Health Care Reform: How a Small Bill Could Pay Big Dividends
It would end the unfair tax on the uninsured (and self-insured), giving them a tax break similar to that which is already available to those with employer-provided insurance. It would provide refundable and advanceable tax credits of $2,000 per person and up to $5,000 per family, while leaving employer-provided insurance, its tax-exempt status, and the rest of the tax code entirely intact.
It would allow Americans to buy insurance across state lines, allowing them to shop for the best values from coast to coast.
It would expand Americans’ ability to keep their insurance when they leave their job by extending COBRA benefits by 12 months.
It would allow private entities to offer lower premiums for healthier lifestyles, which — amazingly — existing federal regulations severely limit.
It would cut costs by preventing runaway malpractice lawsuits and relieving doctors from having to practice defensive medicine, capping punitive damages at $250,000 per provider and $750,000 total while continuing to allow unlimited economic damages.
It would increase federal support for state-run high-risk pools, which already exist in 34 states. It would incentivize their establishment in all 50 states, providing needed help for those who are uninsured and have prohibitively expensive preexisting conditions.
So how would the small bill stack up versus the Democratic plans? The leading Democratic proposal — the one without the unpopular “public option” — is the one that passed the Senate Finance Committee (SFC).
According to Congressional Budget Office projections, the SFC bill would increase spending by $3.6 trillion over 20 years. The small bill would increase spending by $75 billion over 20 years — just two percent as much. The SFC bill would increase Americans’ taxes by $2.3 trillion over 20 years (again, according to the CBO). The small bill wouldn’t increase taxes by a cent, and it would cut taxes for the uninsured. The SFC bill would pilfer $2.3 trillion from the already financially shaky Medicare program over 20 years. The small bill wouldn’t rob from Medicare in the least.
And the small bill would leave the American health care system in private hands, instead of centralizing and consolidating power in Washington to an unprecedented degree.
A small bill, anyone?
Wow. But how likely is it that tort reform will pass? It would be interesting to know what the effect on the budget would be if only pieces of the bill are passed.
As a start, this plan is far more sound than the left’s hysterical putsch to saddle Americans with socialized medicine.
A start, but it’s still a plan only the insurance companies will love. Insurance is a tool for mitigating financial risk – using it to pay for a routine cost of living is the biggest part of what’s causing health care costs to skyrocket. Increasing competition between insurance providers WILL NOT bring the costs of health care down – they’re two different markets. INSURANCE IS NOT HEALTH CARE.
Other than mild tort reform, this bill does little to restore the free market for health care. That is, it retains the interposition of the insurance companies BETWEEN the health care provider and consumer, which is what has led to the broken market we have now, where routine health care costs continue to skyrocket. This plan will do little to reduce the rate of increase in those skyrocketing costs.
As a NEXT step, we should consider some variation of one or all of the following (see the link for in-depth discussion), which is organized in ‘phases’, but the intent would be overlapping implementation over a period of about 5-7 years:
Phase I – Encourage use of Low-Premium, High-Deductible Catastrophic Health Insurance:
Municipal employees typically already have a city- or town-administered comprehensive health plan. Switch those to (or simply add a) catastrophic health plan, administered through the municipality and allow any resident of the municipality to join that catastrophic plan. If an insurance company offers such a plan, no pre-existing condition exclusions or other benefit restrictions may be applied, per federal law. The group size is already sufficient to mitigate any significant risk on the part of the insurance company. For the tax purposes of The Small Bill, people insured through their municipality in this fashion would be considered self-insured.
All premiums paid into a municipally administered catastrophic plan garner a 100% tax credit. Benefits paid out to an individual under a catastrophic plan are not taxable at the federal, State or local level.
Phase I does several things. First, it eliminates the financial risk posed by catastrophic illness or injury for everyone in the plan at a very nominal cost. Second, a municipality can take advantage of enormous actuarial group sizes, much larger than any company – from thousands to tens of thousands – which will keep premiums, which are already typically low for this type of plan, extremely low. Third, it adds a much-needed level of stability to health care insurance, since people change residence far less frequently than they change jobs. Fourth, and most important, this encourages people to use insurance for its intended purpose – to mitigate financial risk.
Phase II – Eliminate Tax Advantages of Employer-provided, Group Comprehensive Coverage:
Eliminate all tax breaks given to employers for administering and/or paying into group comprehensive health care plans. Phase in a tax of all employer contributions to a comprehensive plan as income to the individual, at standard payroll rates.
