I'm a tenor.
Bummer.
Posted on 01/08/2007 1:42:34 PM PST by libertarianPA
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday proposed to extend health coverage to nearly all of California's 6.5 million uninsured people, promising to spread the cost among businesses, individuals, hospitals, doctors, insurers and government.
The plan contains elements that are likely to provoke opposition from a wide range of powerful interests, including doctors, hospitals and insurers, as well as employers and unions. But it also contains incentives for each of them.
All children, regardless of their immigration status, would be covered through an expansion of the state and federal Healthy Families program.
"I don't think it is a question or a debate if they ought to be covered. ... The federal courts have made that decision — that no one can be turned away," Schwarzenegger said. "The question really isn't to treat them or not to treat them. The question really is how can you treat them in the most cost-effective way."
Under Schwarzenegger's plan, all Californians would be required to have insurance, although the poorest would be subsidized. Businesses with 10 or more employees would have to offer insurance to their workers or pay 4 percent of their payroll into a state fund. Smaller businesses would be exempt.
Also, insurers would no longer be allowed to deny coverage to people because of their medical problems.
Business groups and Republican legislators are likely to object to the extra costs imposed on businesses.
The state would subsidize the estimated 1.2 million poor people who do not currently qualify for state health coverage. They would be able to buy insurance through a state-run pool and would have to make a small contribution toward their premiums.
Schwarzenegger is betting that his plan will save $10 billion a year by cutting health care costs. He says the savings would offset the new fees he is asking doctors and hospitals to pay — 4 percent of revenue for hospitals and 2 percent for doctors.
The state also would increase what it pays doctors and hospitals through Medi-Cal, the state insurance plan for the poor.
The governor was supposed to give his address in person to a panel of health care officials. Instead, he spoke via video link since he is still recuperating from broken leg suffered in a skiing accident.
If we raise the cost of employment you will just have more illegals working off the books;;more underground economy.
This is absolutely crazy..time for another recall.
Governor to propose welfare cuts
Critics see risk for kids and a blow to bipartisanship
Thank you for being so understanding.
She didn't know. She thought she had a cold. She didn't go to urgent care because, first of all she couldn't afford to, and secondly, she had a job and thus unless she lied about that, they would have charged her full pop. She was more or less a minimum wage earner and had not worked long enough at her new job to "qualify" for the company health plan (something she would not have to do under the Schwartzenegger plan).
She tried to treat this thing honestly by getting over the counter medication and not going to the emergency room under an assumed name. But, even if she had gone to the doctor, and they discovered her pneumonia, that would not have solved her dilemma. If the doctors had caught it, it would have bankrupted her family because they would have had to hospitalize her for a couple of weeks. Instead she kept on working until the pneumonia got so bad her heart stopped.
Maybe her family should be glad that she didn't burden them with a big hospital bill and instead was thoughtful enough to just drop dead and save everyone a lot of money.
"You are going to be left with no insurers, less businesses, and more taxation, not to mention officially earning your new laughingstock title as "North Mexico."
AMEN Brother! TESTIFY!!!!
All this "sharing" of the burden will kill private health insurance in California. That is the only thing this will do.
People can pull on everyones heartstrings all they want....the young mother who dies of pneumonia.....the hardworking immigrant who breaks his leg.....etc.
This one thing, more than anything else will kill California. But I suppose this is an indicator that it may already be dead.
He sounds like Lenin.
I think you have to consider that the tyrannical men in black are ordering that the medical services be rendered to the ill, whether they are paid for or not. Arnold is trying to get some money from those being serviced. Of course what should be done is for the judges to be impeached and removed from office for their violation of oaths to the constitution.
Don't know what Urgent Care centers you are taking about, but they are available in my neck of California for about $75./visit, and some have a coupon in the Yellow Pages! Generally I am tired of the excuses and lack of personal responsibility, anyone who isn't 100% disabled and can't put a thousand bucks in the bank for office visits/checkups and get a high deductible insurance plan/medical saving account just isn't trying. http://www.opm.gov/hsa/ Minimum wage in Calif, is what now, like $15,600.?? They can't afford ANY health care out of that?
