Many of the taxes to pay for the bill start now, but most Americans won't see any benefits -- like an end to discrimination against those with preexisting conditions -- until 2014 when the program begins
Allows insurance companies to charge people who are older 300% more than others
Grants monopolies to drug companies that will keep generic versions of expensive biotech drugs from ever coming to market
No reimportation of prescription drugs, which would save consumers $100 billion over 10 years (#)
The cost of medical care will continue to rise, and insurance premiums for a family of four will rise an average of $1000 a year -- meaning in 10 years, you family's insurance premium will be $10,000 more annually than it is right now
petition against current bill:
<
http://action.firedoglake.com/page/s/killthisbill?source=web&subsource=side>
The answer is simple, Barack Obama never wanted a public option or Medicare for 55. For anyone to argue that he did want it, then look at the Baucus Bill, this is the bill he always wanted. This bill gives the insurance companies 30-40 million new customers, the American Public and forces us to pay them. If we do not then the very government gets to fine us. And if we don't pay? Well, I expect garnishing of pay checks or bank accounts, tax returns, lotto winnings, etc. How else does the government collect its money? And they are doing this on BEHALF of the insurance companies. Ain't this grand!!!!
Is this White House weakened? Yes. See, when you negotiate away everything and are left hanging in the balance, it is people like Ben Nelson that can walk in and demand things, for his vote, and get it. When you have a Chief of Staff that never respected the left, then you have a problem, when it was millions of these very same people that put you in office.
The White House hopes that if anything passes on health care and they campaign and show this is reform, their polling numbers will go up. I hope they are right, but in my gut I feel they are wrong. People invested too much in this White House to get this. At this point, it is time for Obama to show some action and DELIVER; and people deserve much more than what this bill is giving, which is a "champaign and caviar moment" for the health insurance industry proving their money has won them their welfare bill.
snip
ANALYSIS OF HCR BILL PROVISIONS
Bill provision: No Public Option
Loophole: None.
Winner: Insurance companies (already exempt from Anti-trust laws) have no competition. Sky-rocketing premiums assured.
This is the "Mission Accomplished" banner for Big Insurance.
Loser: American people victims again of money influence on politicians. Higher costs assured for a monopoly.
Bill provision: Mandated insurance. The bill would require individuals to buy health insurance, with a fine for non-compliance of $95 in the first year that would escalate to $750 by 2016. Parents would be responsible for providing coverage for children up to age 18.
Loophole: None.
Winner: Huge win for Insurance companies earn windfall for mandated insurance. By CBO estimates worth $848 billion over 10 years.
Loser: Consumers. "it uses the power of government, the force of law, to give the greatest gift imaginable to this industry -- tens of millions of coerced customers, many of whom will be truly burdened by having to turn their money over to these corporations -- and is thus a truly extreme advancement of this corporatist model. " -- Glenn Greenwald.
Bill provision: Requiring Insurance companies to spend 85% of premiums on actual health services.
Loophole: To maintain profit levels, Insurance companies can raise deductibles and co-payments and reduce what is covered under various plans. Actually incentivises companies to increase/maximize premiums to maximize executive pay.
Winner: Insurance companies
Loser: Consumer, Higher real costs for likely worse, reduced coverage terms.
Bill provision: End annual and lifetime limits on the dollar value of your benefits.
Loophole: TBD
Winner: Patients with catastrophic illness that require expensive long term treatment. Neutral to Insurance companies.
Loser: Added cost will be passed to Healthy consumers.
Bill provision: Eliminating preexisting condition exclusions for all new medical plans and funding high-risk pools to insure those with preexisting conditions who are currently without insurance.
Loophole: Watch out for DNA and family history as the next frontier preexisting conditions. Let's get creative, shall we?
Winner: Patients with preexisting conditions.
Loser: Patients with preexisting conditions pay up to 3 times more than healthy consumers. Your $14K plan will go to $42K.
Bill provision: Extend health insurance coverage to 30 million additional Americans at an estimated cost of $848 billion over 10 years.
Loophole: TBD
Winner: Poor now covered. Insurance companies earn windfall for mandated insurance.
Loser: Taxpayers pay the bill to Insurance companies (via the subsidies)
Note: 30 million at average $3,500 per person = $105B per year. Expect rates to rise at current rate of 10%+ per year. So $848B is incredibly low and hard to believe.
Bill provision: Older consumers pay up to 3 times more than younger.
Loophole: Who defines older? Insurance companies of course.
Winner: Insurance companies can now treat age as a pre-existing condition.
Loser: Anyone past age 29 and much worse with each added decade of age.