Provide a five-year tax-credit / tax-exclusion for employer health plan contributions which are reverted to the employee. That is, employers enjoy a five-year tax-credit for monies paid to employees that WERE being paid to an insurance company, while this same income is treated as individually non-taxable for the five-year duration. Essentially, everyone enrolled in a comp. health plan at work gets an instant, tax-exempt raise of from $4000 to $16000 per year, depending on the cost (to the employer) of the plan they’re in.
This phase discourages the use of group comprehensive health care insurance, which has the following negative effects:
* it disassociates the consumer from the cost of their care, which encourages increases in cost;
* it facilitates resource-pooling behavior that allows the cost of goods and services to increase to the level of the group’s resources (rather than the individual), which encourages increases in cost;
* it facilitates a proxy monopoly of insurance companies which control the price of, all transactions for and access to health care, which encourages increases in cost;
* it interposes a business model with its own interests and profit motive, which limits access to health care for many, and encourages increases in cost;
* it “spreads the wealth around” by spreading the costs around – a socialist, wealth-redistribution function that insurance is not designed to perform fairly.
This phase also encourages people to work in jobs they love, rather than keep jobs they hate because they don’t want to lose the health care benefit.
Phase III – Changes in Provider and Advertiser Income Taxation:
Income for services provided by a health care provider that are derived from a group comprehensive health care plan are taxed per the difference between the amount “billed” minus the amount “paid” (e.g., on an EOB – find one and read it, you’ll see what I mean) or 30% of the amount paid, whichever is greater.
Income for services provided by a health care provider that are not derived from payments by a comprehensive health care plan – i.e., which are paid through a catastrophic plan or directly by a consumer – are taxed at a nominal 5%.
Income derived from the direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs, which can only be prescribed and dispensed by a doctor, is taxed at 65% (or higher) due to the fact that this practise artificially inflates the demand for these drugs, which artificially increases their cost. The medical need for these drugs can easily be determined by medical doctors – consumers have no business prescribing their own medication based on sensationalized, misleading advertising intended solely to increase pharmaceutical company profits. Our experience with drugs like Zetia, DES and Gardisil demonstrate that drugs need long-term, longitudinal studies in order to be deemed safe and/or effective. Drugs most commonly advertised directly to consumers are typically the ones which have undergone the LEAST amount of testing in this regard. As such, they represent a health risk to the community no different from smoking – which is why direct-to-consumer cigarette advertising is no longer allowed.
Phase IV – Encourage Direct-Pay, Health Clinic Use, Health Savings Accounts:
All fees paid directly to a health care provider for medical goods and/or services in lieu of benefits from a comprehensive health care plan are 100% tax deductible, with no “minimum”, except…
All fees paid to medical facilities for Emergency Room Care for services that are non-emergency in nature are not tax-deductible.
Income deposited to a Health Savings Account is tax-deferred in the same way as a 401-K. Withdrawals for expenses other than health care, or ER services for non-emergent care incur taxation at standard payroll rates. Account holders may make a one-time (lifetime) withdrawal of all HSA funds, with no deferred tax disadvantage (that’s ONE-time, so use it wisely).
This phase encourages a direct relationship between health care provider and consumer, putting downward pressure on costs. It also helps to eliminate the ER as the de facto health care distribution point and encourages savings.
Phase V – Tort Reform:
See Texas’ recent legislation for tort reform details. It’s working. Also, modify the federal tax structure such that income to attorneys for tort cases is taxed at 65% (or higher).
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The key to making ANY plan work is figuring out a way to bring the cost of routine health care back into equilibrium with other routine costs of living. Paying for routine health care through an insurance policy actively prevents this from happening, as does government meddling in health care, as we’ve seen in the spiked increases of health care rates following passage of Medicare, HMOs and then tax-breaks for employer-paid health care entitlements.
1. Steve: “Wow. But how likely is it that tort reform will pass?”
You hit the nail on the head, Steve! This so-called health care bill is really about one thing; tort reform.
The short plan is far superior. The first step towards its implementation is to derail the huge monster of a plan first. The point has to be driven that the present project benefits the government at the expense of everything else. This will be somewhat less difficult after today’s elections defeat the Democrat candidate in all three races.
The tea parties carry the energy of the authentic opposition. Let’s have more, and we will overcome the present numeric handicap of the nominal opposition in congress, which is good enough in the short term.
No insurance care reform without immigration reform!
As long as the borders are open and the population of the uninsured illegal immigrants is unknown, then health care/insurance premiums are not calculable. The redistribution of the wealth in the insurance pool can not be an entitlement to whoever shows up at the hospitals.
California is a perfectly bad example of trying to balance a budget that is open-ended into an unknown population. As long as both the donkeys and the elephants see that population as potential voters–assets, and not liabilities–consumers of services, then both real health care and insurance fundings are degenerative. Plug the hole before trying to fill the bucket!
