Comments (1)

By Cassandra Effect, September 8, 2009 7:03 pm

As Obama prepares to deliver his Health Care Speech on Wednesday night, there is a bill already in Congress which performs most of the functions that the Senate Finance Committee is indicating it will include in its new version of the health care bill.  That already written legislation is S391 The Healthy Americans Act.  I already reported on this to a small degree in Senate Finance Committee to release health bill soon.   The good news is this bill is less than 200 pages long, so you should be able to read it quickly.  It’s important that you have an understanding of this bill and what it means as 7 of the Senate Finance Committee members are also sponsors of this bill, and it is Bi-Partisan.  You should expect the Senate Finance Committee bill to incorporate many parts of this bill.

The bill requires all people to buy insurance.  Subsidized of course to up to 400% of the Federal Poverty Level.  It eliminates pre-existing exclusions.  And it requires all insurance products to provide at a minimum, the same benefits that Federal Employees receive.  These benefits include $15 copays for doctor visits.   Requiring these generous federal benefits for every American will NOT help reduce insurance costs!  It will make all Americans expect to pay next to nothing out of pocket, and eliminate any incentives to create new models of insurance packages such as high deductible policies, Health Savings Accounts and other novel forms of providing insurance.

The catch to making the Act work is that employees will now buy their own policies, which they own in their name rather than receive it through their employer.  They assume that employers will take the money they have been spending on employee health care and convert that money into increased wages.  Do you REALLY think employers will comply with this part of the scheme.  I can assure you that employers will looks to pocket some of the money that they have been paying and what they they will gives back to employees!  The Act would have the IRS collect your health insurance premiums through the withholding process to ensure that there are no free riders in the system and that EVERYONE pays in.  Can you say another government department that will need to be expanded so that it can be dedicated to collecting and managing the transfer of these payments to your insurer?  

The Lewin Group did a study (HERE and HERE) on the program and gave it a thumbs up

The Brookings institute gave props to it – “It’s not perfect, but neither is anything else.” 

It also has the Congressional Budget Office seal of approval

Watch out folks – the Old Guard Republicans do want to pass a bill – they are terrified of not giving people free stuff and being viewed as the party of “No”.  Free giveaways are what politicians do to endear themselves to their constituents.

The insanity of the entire bill is that it is projected to  save only $22 per year per family in out of pocket costs (premiums plus copays, etc).  What you say?  Why bother all this to save $22?  Well my friend – this is a WEALTH TRANSFER program!  Households making under $40,000 will see savings, but any household making more than $40,000 per year will PAY MORE!    Now that’s my kind of change!  Oh wait – NOT!

Comments (2)

By Cassandra Effect, June 30, 2009 4:20 am

Last week the Congressional Budget Office released their budget forecast documents.  It speaks for itself.

“The higher debt results in permanently higher spending to pay interest on that debt (unless the debt is later paid off).”

We know, of course, that we will never pay off this debt.  The best we can hope for is for the economy to grow large enough that the debt as a percentage of GDP shrinks back to manageable levels.  This strategy would require that we slow our spending in the future.  Like Wimpy, our government will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.