Healthcare Hypocricy?

[SubGod22]

Question . . .

Can doctors and clinics offer their own "insurance" plans?

For example, I pay my doctor $200/yr., and my family a number of lower-cost services. Then I supplement that with an employer insurance plan for hospitalization and prescription medication.

That would allow doctors and clinics to begin competing against one another on cost and reduce their overhead (less insurance filings).

I've heard of dentists doing this type of thing.

I'll have to go back and find the story, but what you're asking sounds a lot like what a Dr. in NY got in trouble for. He offered a monthly payment plan or something then allowed those people to come in when they needed help without charging them huge amounts for the visit. The gov't made him stop if I remember correctly and now some of his patients can't afford it. He may have worked something out eventually but again, I'll have to look into it.

[SubGod22]

53% Now Oppose Congressional Health Care Reform

[SubGod22]

Bad Reform Is Worse Than No Reform

If one totals up all the new taxes in the House Democratic health reform bill–the income tax surtax, the penalties on businesses that fail to provide and individuals who fail to buy the governments prescribed health care plan, as well as other frees and taxes–the cost to American taxpayers will top $800 billion. On top of that, studies suggest that the plan could increase insurance premiums by 75-95 percent.

Combined with President Obama's plan to allow President Bush's tax cuts to expire and state taxes, Ohio residents would face a top marginal tax rate of 51.2 percent. That's a big price tag for a health care plan that will likely lead to Americans receiving less and lower quality health care.

Micromanaging Americans' Health Insurance: The Impact of House and Senate Bills

Both the pending House health care bill and Senate HELP Committee bill include provisions that would, if enacted, result in sweeping, complex, and highly discretionary new federal regulation of health insurance. Yet virtually all of the proposed new health insurance requirements are completely unnecessary to achieving the legislation's intended objectives of expanding health insurance coverage and reducing health care costs.

Indeed, many of the provisions would make the current situation worse either by driving costs higher or by encouraging more employers and individuals to drop coverage.

Undercutting State Authority: The Impact of the House and Senate Health Bills

State officials will lose a great deal of their authority over the financing and delivery of health care under the House and Senate health bills, particularly in the area of Medicaid.

In the House bill, "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009" (H.R. 3200), Congress would expand Medicaid to reduce the number of people without health insurance. But this expansion will create new inequities among and between the several states that administer the program. The House version also expands the federal role in the administration of Medicaid that will reduce the states' sovereignty and position as "laboratories of democracy."

As of now, the Senate has not made its specific Medicaid recommendations public, but it is expected that the Finance Committee will also expand Medicaid eligibility and that there will be interactions between Medicaid, public subsidies, and the federal regulation of insurance.

Senator Kerry's Tax on Health Insurance Companies Would Hit Everyone with Insurance

Members of Congress continue to demonstrate their ingenuity, creativity, and often poor judgment in their increasingly desperate hunt for painless revenue sources to pay for health care reform. Initial projections are that health care reform will cost well north of $1 trillion. To pay for this extraordinary expansion in government spending, Members have considered everything from taxing soda to killer rate hikes on small businesses. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) and others are pushing the idea of imposing $100 billion in special taxes on health insurance companies.

Taxing health insurance companies is a bad, backdoor alternative to the more sensible, more transparent policy of capping the exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance. Worse, unlike the cap, taxing health insurance companies would hit low- and middle-income workers hard.

[SubGod22]

Conrad: We Need GOP to Pass Healthcare

Senate Democrats alone cannot pass President Barack Obama's ambitious overhaul of how Americans receive health care, a top lawmaker acknowledged on Sunday. Republicans said they will continue their opposition to a plan they say is simply a government takeover of private decisions.

Both sides said they want to improve the system and provide care for almost 50 million Americans who lack health insurance coverage, but they remain deeply divided over how to reach that goal. Republicans said the longer the delay, the more the public understands the stakes of a policy that has vexed lawmakers for decades.

Obamacare Would Create Over a Dozen New Federal Entities

The health care reform plan proposed by House Democrats would create at least a dozen new federal programs, boards and task forces, contributing to the proposal's hefty price tag that has drawn criticism from Congress' official scorekeeper.

