before you summarily believe all the unsubstantiated CLAIMS about recently legislated health care reform …Original article by Angie Drobnic Holan … Published on Thursday, March 18th, 2010 at 7:09 p.m.
We go beyond the slogans and tell you what’s really in the bill. … PolitiFact … has checked hundreds of claims about health care reform and read the plans under consideration by Congress. As the Democrats move toward a final vote, we’ve selected 10 facts about the actual health care legislation that every voter should know. Agree with the measure or not, here’s what it intends to do and where the big unknowns are. We’ve linked to our previous reporting on each issue throughout the story; click through for even more sources.
1. The plan is not a government takeover of health care like in Canada or Britain. The government will not take over hospitals or other privately run health care businesses. Doctors will not become government employees, like in Britain. And the U.S. government intends to help people buy insurance from private insurance companies, not pay all the bills like the single-payer system in Canada. The key parts of the current U.S. system — employer-provided insurance, Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor — would stay in place. The government would create health insurance exchanges for people who have to buy insurance on their own, so they could more easily compare plans and prices.
2. Insurance companies will be regulated more heavily. They will be told the minimum services they must cover, including preventive care. They will have to pay out a certain percentage of premiums for patient care. By 2014, when the exchanges open, insurers won’t be able to deny customers for pre-existing conditions.
3. Everyone will have to have health insurance or pay a fine, a requirement known as the individual mandate. The government intends to cap premiums for people who make below a certain income. For people who buy insurance on the exchanges, a family of four making $88,000 would have a cap of 9.5 percent of their income. Lower incomes would have lower caps. The fine for not having insurance would be a minimum of $695 per person per year, with exemptions for financial hardship and other special cases.
4. Employers will not be required to buy insurance for their employees, but large employers may be subject to fines if they don’t provide insurance. But Congress wanted to encourage employers, especially large employers, to offer insurance. So they created a fine for employers with more than 50 workers: If those employees buy insurance on the exchanges and qualify for a low-income credit from the government, then the employer would have to pay a fine. Fines are calculated based on number of employees; for large firms, the fines could be significant.
5. The vast majority of people will not see significant declines in premiums. When President Obama talks about premiums going down, he usually means they won’t go up as much as they would otherwise. For the 4-out-of-5 who get their insurance through their employer, the savings would land in the 0 to 3 percent range by 2016, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or CBO. People who buy insurance on their own, but who don’t qualify for government subsidies, could actually see their premiums rise by as much as 10 to 13 percent, but that’s largely because they’ll be getting beefed-up policies that would pay for more basic services, especially preventive care. Low-income people who qualify for new credits to buy insurance would see the biggest drops.
6. The plan might or might not bend the curve on health spending. Critics say there aren’t enough provisions to reduce waste or fraud, but Democrats say they’re not being given enough credit for new cost-saving pilot programs that could be rapidly expanded. The most recent estimate of the plan, released Thursday by the CBO, said that it would spend $940 billion over 10 years. But new taxes, penalties and cost savings would offset that spending, according to the CBO, so that overall the plan pay for itself, dropping the deficit by slightly $138 billion over 10 years. Obama has said the plan will save more than $1 trillion in the second 10 years, but that estimate, according to the CBO, is highly speculative.
7. The government-run Medicare program will keep paying medical bills for seniors, but it will begin implementing cost controls on health care providers, mostly through penalties and incentives. The legislation would reduce payments for hospital-acquired infections or preventable hospital admissions. For Medicare Advantage, the federal government intends to reduce extra payments, taking away subsidies to private insurance companies. Insurers will likely cut benefits in order to not lose profits. The bill does not address the “doctor’s fix,” an expected proposal that Congress usually passes to prevent doctor’s Medicare payments from severe cuts.
8. Medicaid, a joint federal-state program for the poor, will cover all of the poor, instead of just a few groups the way it currently does. Right now, to qualify for Medicaid, a person has to be poor and also disabled, elderly, pregnant or a child. Under the new plan, all poor adults would qualify.