Bill provision: Deficit reduction. CBO estimates the proposal would reduce the federal deficit by $130 billion over the next 10 years, through 2019.
Loophole: TBD, but hell for a $130B we can fund another war. (sorry could not resist)
Winner: Taxpayer.
Loser: TBD. Where are the savings coming from? If it is by cuts to other programs like Medicare, the program users will pay for the saving with higher costs.
Bill provision: Discounts for healthy consumers. Health measured by weight (acceptable BMI body mass), cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. Smoking, drinking.
Loophole: Insurance companies can jack up rates for all then give a discount for good health. Will they be monitoring our grocery store purchases next (because the data exists)? Maybe lifestyle activities (warning, bicycles can be dangerous you know.)
Winner: Healthy consumers. Insurance companies with more leeway to jack premiums.
Loser: Consumers who are overweight or have other factors. Will you boss start thinking that your weight is costing him money. You do need that job don't you?
Bill provision: No abortion coverage. Prohibit the use of federal funds for abortion coverage
Loophole: TBD
Winner: Bible beaters force their beliefs on everyone else. Insurance companies have one less thing to pay for.
Loser: Women. Separation of church and state.
Bill provision: "Cadillac" plans would face a 40% tax on policies worth more than $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families.
Loophole: TBD
Winner: TBD
Loser: Consumers, employees. My garden variety employer HMO plan (which is a good plan but by no means exceptional) meets the "Cadillac" criteria. Expect only very high deductible plans to pass this criteria. And if you are employer covered, expect the employer to pass along this tax.
Bill provision: The Medicare payroll tax on individuals earning $200,000 a year and couples earning $250,000 a year would increase by half a percentage point, from the current 1.45% to 1.95%.
Loophole: TBD.
Winner: Middle class if the tax revenue helps pay the subsidies for the poor. True amount of benefit TBD.
Loser: Earners above these clip levels.
From Daily Kos
It has a conscience clause, saying that people who refuse to provide referral services for abortions can’t be discriminated against by health insurers (this becomes a problem when, for instance, a catholic institution takes over management of a public "safety net" hospital that provides abortions. there is no option to not pay for other services provided at this hospital as a way to exert pressure to ensure that the services provided are in the best interest of the community that is paying for the services, which detracts significantly from patient care and ends in higher costs, due to the need to construct new facilities to provide the services and to transfer care from one site to another).
2) It lets states decide if they will ban abortion coverage from any plans participating in the exchange. It explicitly states that abortion cannot be considered an "essential benefit" that must be provided by all plans participating in the exchange. Insurers that offer abortion coverage must calculate and actuarial value to the coverage and collect money for that coverage separately. They aren’t allowed to take into account the savings accrued from not paying for prenatal, delivery, and child health care by providing abortion coverage (in other words, they will be forced to charge for it, because if they were allowed to assign a true actuarial value it would more than pay for itself .. we know that we save $4 or more for every dollar spent on abortion & contraception). The plan must estimate the cost to be at least $1 per enrollee per month.
This leaves women in anti-abortion states extremely vulnerable to not having coverage for abortion. Stupak didn’t prevent plans from offering abortion coverage if they only were offered to women paying entirely out of pocket (although we anticipated that such plans were unlikely to be offered, it was at least a possibility). It appears that in those states that pass laws against abortion coverage, this will go beyond that. Stupak made it impractical that such women would be able to buy coverage; this goes beyond to make it illegal to offer such coverage in states that pass laws against it.
3) In those states that do opt to allow exchanges to include abortion coverage in the insurance plans that are offered, strange accounting schemes will need to be set up to ensure that funds for abortion are kept separate from funds for other health services. According to the Planned Parenthood Action Committee plan participants may have to write two separate checks or authorize separate transactions each month (it is not clear to me in the language of the document itself where it says this).
4) It codifies the Hyde Amendment; that is, it puts into law an existing amendment that currently must be renewed annually by Congress in its appropriation bill, forbidding the use of federal funds for abortion. It explicitly states that no federal funds may be used for abortion
5) It instructs (or gives the option, not clear on the wording of this) the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) to do a longitudinal study on "the relative mental health consequences for women of resolving a pregnancy (intended and unintended) in various ways, including carrying the pregnancy to term and parenting the child, carrying the pregnancy to term and placing the child for adoption, miscarriage, and having an abortion." Very strange… not sure if this is a pet project of the repubs or the dems, but the truth is that we’ve studied this stuff a lot, so I don’t know what this will add, and women don’t make these choices based on what a longitudinal study showed
6) It specifies that any school-based health clinic may only be called so if it does not provide abortions, and further specifies that any funds for SBHCs may not be used to fund abortion care
From FireDogLake
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