slashingtongue» Insurance http://slashingtongue.com Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:16:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Republican plan to cover just 3 million http://slashingtongue.com/politics/republican-plan-to-cover-just-3-million/ http://slashingtongue.com/politics/republican-plan-to-cover-just-3-million/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:55:38 +0000 PreetSG http://slashingtongue.com/?p=902 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.

]]> 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.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta


]]> http://slashingtongue.com/politics/republican-plan-to-cover-just-3-million/feed/ 0 Democrats’ plan to help uninsurables questioned http://slashingtongue.com/news/democrats-plan-to-help-uninsurables-questioned/ http://slashingtongue.com/news/democrats-plan-to-help-uninsurables-questioned/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:34:04 +0000 PreetSG http://slashingtongue.com/?p=899 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 )


Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta
Share and Enjoy: Digg Sphinn del.icio.us Facebook Mixx Google Bookmarks Ping.fm Twitter

]]> http://slashingtongue.com/news/democrats-plan-to-help-uninsurables-questioned/feed/ 0 Public option compromise http://slashingtongue.com/politics/public-option-compromise/ http://slashingtongue.com/politics/public-option-compromise/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 07:59:45 +0000 PreetSG http://slashingtongue.com/?p=787 A new version of the “public option” has been released. Now, it is going to allow states to decide whether they want the public option or other wise. This has been backed by Governor Howard Dean, the ex-Governor of Vermont.

I have always been jittery when it comes to the clause of the public option in the health care reform bill. I think it is way too close to single payer universal health-care. Though I am not against single-payer universal health-care, I think that we should try all other alternatives first.

However, both parties did not even make an inkling of a suggestion to increase the competition other than the public option. That was all that they could come up with. Hence, when the public option was removed from the bill, I decided to oppose the bill and think that we should kill it.

Right now, there is a compromise being chiseled out by Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Carper. It is a very simple thing, if you really feel that your state does not want “government in health-care”; your state can opt-out and let other states that want it keep it. It is incredibly straight forward.

That being said, I think that there should be an additional condition to this option. Right now, if you go to the emergency room and you cannot pay for your operation as you do not have health insurance, it would be the Federal Government that has to foot the bill. They cannot just let you die.

Lets assume that this clause is passed, and some states passed public option and some other states did not. If you were a citizen of a State that does not have the public option, you do not have health insurance and you need to go the emergency room, there is a higher chance that the Federal government has to step in. Why should the I, via my federal taxes, be paying for another State’s irresponsibility?

Therefore, should this compromise of the health-care bill be passed, I think that the cost of uninsured health care should be passed on to the States. In that way, whether they have the public option or not, they pay for it. The federal government should lower taxes and the states would increase the taxes. Overall, it should not effect us financially.

I think that the continued opposition to this really underlines how much potential the public option has to be successful. The Republicans fear that this would over time force their states to also adopt the public option. Do you really think that all the 60% of the people in the poll that support the public option are liberals?

When California has the public option and people start to receive health-care as a result of it, don’t you think Arizonans would demand that their state have it too? They know that it would lead to the public option coming up in all the states. In fact, people like me think that it could even lead to a single payer system in the future.

An additional benefit to that is that the State would also be interested in preventive measures so that they can save money. They would rather invest in fitness regimes for children rather than paying their bills when they are older. It is much easier to execute this at a state or local even level rather than the federal government being involved in it.

However, as of now, there is no movement of this new public option plan. Until it has passed the committee votes, I would not be calling for support to kill this bill!

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta


]]> http://slashingtongue.com/politics/public-option-compromise/feed/ 0 Terrible Congress! http://slashingtongue.com/politics/terrible-congress/ http://slashingtongue.com/politics/terrible-congress/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:27:21 +0000 PreetSG http://slashingtongue.com/?p=783 I really do not know if they are just good actors or that they were just blindly following the orders of the health-care lobbyists that are funding their campaigns, but the shock on their faces really disgusts me. How can they claim not to know that when you add demand and take away competition, you are going to raise the cost?

]]> I really do not know if they are just good actors or that they were just blindly following the orders of the health-care lobbyists that are funding their campaigns, but the shock on their faces really disgusts me. How can they claim not to know that when you add demand and take away competition, you are going to raise the cost?

The Senate discussion is still going on while this article is being produced, but it is official; they really lack brains. We have mentioned this weeks ago, that the health care bill would increase cost without the public option or alternatives. How could they not have realized it?

Of course it would. Some are quoted to say that this bill is “a blow-job to the health insurance companies.” I agree. It is not that the intention of the clauses in the bill are to increase the demand, but they do increase the demand. Let me give you two examples.