No insurance care reform without fraud reform in the existing system! The discussion about 100′s of billions saved in a future plan is a gross oversight if fraud and waste are accepted as part of any system. Politicians like to layer on new rules without enforcing existing rules. That is voter appeal over dereliction of duty.
goy –
I’ll say one thing, your list makes the most economic sense of any proposal I’ve seen, and it makes a lot of sense.
But one thing I would like to see in healthcare reform is greatly increased portability – the dissacciation of health care insurance to an employer. I don’t rely on my employer for car or home insurance, should need them for health insurance either.
Also, I would like to see a person be able to keep the same plan from “womb to tomb” — even if the premiums have to be higher in the young healthy years so that we can afford the almost invetiable health care needs of our later days. There is no reason why someone who retires has to be forced onto Medicare, as often happens.
ELEGANT vs ELEPHANT
1 page 2000 pages
@5. JED: – No insurance care reform without immigration reform!
Not true, JED. If we restore the free market for health care, immigrants (both legal and illegal) can take part in THAT market instead of sucking off the Taxpayers’ teat. That would ultimately increase GDP rather than increase the federal deficit.
The key – again – is to recognize two obvious truths: (1) Insurance is not Health Care, and (2) Insurance is a tool for mitigating Financial Risk, and not a viable mechanism to pay for routine costs of living. A third, less-obvious truth also needs better understanding: the federal government has NO AUTHORITY to legislate itself into a position of health care insurer.
- No insurance care reform without fraud reform in the existing system!
Yes! And the solution here is clear: dismantle Medicare. It was never a good idea and is now subject to somewhere between $60 and 90BILLION in fraud – i.e., theft of Taxpayers’ money – every year! Tracking down and/or preventing all that fraud will only INCREASE the cost of the program, which is already bankrupt and must rely on extortion and deficit spending to continue. Medicare needs to be eliminated and turned back over to a restored free market for health care. Problems created by government meddling will never be solved by more government meddling.
@7. psuedo thomas merton: – I’ll say one thing, your list makes the most economic sense of any proposal I’ve seen, and it makes a lot of sense.
Thanks. I can’t take all the credit. Some of these ideas came from colleagues. The notion of municipally-administered catastrophic plans came from a retired health insurance company actuary.
- But one thing I would like to see in healthcare reform is greatly increased portability – the dissacciation of health care insurance to an employer.
This is critical. It’s the last vestige of the failed HMO mandate and it’s intended solely to allow the government to maintain control over the health care market – i.e., keep it broken by artificially supporting group comprehensive health care insurance (which, ultimately, the government wants to control through socialized medicine).
– There is no reason why someone who retires has to be forced onto Medicare, as often happens.
Again, as you can see above, I completely agree. Medicare needs to be ELIMINATED entirely. One thing at a time, though. First the free market for health care needs to be restored by removing the insurance company from between the health care provider and consumer – otherwise retirees on fixed incomes are at the mercy of skyrocketing health care costs (instead of the Taxpayers being at the mercy of those costs).
It’s unsubstantiated, unresearched high school “F” level rubbish. Even the Tort Reform bit, which is basically 90% of the bill, may not do a whole lot.
I took first-year torts 36 years ago (which is your warning that this is going to be long). The legal concept of a tort is very “justice-oriented.” A legislature cannot (though ours now try) pass a law to cover every conceivable situation in which one party’s behavior harms another party. So our legal system developed the concept of a tort: As free individuals, we have a duty to conduct ourselves in such a way that we do not harm others. If by our conduct, we cause harm to someone else, then the law must decide if we were “negligent,” meaning, would a reasonable person have done what we did, or would that reasonable person have recognized the danger his action was presenting to others, and either not done it, or done it differently?
So, when the court finds that a person acted negligently and harmed someone, the next question is what to do about it. We can’t jail the negligent actor; there’s no crime, because criminal actions require intent, and negligence is not intentional. It’s human to err (or was). So the law came up with the concept of monetary damages. Injured parties should at least be made “whole.” So their medical costs, lost time at work, etc. etc. should be paid by the negligent actor. That’s called restitution, and such things can be pretty accurately measured. There’s also compensation for “pain and suffering,” perhaps real, but a lot harder to measure. And then there’s compensation for “emotional damages,” which is really squishy and hard to measure. But the point is that for hundreds of years, the idea of damages in tort cases was to restore to the injured party some or all of what he had lost . . . not to make him rich.
