Repeal the Health Care Law

I would like to see insurance companies be able to offer insurance in specific categories, priced according to the risk and costs in each area. For instance- I am 72 years old, I sure don't need maternity coverage, nor drug treatment, nor mental health care. General health for things that potentially may impact everyone I would carry. Why am I forced to pay for all that other stuff. My car insurance does not force me to pay teen-ager rates, nor those for exotic cars, why should my health care. I get a break on my homeowners because the fire hydrant is close by. There are lots of examples of similar processes at work in the economy.

Great input, Emmie Lou, I agree. I'd also like to see substantial paperwork reduction, which in itself would cut costs. I'd like to be able to somehow communicate that I understand that medicine is as much art as science, and sometimes you get no improvement or even worsening without it being malpractice--and therefore I will not sue for anything within reasonable bounds of side effects, unforeseeable reactions, or reasonable expectation of the course of a disease or injury. For that I'd hope to get a lower price and better partnership with my provider, and if enough of us do it, he or she should get lower insurance rates. If tort reform is done right, much of that should be eliminated anyway, but tort reform seems to be too hard to do, probably given the number of lawyers whose income depends on high percentage contingency fees as well as high retainers for low-probability-of-success lawsuits.

I think Emmie Lou and Ro are on track. Part of tort reform might also cut back on extra tests designed more to protect a doctor against malpractice than diagnose anything wrong with you. Seems to me much of my insurance premium goes to insure the insurance company, not me. Recently had cataract surgery that cost less than my deductible. Doc said his cash price $966.33, insurance price $2,500.00 Wonder whose pockets the difference would have gotten into? I also happen to think that health care companies (include drug and equipment suppliers) should be converted to non-profits, so we get the predatory investors and blood-suckers out of health care. Is it really moral to plunder the sick financially when they may most need the break?

Tim, you're not getting to the heart of the problem, which is the government requirement that hospitals treat any sick or injured person who shows up. Hospitals then raise prices on the rest of us to reimburse themselves, so we are forced to pay for care for the poor, the unemployed, those too lazy or careless to get their own insurance. We must let hospitals close their doors to anyone who can not pay! Sure, many of them would die, but so what? They will die anyway someday. Why should you and I be forced to pay to keep them alive? This country would be a lot better off without its poverty class and this would be an efficient way to do it. We just let nature take its course.

COMMENT BY Tim Carter:

Robert,

I need you to print out a copy of your comment. Take it to a tattoo artist. Have them tattoo it to your chest. In the event of you ever running into hard times and then you have an accident showing up to the hospital with no money, the nurses and doctors in the ER will promptly kick your butt out the door and have you expire there at the curb. Right? What's good for the goose is good for you too.

Humans, for the most part, are caring. We need to devise a system where those who have the ability to pay something do contribute. Everyone who has some money needs to have a skin in the game in some fashion.

I don't have all the answers. But I do know that you can't force me to buy health insurance. At least not until some new Amendment is passed to our Constitution.

I'm creating another Health Care post in a few days to deal with the hidden tax on the unearned income we all get from the sale of our homes. Oh, you didn't know about that? Soon come, man.

Tim, health insurance is different from car insurance. Suppose you're in a car accident. You're not injured, but you have several thousand dollars of damage to your car. You call up GEICO and tell them that you exercised your freedom of choice and did not buy insurance, but you want them to cover your expenses anyway. The GEICO rep - or any other rep - would exercise his freedom of choice and tell you to take a hike. Now suppose you broke your arm in the accident. You're bleeding, in pain, and need immediate medical care. You tell the ER nurse that you exercised your freedom of choice and did not buy any medical insurance. The humanitarian and ethical principles of the medical profession would almost certainly prevent the nurse from giving you the same answer as the GEICO guy did. You get emergency care paid for by somebody else. Now suppose a lot of people decide not to buy medical insurance. There aren't enough "somebody elses" to cover the cost of care, because no one can afford the rates that would have to be charged. My point here is that all of us - at a time not of our own choosing - will need medical care. How many freedom-loving people would choose not to buy insurance if they knew that in a life threatening medical emergency they would have to post a cash bond to cover the full cost or be refused care? I don't have much sympathy for freeloaders that portray mandatory medical insurance as a freedom of choice issue but then expect to get free care when they need it. Their care isn't free - somebody has to pay for it.

Any health care bill would have to contain Torte reform, making denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions illegal, and allowing insurers to sell over state lines. If you could get those three things settled, we would be a long way to getting the bugs out of the system. Follow that with pricing accountability for drugs and equipment.

