Well, ya got yer Cadillac health care plans with no copays and no deductibles,

[Jackpine Radical]

and then ya got yer beat-up bicycle plans with 30% copays and $5000 deductibles. If you have one of these Bicycle plans and you're of modest means, the odds are very good that 1) You won't use the plan because you can't afford it, or b) If you do use it, your medical expenses will bankrupt you despite the little bit of "help" you'll get from the plan.

I happen to live in a part of the country that is doubly blessed with third-world-level wages and among the highest health insurance premiums in the country. Without Medicare, I would pay $20k a year for the lowest-level plan offered by my employer. (With Medicare, in order to keep my wife insured, I pay about $14k.) I'm awfully close to Cadillac prices for a Chevrolet policy. Not a bicycle policy, but definitely not a Caddy either.

[FreakinDJ]

1. What the Senate calls a "Cadillac plan" only offers minimal care

$500 a day co-pay / 4 day max hospital care

nothing more then "Bankruptcy Care" and now they want to tax it

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Can you give me a link for that information?

I would find it very useful in a discussion I'm having.

[FreakinDJ]

5. Came in my 2010 Revised Medical Coverage (Health Net)

from my company

That and an increase from $877 to $1020 per month

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. In other countries, citizens get the cadillac at chevy prices.

God forbid we consider anything resembling that.

[Cleita]

4. Having had a bicycle plan up to the time I qualified for Medicare, all I can

say is you are right. For one thing you don't seek medical care unless you've got one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel. If you do, you don't ever meet the deductible per year, so you end up paying for your medical care out of pocket anyway and you have to pay the premium besides, which is why all those execs can afford yachts and private jets. You still get the horse's rear end out of the deal. To mandate this without having a choice of a public option is pure theft by the industry with the government being complicit in it.

[LooseWilly]

8. "you end up paying for your medical care out of pocket anyway..."

That was how I figured it when I had one of those bicycle plans... so I cancelled it 10 years ago.

At the time I didn't realize I was just saving up money to pay for mandated insurance (or, more likely, a tax penalty) down the road.

The worst part is, somewhere I saw something suggesting that the bicycle plans won't meet the minimum prerequisites of the mandated insurance... so everyone will have to get at least the Chevy plans...

I'm pretty sure the tax penalty will be less than the cost of the insurance. Of course, it won't take but a year or two for the insurance companies to realize this... and the politicians will promptly jump to spike the penalty... like they had to do with seatbelt ticket rates.

[David Zephyr]

6. My Chevrolet Plan already exceeds the $8K threshold.

My plans is the same as those co-workers younger than me, but my age puts my premium higher.

So not only do we have to contend with age discrimination, but we get the privilege of being taxed for it and told we have Cadillacs.

What shit.

[ThomCat]

9. Yes. Because of age and pre-existing conditions, we get taxed.

We are told that we should be so grateful that for insurance that it's okay if our bankruptcy plans are mislabeled as Cadillac plans. It's okay if we are taxed just because of our age and disability.

A hell of a lot of people here are perfectly happy with discrimination, and willing to cheer it and even demand it, as long as it means that Obama is allowed to claim victory somehow.

Real health care reform is apparently too hard. Corporations won't allow it. So we have to lower our expectations and learn to enjoy shit. I wonder how so many people here convinced themselves so easily, and so quickly that shit tastes so good. :puke:

[Kansas Wyatt]

7. When you boil down the HCR/DLC SHIT Bill....

The only thing they are doing, is FORCING everyone to buy insurance.

That alleged help they are offering with subsidies, is bullshit if nearly everyone ends up with their so called 'Cadillac' plan rates. Just give it a few years, especially when this HCR/DLC SHIT Bill finally does go into effect.

Which means that we would be basically paying for Single Payer HCR, but we won't be getting that kind of Health Care Plan at all... We will still be stuck with the same over-priced Insurance Industry shit we have now.

[ThomCat]

10. If you are older, have a pre-existing condition, or live in an expenisve

part of the country then any plan you buy now will already be a "Cadillac plan" no matter how bad the co-pays and deductibles.

Costs are going to go up every year. So more and more people are going to have their plans reclassified as Cadillacs every year, whether they like it or not.

A lot of people just don't care because it only hurts the elderly and those with disabilities and those who live somewhere else first. We're invisible, so a lot of people here don't care if we are the ones taking the hit, and they are so short sighted that they won't see the problem Until it suddenly hits them personally in a year or two.

[Kansas Wyatt]

11. My point was that they are basically charging us for Single Payer Reform...

But they are keeping the same Insurance Industry System in place, without actually giving us the reform they are charging us for. Seriously, that is exactly what their alleged 'reform' creation is... They (Corporate America writing bills in Congress) want to charge Working Americans for the reform, without actually giving us reform.

I'm union and used to/will have again a 'cadillac plan' when I get back to work and have enough credits in. I also have a lot of medical problems and a disability. I've been saying kill the HCR/DLC SHIT bill now, ever since they turned 'reform' into a an Insurance Industry bail out. This monstrosity is worse than the status quo, and we have not even gotten into what the Republicans will do with the meager help they do provide in it, once they take back the House, Senate, or White House someday... They will CUT & GUT anything helpful in it, but they will keep the Middle (Cadillac Plan) Class TAX in place.

[ThomCat]

12. You and I agree.

:(

I don't think we will even have to wait until Republicans are in charge of either house to see the meager reforms gutted.

We keep hearing that this HCR will be improved later, but that is nonsense. If our party can't do better than this NOW, with all the public support for something better, and all this public scrutiny keeping an eye on them, keeping them relatively honest, watching for corporate dirty tricks and politicians who give up without fighting, then they are certainly NOT going to fight harder later once all the pressure is off of them and they are behind closed doors.

Once they no longer have the public demanding better, and no longer have the public keeping them honest, and no longer have the public watching to see what everyone is doing, they are going to have far more incentive to do what corporations want. They are only going to move more in the corporate direction. They are going to have only lobbyists to deal with, and all the pressures to make things worse, without all the pressure we are putting on them now to try to do the right thing.

Then, when the republicans really do have power again, you are right, it really will be all over. The republicans, in parternship with the corporate stooges in our own party, are going to have two priorities:

1 - make sure people get as little as possible, while giving as much as possible to insurance companies.

2 - install smoke and mirrors so that people think they are really getting lots of stuff, when really that stuff doesn't amount to anything.