Originally Posted by Brian Rush

The article doesn't make that case at all. It clearly blames the recession and the fact that people are seriously cost-conscious. In no way does it argue, or present evidence, that the ACA has made this problem worse, as you are suggesting, without presenting any evidence yourself to back that up.



Indeed it doesn't, but please, stop blaming the watered-down attempt to fix the problem. The only way in which the ACA is to blame is that it didn't do enough.

Did you read the comments on that article? It looks like people on both sides of the political spectrum are fed up with the current system.

I agree ACA is the barest of bare beginnings and right now give insurance companies an excuse to jack up costs. One way it has helped is in keeping young people on their parents insurance longer. Maybe the only way...?

The Obama administration approved 204 new waivers to Democrats' healthcare reform law over the past month, bringing the total to 1,372.

Here.

Wouldn't you love to know the political connections of those receiving the waivers?

James50

A view from the front lines. Annual health insurance renewal struggle is now over for the company. We subsidize health insurance premiums for a group of 180 employees plus dependents.

We have handed out virtually no raises this past year and little profit so our priority was to have no increase to employees and if possible no increases for the company. The first renewal notice was for a 55% increase. The explanation was strange. Apparently the policy we had is also offered to the US government and the government has a stipulation that any plan offered to federal employees cannot be offered for a lower cost to anyone else. This was ignored in the past but apparently not any more. I am not sure what this says about federal insurance premiums.

Our agent got competing quotes. It felt like one of these congressional budget processes where everyone postures until the last possible moment and then caves. We were about to go with a new carrier when the old one came in with a matching proposal. In the end, we will be able to offer a plan with same weekly deduction and same office and prescription copays as before for nearly the same price. It is a little more per employee, but we have decided to absorb it to keep the deduction the same.

The big change is that for in-network hospital procedures, the co-insurance will be 80% instead of 100% and yearly deductible increases from $300 to $500. Individual out of pocket max increases from $1000 to $4000.

I am not sure what this says. If you work for us and get sick enough to need to be hospitalized, it will hurt. On the other hand, it could have been a lot worse. This was our first renewal after ACA so the under 26 folks are now covered for the first time. Competition does have its value.

James50

I heard a news story on MPR this morning about healthcare provider consolidation in Minnesota and one of the things I heard is that many small private practices will either go out of business or be forced to consolidate for scale reasons because of the cost burdens from the new law on the computerization of medical records.

In other words, our Corporatist government puts more roadblocks in front of small enterprises so Big Business has no competition. How predictable.

Originally Posted by Odin

I heard a news story on MPR this morning about healthcare provider consolidation in Minnesota and one of the things I heard is that many small private practices will either go out of business or be forced to consolidate for scale reasons because of the cost burdens from the new law on the computerization of medical records.

In other words, our Corporatist government puts more roadblocks in front of small enterprises so Big Business has no competition. How predictable.

Indeed. Predictable and predicted.

What do you think the point of our government is? Not the excuse, mind -- the thing they print on posters and tell you about in schools. But the actual function. Consider the question honestly, and it becomes increasingly clear that the government over the US isn't even remotely 'broken' or 'defective'. Rather, it's an astonishingly well-built, well-maintained machine that has practically never even once had the slightest interruption in doing exactly what it is meant to do.

Originally Posted by James50

The big change is that for in-network hospital procedures, the co-insurance will be 80% instead of 100% and yearly deductible increases from $300 to $500. Individual out of pocket max increases from $1000 to $4000.

I am not sure what this says. If you work for us and get sick enough to need to be hospitalized, it will hurt. On the other hand, it could have been a lot worse. This was our first renewal after ACA so the under 26 folks are now covered for the first time. Competition does have its value.

James50

“When you look at a society you look at it through the lens of the least of these, the weak and the vulnerable; you are committed to loving them first, not exclusively, but first, and therefore giving them priority,” says West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of African American Studies and Religion at Princeton University.'

There is a huge disconnect in your last couple of paragraphs. Do you realize what you were saying? Interpretation: Our new policy will work unless you get sick.

May I suggest you look through the eyes of the poor and disadvantaged. A three thousand dollar difference can mean bankruptcy for the many people in this country.

