As President Obama signs the reconciliation portion of the Stalinization of Health Care Act of 2010 into law this morning*, comes word from an AP analysis that young people will be getting the shaft as the new regime of mandates spreads their wealth around to their older, less-healthy fellow citizens.
Of course, we told you so.
Now, while the report caveats that the study “did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase,” it’s little consolation. What we have now is the choice between the bad of young people having to bankroll their parents and grandparents or the even worse of the entire Nation having to bankroll thier bankrolling. So would you rather young broke people or young dependent people?
President Obama won 66% of the youth vote. I suppose he hopes he can keep them ignorant of his socialist tendencies and plans to finance his utopia on thier backs. Let’s hope, for America’s sake, they’re smarter than that.
*Thought you’d get a kick out of this: Watching the ceremony with the sound off, the useless notes beneath President Obama next to the FoxNews logo read: “OBAMA: TODAY MARKS HISTORICAL MILESTONE” Funny that I misread this on first glance as “MILLSTONE”?
-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)
I’m kinda getting a kick out of this. My oldest son, an Obama fan and voter, gets his health insurance from his employer for free (single pay zero premiums, while families pay premiums). He’s going to be THRILLED when they start charging him to pay for Obamacare. I can’t wait.
Attention GP.net newbies:
Always read the whole article for inconvenient facts left out by CP.
The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.
So, in other words, we don’t know how much this will cost young adults, because CP’s analysis leaves out help to pay for the increase. Total coincidence, of course, that pro-hcr info is ignored at GP.net.
This is also one more reason a public option is needed, as that helps control costs better than the RomneyCare Obama and the Congressional Dems modeled HCR after.
Thanks; carry on.
Ha ha.
Attn: torrentprime
Always read the actual post before making yourself look foolish:
(Egad, btw, check out my egregious misspelling of “thier”…something those who read the post will notice too!)
I’m a young person, and I’m not at all confused about how healthcare reform will work. Young, healthy people will be helping to pay for the older, sicker people. Anyone that understands the necessity of healthcare reform recognizes that fact. I don’t even mind that so many of the Americans that I will be paying for got themselves sick by drinking, smoking, and eating too much.
How about that, huh? I know the common perception is that us young ‘uns want healthcare reform for ourselves, so we can continue being lazy and so we don’t have to work hard, but in reality the exact opposite is true. I want healthcare for the fatties with cirrhosis and lung cancer. It’s the conservatives that are selfish and greedy (not to mention too stupid to realize the enormous economic and societal benefits), but hey, that’s par for the course.
Levi:
Thanks for your honesty. Your willingness to pay for other peoples’ irresponsibility makes you a socialist. Your insistance that others be forced to do so makes you a communist.
Finally, honsety!
I can only hope for a 1 term President.
@torrentprime Where’s the money come from for the tax credits? Someone else’s taxes or cuts some where else…making the government pay for more things but “offsetting” it by a tax credit means the taxes go up elsewhere to cover the expense or something else gets more expensive to cover the shortfall.
One way or another there will be people paying for others to get things.
If you don’t make the money pool any bigger but add things it has to pay for you either need more money or fewer things to pay for.
“Of course, we told you so.”
But everyone has known this all along.
Its dead obvious that if insurance companies are denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, or to paying customers once they actually get sick, and then we pass a law that prevents them from doing that, that insurance rates are going to go up a bit. Because now we are forcing the insurance companies to cover people who will cost them more money.
Everyone has known this all along. That is why (along with the mandate) that the subsidies are an important part of the bill.
You cannot force insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions and to end the dumping of people once they get sick unless rates go up, and / or, healthier populations are brought into the system. You cannot force healthier populations (young people mainly) into the system unless you make sure that they can afford the coverage -hence the subsidies and tax credits.
Seriously Nick, after arguing against this bill for a year, are you still unclear on what it does and why? I mean, the basics here….
@ColoradoPatriot please tell me that @Levi is regular sarcastic poster and that’s not someone’s actual opinion.
Um…
Okay, Tano. I say “told ya so”, and you chide me for doing so by saying, “yea, we knew” and then you suggest I’m not understanding something? Seems like both you and I knew exactly what the score was all along.
Yes, we knew. Yes, you knew. And yet, the proponants of the Stalinization of Health Care Act of 2010 for that same year LIED when they said nobody’s premiums would go up. That’s all I’m saying.
And Luke, no actually, Levi is (from what I’ve noticed over my years blogging here) a true, unabashed Communist. He (and many others) will cringe at the word, but no…based on his history, he actually believes that. Shame is that so many in our government also do. I’m only grateful that he’s so open with it. Unlike Obama who ran as a moderate, many of his followers were just as clear-eyed about his Stalinist agenda all along. Only difference is, we oppose them, and they think he doesn’t go far enough.
I prefer to call Levi a Facist, but that’s only because he believes that he is inherently superior to everyone and that it is his duty to drag the lesser beings he’s forced to share the planet with to his vision of the utopian future.
