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I'm not up on my 19th century Euro history. but possibly because there was no real "Germany" in 1850, and the area was a collection of small, weak states that were later united and federated into modern Germany?
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Yeah, the government will subsidize private insurances rates as they rise to infinity and none of us can afford them anymore. How is that anything other than corporate welfare? Fucking call it what it is, sheep.
Are you peeping through my window again, pervert?
Again - that's just adopting my old argument. "People should get off their lazy asses and get insurance." Except you said I was full of shit when it was my idea, and not the Democratic Party's.
Also, there's a huge fucking difference between people should get insurance and everybody must buy insurance. This is so far beyond the pale, it's gross. It's a cash giveaway, pure and simple. Government grabs your cash and gives it to the insurance company.Last edited by Blackflag; 03-22-2010, 10:29 PM.Comment
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Originally posted by KristyOriginally posted by cadaverdogComment
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Oh please! The insurance lobby paid off all the psuedo-libertarians you listen to to lobby against it. You really think this is a windfall for them?
Just checking to make sure no children are being harmed...Are you peeping through my window again, pervert?
Apparently, they have to be induced to do so. Just like no one would register their cars if there were not police to ticket or arrest them for not doing so...Again - that's just adopting my old argument. "People should get off their lazy asses and get insurance." Except you said I was full of shit when it was my idea, and not the Democratic Party's.
Bullshit. If my tax dollars are paying for other people getting sick without health insurance, then I have a say!Also, there's a huge fucking difference between people should get insurance and everybody must buy insurance. This is so far beyond the pale, it's gross. It's a cash giveaway, pure and simple. Government grabs your cash and gives it to the insurance company.
And you have no idea on how everything is going to work. It's not a final program, but a work in progress and the insurance lobby is hardly jumping for joy today. They're far more accountable than they've ever been...Comment
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Was kidding nick.
It was known as prussia prior to WWI, I do know that. And I think auctually there was some weird form of backlash against German Catholics (which my ancestors were) from the Baden-Württemberg/Black Forest areas at the time, which I learned in my World History from 1500-1945 class. Also a quick wiki look said there was some form of a revolution during the time.Still waiting for a relevant Browns TeamComment
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No, apparently, they bought every Democratic congressman who voted for it.
By Ron Paul propaganda? They should be so lucky, you democratic shill.
That's fine. But admit you adopted an argument you previous thought was shit, because the democratic party endorsed it.
In fact, they are jumping for joy. They just got millions of new customers. Customers who will be forced - by law - to pay whatever rate they pull out of their ass. And if the customers can't cover your rate anymore, the government will underwrite it.
We've now found a racket that's better than running a casino.Comment
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AND WHY THE FUCK HAVE WE NOT STRIPPED THEM OF THE ANTI-TRUST STATUS???
[rhetorical yelling, nevermind ]
Originally posted by KristyOriginally posted by cadaverdogComment
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Something like that. I think Prussia was one of the dominant states, but is only one region of many in Germany...
I used to live, as did Sensible Shoes, in a town largely settled by German farmers that had one of the oldest continuous Catholic parishes in the United States west of the Hudson or something like that...Comment
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Oh please...
No. His commemorative thong you wear...By Ron Paul propaganda? They should be so lucky, you democratic shill.
Actually, I know you're fluctuating from completely characterizing my arguments to just making shit up...That's fine. But admit you adopted an argument you previous thought was shit, because the democratic party endorsed it.
But they can't just "pull any rate" out of their ass!In fact, they are jumping for joy. They just got millions of new customers. Customers who will be forced - by law - to pay whatever rate they pull out of their ass. And if the customers can't cover your rate anymore, the government will underwrite it.
We've now found a racket that's better than running a casino.Comment
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Do you ever read a newspaper?
First wave of health-care changes will target insurers with new rules
By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 23, 2010; A08
In affixing his signature Tuesday to comprehensive health-care legislation, President Obama will set in motion a fundamental shift across a sprawling industry, from insurers who will face an expanding list of restrictions to hospitals and doctors confronted with new incentives to practice more-efficient care.
The law will have a gradual impact on many consumers. In coming months, parents will be able to keep their children on their plans until age 26; people over 65 will get broader coverage from the Medicare drug benefit; and insurers will be barred from revoking coverage when people get sick and refusing to cover children with medical conditions.
The requirement that most everyone carry health insurance will not kick in until 2014, along with subsidies to help people pay for coverage.
But the law's impact will be more profound for the health-care industry in a country where one in six dollars is spent in that sector. Every part of the industry will be affected, with pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and makers of devices subject to new rules, billions of dollars in fees and relinquished reimbursements in return for the business growth that expanded coverage will bring.