Ask a person who gets hospitalized on that new policy and hear what they have to say about how insurance competion is working out for them.

The lens of seeing through the eyes of the well off are pretty cloudy.

Originally Posted by Deb C

“When you look at a society you look at it through the lens of the least of these, the weak and the vulnerable; you are committed to loving them first, not exclusively, but first, and therefore giving them priority,” says West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of African American Studies and Religion at Princeton University.'

There is a huge disconnect in your last couple of paragraphs. Do you realize what you were saying? Interpretation: Our new policy will work unless you get sick.

May I suggest you look through the eyes of the poor and disadvantaged. A three thousand dollar difference can mean bankruptcy for the many people in this country.

Ask a person who gets hospitalized on that new policy and hear what they have to say about how insurance competion is working out for them.

The lens of seeing through the eyes of the well off are pretty cloudy.

Deb, we are not running a charity. Profits are like air. The point of living is not to breathe, but without air you die. I guess the only thing that would satisfy you would be for us to pay all health expenses of all our employees and their families and for the employees to pay zero.

The point of my story is not to show that we are wealthy saints, but to show how the system works in practice. I thought we did pretty good. You are looking for perfection. You love to criticize when anyone makes a tough decision. I live in the place where the moral and financial meet. You apparently have the luxury of avoiding that place. I do not. Incidentally, the vaunted European systems generally require substantial payments by the patients.

The point you should be getting is that the current system leaves it to the employer to ration care. I don't want that job, but I am stuck with it. I wish we had single payer and someone else would take on the job of rationing care, but alas, that is not our world.

James50

Originally Posted by Deb C

“When you look at a society you look at it through the lens of the least of these, the weak and the vulnerable; you are committed to loving them first, not exclusively, but first, and therefore giving them priority,” says West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of African American Studies and Religion at Princeton University.'

There is a huge disconnect in your last couple of paragraphs. Do you realize what you were saying? Interpretation: Our new policy will work unless you get sick.

May I suggest you look through the eyes of the poor and disadvantaged. A three thousand dollar difference can mean bankruptcy for the many people in this country.

Ask a person who gets hospitalized on that new policy and hear what they have to say about how insurance competion is working out for them.

The lens of seeing through the eyes of the well off are pretty cloudy.

I do agree in principal with what you are saying. However, "the least of these" in our country do get medicaid. Their medical expenses are covered 100%, along with the cost of their prescriptions. I know this because I was "the least of these" at one point in our lives when my husband had gone back to school and our income was basically below the poverty line. We were without insurance and our then toddler, Matthew, needed stitches. I found out when I received the hospital bill for our emergency room visit that we qualified for medicaid. We were on it for the remaining time Tony was in school. They paid everything at 100% including the cost of any prescriptions we needed. I never once even saw a bill or had any co-pay costs.

I think it boils down to this. If you are very well off, you can afford good medical coverage. And if you are very poor you also get good medical coverage. It's the people in between who are struggling. And you are right about $3,000 being a lot of money to an awful lot of working families. To a lot of people, $3,000 might as well be a million.

I don't think the situation will get any better on it's own. I remember a time when people didn't have to pay for any portion of the cost of their insurance that they received through their employers. It was just a benefit of the job like paid sick leave or vacation time. I think it was around 15 years ago when this stop being standard and employees were asked to pay for a portion of their insurance. Not only are their deductibles and co-pays going up, but the cost of their portion of the insurance seems to go up every year too. And for many working families, that $300 to $400 a month that gets taken out of their check each month for their insurance does hurt.

Originally Posted by ASB65

I do agree in principal with what you are saying. However, "the least of these" in our country do get medicaid. Their medical expenses are covered 100%, along with the cost of their prescriptions. I know this because I was "the least of these" at one point in our lives when my husband had gone back to school and our income was basically below the poverty line. We were without insurance and our then toddler, Matthew, needed stitches. I found out when I received the hospital bill for our emergency room visit that we qualified for medicaid. We were on it for the remaining time Tony was in school. They paid everything at 100% including the cost of any prescriptions we needed. I never once even saw a bill or had any co-pay costs.

I think it boils down to this. If you are very well off, you can afford good medical coverage. And if you are very poor you also get good medical coverage. It's the people in between who are struggling. And you are right about $3,000 being a lot of money to an awful lot of working families. To a lot of people, $3,000 might as well be a million.

