Posted on 02/24/2017 5:33:55 AM PST by Enlightened1
One of the major problems with Obamacare (besides the fact it’s none of the federal governments business)
Is that it keep people from buying cheap plans that only cover catastrophic incidents. Which ironically is all insurance is suppose to do to begin with.
$10,000 deductible with a million dollar cap insurance would cost nearly nothing, but would keep middle class people from going bankrupt in the case of as medical emergency. Then just expand Medicaid to cover most of the people currently receiving Obamacare subsidies and POOF! problem solved.
The are also dealing with reduced rates on Medicare for
Seniors...........Cost of Drugs is going thru the roof for NO Reason...
Semantics. It’s a program with benefits that you only receive under conditions (you have to be alive past 62). “Handouts” are paid through taxes in general, whether income, property, or sales tax. So everyone “pays into the program” one way or another at one time or another. It is exceedingly rare that anyone would not pay anything at all ever.
If the gov paid retired people an income from a program subsidized w/federal income tax, that was the same percentage as that of OASDI, would you no longer call it “getting back what I paid in” and start calling it an “entitlement”?
Consider food stamps - paid for through federal income tax. Through your wages you “pay into the program” and if never poor, you never receive the “benefit”. Similarly, with SS, those deceased before filing for benefits do not receive SS benefits.
Now, if we all of a sudden add a separate line item on your paycheck’s payroll tax called “food stamps” simultaneously decreasing federal income tax, yet the program’s income and expenses are the same as before, does this now no longer exist as an “entitlement”? It’s now all of a sudden “getting back what you paid into it”? Semantics.
Per vets, I don’t see matters of contract as entitlements or benefits. Paying into the SS program is not a contract, it’s a statutory tax. Signing up for the military means signing a contract.
My DR. had a sign on his counter yesterday that they were NO LONGER accepting HMO’s !!!!!
A side benefit of reform is doctors won't have to call for every ‘test’ known to man to avoid being successfully sueed by ambulance chasers...Medical perverse incentives added by lawyers and clients wanting to 'win the lottery' via their doctor - have added to the problem...
Maternity was a separate benefit years ago and it cost 66% of what was paid out. With maternity one is betting they will get pregnant. The insurance company hopes you go 16-17 months before they pay out.
Again, your attempt to explain the differences is an argument without a distinction.
What you want to call these programs makes no difference to me.
I will still draw my SS check and get my medical care from the VA because I am "entitled" to them.
You’re not alone. Whenever I post about SS, I always gets someone who doesn’t like it when I use the word “charity”.
SS was created to help ensure seniors had a sufficient income in retirement.
However, what that purportedly means is that many seniors did NOT have a sufficient income in retirement.
In that case, they would have to turn to family, friends or charity, otherwise.
Hence the SS program, intended to ameliorate that, means the government did substantively adopt the role of a charity by ensuring that income was provided, or in other words, attempted to eliminate the need for charity in old age.
I have no prob w/people taking money from a program as long as they qualify. It’d be silly to do otherwise.
Hats off to you and your wife for your service, by the way!
Completely unforgiving.
It would be like hiring a construction company to build a house and they hand you a 2in model.
We don't live solely on SS income. Our military and civilian retirements plans also provide some additional income. We also have savings of our own. We didn't live out our careers just planning on the government to help us in retirement.
But I've never drawn unemployment or any kind of welfare, food stamps or subsidies from government handouts in my entire life.
Thank you for the compliment about our military service.
Texas is one of the states that refused to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. What about people there?
About half the states have enacted tort reform already. And while that has done wonders for malpractice insurance premiums there is no evidence that it has done anything about the price of healthcare premiums.
Mark Steyn nailed it some time ago. He said, words to this effect, that Republicans were like the European Conservatives in that they never repeal a Socialist law, just say they can make it “work better”.
because it wasn’t funded.
fully funded by the federal government and part of an overall Obamacare repeal measure and I dont think this would be an issue anymore
>I could go through these one at a time:
1. Yes, the IRS penalty for not having health insurance will probably go.
That itself is the single biggest abomination in the “Affordable Care Act” (ACA). If the GOP eliminates that item — along with the employer mandate — then they’ve solved 95% of the problem right there.
