Originally Posted by key
So, what this means it does not change what you have now - insurance co's being able to raise rates as much as they want. They were trying to raise rates 20-30-40% as this bill was being debated. But the change is that they can't drop you, like they had been doing.
I am not sure how you figure that “they were trying to raise rates 20-40% - our renewal came out during this time and it was 12.65%, and according to our broker, this is the average they are seeing across the board in Virginia. It may be that your state was seeing carriers raise rates 20-40% and not necessarily across the country.
So, if the co does drop it's plans, they better give that benefit money directly to the employee so they can shop for their own coverage. This may be helpful to getting us on the path to single payer. HC should not (in my opinion) be employer based. Hopefully you work at a union shop so the union can fight to make sure this happens (benefit $ goes directly to employees).
Union shops in my industry are few and far between. Out of the approximate 3400 like businesses, less than 30% are union. That being said, it would mean that the employees would be the ones to suffer, as is with most things and the trickledown effect.
You and I share the opinion that healthcare should not be the responsibility of employers. I would like to see group formation, such as a buncha queers like us, so that we can get competitive rates based on a diverse demographic
You know what the second most satisfied group of healthcare recipients are in the US? Recipients of Medicare. Know what the first is? Recipients of the VA. (Our Socialist Medicine). Know what the least satisfied is? Private Insurance.
I wouldn’t doubt that Medicare recipients are satisfied with their coverage. I also wouldn’t doubt those with VA coverage. I know that my parents, both covered by military benefits and Medicare recipients, are both very happy with their coverage.
My negativity towards Medicare is its funding, or rather, lack thereof, and that it runs in a deficit. There were reports earlier this year that Medicare funding is set to be exhausted by 2017. That is the shining example I spoke of in my earlier post.
Part of the Medicare (and Social Security) funding issue is that when you reach a certain income level each year, you (and your employer’s matching contribution) stops. For 2010, the base is $106,800. I have never understood the rationale that once you make a certain amount, you should contribute less tax. I realize that the tax rate is equitable, yet it seems that the upper echelon of earners should contribute on all of their taxable income, just as those who make $20K annually do.
Part D is what you get when Republicans are in charge. They care nothing, not one iota about human people, only corporate "persons". Period.
Just to clarify, the Medicare reform bill vote was 54 to 44 with 11 Democrats in favor and 9 Republicans not.
Its been my opinion for many years that the party lines aren’t nearly as clear as they once were, and for me, really mean nothing. I don't like making sweeping generalizations about people of a group. I'm more of a wait and see kinda woman.
More Republicans in charge I imagine. Just a guess.
Wrong. Gov. Ned McWherter was a big ole Democrat.
With all due respect, you just went off about how Government can't do it right? Who do want administering this single payer system? A private company? That answers to ....it's shareholders...not the people using it's service? Give me the Government (who I can fire at 2 year intervals if need be) running this system any day over a private company only out to make a profit, answerable only to the bottom line. That is how we got in this mess to begin with Healthcare (actually it's denial) for profit.
Yep. I went off about how government are a big ole buncha fuckups. For me, in a perfect world, healthcare would be not-for-profit and fee subsidy based, with the only need for insurance to be catastrophic coverage.
Remember the good ole days when physicians were in it not for the money, but rather because they felt a calling? (much in the same way I feel that teachers have a calling, because they certainly aren’t in that $106K bracket) When they were paid in eggs, milk, produce or whatever barter the patient could afford.
I am not so niaeve to believe that medical care doesn’t cost money but when I compare the cost of one of Jess’s monthly meds at $234 vs. a Canadian generic for $55, I really don’t get why its not possible for that same generic to be available here in the US. I understand that the length of patents is to that pharmaceuticals can recoup monies spent in R&D of new drugs, but do we REALLY need a prescription drug that grows EYELASHES?!?
The pharmaceutical industry, to me, is as big an offense as is the insurance carriers.
Again, you want a CEO making 7 million a year deciding your and your son's health care "coverage" People who rail against the government running things, I ask. So we should privatize everything? Is there nothing so precious to you that you want to have control (through the political process) over who gets to "control" it? You want everything to be about the bottom line and making sure someone makes a buck off it? Like corporations have not f-ed the country up (can we say a housing bubble that nearly destroyed this country? how about a military contractor that lost 9 billion dollars in cash and electrocuted our troops in the shower? how about giving away American's well paying jobs to communists so that their shareholders could make more money, geesh I could go on and on about predatory capitalism, talk about a gushing artery)
Whew! Enough.
Unfortunately, everything IS about the bottom line because healthcare is for profit. As long as it is this way, we will continue to have the CEO’s as the top deciding for us minions.
When we work for companies that make a profit and we benefit from that profit either in bonuses, salaries or benefits, we don’t bitch about it. Its only when the profit is made at our expense does it seem to be an issue.
You and I share the same opinion of companies who outsource jobs; yet, that is another thread topic.
I feel like we have to choose the lesser of evils (there’s that damned phrase again) as to the administration – on one hand, I don’t want that corporate muckety muck in the driver’s seat, but yet, I can see that he(she) can run a business successfully. On the other, I don’t trust Government to do it because they like to run things at a deficit.
Again, the contradiction. You hate the Government running things, but you want single payer. I don't get it. Please explain.
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