There is a tremendous amount of legalized bilking of the system by third parties that "get you your hover round at no cost to you"! The problem is, that someone winds up paying for it -- usually you, but in a different way than an out right purchase.

These barely ethical and uneconomical practices need to be stopped as well.

tim, you got to love this robert thomas guy. he wants to get rid of the poor by not treating their health problems. i loved your comments. he's the same guy who wants to put 'the old' on an iceflow and let nature take it's course. (from debt limits comments) 'ok' robert, here's what we do - anybody who's last name begins with t gets the iceflow - that way we get rid of some poor, some old, some unfortunate, unlucky, and at least 1 stupid person. the last one on the iceflow gets to pick the next letter we deal with.

I agree medical insurance should be market based. Let us cross state lines, and opt out of certain coverages, as Emmie Lou mentioned previously. Socialized health care simply DOES NOT work, and the scary part is... the Liberals know it. It is simply an attempt to create more dependency of the people on government, to increase their voter bloc. And REAL tort reform is way overdue. I think what Nancy Pelosi meant to say was "after all our buddy trial lawyers get thru with it..." So make it market based, and THEN for those people who cannot buy insurance - or if it's too expensive due to a rating from a previous condition, for example, have a safety net type of plan. Yes, maybe a government-subsidized plan, depending on the individual's health and ability to pay, but still market based. Rates would come down significantly. Then more and more people would get covered, and rates would come down even more. For those who use the system without coverage, of course the hospitals have to treat them. Robert - what kind of society do you think we live in?!? But I say for those people, charge a penalty, and then allow the garnishment of wages, at no more than $200 or $300/mo (still lower than an insurance premium) until the bill is paid off...

This is a disgrace on the American people, what will you do to fight back?

verified on snopes.com

Did you know that if you sell your house after 2012 you will pay a 3.8% sales tax on it? That's $3,800 on a $100,000 home etc.

When did this happen? It's in the health care bill. Just thought you should know.

SALES TAX TO GO INTO EFFECT 2013 (Part of HC Bill)

REAL ESTATE SALES TAX

So, this is "change you can believe in"?

Under the new health care bill - did you know that all real estate transactions will be subject to a 3.8% Sales Tax? The bulk of these new taxes don't kick in until 2013 if you sell your $400,000 home, there will be a $15,200 tax. This bill is set to screw the retiring generation who often downsize their homes. Does this stuff make your November and 2012 vote more important?

Oh, you weren't aware this was in the ObamaCare bill? Guess what, you aren't alone. There are more than a few members of Congress that aren't aware of it either.

http://www.gop.gov/blog/10/04/08/obamacare-flatlines-obamacare-taxes-home

Why am I sending you this? The same reason I hope you forward this to every single person in your address book because you can make a difference.

Tim, I agree with you on many items but I can not agree with your direction that the entire Health Care bill must be repealed. Please understand, I don’t think the bill should have been passed in toto at all. Yet, it was passed and any current effort to repeal the whole package is destined for defeat in either the Senate or by Obama’s veto. I’m sure there are not enough votes to overcome a Presidential veto. Another sticking point, trying to do so would take up time that should be spent on feasible solutions to other problems that our country faces. Instead, we/you/Congress should focus on amending the more onerous sections of the bill starting with the “worst” and progressing (with time) to the “not too bad” items and leaving the ”okay” and “good” items for later optimization. Yes, even the “good” sections will require improvement. Working this way may permit a bipartisan resolution of the need for health care reform. Trying to repeal the entire package will just end up in wasting time that should have been spent in step-wise amending it to something that would resolve some of our current medical care deficiencies.

The hospital services rendered to someone without insurance are not really 'free' --in the sense that the person owes (at full private rate) the cost of the service, to the hospital, doctor(s), lab, x-ray, etc., and can and will be held accountable for that debt --credit rating damage, collection agency, court action for collection, etc. The hospital, doctors, and so on, will help anyone arrange payments, after the fact --and many people do manage to pay the debt so incurred.

It would seem that the problem is the group of people that are so poor that the money will not be collectible. The odd thing about that is people that poor usually are on some form of aid already and so the hospital, doctors, etc., are covered, but at the reduced rate mandated by whatever government agency they are receiving aid from.

Actually this is not much different then Medicare, except they are basically being covered due to poverty, rather then as the result of years of working (actually even if you never paid much of anything in you would still be covered at 65).

So the main problem here is basically people that are a little to well off to qualify for some form of aid, and who also just don't care about paying for the debt incurred because they know the hospital still has to deliver service regardless of past failure to pay.

