Universal Healthcare

Remove all ads!

You must mean the insurance companies will have to change the 55 pages of fine print that comes with the policy, you know the part that explains how the client will NOT receive the coverage he/she thought they were paying for. Hear that sound, NOG? That's me playing the world's smallest violin for those insurance companies.

 

Aldeth, I never said regulation was bad. I never said we shouldn't do it. I never argued against it. Read what I say next time before attributing arguements to me that I'm not making. What I said is that people won't be allowed to keep their existing plans. And that is supported by everything I know about the plan (which is it sounds like the Senate plan, and that was a conditional part of my arguement).

Here's how it went:
Obama says you can keep your plans.
I say we won't be able to (if it's like the Senate plan).
You ask me what I'm talking about.
I cite regulations which will require major revisions to pretty much all plans, meaning you can't keep your old plans.

Now, as for the actual regulations, I like some and I dislike others. The requirement for a ratio of how much is charged compared to how much is spent on care is a good idea. The requirement that companies ignore drug abuse is not. The bit about not dropping people for having high bills is good. The bit about not refusing people on pre-existing conditions is iffy. The bit on not being able to charge more for people who cost more is bad.

 

You carp about it enough, NOG. It's really hard to understand where you are coming from sometimes, since you expresss yourself so poorly in this regard. You complain about "too much regulation" in your posts," but you never bother to qualify your comments by saying what you mean by "too much" regulation (like specific regulations). Really, you should take the time to qualify some these pointless platitudes.

You should try more clarity in your comments. It would help us out.

 

Chandos, I've repeatedly said I had nothing against the principle of regulation, and even that I though it was the best solution. Also, I just did go through some examples. Now, unless you want me to post the entire 1000+ pg Senate bill and go through a "Go, No Go" on each point, I think that'll have to serve.

More to the point, though, you and Ragusa (and less often Aldeth and Coin) seem to have an issue with assuming I directly oppose whatever you view is in a thread, when I never say any such thing.

 

Yes, you explained all that afterwards.

 

Yes, after you assumed a point I never even came close to making.

 

So what is your point?

 

My point is that I say something, and you argue against a point I never even came close to, a point I actually specifically spoke against many times earlier. It's like:

Chandos: Terrorism is bad, now who wants icecream?
DR: Hey, I like chocolate icecream.
Tal: Nah, vanilla's better.
Chandos: Bah, go for strawberry, it's the best.
NOG: What? A few brands of strawberries fund terrorists! How can you support terrorists, Chandos?! Everyone knows terrorism is evil and the bane of humanity! What's wrong with you?

... Only, umm, more complicated. And not involving icecream.

Anyway, my point is that I've spoken in favor of regulation several times in this thread, so how could you and Aldeth assume I was opposing all forms of it?

Dangit, now I'm thinking about icecream!

 

That's one of my motto's NOG. When in doubt, go for the Ice Cream. It's always your friend!

 

I was basing my thoughts on what you were saying here:

When I asked you about those "massive regulatory changes," and what they were, you came back with this snarky comment:

I shouldn't have to "go read for myself" when you are the one bringing it up and using it to rebuff Obama's comment that he wasn't "allowing people to keep their current plans." I was wondering how you were linking the two ideas togehter. Then when I make a snarky comment about how the insurance companies are going to have to change the fine print so that people can better understand their plans, you go and negative rep me for it. And to top it off, now you are crying that Aldeth and I are making assumptions about your posts. I really don't care if you want to negative rep me for not liking the insurance companies. What I care about is you proving one of these bold points you are making about Obama's plan, which you have yet to do. Instead, you have been whining about some of us who are just trying to figure out what your ideas are about Obama's plan.

Somehow you went from saying that Obama is not allowing people to keep their current plans, to what you think about regulation in a more general sense. I'm just waiting for you to finish your original point. I understood that you believed that a small amount of regulation was OK, because you made this comment on post #313:

I'm looking for this "massive excessive regulation" that would "not allow people to keep their current plans." That, as I commented would have to be more than just the "fine print" in a client's policy that the insurance companies use to deny coverage. There is nothing wrong with that type of regulation, IMO and I can't see how you can remotely justify that as a claim that Obama is not letting people keep their current plans. If you make sweeping generalized comments, you should be able to back them up, rather than complaining about not being understood and then making cheesy comments like: "go read it for yourself."

