When you say "at the same price regardless of their health," what of reports of a provision that insurers can charge up to 50% more based on conditions such as high blood pressure? Are those reporting this making something up, or are you leaving something out?

Glad someone can make feel better. At least now I know there are other worthwhile things left for Lieberman to put on the chopping block once he knows we're for it.

Frankly it is hard to believe that for-profit insurance companies, once given the gift of endless government subsidies and mandatory insurance sign-up will not pull every trick possible to screw policy holders and fatten their bottom line.

'The Secretary", which is the only entity the lengthy Senate Bill denotes as reviewing 'profits and expenses' will either (1) never do a damn thing to expose excessive profits (because some of it goes back to politicians), or (2) will take 10 years to review cases of denial of care, over billing or dropped coverage.

If insurance is mandatory, many would only trust a government option to be transparent, fair and less costly.

Where's the cost containment?

We're forcing 30M people to buy insurance from companies that have a track record of not making insurance affordable. And to top it off, they are immune from anti-trust laws so there's nothing to prevent price fixing. Exchanges don't help when those companies all charge the same price.

That's problem #1 with the bill.

Problem #2 is the claim that "It means you can't get dropped because you got sick". Yea right.

Don't want to cover those expensive cancer patients in your insurance plan? Don't have any oncologists in your network. Kidney disease is expensive too, so no nephrologists either. Coupled with an out-of-network reimbursement process slightly more difficult than the opening to the first Indiana Jones movie, and you don't have to pay for much of those pesky expensive diseases.

Yes, this bill fixes some problems. But it relies on the insurance industry being nice for most of its reform.

The administration is proposing:

— A ban on discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions.

— Caps on out-of-pocket spending.

— No cost-sharing for preventive care.

— No “rescission” of coverage for people who get seriously ill.

— No gender discrimination.

— No caps on coverage, either lifetime or annual.

— Extension of family coverage for kids up to the age of 26.

— Guaranteed insurance renewal.

....your typical middle-aged, middle-class voter is going to be impacted dramatically by this stuff and fairly little by all the rest of it. This is also, in political terms, the stuff that polls really well. The “goodies.”

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/the-public-plan-you-wont-have-access-to.php

This is more like "health insurance reform" than "health care reform", but it is definitely better than the status quo, and this, in addition to the Exchange, will be a good basis to build upon in our unending struggle for what is effectively stronger regulation of health care..

More in the bill -

And frankly, here's where I think the bill killers are being blatantly dishonest... pulling a complete and total Limbaugh in offering up sins of omission, half-truths, or outright fabrications.

I give you -- THREE GREAT MYTHS PERPETRATED BY THE BILL KILLERS:

Myth #1 The Bill has no/limited regulatory oversight on private insurance - it's just a big giveaway.

First of all, the way some big bill killer names -- and especially their acolytes -- present it, I really question whether they understand what "regulatory oversight" is... or understand the difference between a "law" (bill/statute) is as opposed to a "rule" (regulation). Congress passes laws that provide executive agencies the regulatory oversight.

Junk insurance? Kindly explain how the essentials explicitly spelled out in Sec 1302(b)(1) -- and especially, the broad leeway given to the HHS Sec to define "typical" in 1302(b)(2) don't prevent this.

Discrimination loopholes? Read Sec 2711 through 2717 -- and pay special attention the regulatory room given HHS -- then get back to me.

No cost controls? Read up on the 'rate areas' the HHS is to set up and the very specific (and limited) exceptions allowed.

No enforcement? Read subsec 1104(j) - and the escalator provisions. Then look up the number of people covered... Most insurers would be looking at millions of dollars in fines PER DAY of non-compliance.

MYTH #2 - The Bill is worthless without the PO/Medicare Buy-in

Yeah... the same PO that the CBO said would have "somewhat higher" premiums than options on the private market? The PO that was going to cover a couple million people?

The Senate should have just put the words "public option" somewhere in the bill and 80% of the bill killers would have been satisfied.

MYTH #3 - What's in it for ME?

The Part D donut hole is being addressed - not completely closed, but being shrunk significantly. Medicare itself is getting a much needed solvency boost...

And how about this... for the FIRST TIME the federal government is going to have significant oversight and federal reporting requirements for the private insurance industry.

Maybe the practical implications of forcing people to pay 3 times the 'normal' rate because they are older is lost on some of you wonkier types - but it won't be lost on the voters, especially when they are forced to write those checks or pay those fines.