This demographic is an interesting one because it is largely people that are in some way not wanting direct government aid --illegal aliens, low level drug dealers (higher up drug dealers would just pay the bill --they have lots of disposable cash and a desire to remain unnoticed), and other such people as are just 'the unproductive members of society'. I usually, if unkindly, just refer to them as sleaze balls...

Anyway it comes down to a (comparatively) small group of people that are simply dead beats and so represent uncollected cost to a hospital, or to the health care industry in general.

For their numbers they are a quite expensive group. But even at that, the cost of that group is vanishingly small in comparison to the groups that do have coverage that is tax payer paid already, be it from Medicare or poverty driven programs for younger (not eligible for Medicare) people.

The above is the reason that the health care industry is very profitable, at least as an investment vehicle.

Frank P. has raised a very good point about the "get you your hover round at no cost to you"! problem with the system as it stands.

It becomes a quandary when the system that is killing tax payers is a system that is also a very good investment to have in your portfolio.

There seem to be many situations like that (they abound --bail out financial systems that are making huge profits... and so are great investments to have stock in).

I wish I knew some reasonable plan to fix these things but I rather suspect that at the end of the day it will come down to blood-in-the-streets, either in the Jeffersonian sense (internal revolution) or because we get into a really big war... the historical way to resolve internally unsolvable financial problems.

Pretty bleak thought there, but it's what I expect to happen --I'm 70 so maybe I won't live long enough to see 'blood-in-the-streets' happen (our streets or the world's streets --there may not be a discernible difference anymore, sadly).

But I'm positive my kids or my grandchildren will live to see it happen --an even sadder thought.

Well, on that cheerful note I will stop with my 2 cents worth.

Well, almost;

If you read this far, Thanks for listening, and I'd love to hear any offering of good news, even if it springs from quite different opines then I have espoused in this post.

One thing I have learned is that I've never learned much from those that agree with me. That is what makes learning so hard, you gotta accept that something you really believed was one way, isn't that way at all --and that always takes the form of someone telling you something you don't believe... well at first that is.

Don.

Tim, You really surprise me. Closing the doors of our hospitals to those who can not pay is just the logical consequence of our Tea Party principles of limited government. Why hide it? It does no good to evade what must happen in order to balance the budget. Even the health care law is less expensive by a long way than continuing to force hospitals to treat anyone who calls 911 and goes to an emergency room. Let's honestly face the consequences of the policies we advocate rather than pretend that charities or private insurance or anything else can fill the gaps.

You're right Tim. If you sell your house after the end of 2011, the Feds are going to hit you with a 3.5% sales tax on the home. PLUS you'll have to pay it on you new home purchase. This health care law was flawed from the start. It's bloated, unnecessary, expensive, unconstitutional and went against the will/wishes of over 60% of the country's population. The exemptions that have been handed out to the cronies of the Democrats will be enough to keep quite a large amount of people out of it. This will increase the burden on those participating. I for one, know that my wife has been told her insurance costs are going up (part of Bc/BS)and if it goes up much more, the company will end all coverage. The employers won't be able to provide a policy that meets the minimum coverage required by this horrible bill, and thus will not offer anything at all. But to work on this, we need to make some changes. We need to be able to buy across state lines, choose what we need a la carte, institute tort reform, and END ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. The unlawful entering of our country NEEDS TO STOP. Remove all persons that are here without papers, don't give anchor babies citizenship (or at least remove the clause to let them bring family over). Once we stop this, crime will go down and costs will be reduced in many areas. These changes should be done and then we can correct the rest.

Before forming your opinions about the 3.5% tax on home sales you might want to read this.

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/04/a-38-percent-sales-tax-on-your-home/

Basically, the 3.5% applies AFTER the $250,000/$500,000 excemption on the capital gain on your home. If you have a capital gain this size in today's markert God Bless you.

One thing that can save billions of U.S. money would be to mandate illegal aliens pay for healthcare too. Right now poor Americans have to pay something, even with the reform, and illegals pay absolutely nothing. That causes the price of healthcare we pay for to rise. There was a case in my hometown where illegals left their grandma at the hospital. The state has mandated now that the hospital take care of Grandma for the rest of her life, because the family desserted her. This happens all over the country now, and it is sucking the life out of the U.S. financially.

Also, if an employee changes to the government healthcare instead of the employer's the employer still gets charged $2,000.00. That is totally not fair.

Insurance Companies have to have so much cash on hand to stay solvent per federal mandate. With the change of preexisting condition coverage, the government mandate for solvency for the insurance carriers is so much higher, many insurance companies WILL GO OUT OF BUSINESS. For the pre-existing condition coverage on pediatric patients, a lot of carriers have now dropped covering children. Something has to change there.