“Seems like both you and I knew exactly what the score was all along.”
Not just you and I Nick, everyone who has been debating healthcare reform for decades.
“..LIED when they said nobody’s premiums would go up. That’s all I’m saying.”
Well then you are the one lying. No one denied that the premium would go up. The claim, which happens to be true, is that subsidies and credits would be part of the bill to offset the increases. Thus the actual premium that people pay would go down, because of the subsidies.
“…a true, unabashed Communist. He (and many others) will cringe at the word…”
The only people who cringe when your write nonsense like this, or your “stalinization” idiocy, are people who might wish you well, and hate to see you operating at such an absurd level. Do you really think that when you make charges like this that you are persuading anyone on earth? Do you not realize that the only effect your words have is for people to think far less of you?
Young, healthy people will be helping to pay for the older, sicker people. Anyone that understands the necessity of healthcare reform recognizes that fact. I don’t even mind that so many of the Americans that I will be paying for got themselves sick by drinking, smoking, and eating too much.
LOL….of course you can say that, Levi, because, as a non-employed welfare addict, you’ll be getting tax credits to pay for your health insurance. It’s easy for you to be “generous” about your premiums going up when you won’t have to pay the difference.
Meanwhile, the older people who you cry over, due to the fact that higher income tends to correlate with age, will be paying higher and higher taxes to fund your “tax credits”, thus nicely wiping out any “savings” from their premium costs not going up as quickly.
I have a better idea. Why not just abolish tax credits for coverage completely? Levi, torrentprime, and Tano all claim that they don’t mind paying more for coverage to subsidize older peoples’ premiums. Why not, then, eliminate tax credits and lower tax rates on older and sicker people as well?
Watch how quickly Levi and his ilk backpedal from that one. Seems the liberal children aren’t as generous when they actually are paying with their own money, instead of spending others’ money.
Tano.. are you making a guarantee that my premiums are going to go down? By how much and when?
I need to buy a new TV for the media room.
My premiums will go down but my taxes will go up. What is the point?
FYI:
Promises, promises.
Ron Williams speaks reality Tano fails to understand.
(Standard disclaimer, I work for an insurance company, I don’t speak for ’em.)
Death of the HSA
CMS already cooking the books.
Livewire,
What on earth possesses you to claim that I don’t understand Mr. Williams’s reality? The only thing surprising that I took from that interview is that you would link to it – given that he makes several points that are not much appreciated around here.
For instance, he acknowledges that Obamacare is a significant accomplishment, one that he only would have done “a little differently”. Hardly a “Stalinization” charge, and, one can infer, essentially supportive. Furthermore he acknowledges that Obama engaged in significant and serious dialog with all the stakeholders in the issue. In fact, Williams’s basic attitude seems to be that now that we have dealt with the insurance aspect (maybe not entirely how he would like), its time to move on to do more to deal with affordability. Hardly the concerns or critiques we get from people around here.
Williams basically tries to defend the insurance industry from some of the criticism it has recieved. Well, thats his job as a CEO, no? Funny that he never pushes back against, or even mentions the specific critiques that both liberals and conservatives had about certain industry practices – the ones that were fixed in the bill.
I dont really understand what you think I couldn’t understand in this article, or what specific points that you want to make do you think that Williams makes well in this piece.
Speaking for the old and fat, we thank you. And we hope to live longer because of your help and take even more of your money. 🙂
You can thank us for your military protection, food inspection, ability to read, roads to drive on and all that later.
I thought Obamas poll ratings were going to go up? One day maybe two he got from his socialized medicine. Then poof….all gone. He spends $2 Trillion and doesn’t even get a one week bounce. Dummy. I liked it when he mocked the opposition. The true Obama is good to see once in a while instead of the fake.
Do you agree with him that premiums will go up, that you won’t be able to keep your plan?
He admits that Obama demonized the insurance company with his lies, just as he did about doctors.
He also says it will kill small companies.
Shorter explaination for Tano. He reads, but does not understand.
Here is Tano:
Here is the translation:
1.) Premiums go up.
2.) The government uses tax money to subsidize the premiums. (Some people get dollars, some people get tax credits.) No difference, it is all money from the treasury through a Ponzi redistributions scheme.
3.) Premiums go down.
4.) Therefore, everything is true. Premiums go up causing the premiums to go down.
5.) The invisible hand of government taxation and redistribution causes the economy to grow, poverty to be eliminated, the national deficit to plummet, grass to grow, the planet to cool and chickens to lay omelets with bacon.
Did I miss a crucial step?
Levi:
Thanks for your honesty. Your willingness to pay for other peoples’ irresponsibility makes you a socialist. Your insistance that others be forced to do so makes you a communist.
Finally, honsety!
Comment by ColoradoPatriot — March 30, 2010 @ 1:22 pm – March 30, 2010
I don’t think anybody, regardless of how they got sick, should be stick with bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay alive. I especially don’t mind paying for those that brought it upon themselves if it means that everyone can get treatment for those kinds of random and genetic diseases that could befall any one of us at some point.