I don't think the situation will get any better on it's own. I remember a time when people didn't have to pay for any portion of the cost of their insurance that they received through their employers. It was just a benefit of the job like paid sick leave or vacation time. I think it was around 15 years ago when this stop being standard and employees were asked to pay for a portion of their insurance. Not only are their deductibles and co-pays going up, but the cost of their portion of the insurance seems to go up every year too. And for many working families, that $300 to $400 a month that gets taken out of their check each month for their insurance does hurt.

I went through the process of getting my mother on Medicaid a couple of years ago after she had a stroke. I had to do this in case she had to have nursing home care. The rules are now almost on the verge of being rediculous. It's something like $600 a month income or less to qualify. If it is over that there is a spend down before any medical or drug coverage. Mom's was almost $300 a month. So she was the least of the least before she qualified.

I also have a friend who developed severe lung problems because of repeated bouts of pneumonia. Since she couldn't work due to her lung disease, she lost almost everything. She eventually qualified for Medicaid, but her spend down was also high. She was allowed a couple of tanks of portable oxygen for going out of the house for errands. If she ran out, she stayed home.

Unfortunately, this is common place these days. More and more people are falling through the cracks.

My mother is now in a hospice program at a skilled nursing facility for Medicaid patients. I pay her income less $30 a month to the nursing home. That $30 a month doesn't go very far. If I didn't pay for her clothes, and personal care items, she would just have to do without. When I look around that nursing home and see some of the straits people are in, I just want to cry.

"What we do to the least of those...................."

Originally Posted by James50

Deb, we are not running a charity. Profits are like air. The point of living is not to breathe, but without air you die. I guess the only thing that would satisfy you would be for us to pay all health expenses of all our employees and their families and for the employees to pay zero.

The point of my story is not to show that we are wealthy saints, but to show how the system works in practice. I thought we did pretty good. You are looking for perfection. You love to criticize when anyone makes a tough decision. I live in the place where the moral and financial meet. You apparently have the luxury of avoiding that place. I do not. Incidentally, the vaunted European systems generally require substantial payments by the patients.

The point you should be getting is that the current system leaves it to the employer to ration care. I don't want that job, but I am stuck with it. I wish we had single payer and someone else would take on the job of rationing care, but alas, that is not our world.

James50

I am not criticizing you for making a very tough decision. My main point was that you were holding up some imagined competition as a real plus. I was saying that the people who now have sub-standard insurance coverage may think differently about that so called competition.

More and more businesses are going through what you are going through. You and other owners do deserve a profit for your hard work. But ACA, in the long run will not be helping your bottom line.

The proof will be in the pudding. And it looks like the ACA pudding is already proving to be a drain on businesses.

Originally Posted by Deb C

I went through the process of getting my mother on Medicaid a couple of years ago after she had a stroke. I had to do this in case she had to have nursing home care. The rules are now almost on the verge of being rediculous. It's something like $600 a month income or less to qualify. If it is over that there is a spend down before any medical or drug coverage. Mom's was almost $300 a month. So she was the least of the least before she qualified.

I also have a friend who developed severe lung problems because of repeated bouts of pneumonia. Since she couldn't work due to her lung disease, she lost almost everything. She eventually qualified for Medicaid, but her spend down was also high. She was allowed a couple of tanks of portable oxygen for going out of the house for errands. If she ran out, she stayed home.

Unfortunately, this is common place these days. More and more people are falling through the cracks.

My mother is now in a hospice program at a skilled nursing facility for Medicaid patients. I pay her income less $30 a month to the nursing home. That $30 a month doesn't go very far. If I didn't pay for her clothes, and personal care items, she would just have to do without. When I look around that nursing home and see some of the straits people are in, I just want to cry.

"What we do to the least of those...................."

It could very well be that standards have tightened since we were in that situation. When Tony was in school we were making between $10,000 and $12,000 for a family of 4 (after Sam came along...big surprise...yes, I did have Sam on medicaid, but he certainly wasn't planned or even what I would consider an accident since I wasn't suppose to be able to get pregnant. But I digress.) Anway, after Tony finished school he did get a job almost immediately. But it was a temp job without insurance. Still we went from an income of $12,000 a year to $65,000. I went to the public aid and reported our income status change and expected to be dropped from medicaid immediately. But we weren't. We were given a 12 month extension. The case worker told me that was standard for people in our situation to help us get back on our feet. Within a few months Tony got a permanent job with insurance anyway. So the system help us back then.