According to the 2010 census, we have lost 185,000+ doctors since the passage of HealthCare Reform. Right now there are only 661,000 doctors to service 348 million people in the U.S. I guess rationing is getting mighty close. (The A.M.A. site projects different numbers, but their numbers are based only on "projections", and case models, and they only represent 27% of all physicians. A recent investigation by Dartmouth College showed that their numbers are "cooked.")

Next, repealing all of the "hidden taxes" in the healthcare reform schedule would help all Americans. There are quite a few listed in the schedule going into 2018.

Lastly, stop the money flowing heavily for five years into Community Health Centers that will be doing much of the now Federally funded abortions.
Many of the states will have to change their laws to cover high school teenagers being transported from high schools to these centers, and having abortions without their parents' consent. This is already happening!!!

I'll just finish, because I could go on and on on reforms.

Here is an excerpt from an interesting article in Time magazine that relates to health care, and also to some other political issues in general:

Money has emerged as the electoral trump card in the U.S. political system, and corporations have a Supreme Court-recognized right to use their considerable financial muscle to promote candidates and policies favorable to their business operations and to resist policies and shut out candidates deemed inimical to their business interests.

So, whether it's health reform or the stimulus package, the power of special interests in the U.S. system invariably produces either gridlock, or mish-mash legislation crafted to please the narrow interests of a variety of competing interests rather than the aggregated interests of the economy and society as a whole. Efficient and rational decision-making it's not. Nor does it appear capable of tackling long-term problems.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2043235,00.html#ixzz1BaEMxrpk

You can also go to my blog and read my comments on Corporate Health insurance.

http://the-moderates-perspective.blogspot.com/

I just wanted to add one more comment briefly. On the 2013 timeline schedule for this new HealthCare Reform is a paragraph that I will just quote from the Timeline Schedule: "Medicare cuts to hospitals who treat low income seniors begin."

Now how hypocritical is that????? Large corporations can be given exceptions, and hospitals who treat low income elderly are chastised and financially penalized!!! That is after the elderly's benefits keep getting chipped away at annually until 2018!!!

That makes my blood boil!!!

Once more from across the water in England. Here we have a national health service that can be said to be a "sacred cow".....it is the biggest vote winner/vote loser in any election. Unless any party does not explicitly promise to safeguard our right to free health care to all at the point of delivery, regardless of financial circumstance or health, then they can kiss goodbye to power. It's a no brainer. Here in Europe we are utterly bemused by those in the USA who do not want such a thing. Though I must admit your politicians do have a funny way of attempting to resolve this issue.... Surely any society is judged on how it treats its' poor & infirm. A fair society for all regardless of cost.
Without our national health system I would not be here today. A health system for all is a sign of a mature healthy society....after all we are all inextricably linked by the common thread of humanity....Oh & don't be taken in by those that put forward misinformation about our system, it has its' problems never the less it is fantastic.

Tim,Let's see if there are any real conservatives out there! Run a debate on farm subsidies aka farm price supports. Here's one that even the liberals agree should be cut out of the budget. $15-25 billion a year. That's a quarter of the way towards that $100 billion reduction which the Tea Party asked for. But are there any real conservatives out there?

Tim, I hope you don't cut me off. You let Dorothy go on, and on, and on, and it appears she may be English. Also, since I am late to enter the battle I doubt if anyone is listening.

DORORHY, my wife is English and I lived there for 3 years and experienced the care given by their Health System (which I consider one of the worst health care systems in the free world). You fuss about the 500K limit before a 3.8 tax will be invoked on Personal Home Sales. Did you also consider this additional tax will apply to investment property (rental, business, etc.).
I can't conceive why any additional tax should be paid on any property sales. We paid tax on the money it cost us to buy the property, and we have to pay taxes on the sell of that property (not only Federal-US tax, but also State Tax). Prior to this bill we paid tax on 1M+ on Personal Property and paid UP TO 15% on LONG TERM CAPITAL GAIS (other property). Now, we must pay 3.8% for increases in property value if it exceeds 500K for Personal Residence, and 3.8% for any increase in value for investment property. THERE IS NO consideration for inflation - if the property was bought for 300K in 1950 and is now worth 500K and we claimed depreciation of 270K, we must pay approx. an additional 9K JUST BECAUSE THE GVT. SAYS SO TO PAY FOR HEALTH CARE! WE ALSO HAVE TO PAY STATE TAXES WHICH CAN BE 7% OR MORE, AND A 6% REALTY FEE, AND A 39% TERM CAPITAL GAINS TAX (as of 2013). IF I DIE, an additional tax will be charged TO MY ESTATE. DOROTHY, DOESN,T THIS FEEL LIKE ENGLAND IN THE '60s & '70s before they became Capitalist and prospered? IS THIS WHAT YOU REALLY WANT FOR THE USA NOW?