And then they get health care, right? Not if they pay the fine. They get nothing but less money.

But what if they pay the 3x amount. Somehow - THEN they get health care, right? No - they get insurance. The actual health care part still costs extra.

This is horrible policy that will be a disaster politically.

This isn't health care reform, it's health insurance reform. Let's call it what it is.

I think the discussion of this bill has been a bit too consumed in recent days by pure policy questions, as though the only issue is whether there are a variety of good things in this bill that will make things somewhat better off than the status quo.

But "better" is not enough. The same "better" can be attached to just about every vote on every union contract that has ever taken place. There is always something better in the contract on the table. The question is whether the union does better for itself by accepting the current contract, or by holding out and ratcheting up the pressure. Who blinks first?

Some argue we have no right to take risks with the well-being of the uninsured by holding out. But we take risks with their well-being, and everyone's well-being, by not holding out as well. There is no risk-free course of action here. And our sturdier progressive forbears didn't build the modern middle class out of an impoverished and malnourished laboring rabble by being unwilling to take serious gambles and risks, even when the well-being of many was on the line.

We - progressives, Democrats, health reformers, whatever you want to call us - are now in a national scale negotiation. And as far as I can tell, the reason our side has been losing economic ground for a few decades now is because Democrats have become reliably known as the softies - the ones everyone expects to blink first. Our opponents have no fear at all about going all out to protect their interests because they can always count on us to back down first in a pinch. So they push and push and push. As soon as the lobbyists start making a fuss, too many people on our side throw up their hands right away, say, "Well, that's the best we can get!" and start mewling about halves of a loaf, glasses half full and not making the best the enemy of the good, etc.

SEIU and the AFL-CIO have now come out to play hardball. They know something about what it takes to win a battle of will and wits like this. On the other side, we now have people like Bill Clinton, whose "New Democrat" career has been based on trading in the old pro-labor Democratic party for the new management-friendly and business-friendly party. He's telling us that failure to back down will bring on a dreadful calamity. Who are you going to trust?

People don't understand how powerful the reform side is in this battle. Americans almost everywhere know the system is very broken, and know their own personal health care costs way too much and is at far too much risk. They want something done. You think the moderates in the House and Senate actually want to go back to their states with a sign hanging around their necks, "I killed health care", and "I put it on the line for Healthsource"?. They're bluffing.

Let's begin talk about we win this battle, and how, if we fail to win this battle this time, we still win the war by pinning the blame for failure on the lobbyists, centrists, reform opponents and foot-draggers, and by doubling down on increasingly popular populist agitation. Mildly left-of-center Dems need to stop blaming the left for fighting for what's right, and should spend a lot more time blaming Republicans, Snowe, Nelson, Lieberman, Baucus and the other obstructionists and beneficiaries of health complex industry payola.

Don't settle. Fight. If we lose this battle, we can pitch in and volunteer with time and money to help pick up the slack for the uninsured, to staff free clinics, to get them medicine, to do what it takes to get them through it. That's what the labor movement did in the past when their brothers and sisters were on the ropes in a bitter and interminable strike: Solidarity - It works. And it's the only tool the modestly-endowed many have against the wealthy few.

At some point the ever-retreating progressive movement has to stop backing up and say, "Enough is enough!" There is a scene in Lord of the Rings where the leader of Rohan realizes that he has for too long been running and retreating and attempting to save his people by backing into an ever more confined space, in the name of a desperate and spurious "realism". But he finally learns that even that last impregnable fortress won't hold forever, and that he must in the end ride out to meet the enemy.

If the uninsured can't afford private insurance now, I doubt the subsidies will enable them to afford a higher priced private insurance plan.

The argument that there are reform provisions in what exists in the Senate are ludicrous. There is no reform and there is no relief.

What there IS is a mandate forcing people to buy something they will never be able to pay for without breaking them further.

What's going to happen when 30 million refuse to purchase this crap?

No denials for pre existing? The denials come in those with pre existing will be charged MORE for their care! Can't afford it! Caps are imposed, people cut off of care. No provision for anti trust imposition, that's off the table?

This is not reform, this is a giveaway to the insurance industry in the form of legalized mandates that many will STILL be denied from purchasing and many will refuse to purchase.

