To make good on his promise, or threat depending on how you look at it, the President released a summary of his healthcare proposal on Monday morning. I haven’t been able to find a full copy of the text as of yet and if all he intends to post to the internet is a summary / infomercial, then I am truly concerned. Considering what is in the summary, I can only imagine what horrors the full text of the proposal has in store for us. Bear in mind, this is not a full proposal designed to replace the bill that a majority of Americans would like to see tossed; this is yet another addition to the more than two thousand pages that already exist.
In essence, the President’s proposal has taken a bill Americans already hate and gave us even more to despise. There are more tax increases, higher penalties for not purchasing health insurance, a clever renaming of the medical device fee to an excise tax and a “millionaire’s tax” of 5.25% levied on people earning a quarter of what it takes to be a millionaire. Incidentally, the millionaire’s tax also contains a marriage penalty where tax is levied against single people earning more than $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000.
The President’s plan still punishes health insurance companies, extorting $67 billion dollars in fees to help the enrollment process on the assumption that insurance companies are going to make so much money from all the new people that will be forced to purchase insurance. Well, if this plan is meant to allow access to health insurance for the 30 million Americans that are reportedly without insurance, then what are we talking about, a ten percent increase in business? But wait, the income assessment used to force people to purchase insurance doesn’t kick in until you earn more than $18,700 per year so you can hack off a healthy portion of that 10%. This does not take into consideration that once the exemptions for pre-existing conditions are removed from the equation, some will simply prefer to pay the penalty knowing that they can always get insurance later when it is an absolute necessity saving themselves thousands in premium costs.
The President couldn’t eliminate the additional tax on “Cadillac” healthcare plans to make his union friends happy without an uproar so he did the next best thing. He postponed that tax until 2018 and by then, private insurance should be a thing of the past. Oh yes, private insurance will be decimated by the President’s plan. His proposal includes capping premium costs knowing that the industry only has a 3.4% profit margin now; a margin that will not be able to keep up with rising health provider costs as more people are absorbed into Medicaid and Medicare. You see, it is the paltry amount that the Federal government reimburses doctors and hospitals for Medicare and Medicaid services that created the problem in the first place. Hospitals and doctors are forced to increase their charges to private insurance to make up the shortages and private insurance must pass that on to you in what is really, the largest hidden tax to fund those programs ever perpetrated on the American people.
The President’s plan has a “grandfather” clause that will allow people that like their current insurance to keep that plan. Hmmm? Why would we need a grandfather clause if their intention wasn’t to force people to accept certain plans that the government will choose for you? In fact, the grandfather clause isn’t worth much since the government will force changes to these plans that will no longer make them profitable. You see, you can’t get to the single payer system the President really wants if you get to keep a plan that will not go away. The changes that the providers of these plans will have to make will ensure they cannot remain competitive.
The President’s summary states: “Within months of legislation being enacted, it requires plans to cover adult dependents up to age 26, prohibits rescissions, mandates that plans have a stronger appeals process, and requires State insurance authorities to conduct annual rate review, backed up by the oversight of the HHS Secretary. When the exchanges begin in 2014, the President’s Proposal adds new protections that prohibit all annual and lifetime limits, ban pre-existing condition exclusions, and prohibit discrimination in favor of highly compensated individuals. Beginning in 2018, the President’s Proposal requires “grandfathered” plans to cover proven preventive services with no cost sharing.” In short, by 2018, these plans will either be eliminated by the provider or will be too expensive to purchase to all but a few.
Pharmaceutical companies will also be hit hard as official preference is given to generic drugs. Ignoring the companies that actually pioneered the creation of new drugs and had to fund the expense of clinical trials and Federal approval will create a stagnant climate within the pharmaceutical industry. This short sighted approach will have a detrimental limiting effect on research and development of new drugs and treatments. The President’s plan also increases the government theft of pharmaceutical company profits $10 billion dollars more than the Senate plan proposed for a total of $33 billion over ten years.
Medicare Advantage is also targeted by the President’s plan and while the summary makes a base assessment that Medicare overpays private plans by an average of 14% to provide the same services as the regular Medicare programs, his summary refuses to actually say what is going to be cut and where. His plan creates a set of benchmark payments at different percentages based on the current average fee-for-service costs in an area. Of course while his summary calls this section “Improving Medicare Advantage Payments” it could just as easily be called “good luck finding a doctor that will accept Medicare Advantage now”. The only reason people go through the expense of paying for Medicare Advantage is that many doctors simply do not take “traditional” Medicare because of the their miserable payment rates. Adjusting the rate structure to something more like Medicare will only make Medicare Advantage as unpopular with doctors as Medicare is currently.
