Here's a list of 20 options that will no longer be considered choices for Americans when the bill becomes law.
1. You are young and don’t want health insurance? You are starting up a small business and need to minimize expenses, and one way to do that is to forego health insurance? Tough. You have to pay $750 annually for the “privilege.” (Section 1501)
2. You are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).
4. Think you’d like a policy that is cheaper because it doesn’t cover preventive care or requires cost-sharing for such care? Tough. Health insurers will no longer be able to offer policies that do not cover preventive services or offer them with cost-sharing, even if that’s what the customer wants. (Section 2712).
5. You are an employer and you would like to offer coverage that doesn’t allow your employers’ slacker children to stay on the policy until age 26? Tough. (Section 2714). read further
I am sad. Here I had thought that Sarah Palin had stopped Obamacare dead in its tracks. She let us all down...
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the language of the bill will become more commonly known in the public sphere as time progresses. I do remember Obama claiming that this would create jobs because businesses would dump health insurance costs off on the government, giving them more money to hire workers. Meanwhile, creating incentive for free market participants to transfer costs to a public system is what we call a moral hazard.
"The effect of an insurance policy that actually increases the probability of incurring a loss"
How does the government pay for it? Tax business, offsetting the alleged decreased cost. Now you are no farther ahead, except that the government is running health care.
Well, I wonder if anyone on the Left considered what would happen if the public refused to pay the new taxes or buy the "mandated" insurance?
ReplyDeleteAre there really enough ACORN and SEIU brownshirts to enforce the will of the political class if the two million TEA partiers said "hell no"? How about five million viewers of Glenn Beck on FOX? What if 20 million Rush Limbaugh listeners decided to boycott the abomination?
All government requires some sort of consent by the population. Even dictatorships need to provide enough of the basics to maintain the quality of life or have enough hard power to smash any real or potential revolutionaries.
The Obama administration and the Democrat party are strangling quality of life without having the power to actually enforce their program against a restive population (and Americans are far less inclined to bow than anyone else on Earth).
We should hope and pray the corrupt machine collapses with a minimum of disruption and violence, but be prepared for the worst.
Not all of this is actually bad.
ReplyDeleteSmall business owners -- particularly those who pay minimum wage -- shouldn't have the option of not providing health benefits to their employees. It's not only a responsibility, but it's an investment in the health of your work force.
(A healthy work force is a productive work force.)
Taking away the right of insurance companies to underwrite based on condition, however, is a mistake. Clearly, there have been problems with dubious claims of "pre-existing conditions", but that can easily be solved with legislation that requires insurance companies to have documentation that pre-dates the insurance policy.
It's a mixed bag is what it actually is, but the need for reform has long been absolutely undeniable.
That is why it will create jobs, more beaurotwats.
ReplyDeleteYou are young and healthy and want to pay for insurance that reflects that status? Tough. You’ll have to pay for premiums that cover not only you, but also the guy who smokes three packs a day, drink a gallon of whiskey and eats chicken fat off the floor. That’s because insurance companies will no longer be able to underwrite on the basis of a person’s health status. (Section 2701).
ReplyDeleteYikes! Oh the horror. It's called paying it forward. Eventually, that healthy youngster is going to age and need health care. Maybe even sooner for an in opportune illness or injury. That reform will sure come in handy since the insurance companies will no longer be able to deny care to said youngster as he/she will no longer be healthy.
Oh Maria, if you hate our universal health care so much; just cut up your OHIP card and start using private facilities for you and your family. There's the Cleveland Clinic, a good American company for you as well as MedCan. That goes for any of your blogging tory commentators as well.
Are you game?
Didn't think so...
CK - touch wood - I hardly ever need any medication although I am no spring chicken, and in all the time I have been here, I think I have visited a doctor less than half a dozen times .... so personally I am not an authority on the Canadian health system.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I have read of many instances and heard first hand from friends who have used the system extensively and found it worthy of criticism in several areas.
You must have been lucky like me not to have had cause to complain.
Patrick - yeh, I too thought that if an employer is big enough to hire 100 employees than he is big enough to provide insurance for them.
ReplyDeleteYup, I agree that a lot of the stuff is reasonable and surprising that it was not there in the first place.
Actually Maria, my father is a very sick man that revolves around living at a rehab facility and the hospital. He can't live at home due to a PIC line from where he receives medication. My mother says that he is receiving excellent care; they like his specialists and the other professionals who have to work with him.
ReplyDeleteImagine if my folks were trapped in the U.S.? Neither qualify for insurance state side because they both have pre-existing conditions.
And I am being followed for some chronic issues I live with just so I can go to work everyday and be functional. Isn't that one of the conservative's mantras? Then wouldn't it make sense to make sure members of society are kept healthy so they can be productive members of society?
CK - I am sorry to hear about your dad. Your story reminded me of someone who said almost the same thing about her mother who got excellent care, before she passed away recently, care which she said would have run close to a quarter mil. if not for our health system.
ReplyDeleteI do acknowledge that generally Canada does have a good system. I only wish that if people so desired they could opt for something other than the govt. system within Canada itself without having to travel abroad to get it.