This may not be the case anymore...We were living in Illinois at the time. Since medicaid is managed and handled at the state level it is also possible that different states have different standards.

Originally Posted by ASB65

We were living in Illinois at the time. Since Medicaid is managed and handled at the state level it is also possible that different states have different standards.

Yes, different states have different standards. It truly does matter where you live.

Originally Posted by Deb C

You and other owners do deserve a profit for your hard work.

Profits are earned. No one deserves profits for mere hard work.

Originally Posted by James50

The point you should be getting is that the current system leaves it to the employer to ration care. I don't want that job, but I am stuck with it. I wish we had single payer and someone else would take on the job of rationing care, but alas, that is not our world.

Doctors and hospitals do a great job of rationing care.

If you don't have insurace, and you are in a trauma ward, you have a higher chance of dying because you are self-pay, which means that lots of tests automatically become unnecessary.

Originally Posted by JonLaw

Doctors and hospitals do a great job of rationing care.

If you don't have insurace, and you are in a trauma ward, you have a higher chance of dying because you are self-pay, which means that lots of tests automatically become unnecessary.

Then we've got multiple parties involved with the rationing of care: employers, government, doctors, hospital administrators, and insurance actuaries.

Is that system really doing a "great job" when the administration of rationing becomes a big part of the cost of the product we're after? Why don't we ever encourage medical services from the supply side (scholarships, fellowships, more generous aid-for-service grants)?

I don't think there's any metric left that the American medical system leads in. More cost for less life expectancy. The EU even produces an equivalent level of research-hours with fewer conflicts of interest, and with the exception of the U.K. individuals are not limited to the governments' "basic minimum" rationing programs.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Then we've got multiple parties involved with the rationing of care: employers, government, doctors, hospital administrators, and insurance actuaries.

Is that system really doing a "great job" when the administration of rationing becomes a big part of the cost of the product we're after? Why don't we ever encourage medical services from the supply side (scholarships, fellowships, more generous aid-for-service grants)?

I don't think there's any metric left that the American medical system leads in. More cost for less life expectancy. The EU even produces an equivalent level of research-hours with fewer conflicts of interest, and with the exception of the U.K. individuals are not limited to the governments' "basic minimum" rationing programs.

From Leslie Fish's song "Paper Sea" --- based on her days in the bureaucracy --

"Why these endless papers, administers and more? All to guarantee there was no cheating by the poor, and for every dollar saved they spent a hundred on the chore of adding to the paper sea...."

Link included for your delectation.
http://www.elyrics.net/read/l/leslie...ea-lyrics.html

Don't have a medical emergency on the wrong side of town.

Originally Posted by New York Times

Hospital emergency rooms, particularly those serving the urban poor, are closing at an alarming rate even as emergency visits are rising, according to a report published on Tuesday.

Urban and suburban areas have lost a quarter of their hospital emergency departments over the last 20 years, according to the study, in The Journal of the American Medical Association. In 1990, there were 2,446 hospitals with emergency departments in nonrural areas. That number dropped to 1,779 in 2009, even as the total number of emergency room visits nationwide increased by roughly 35 percent.

Emergency departments were most likely to have closed if they served large numbers of the poor, were at commercially operated hospitals, were in hospitals with skimpy profit margins or operated in highly competitive markets

*****
mergency rooms at commercially operated hospitals and those with low profit margins were almost twice as likely as other hospitals to close, Dr. Hsia and her colleagues found. So-called safety-net hospitals that serve disproportionate numbers of Medicaid patients and hospitals serving a large share of the poor were 40 percent more likely to close.

In addition, hospital emergency rooms in the most competitive markets were 30 percent more likely than others to close.

“This suggests market forces play a larger role in the distribution and availability of care” in the United States, Dr. Hsia said, especially emergency care. “We can’t expect the market to allocate critical resources like these in an equitable way.”