 

Chandos, I may have misinterpreted your and Aldeth's posts (though I don't think so, looking at how things went from there). My point was:
Obama says you can keep your current plans (i.e. you won't be forced to take the new plans the bill will create if you don't want to).
The bill only allows for very minor grandfathering, and no long-term grandfathering.
The bill also consists of some 1000+ pages, mainly of regulations of various kinds.
I listed some of the more extreme examples so you could see that it really would require changes in the existing plans to meet those regulations.
Since the bill won't let people grandfather in their plans for long, and it won't let probably any existing private plan pass, that means you can't keep your current plan, which means either the bill has radically changed or Obama doesn't know what he's talking about (or he's lying, but since that's now a slur I suppose I shouldn't mention the possibility, even though I consider it better than him just spewing random guesses without doing any research).

I listed enough to prove my point. Even you admitted they'd have to change (by calling major provisions 'fine print'). If you want more details and examples, you can look through the bill itself. I'm not going to post all 1000+ pages here for you.

How about mandated coverage for end of life counseling? Even if the patient isn't mandated to take it, the companies are (or at least were for a while, I'm not sure now) mandated to cover it. How about removing clauses about drug-abuse and their impacts on coverage? How about major price changes for either the elderly or the young (or splitting the difference)? Despite what you call it, that's not 'fine print' stuff.

 

Well, that's not really the same thing and you know it. You may not be aware of it, but insurance companies rewrite your plans all the time anyway, and so does your employer, so there is no way that ANYONE can say that your plan through your employer will not change in the future regardless. Get real.

What "bill" are you talking about? There are about 3 different bills in Congress, atm. And Obama is now proposing his own bill. It will probably be a reworking of the Senate bill with the changes that he outlined in his address to Congress.

Just what do you suppose the term "insurance reform" means? Of course there will be more regulation, that's the whole point of having reform in the first place. We can disagree over what is "excessive" in this instance, but your major notion that "Obama doesn't know what he's talking about" is bogus. In fact, it's ill-informed, since you don't even know which bill Obama is proposing.

Prove that it's in the Senate bill.

Of course it will change. That's what we are fighting for. That's the point of "reform." It's to change the way insurance companies currently do business.

The elderly receive their insurance through Medicare, which is a separate program.

I did not ask you to, and again you know it; only to list the ones that you were referring to in your post. Even you admitted some were good, but that some were excessive. So which is it?

It seems to me that you haven't proven anything in your post, except that you want to consider health care reform as "losing your current insurance." While the terms and conditions of your plan can change anyway, according to what your employer is willing to provide for you, reform will make changes to the way insurance companies do business, and in some instances it will prevent the insurance companies from changing your terms and conditions to suit themselves. Hence the term, "reform."

Obama outlined how insurance companies often find loopholes in the fine print to drop clients from treatment that they are entitled to, so in that sense it does more to preserve your current insurance, than you normally would if the insurance companies remain less regulated than they are now. And whenever your policy expires, insurance companies have the option of changing the price you pay anyway, so you are wrong there as well, if you are somehow believing that your plan will never change in regard to price. Good luck if you think your plan is not going to change, whether or not there is health care reform.

 

No, NOG, the section on end of life counseling did not mandate that private insurance companies cover it. It simply added it to the list of services that medicare will pay for. Seeing as how you got this detail wrong, I'm inclined to ask you to substantiate your other examples, too.

 

Chandos, get real. Most of those amount to an updated drug list, a change in premium, or adding or removing a doctor. We're not talking about major policy changes.

Obama's presenting his own bill now? Man, things are really going to get confusing. Well, I think all in all I was probably talking about Obama's bill (with the caveat that it only applies if it keeps most of the Senate bill).

Again, note the caveat. If Obama has really changed things enough that companies won't be forced to meet these regulations (in which case what's the point?), then I admit I was wrong. If he hasn't, though, then I stand by my post.

I think this is the big difference between us. I think the [i[business[/i] needs reform, not the plans. Most Americans seem to be happy with their plans. It's the muckety-muck on the business end they're unhappy with.

Not all of them. In fact, none of my grandparents were ever on Medicare. They always had the money for their own plans (i.e. it lasted until they died). Call it good retirement planning. The point is, they were on private plans.

