So, If True, What Would Be the Point?

[rushmc 23]

I mean, the end game is to make HC affordable correct?

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Medical Premiums Could Still Be a 'Heavy Lift'

Saturday, October 3, 2009 9:40 AM


WASHINGTON – Many middle-class Americans would still struggle to pay for health insurance despite efforts by President Barack Obama and Democrats to make coverage more affordable.

The legislation advancing in Congress would require all Americans to get insurance — through an employer, a government program or by buying it themselves. But new tax credits to help with premiums won't go far enough for everyone. Some middle-class families purchasing their own coverage through new insurance exchanges could find it out of reach.

Lawmakers recognize the problem.

"For some people it's going to be a heavy lift," said Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del. "We're doing our best to make sure it's not an impossible lift."

Added Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine: "We have no certainty as to whether or not these plans are going to be affordable." Both are on the Senate Finance Committee, which finished writing a health care bill on Friday.

A new online tool from the Kaiser Family Foundation illustrates the predicament.

The Health Reform Subsidy Calculator provides ballpark estimates of what households of varying incomes and ages would pay under the different Democratic health care bills. The legislation is still a work in progress and the calculator only a rough guide. Nonetheless, the results are revealing.

A family of four headed by a 45-year-old making $63,000 a year is in the middle of the middle class. But that family would pay $7,110 to buy its own health insurance under the plan from the committee chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

The family would get a tax credit of $3,970 to help pay for a policy worth $11,080. But the balance due — $7,110 — is real money. Maybe it's less than the rent, but it's probably more than a car loan payment.

Kaiser's calculator doesn't take into account co-payments and deductibles that could add hundreds of dollars, even several thousand, to a family's total medical expenses. A Congressional Budget Office analysis estimates total expenses could average 20 percent of income for some families by 2016.

The issue of affordability "has been lurking in the background and is nowhere near resolved yet," said Kaiser's president, Drew Altman. "It's tricky because it doesn't take a lot of people to make affordability a political problem. It just takes some very visible and understandable cases."

At the root of the concerns is the push to cut the overall cost of healthcare overhaul legislation. Congress is trimming the budget for subsidies to meet Obama's target of $900 billion over 10 years — as the Baucus plan does. It means premiums will be higher than under earlier Democratic proposals.

The trade-off directly affects people who buy their own coverage. For those with job-based insurance, employers would continue to cover most of the costs.

Most of the uninsured are in households headed by someone who's self-employed or works at a business that doesn't provide coverage. It's this group that Democrats are trying to help.

Because health insurance is so expensive, lawmakers recognize that if they're going to pass a law requiring all Americans to get coverage, government has to defray the cost. The size of those subsidies makes an enormous difference.

Under the Baucus bill, a family of four making $63,000 would have to pay 11 percent of its income for health insurance, according to Kaiser. By comparison, an earlier bill from the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee with more generous subsidies required the same hypothetical family to pay about 7 percent of its income for premiums — a difference of about $2,500.

"This is not the loaves and the fishes — you can't just throw some subsidies out there and expect that will take care of everybody's needs," said Karen Pollitz, a Georgetown University professor who studies the insurance market for people buying their own coverage.

The legislation provides the most generous subsidies to those at or near the poverty line, about $22,000 for a family of four. That's where the problem is concentrated because about three-fourths of the uninsured are in households making less than twice the poverty level.

But as income rises, the subsidies taper off.

For a family of four making $45,000, federal subsidies would pick up 71 percent of the premium under the Baucus plan, according to the Kaiser calculator.

For a family with an income of $63,000, the subsidies would only cover 36 percent of the premium.

A family making $90,000 would get no help.

Pollitz said the subsidies disappear rapidly for households with solid middle-class incomes. That could be tricky for a self-employed individual who has a particularly good year financially.

Another problem is that people won't be able to get the insurance tax credits immediately after the bill passes. To hold down costs, the assistance won't come until 2013, after the next presidential election.

White House officials say that while Obama wants the cost of the final bill to stay manageable, it has to provide affordable coverage.

"The president is absolutely committed to making this affordable. That's the whole point," said Linda Douglass, spokeswoman for the White House health reform office.

Douglass said it's premature to draw any conclusions while the bill is being shaped in Congress. But House leaders are also cutting back their legislation to meet Obama's target.

Acknowledging the affordability problem, the Baucus' committee voted Friday to exempt millions of people from the requirement to buy insurance and reduce penalties for those who fail to do so. But that would mean leaving at least 2 million more uninsured — not very satisfying to Democrats who started out with the goal of coverage for all.

"I think we've got to do something about it," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "We've got to make sure health insurance is affordable for the middle class."

© 2009 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[justinb138 0]

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I mean, the end game is to make HC affordable correct?

No plan will reduce the cost unless it addresses the fact that we are a nation full of people spending what we perceive to be other people's money on our health care.

[FallingOsh 0]

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I mean, the end game is to make HC affordable correct?