Conditions in emergency rooms may be worsened by the new health care law, several experts said. The law will expand eligibility for Medicaid, the government health plan for the poor. Often beneficiaries turn to emergency rooms for care, because many physicians do not accept Medicaid payments, said Dr. Sandra M. Schneider, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Emergency rooms are required by law to provide treatment regardless of ability to pay. “People will have coverage, but there’s a concern that there will be nowhere for them to go,” Dr. Schneider said.

The so called free market model is operating as if health care services were a drive through restaurant. It doesn't work.
Single payer or at least a true public option are the only solution that will work. The oft posted statistics from the rest of the world show it.
But we will continue to worship in the myth and ritual of Randism until it literally kills us.

Originally Posted by Deb C

“When you look at a society you look at it through the lens of the least of these, the weak and the vulnerable; you are committed to loving them first, not exclusively, but first, and therefore giving them priority,” says West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of African American Studies and Religion at Princeton University.'

There is a huge disconnect in your last couple of paragraphs. Do you realize what you were saying? Interpretation: Our new policy will work unless you get sick.

May I suggest you look through the eyes of the poor and disadvantaged. A three thousand dollar difference can mean bankruptcy for the many people in this country.

Perhaps so. We've voluntarily been with a high deductible plan since 2008. It's saved us a lot of money over that time, though my wife developed a kidney stone last month which required an ER visit (these things never happen during regular operating hours) and set us back over $2,100 (but we've saved a lot more than that in premium costs since then). We're blessed enough to be able to afford that, but a lot of people can't.

I think the high deductible concept is a sound one for reducing costs to some extent, though in the absence of single payer or some such I think there would need to be some sliding deductible (or subsidies for the deductible) depending on one's ability to pay them. Consumers of health care need to have some sensitivity to cost, but it shouldn't be so strong that it prevents people who really need preventative care from being seen and treated. I think no matter what direction we take, there will be pitfalls and shortcomings in the solution we choose.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Don't have a medical emergency on the wrong side of town.

The so called free market model is operating as if health care services were a drive through restaurant. It doesn't work.
Single payer or at least a true public option are the only solution that will work. The oft posted statistics from the rest of the world show it.
But we will continue to worship in the myth and ritual of Randism until it literally kills us.

It appears that way too often in this country, we see through the lens of; well, it's working for me, so what's the problem? We know more about which star slept with who than the growing underclass and their multiplying problems in regards to decliniing health care.

I would love to have heard this in person.

Hoosier rips WellPoint’s greed, deceptive PR, and CEO pay

Posted by PNHP on Thursday, May 19, 2011

The following remarks were made by Karen Green Stone at the annual shareholders meeting of the giant health insurer WellPoint in Indianapolis on May 17. Green Stone is a member of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Care Plan, an affiliate of Physicians for a National Health Program. For the past several years she and other members of HCHP have challenged WellPoint’s profit-driven business practices on the floor of the annual meeting, urging shareholders to vote for a resolution demanding the company return to its nonprofit roots. They’ve received significant media coverage for their efforts, and their support for single-payer national health insurance has also been noted. An excerpt from her remarks on Tuesday was published in the Indianapolis Business Journal.

My name is Karen Green Stone from Bloomington. I own 15 shares.

Since last year’s meeting it’s estimated that another 50,000 people have died in the United States because they are uninsured. That equals the entire population of Kokomo [Ind.].

I’d like to start with comments made by friends and strangers I’ve talked to about coming to this meeting. “Give the bastards hell,” one said. “Go get ’em,” said another. “I hate Anthem,” a friend told me. Still another: “Don’t get me started.”

After hearing Wendell Potter speak in Bloomington on his book tour (I’m sure you all know Wendell Potter) a friend said to me, “I sometimes thought I was crazy, a conspiracy theorist – now I know they really are evil.”

I read and talked to Wendell about his book, “Deadly Spin.” What stirs my anger the most is the stealth and perversion you’ve used to shape public opinion. Your PR campaigns have nurtured fear and confusion in the minds of reasonable and caring Americans.

I imagine it must be very difficult hold steady the concept of “I’m a good person and I work for a corporation that by its very nature lacks compassion and is indifferent to suffering.” But good and intelligent people can sometimes fall into a trap.