If Tim permits, I have additionl points to persent in other communications! Talk to you later! If you are still listening, please respond.

Mike M

Hi Tim, the cat is amongst the pigeons again...well done.....Ron Birch confidently states, "socialised care does not work"......I have to ask....Ron, how would you know?....I'm sorry that was a rhetorical question because obviously Ron, you don't. Socialised care does work, it shall always work. Cuba has a lower Infant Mortality Rate than the USA, so it does work. It seems to be your system that doesn't. We have a European population of around 830,000,000 people (11% of the worlds population) that disagrees with you. It is those with a vested financial interest (& you know who you are) that are prepared to let another human being die simply because of their inability to pay, who do your nation & its' people a disservice. The word freedom is often used when the United States is talked about. This is a freedom that should remain firmly in the US. Be under no illusion, around the world this stance that does your nation no credit. It shrieks selfishness.

Seriously, send this to all your elected officials etc, send this far and wide...c/p to news forums too. This is an AP story that was published in 04

LOOK AT THIS from the AP 2004:

Sunday, June 27, 2004

http://politicaldoc.wordpress.com/2009/10/14/june-2004-kenyan-born-senator-barack-obama/


Kenyan-born Obama all set for US Senate

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kenyan-born US Senate hopeful, Barrack Obama, appeared set to take over the Illinois Senate seat after his main rival, Jack Ryan, dropped out of the race on Friday night amid a furor over lurid sex club allegations.

The allegations that horrified fellow Republicans and caused his once-promising candidacy to implode in four short days have given Obama a clear lead as Republicans struggled to fetch an alternative.

Ryan’s campaign began to crumble on Monday following the release of embarrassing records from his divorce. In the records, his ex-wife, Boston Public actress Jeri Ryan, said her former husband took her to kinky sex clubs in Paris, New York and New Orleans.

Barrack Obama

“It’s clear to me that a vigorous debate on the issues most likely could not take place if I remain in the race,” Ryan, 44, said in a statement. “What would take place, rather, is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign – the kind of campaign that has turned off so many voters, the kind of politics I refuse to play.”

Although Ryan disputed the allegations, saying he and his wife went to one ‘avant-garde’ club in Paris and left because they felt uncomfortable, lashed out at the media and said it was “truly outrageous” that the Chicago Tribune got a judge to unseal the records.

The Republican choice will become an instant underdog in the campaign for the seat of retiring Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald, since Obama held a wide lead even before the scandal broke.

“I feel for him actually,” Obama told a Chicago TV station. “What he’s gone through over the last three days I think is something you wouldn’t wish on anybody.”

The Republican state committee must now choose a replacement for Ryan, who had won in the primaries against seven contenders. Its task is complicated by the fact that Obama holds a comfortable lead in the polls and is widely regarded as a rising Democratic star.

The chairwoman of the Illinois Republican Party, Judy Topinka, said at a news conference, after Ryan withdrew, that Republicans would probably take several weeks to settle on a new candidate.

“Obviously, this is a bad week for our party and our state,” she said.

As recently as Thursday, spokesmen for the Ryan campaign still insisted that Ryan would remain in the race. Ryan had defended himself saying, “There’s no breaking of any laws. There’s no breaking of any marriage laws. There’s no breaking of the Ten Commandments anywhere.”

—AP

Reportedly, Obama & Co. have spent close to $2 million dollars so far fighting suits by citizens in all parts of the U.S. seeking the release of his birth certificate. One might reasonably ask, why?

Hi, Dorothy! I read the link you gave me on the Healthcare Reform and its effects on the elderly.The part you discussed on preventable readmissions I know as you do is mentioned there.My point on penalizing hospitals for too many low income seniors is in the Ways and Means Committee Timeline On Implimentation Schedule. Those would be two different things. AARP has been behind the Health Care Reform all the way.I and others have been upset about their explanation of the Donut Hole to the elderly. As a nurse, and my husband a physician, we are not loving the cuts elderly are taking on medications, diagnostic testing, MRI's, XRays, and chemotherapy. Elderly patients are the ones who are feeling the cuts, and if there are not revisions it will cost elderly lives.I have a problem with the elderly taking serious hits in care,paying for it, and illegal aliens having wonderful care free. /Does that make sense? Thanks for Listening.

Please take the time: This is a must read.

"decision by a federal judge in Florida that the individual mandate central to the Obama health care law is unconstitutional – making the entire law void:"