Mary Katherine Ham @ Hot Air:
If you’re a member of the mainstream media, you’re “surprised” by this in the same way that every bad jobs report is “unexpected.”
Among the regulations being rushed out the door by the Department of Health and Human Services 32 months after Obamacare passed is a requirement that every plan in America be subject to a $63 fee. That $63 is part of a fund to subsidize people with pre-existing conditions, who are more expensive to cover but whose costs must be transferred to healthier individuals in the new system.
Reporting suggests the costs could hit 190 million health care plans held by individuals or provided by employers. The AP:
The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.
Do tell. Who could have predicted this? More on the fund we’re creating:
Most of the money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department. It will be used to cushion health insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.
The program “is intended to help millions of Americans purchase affordable health insurance, reduce unreimbursed usage of hospital and other medical facilities by the uninsured and thereby lower medical expenses and premiums for all,” the Obama administration says in the regulation. An accompanying media fact sheet issued Nov. 30 referred to “contributions” without detailing the total cost and scope of the program.
Of the total pot, $5 billion will go directly to the U.S. Treasury, apparently to offset the cost of shoring up employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees.
The $25 billion fee is part of a bigger package of taxes and fees to finance Mr. Obama’s expansion of coverage to the uninsured.
You see, we’re “lowering medical expenses and premiums for all” by…raising them for pretty much everyone. This is such a sweet deal.
Notice how much is skimmed off the top by Obama’s gov’t paper pushers?
IF a charity organization took that much of my donation dollar I would reject that entire organization!
But so far, we know Obama’s UNIONIZED public employees are getting at least 20% of the total!
It will probably end up higher as time goes by.
“We have to pass the bill, to see what is in it!” – Nancy Pelosi
BFD. Go complain to the millions who could not get health insurance previously.
So lib#2 thinks it’s ok to take food or medicine out of the mouths of others when it deems the cause worthy enough.
What a stupid and naive comment to make. They haven’t even started getting their “free” healthcare yet, and it’s looking like it’s still going to be some years down the road before they do. Meanwhile, those of us working continue to get accosted for more and more of the money we earn, to pay for something that hasn’t even been fully implemented yet.
What I find to be very interesting is the petulance of conservative governors, such as Rick Perry, who are now exhibiting abject stupidity in cutting off their noses to spite their faces, to the delight of the most progressive ObamaCare supporters who are now in the process of getting what they wanted in the first place.
I saw this one coming from a mile away.
I could explain it myself, but here’s a short and very cogent explanation, from today’s “JAMA Forum,” where “JAMA” is the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Or, to state it another way:
Oh, please, PLEASE, don’t throw me into the briar patch.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Can someone dig a comment I just sent on this out of the spam folder?
P.S. Thanks to the unidentified spam digger, who honored the above request!
– Larry W/HB
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
There is nothing clear about any of it. The rules are still being written as I write this. As for the States, they have no idea what the costs will be, what controls will be put in place, or what regulatory conditions will exist and how they are subject to change. So, they are supposed to just take ownership of a program controlled by HHS? Maybe they should just pass it blindly like the Congress so they can see what’s in it.
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
And I find this to be particularly condescending too. So the duly elected governors of the many sovereign States should bow down before the Federal Overlords and thank them for giving them the privilege of control over this monstrosity? You bought it, you own it. And we both know SCOTUS is not done with this yet.
Now. wait a minute!
The feds can PRINT their money.
So, when they say they will pay for all these poor people to be insured for three years it means the value of everyone’s dollars will be that much cheaper…..
THEN…..
It falls to each state.
And STATES cannot print their own money!
States must balance their budgets by cutting back elsewhere or raising taxes.
Talk about a set up!
So, add another state to the long list of states just saying NO!
Pennsylvania will not set up its own health care exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act
Gov. Tom Corbett faulted federal authorities for what he called inadequate answers to his questions about cost and other issues.
He added: “It would be irresponsible to put Pennsylvanians on the hook for an unknown amount of money to operate a system under rules that have not been fully written.”
The rules have not even been fully written yet!