2. But there will still be coverage for children up to the age of 26 ...
... which will be meaningless without the employer mandate.
3. ... there will still be mandatory coverage for preexisting conditions ...
Many pre-existing conditions should be covered, particularly if the patient has had continuous insurance coverage. If a person moves from one insurance plan to another and brings a pre-existing condition with him/her, then one of the insurance carriers should be covering the treatment for that condition. This is an item that can very easily be addressed in any legislation.
4. ... there will still be mandatory coverage for maternity expenses ...
I’m not sure I understand the issue here. Has there ever been a health insurance plan that did NOT cover maternity expenses?
5. ... there will still be some form of Medicaid expansion and there will still be subsidies for the poor.
These existed before the ACA, and they’ll exist afterwards. The key here is to turn Medicaid into such low-grade insurance coverage that only the truly destitute would want to deal with it. In fact, I can see a scenario where the Trump administration’s deportation of illegal aliens will go a long way toward fixing this problem in many states.
>
1). Does it remove the IRS as the keeper of digital records? Or will that simply shift to the illegal NSA side of things...what’s ONE more violation of the 4th??
2). 21 to drink, 18 to vote\tattoo, < 18 sex. Can we finally do away w/ these arbitrary limits? Talk about skewing the risk\pool for a 26 YO ‘dependent’.
3). You and I know damn well that’s not what they mean nor intend. Plus, that’s not what *insurance*, by definition, is for.
4). No. That’s the problem. Those that won’t\can’t don’t need to be paying....also, see #3
5). How ‘bout a return to charity care? Like any other welfare\injection of govt, it enslaves the masses. Enough w/ the forced acceptance by the ER\hospitals; let ‘em go after the dead-beats and chase off the splinter-taking-up-room abuse.
Angry? Don’t know if I’d be angry. It would be what I expect.
Last one out don’t forget the lights.
Obamacare won’t be repealed, because it can’t be repealed - or, more exactly, it can’t be repealed without ushering in huge Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate.
Members of Congress don’t know much, but they can count votes like a pimp in a whorehouse can count money.
Yes, the voters “hate Obamacare and want it repealed”. That is absolutely true.
It’s also absolutely true that they want the ability to buy insurance for pre-existing conditions, want insurance companies to be forbidden to cancel policies for non-payment, want zero payment at the point of service, want their adult children who are smoking dope in a dive in Oakland to stay covered, want their States to expand Medicaid without taxes going up, and so on.
In other words, the only two things they hate about Obamacare are paying for it, and the name.
Republicans in Congress understand this perfectly well, which is why there’s no plan.
And, not coincidentally, Obamacare (and Romneycare) were the culmination of fifty years of “reform”, all of which had the purpose of destroying the private sector or making it impossible for the private sector to function, except for boob jobs and a few other things. And, by 2009, the mission was largely accomplished.
Obamacare was merely a temporary mop-up operation, until full nationalization was possible.
And now, it is.
Like Nixon to China, Trump will propose single payer within the year. It’s really the only way out at this point.
And before you accuse me of favoring it, realize that it will destroy a lifetime of work for me. I don’t like it - I hate it.
But it’s coming, because it’s what the voters, bless their pointy little heads, want.
Obesity?
How ‘bout the druggies (smokes, caffeine, pot, etc)?
The gays (whole LIFESTYLE of ‘just waiting to happen’)?
Maybe the adrenaline junkies\extreme sports?
Those in the trades (carpenter\electrician)?
Care to point out where the line can be drawn? Start to shoe-horn into very discreet categories, based on job\hobbies, where one pays $ vs. $$$?
If they don’t there will be an absolute wipe out in the 2018 midterms. This is not hard to predict....
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