High Price of Obamacare (By Dick Morris)

[웃 910]

HIGH PRICE OF OBAMACARE

By ####### Morris 10.14.2009 Published on TheHill.com on October 13, 2009

Will a young, healthy, childless individual or couple buy health insurance costing 7.5 percent of their income, as required by Obama’s health legislation? Not until they get sick. Then they can always buy the insurance, and the Obama bill requires the insurance companies to give it to them. And if the premiums come to more than 7.5 percent of their income because they are now sick, no problem. Obama will subsidize it.

Instead, young, healthy, childless people will likely opt to pay the $1,000 fine (aka slap on the wrist) mandated in the bill. After all, even if they make as little as $50,000 a year, the fine is a lot cheaper than 7.5 percent of their income (or $3,500 a year)!

So…these young households will not contribute to the coffers of any health insurance company until they are sick and need the coverage. By then, their costs will come to vastly more than their premiums.

Who will subsidize the difference? We will.

The insurance industry estimates that the bill will drive up premiums for the average family by $1,700 a year. By the time the bill takes effect in 2013, it estimates that the average annual family health insurance premiums (now $12,300) will rise to $17,200 if the Obama bill is passed, but only to $15,500 if it is defeated.

And who do you think the voters will blame for the hike in their premiums? The Democrats who passed the bill.

Supporters of the bill are quick to counter that greater efficiency, etc., will hold down premiums. But they have little to answer the argument that, without higher fines, the young and healthy will not consent to pay an arm and a leg for insurance they don’t need.

Any lingering motivation to pay the premiums will disappear once the Obama bill requires insurance companies to cover them when they do, finally, limp in the door, desperately in need of insurance. Why pay now when you can always pay later? And, with a government subsidy, you gain nothing by paying for all those years when you don’t need insurance.

So Obama’s program turns out not to be one to spread insurance and thus spread the risk of costly illness, but one to make people pay 7.5 percent of their incomes once they get sick, with the government picking up their remaining premium and the health insurance customers paying for the medical expenses. Some deal!

So tote up the cost of this bill on the middle class:

• $1,700 more in insurance premiums for the average family

• Medical devices like wheelchairs and hearing aids get taxed

• Those who are sick must pay an average of about $600 more a year in income taxes because the bill raises the threshold for deducting medical expenses from 7.5 percent of income to 10 percent

• A $404 billion cut in Medicare

• Ending the subsidized Medicare Advantage insurance for costs over and above Medicare. Without Medicare Advantage, the elderly can only augment Medicare by buying Medigap coverage, for which no subsidy is available and whose premiums are higher (offered, conveniently enough, by Obama’s buddies at the AARP)

• No importation of Canadian medicines and no competitive bidding to hold down prescription drug costs (Obama’s deal to get Pharma’s support and advertising dollars)

• A shortage of medical personnel and equipment as 30 million new patients are added without any expansion of the population of doctors and nurses. This shortage will make rationing inevitable, even if it shortens life expectancies among the elderly.

And all of this assumes that the House bill, which imposes a 4.5 percent payroll tax (which will discourage new employment), does not pass.

…And that the cost estimates of this program prove realistic. Despite the Congressional Budget Office’s concurrence, one can’t help noticing that Massachusetts’s program was estimated to cost $200 million in 2005 and now costs $700 million!

This healthcare bill is, indeed, Obama’s first tax on the middle class.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

The insurance industry estimates that the bill will drive up premiums for the average family by $1,700 a year.

AHIP's hack job regurgitated? Hasn't it done enough damage to them yet?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Too true, Big Dog

One of the reasons an insurance-industry group is taking so much heat over its controversial report stating health reform will raise individual premiums is that it fudged the truth—and got caught.

Of course Democrats were going to tear apart the industry-funded research released just before the Senate Finance Committee voted on a reform bill this week. That was to be expected. Normally, the business group, America's Health Insurance Plans, would stand by its study and the public is left to decide who's right.