No plan will reduce the cost unless it addresses the fact that we are a nation full of people spending what we perceive to be other people's money on our health care.

Well said.

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Stay positive and love your life.

[Andy9o8 2]

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I mean, the end game is to make HC affordable correct?

No plan will reduce the cost unless it addresses the fact that we are a nation full of people spending what we perceive to be other people's money on our health care.

Well said.

Think so? Because by that metric, we are also spending "other people's money" on defense, police, firefighting, public schools, air traffic control, building roads and filling-in potholes. Damn Commies that we are.

[justinb138 0]

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I mean, the end game is to make HC affordable correct?

No plan will reduce the cost unless it addresses the fact that we are a nation full of people spending what we perceive to be other people's money on our health care.

Well said.

Think so? Because by that metric, we are also spending "other people's money" on defense, police, firefighting, public schools, air traffic control, building roads and filling-in potholes. Damn Commies that we are.

The problem with "other people's money" is that there's little to no incentive to not waste it.

The fact that government does it doesn't make the entire nation doing it with health care any better. Surely someone as educated as yourself can see that.

[Andy9o8 2]

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I mean, the end game is to make HC affordable correct?

No plan will reduce the cost unless it addresses the fact that we are a nation full of people spending what we perceive to be other people's money on our health care.

Well said.

Think so? Because by that metric, we are also spending "other people's money" on defense, police, firefighting, public schools, air traffic control, building roads and filling-in potholes. Damn Commies that we are.

The problem with "other people's money" is that there's little to no incentive to not waste it.

The fact that government does it doesn't make the entire nation doing it with health care any better. Surely someone as educated as yourself can see that.

There's no more, or less, incentive to waste money with public option health care than there is with the other above-mentioned publicy-provided services.

Second, despite all the boogeyman rhetoric, there really is no viable government-only health care plan being seriously floated. Rather, it's to have public health care as a viable choice, along with existing private health care choices.

Third, practically every Western European nation, the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ and Japan have had one form or another of universal health care for at least the past generation or more. Are they perfect? No, far from it. Do they have their undesirable aspects? Yes, that's been demonstrated. But they all still have it, and none of them - even after their decades-long "experiment" with it - have seen fit to revert back to a private-only health care system. That, too, speaks volumes. At some point in time we have to collectively get our heads out of the sand, and away from hysterical rhetoric about evil "socialism", and recognize that the US, too, can viably come into line with the rest of the world. The US has the brains and the resources to do it better than rest, if we set our efforts to it. Frankly, there's no practical or moral reason not to.

[FallingOsh 0]

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I mean, the end game is to make HC affordable correct?

No plan will reduce the cost unless it addresses the fact that we are a nation full of people spending what we perceive to be other people's money on our health care.

Well said.

Think so? Because by that metric, we are also spending "other people's money" on defense, police, firefighting, public schools, air traffic control, building roads and filling-in potholes. Damn Commies that we are.

Yes I do think so. And yes, by that metric we do waste money in the DoD and other government programs. Is all of the money considered a waste? No. Are there instances of $20k hammers? Yep, all the time. Government waste in one area is not an excuse to let it happen in another.

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Stay positive and love your life.

[FallingOsh 0]

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I mean, the end game is to make HC affordable correct?

No plan will reduce the cost unless it addresses the fact that we are a nation full of people spending what we perceive to be other people's money on our health care.

Well said.

Think so? Because by that metric, we are also spending "other people's money" on defense, police, firefighting, public schools, air traffic control, building roads and filling-in potholes. Damn Commies that we are.

The problem with "other people's money" is that there's little to no incentive to not waste it.

The fact that government does it doesn't make the entire nation doing it with health care any better. Surely someone as educated as yourself can see that.

There's no more, or less, incentive to waste money with public option health care than there is with the other above-mentioned publicy-provided services.

Second, despite all the boogeyman rhetoric, there really is no viable government-only health care plan being seriously floated. Rather, it's to have public health care as a viable choice, along with existing private health care choices.

Third, practically every Western European nation, the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ and Japan have had one form or another of universal health care for at least the past generation or more. Are they perfect? No, far from it. Do they have their undesirable aspects? Yes, that's been demonstrated. But they all still have it, and none of them - even after their decades-long "experiment" with it - have seen fit to revert back to a private-only health care system. That, too, speaks volumes. At some point in time we have to collectively get our heads out of the sand, and away from hysterical rhetoric about evil "socialism", and recognize that the US, too, can viably come into line with the rest of the world. The US has the brains and the resources to do it better than rest, if we set our efforts to it. Frankly, there's no practical or moral reason not to.

'They're doing it, so we should' is not a viable argument. It certainly doesn't come close to addressing the actual issues of funding, application, or sustainability.

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Stay positive and love your life.

[Andy9o8 2]

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'They're doing it, so we should' is not a viable argument.

Nor, if you squint and actually ponder, is it mine.

[jcd11235 0]

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'They're doing it, so we should' is not a viable argument.

However, "they're doing it, and their systems, while not perfect, seem to be working better than ours" does seem to be a viable argument.

