DES MOINES, Iowa — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Monday proposed a health care plan that would require every American to have health insurance just like states require drivers to buy auto insurance.

The so-called "individual mandate" — the centerpiece of her "American Health Choices Plan" — would cost the federal government $110 billion a year and would help provide coverage for 47 million Americans without health care coverage. It is similar to a proposal offered by rival John Edwards. Barack Obama's health care plan does not have the same mandate.

"I believe everyone — every man, woman and child — should have quality, affordable health care in America," the New York senator told an audience in Iowa, vowing to accomplish the goal in her first term.

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There is a real and dangerous health care crisis going on in this country. I live in NY and it is ridiculous here. If you and your spouse make less than 30,000 a year, then your premium is subsidized by the state, but it is still $500 a month and you can't write that off at the end of the year. That is $6000 a year out of $30,000 or less. If you make more than that, comprehensive insurance runs $1000-1200 a month. That is insane. Most one bedroom apartments in a decent (non-lethal) neighborhood runs around $1000. The health insurance is the same or more than rent! Something needs to be done. Not everyone has a job through which they can participate, or what is offered is lame. I had a policy that paid $50 if you go to the emergency room. I had an allergic reaction to a medication and had to go. The bill was over $2000. Thanks for the fifty bucks. I'm still paying on that. We need something. Maybe when the war is over, we can bring some of that money back home and invest it in a healthcare system that works.

There's no way Hillary's proposal can work without you having to pay just as much or more. If she gets her way you'll be paying the cost of insurance the same way you have to pay for insurance on your car. She doens't have enough power to take on the FDA/drug companies. What she's really suggesting is that everyone pays for insurance whether they can afford it or not!

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"Tude"

" A good attitude will get you through almost anything"

Ok, I find it amazing that so many people are against this plan. Here's the reality of the situation...

1) Yes, it will be required, but the costs to the INDIVIDUAL, will be based entirely on their income. NOT RISK ASSESMENT! What this means is that the people who can't afford these insanely over-bloated rates will now be able to get health-care.

2) Those costs will be covered by simply allowing ONE tax-break to expire... This tax increase will come from those who make MORE than $250,000 a year. Quite honestly, if they don't like it, go cry somewhere else, your taxes will be used to better the entire country.

3) If you like the plan you have, you can KEEP IT. However, you will get a tax benefit. In other words, everyone sees cost savings.

Ok, I am 25 years old. No major medical problems. I have some medical bills that I am still trying to pay off. I have to avoid the doctors office, because I owe them money, and have no coverage to pay for it. Why? Two reasons. I am in a higher risk level, because of my father's heart problems, which ultimately caused his death at age 51. I also missed the "open enrollment" period here at SNI, because they routed me everywhere but to a terminal for over a month and a half during this period last year.

Independent insurance would KILL ME. I am having a rough time covering my bills as they are. Litterally I can't wait until January, because my car will be paid off, and that's $208/month I can use elsewhere. I don't have the ability to pay another month's rent every month for health insurance.

This really only will be negatively affecting the people who make more than that $250,000 a year. Honestly... I could care less. Take one for the country. MOST Americans do not make that much money. So the minority should not get to say that the majority should suffer just to save a few bucks every year.

This plan is perhaps the most compromising health care proposal of all time. I personally believe that this is the single BEST thing to come out a politician's camp in DECADES. It helps everyone, why is that so wrong?

Before you say it. You need a license or permit to carry a gun, own a gun, drive a car, fly a plane, run a business, etc... So why not make health care one of those things? Most states mandate auto-insurance.

Now, will this make me vote for her? I don't know, it depends on the rest of what she has to say. Honestly, I don't like ANY of them, from EITHER side.

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Tuesday, September 18, 2007

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Hillary Clinton rolled out her healthcare plan on Monday, which to a great degree is 'Hillarycare revisited' from 1993. She has amended her plan that was doomed to failure 14 years ago, but the supposed 'new and improved' updated version still carries highly problematic features.

The most glaring and obvious problem with Hillary's proposal is that it places the bulk of the burden for healthcare on the backs of U.S. employers. Small businesses and entrepreneurs will suffer the most, many of whom will be unable to withstand such a financial burden.

These will be forced out of business.

Under Hillarycare II, American employers will be required by federal law to provide health insurance to their employees or pay into a fund that helps provide coverage for the uninsured.

The immediate consequence of such a provision is obvious--employers will eliminate jobs.

For example, say I own and operate a small business that relies on 10 employees with minimal skills, working at slightly above minimum wage. If I am suddenly forced to provide healthcare coverage for these employees, immediately I am placed in a terribly unnecessary catch-22. I can keep all the workers, provide the coverage, and go out of business, or I can eliminate eight jobs and keep two so that I can afford to provide them with health coverage.

My business does not make enough money to survive under Hillary's proposal without eliminating jobs.

The only other alternative is to go out of business, meaning that none of the original 10 employees will have jobs.

The American service industry relies on the unskilled, minimum wage worker to keep costs down. Many of these workers are not provided with health insurance coverage. If these employers must now provide such coverage, not only will their personnel costs skyrocket, but they will either pass these costs along to the consumer, resulting in skyrocketing inflation, or they will begin massive layoffs.

It is not the responsibility of the American employer to provide healthcare coverage to its employees. Corporations began this practice during the post-WWII boom years when companies lured quality, dedicated, and loyal employees to its rosters by giving them an incentive package to close the deal.

This way the employees were happy, and the employers had long-term, valuable employees for life.

