The calculated strategy last year of allowing Congress to be at the center of the health care debate can be judged by the results. For the first time in our history each house passed a major bill that in the whole moves the debate, and the needs of the nation down the field to some form of resolution. That is a good thing.
The absence of a bill for the President to sign however is the part that reeks. Getting an ‘A” for effort does not mean much when health care is denied to many, premiums rise faster than smoke out a chimney on a cold morning, and coverage is denied for pre-existing conditions.
It is now the time, despite some who claim otherwise, for President Obama to get fully immersed in the health care debate. Today he did just that by putting his health reform plan on the table.
One of the key proposals gives the US government new power to block health insurers from imposing excessive premium increases.
It is the first time that Mr Obama, who has made healthcare a key priority, has put forward proposals himself.
He will on Thursday hold bipartisan talks at the White House on the issue.
The Republican reaction to Mr Obama’s efforts has so far been critical, with House Republican leader John Boehner saying the proposals took the same approach as that of previous Democratic bills.
“The president has crippled the credibility of this week’s summit [on Thursday] by proposing the same massive government takeover of healthcare based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected,” he said in a prepared statement.
Mr Obama’s proposal “helps over 31 million Americans afford healthcare who do not get it today – and makes coverage more affordable for many more,” the White House said on its website.
It gives the federal Health and Human Services Department – in conjunction with state authorities – the power to deny substantial premium increases, limit them, or demand rebates for consumers.
Mr Obama’s latest plan requires most Americans to carry health insurance coverage, with federal subsidies to help many afford the premiums.
It bars insurance companies from denying coverage to people with existing medical problems or charging them more.
A tax on high-cost health insurance plans objected to by House Democrats – and trade unions – is to be scaled back.
Mr Obama says reform of the healthcare system is crucial for the US economy to rein in costs over the long term.
The plan would put “our budget and economy on a more stable path by reducing the deficit by $100bn [£64.5bn] over the next 10 years – and more than $1tn [£644bn] over the second decade – by cutting government overspending and reining in waste, fraud and abuse”, he said.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 
The idea that government should limit premium increases is pure pupl stupidity based on what ignorant people assume to be the profit margins of health care companies–insurance plans and hospitals. In actuality, these industries generally have profit margins of 3.4% to 3.6%. While volume of sales might make these numbers look big, the reality is that the Obama plan will drive private insurance companies out of business because it will increasingly make them unprofitable. If one has to take on much greater risk without greater revenue (and under the Obama plan the healthy would be fools to buy insurance), the system descends into loss and disappears.
Now, this is what Obama wants to happen, since the democrat way is to promise more to drones. However, for those of us who think and contribute for those who don’t, all one has to do is look at how government has manages social security revenues or and of the other social programs which merely breed needy drones to knw that so called projections of deficit reductions are absolute fantasy. Obama care will be mishandled, the revenues will be wasted, rationing will be necessary.
Hey Patrick,
Thanks for the feedback.
If only the insurance companies had profit margins of 3.4% to 3.6%.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/02/obama-administration-attacking-insurance-company-profits-lumps-in-some-non-profits.html
The HHS secretary, the former Kansas insurance commissioner, noted that it was not just Anthem Blue Cross in California raising premiums on some customers, but other companies including Anthem of Connecticut and Anthem of Maine.
Sebelius noted in her letter last week to Anthem Blue Cross in California that its parent company, WellPoint Incorporated, earned $2.7 billion in just the last quarter of 2009. Quarterly sales went from $15.1 billion to $19 billion — a 26 percent rise.
“We’re seeing this at the same time where not only is there an economic downturn around the country, but we know that insurance companies are not suffering that same kind of downturn,” Sebelius said. “The five largest insurers in America have declared more than $12 billion worth of profits in 2009.”
At a different point in her press conference, Sebelius said, “Insurance companies in the health insurance market have made 250 percent profits over the last eight or nine years.”
After describing how “Anthem was alerting almost a million of its customers that it would be raising premiums by an average of 25 percent, with about a quarter of folks likely to see their rates go up by anywhere from 35 to 39 percent,” he said, “It’s not just Californians who are being hit by rate hikes. Last year, Michigan Blue Cross Blue Shield raised rates by 22 percent after asking to raise them by up to 56 percent.”
The Economist, Dr. Mark Perry, provided the figures I noted Here: http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/08/health-insurance-industry-ranks-86-by.html
Wellpoint, as a parent company, is recording its profits across the board. A of C and A of M are state branches. Either way, profit is a good thing. In order to maintain profits–the entire reason for being in business–these companies, especially those which deal with medicare patients are forced to charge their paying customers more to cover the cost. Medicare does not pay the full costs of the services its dependents require; therefore, those of us who work and have health insurance have to pay more. This is just basic economics. Everytime I pay my insurance–or the school district does–it pays for those who suck off the system, too.
Look for Wisconsin rates to skyrocket as the legislature passes badger care plus.
but let me ask you this: considering how our gutless politicians have run every major social welfare program over the last several decades, is there any indication that any administration–republican or democrat–could do so efficiently? All have noted that changes need to be made in the health care payment system, but doing so through government must strike anyone with a slight awareness of how the government is best at waste and fraud would see the Obama plan–or any republican plan based on heavy government intervention as foolish. Ask yourself this: What have republicans and democrats done with all the money payed into social security?
There is no doubt that there are aspects to government run programs that are in need of remodeling and adjustments. But that does not make the program unneeded, or the initial reason to create it flawed. Government programs are no different than that of other large organizations. Take a certain car company in the news as of late that got to the point they did all by themselves in the private sector. There is no perfect way to run a government program anymore than there is flawless plan to run a private business. In the end humans are flawed, the ‘landscape’ in which they both operate is fluid, and the many variables at play are always in flux.
As to the health care issue there would be no hue and cry if the private markets had worked. But they have not worked. For decades. As a result people look to government for the answers. If over the many decades the private sector had found a way to address the needs of the people government would not be called on to help. Everyone in the nation is still not covered, costs are continually climbing, emergency rooms are often the means that a sizable segment of the nation gets care at a high cost to everyone…..you know the list.
We have different philosophical views of government and the role it should play in the day-to-day lives of the citizens. But for every program you think unsound I can point to one such as meat inspection standards that you would have a hard time living without.
Now don’t tell me you are vegetarian!
Have a nice evening.