By far, the most direct effect will be on insurers. Over the next several years, health insurance will evolve into something more closely resembling a publicly regulated utility: It will have a guaranteed base of customers, thanks to the coverage requirement, but it will be bound by much tighter restraints than today's individual insurance market, where regulations vary widely from state to state.
"This legislative force is significant," said David Cordani, chief executive of Cigna, a major insurer. "It will drive, over the next couple decades, unprecedented changes, all of which aren't really understood yet."
Starting this year, insurers will no longer be able to cap lifetime benefits, which will scramble the actuarial formulas many insurers use and potentially lead them to raise prices for individual policies. But their ability to raise rates sharply for individual insurance plans will be limited by a rule, to take effect next year, requiring insurers in the individual market to spend 80 cents of every premium dollar on claims, a higher "medical loss" ratio than many now adopt.
Some worry that there will be little to keep insurers from driving up their insurance rates for individual policies, which people without employer-based coverage can purchase on a new state-run "exchange" starting in 2014. Liberals argued unsuccessfully for a government-run plan, or "public option," to guard against such rate increases, and Obama proposed a new federal rate-oversight authority, but congressional rules kept it from being included in the final package.
But industry analysts predict that rate increases will be held in check somewhat by the new rules on medical loss ratios and by heightened competition for customers, who will have more choice of plans than they currently do in the individual market. "They're free to price themselves into oblivion if they choose to do so," said Sheryl Skolnick, an industry analyst with CRT Capital Group.
Taking a particularly big hit to their business model would be insurers who rely heavily on selling Medicare Advantage policies. The legislation sharply reduces federal subsidies for those plans, which analysts say will probably lead many smaller insurers to stop offering them.
Overall, industry analysts say that the growth in customers could come close to balancing the cost of the new regulations for insurers, with smaller profit margins on a broader base of business. Ana Gupte, an analyst with Sanford Bernstein, said insurance stocks held up Monday because most of the negative impact of the legislation had been priced in long ago. Insurers "come out a net negative, but not severely net negative," she said.
The impact on hospitals and doctors will be less immediate. Industry groups for medical providers agreed to several hundred billion dollars in reductions in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to help pay for the overhaul, on the theory that expanding coverage would mean that more patients would be paying for the care they get.
The cuts will be not be easy to absorb, but hospitals will have several years to prepare, said Thomas P. Glynn, chief operating officer for the Partners HealthCare hospital network in Massachusetts, where a universal coverage law was approved in 2006. "At least it was done in a way where we can know what it is upfront and can start managing against it," he said.
The legislation headed to Obama has an array of pilot programs and incentives for providers to work more cost-effectively, including basing Medicare payments on a patient's condition instead of on the number of procedures. But overall, analysts say, it will probably be a boon for most hospitals and doctors, because it will make it less likely that they will be faced with patients who cannot pay and show up too late for treatment.
"You don't pour nearly a trillion dollars into the health-care space without some of the money flowing down into the hospital system and other providers," said Skolnick, the analyst. "There will be more people getting care from the right channels at the right time, and more of the care will be compensated."
Some experts say a shortcoming in the legislation is that it does not have a deeper impact on medical providers. They predict that the government will have to take more action later to restrain the growth in health-care costs by holding down the prices charged by providers, whether through a public option or rate-setting.
But the new system at least creates more of an incentive for future cost control: Now that the government will be subsidizing people's coverage, it will have more of a stake in keeping medical costs in check.
"In terms of the way providers are affected, it's probably not as big a change as it should have been," said John Holahan of the Urban Institute. "But you have the structure to deal with that in place, going forward. . . . If premiums continue to skyrocket, even with subsidies, insurance will be deemed unaffordable, and the whole thing will unravel."
Although much of the attention has focused on the health-care industry, the law also will carry an immediate impact for many employers. Businesses with fewer than 25 employees will start receiving tax credits to help them buy coverage, and large employers who pay for retirees' drug coverage must immediately declare, for accounting purposes, whether they intend to keep the coverage. The other option would be to send their retirees into Medicare's drug benefit program by 2013, when the government cuts the subsidy employers receive to offer their coverage.
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BTW, I've never said this was a perfect bill and that I agree with all of it. But it's a start and a work in progress with ongoing corrections...
I hope a public option with become inevitable for low income Americans...Comment
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I think healthcare staff should get half-off, like Mr. Kim lets me pay half for my meals here in Northridge. And not just where I work, ANY and I mean ANY KFC I show my employee card.
Free anything just because you're an employee is always a bad idea because then you get sidedeals cut, and the next thing you know you're in competition with your employees!Comment
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