There is a clause that forces individuals that has the capability to buy insurance but choose not to do so, to purchase insurance or pay a tax. It is a good clause. Why should I pay via my taxes, the hospital bills for someone who could have insurance but refused to buy it? Can they pay for my car insurance because I chose not to pay for it? However, it does increase the number of people that want or need to buy health insurance. In other words, it increases the demand.

If you force insurance companies to accept everyone, they are going to claim that the risk has gone up and that they would have to pass the cost increase to their customers. Also, there is again more customers fighting for the same number of insurance companies. This again increases the demand, without care for supply. There are other parts of the bills too that has the same consequences.

And the entire Congress put together, Republican, Democrat and Independents, they have only come up with one idea that increases the supply (competition). That was the public option. The very fact that there was only one idea that increased demand, it demonstrates the utter incompetence of Congress. Our site had more ideas!

So what did they do to the only clause that increased competition? Of course, they listened to their “paymasters” and removed it. Was it what the citizens wanted? No! 60% of Americans support the public option. So what do you think when you increase the demand and do nothing about the supply; what do you think would happen? Prices to come down because you want it to do so?

My goodness! And they are shocked that the premiums would increase? What school did these people go to? Did they become stupid just before they enter public office? Or is it, and in my opinion, that we are facing the downside of our democracy where corporations donations are more important than our votes?

I keep my stance. As long as there is no measure that increases competition, I think that it is our civic duty to kill the bill! It is going to wreck our country faster than our currently terrible health care system. Spread the word. Kill the bill till it brings the public option back!

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta


]]> http://slashingtongue.com/politics/terrible-congress/feed/ 0 How much should a Health Insurance CEO make? http://slashingtongue.com/politics/how-much-should-an-insurance-ceo-make/ http://slashingtongue.com/politics/how-much-should-an-insurance-ceo-make/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:38:19 +0000 PreetSG http://slashingtongue.com/?p=730 I am not a person that is against capitalism. I think it is the single best system in the world. However, just like most people I have shown these figures too, I became really mad. This is similar to the banks taking our tax dollars and then charged us higher on our credit card interest rates.

Jay Gellert – CEO HealthNet – $17000/day
McCallister – CEO Humana – $18000/day
Dale Wolf – CEO Conventry – $34000 / day
Angela Braly – CEO Wellpoint – $37000 / day
Edward Hanway – CEO Cigna – $47000/day
Ronald Williams – CEO Aetna – $93000/day
Stephen Hemsley – CEO United Health Group – $819000 / a day

All the figures above are based on the total compensation given to these CEOs last year, we divide it by 52 weeks and then divide it again to 5 days (on assumption that they do not work on weekends). Stephen Hemsley’s salary is an exemption as we are basing it on his over $4 million / week salary this year.

This is very much as a question to all our readers. It is also the very first The Young Turks blog. I really want to know what they feel about these wages. I guarantee that almost all the viewers would be pist off with Hemsley’s salary but the rest is subjective.

I am not saying that the government should intervene and set salary caps. I think that salary caps should only happen to companies that owe us money, aka the bailout companies. We have also seen such figures for sports personalities and are not shocked by it in any way when we read about it. There are many other CEOs that have earned even much more than this.

But the difference is how these CEOs are making their money. They are literally taking other people’s money, keep some for profit and pay the the rest for the people’s medical expenses. We do not earn. If the profits are very high, that means that they are either charging too high the premiums or are not paying for some people’s treatments. The truth is both.

Even though $800 000 a day may seem small as compared to the overall pie of the insurance companies, I feel that the very fact that there are rejections over all kinds of ridiculous excuses tell me that there is something really wrong with the system.

How about tying CEO wage to customer satisfaction? Isn’t that earning for every dollar? These people are not worth that much! Their pay is being voted on by shareholders. The shareholders would not reward better coverage. They just want more money and would reward the CEO if they earn enough money.

In my opinion, I think that earning $20 000 a day is reasonable for these CEOs. Let us know how much you think a CEO of a health insurance company should earn in the comments below.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta


]]> http://slashingtongue.com/politics/how-much-should-an-insurance-ceo-make/feed/ 0 Kill Health-care Bill now! http://slashingtongue.com/politics/kill-health-care-bill-now/ http://slashingtongue.com/politics/kill-health-care-bill-now/#comments Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:04:28 +0000 PreetSG http://slashingtongue.com/?p=697 I have never been a fan of HR 3200. I loathe the Republican lies even more. However, it has come to a stage where the bill is as bad as the Republicans lies. It is time that America kill this bill, or our health care system would bankrupt us faster than the current situation does.