And frankly, until the Senate bill is FULLY unveiled and released for public scrutiny, all this chatter is fueled by 'maybe' and 'what if' as NO one knows the actual details.

KILL THE BILL! Kill The Senate Bill, Now.
Force them to start over.

The collapse of health care reform in the first two years of the Clinton administration will go down as one of the great lost political opportunities in American history. It is a story of compromises that never happened, of deals that were never closed, of Republicans, moderate Democrats, and key interest groups that backpedaled from proposals they themselves had earlier co-sponsored or endorsed. Paul Starr (1994)

Will Paul Starr, senior adviser to Clinton and last time's big loser, win one this time? Ego-maintainers everywhere want to know.

Paul - Thank you for a thoughtful, and in my view, unerringly accurate assessment of the healthcare reform proposals. I think what you say here is correct. I also think no-one should believe you.

In various forms, the following famous saying has been attributed to Josh Billings, a humorist from a previous century: "The problem ain't what we don't know. It's what we know that ain't so."

It seems to me that "knowing" what "ain't so" has been a conspicuous feature of much healthcare debate, including some in these discussions. That is particularly unfortunate when it involves claims echoed here from secondary sources - Huffington, Kos, Wendell Potter, etc. - because when those claims involve provisions in the proposed legislation, the primary sources are online and can be checked for accuracy. In many cases here and elsewhere, what they show is that the claims from these secondary sources are either completely false or else designed to mislead.

In some cases, the language in the bills is difficult to interpret, but in many others, it will simply show that assertions made about them are contradicted by what the bills actually state.

This is the reason why I say no-one should believe you. What I mean simply is that none of us should believe you until after we've done our homework to determine whether you have been accurate in your assertions.

I've done that homework to the best of my ability. I've concluded, as some but not all here have done, that the proposed legislation is less than perfect, that it has been weakened by recent omissions, and that it fails to go far enough in a number of areas, but that on balance, its virtues far outweigh the deficiencies, and promise a transformative advance in American healthcare that has been overdue for decades. I also believe that detailed scrutiny of all the provisions in these reform packages will demonstrate a foundation on which we can build future improvements to take us closer to a system that resembles those of all the other major democracies in providing healthcare that is universal, excellent, and affordable.

At this point, I have lost track of what bills we are considering.

What are the links to the bills that are actually under consideration? Meaning, not the bills that have already been moved on from.

And do they all have corresponding CBO analyses?

The heart of the problem is that people are being forced to by a crappy and overpriced product: private health insurance from an insurance cartel.

One of the fundamental notions of any free market is that if people are unable to reach a deal, they can walk away from it. In the case of health insurance, it's a matter of take it or leave it -- because there really are negotiations -- the health insurers have all of the bargaining power. If this bill should pass, it will just be a matter of "take it." It's little more than highway robbery.

I've very glad that Paul Starr has weighed in on this.

He is right-- the bill is deeply flawed, but will help many low-income and moderate-income people.

Many middle-class families at the upper end of the middle class and some upper-middle class families who don't have employer-based insurance will still find insurance unaffordable.

Someone asked for exact numbers-- here they are, from the Senate bill. (I'll be posting these on HealthBeat (www.healthbeatblog.org) along with other specifics about what is in the Senate bill in the next couple of days.)

Most low-income and many middle-income families who do not have employer-based insurance will receive subsidies to help them buy insurance in the insurance exchanges. The subsidies are available on a sliding scale, and are pegged to income and the size of your household.

For example, if you are a single person earning less than $43,320, a couple with income under $58,280, a three-person household reporting earnings up to $73,240, or a family of 4 earning as much as $88,200, you’re eligible for “premium credits.”

Under the Senate plan, households at the low end of the scale will not be expected to shell out more than 2.8% of their income toward their share of insurance premiums; the subsidy will pay everything over that amount. At the high end of the ladder, (a single person earning close to $43,320 or a family of four approaching $88,200), the amount they are required to pay is capped at 9.8% of earnings.

If you have employer-based insurance, 9.8% of income may sound like a large amount. But for the uninsured, the self-employed and those who work for employers who don’t offer insurance, this is less than most would pay today if they tried to buy good, comprehensive insurance in the individual market.

And those in the middle of this sliding scale are required to fork over just 4% to 6% of their earnings toward premiums.

Out of pocket payments also are capped, again on a sliding scale.

