Posted on 06/23/2011 1:08:52 PM PDT by Sir Napsalot
(snip) Now, I don’t pretend to know how many employers will drop coverage if some workers are offered subsidies to help them buy private coverage on their own. In Massachusetts, not many employers have dropped; (snip) But if these issues won’t be settled for a few years, one thing is certain right now: It would be a fantastic thing — not some calamity — if more people got coverage from the exchanges instead of from their employers. Yet both parties act as if it would be a disaster. (snip) What’s more, the whole GOP line about Democrats “dumping” people into “government-run” care is preposterous. For starters, the exchanges offer choices from among competing private carriers. (snip) Whatever quarrels you may have with the Affordable Care Act, these insurance exchanges are a historic achievement. (snip) The only real objection to moving beyond our archaic regime of employer-based care is the public cost. But once you think about it for 30 seconds, this, too, turns out to have an easy fix — because we’re not adding to health costs, we’re just moving them from one place to another. (snip) In an even modestly sane version of 21st-century America, as I argued in my book “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas,” we’d be talking about a “grand bargain” to shift health costs from private payrolls to public budgets as a way to boost business competitiveness and health security. And we’d figure out an economically rational way to fund this shift (modest consumption tax, anyone?) that business could endorse. As Kevin Hassett, a former McCain economic adviser, has told me, such a funding swap would be fine for the economy even though it would leave government officially “bigger.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
But I am not a business owner, and I thought a single payer is the final goal. [In other words, eliminating competing private carriers.] And in the process, transfer an enormous amount of power to the bureaucratic government.
Anybody care to comment/rebut?
The socialized medicine crowd is have an orgasm over the destruction of the private insurance market.
Single payer as I understand it means Government paid.
I would prefer all companies drop health insurance and let everyone buy their own policies.
Base the premiums on last years expenses, spread the risk over the entire pool.
That would open up so many new markets.
As it stands now, health insurance is a club that employers hold over peoples head.
this was written by a man who has never had to line up to be seen by a govt-paid (govt owned) healthcare provider
It will be a nightmare, for many people
Some will die, some will see their family members die because govt bureaucrats with an eye on the budget (you think TSA is efficient and intelligent) will tell the doctor what he can and cannot do to treat them
The only appeal will be to your congressman, expect form letters about cost savings and efficiency
Buying private coverage is not as easy or as cheap as a lot may think. I suspect younger workers would pocket the cash and hope they didn't need health coverage.
Translation: The transfer of wealth from those who earned it to those who didn't is almost complete!!! Yeah!!!
How exactly do employers "hold that over" our heads?
Maybe it would be best if employees (and all people) had the options to pursue healthcare on our own. But smart employers have a vested interested in the well-being of their employees, especially if those employees truly are considered "assets" of the company.
I don't see how a company, protecting its interests, is "holding something over" the heads of its employees.
So people that have long term illnesses will keep paying more and more each year? Do you know what the 6th or 7th year of cancer care would end up costing if it was based on the previous year?
To give you a big for instance, pre-existing conditions.
Say I work at XYZ and get diagnosed with something. I want to go to ABC but with this condition there WILL be problems.
Additionally, don’t for a minute think your employer doesn’t has full access to your health records.
Pocket the cash? My company pays several hundred dollars per month to my health insurance, and if I opt-out they’ll give me $50. I’m guessing the health insurance is a big tax deduction for them, so I’d effectively be getting a raise if they just paid their share to me directly.
Nationalized medicine is the goal these people want and will get.
And we conservatives are supposed to be so much more rational and logical and perceptive than our liberal counterparts.
My idea is to make buying or selling health insurance a crime punishable by prison time.
In what way are the insurance companies, as they are organized today, much better than government agencies?
It’s not based on an individual, you spread it over the whole insured population, or break it down into age groups to make it more affordable for younger people.
From the look of it the youngsters are going to take it in the butt for the next 50 or so years.
I don’t like employers holding the health care strings, it’s got a socialist tinge to it....it should be an open market purchase - like car insurance.
In the recession there’s a lot of people hanging on with part time jobs or unemployed - you don’t qualify for employer subsidized insurance with that...the public ‘single payer’ programs are being screamed for more so because of it(people don’t have full time employment to subsidized insurance)....get this whole thing out into the open market.
What’s it now? Children up to 26yrs old on parents employer subsidized health insurance? If it was open market you’d pay for it straight, pick and choose your plan.
Too bad, so sad, but you should have voted for me.
Buh-bye.
(signed) B. Obama, Emperor
I agree with this in principle. Individuals being responsible for their own health care costs would help bring the costs down. Unfortunately, in our current environment, individuals who lose coverage will eventually end up in a gov't paid system (if Obama gets his way). I don't know how things are in your state, but in mine people in group plans are the only ones guaranteed coverage. Everyone else is subject to the wims of the insurance companies. They can refuse to cover anyone who tries to get an individual plan.
As it stands now, health insurance is a club that employers hold over peoples head.
I really don't know what you're talking about here. Are you an employer? Most the employers I know feel compelled to offer insurance to their employees. Prior to this disastrous economy, if an employer didn't offer health insurance as part of a benefit package, attracting and retaining good employees was very difficult. Now that people are just happy to have a job, it's not quite so critical, but to say that employers use it as a club is incredibly naive. Referring back to my earlier statement about group plans, it sounds good in theory to say employers should drop their plans, but if they did, half their employees could not get coverage as individuals.
The root fallacy of the entire liberal social agenda. This author thinks it doesn't affect the cost of something to move it from a competitive environment to an uncompetitive one.
Also sounds like the younger workers can just go ahead and sign up when they start having outrageous medical expenses. I also think there is some economy of scale savings in employer group insurance plans, due to there is some administration done at the employer level, for enrollments and terminations, premium payments, if nothing else.
Details of McKinsey study expose Obamacare flimflam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2738812/posts
Two weeks ago, the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. released a widely reported survey that said almost a third of private-sector employers reported they will drop their employee health insurance coverage when Obamacare’s government-managed insurance exchanges come online in 2014. The survey results exploded two major claims repeatedly made by Obama during and since the conclusion of the health care debate: “If you like your health plan, you can keep it” and “It will not add one penny to the deficit.”
McKinsey is having its day and answering Obama and Obamacare apologists by posting all 29 pages of the survey questions, as well as 206 pages of cross-tabulations. It turns out that some of the unreported responses in the survey are even more damaging to Obamacare than the original McKinsey report indicated. First, far from being based upon a skewed sample, as Krugman charged, the survey reached 1,329 employers from 48 states (only North Dakota and Vermont were missed) representing every industry category and all firm sizes. Second, the respondents were exactly the type of people that will be making employer health insurance benefit decisions come 2014. The top five job descriptions of respondents were: owner, head of human resources, head of procurement, chief executive officer/president, and vice president of compensation.
Contrary to White House claims, the cross-tabs show that the more these decision makers knew about Obamacare, the more likely they are to drop their employees’ health care plans. Among those most informed about how Obamacare would affect their business, 58 percent said they would either definitely or probably drop employee care. By contrast, only 16 percent of the best informed said they were planning on keeping their plans. Thirty percent were undecided.
These survey results mean Obamacare will be vastly more expensive than the Congressional Budget Office claimed. The CBO’s computer models calculated Obamacare’s costs on the assumption that only 7 percent of employers would drop their employee health plans. If the percentage is closer to the 30 percent, as the McKinsey survey results predict, Obamacare’s price tag would rise by almost $1 trillion. To put this in terms even an Obama White House staffer can understand, the McKinsey survey makes clear that Obamacare’s cost is unsustainable and the program should be repealed.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.