Originally, it mandated not only that it be provided for, but that it happen every five years, for all elderly (not just on Medicare), whether they wanted it or not. I know that the mandate it happen was removed, but that people still complained, so more was cut. I don't know how much (if anything) remains now.

 

Yeah, not so much. You forget that I AM a policy holder: Would you like to pay for my family's recent upchrages on deductions? I didn't think so. For you to attempt to marginalize the ill effects of the insurance company policy changes would be funny if it wasn't so dishonest. Before you start that stuff, try to remember that I'm a policy holder.

A change in premium is not a major policy change? What a crock.

What a surprise for you.

I'd call it something else, but to each his own. Different folks want to pay for different things for their own reasons.

My mom was paying for her own private plan after she retired as well until I showed her how stupid it was to be throwing her money away for no good reason.

And do you know what helped to bring that on? If you guessed that it would be Republicans meddling in people's medical decisions that would be correct.

 

Wrong again. There was no such mandate and the language was not changed. It was simply never there. In a different thread here in the alleys I actually quoted the text as written -- and to make sure no one would accuse me of pulling a bait and switch by posting "more recent" text instead of the original, I went out of my way to use a source that hadn't been updated since July 29th. The language is not there. The language was not there. The language was never there. Check it out yourself if you want.

Spoiler

Subject to paragraphs (3) and (4), the term ‘advance care planning consultation’ means a consultation between the individual and a practitioner described in paragraph (2) regarding advance care planning, if, subject to paragraph (3), the individual involved has not had such a consultation within the last 5 years. Such consultation shall include the following:

(A) An explanation by the practitioner of advance care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to.

(B) An explanation by the practitioner of advance directives, including living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses.

(C) An explanation by the practitioner of the role and responsibilities of a health care proxy.

(D) The provision by the practitioner of a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families with advance care planning … .

(E) An explanation by the practitioner of the continuum of end-of-life services and supports available, including palliative care and hospice, and benefits for such services and supports that are available under this title.

(F)(i) Subject to clause (ii), an explanation of orders regarding life sustaining treatment or similar orders …

Aside from the fact that this provision merely allows medicare to pay for a living will once every five years, it never mandated it, and the provision never forced private insurers to cover it. With this provision, living wills are every bit as mandatory for seniors as midwife services and artificial limbs.

 

I just found a pretty easy to understand chart that shows how healthcare would work under the democrat's bill.

 

Sorry for that little bit of threadomancy, but I think NOG has made similar statements in the past and I do not see how this idea works. What proof is there that the mere existence of a public plan will kill the private ones? IMO it would only happen if it is much more versatile and desirable than they are.

 

It would force companies to be more competitive, but if the big insurance companies did not clean up their acts, a public plan would be more desirable. Remember how big pharma was supposed to clean up its act after the big importation scare? How if they didn't become more competitive we were going to allow imported prescription drugs? You see how far that went. Had we allowed it, I wonder how that would have worked out for them. I guess people in the northern border states still drive into Canada to get their prescriptions filled. The rest of us just get screwed because of all the idiotic propaganda about how much worse the drugs are in the rest of the world. How stupid is that?

 

No, Chandos, it's not. Tell me, if they up the price of apples by 20 cents a pound, have they drastically changed the product? I know it's not quite the same, but it's similar. And remember, I'm a policy holder, too.

Y'know, there was a time when taking a free handout that you didn't need was frowned upon. I'm sorry to see that that time has passed.

Oh, I'm not arguing that point. I don't strictly know that it's true, but I wouldn't be surprised. What I'm arguing is that it was, in fact, there.

Well, there's your problem. You're looking at the House bill. I was talking about the Senate bill. You know, the one that massively regulates the private industry as opposed to setting up a public option?

Yeah, I don't think that's so much how it will work as how someone wants it to work. I have yet to hear anything that says there will be (lasting) private options outside of the exchanges, and even if there are, what's the point in keeping the public from buying them? Moreover, everything I've seen says the vast majority of companies will probably drop health care because the fines for not having it are cheaper. Mind you, I don't think that's a bad thing, just a destabalizing thing atm.

No, if the plan even comes close to matching the private ones, but is substantially cheaper, then it will kill them. And that's the selling point for this: that it'll be cheaper.