T-Mac: #Komenfail
Articleman as Particleman: The Science of Newt/RINOs
Newt Sees Shadow, Crawls Back Into Hole: Six More Weeks of Primaries On Way
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T-Mac: #Komenfail Articleman as Particleman: The Science of Newt/RINOs Newt Sees Shadow, Crawls Back Into Hole: Six More Weeks of Primaries On Way |
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I'm a freelancer and pay for my own health insurance. Since I'm (relatively) young and healthy, and since I rarely see a doctor more than once a year, I have a fairly inexpensive plan with a pretty high deductible.
Stupid question: If the House health care bill is adopted, shouldn't I opt for the cheapest plan that I can find?
Who cares about the deductible, the benefits cap, or the allowable procedures? Since the health care bill prohibits insurance companies from rejecting customers based on preexisting positions, couldn't I buy the "Kia" plan and upgrade to a "Cadillac" if I were to get sick?
Thought experiment: Suppose that there are two insurance companies, one that sells only Kias and one that sells only Cadillacs. Healthy folks buy the Kias; sick folks buy the Cadillacs. When the healthy folks get sick, they upgrade. In this scenario, the Kia dealer makes easy money because it never has to pay out anything. The moment its customers get sick, they upgrade, and then the hefty benefits payments are the Cadillac dealer's problem. Conversely, the Cadillac dealer gets screwed. No matter how high the premiums, benefits for sick people cost more than their premiums, which is why the sick people sign up for the Cadillacs in the first place.
Stupid question #2: If the House health care bill is adopted, shouldn't insurance companies offer the fewest benefits they can?
In becoming a Kia dealer, an insurance company can maximize the number of young, healthy members by offering low premiums, and it can minimize the number of old, sick members by offering paltry benefits.
If that's the case, then every insurance company would eventually become a Kia dealer, and there would be no more Cadillacs for sale. The nation's insurance premiums would go down, but the benefits would be poor. Deductibles would be high, and expensive procedures would be prohibited.
To date, there has been much discussion about the free rider problem, according to which "free riders" game the system by purchasing insurance only after they get sick. The mandatory insurance requirement of the health care bill avoids the free rider problem.
But what about the cheap rider problem, according to which "cheap riders" game the system by purchasing expensive insurance only after they get sick. Is there anything in the health bill to deal with this problem?
I should note that the the "cheap rider" problem may not be all bad. It could certainly bring down health care costs by eliminating expensive, unnecessary procedures. But it could also deny Americans access to expensive, important procedures that we may not want to give up. Worse, it could mean that Americans without a lot of money may forgo essential treatment because of the high deductibles.
I confess to limited understanding of the health care bill, and perhaps someone can explain how the bill avoids this problem. If so, please speak up...
Huffington Post - A. Terkel/R. Grim begins report with:
WASHINGTON -- At a private three-day retreat in California last weekend, conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch and about 250 to 300 other individuals pledged approximately $100 million to defeat President Obama in the 2012 elections.
and report includes:
The source told The Huffington Post that they lamented the direction the conference has taken over the years. They said it used to be about "conservative strategy" and building a movement, but now it was mostly an "alpha male" spectacle focused on fundraising to beat Obama.
This is downright frightening.
If I could offer advice to a young rebel, it would be to rummage the past for a body of thought that helps you understand and address the shortcomings you see. Give yourself a label.
Effective rebellion isn’t just expressing your personal feelings. It means replacing one set of authorities and institutions with a better set of authorities and institutions. Authorities and institutions don’t repress the passions of the heart, the way some young people now suppose. They give them focus and a means to turn passion into change.
As if the socio-political change is a matter of removing one set and plugging in the other set.
In the end, all Brooks once wants to do is point to the kids of today and say "aren't they being silly."
What Brooks wants to avoid is the messiness that comes from delving into the change where the outcome is not known before one set out ahead of time. It wraps this up by saying those who see it in a different way are merely motivated by personal feelings, which is about as asinine as it gets.
As they say, you read, you decide. Preview:
They'll still turn down Planned Parenthood again next time because of the supposed pass-through grant. Unless of course, Nancy Brinker was lying last night. So which is it?
“This represents nothing new. We have known and have reported that they are continuing five grants through 2012. This is a reference to that. The second clause about eligibility is certainly true. Any group can apply for anything. It does not mean they are going to get anything,” Ruse told LifeNews.
Geez, is the 'surrender' a trojan horse? Or in fact, not even a surrender, since ongoing current funding was not being stopped. According to this, it's all about the future funding processes, which is still not committed. Hmmm.
Once again, as ever, this bill (as many legislative actions) provides only the facade that our Nation's leaders are legislating what the country needs and holding themselves to the same standards as their constituents.
In truth, the proposed legislation does not provide the same oversight and consequences for Congressional insider trading malfeasance, as the rest of our nation's citizens are subject to under current insider trading laws.
We need to stand up and speak out that this is not good enough! Please, blog - send emails - call - communicate the facts to the WH, media and your own local governmental body, asking them to pass a resolution to be forwarded to your state's congressional members as well as the WH. Don't attack either party as all are culpable. A bi-partisan coalition none should support.
Well it took longer than I thought, but just a day longer. KOMEN has reversed course.
We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.
Nancy Komen Brinker goes on to deny what happened and continues to say they were misunderstood, but the backlash has been enormous, and they have reversed course and apologize.
The thing is, I think this will continue to hurt them, as they've been found out, they support policies that that hurt women.
Yep, sorry Nancy, your days in the spotlight are probably over.
I will update this with some video soon.
G, I can't say whether this is part of the House healthcare bill (if that's the bill you're referring to), but one proposed solution to this problem is to average costs over the whole population so that everyone pays the same amount for coverage. The argument for this is usually based on the upward pressure on healthcare demand as we age. So, we pay more when we're younger so that healthcare remains affordable when we're older.
Another way to address this problem, at least in part, is to do something that many other nations do: Fix prices for basic care and prohibit profits on the same. But the success of this depends on a unified payment system. Since everyone pays the same amount and costs of basic care are tightly regulated, patients who suddenly have greater needs don't need to jump to a "Cadillac plan" or a much more expensive risk pool.
As I think about this some more, both schemes seem to rely on essentially averaging costs among the population. When it comes down to it, private insurance is probably not the best model for financing healthcare. Maybe we'll figure that out someday.
There are definitely ways to avoid the problem, as you present, but I'm not sure how the current House plan avoids it, and I haven't seen anyone raising concern about it.
Yeah, I have no idea either. It's one downside to enacting a hodge-podge of seemingly disparate reform initiatives as opposed to simply moving to a different system of finance.