Budget Fight: Why Don't The Gop De-Fund Medicare / Social Security?

[Portis for 6]

Why don't people just do what I did, it's very easy. Get a fulltime job stay over 90 days, and just like that you can have a nice healthcare plan. Pretty damn easy being that you need a job to put money in your pocket anyway. Thank God this crap bill is starting to move in the RIGHT direction!!

[Slateman]

Why don't people just do what I did, it's very easy. Get a fulltime job stay over 90 days, and just like that you can have a nice healthcare plan. Pretty damn easy being that you need a job to put money in your pocket anyway. Thank God this crap bill is starting to move in the RIGHT direction!!

 

For one, getting a full time job is not quite as easy as it sounds. There is some unemployment going on right now. And while I don't think that everyone is eagerly searching for work, the majority are.

 

Second, ACA makes it more likely that low education/skill jobs will be part time now.

[Mad Mike]

You do know premiums are going to rise for everybody as a result of ACA, not just the uninsured, right?

 

In the sense that there are escalating taxes for those who voluntarily choose not to get it, yes.

 

Hoping that Congress has the courage to shut this down.  

 

I dont think you have any idea what the word socialism means, nor how congress and the law actually work. But you are willing to shut down the government, do untold harm to the economy, science, education, health care, and our very society based upon your insane beliefs.

 

I pray for this country.

[Portis for 6]

For one, getting a full time job is not quite as easy as it sounds. There is some unemployment going on right now. And while I don't think that everyone is eagerly searching for work, the majority are.

Second, ACA makes it more likely that low education/skill jobs will be part time now.

Ok , so rewarding a minority who can walk in to a hospital at any time and get care anyway, and forcing this crap obumer care on the majority who don't want this type healthcare to begin with is the answer? oboma care is going down the tubes fast and it's best for our country...

[bearrock]

Well I went from having a no premium fully covered, employer self insured plan to a health savings plan as a result of this crap.     Our insurance was too good so the company would be penalized for providing such good coverage.  What total freaking crap that is.    It's still good and my out of pocket maximum is tolerable, but now I pay out the ass for prescriptions that were no cost before.     I wouldn't even mind that If I believed this mess of a law would actually reduce overall public medical expense in this country.  This will be far more expensive to us all.       I have a friend who owns a flooring business.  He axed a department with 15 people because the profit margin they generated was not going to be enough to cover the forced health care costs.   You think they'd rather have free coverage or a job?

 

How was your employer going to be penalized for providing too good a plan?  Are you talking about the excise tax for the so-called cadillac plans?  That tax isn't scheduled to start until 2018, so I'm not sure why that would impact your employer's decision today.

 

Furthermore, from an employer's perspective, Health Savings Account plans are much better than cadilac plans with no difference to the employees (arguably HSA, if implemented right, provides better value to employees).  For example, let's suppose you have a 30K annual premium plan, thus triggering the excise tax.  Annual maximum contribution for family under HSA right now is $6500 or so, let's say it goes to $7000 by 2018.  If the employer can find a HSA with annual premium of 23,000 with maximum deductible of 7K (HSA are usually designed so the maximum deductible matches the annual maximum contribution), then employer pays the same (30K) with no difference to employers (all health care covered).  Typically, employers will be able to find HSA for a lot cheaper than 23K per family, thus savings will usually result.  Further, unused funds rollover unlike Flex accounts, so if you don't incur a lot of medical cost in a given year, then you the employee benefit because the account belongs to the employee.

 

As for your friend, so your friend fired 15 people over a requirement that isn't going to be implemented until 2015?  Has anyone told your friend that the penalty for the employer mandate is $2000 per uncovered full time employee after the first 30 uncovered full time employee?  Assuming that your friend already used up 30 uncovered employee quota elsewhere, if a 15 person department collectively wasn't generating enough profit to cover 30K in annual cost, I'm not sure the department was worth keeping to begin with (although your friend could just fire one person and redistribute the work or tell everyone in the department to covert to salary + commission thus resulting in 2K paycut if not generating enough profit)

[@DCGoldPants]

I guess the question is.....if/when the Gov't is shut down. What will the swing voters think going into '14 and '16 think? 

[Bliz]

Well I went from having a no premium fully covered, employer self insured plan to a health savings plan as a result of this crap.     Our insurance was too good so the company would be penalized for providing such good coverage.  What total freaking crap that is.    It's still good and my out of pocket maximum is tolerable, but now I pay out the ass for prescriptions that were no cost before.     I wouldn't even mind that If I believed this mess of a law would actually reduce overall public medical expense in this country.  This will be far more expensive to us all.       I have a friend who owns a flooring business.  He axed a department with 15 people because the profit margin they generated was not going to be enough to cover the forced health care costs.   You think they'd rather have free coverage or a job?