Then there were situations where the negligent actions of the guilty party were so egregious, when it was so easily foreseeable that those actions would cause harm, that the courts came up with the concept of “punitive” damages. The reason for the punitive damages award was to send a lesson to the citizenry, saying that anyone who acts so callously in regard to the safety of others will be punished. However, the standard of proof for punitive damages (36 years ago) was very strict. You had to prove that the negligent party almost willfully intended to cause the harm to the injured party. Punitive damages were not to serve as a “jackpot” for the injured party, or the injured party’s lawyers. After all, the injured party had already been compensated for his actual damages.
There was, back then, a recognition that we all make mistakes, that life’s a gamble, that there’s always some risk. We didn’t seek to punish people who might have made a mistake, because we all made mistakes. Instead, the law required us only to make restitution to the party that we had inadvertently injured.
Thirty-six years later, and punitive damages seem to be alleged for every single action in tort. The law is saying that we all have to be perfect in everything we do. Nobody, anyplace, ever, should do anything that might pose even the least possible risk to someone else, and if they do and someone is hurt, we’re gonna wipe them out by awarding millions in punitive damages.
That’s just wrong.
I would gladly join a healthcare clinic which required that I waive any claim to punitive damages in exchange for lower premiums. Oh sure, if my doctor messes up, I’d expect to be compensated for the actual harm he causes me. But I don’t need for my lawyer to try to get additional millions of dollars, which only raises the premiums of all the others in our healthcare group. And, if my doctor got in the habit of making mistakes, I’d expect my healthcare clinic to fire him, rather than paying a higher insurance premium to keep him on staff.
Sorry for the length. Comments? Feed back?
Tort reform will require a congress that isn’t in the lawyer’s pockets. Even without that, this bill would be far superior to Bama-dontcare.
A one page republican bill? dont they know that Bush and Rummy are gone…so they can now write longer ones?….
On a serious note. Its good to see that some republicans are now supporting this vital piece of legislation, demonstrating some leadership skills and actually stepping up to the plate and getting involved. It looks as though some of their big business friends are cutting them loose…finally.. for the good of the country. That is a good thing. As with our political situation last year, the time for change in our health care system … is now…health care is currently in the emergency room and the patients vital signs are worsening by the week… so a thank you …to a few republicans !
@11. Cap’n Rusty: – I would gladly join a healthcare clinic which required that I waive any claim to punitive damages in exchange for lower premiums. Oh sure, if my doctor messes up, I’d expect to be compensated for the actual harm he causes me. But I don’t need for my lawyer to try to get additional millions of dollars, which only raises the premiums of all the others in our healthcare group.
This is key, of course. You’ll never see BHO’s corrupt administration looking at tort reform.
“There’s no way a one-page proposal could be better than a 1,500-page, trillion-dollar bill — is there?”
Only the mind of a teabagger would believe that a one page proposal could possibly suffice.
For that matter a few hundred pages. It’s 1,500 pages for a reason. Read the bill and quit trying to mislead the ignorant.
@15. jharp: – Read the bill…
Done. It’s still missing the section that explains how Congress gives itself the authority – not found in the Constitution – to force citizens to buy into a Ponzi scheme and to act as a medical insurance company using Taxpayers’ dollars.
A large portion of FDR’s so-called “New Deal” was repealed because it was unconstitutional. Apparently Americans need a refresher course on why the remaining portions are now bankrupting us.
jharp:
There are 4,543 words in the Constitution, 539 in the Bill of Rights: 5082 total.
I just pasted one page from the Daily Digest of the Congressional Record into MSWord and counted the words: 695
So the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which constitute the primary law of the land, the charter of our liberties, and the documents embodying the greatest experiment in freedom in all human history, require a bit over seven pages.
You call us ignorant. You insult those of us who think that free citizens can govern themselves with a few simple laws. Strong, disciplined and honest people; people who believe that there is some objective truth in the universe, some higher power, some morality; such people created this nation and such people can govern themselves with little need of laws and regulations.
#11 Cap’n Rusty – Feedback. I thought a private contract could not override the law. You could join such a clinic, but someone would sue them, anyway. The stupid courts would entertain the suit. The money would be awarded, anyway.
“First we kill all the lawyers.” .45 caliber tort reform!
Cap’n Rusty:
“You call us ignorant. You insult those of us who think that free citizens can govern themselves with a few simple laws.”