9. The government won’t pay for elective abortions. But under the Senate plan, people will be able to buy insurance that covers abortion on the new health insurance exchanges, as long as the insurance company pays for the services with patient premiums, not taxpayer subsidies. Medicaid has an exemption for cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother.
10. No one is proposing new benefits for illegal immigrants. Some House members had hoped that illegal immigrants would be able to buy insurance with their own money through the new exchanges, but that now appears unlikely.
I am sure for many the information above flies in the face of that reported to you by America’s radio & TV “talking heads” … Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Rielley & the others provocateurs on CNN, CNBC, FoxNews … instead of assuming what they say is gospel … do you own research … then conclude … you may be quite surprised providing you approach this assignment with an open mind …
People should never be afraid of their government, government should always be afraid of the people.
Your greatest weapon is in your enemy’s mind … Buddha
Everyone has the RIGHT to clean & accessible water, adequate for the health & well-being of the individual and family & NO one shall be deprived of such access or quality of water due to individual economic circumstances
And let me be a bit bolder … I am most willing to present and discuss any water or wastewater issue with an audience in Arizona where honest two way dialog is permitted.
Paul F. Miller
PO Box 47146
Phoenix, Arizona 85068-7146
To Mr. Miller:
When I read some of the things that people post, it’s like reading talking points. People say they do research, but when there is so much available, and so easy to get, to just copy someone else’s ideas and call it responsible opinion, if that’s what you call it, is…irresponsible?
Is everything you say inaccurate, no, probably not. But let’s examine some of your points:
1. The plan is not a government takeover of health care like in Canada or Britain. Yet. All one has to do is go back and LOOK at and LISTEN to the word’s that have come out of the President’s mouth. He wants a single payer system, and he knows that it will happen in steps. And THAT, is Great Britain and Canada as well as other European countries. Why do people ignore what the President has said, repeatedly, on VIDEO TAPE? Why do you ignore multiple Democrats who have said exactly the same thing, this is the START of the system. As my father says, “look it up”.
2. Insurance companies will be regulated more heavily. What? There are 2300, two thousand three hundred, state MANDATED insurance regulations. That my friend, does NOT create lower costs OR competition. Try this instead: Congress will amend the McCarran-Ferguson Act to allow interstate competition in health insurance. We can’t have a free market in health insurance until Congress eliminates the antitrust exemption protecting health insurance companies from competition. If Democrats really wanted to punish insurance companies, which they manifestly do not, they’d make insurers compete. The very next sentence of a comprehensive bill would provide that the exclusive regulator of insurance companies will be the state where the company’s home office is. Every insurance company in the country would incorporate in the state with the fewest government mandates, just as most corporations are based in Delaware today. The third sentence of the bill would prohibit the federal government from regulating insurance companies, except for normal laws and regulations that apply to all companies. Instead of insurance companies jumping to the tune of politicians bought by health-care lobbyists, they would jump to tune of hundreds of millions of Americans buying health insurance on the free market. (Auto, life, business insurance just to name a few). For example, in a free market, the government wouldn’t need to prohibit insurance companies from excluding “pre-existing conditions.”
Of course, an insurance company has to be able to refuse NEW customers with “pre-existing conditions.” Otherwise, everyone would just wait to get sick to buy insurance. It’s the same reason you can’t buy fire insurance on a house that’s already on fire. Any insurance company operating in the free market that pulled that trick wouldn’t stay in business long. In addition to saving taxpayer money and providing better health insurance, the plan also saves trees by being 2,199 pages shorter than the Democrats’ plan. Look Mr. Miller, research what happened when the airline industry was deregulated. More routes, lower costs, and the big guys who could not adapt merged or went out of business. Research the trucking industry. Everyone said that rural America would not be served if it were not for GOVERNMENT MANDATED and SOLD truck routes. The old ICC rule, auctioning off designated routes. Another OOPS. Rural America has MORE and BETTER service at LOWER prices than ever before. When are people going to learn that regulation and government do not work?
