This is a continuation of the last posting. This is basically the positives of President Obama’s healthcare bill, which is not much. However, there are some silver linings with the most important being the Health Insurance Exchange…

The Health Insurance exchange, such a simple idea and it is something that really makes protesting it very hard. It is basically a stock exchange like list where people can view the health insurance for what they are. You can see which insurance plan has the best premiums or coverage.

Even some right wing observers, most notably Bill O’Reilly , has supported this exchange. We know it would work as it works like a stock exchange and stock exchanges work! It is an outstanding way to get insurance companies to compete.

Again going back to the simple basics is great. Updating and simplifying the process would result in less paperwork which would translate to lower costs. It is sad though to think that it actually takes a President to fix this kinds of problems. Also, I do not know how much money would be saved.

Giving credits to small businesses also make a lot of sense to me. It is these guys that are the cornerstone of our economy and yet when they are often lagging behind when it comes to healthcare. They often pay more for the same kind of coverages as compared to unions and especially corporations.

The mandate is very acceptable. For people that do not qualify for the tax-filling threshold, they are not obliged to buy the plan. So this would really keep many people happy. The young also are not obliged to buy health insurance, what this means is that health insurance cost for us would be significantly lower.

Other than these few points there was nothing out there that was really catching out eyes. The Senate Plan is weak, and the President’s input did not help at all. Overall, I would not support this bill as there are just not enough cost-cutting measures.

To make matters worse, there would be just too many excuses for insurance companies to raise premiums. It has been an utter disappointment. The best hope is that with the threat of reconciliation, the public option comes into the mix. Because Congress does not bother considering other cost-cutting measures and there is still a 2:1 popular support in favor of it…

Okay this is something that is not being detected by most Americans, neither do our pathetic media. One of the most repeated things that President Obama mentions is that there is going to be no more being denied due to pre-existing conditions. Well that is not exactly true…

The 11 page proposal by President Obama which is actually a tweak of the Senate Bill, does clearly mention that CHILDREN can’t be denied healthcare because of a pre-existing condition, but the language is not so clear when it comes to adults, teenagers and seniors. It could have been very easily expanded to all classes, but simple-lettered, strong-armed laws were only available for children.

What this means is that there is going to be a minefield of legal loopholes that lawyers can exploit. Why can’t it be simply put that pre-existing condition discrimination is illegal? It was simple enough to be done for kids, so why not the rest of us? Why put in complicated measures that, with the benefit of a doubt, is meant to simply prevent and not end pre-existing condition discrimination?

In my opinion, I think it is because President Obama along with his Democrats, along with the Republicans are all sucked into this hole of lobbyists corruption. It is with lobbyist money that our politicians are being elected. That system has to change, but let me ramble about that another day.

Now on to some terms.. oh where do I start! Firstly the cost controlling factor. The only thing that they have done is say that the government now can somewhat regulate increase in interest premiums. And even for this, it is for companies that take part in the exchange. I am just not comfortable with the government coming in telling businesses how much to charge…

Where is the public option? Where is the competition? None, nothing, zero! We all have got to buy the bill but there is absolutely no measure to increase competition other than the exchange. Added to that, insurance companies now got to deal with half baked pre-existing conditions legislation, are forced to enrollee’s dependent children till the age of 26, offer preventive care and immunizations at no cost, etc… Do you know what all this would equate to Insurance companies : excuse for higher premiums!

President Obama also promised in his campaign that citizens should have the same healthcare as any member of Congress. Not really the case. Whilst this is not a lie; it sure is a misrepresentation of a promise! You see, we are not going to get the healthcare that Congress enjoys right now, but Congress would be forced to buy from the exchange, so they would be getting the healthcare that we would with the passing of this bill!

I get why young people, those who earn less and those with religious objections are exempted from buying health insurance but why is it that the Indians? I do get that we are living on their land and enjoying their fruits, but come on! If it is good for us, it is good for them!

Another thing is regarding the claim that they would increase revenue by closing the loopholes, but how exactly is not being mentioned in the text. Can the President please care to explain of this during his showdown on Thursday?

I would discuss the positives of this plan tomorrow, but I can tell you that is sure is shorter than this one!

We have not talked about health care for a while on this site. But this I cannot ignore. We have said it for a long time and this time I am being echoed by Governor (Dr.) Howard Dean months later : No public option; Kill the Bill!

In a segment with the ever so boring Dylan Ratigan, Governor Howard Dean basically threatened to stop sending in money to the respective Democratic committees in Congress if they do not have a bill in it that has a public option.

Looking back, we know that not nominating him is the biggest mistake that the Democrats ever made. They overlooked a governor that is a proven success and a person that is well informed in 2004, and they picked a long-jaw douche-bag named Senator John Kerry. So not only are the politicians pathetic, their far left voting base in the primaries are pathetic too.

Coming back to health care, I stress that this is the most important part of health care reform : the public option. The biggest problem with the health care cost in our country is cost. That should be the primary objective. And yet, our politicians came up with just one solution to curb costs : public option. (For Republican readers, I would explain in paragraphs below why their idea of buying across state lines would not work.)