But a funny thing happened. The study's author, PricewaterhouseCoopers, issued a statement saying that AHIP instructed it to ignore aspects of the reform plan—like government subsidies to help pay for insurance—that could offset factors that raise premiums. In other words, Pricewaterhouse admitted it was told to cherry-pick to serve the insurers' interests.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/heavy...fudging-report/

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Too true, Big Dog

One of the reasons an insurance-industry group is taking so much heat over its controversial report stating health reform will raise individual premiums is that it fudged the truth—and got caught.

Of course Democrats were going to tear apart the industry-funded research released just before the Senate Finance Committee voted on a reform bill this week. That was to be expected. Normally, the business group, America's Health Insurance Plans, would stand by its study and the public is left to decide who's right.

But a funny thing happened. The study's author, PricewaterhouseCoopers, issued a statement saying that AHIP instructed it to ignore aspects of the reform plan—like government subsidies to help pay for insurance—that could offset factors that raise premiums. In other words, Pricewaterhouse admitted it was told to cherry-pick to serve the insurers' interests.

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/heavy...fudging-report/

I know. Morris is such a loser.

[Danno 1,228]

All BS aside, do you actually believe we are going to cover all these people, many paying only "what they can afford"... and the average person monthly healthcare cost will not be higher?

Tell the truth.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

####### Morris has the worst opinions and analysis.

You already have to buy insurance and pay for it regardless of whether you're sick or not. If you don't you get hit with that pre-existing condition #######.

Yet another phoney argument that highlights flaws in the current system as somehow precedents of the new.

[Joseph & Ana 0]

Whats this? Dems throwing a fellow dem under the bus?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Whats this? Dems throwing a fellow dem under the bus?

No, just calling a hack job what it is regardless of where it comes from.

[Danno 1,228]

Perhaps ####### Morris is a little like many of us.

We look at the Dept. of Education, a fairly simple project to run compared to Health-care... we ask ourselves.

How is it the price is the highest in the world and the results are substandard by anyones measure?

Kids being home-schooled by untrained educators are running circles around the Government model.

... But you want more Govt. running bigger and more complicated things.....

Bottom line: Many people are baffled at your confidence in Big-Gov.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Surely as a citizen, its your responsibility to demand better government rather than accept mediocrity.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Perhaps ####### Morris is a little like many of us.

If "us" refers to you and yours and yes, perhaps you're right.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Morris is such a stereotype of a news media personality.

His appearances on Fox are peppered with plugs for his website and whatever book he happens to have out - sometimes half a dozen or more in a single appearance.

Its hard to take him seriously, even if his opinions weren't #######. Which they are.

[kaydee457 13]

Morris is such a stereotype of a news media personality.

His appearances on Fox are peppered with plugs for his website and whatever book he happens to have out - sometimes half a dozen or more in a single appearance.

Its hard to take him seriously, even if his opinions weren't #######. Which they are.

That's his only compensation for appearing on FOX News..... FOX News contributors are not paid for their appearances.

What he wrote is prophetic. It's too bad you don't have the god given intuitive common sense to understand that.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Morris is such a stereotype of a news media personality.

His appearances on Fox are peppered with plugs for his website and whatever book he happens to have out - sometimes half a dozen or more in a single appearance.

Its hard to take him seriously, even if his opinions weren't #######. Which they are.

That's his only compensation for appearing on FOX News..... FOX News contributors are not paid for their appearances.

What he wrote is prophetic. It's too bad you don't have the god given intuitive common sense to understand that.

Then we disagree. I can live with it, but can you?

[Joseph & Ana 0]

Whats this? Dems throwing a fellow dem under the bus?

No, just calling a hack job what it is regardless of where it comes from.

Right I forgot. Any criticism of obama is hack job and smears. The great one does no wrong.

Morris is such a stereotype of a news media personality.

His appearances on Fox are peppered with plugs for his website and whatever book he happens to have out - sometimes half a dozen or more in a single appearance.

Its hard to take him seriously, even if his opinions weren't #######. Which they are.

Unless he agreed with you.