The Senate plan limits how much even the wealthiest family buying insurance in the Exchange can be expected to pay, out-of-pocket, in a given year to a total of $11,900 for a family, and $5,950 for an individual.

Again, lower-income households are expected to pay less. For those who are eligible for subsidies but are at the high end of of the scale (income for a family of four approaching $88,200) the out-of-pocket limit is set at $4,000 for an individual, $8,000 for a family. Households in the middle would pay no more than $3,000 (individual) to $6,000 (family).. Finally those in the bottom third would never face medical bills that exceeded $2,000 (individual) $4,000 (family.)

These caps should virtually eliminate medical bankruptcy. The total amount that a family can possibly owe is low enough that providers will be willing to give them time to pay it off, and in many cases, to negotiate discounts.

When providers know that there is no way that you can ever pay a $50,000 bill, you wind up in bankruptcy court. When the amounts are smaller, and doable over time, negotiations are possible.

Fred Moolten-- thanks of the kind words.

On caps, I think we just need to make it clear that, in the Senateplan there are caps on how much a family would pay out-of-pocket ina given year.

You're talking about the caps on what an insurance company would have to pay out in reimbursements, in a given year, or over a life-time for a given individual or family.

When there is a cap, this creates a real problem for a family that has a child with cancer who needs treatment over a period of 9 years. They "run out" of insurance.

That is truly horrible--and unacceptable. But it's a less common cause of medical bankruptcy than the lack of caps on how much the family is expected to pay in a given year.

The UK National Health Service is an expensive massive overblown bureaucratic nightmare - lets hope the US "version" gets it right.

You know what they need to pass a good health care bill? $100 billion. Guess what the US pays for interest annually on it's debt. $700 billion.

-Grants man, government grants

This parça kontör terms of sale is really a high quality web site services

nice sharing. bedava müzik dinle will listen music

thanks its very important topic

msn show
msn show

Film izle

Thanks for this interesting article.

Watch free movies online.
Watch free movies online.

Free PayPal cash

When we came into this world thirsty for medical treatment, I do not think it would be a benefit

Let us protect our water resources

Gossip Bilkent

Merci pour cette explication courte et précise.

Sohbet

Thanks.. Good shares :)) dizi izle

Bu yıl borsa ülke ekonomisine katkıları.

Güncel zayıflama sitesi: zayıflama lida fx15 ve biber hapı zlfvbh

thanks
www.imrenlerimiz.info

this is just a lie..

------------
http://www.123warez.org

this is just a lie..

------------
http://www.123warez.org

This article is very interesting. Thank you very much for sharing . m2ts files converter from m2ts converter

Everything is just for money and nothing else...

Hosting the future with Hostgator Coupons 2010 and Drupal Templates

Very interesting, thanks

ok, well, maybe health insurance cost must be reduced, so every people can enjoy and get proper health facility. I think its a good article.

prescription contact lenses

The problem with health care reform is they have made it so confusing. When they say "health care reform" you have to ask "which one"? They have come up with so many non-working solutions, it's ridiculous. bitmeyen şarkı izle

iyinet frmtr trkygnclr webmaster seo yarışması Very interesting, thanks.

thanks...

Web Tasarım

Ünal Bilgisayar

Who really knows what is in this health care bill, hopefully it will be of benefit to us americans

Signature Social Media news

this is mazing article: centrum handlowe

Hi,

This is a very informative article. You can read more at:

www.newsgage.com

Thanks

Great article

Thank you
Sivas Haber

Great and very interesting article, thanks

notebook arena beograd

Dammit!
I just entered a long and comprehensive comment, but when I tried to submit it my browser freaked out.
Was it somehow saved or do I need to redo it? Asma Gergi Metal Tavan Sistemleri

Nice article. Türkiye Hastaneler geniş, detaylı hastaneler listesi.

I am happy to find this post very useful for me, as it contains lot of information. I always prefer to read the quality content and this thing I found in you post. Thanks for sharing. build muscle

In theory, you have a pretty accurate description of what the health care bill was intended to be. But over the time, it has suffered so many twists and turns that most of it's basic principles were either changed or forgotten. This has happened because of so many obstacles set in it's way by those who have financial interest in not being passed.
Narconon

The problem with health care reform is they have made it so confusing. When they say "health care reform" you have to ask "which one"? They have come up with so many non-working solutions, it's ridiculous.

weight loss diet

I want to get you to this site each day.
msn show To date is great.parça kontör