Yep. Anyone who believes we need only a few simple laws to govern is quite ignorant.
it is obvious that health care is not the reason for the government push for “health care” it is the trojan horse to get complete control of the USA.
so don’t look for any logical approach to this.
good luck world
Marc: Punitive damages are not required by the law. A demand for punitive damages is put into the claim that is made by the injured plaintiff in the case. If there is no claim by the plaintiff, I don’t think the judge has any authority to insert it. Since the parties to the case in my hypothetical are the same parties as entered into the contract for healthcare, I think a court might well uphold it. While the courts hold that a person cannot waive a risk that they do not know about, i.e., they can’t waive their right to recover for a form of malpractice that they did not know about, that’s not the same as waiving a right to ask for punitive damages.
jharp: I agree with you that it is not possible to “govern” with just a few simple laws. But your choice of words clearly refers to an authority that is governing the people, which, as the Democrats are showing, does indeed require multi-thousand page bills.
I was talking about people who govern themselves, which, as my example shows, doesn’t require so many words. Perhaps you don’t understand the distinction; perhaps you do. But I would suggest to you that those who resort to ad hominem remarks most often prove their opponent’s point. Thank you.
“But I would suggest to you that those who resort to ad hominem remarks most often prove their opponent’s point. Thank you.”
Cap’n Rusty:
I’ll stick with my original response to Jeffrey H. Anderson’s ludicrous inference.
Which was…..
“There’s no way a one-page proposal could be better than a 1,500-page, trillion-dollar bill — is there?”
Only the mind of a teabagger would believe that a one page proposal could possibly suffice.
For that matter a few hundred pages. It’s 1,500 pages for a reason. Read the bill and quit trying to mislead the ignorant.
This is precisely what we need. Unbelievable, something is working.
Steve:
“how likely is it that tort reform will pass?”
As daunting a political task it may be, I would not yet peg the crest of the wave that started growing last week, and really wouldnt say, beysides Grayson, who really wants to pick another figher with the people? Especially if they are waving a single page and reciting a bullet list from memory.
I think most would support Tort reform, and the question is if it could be integrated well enough (and high enough like 1 or 2… not 3) into the core, so that it becomes part and parcel with the “SmallBil” wildfire, that with any luck will catch on. I really think a lot of americans, if for nothing other than the admin’s current political spiral and the $trillion doller price tag itself, would at least consider such a thing as this, as this really is an small EXPERIMENT in comparison, and is reversible unlike obamacare.
If the people said we want this small list of things but demend these 3, the politicians would have to risk crossing the public, yet again. And that is getting more and more politically costly.
In reality, it could be just as simple as getting them repeated in succession an the air waves enough. What do I know just getting my hope on here.
The Republican proposal is obviously much better, but doesn’t go far enough. What about high deductible, catastrophic policies? What about getting rid of laws that require hospitals to treat emergency room patients regardless of their ability to pay? Or, better yet, how about a bill that removes all regulations from the insurance and medical industries? Leave people and markets free to make their own decisions.
what logic ..how can a one page bill be better then a thousand page one ? REALLY.
well it is EASY …the thousand page one is wrong and the one pager is correct. even a child can understand that logic.
I have also noticed that on average it takes a liberal a lot more words to counter a debate then a conservative. I guess it just takes more BS to make it get past the elbow in the logic.
caveat ..what happens here with the trolls is not really a debate.
Distraught:
I think tort reform can ride the wave. Tort lawyers say that they are only defending the little guys from incompetent doctors. We can agree that they, instead of the government, can be a more effective means of doing so. So, we shouldn’t try to limit what victims can get as compensatory or restitutionary damages.
But we can call the trial lawyers’ bluff on punitive damages. Recall that the law does not say that plaintiffs have any right to punitive damages. Punitive damages are only justified as a means of punishing extraordinary negligence. That punishment is effective regardless of who the money goes to.
So, states could pass legislation requiring punitive damages to be paid into a fund to assist in paying for health insurance for the un-insured. Would the trial lawyers argue against that? O.K., I know the answer to that question, but would they win the argument?
I mean is this election upheaval not wicked powerful or what? To me it seems like a lot of D’z are peeing there pants, just from grim faces on tv.
And whose to say the center of the country would not support such an alternative to that 2000 page eye-soar. They have to be having bad buyer’s remorse, now right?
Whoa… Hey, what if in some wierd turn of events, a small (like invisible) alternative health bill obtains hidden support from the Dems who see it as a way out of the Improbable Trifecta:
no 60 for left bill
no 60 for center-left bill
no way to kill it
right I wish. At this point we are probably not lucky enough that Reid would goof up another vote count, purpose or not, nor will the Dems walk their party of the cliff. I find at amusing to ponder their situation, considering their worst case scenario where they get nothing passed and end up having absolutely n0thing to show for the year, all the while the 2010 wave bearing down like a freight train. Man if that wouldnt scare me to make a vote I dont know… I really can’t imagine just how disastrous that would be for the majority party… its like suicide… and these clowns are amazingly within reach of this feat… the far-left must a nightmare to caucus with; like to play chicken with their own a lot.