Everyone in this room knows that it’s all about money and power. We know WellPoint’s sordid history of rescission, rigged software, cherry-picking of healthy patients and denial of care. We know about the barriers you build, making it so difficult that people give up or die fighting with you.

I hope that one or some of you in this room who feel the stirrings of having sold out will find the courage to go public with inside information because your business model is taking down America.

Angela, it takes 285 public school teachers in Indiana who earn an average of $47,000 a year to equal your 2010 compensation package of $13.4 million.

Would you kindly tell us why you are entitled to so much more than them?

some will see good, some will see red meat -

http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/20...re-is-working/

More Solid Proof That Obamacare Is Working

Recent data provided by the nation’s largest health insurance companies reveals that a provision of the Affordable Care Act – or Obamacare – is bringing big numbers of the uninsured into the health care insurance system.

And they are precisely the uninsured that we want– the young people who tend not to get sick.

The provision of the law that permits young adults under 26, long the largest uninsured demographic in the country, to remain on their parents’ health insurance program resulted in at least 600,000 newly insured Americans during the first quarter of 2011.

Wellpoint, the nation’s largest publicly traded health insurer with some 34 million customers, reports adding 280,000 new members in the first three months of 2011.

Add in the results of some of the other large health insurers including Aetna, who added just short of 100,000 newly insured to their customer base, Kaiser Permanente’s additional 90,000, and Highmark’s 72,000 new customers, and we begin to sense our health insurance pools are filling up with some badly needed young blood.

The Health & Human Services Department had estimated that the changes in the law would result in about 1.2 million new enrollees in 2011. However, according to Aaron Smith, the executive director of a Washington based non-profit that advocates for the young, it now looks as if that number will be exceeded.

This is very good news – particularly for those in the individual and small group markets that tend not to ‘self-insure’ as the larger corporations tend to do.

It is also very good news for those of us who write a large check every month for our health coverage.

For starters, every one of the young immortals we add to the rolls of the insured is one less young adult who will turn to the emergency room to fix a broken leg and then find themselves unable to pay the bill – leaving it to the rest of us to pay the tab.

And it gets better.

Because the under 26 crowd tends not to get sick, adding them to the insurance pools helps bring the very balance that was intended by the new law. The more healthy people available to pay for those in the pool who are ill (translation- the older people), the better the system works and the lower our premium charges should go.

One cannot help but notice that the health insurance companies turned in record profits for the first quarter of 2011 due, according the insurance companies, to fewer people seeking medical treatment.

When you add into their customer base a large number of people who are paying premiums but are less likely to get sick (the young adult demographic), this would be the expected result.

The question now is whether we allow the health insurance companies to hold onto the benefits of this reform by keeping the extra money they are pocketing or force them to hold the line on premiums as a result of their good fortune.

I’m betting that the policyholders, with the help of both state and federal governments, will win this battle.[yea? Well, we'll see. I believe the call on this is with each state's insurance regulatory commission so it will be state-by-state success or failure]

Meanwhile, things continue to improve on the small business front where business owners are being heavily incentivized to offer health care benefits to employees.

As I wrote in January, there has been a significant uptick in small businesses taking advantage of the tax benefits offered by the ACA to provide health insurance to employees where they previously did not do so.

According to a Kaiser survey, there has been a 46% uptick in businesses with less than 10 employees offering health benefits as compared to last year.

That is a big number.

Further improving the outlook, the IRS has, in the past month, issued guidelines for small businesses which very much bolster the tax credits offered. Included in those guidelines are provisions that clarify that the tax credit will not be reduced by a state health care tax credit or subsidy (except in limited circumstances to prevent abuse of the credit); that small businesses can receive the credit not only for traditional health insurance coverage but also for add-on dental, vision, and other limited-scope coverage; and detailed guidance on how a small business can determine whether it is eligible and how large a credit it will receive.

Health care reform is working, folks – and we have yet to get to the really big benefits which kick in come 2014.

Now that we are seeing some decidedly positive results, I am reminded of the GOP criticism that was leveled at the health care reform effort back when the issue was on the front burner of the national consciousness.

Once we get past the August 2009 era of the townhall meetings where the Republicans were pitching the false “death panel” narrative to great effect, we see that there are two primary challenges lodged against the law- the cuts to Medicare and the health insurance mandates.