There is the creation of what the President himself calls an “unprecedented array of aggressive new authorities to fight waste, fraud and abuse.” Ok, so we are expected to believe that the savings from the “waste, fraud and abuse” uncovered by this “array” of new authorities will not be consumed entirely by the “array” of new authorities. Call me silly but couldn’t fraud and abuse be adequately pursued and prosecuted by an already bloated and underutilized Justice Department? As far as fraud is concerned, that simply sounds like there needs to be a little house cleaning over at the existing Medicare and Medicaid administrations so that these people actually perform their jobs.
Of course nothing is more devastating than the employer mandates. The President insists that there are no employer mandates in his plans but there are fees that start with companies of 50 or more employees. A fee of $750 would be assessed for every one of that company’s employees even if only one of those employees should purchase insurance with taxpayer assistance; that my friends, is known as a job killer. The carrot of a tax credit is meaningless because the requirements outlive the credits and leave businesses holding the bag for all time. Companies with 55 or 60 employees will find a way to get the job done with 54 and many larger companies will just close their American plants and outsource to foreign companies in countries that were smart enough not to elect a socialist President. There is also an additional tax for employers that offer no insurance or insurance that does not meet “government standards”. The tax would roughly be an 8% payroll tax phased in for employers with annual payrolls from $500,000 to $750,000 which really doesn’t take that much to reach these days now does it?
Of course no plan ever crafted by a Progressive Democrat would be complete without a little bait and switch. The President’s proposal gives billions to Community based health centers and that just sounds like a big “Thank You” from the President to all of the Community organizations that helped him get elected. While the Nebraska deal is tossed out in the President’s plan, the Senate’s “working girl” from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu, gets to keep her $300 million bribe and other States will get a kickback of one degree or another to buy their silence. The President also plans on using this bill to close what he calls a tax loophole in an entirely unrelated clean energy tax credit bill and clearly states that some of the money you good people will be paying for the Healthcare reform bill will be diverted, if needed, to shore up Social Security.
This is nothing less than a nail gun to seal the coffin of private healthcare insurance in this country. Why would the President and Progressive Democrats want to cripple the healthcare system? Because they need to redirect all of the money spent on healthcare in this country into one massive entitlement program just to keep the failed programs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on life support for the next ten or twelve years. This is a shameless attempt to trick the American people into believing that this about healthcare when it is just another attempt to funnel more power and money into the corrupt abyss of Washington.
Paul
In essence, the President’s proposal has taken a bill Americans already hate and gave us even more to despise. There are more tax increases, higher penalties for not purchasing health insurance, a clever renaming of the medical device fee to an excise tax and a “millionaire’s tax” of 5.25% levied on people earning a quarter of what it takes to be a millionaire. Incidentally, the millionaire’s tax also contains a marriage penalty where tax is levied against single people earning more than $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000.
The President’s plan still punishes health insurance companies, extorting $67 billion dollars in fees to help the enrollment process on the assumption that insurance companies are going to make so much money from all the new people that will be forced to purchase insurance. Well, if this plan is meant to allow access to health insurance for the 30 million Americans that are reportedly without insurance, then what are we talking about, a ten percent increase in business? But wait, the income assessment used to force people to purchase insurance doesn’t kick in until you earn more than $18,700 per year so you can hack off a healthy portion of that 10%. This does not take into consideration that once the exemptions for pre-existing conditions are removed from the equation, some will simply prefer to pay the penalty knowing that they can always get insurance later when it is an absolute necessity saving themselves thousands in premium costs.
The President couldn’t eliminate the additional tax on “Cadillac” healthcare plans to make his union friends happy without an uproar so he did the next best thing. He postponed that tax until 2018 and by then, private insurance should be a thing of the past. Oh yes, private insurance will be decimated by the President’s plan. His proposal includes capping premium costs knowing that the industry only has a 3.4% profit margin now; a margin that will not be able to keep up with rising health provider costs as more people are absorbed into Medicaid and Medicare. You see, it is the paltry amount that the Federal government reimburses doctors and hospitals for Medicare and Medicaid services that created the problem in the first place. Hospitals and doctors are forced to increase their charges to private insurance to make up the shortages and private insurance must pass that on to you in what is really, the largest hidden tax to fund those programs ever perpetrated on the American people.