In ann odd twist, it is the submission of the base, that seems to be their only real shot here. I thnink thats it, all they have. Maybe the only way to get it off the floor then is to hope for the public support to turn, maybe via a flock to a smallBill, and for it to sink obamaCare support before a watered down version finds 60. Ok, now that last parts sounds a little pi in the sky now.
Oh dear, the only option left here is that they eventually get through that watered down option that gets Leiberman or Snowe. Great down to a handle full of votes again. This seems to be where it has been for weeks now no? so I guess the next 3 months will involve a lot of whining and moning but will result in no more than tack to the center by a few votes. (God please bless Joe Leiberman with wisdom).
Ok so next quesition, are the any signs of a route for the Conference to reconcile the finance differences?
For the record I support Obama Care, even though it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
And I don’t give a damn about tort reform either way. It doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. It’s less than 1% of health care costs.
And anyone who takes the republican bill seriously is a fool. Give me a break. One page that doesn’t address pre existing conditions and does nothing, nada zero zilch, to lower costs is something only a teabagger could find credible.
Cap’n Rusty:
I think I’d be down with that. Without going to look up definitions.
From a strategical angle, the only vulnerabilities that come to mind right now are that LawLobby add which show a sympathetic victim and how the “GOP is choosing big business over you” blah blah thing, which of course could scare enough of if they pumped enough $ into it.
BUT, if I understand, I guess thats not a concern. So I wonder then what the weakness here would be, there always is one. What angle left is there for Tort money to target? I would like to envision something where their only viable PR strategy is one of garning sympathy, not playing with people’s fears.
jharp:
The number being touted as the annual cost of U.S. healthcare is $2.4 trillion. One percent of that is $24 billion. It’s been obvious to the rest of us that people like you who support Obamacare also think that $24 billion “doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.” The rest of us think that cutting $24 billion by tort reform is a lot more than the “nada zero zilch” than your Obamacare accomplishes.
In addition, that one-page bill does address pre-existing conditions, by not changing current practice. If you want to be insured for an illness that you might get in the future, buy the insurance policy before you get sick. That way, you won’t have to ask the responsible people to “give you a break” because you didn’t assume the responsibility to protect your own health.
I love this small bill.
1) its not exorbanantly expensive for a change.
2) it promotes things that make reasonable sense. Such as selling across state lines, which will obviosly giving the immediate option of well, maybe at least 49 more. But most of all its not stretch to believe this might do what it says.
3) its completely reversable.
4) it saves paper
5) you can carry it in your pocket
“is it in the bill?”, “hold on let me see?” “hhmm, yes” or “hmmm No”.. Man a got a little piece of mind just imagining that.
6) It is not in script
7) you could actually consider showing this to your kids, and tell them “this is how it should be done”.
I mean how much can you screw up on one sheet? Why not just limit all bills to single sheet and FORCE them to think SMALL and CONCISE ??? hmmm
9) it has a great shot at improving health care, and little or no shot of makeing it worse. Oh and did I meantion we can easily undo it if we so find it does not do what it claims….
What in the Sam h*LL is so wrong with that any way?
Why must we be forced to swallow so much cr@p at once, it really is not possible the we could ever see through it. No one will ever every know it those Medicare cuts materialized or not. ever. And you ask why some are reluctant to sign on to spending a cool trillian ?
How can any thinking person not have serious questions about such a the plan, and at the same time be so skeptical of one that bites of only a little and hides NOTHING but what is on THE (1) page.
You know what, I’m calling you out.
I do not believe you are really for increasing care. Tell me why it can’t be done in pieces? No. there is no rational argument. Because it always can. You can simply ,(more or less) take the top half of the stack pass it, and then the bottom half.
That wont work ? why not? what? you mean that document is so crosslinked and cutup that it requires all 2000 to make sense? no … well I guess your right. That is problem the best we can ever do.
We both know why it ‘must’ be done this way.
Distraught:
I think you are exactly right about the potential benefits of getting these ideas out there. That’s why I’ve been tweeting the “small bill” for the last two weeks. The problem is that despite what the communist clown in the White House would have you believe, conservites ARE NOT followers. They are an independent group to be sure. But we are going to need a concerted effort, utilizing social media, to get these ideas in front of the general public.
As of now, conservatives simply use twitter to preach to the choir and message Reps. But as Michelle Bachmann has said, members just don’t care anymore about the barrage. The do however care about the polls. I know Dick Morris has said that if you could just move the polls 5 points or so you could kill O’Care.
