So the “for all” part should have a giant asterisk next to it?
read between lines.
If subsidy applies so that people don’t have to pay more than 10% of their income on insurance, then that means people will be expected to pay 10% of their income on insurance. Insurance premiums, now mandatory and without any anti-trust or anti-competitive regulation, will be priced at maximum profit levels, ie. at a level where they can obtain the 10% of the person’s salary and the full federal subsidy.
And I’m coming from the UK, I’m fully aware of the benefits of an entirely public owned system and would never ever go to bat for private insurers, I just feel that the US bill as it has passed is merely a tax on the poor. Forcing 32 million people to purchase something they don’t have most likely due to it’s cost and requiring them to spend almost 10% of their income on it or face fines or jail-time sounds like a pure corporate handout.
EDIT: hell I spend about 10% of my income on National Insurance and receive 100% free healthcare from it, amongst other benefits.
Unlikely.
Any armchair quarter-backers want to give us a summation of how the hell you all managed to get this thing passed? I stopped following the thread about 30 pages ago because it was all looking very depressing and unlikely, and now, bam, you’ve got a bill passed! Did Obama bring some magic to the table I didn’t hear about?
What happened is: the leadership in the Senate sold out to conservative and paid-off Democratic Senators at every turn and cut every offensive thing out of the bill.
Yeah, hilarious.
Number four on that list needs an enormous asterisk after “for all.”
Cubit
2644
Extarbags, I had your attitude 6 months ago, but the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. We need to start healthcare reform before we can perfect it. The bill isn’t perfect, but as I’ve mentioned before it begins to fix the greatest injustices in the current system. It will help a lot of people.
Could you elaborate extarbags? Who won’t get it? What counts? I don’t understand that one in particular. It could be huge if stated correctly, so I need to know what qualifiers there are.
Well I’m going on what’s been posted upthread, but that “for all” actually means “for all… the people who are on Medicaid and Medicare and have private insurance.” It (like most of this bill) doesn’t apply to people who don’t have insurance at all, so it’s pretty disingenuous to phrase it that way.
Yep, you’re right on all counts. But the specific nightmare scenarios he talked about aren’t helped much by this. We might see somewhat fewer of them, because the edge cases will probably get insurance thanks to the subsidies in this bill, but that stuff is absolutely still going to go on.
Knew someone would moan about that. It makes sense in context with Calistas’ query. While they wussed out all the way through the bills creation, they didn’t wuss out and not actually pass the thing as seemed likely after the Scott Brown win.
While this might not be anything like everything US progressives wanted, it still feels like a net win to get this bill finally passed. Don’t be so grumpy for America all the time :)
I see. So when it says free, it really means that the insurance must now cover these things? So, if I have insurance (which I do), then all preventative care is now fully covered in that insurance?
Can the insurance companies now raise rates across the board to counter these new costs?
Yes and, as far as I know, also yes.
I was really hoping this was going to be a Downfall dub.
Marged
2654
I don’t see how you can say this with such certainty without more details about those kinds of cases. Are kids getting thrown out on the streets because they can’t get coverage thanks to a pre-existing condition? Not any more! Are they in trouble because they’re 19 and can’t stay on their parent’s insurance? Not any more.
The answer to the question “Will it help in this specific case?” is going to be “It depends.” I know you wish it was “Yes, absolutely, in all cases,” but that’s not what happened.
The bill is still going to do a lot of good, though. So cheer the fuck up.
WarrenM
2655
The bill is still going to do a lot of good, though. So cheer the fuck up.
I had to say pretty much this same thing to someone on FB today. I mean, god damn it, this is the best we’ve ever done on this front. Cheer up!
Lorini
2656
Rate increases are scrutinized in the state of California by the Insurance Commission so if they try to raise rates for having to cover the cost of preventative medicine, their rate increase won’t be approved. It’s stupid for them to raise rates for doing stuff that should reduce their long term costs in the first place, but the insurance industry wants to pretend that ROI doesn’t exist for them or if it does, the consumer should take on the risk.
Houngan
2657
I’m pretty happy it was passed, if just to see the Democrats actually finish something. I think the smartest thing they could do would be to immediately add interstate insurance sales to give free market theory a nod. The only downside I see to allowing that would be the rise of megacorporations on a federal level, but since we already have megacorps with state branches, it would likely just streamline the insurance company’s processes without changing much.
H.
Marged
2658
To be fair, because people very rarely if ever stick with one insurer for their entire life thanks to job changes or whatever, insurance companies typically don’t see the ROI from preventive care (their competitor is just as likely or more likely to see the savings).
Shrug
He said he hoped there wouldn’t be any more horrific stories like that. There will be more of them. There might be less of them, but as long as arguably the most important factor causing them remains largely unaddressed, they’ll continue to happen.
I’d thought Obama was behind the idea of interstate insurance sales? The complication was that he wanted basic standards of care, and interstate regulation, so that it didn’t become a low bidder, lowest common denominator, situation where the crappiest and cheapest companies would win all the corporate contracts regardless of the actual value offered to the end consumer. The Republicans, of course, opposed that. I’m not sure where it ended up.