The President’s plan has a “grandfather” clause that will allow people that like their current insurance to keep that plan. Hmmm? Why would we need a grandfather clause if their intention wasn’t to force people to accept certain plans that the government will choose for you? In fact, the grandfather clause isn’t worth much since the government will force changes to these plans that will no longer make them profitable. You see, you can’t get to the single payer system the President really wants if you get to keep a plan that will not go away. The changes that the providers of these plans will have to make will ensure they cannot remain competitive.
The President’s summary states: “Within months of legislation being enacted, it requires plans to cover adult dependents up to age 26, prohibits rescissions, mandates that plans have a stronger appeals process, and requires State insurance authorities to conduct annual rate review, backed up by the oversight of the HHS Secretary. When the exchanges begin in 2014, the President’s Proposal adds new protections that prohibit all annual and lifetime limits, ban pre-existing condition exclusions, and prohibit discrimination in favor of highly compensated individuals. Beginning in 2018, the President’s Proposal requires “grandfathered” plans to cover proven preventive services with no cost sharing.” In short, by 2018, these plans will either be eliminated by the provider or will be too expensive to purchase to all but a few.
Pharmaceutical companies will also be hit hard as official preference is given to generic drugs. Ignoring the companies that actually pioneered the creation of new drugs and had to fund the expense of clinical trials and Federal approval will create a stagnant climate within the pharmaceutical industry. This short sighted approach will have a detrimental limiting effect on research and development of new drugs and treatments. The President’s plan also increases the government theft of pharmaceutical company profits $10 billion dollars more than the Senate plan proposed for a total of $33 billion over ten years.
Medicare Advantage is also targeted by the President’s plan and while the summary makes a base assessment that Medicare overpays private plans by an average of 14% to provide the same services as the regular Medicare programs, his summary refuses to actually say what is going to be cut and where. His plan creates a set of benchmark payments at different percentages based on the current average fee-for-service costs in an area. Of course while his summary calls this section “Improving Medicare Advantage Payments” it could just as easily be called “good luck finding a doctor that will accept Medicare Advantage now”. The only reason people go through the expense of paying for Medicare Advantage is that many doctors simply do not take “traditional” Medicare because of the their miserable payment rates. Adjusting the rate structure to something more like Medicare will only make Medicare Advantage as unpopular with doctors as Medicare is currently.
There is the creation of what the President himself calls an “unprecedented array of aggressive new authorities to fight waste, fraud and abuse.” Ok, so we are expected to believe that the savings from the “waste, fraud and abuse” uncovered by this “array” of new authorities will not be consumed entirely by the “array” of new authorities. Call me silly but couldn’t fraud and abuse be adequately pursued and prosecuted by an already bloated and underutilized Justice Department? As far as fraud is concerned, that simply sounds like there needs to be a little house cleaning over at the existing Medicare and Medicaid administrations so that these people actually perform their jobs.
Of course nothing is more devastating than the employer mandates. The President insists that there are no employer mandates in his plans but there are fees that start with companies of 50 or more employees. A fee of $750 would be assessed for every one of that company’s employees even if only one of those employees should purchase insurance with taxpayer assistance; that my friends, is known as a job killer. The carrot of a tax credit is meaningless because the requirements outlive the credits and leave businesses holding the bag for all time. Companies with 55 or 60 employees will find a way to get the job done with 54 and many larger companies will just close their American plants and outsource to foreign companies in countries that were smart enough not to elect a socialist President. There is also an additional tax for employers that offer no insurance or insurance that does not meet “government standards”. The tax would roughly be an 8% payroll tax phased in for employers with annual payrolls from $500,000 to $750,000 which really doesn’t take that much to reach these days now does it?
Of course no plan ever crafted by a Progressive Democrat would be complete without a little bait and switch. The President’s proposal gives billions to Community based health centers and that just sounds like a big “Thank You” from the President to all of the Community organizations that helped him get elected. While the Nebraska deal is tossed out in the President’s plan, the Senate’s “working girl” from Louisiana, Mary Landrieu, gets to keep her $300 million bribe and other States will get a kickback of one degree or another to buy their silence. The President also plans on using this bill to close what he calls a tax loophole in an entirely unrelated clean energy tax credit bill and clearly states that some of the money you good people will be paying for the Healthcare reform bill will be diverted, if needed, to shore up Social Security.
This is nothing less than a nail gun to seal the coffin of private healthcare insurance in this country. Why would the President and Progressive Democrats want to cripple the healthcare system? Because they need to redirect all of the money spent on healthcare in this country into one massive entitlement program just to keep the failed programs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security on life support for the next ten or twelve years. This is a shameless attempt to trick the American people into believing that this about healthcare when it is just another attempt to funnel more power and money into the corrupt abyss of Washington.
Paul
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