As American society has become more mobile and as both employers and employees have seemed to devalue the mutual loyalty of the status quo, employers in many cases have no longer felt it necessary to provide health insurance.

By the same token, employees have increasingly felt no loyalty to the company at all, and will skip from job to job and company to company, depending on who makes the best offer at the time.

But the bottom line is that nowhere is it written in stone that U.S. companies have any obligation whatsoever to provide health insurance for their employees. And if they are forced by federal law to do so, look for massive layoffs as jobs are eliminated in an attempt to contain spiraling costs.

The way to address this problem is to make it attractive for employers, even small business owners, to provide health coverage. One way to do that is to allow small business and single-employee/owner entrepreneurships to buy into group insurance plans, thus vastly reducing the costs of providing the coverage.

A second problem inherent in Hillarycare II is that there is absolutely no mention of the fact that individual citizens should be encouraged to take some personal responsibility for their own healthcare. Those of us with a libertarian bent have long advocated for personal medical spending accounts to which workers and individual citizens can contribute.

These accounts can be opened through one's employer, and a predetermined amount, decided on by the employee, is deducted from one's paycheck each pay period to go into the account.

The value of these individualized healthcare spending accounts is that it teaches sound principles of economics and personal responsibility. Hillary's concept of health insurance takes the matter totally outside the realm of personal human responsibility and places it squarely in the realm of the federal government and employers.

If ever there were a concept that teaches by example that the world owes a person a living, and insurance to boot, then this is it. Why not just go ahead and say that U.S. employers owe their workers a new car every four years? And if for some reason the employer can't do it, then the government will.

These kinds of ideas originate in the land where candy canes grow on trees and where where the rocks yield rich Hersey's chocolate.

Finally, Hillary's proposal mandates that those citizens who cannot afford health insurance be covered by the federal government. This would essentially be an expansion of the current Medicaid program.

Several questions must be asked of the candidate lest such a thing be allowed to go unchallenged. First, what are the criteria to be used to determine whether or not one is able to afford health insurance? Who sets such criteria? What kind of bureaucracy will need to be put into place to manage such a massive expansion of government power?

Another vital question revolves around choice and empowerment. If and when these who cannot afford health insurance are placed on the rolls of a government insurance program, do they get to choose their own physician? Can they change physicians if they are not happy?

These issues must be addressed before a significant portion of the population, if not the majority of the population, will support such a mammoth plan such as Hillarycare II. As we have noted many times, we are open to methods of making provision for those who lack health insurance, but so far we have not seen a plan we could support.

So far, the plans put forth by the likes of Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and even Mitt Romney run a high risk of making the dog deathly sick in an attempt to heal part of its tail.








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Good post ronno!

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"Tude"

" A good attitude will get you through almost anything"

Maybe if the employers had kept caring about it's employees they wouldn't be job-hopping. Take Wal-Mart, they offer healthcare insurance... But they also make it extremely difficult to afford it, so many don't bother, which saves the COMPANY millions upon millions. When these uninsured people go to the ER, then the hospital doesn't get paid. Why don't they get paid? Because these very same people who can't afford the insurance, also can't afford to fork out $1000+ in a shot. The rest of the country (everyone, from the wealthy, to the lower middle class) shoulders the burden in the form of increasingly high rates.

As for "spending accounts." WHAT A JOKE!!! I had the option to use one of those. I chose not to. The reason is because it had spending limits, and restrictions, and if you didn't use it by the end of the year.... You lost the remaining balance!!!!! Where did that money go? I don't know either. Somebody is getting rich off that stupid idea.

Maybe if the spending account rolled over to the following year?
Maybe if it was able to be used for ANY medical cost?
Maybe if it gained interest?
Maybe if it actually helped deflect ultra-high co-pays, and deductibles?

I do not need such an account, because it basically pays for the drugs, which I have, fortunately enough, never been too burdonned with. For me, it was a waste of my money. For someone paying for prescriptions all year... Maybe they could get some benefit out of it, but all it really does it shift where the money comes out at. You're paying the same amount, just it goes to this "account" before you spend the money on it. Then you have to wait for reimbursement, which can take forever, and things get lost.

Face it, you can poke holes in ANY plan. The trick is to decide which one needs the LEAST work, to get the job done. You want to slaughter her plan. Show me someone else who's is better.

I want to see who really is going to be the best on this issue, because it is a problem in this country. Will the Republicans have a better plan? Maybe. Show me. This IS a voting point for me. I am not affraid to vote all over the board to get progress.

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I'm not saying make it free to the people, just reasonable. Once it's reasonable to everyone, costs will go down, and so will the rates for the companies.

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Health savings account

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



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A Health Savings Account (HSA) is a [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. -advantaged medical savings account available to taxpayers in the [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. who are enrolled in a [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. (HDHP). The funds contributed to the account are not subject to income tax at the time of deposit. Funds may be used to pay for qualified medical expenses at any time without tax liability. Withdrawals for non-medical expenses are treated very similarly to those in an IRA account in that they may provide tax advantages if taken after retirement age, and they incur penalties if taken earlier. These accounts are a component of [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. .

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Defined narrowly, consumer driven health care (CDHC) refers to health insurance plans that allow members to use personal [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. (HSAs), [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. (HRAs), or similar medical payment products to pay routine health care expenses directly, while a high-deductible [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. policy protects them from catastrophic medical expenses. High-deductible policies cost less per month than low-deductible policies, but the user needs to pay more upfront for medical procedures.


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I think it is very sweet that Hillary doesn't want us to get sick.

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Gun carrying, Pro-choice Blue Dog Democrat and damn proud of it!