Today, the GOP is pursuing the Ryan budget plan that would destroy Medicare as we know it, turning it into a voucher program that has no chance of keeping up with the rising costs of medical care and leaving seniors to face a future of inadequate and unavailable health care.

It is no secret that polling reveals that Americans are very much not in favor of Ryan’s plan.

So much is this the case, the health care issue that played such a large role in handing the House of Representatives over to the GOP last November, is now the very same issue that has become the focal point of the special election in New York’s 26th Congressional District where polling shows Democrat Kathy Hochul is leading Republican Jane Corwin in what has long been a safe GOP seat.

The reason Hochul may emerge victorious?

The GOP’s anti-Medicare plan.

The irony is exquisite.

As for the health insurance mandates, reviewing the field of the major GOP presidential contenders, some interesting data begins to emerge.

Newt Gingrich – for mandated health insurance before he was against it (although he may have already switched positions again this morning.)

Jon Huntsman – for mandated health insurance before he was against it. Indeed, mandates were a vital part of the health care reform Huntsman pushed as Governor of Utah before the GOP majority in the state legislature put the brakes on the idea.

Mitt Romney- as the true father of Obamacare, clearly he was for mandates before he was against them.

Only Tim Pawlenty appears to be in the clear on the topic.

The time has arrived for even the most critical to take another look at health care reform. Facts and figures don’t lie – if accurately presented.

And while the full jury won’t be in for a few more years, maybe the time has come for average Americans more interested in what is best for their country rather than grinding a political axe, to reconsider their views.

I think you’ll like what you see.

Okay, have at it!

The spinning of the proposed destruction of medicare is not working.

Originally Posted by Yahoo

Republicans are convinced that burnishing the public's view of their unpopular proposal to overhaul Medicare depends on assuring today's seniors that they won't be affected.

"The retirees are going to be taken care of; there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it," House Speaker John Boehner vowed in an interview with CBS last month. The plan's architect, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, has said time and again that the changes wouldn't affect anybody getting close to retirement. "We propose to not change the benefits for people above the age of 55," Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, insisted last week.

There's only one problem with the strategy: It's not true.

The policies in the House GOP budget, if enacted, would begin affecting millions of seniors almost immediately by increasing their costs for prescription drugs and probably long-term care. Further, Medicare costs could rise over time if healthier seniors choose to abandon the traditional benefit program

It isn't just the children and grandchildren who would get screwed, it really is everyone.

From Fark: "Why we must embrace Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it, as reported by that notorious right-wing fascist publication, Newsweek"

Almost everyone agrees that America’s health-care system has the incentives all wrong. Under the fee-for-service system, doctors and hospitals get paid for doing more, even if added tests, operations and procedures have little chance of improving patients’ health. So what happens when someone proposes that we alter the incentives to reward better care, not more care? Well, Rep. Paul Ryan and Republicans found out. No surprise: Democrats slammed them for “ending Medicare as we know it.”

This predictably partisan reaction — preying upon the anxieties of retirees — must depress anyone who cares about the country’s future. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that unless we end Medicare “as we know it,” America “as we know it” will end.

Here.

James50

Newsweek, like almost the entire mainstream media, IS notoriously right-wing (although not fascist).

Nor does it matter what they say at that or any other corporate publication. The fact remains that Ryan's plan has the popularity of a dead skunk on the highway, and is NOT going to become law. Not now. Not ever. And if the Republicans stick to their guns on this, they can kiss next year's election goodbye.

Originally Posted by James50

that notorious right-wing fascist publication, Newsweek"

Newsweek is not fascist. But they are corporate. And of course they know which side their bread is buttered on.

Now going beyond your somewhat pejorative attempt at sarcasm I can tell you more or less where a Ryan like healthcare future leads. It leads to America having a total breakdown in basic medical care as this rewarding of rent seeking by our predatory financial system results in a continued rise in penury by the people who can not afford the private policies increasingly using the emergency room for primary are.
What will happen next is a change in the law where emergency rooms no longer have to take everyone who come through the door.
Impossible you say?
Not in a society that values rent seeking over human life.

Single payer is the only way out that doesn't lead to something akin to our worst political sic fi nightmares.