Indeed. It may not be easy to beat the machine, but it can be done.
Jesus Christ: You can't impeach Him and He ain't gonna resign.
Posted on 07/19/2017 3:37:25 AM PDT by IBD editorial writer
Health Reform: There were lots of celebrations on the left side of the aisle after the Senate GOP bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare died. The good times will be short lived, because one way or another ObamaCare is going away, and it's not at all clear that Democrats will gain additional leverage over what comes next by waiting for its collapse.
It was amusing to hear Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say, after the Senate bill failed, that Republicans should "work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums, provides long-term stability to the markets and improves our health care system."
Lower premiums, stabilize insurance markets, improve health care? Wasn't that what ObamaCare was supposed to do in the first place?
While Schumer and company were busy calling Republicans mass murderers, here's what was actually happening with ObamaCare.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports that the number of insurers applying to participate in ObamaCare exchanges next year plunged by 38% compared with last year, and is half what it was in 2016.
CMS also reported that 40 counties in Indiana, Ohio and Nevada are at risk of having zero insurance companies in their ObamaCare exchanges next year. The Kaiser Family Foundation put the number of at-risk counties at 38.
In addition, CMS reported that 2.4 million enrollees in 40% of the nation's counties will have just one insurance company in their area.
The average increase in premiums next year for a Silver plan in eight states will be 18%, according to Avalere. One of the last ObamaCare insurers in Iowa has put in for a 43.5% hike. In Washington state, the average boost is 22%. In Tennessee, the proposed rate hikes range from 21% to 42%. And so on.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
You hit it right on the mark. I'll re-post something I posted yesterday that I thought captured the "insurance dilemma" well:
This isn't like a homeowners insurance policy where the house may never burn down, or a life insurance policy where premiums are based on the probability of a single event (death) that will occur with 100% certainty at some unknown time in the future. It's an "insurance plan" that covers unknown medical events that occur at unknown times in the future, with unspecified (and unlimited) costs.
There's no way to "fix" this nonsense.
Indeed. It may not be easy to beat the machine, but it can be done.
Jesus Christ: You can't impeach Him and He ain't gonna resign.
1. An insurance company develops a new type of insurance plan that combines attributes of both health insurance and life insurance. Annual or monthly premiums are paid just like a life insurance policy, and the payments are invested by the insurance company in relatively safe, stable investments.
2. The U.S. government gives every taxpayer a deduction up to $5,000 per year ($5,000 per year for each family member, for those with dependents) in premiums for this "hybrid" insurance policy. This amount may increase over time as the taxpayer ages, or simply to keep up with inflation.
3. Taxpayers are free to make withdrawals from these accounts for health expenses. Maybe this is for ANY health expense, or only for major expenses requiring surgery, hospitalization, etc.
4. Any money that is left in the account when the person dies is treated as a life insurance benefit, and is passed on to a named beneficiary tax-free (as is the case now).
5. I see only two roles for the government in this: (A) changing the tax code as I've described, and (B) perhaps serving as an independent regulatory body (like a pension review board) to ensure that the investments are appropriate for the long-term solvency of the insurance pool.
Sounds like a HSA.
I thought an HSA treats the remaining money as an IRA distribution, not a tax-free benefit to a beneficiary.
Correct, Spouse inherits it as their own HSA and can use it for medical expenses. If you survive to 65, you can take any distributions taxable like a traditional IRA. So an improvement and inducement would be to allow deductions, and at age 65 or 70 allow tax free distribution and allow it to transfer tax free as a life insurance proceed.
Since Obamacare was supposed to be operated through "State Exchanges" (even though numerous states declined to participate), a tacit recognition of a State's right to establish its rules, there was a great deal of deference to States.
Remember many states declined to expand their Medicaid programs as well. The longstanding principle is that a higher standard prevails whether local, county, state or federal.
I agree.
McCain, Collins, Murkowski, Graham, Ryan have faced conservative opposition and keep winning. Brat was an exception, not the rule.
Al Gore in 2000, and Hillary in 2016, won the popular vote. Bush and Trump won the Electoral College, not the approval of the American people.
“Brat was an exception, not the rule.”
ONLY because he did not follow the politician template and used the populist model.
Never heard of that before, now did ya? /s
New tag
Schumer needs to keep his piehole closed;not to make him look better,but to keep him from looking any dumber.
The reason it was so popular is because there was a nation wide wage & price freeze. The reason for that was to prevent rapid escalation (inflation) as companies competed for personnel to service war time contracts. The loophole they discovered was to offer health insurance; the IRS helped out by determining it was a non-taxable benefit. And thus the employer provided health insurance industry exploded.
Now, the first thing to consider is: who was covered? And the answer of course is employees ie the healthy, young(ish) & self-sufficient (IOW, employed). But what wasn't really thought about were the long term implications after 10, 20, 30 years of service. Like most/all things, alterations are made on the fly, so a lot of this stuff was rolled into pension plans.
Alright, so let's fast forward to today. The basic principles exist that the only people whose health can really be insured are young(ish), healthy, employed individuals, their spouses and minor children. That's it, full stop. How a tax code is structure to encourage savings, reduce costs, improve access, etc for that **specific** segment isn't really my concern.
Secondly, when we're dealing with the **uninsurable**, it's important to observe that they cannot be placed in the insurance pool with everyone else, otherwise it completely destroys the notion of "insurance" ie spreading risk based on calculated probabilities. Rather, the ill, elderly and poor are simply wards of the state.
This requires a completely different approach which has nothing to do with plans, incentives, etc. Rather, it's much more like providing for the common good like roads, defense, food regulation, etc. IOW, it becomes a bureaucratic endeavor with all the attendant, well known issues. True, service will not excel, but it will be provided. When the nation finally comes to grips with the realities of the situation, then maybe we'll finally see some kind of reform.
“Never heard of that before, now did ya? /s”
It works in some districts, not in every district. As I recall it was tried against Paul Ryan in 2016 and failed miserably.
It was only employed when Nehlen entered the race and he even admits he was way to late. If you go back and study the Brat campaign, Nehlen’s was only on media splash. Go back and study what Brat did and you will see the big difference. This is evidenced at how Nehlen has been in the race officially for a few months now and doing the groundwork in the district that he did not so before.
“The Gop should be all over the airwaves declaring that they couldn’t fix Obama care because the Democrats wouldn’t help”.
Gruber designed the system to resist any reasonable “tampering”.
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