The MSM is not going to inform people. It’s time that we conservatives figure out that we are going to have to take it upon ourselves to get our ideas out there. Hopefully other conservatives will begin to figure this out.
Van Jones was ousted without the issue ever hitting The Left Wing Media.
We should be pushing this Small Bill through the same channels of information. The idea WILL strike a chord with rational, sane Americans who don’t want the government controlling their health care (and everything that goes with it or affects it, which is what will happen) and, through them, the few remaining conscientious members of Congress who are looking for alternatives to BHO’s corporatist policies.
‘One percent of that is $24 billion.’
The 1% does not take into account the cost of defensive medicine. It’s hard to get a firm grip on that number, but the best estimate I’ve seen is between 20 and 25 percent of diagnostic costs – tests/procedures and referrals/consultations – and between 10 and 15 percent of hospital admissions are for defensive medicine taken from a study done in Mass and Conn over a one year period. Those numbers can be misleading, as they break out differently across the country and not all defensive medicine will go away with tort reform. However, the best estimate I’ve seen for defensive medicine on a national level is above 10% which is an order of magnitude above direct payout for medical liability suits.
http://www.massmed.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Research_Reports_and_Studies2&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=27797
“In addition, that one-page bill does address pre-existing conditions, by not changing current practice.”
Cap’n Rusty:
You are an ignorant fool and I’ll not engage you again. How anyone could favor denying diabetics and lupus sufferers along with those who have previously suffered from cancer and other tragedies, access to health care defies my imagination.
BTW:
You are wasting your time debating any aspect of health care reform with jharp. I’ve seen harpo continually call people ignorant when they pointed out issues they had with the text in the house health care bill this past summer without ever quoting any part of it to defend his position. When confronted with actual quotes from the bill, he went silent. The obvious conclusion then was that he never read it, which certainly shifts the ignorance directly into his court. The safe bet is that he has not read the latest democrat house version given that although he’s already started in on calling people ignorant on the subject and demanding they read it without offering any evidence that he has. He’s has also called people ignorant concerning a simple one page bill when given his claim about it not addressing pre-exisiting conditions, he obviously either didn’t read or couldn’t understand the one page bill. For that matter the article this thread is based on since clearly mentions that pre-existing conditions are addressed and how so he obviously didn’t read the article. He just jumpeddirectly into the thread offering nothing but ad hominem.
And so jharp proves my point in comment 35 before I could even finish comment 36.
Also:
‘based on since clearly’ should be ‘based on also clearly’ in comment 36
here, here
Well, Im no rupert, unfortunately but I will say that
I havent really thought about the msm in a while… they still relevant? No, but my mind is stil wrapping around the this un-bridled, un-stopable force that has arisen from nowhere, again and again this year. I think thats where its at, and at the same time there really isn’t anything else I guess… Nonetheless, nothing seems more bright to me now than this one single thread, it really doesnt matter to me quite so much how it wanders. We are faced with losing our ability to reign accountabilty in at any level, I hear today’s excuse for the late vaccine, and honestly in my mind I can imagine I am in Russia or something, and the loadspeaker is saying “The Mother Land is Strong. Keep up the hard work” and I would laugh but its so sickening that I know soon one day I will actually reach for the trash can…. It HAS to start with accountability. Plain in simple. Before we give them the pen we should know their stroke. I don’t think much else is necessary right now. Let the people choose which principles they desire.
But the msm, isnt it all factored in now? I mean they tried with the town halls, they still broke through, they tried with the march, you tell me I heard it was huge, and believe or not, THE story this week was the message sent by the wave, through hoffman, to the administration, to the country, and most notable directly to the GOP, right? The outcome tonight, is just the aftermath of the destruction.
- How anyone could favor denying…
Ooops…
Metric 12—Percentages of claim lines (i.e., records) denied
Description: What percentage of records submitted are denied by the payer for reasons other than a claim edit? A denial is defined as: allowed amount equal to the billed charge and the payment equals $0.
Aetna – 6.80%
Anthem – 4.62%
CIGNA – 3.44%
Coventry – 2.88%
Health Net – 3.88%
Humana – 2.90%
Medicare – 6.85%
UHC – 2.68%
Hey Commuter, long time no see.
Have you figured out what a tax credit is yet? How about the Obama tax cuts? Figure that out yet?
Loser. You have no idea what you are talking about. None at all.
No bill which is over 1900 pages long is any good. It is impossible to evaluate. Such a bill is a trick to pass all sorts of mischief. No bill need be more than 10 or 20 pages.