And some slobbering Obamites can’t wait to sink their own states!
States that want to run their own exchanges had until Friday to submit plan.
Hi Nan,
Medicaid is a completely separate question from the insurance exchanges. As regards Pennsylvania and the other states with GOP governors, it’s a matter of who is going to set the insurance exchanges up and regulate them. In California (the very first state to opt in), it will be the state. In Texas and PA, unless the governors change their mind, it will be the federal government. Either way, both Texas and California will have government originated and government run insurance exchanges. Only in the case of Texas, it’s going to be the federal government which is going to set it up and run it. This is the idea that the progressives had in the first place. This is the version of ObamaCare that passed the (at the time, Democratic controlled) House. The conservatives weren’t at all on board with any of it, but the conservative principle was that the states should run their own exchanges. Only now, a lot of the red states will not only have Federally-mandated exchanges, they’ll have federally-run exchanges, as well.
Not all the red state governors are playing into the hands of the progressives, however, e.g.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2012/12/12/gop-governors-in-reddest-of-states-move-obamas-way-on-medicaid-exchanges/
P.S. As the December 14 2012 deadline approaches (for states to decide whether they want themselves or the feds to run health care in their states), there’s a lot of lively debate. Here’s my favorite reader comment to date (on the New Republic website):
http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/110770/obamacare-cannon-irs-federal-state-exchange-subsidies-bagenstos-jost
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
That’s hilarious! Poor Rick Perry, he would be powerless. Wait, no he wouldn’t. He could just have the whole agency removed from his State. As a matter of fact, he could just request the State Legislature to propose an order of nullification for the whole law, and refuse to collect the taxes. Whose head would explode then?
Hi Aqua,
State governments can’t nullify federal laws. Some state governments have passed various versions of nullification laws regarding ObamaCare, e.g. stating that the Federal mandate to purchase health insurance doesn’t apply to citizens of that particular state, but these are just political theater, attempting to demonstrate to local voters that the state legislatures and governor are truly fighting against the given federal law (in this case, ObamaCare). But they are meaningless gestures.
As the article quoted in #6 explains (and as should be completely obvious by now), ObamaCare is the law of the land; the exchanges will be put in place. What’s now going down in Texas, right now, is that the medical organizations with the biggest clout (big hospital chains) are intensely lobbying Perry to get on board with ObamaCare. Efforts at this point to resist are truly futile and will only hurt the economies of the states which fail to get on board.
By the way, I just read an article which supports another argument I’ve been making on this blog for years: high tax rates actually have a net positive effect on job growth. This explains why the economy did just fine in the days of much higher tax rates. With high tax rates, there is less incentive to take money out of the business and more incentive to leave it in the business and grow the business. Among other things, this can benefit the small business owner, long term, as money left in the business and later cashed out can be treated as a long term capital gain, which is taxed at a lower rate than ordinary income. When ordinary income rates are too low, there is much more incentive to cash out early and invest the profits in real estate, art, foreign currency, secondary equities, and, of course, creature comforts like yachts.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2012/12/12/167097266/for-business-owners-higher-taxes-could-mean-fewer-new-hires-or-more?sc=ipad&f=1001
So all that stuff about raising the top marginal rate from 35% to 39% and killing small business job growth is just political rhetoric. The reason the GOP doesn’t want to see the top marginal rates increased is not to “protect jobs,” it is payback and payoff to the ultra rich.
ObamaCare is great, landmark legislation and it’s going to be as wildly popular, in the future, as are Social Security and Medicare today — two government programs which have given most American families a much better life. They are both programs which delivered on their political promises. ObamaCare will do the same, over the long term.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
41 States have implemented Real ID, the remaining States passed laws to nullify it. It’s a pretty good law, but it is an unfunded mandate, much like Obamacare.
Colorado and Washington State have legalized marijuana. That’s nullification.
Alabama passed Amendment 6 freeing all Alabama residents from participating in Obamacare or any other compulsory healtcare program. Wyoming passed a similar law.
So we’re one big collective now, huh? Just like the Borg, we will be assimilated? I wouldn’t count on it.