Moments ago, the Senate Finance Committee has voted 15-8 against the public option. In other words, the public option is dead with the remotest chance of revival. Blue Dog Democrats are worried about the costs while some like Senator Baucus worry about it not making it past the Republican filibuster. To me these are nothing but a bunch of excuses.

While I have mentioned that there could be better alternatives, I was not so worried about this bill because it had some good things in it. E.g. I supported taxing people that had the ability to get insurance but choose not to. I supported the end of life counsellings before it was taken out. I supported ending coverage without pre-existing condition.

But all this had to come with a measure that would bring the cost down. The only way to do so it is through competition. I suggested things like starting a trade war between insurance companies (think Pepsi vs Coke), allowing foreign insurers to flood the market and looking into ways of helping the creation of new insurance companies by rookies as other alternatives. Not a single person from any party gave anything along these lines. The only manner suggested to provide competition is the public option.

Price is all about supply and demand. Right now demand for health insurance is huge, supply is limited, hence the price is high and is increasing. The public option was the only thing that increased supply via competition which would have brought cost down. On top of the rejection of the public option, when we force insurance companies not to deny pre-existing conditions and force every American to have health-care, we are also increasing the demand of health insurance. In effect, this bill would increase the demand and not increase the supply, hence increase the cost health-care and premiums.

With the current system, health-care would bankrupt America with the high cost and ever increasing premiums. With this bill, it bring America down faster and harder. Hence the urgent need to kill it.

What saddens me the most is the killing of the indexing part of the public option. “Indexing” (we name it, not official term) is the listing of all insurance into one index, showing its price and its coverage. This is the part that I feel everyone would have endorsed it whole heartedly. Even Bill O’Reilly agrees with this. Why in the world was it tied with the public option? What can go wrong with a list? Isn’t this what we see in the stock markets? Why can’t we choose from all insurances from a one stop location? This was easily the best part of the bill and was removed.

I also question the intentions of the Democrats. In the end of the day, politicians only answer to two entities in America, voters and lobbyists. When polls show that the public option is supported by more than 60% of Americans, and I guarantee more would agree with “indexing”; we can eliminate voters as the reason for not wanting the public option.

I have no proof, but I am confident that the Democrats are being bought over by the corporations. I think that they are answering to the corporations and their lobbyists and not the American people. That shows that we need to break this stranglehold of the lobbyists on our politics. A reform that needs to come soon too…

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta


]]> http://slashingtongue.com/politics/kill-health-care-bill-now/feed/ 0 Obama Health-care speech in Minnesota http://slashingtongue.com/politics/obama-health-care-minnesota/ http://slashingtongue.com/politics/obama-health-care-minnesota/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:59:43 +0000 PreetSG http://slashingtongue.com/?p=632 From what I call the land of the weird, ironic and crazy political figures like Senator Al Franken, and Representative Michele Bachmann, President Obama gave a speech to an audience of 15000 people. The crowd was very thoroughly checked and 100% partisan.

The speech in this was way better than the union speech and similar to the one he gave at the join session of Congress. It had a mix and match of both parts. A firing up of his base and a fight back to the Republicans. There was no drama.

If you had gone or listened to both speeches though, chances are that you would get bored with this one. The story of the fire-me-up old lady was told again, the same speech to the senior citizens and the promise to go after Republicans should they misrepresent the picture. In fact, it would have been a repeat if they had let hecklers come through!

The biggest headline grabbing news was that there was a big boo which people thought were coming from the crowd degrading President FDR. I can tell you that this was not true because of the controlled crowd. You could not hear a word of dissent against the President in this crowd, the same way you cannot hear dissent on Glenn Beck at Tea Party rallies!

The point the President was trying to make was that when President FDR introduced Social Security, it was called socialism then, just like his programs are now. The crowd was booing the Republicans calling the President’s policy socialism. That was what happened.

However, there is an effect that needs to be noted. The real people that are going to decide what is going to happen in this bill is not going to come from the Left or the Right, the power is with the Independents. And believe it or not, they are having a very strong opinion. More than 60% do not approve how the President is handling the issue of health-care in America, but about the same want the public option in the bill.

I think that we are going into this way too early. I think that there should be other things that we should be thinking of, which the Democrats and Republicans are not coming up with. I would like to go along the ideas of a trade war or some way to open up en-masse competition. I think we should only have universal health-care as the very last option but I am open to it an know that it can work.

That being said however, should the President not have public option in the bill, the bill would need to be killed. It is that simple. I have no assurance yet that the President would want the public option in the bill. The reason is this; without the public option, our premiums are going to sky-rocket. There is no good alternative coming out at all to keep cost down.