39. goy:
Wasting your time on jharp. He’s one of the duller tools. Has no answer to beclowning himself over the pre-existing condition point, and none whatsoever to a single cite showing how abysmally ignorant he is about how the costs of defensive medicine play into medical liability costs. (The cite was for Cap’n Rusty anyway as it never crossed my mind that harpo would read it or understand it if he had.) A parting shot over another klutz position he took on tax issues that was absurdly easy to deconstruct – and that he’s still bitter about – and he’s scampered off.
Runaway malpractice awards? The Dems don’t think we have a tort reform issue. They want to retain a system that tortures doctors and exposes patients to billions of dollars worth of defensive medicine they don’t need. In addition, most truly injured patients are never captured by the present system. The legal system needs reform much more than the health car system does. See http://www.MDWhistleblower.blogspot.com under Legal Quality category.
#28. Jharp, if you want the skinny on pre existing conditions and how that affects health care, take a look at that very thing in the state of Main. People buy insurance when they get sick and then drop it when they are cured. This isn’t just about the chronically ill.
Commuter, Goy, Distraught:
Thanks for the help. I know I shouldn’t try to reason with trolls, but sometimes I hope that others who are reading the comments might benefit from my attempts to reason with the opposition and/or to refute their points.
35 “How anyone could favor denying diabetics and lupus sufferers along with those who have previously suffered from cancer and other tragedies, access to health care defies my imagination.”
Err….I have no interest in denying any of these people access to health care. I’m on the side that opposes death panels [Troll bait! Troll bait! Getcher troll bait right here!].
However, neither do I have any interest in being forced to pay for their treatments.
#19. Jharp, it doesn’t get better than the Golden Rule. That would suffice.
HSA’s saving money? What a farce! Doctors routinely send out hyper-inflated invoices and they get smacked down by the insurance companies. Exactly how does an uninformed patient bargain with a doctor better than an insurance company armed with real comparative information?
Let the jerks publish their rates! Or force the insurance companies to publish what they’ll pay so consumers have a clue.
The doctor-patient relationship is a fantasy. Even elective cosmetic surgery requires “estimates” that cost quite a bit. You people are dreaming!
Make more Rx drugs OTC or Pharmacist-prescribed. We have fewer rights than Mexicans. That will give the doctors plenty of idle time.
Our Healthcare Costs/Spending is Unsustainable. Our only Serious Option is, to used Health Information Technology to: 1) Eliminate Fraud, 2) Eliminate Administrative Inefficiencies, 3) Reduced Healthcare Costs, and 4)Improved Medical care Outcomes.
For decades, Microsoft’s Desktop Applications have Increased Productivity, Efficiency, and Costs Savings in the Work Place.
Proper Deployment of HIT Solutions, and Training can Increased Productivity (i, e, medical data mining/warehousing, risks treatment, service delivery), Efficiency (i, e, medical errors, redundant and inappropriate care), and have a Costs Savings of around 20-30% of our Annual National Healthcare Expenditures ($2.4 Trillions).
The Engine of Economic Growth for this 21st Century is “BROADBAND.” We can start by Deploying a pure Packet-based, Multi-Service National Transport Network Infrastructure, using Ethernet throughout this National “Netwwork of Networks.” This new National “Network of Networks” could then Connect all Optical islands, Nationwide.
The Investment in this, Next Generation National “Network of Networks”, can Serve as a Business Driver for: e-Healthcare, e-Commerce, e-Education, Energy Systems, Transportation Systems, Social Networking, Entertainment, etc.
Please See: http://www.gkquoquoi.blogspot.com for Summary Deployment Plan, for the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).
Gadema Korboi Quoquoi
President & CEO
COMPULINE INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Is Abortion Health Care?
Let’s say you’re a woman who abandoned discretion, or a young girl who got carried away one steamy night with that month’s true love, or a college kid who conferred more benefits on her friend than either of you anticipated and as a result you got pregnant.
Where do you go? What do you do?
Ghostbusters are not an option since you haven’t conceived some phantom but a precious human child.
And, let’s say you have an innate antipathy toward the thought of murdering a sentient being who, by no choice of his or her own, happens to be comfortably nestled within your body.
What do you do?
Well, there’s always the latest craze, the “morning after” pill. Also termed “Plan B” or “Emergency Contraception,” it’s relatively inexpensive but must be prescribed by a doctor if you’re under 17.
However, Plan B is actually a two-step abortafacient, that is, an abortion remedy which will kill the tiny product of your indiscretion, your baby, and may cause severe short- and long-term emotional and physical repercussions.
Then there’s the more traditional method of killing your baby, . . .
(Read the rest at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1291)
Abortion – health care? Ask the baby.