Sooner or later we, as a nation, are going to have to relinquish the anti-socialist propaganda of the Cold War. It has been well demonstrated that mixed economies outperform pure capitalism and pure socialism.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[justinb138 0]

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It has been well demonstrated that mixed economies outperform pure capitalism and pure socialism.

Well, our "mixed" economy hasn't been outperforming either.

[billvon 3,071]

>Well, our "mixed" economy hasn't been outperforming either.

What purely captialistic or purely socialistic countries have been regularly outperforming us?

[justinb138 0]

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'They're doing it, so we should' is not a viable argument.

Nor, if you squint and actually ponder, is it mine.

Actually, after squinting and pondering, it certainly seems like that is your point.

Can you clarify what your point is?

[justinb138 0]

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>Well, our "mixed" economy hasn't been outperforming either.

What purely captialistic or purely socialistic countries have been regularly outperforming us?

What purely capitalistic countries exist?

[billvon 3,071]

>What purely capitalistic countries exist?

I don't know. You said that our mixed economy hasn't been outperforming either pure capitalism and pure socialism. To prove that, you'd have to show a purely capitalist or purely socialist economy that is outperforming ours (or doing the same as ours.) Otherwise your statement is baseless.

[justinb138 0]

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>What purely capitalistic countries exist?

I don't know. You said that our mixed economy hasn't been outperforming either pure capitalism and pure socialism. To prove that, you'd have to show a purely capitalist or purely socialist economy that is outperforming ours (or doing the same as ours.) Otherwise your statement is baseless.

My point was that government meddling in our economy has done it no good. While the way I worded my response was poor, it was no less baseless than the statement I responded too.

[billvon 3,071]

>My point was that government meddling in our economy has done it no good.

Neither has unbridled capitalism, as we've seen over and over. Thus, it is quite supportable to say that a combination of the two is essential to a stable and prosperous economy.

[justinb138 0]

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Neither has unbridled capitalism, as we've seen over and over. Thus, it is quite supportable to say that a combination of the two is essential to a stable and prosperous economy.

If you find unbridled capitalism somewhere please let me know. It's certainly not here.

[kallend 2,106]

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I mean, the end game is to make HC affordable correct?

No plan will reduce the cost unless it addresses the fact that we are a nation full of people spending what we perceive to be other people's money on our health care.

Well said.

Think so? Because by that metric, we are also spending "other people's money" on defense, police, firefighting, public schools, air traffic control, building roads and filling-in potholes. Damn Commies that we are.

The problem with "other people's money" is that there's little to no incentive to not waste it.

The fact that government does it doesn't make the entire nation doing it with health care any better. Surely someone as educated as yourself can see that.

There's no more, or less, incentive to waste money with public option health care than there is with the other above-mentioned publicy-provided services.

Second, despite all the boogeyman rhetoric, there really is no viable government-only health care plan being seriously floated. Rather, it's to have public health care as a viable choice, along with existing private health care choices.

Third, practically every Western European nation, the UK, Canada, Australia, NZ and Japan have had one form or another of universal health care for at least the past generation or more. Are they perfect? No, far from it. Do they have their undesirable aspects? Yes, that's been demonstrated. But they all still have it, and none of them - even after their decades-long "experiment" with it - have seen fit to revert back to a private-only health care system. That, too, speaks volumes. At some point in time we have to collectively get our heads out of the sand, and away from hysterical rhetoric about evil "socialism", and recognize that the US, too, can viably come into line with the rest of the world. The US has the brains and the resources to do it better than rest, if we set our efforts to it. Frankly, there's no practical or moral reason not to.

Not even the darling of the conservatives, Margaret Thatcher (who out-Reaganed Reagan), privatized health care. She privatized just about everything else in Britain.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[billvon 3,071]

>If you find unbridled capitalism somewhere please let me know.
>It's certainly not here.

Not any more. Some historic examples of unbridled capitalism would be the Triangle Shirtwaist company, the mining companies of Donora, PA, Standard Oil and railroads of the mid-1800's.

Nowadays such abuses are much rarer due to "government meddling" (i.e. OSHA, laws against anticompetitive practices, the EPA etc.)

[justinb138 0]

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>If you find unbridled capitalism somewhere please let me know.
>It's certainly not here.

Not any more. Some historic examples of unbridled capitalism would be the Triangle Shirtwaist company, the mining companies of Donora, PA, Standard Oil and railroads of the mid-1800's.

Nowadays such abuses are much rarer due to "government meddling" (i.e. OSHA, laws against anticompetitive practices, the EPA etc.)

Standard Oil? Damn them for selling petroleum products cheaper than everyone else! Must have been horrible having to pay lower prices for oil.

Government has given us companies like Halliburton and Monsanto (whose lobbying budget for 2008 was 8 million dollars). Companies no longer need worry about monopolies - if they want to get ahead they just buy a few congressman. GM (30+ billion in tax payer dollars), AIG (80+ billion), should I go on?