She's dead. Ultimately she took responsibility and died without leaving her family with a $50,000 hospital bill. That should make you happy.
If you're sick...YOU TAKE CARE OF IT AND WORRY ABOUT HOW YOU'RE GOING TO PAY FOR IT LATER. You can make payments, you can take a loan, you can borrow from your friends and family, you can declare bankruptcy. My God, she had children. Sorry, I'm sure she was a nice lady...but she was short on common sense.
No, my friend..she died because she REFUSED to take responsibility for herself.
Common sense is not at all common. The fact is that if she had gone to the doctor, they would have had to hospitalize her and without insurance that burden would fall on you and me along with bankrupting her family. So I guess we should all rejoice that she didn't have common sense, since it obviously saved the taxpayers a bundle.
She thought she had a bad cold. She worked to support her family and went to work despite the fact that she was suffering from an undiagnosed case of terminal pneumonia that had already reached the point of no return.
The fact that she was being responsible for providing for her children, and trying to get enough days in to get company health insurance through her employer is, in fact, what ultimately killed her. She came up a couple of months short, and her kids STILL don't have health insurance.
What on earth are you talking about? So she goes to the hospital and ends up with a $10,000 bill...so what? She pays it off over the next ten years. You're joking with me right? You think people should die if they can't afford to go to the hospital? You think her family would rather she die than bankrupt them? I'm glad you're not my family member.
I'd take this whole insurance thing completely the opposite direction, where employers are concerned, and just make it flat illegal for an employer to provide any coverage of any kind; ALL insurance should be individualy contracted for between the insurer and the insured. PERIOD. You won't find home or auto insurance in your corporate benefit package; why should it be any different for medical, dental, vision, etc?
Insurance providers angle to land business with big companies so they can keep a larger pool of customers more steadily. In return, they give lower rates than you and I could if we went out on our own to buy the same coverage. Well, part of the reason we'd have to pay more, is because the insurer has pressure to make up the price break they gave to the corporate plan buyers. If there WERE no corporate plans, the insurers could even out the costs and we could all get the plan of our choice for something between what we'd pay privately, today, and what company plans cost.
From an Economics 101 perspective, forcing insurers to deal individually with tens of millions of customers instead of dealing with customers through the H.R. departments of tens of thousands of companies, exponentiates the customer base. More buyers, places demand for the product of each insurer on more precipitous footing. With the customers now dealing in person with their insurers, it forces the insurers to compete head-to-head for each individual policy. Instead of landing 20,000 customers at a time by signing deals with big companies, an insurer will have to compete for EACH of those 20,000 customers ONE by ONE; which will drive down the cost of insurance for everyone.
Of course, that makes so much sense that no nanny-state govrnement would EVER let it happen.
Which is why I'm thinking that a mandatory 4% of payroll tax or mandatory health care insurance for employees is not a bad thing either. It would simply be, as work comp insurance is, a cost of doing business. When you realize that there are 6 1/2 million Californians who are not covered for health care and the average hospital stay is about $20,000 a day, the idea of getting all these people under some kind of coverage umbrella makes a lot of sense.
Right now our emergency rooms are overcrowded with people who will never pay, so the cost of that problem is already being passed on to us through higher health care costs. If health care coverage was mandatory, that would significantly reduce the number of non-paying patients and ultimately will result in the cost of healthcare being lowered.
And if we killed all the lawyers, we would have utopia.
"And if we killed all the lawyers, we would have utopia.'
If we had a liability system and health care system based on the Worker's Comp. system where medical bills are capped and paid and a percentage of pay until available for light duty or max recovery is attainted with employers and all adults, whether working or on welfare paying the cost would probably be a fraction of the total cost now. Then the lawyers would be relagated to finding real employment like landscaping or home remodeling.
Are you suggesting that selling snake oil is not "real employment"?
If you can sing base i think I can get a bus and a tent and we can start a revival. Beats work!
I'm a tenor.
Bummer.
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