It makes total sense. Take money out of the economy, give it to a vast central power that has no idea how to manage or spend it, and watch the country grow. Instead of people keeping more of their money, we should definitely do more of this:
Let’s be honest, people could keep more of the money they earn or the government can take it to make sure these and many other great programs like it are fully funded. Tough choice, I’ll have to get back with you.
The nullification laws you quote have no force of law. Medical marijuana is legal in California; when the dispensaries keep their heads down, they are pretty much left alone by the Feds, but that’s enforcement discretion. The federal law still trumps the state law. The Obama justice department hasn’t made marijuana enforcement a priority, but they’ve still gone after some higher profile California dispensaries, and it will be that way in WA and CO, also.
The Alabama and Wyoming laws are just for show. They have no force of law whatsoever, if the Obama justice department chooses to enforce federal law, which it certainly will, in the case of ObamaCare. SCOTUS has repeatedly found that, when Federal law conflicts with state law, the Federal law trumps state law.
With regard to your examples of seemingly silly federal wastes of money, number one, you don’t know nor cite the details of those studies. You don’t know why the studies were approved and what was the rational and knowledge felt worthy of being studied/gained. And, anyway, stuff like that is a drop in the bucket. Megabucks gets wasted in the private sector, also. You do get credit for including the place where the big bucks really get wasted — that would be defense programs. The waste in defense is literally orders of magnitude above that in other areas of government, as your own cited data nicely illustrate.
Anyway, we are talking health care here: government run health care (i.e. Medicare) has been documented to (1) cost less, (2) produce higher consumer satisfaction, (3) produce fewer personal health care-related bankruptcies, and (4) produce unsurpassed health care outcomes. ObamaCare will ultimately produce the same benefits, once the kinks have been worked out.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
@openid.aol.com/runnswim:
Really. So what are Obama and Holder going to do? They going to come down to Alabama and arrest the governor and the legislature. I have to tell you, I’d pay to see that.
I was thinking about this last night. When they passed the law changing the drinking age to 21, several States said no. Louisiana flat out refused. They finally gave in because the federal overlords threatened to withhold highway money. That’s about all the enforcement the feds have over the States. And the States can just threaten to not collect taxes. The States have power Larry, whether you want to admit it or not. We do not have kings and lords, as much as the left would like for it to be so.
“Just a drop in the bucket.” Always an easy thing to say when it’s not your money. I have a lot of respect for you Larry; you’re very smart and you have very good analytical skills. You know I put those numbers up there for more than just the programs. It is part of a greater problem, baseline budgeting. All federal departments get an increase in the amount of money they get each year. Every single year they get more than they got the year before. Within those departments are other departments. They also get more money each year than they got the year before, with one exception. If you do not spend all the money you were given by the end of the year, your budget for the next year is reduced. This creates waste in every department, including defense. I have posted many times that I believe the defense department waste more money than just about everyone. The thing is, defense is the only program the federal government is mandated to take care of in the Constitution. Even so, I think the waste should be dealt with in defense, just as it should in every department. Let’s look at just one of these budget items. You said:
What about this budget item:
I don’t pay $300,000 in taxes every year. I would imagine if you took every person that posted to this thread and combined their income taxes paid each year, we would have a problem coming up with $300,000. So instead of providing for the common defense, or helping any of our fellow citizens that actually needed a hand, our money went to a dance program illustrating the origins of matter.
Doctors are dropping medicare left and right. This article list six reasons doctors are dropping out:
http://www.physicianspractice.com/six-main-reasons-physicians-are-dropping-medicare-patients
With Obamacare, everything will be medicare (government-thug) style tactics. If there is no more incentive to become a doctor, there will be less doctors. There are some medical magazines saying we are already in a physician shortage:
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/MAG-92871/Will-There-Be-Enough-Doctors
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-08-17-doctor-gp-shortage_N.htm?imw=Y
And primary care doctors are already in major demand:
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/07/158370069/the-prognosis-for-the-shortage-in-primary-care
And you have faith that a bunch of people in Washington that can’t even agree on the color of grass to fix it?