 

I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but your employer is lying to you.

 

They chose to reduce coverage because they wanted to, and are using Obamacare as an excuse for doing what they wanted to do anyway.

 

Even if they were going to be penalized for having too good a plan (and the plan has to be REALLY REALLY good to fall in that level), the penalty doesn't kick in until 2018.  So why would they change your plan now?

 

Here's how the "cadillac plan" tax actually works:

 

 

The current threshold is $10,200 for an individual plan, and $27,000 for a family plan.  That’s calculated based on the value of the monthly premium only.   That's about 2-3x higher than the average person pays.  Plus, if you are over the threshold, all you have to do is switch to a plan with a slightly higher deductible or co-pay would be all that was required to bring you back under.

 

And, if health care costs continue to increase over the next several years, Congress would likely raise that minimum, because the GOP’s point with this (and this was a GOP part of the plan) is to cap the tax-incentive for plans in order to slow potential tax-incentivized over-consumption of health care. 

 

Even if you were around that level, the excise tax is only levied on the amount you are over the threshold, and not on the total value of the plan.  So if you have an individual plan where the premiums are $11,400 per year, you pay a tax of 40% of $1,000, or $400.  So unless you wildly exceeded the threshold, the levy would be relatively low, particularly compared to the amount your company was spending on health insurance. 

But again, this tax doesn’t go into effect until 2018.  So even if you were in any danger of it, it’s still years away.  And who knows, by then President Rubio may have made it a top priority in early 2017 to do away with this provision.

 

[twa]

why are so many union members turning against Obamacare or seeking exemptions?

[bearrock]

why are so many union members turning against Obamacare or seeking exemptions?

 

My perfunctory understanding is that union plans are not eligible for government subsidies (i.e. - union members cannot receive government subsidies toward offsetting union health care plan premiums) because they are discriminatory (i.e. - not open to everyone, only union members can sign up for them).  To me, this seems like a money grab.  They want to have the benefit of having a plan negotiated for through superior bargaining power of a union (compared to the rest of the population) and also receive the benefit meant to help the population at large.  If you don't like the union plan, then sign up for a non-union plan like the rest of the country and then you are eligible for subsidies like the rest of the country.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Larry]

Are the exchanges going to be ready on Oct 1?

No doubt some of them will. They've had what, five years, to get ready for it?

Many Governors have already announced their intention to intentionally not set up any exchanges, so that they can block their citizens from receiving federal benefits which they have already paid for. (The excuse they use for doing this is because supposedly the bill fully pays for the exchanges, for like eight years. (And then pays for like 90% of it, after that.) Therefore the Governors yell "over 10 years it will cost the state . . . ". That way they can avoid mentioning that right now, it would cost zero.)

Curiously, all of these Governors are members of one political party. And not one of them is using their Gubernatorial authority to veto implementation of federal legislation, to block implementation of W's Medicare expansion, which still hasn't been paid for, but which a Republican gets credit for.)

So, no doubt some of them will intentionally not be implemented. And the politicians who announced that they were intentionally not implementing them, will no doubt try to blame Obama for the very thing which they were proudly announcing, a year or so back. (And no doubt, a great many Republicans will pretend to believe it.)

[Springfield]

I work for a small business. I pay $130 every two weeks for health care for myself.

If I were to add my wife to my plan, the rate would increase to over $700 every two weeks. Therefore, my wife currently has no health insurance.

The system is broken and I'm not sure that ACA will do anything to change that as I see it.

So, what DOES the ACA do for somebody like me? How will this help somebody like myself? I feel that answer is absolutely nothing.

That is failure.

[skinsmarydu]

POTUS IN DA GROOVE, Y'ALL...MSNBC NOW

[Fergasun]

I work for a small business. I pay $130 every two weeks for health care for myself.

If I were to add my wife to my plan, the rate would increase to over $700 every two weeks. Therefore, my wife currently has no health insurance.

The system is broken and I'm not sure that ACA will do anything to change that as I see it.

So, what DOES the ACA do for somebody like me? How will this help somebody like myself? I feel that answer is absolutely nothing.

That is failure.

Is that a function of the ACA or the health care system in general?  The ACA was an imperfect fix, but an attempt nonetheless to improve the health care system.  I think the health care system in general has become pretty wack, so any attempt to fix it was/is needed. 