Without the public option, there would be a mandate for the public to have health insurance to drive up demand and there is no other counter measure to keep the cost down. Therefore, we are literally throwing our money to the insurance companies with the Bill.

With the public option, there would be pressure to keep the price of the insurance down. If the insurance companies charge us too much, people would switch their plans to the public option which is non profit. It is not very difficult to understand the public option actually.

The Republican proposal of allowing customers to buy across state lines would not work. For it to work, there need to be national rules and guidelines. For example, in football, the rules in Saint Louis is the same as that in Dallas. If you cannot spit at the referee in Dallas, you cannot do it anywhere else.
The rules need to be the same, else you would have all the companies flocking to the state with the lowest amount of regulation. That is the case for the Credit Card companies.

So why can’t there be a national rule: The tenth amendment which guarantees states rights. With that, the federal government cannot force local governments to conform with other states on these issues. Even if our politicians want it, it would be very tricky. I also do not want it to go down that path as I think states rights are very important in our country.

A way around the Republican proposal is the idea that we in ST put up months ago. Allow the foreigners to flood the market. If the Japanese can make cars here, they can also sell their insurance, which is much more cheaper than ours, here. If Indian companies can create for us computer programs, they should also sell their insurances over here. Then let the competition begin!

Though, I hate it when politicians make threats when they can, in this case I am with Governor Dean. The Democrats should not receive any party donations if they cannot fulfill what the people want. A health care bill without the public option would wreck our country and make our lives much tougher than it already is.

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The Republican have long criticized and hit away the Democratic plans on many issues. Health care though, have been especially forceful. So, when they when they give out the bill, guess what, they forgot the most essential part of it : Health insurance coverage.

My goodness! I really could not believe it! There are 47 million people not insured in the United States of America. Take away the illegal immigrants and you get 38 million people uninsured. Of this, there are 17 million middle class Americans who are denied insurance or cannot afford it.

At it barest minimum, steps should be taken to ensure that these 17 million people get ensured. But guess how many people the Republican plans cover. In their own words, 750 000 households. In terms of population 3 million people. Yes 3 million people.

Is that what we really call reform? Is this what America has come down to? Where an ideology drives something so much that we are only bothered to cover 3 million people when we need to be covering 17-47 million? Come on!What in the world are they doing?

I have yet to receive the scoring of both plans by the CBO officially, so this is my first impression of the outline that I see. The Democrats claim that their $1 trillion is going to decrease the debt just like the Republicans. From what I scheme through, there are going to be lots of taxes for the top 1% and surtaxes here and there. Their plan includes the public option. It also cuts Medicare by half a trillion over 10 years.

Here are the things I would be looking out for in the Democrat bills. Firstly, what taxes are they going to raise? Are they going to raise corporate taxes which I vehemently oppose, or personal taxes of the top 1%, which I think would be okay? Furthermore, is this just a stop gap measure or are going to control cost over the long term? Can we bring the increases of health insurance cost to down to the rate of inflation? In Medicare, are we cutting it sufficiently; we waste $500billion to $800billion a year on health care; how much of that is Medicare and how much of that is being taken out?

In the Republican bills, there are notably no tax increases. So that should set the record straight for some people. But what stuns me is that it does not include the ceasing of preexisting conditions. How can people be covered if insurance companies still can say that they do not want to cover you? Also, the coverage of 3 million million people is just atrocious! It is short of 18% of the bare minimum and not slightly over 6% of the maximum.

Other than that, the questions that I would be asking is how do they intend to pay for it if they are not cutting cost or raising taxes? What are they missing in their 200 page bill? Bills are usually in the 1000 page region. What are they going to do about the 10 million people (part of the 47 million uninsured) that have the ability to buy insurance but refuse to do so? Let them be and still let the remaining taxpayer payers for their bills?

I would put up my analysis of the bills soon. From what I get, my report on both bills is not a good one., particularly for the Republicans.

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You’re afraid your cancer is back, and a health insurance company just turned you down. Under the health care bills in Congress, you could apply for coverage through a new high-risk pool that President Barack Obama promises would immediately start serving patients with pre-existing medical problems. Wait a second. Advocates for people with serious health problems, as well as some insurance experts, are raising questions about one of the most important upfront benefits in the Democratic health care legislation: a high-risk pool for the medically uninsurable.

Obama proposed the pool in his September health care speech to Congress. Now, concerns are being raised about the design of the high-risk pools. The money would be used to help people in poor health pay premiums.

Obama credits his Republican presidential rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for the risk-pools idea. The six-month wait is in the health care bill the Senate Finance Committee approved last month. “If you are somebody with cancer or a heart condition who needs immediate coverage and immediate treatment, that’s not very helpful,” said Karen Pollitz, a Georgetown University health policy professor.

Both the House and the Senate Finance bills set aside $5 billion for the pools.

If the Democrats’ risk pool starts running out of money, the government may have to start a waiting list, raise premiums or take other unpopular measures.

Read more… Click here ( Powered By Yahoo! News )

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