Free Health Care!!

[Gerry Clinchy]

Forgot to add ... if these assessments of the WSJ are accurate ... then absolutely our Federal representatives, our state representatives, every employee of our governments right on down the line, and every union should have exactly the same plan as everyone else! The money saved on these otherwise "exempt" individuals will help offset the new costs.

[Gerry Clinchy]

Joint Commission on Taxation Confirms Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail!
Section 501 (pg. 296) of H.R. 3962 (download bill) provides for "a tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage."
Existing IRS code details the penalties, and possible criminal charges for not paying this new tax.
http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=153583

Actually, if you take the jail time, the health care is free

[Uncle Bill]

This might be the 'best' solution. UB


While discussing the upcoming Universal Health Care Program law the other day, I think we have found the solution. I am sure you have heard the ideas that if you are a senior you need to suck it up and give up the idea that you need any health care. A new hip? Unheard of. We simply can't afford to take care of you anymore. You don't need any medications for your high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, etc. Let's take care of the young people. After all, they will be ruling the world very soon.

So here is the solution. When you turn 70, you get a gun and four bullets. You are allowed to shoot two senators and two representatives. Of course, you will be sent to prison where you will get three meals a day, a roof over your head and all the health care you need! New teeth, great! Need glasses, no problem. New hip, knee, kidney, heart? Well, bring it on. And who will be paying for all of this? The same government that just told you that you are too old for health care. And, since you are a prisoner, you don't have to pay any income tax.

[Gerry Clinchy]

• Sec. 59b (pp. 297-299) says that when you file your taxes, you must include proof that you are in a qualified plan. If not, you will be fined thousands of dollars. Illegal immigrants are exempt from this requirement. (That's interesting.)

As I understand it, the present bill does not prevent illegals from purchasing health insurance ... but it does seem to exempt them from any fines for not having it.

So, as far as I can see, the illegals will still not be covered; not be deported; and continue to cost our health service providers hundreds of milliions of dollars providing free care.

[YardleyLabs]

As I understand it, the present bill does not prevent illegals from purchasing health insurance ... but it does seem to exempt them from any fines for not having it.

So, as far as I can see, the illegals will still not be covered; not be deported; and continue to cost our health service providers hundreds of milliions of dollars providing free care.

The bill prevents them from receiving any form of federal subsidy for purchasing insurance. There has been a move to prevent them from having insurance even if they buy it personally. This would have an iteresting impact given that many now have insurance through personal purchase or through employment. If passed, such an exclusion would increase the cost of unreimbursed care.

[Gerry Clinchy]

I understand about not getting any subsidies for purchase of health insurance. However, if they do not purchase it they are exempted from having to provide proof of insurance ... if they file a tax return. Of course, many may not file Federal (or any other) tax returns

If they're here, even illegally, they should be subject to the same requirements as citizens ... or send them home.

As mentioned by the Florida hospital manager, even when INS is notified of the presence of an illegal, INS doesn't do anything. Perhaps another few hundred million could be saved on health care by giving some of that unused TARP funding to INS?

[Bob Gutermuth]

The liberties we enjoy as Americans are being sold down the river to socialism by Osama and his cronies.

[Gerry Clinchy]

NY Times yesterday
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/16/bu..._r=1&th&emc=th

But Ms. Arnold, Professor Schondelmeyer and a 2007 Congressional study of Medicare said the rebates often accrue to the middlemen, not consumers, and higher manufacturer prices lead to higher retail prices.
And the drug industry’s own major consulting firm, IMS Health, has also reported a significant run-up in prices. Back in April, IMS predicted that United States drug sales might actually decline this year.
Billy Tauzin, president of the industry’s trade association, highlighted the gloomy prediction in a June 1 letter to President Obama shortly before striking the deal to cut drug costs by $80 billion. In negotiating the deal, the drug makers argued that they could not afford to give up more than that.
But in October, IMS made an unusual change in the middle of its forecasting cycle, saying it now believed United States sales would grow at least 4.5 percent in 2009 — or $21 billion more than expected six months earlier.
A major reason, IMS said, was higher-than-expected price increases for drugs in the United States.