As for the socialism charge, I welcome it. Capitalism is great and it works for many things and that includes healthcare in many ways, but the system is far too imbalanced as a purely for-profit industry. There are many services and institutions supported by everyone’s taxes, like police and fire departments. Are those communist relics? Would those work better if they were privatized? If you support the notion that everyone pays a small tax to the government in exchange for providing for security and emergency response, does that make you a communist? If the government is empowered to create fire departments to safeguard the economy and the lives and property of its citizens, why shouldn’t the government also be interested in promoting and providing for a healthy citizenry? A healthier population is a more efficient, resilient, and profitable population.
Or, you know, we could continue with the status quo, and let a single industry drain everybody’s retirement accounts.
I especially don’t mind paying for those that brought it upon themselves if it means that everyone can get treatment for those kinds of random and genetic diseases that could befall any one of us at some point.
LOL….of course you can say that, Levi, because, as a non-employed welfare addict, you’ll be getting tax credits to pay for your health insurance. It’s easy for you to be “generous” about your premiums going up when you won’t have to pay the difference.
Meanwhile, the older people who you cry over, due to the fact that higher income tends to correlate with age, will be paying higher and higher taxes to fund your “tax credits”, thus nicely wiping out any “savings” from their premium costs not going up as quickly.
I have a better idea. Why not just abolish tax credits for coverage completely? Levi, torrentprime, and Tano all claim that they don’t mind paying more for coverage to subsidize older peoples’ premiums. Why not, then, eliminate tax credits and lower tax rates on older and sicker people as well?
Watch how quickly Levi and his ilk backpedal from that one. Seems the liberal children aren’t as generous when they actually are paying with their own money, instead of spending others’ money.
If you support the notion that everyone pays a small tax to the government in exchange for providing for security and emergency response, does that make you a communist?
But, since you don’t pay taxes and you support and endorse people who deliberately dodge theirs, like Charles Rangel, you’re nothing but a hypocrite.
Or, you know, we could continue with the status quo, and let a single industry drain everybody’s retirement accounts.
You mean like your Obama using money from Social Security and Medicare to fund health insurance kickbacks for young moochers like yourself?
Levi, doctors work to make a profit. They are largely self-employed. They have enormous overhead. They perform endless paperwork for the government and the insurance companies. They pay huge malpractice insurance premiums. They get scammed in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement.
The vast majority of hospitals are not for profit. They can not, by federal law, refuse to treat patients. In some cities, many have closed emergency rooms in order to be able to continue to operate.
The pharmaceutical companies invest billions in research to develop new medicines and they do that in order to patent their medicines and recoup their investments and make a profit.
Health insurance companies “ration” health care by assessing the risks and offering a variety of plans which range from low-premium bare bones policies to those which cost a fortune and are very liberal in their coverage. They are in the business to make a profit.
The “invisible hand” in capitalism is a competitive force that raises quality and keeps costs low. It affects hospital, doctor, insurance and pharma prices.
Cosmetic plastic surgery is largely a business in which the customers pay cash. However, the costs of cosmetic plastic surgery have come down because of “the invisible hand.” Supply and demand are the consumer’s best friend.
You say that “I don’t think anybody, regardless of how they got sick, should be stick with bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to stay alive.”
I suggest that you need the security of a two-tier system in which you get “free” government treatment like veterans or prisoners get.
We have the best health care system in the world when it comes to treatment. Naturally, that type of system has a high underlying cost.
However, there are those who can not pay the entry fee to be covered by such a system and they should have a general welfare system to tend to their needs. That type of welfare is naturally paid by those 50% who pay taxes; the rest ride for free or near free. But there is no reason to believe that all health care must be equal.
If you use the emergency room for your health care, you are used to waiting and being treated for the immediate problem. If you pay for health care, you are given an appointment, treated by a professional who follows your health history and gives concern to your total health picture.
It is ludicrous to think that nationalized health care would be any different from social workers who follow an impossibly overloaded case assignment or a parole system that can’t find time to check in by phone.
What seems so simple on paper is just like the opening shots of war: all the plans dissolve into the miasma of instant, unpredicted reality.
If you wanted to lower health care costs dramatically, the first action would be to set caps on how much a patient could get in suing and regulate the amount a lawyer could take from the settlement. You would also need to insist that all suits be litigated so that nuisance law firms can not hold up insurance companies over small claims. Conservatively, this would lower malpractice premiums by 40% and lower health care insurance premiums enormously.
Levi, I sincerely hope you expand your understanding of the problems involved in health care costs in the US. I have paid over $300,000 in health care premiums and had little need to use the coverage. There is no way I could have paid for a bunch of “others” to enjoy my benefits coverage and still have had quality coverage myself.
You want Cadillac coverage for you and others and I could not pay for it for my family and a bunch of strangers. Therefore, your wishes only succeed in tearing me down. Is that what you want?
*claps at heliotrope’s beat down of Levi*