[bearrock]

I work for a small business. I pay $130 every two weeks for health care for myself.

If I were to add my wife to my plan, the rate would increase to over $700 every two weeks. Therefore, my wife currently has no health insurance.

The system is broken and I'm not sure that ACA will do anything to change that as I see it.

So, what DOES the ACA do for somebody like me? How will this help somebody like myself? I feel that answer is absolutely nothing.

That is failure.

 

It's hard to give specific numbers because the premiums aren't out yet, but hopefully you'll have some good news on October 1st.  Go look at the plans on the exchange on the 1st and see if they are better than your current options (I suspect they will be).  Depending on your income, you will be eligible for subsidies or expanded medicaid.  About the $700 biweekly premium, is that for employer plus family or employer plus spouse?  If it is for employer plus spouse, that is astonishingly high unless your wife has some extensive pre-existing condition (in which case, your premium should definitely drop starting next year).  It may simply be a reflection of lack of bargaining power of small business, but that really is quite high.  Hopefully, you'll see some savings and better options on Oct. 1st.  Best of luck to you and your wife.

[Springfield]

Is that a function of the ACA or the health care system in general? The ACA was an imperfect fix, but an attempt nonetheless to improve the health care system. I think the health care system in general has become pretty wack, so any attempt to fix it was/is needed.

I don't fault the ACA for that and I truly think that our health insurance (because it isn't health care) is a huge racket.

The only thing that the ACA does is make sure that everyone else now has to be apart of this racket. The health insurance companies won't suffer, quite the opposite. They'll profit more than ever.

The pre-existing conditions issue with the ACA is great, however it will give the health insurance companies and easy way to jack up our rates even more.

The ACA is a **** compared to what I would prefer (free health care for everyone). It helps/forces poor people to get health insurance which is a general good but it does nothing for somebody such as myself in the middle class that is being gouged by huge health insurance rates.

[skinsmarydu]

I guess the question is.....if/when the Gov't is shut down. What will the swing voters think going into '14 and '16 think? 

Hopefully, they'll know it was the nutbags who caused it, and not believe the GOP lies that it's the "POTUS' refusal to negotiate', even though it was Bonerweeper who walked away from talks.  Un****ingbelievable. 

But I'm lovin' it.  I get my '14 &'16 too.  Keeping everything in '18 will almost ensure my grandkids have a chance, provided we, as a society, haven't run out of drinkable water & swallowed ourselves in our garbage.  I have hope.

[No_Pressure]

Why does the republican party support medicare/medicaid and social security? Because the vast majority of their constituents are currently using these services and for all the ideology politicians in both party toss out there as a big pile of bull**** to get people up in arms, they know which lines they cannot possibly cross, even if it makes them enormous hypocrites.

 

I thought this was common knowledge.

[Springfield]

It's hard to give specific numbers because the premiums aren't out yet, but hopefully you'll have some good news on October 1st. Go look at the plans on the exchange on the 1st and see if they are better than your current options (I suspect they will be). Depending on your income, you will be eligible for subsidies or expanded medicaid. About the $700 biweekly premium, is that for employer plus family or employer plus spouse? If it is for employer plus spouse, that is astonishingly high unless your wife has some extensive pre-existing condition (in which case, your premium should definitely drop starting next year). It may simply be a reflection of lack of bargaining power of small business, but that really is quite high. Hopefully, you'll see some savings and better options on Oct. 1st. Best of luck to you and your wife.

I believe it's a family plan. I don't think I have any other options other than single and family. We are planning on having kids soon so we would need that anyhow.

She will eventually have health insurance as she has a new job but if she gets pregnant before she's insured... Oh boy.

[Larry]

The only thing that the ACA does is make sure that everyone else now has to be apart of this racket. The health insurance companies won't suffer, quite the opposite. They'll profit more than ever.

I HOPE (although I'm not certain) that it will do one other thing.

My hope is that the exchanges, and the dropping of the "pre-existing conditions" loophole, will allow consumers to comparison shop between policies that are relatively equivalent, and allow them to switch companies at will. Hopefully, promoting transparency and competition.

Will it do that? Have to confess I'm not at all certain. I could also see them having the effect of promoting the same kind of "race to the bottom" we see in other competitive industries, where everybody constantly struggles to produce the cheapest product that just barely meet the mandated minimum functionality.

[TheGoodBits]

I believe it's a family plan. I don't think I have any other options other than single and family. We are planning on having kids soon so we would need that anyhow.

She will eventually have health insurance as she has a new job but if she gets pregnant before she's insured... Oh boy.