I would expect O's advisors to keep track of this stuff; not to mention the Budget Office that is supposed to evaluate the new legislation for cost impact.

Would appear that when O cut his deal with the pharma industry, he was not aware of the impending price increase. One might have thought that such an item would have come up in the discussion, huh?

The thing that occurred to me is that the govt is becoming ever more involved in regulating the price of everything ... one way or the other.

Health reform, if it establishes a govt option, will effectively be saying that "this" is the price for "x" coverage. Obviously, any health insuror that does not meet that price will not get customers. So, at best, the health insurors will make their $ by offering plans that exceed the govt-mandated "basic" coverage. Same as they do with Medicare supplements.

The govt would then have dictated the price, whether it is a market-sustainable price or not. If it is not sustainable, they simply go back to the taxpayers to fill the gap. Amtrak comes to mind. Meanwhile, the artificially low price (shored up by taxpayer subsidy) might lead us to believe that the private insurors are charging more than they need to charge to break even, or make a reasonable profit.

No, that doesn't absolve the insurors who hide loopholes in fine print. However, there are insurors who actually do what they purport to do in their policies. Wouldn't be the first time that laws designed to catch "bad guys" also ends up hurting "good guys".

Now, it would also appear that govt is also instrumental in creating an artificial pricing system for meds. Any guess that doctors and hospitals will also raise prices before this new legislation actually becomes law?

They're just taking a page out of the book of the credit card companies who are making very sure to install their usurous rates, fees and charges now before new regulation goes into effect in February.

Yup, the govt does s-u-c-h a good job of making the free-market system so much better ... seems like a shell game to me.

Seems to me that it might be cheaper just to provide a govt subsidy to those who cannot get insurance due to pre-existing conditions than it is to spend hundreds of billions to re-vamp everybody else's marketplace. Seems like the Fed could just make it a Medicaid grant to the states (who administer Medicaid). Then they could concentrate on fixing the fraud and abuse in the existing programs.

[WaterDogRem]

Appears the feds are trying to setup rationing already. Decisions made by a fed task force with no experts and based solely on money.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/f...vB8dUo3tFTB5gN
Is this the type of healthcare reform you're going to support?

[Gerry Clinchy]

This is really kind of weird ... when you read both articles

First, in the NY Times today there is a story about the closing of the dialysis unit in Atlanta, GA that leaves many illegals in life-death limbo
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/21/he..._r=1&th&emc=th

A quote from one of these patients:

“No place in Mexico would have offered dialysis for free,” he said, sitting in the spare apartment he shares with his girlfriend and their 13-year-old son. “It was better to be here. I am really grateful that this is possible in this country, because if I were in my country I would already have died”

But in August, 2009, USA Today ran this article on health care in Mexico
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2...lth-care_N.htm

The IMSS system is similar to an HMO in the United States, Jemmy Miller said. Patients are assigned a primary care physician and given a passport-size ID booklet that includes records of appointments. The doctor can refer patients to specialists, a bigger hospital or one of the IMSS specialty hospitals in cities such as Guadalajara or Mexico City.

The fee for the IMMs program is $250/year! Americans are retiring there for the cheap health insurance!

In 2007, Ron Miller got appendicitis and had emergency surgery at the local IMSS hospital. He was in the hospital for about a week and had a double room to himself. The food was good, the nurses were attentive, and doctors stopped by three or four times a day to check on him, he said. At the end of it all, there was no bill, just an entry in the ID booklet.

The Millers may soon move back to the United States, but Jemmy Miller said they want to try to maintain the IMSS coverage. "If something big really comes up, we'd probably come back to Mexico," she said.

So, illegals stay here for their dialysis when they can find a way to do so, since it is totally free for them ... in Mexico it would cost them $250/year. Here it costs us $50,000 a year, but it is paid for by US citizens (in various ways). This GA hospital had about 20 illegals as dialysis patients consistently at any point in time ($50,000 X 20 = $1,000,000) ... and they could have gotten the same care in Mexico with Mexican citizens paying the bill.

According to the USA Today article, there is also private care in Mexico that you can pay for privately, that is supposedly world-class.

Mexico fears too many retirees flooding their system, since then it would become unsustainable. Tell me about it!