Democrats say the bureaucratic infrastructure is necessary to administer the expansion of health care benefits to the tens of millions of uninsured Americans while creating more competition for private insurers to drive down out-of-control costs.

[SubGod22]

Fannie Med? Why a "Public Option" Is Hazardous to Your Health

President Obama and other leading Democrats have proposed creating a new government health insurance program as an option for Americans under the age of 65, within the context of a new, federally regulated market — typically described as a "National Health Insurance Exchange." Supporters claim that a new government program could deliver higher-quality health care at a lower cost than private insurance, and that competition from a government program would force private insurers to improve.

A full accounting shows that government programs cost more and deliver lower-quality care than private insurance. The central problem with proposals to create a new government program, however, is not that government is less efficient than private insurers, but that government can hide its inefficiencies and draw consumers away from private insurance, despite offering an inferior product.

A health insurance "exchange," where consumers choose between private health plans with artificially high premiums and a government program with artificially low premiums, would not increase competition. Instead, it would reduce competition by driving lower-cost private health plans out of business. President Obama's vision of a health insurance exchange is not a market, but a prelude to a government takeover of the health care sector. In the process, millions of Americans would be ousted from their existing health plans.

Illusions of Cost Control in Public Health Care Plans

[SubGod22]

Sources: Senators Near Bipartisan Health Deal

After weeks of secretive talks, three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee were edging closer to a compromise that excludes a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite Obama's support for such a plan, officials said.

The Finance senators were considering a tax of as much as 35 percent on very high-cost insurance policies, part of an attempt to rein in rapid escalation of costs. Also likely to be included in any deal was creation of a commission charged with slowing the growth of Medicare.

[SubGod22]

Texas Gov. Perry May Use States Rights to Reject Obamacare

Texas Gov. Rick Perry says that, if President Obama’s healthcare plan passes, he may fight its adoption in Texas using the 10th Amendment’s protection of states’ rights.

During a radio interview with Dallas conservative talk show host Mark Davis Thursday, Perry predicted he wouldn’t be the only governor to take that stance, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports.

"I think you’ll hear states and governors standing up and saying 'no’ to this type of encroachment on the states with their healthcare," Perry said.

Boehner, Pawlenty Report: Gov't Healthcare Hurts States, Working Families

“Health care needs vary from individual to individual, and from state to state,” noted the report authors. “Health care reform should increase flexibility for states to develop solutions that fit their needs.

“A Washington takeover of health care will achieve neither objective. To the contrary, it will harm states and working families by increasing health care costs and empowering federal bureaucrats to make important decisions that should be left to doctors and patients,” the report authors concluded in an overview.

[SubGod22]

Conyers: why bother to read bill?

The Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee questions why lawmakers should bother to read the Health Care Bill. Nicholas Ballasy, a video reporter from CNSNews.com published this video of House Judiciary Committee Chairman (D-Mich) John Conyers questioning the point of lawmakers reading the health care bill:

[1979Shocker]

Sources: Senators near bipartisan health deal

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of senators is closing in on a health care compromise that omits key Democratic priorities but seeks to hold down costs, as lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol labor to deliver sweeping health legislation to President Barack Obama.

After weeks of secretive talks, three Democrats and three Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee were edging closer to a compromise that excludes a requirement many congressional Democrats seek for large businesses to offer coverage to their workers. Nor would there be a provision for a government insurance option, despite Obama's support for such a plan, officials said.

[SubGod22]

Dems Looking to Tax 'Cadillac' Healthcare Plans

They call them Cadillac health plans. But a clunker may be hiding behind the sticker price. Senators scrambling to pay for a $1 trillion healthcare overhaul are leaning toward taxing health insurance companies on policies costing more than $25,000 a year — about twice the value of the average employer-provided family plan.

But some insurance experts say the reason certain plans are so expensive isn't that they're providing lavish benefits like full-body diagnostic scans and tummy tucks. Instead, the super-high premiums probably are being charged to older, sicker people, either as individuals buying their own coverage, or working for a small employer.