3. Everyone will have to have health insurance or pay a fine, a requirement known as the individual mandate. Show me in the Constitution of the United States where the federal government has the AUTHORITY to make me BUY anything. No, don’t throw the car insurance argument. That’s a privilege, not a RIGHT. Living and breathing is not a “privilege”. And if you understood the Constitution of the United States you would know that the Commerce Clause does NOT authorize the Fed to pull this off. 16,000 IRS agents (in the bill) to enforce this? WHAT? We should be figuring out to get RID of the IRS, not grown them by a third.
4. Fines for not buying? There’s that Constitution getting in the way again. Anyone has to be BLIND to see that long term this is not a survivable situation.
5. The vast majority of people will not see significant declines in premiums. Really? How about the VAST MAJORITY will see an INCREASE in their premiums. Let me see – 2nd grade economics. Force more coverage, with more people, with potentially fewer doctors. OK, that will keep those costs in check. I don’t want to be condescending, but how can anyone who has any sense believe that. Lower costs. PLEASE, name ONE government program, just focus for a minute on entitlement programs, that have come in at or under budget.
6. The plan might or might not bend the curve on health spending. Really. Why don’t’ you look at Indiana, a state with a governor who is and has been PUSHING Health Savings Accounts! The only state that I am aware of where health costs are going DOWN. Well, let’s see why. Could it be that it’s MY MONEY I am spending, and if I don’t spend it by running to the doctor or emergency room at the drop of a hat I may have SOME LEFT that belongs to ME! And can WILL it to my heirs? Wow, personal responsibility, what a concept. Giving the PUBLIC the tools so the PUBLIC can make an informed decision. I thought that is what built this country.
7. The government-run Medicare program will keep paying medical bills for seniors, but it will begin implementing cost controls on health care providers, mostly through penalties and incentives. OK, good program. WHY HAVE THEY NOT DONE THAT TO DATE? Medicare ADMITS to 3 to 4% FRAUD and waste, around $70 BILLION. If that is what they admit, what is the real loss? If it were VISA, .3% (POINT 3%) rings alarm bells and people start losing their jobs. Mayo Clinic (AZ) in 2008 LOST $840 MILLION last year on Medicare. In Glendale AZ, “More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman.” The point is that the government will have you believe that they can now magically clean all this up, and could not for some strange reason do it before. And they expect smart people to believe this?
8. Medicaid, a joint federal-state program for the poor, will cover all of the poor, instead of just a few groups the way it currently does. Cover them with WHAT! Medicaid is BROKE. Medicare is on the brink, and Social Security is unsustainable. Ands instead of fixing these problems, they heap a whole new layer of responsibility of BROKE states.
9. The government won’t pay for elective abortions. Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see. But, let’s approach this with a TAD bit of logic. If there is not a back door to get abortions paid by the public, WHERE WAS THE OUTRAGE BY THE PRO ABORTION ORGANIZATIONS. There wasn’t any.
10. No one is proposing new benefits for illegal immigrants. Maybe not, but then as stated repeatedly by the people who passed this, this is only the beginning. And illegal immigrants are, like everyone else, covered anyway, by law, in the emergency rooms. So to say that there are X million people without coverage is an outright lie.
And no Mr. Miller, we as citizens of this country do not have a RIGHT to clean and accessible water or any other rights you want to dream up. Competition and freedom allows us to achieve those things. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. Our Declaration DOES state certain unalienable Rights, endowed by the creator, NOT by City, State OR the Federal Government or what people dream up. We do live in the greatest country the world has ever seen, and it did not get that way by taking away the rights that were granted to us in our founding documents.
Competition and less government will always lead to better products, schools, service at better costs. This bill has little to do with Health Care, and the fact that they “slipped” in government control of student loans putting potentially thousands out of work should have been your first if not final clue.