"Not tonight honey, wait til you have insurance."

Smh @ this system. Hopefully it gets better.

[bearrock]

I don't fault the ACA for that and I truly think that our health insurance (because it isn't health care) is a huge racket.

The only thing that the ACA does is make sure that everyone else now has to be apart of this racket. The health insurance companies won't suffer, quite the opposite. They'll profit more than ever.

 

One aspect they got right is the cap on profit percentage for insurance companies, but that's not enough unless you rein in the underlying medical cost.  Right now, it could just end up shifting profit from insurance co. to health care providers (i think stocks have reflected that speculation).  

 

You are absolutely right about one thing.  ACA was all about helping Americans like you and your wife: those who want health insurance coverage for the entire family, but simply couldn't afford it.  It was supposed to lower or slow down premium increase and provide free or subsidized coverage for those who still couldn't afford it.  If the law fails to achieve that fundamental purpose, then it absolutely is a failure and they need to go back to the drawing board.  

[Bliz]

I HOPE (although I'm not certain) that it will do one other thing.

My hope is that the exchanges, and the dropping of the "pre-existing conditions" loophole, will allow consumers to comparison shop between policies that are relatively equivalent, and allow them to switch companies at will. Hopefully, promoting transparency and competition.

Will it do that? Have to confess I'm not at all certain. I could also see them having the effect of promoting the same kind of "race to the bottom" we see in other competitive industries, where everybody constantly struggles to produce the cheapest product that just barely meet the mandated minimum functionality.

 

That is a very legitimate hope.  The exchanges will require them to present all of the details in a particular way, so it should be very easy to see and compare more options than you have now.  Similar to what you would get if you filled out an application for a loan through lending tree.

 

I really don't know how it will affect people who work for large companies that have insurance.  But I have a very tough time seeing how it doesn't help individuals and people who work for small businesses that have (or want) insurance.  These are the folks who have gotten jerked around the hardest by insurance companies.

 

If nothing else, just getting rid of the annual/lifetime caps, preexisting conditions exclusions, and resicission makes this a worthwhile undertaking.  We've been looking the other way on outrageous abuses by the insurance industry for far too long.

[Larry]

One aspect they got right is the cap on profit percentage for insurance companies, but that's not enough unless you rein in the underlying medical cost.

Suspect you're right, but how do you do that?

I mean, face it, the insurance companies have a motive for reducing the amount they pay out, and they haven't managed to mandate lower costs. Think the federal government can do a better job at that?

 

Now, I have a theory for something that I think might help.  Maybe mandate free (no copay) diagnostic/preventative procedures?  Encourage people to find out about little problems before they turn into bigger ones? 

 

I don't know if that would work.  But it seems logical, to me. 

[skinsmarydu]

That is a very legitimate hope.  The exchanges will require them to present all of the details in a particular way, so it should be very easy to see and compare more options than you have now.  Similar to what you would get if you filled out an application for a loan through lending tree.

 

I really don't know how it will affect people who work for large companies that have insurance.  But I have a very tough time seeing how it doesn't help individuals and people who work for small businesses that have (or want) insurance.  These are the folks who have gotten jerked around the hardest by insurance companies.

 

If nothing else, just getting rid of the annual/lifetime caps, preexisting conditions exclusions, and resicission makes this a worthwhile undertaking.  We've been looking the other way on outrageous abuses by the insurance industry for far too long.

And there are subsidies to help the folks who can't afford the entire premium.  Good grief, let's give it a chance to fully be implemented!  I'm sure we all remember when the POTUS said we'd have to "tweak it"...GOP is totally unwilling.  Let's give tweaking (not twerking, lol) a try!

 

*edit* the former lifetime cap would've put my former boss totally under when his kid blew a knee in HS football.  He's thankful, believe me.

[twa]

I work for a small business. I pay $130 every two weeks for health care for myself.

If I were to add my wife to my plan, the rate would increase to over $700 every two weeks. Therefore, my wife currently has no health insurance.

The system is broken and I'm not sure that ACA will do anything to change that as I see it.

So, what DOES the ACA do for somebody like me? How will this help somebody like myself? I feel that answer is absolutely nothing.

That is failure.

I'm in a similar boat, but the ACA should make it easier on both of us once it ripens......and I still think it is very poorly designed and a drag on the economy.

you will of course gain coverage for your wife for not much more than you pay now(unless you make more than I think)

 

of course even with coverage a major claim will probably destroy your finances, but the doctors and hospitals will get mostly paid.....YIPPEE