Martin Feldstein Calls ObamaCare Wasteful, Inefficient

President Obama’s healthcare plan will hurt the 85 percent of American who already have health insurance in an effort to help the other 15 percent, says Harvard economist Martin Feldstein

[RoyalShock]

A Harvard economist siding against Obama?

I wonder what Henry Gates thinks of Mr. Feldstein?

[SubGod22]

House Republicans Unveil $700B Healthcare Plan

The GOP plan was drafted by Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., a physician. It avoids expanding the federal role in overseeing the health insurance industry. Unlike Democratic proposals, it would not set up new federally regulated purchasing pools for individuals and small businesses. Instead, it would allow individuals to use the Internet to purchase lower-cost coverage available anywhere in the country. That idea won't please insurance commissioners from states with strong consumer protections, who have argued it will set off a "race to the bottom" that undermines coverage for those in frail health.

The plan would offer tax deductions and tax credits to help make the purchase of health insurance more affordable for individuals. It would provide grants to states to help set up high-risk pools for people with medical problems who are denied coverage by commercial insurers. And it would allow employers to automatically sign workers up for the company's coverage — similar to what's done with 401(k) retirement plans.

The GOP bill would take on medical malpractice, limiting jury awards for pain and suffering and creating new health courts in which a specially trained judge would hear and decide cases involving medical negligence.

It would give doctors what amounts to veto power over recommendations from a new federal board that's been assigned to compare the benefits of new treatments, tests, and medications. Recommendations from the Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research could not be enacted without the approval of the medical specialty society that would be affected.

Grassley: GOP, Dems on the Verge of Senate Healthcare Deal

[SubGod22]

Liberals revolt after Blue Dog health deal

Obama’s Great Health Scare

A Fox News Poll from last week shows that 84% of Americans who have health insurance are happy with their coverage. And because 91% of all Americans have insurance, that means that 76% of all Americans will be concerned about anything that threatens their current coverage. By a 2-1 margin, according to the Fox Poll, Americans want coverage from a private provider rather than the government.

Facing numbers like these, Mr. Obama is dropping his high-minded rhetoric and instead trying to scare voters. During last week’s news conference, for example, he said that doctors routinely perform unnecessary tonsillectomies on children simply to fatten their wallets. All that was missing was the suggestion that the operations were conducted without anesthesia.

This is not a healthy way to wage a policy debate. It also risks making the president look desperate at a time when his proposals are looking increasingly too expensive for Americans to accept.

[SubGod22]

Barney Frank: Public Option Leads to Gov't Control

"I think if we get a good public option it could lead to single payer, and that's the best way to reach single payer."

Rep. Shadegg Unveils New Healthcare Plan

"What we're getting is a top-down, bureaucrat-heavy, mandate-heavy, bureaucrats ordering people around, fines and penalties proposal, with a massive new bureaucracy to enforce it from Washington.

"It's a takeover of the healthcare system. What the Improving Healthcare for All Americans Act says is, let's do it the other way around. Let's let people make this reform from the bottom up.

Democrats' Healthcare Strategy: Attack Insurance Industry to Push 'Public Option'

Stung by poll after poll showing them steadily losing ground on the debate over healthcare, Democrats are launching an all-out counterattack aimed at portraying health insurance firms as "villains" and "immoral."

The president rolled out the new strategy of scapegoating insurance companies during his town hall meeting in Raleigh, N.C., Wednesday,

"The truth is we have a system today that works well for the insurance industry, but it doesn't always work well for you," Obama told his audience. "What we need, and what we will have when we pass these reforms, are health insurance consumer protections to make sure that those who have insurance are treated fairly and insurance companies are held accountable."

The obvious implication: Health insurance companies have been acting irresponsibly and can't be trusted.

Dems Set Deadline for Bipartisan Health Effort

If enforced, the deadline would mean that Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, would convene the panel in mid-September to vote either on a bipartisan bill or a measure crafted to Democratic specifications.

[SubGod22]

Obamacare: One Pill, Two Pill, Red Pill, Blue Pill It lists the Top 10 reasons why Obamacare is wrong for America.