If we have HR3200 without the public option, it would force everyone to have insurance, force people to be covered regardless and tax people that are not having any, we would have enormous demand vs the same supply. That would bring costs up. The only thing that is keeping cost down, is the cap on profits which can change at the call of the Secretary of Health and Human services, which is just too much power in one person that is not elected.

Lastly, the President just gave another speech when this articled was finished (1p.m., EST). It is about regulating financial services. This has sparked a war of words amongst think-tanks. We have not seen any legislation yet on this and we would get to this topic as soon as possible.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta


]]> http://slashingtongue.com/politics/obama-health-care-minnesota/feed/ 0 Obama Health care Speech : An Analysis http://slashingtongue.com/politics/obama-health-care-speech-an-analysis/ http://slashingtongue.com/politics/obama-health-care-speech-an-analysis/#comments Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:55:11 +0000 PreetSG http://slashingtongue.com/?p=614 We waited till all the commentary and the polling came about to do this article, hence the wait. Over all, the speech was great for the Democrats, Independents and moderates think it is okay and the Republicans thought it was terrible.

The moment the First Lady walked in, you could see nerves written all over her face. You knew how importance of this speech for them. It was crunch time. From the first 5 minutes, you knew his targeted audience were the viewers watching at home. He was not talking or trying to make a deal with the Republicans in the room. He wanted the opinion swing from the public. Expect a President that is going to campaign trail again in the next few days.

When he started his speech on health-care, he began with a very powerful rhetoric : That he may not be the first President to try to get health-care reform; but he wants to be then last. From here, you get that he is not going to break up the bill. One disappointing observation we made were that only 2 people in the Republican area of Congress stood up to this; That showed how much of a partisan thing that this has been.

A lot of the speech, he was saying things that we had said in the articles way back. (see article Health-care 101). For example, why weren’t the Democrats selling this idea of indexing? That would have been a good selling point of the plan. He explained about why everyone who have the money to do so should buy insurance and the reasons businesses need to provide for employees too.

His hit back on the nonsense was impressive; But why now? Why did the President hit Sarah Palin back today about death panels and not when she first spoke about it? Is it President Obama vs the Republicans or Democrats vs the Republicans? Is the President super-slow to react or are the Democrats really that incapable of doing politics that they cannot hold the argument on their own? Why didn’t they get subject matter experts like Howard Dean out more often? That is why they lose elections.

I think that he also tried to pacify the liberals when he said that he did not want insurance companies to go down, but he wanted them to be held accountable. But on the one major bone for them, he sent a very vague message. On one hand, he said that he would not back down on his belief on the public option, but on the other he did said that it is just a small part of health-care reform.

I liked the way he used universities to show that you can have public and private universities side by side to highlight how you can have public insurance and private insurance side by side. It something that some of us (all Independents) gave him the benefit of the doubt for.

And you could see that he understood that we Independents are the game-changers here. We are the ones that would make or break this bill or any politician in America during elections. I love that feeling. Usually we are forgotten and dismissed after elections. He was taking ideas for ex-Senator John Edwards, Secretary Clinton and Senator McCain and he talked about malpractice reforms and so on and so forth and I loved it that he was taking ideas from his past rivals.

Judging by this, I wonder if the President is going to have the public option. As I said, it is still up in the air. The thing is, if he takes it out and has no suitable substitute for it, I would vehemently oppose the bill. I do not support the public option as it is way too close to universal health-care but lets face, it there are no alternatives to it out.

My reason is that the bill has mandates in it. Like you must have a health insurance if you can afford it. You must give health care to your employees. They cannot be rejected because preexisting conditions. When this happens, your health insurance premiums would sky rocket.

I hope that they can find a way to tear open the private insurance industry. Encourage “trade wars” like, Google vs. Microsoft, Reebok vs. Nike, Coke vs. Pepsi, and so on. If nobody got anything which could dramatically increase competition, then public option is a necessity.

Though the President was forceful and tough with his words, I think the behavior of the Republicans were pathetic. They were waving what I think was the bill with their jeering and one lawmaker, Representative Joe Wilson even shouted at the President. That is a very sad thing to see in politics. I wonder what is going to be the reaction should the President carry out his threat to call them out on their “lies”.

Overall, President Obama may have just gotten the wheel turning. And we could see a fight happening out there. But should he do nothing, I think that the Republicans would be able to shoot it down.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta


]]> http://slashingtongue.com/politics/obama-health-care-speech-an-analysis/feed/ 0