This Washington Post article tells you what your health care premiums are buying.
Besides Congressmen, I mean.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Your health care dollars at work
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13 comments:
Give it up. Health care reform is going down.
Move on to he next socialism program.
then the country is going down as
well. but you have already given up the people who are suffering. move on to a fascist country where big business is the only voice heard.
Bingo! Business makes the world go round. When will everyone understand that.
Without employment, all the other niceties don't happen.
Most other industrial nations provide health care to their citizens without involving employers. The fact is our system makes our businesses less competitive world wide since they have health care obligations and their competitors in Europe and the Far East do not.
Please Bill there are many reasons our businesses are not competitive-health care costs probably dont even make the top ten.
Besides Obama's plan would penalize companies that did not provide insurance anyway so how would that make them more competitive.
Here's a thought, how 'bout getting governement out of every nook and cranny of businesses business? Wonder how competitive we could be then?
Say goodnight to Obama's overhaul.
Bill,maybe you should move to one of the industrialized nations you love and quote so much.
According to this Council on Foreign Relations report health care costs are making US companies less competitive.
It says, "These ballooning dollar figures place a heavy burden on companies doing business in the United States and can put them at a substantial competitive disadvantage in the international marketplace. For large multinational corporations, footing healthcare costs presents an enormous expense. General Motors, for instance, covers more than 1.1 million employees and former employees, and the company says it spent roughly $5.6 billion on healthcare expenses in 2006. GM says healthcare costs add between $1,500 and $2,000 to the sticker price of every automobile it makes."
NaturalNews reports in this article that, Skyrocketing health insurance costs are heavily impacting employers in the United States. Now, for the first time, medical benefits to employees has become the most expensive benefit paid by employers, according to a new report issued by the Employment Policy Foundation. The cost of health care for employers has jumped 12.4% between 2002 and 2003. That's about 5 times higher than inflation, and it is threatening the competitiveness of American corporations and the private sector.
Did you catch that? The most expensive benefit paid by US employers, health care benefits! Health care benefits paid by Japanese companies, zero, by European companies, zero.
Bill, maybe you should move to one of the industrialized nations you love and quote so much.
President Obama says he will not sign a health care reform bill that adds to the deficit but GOP number-crunchers argue he will do just that if House Democrats continue their sleight-of-hand in calculating the long-term costs of their proposal.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the proposal now under consideration will cost over 10 years a little more than $1 trillion, depending on the final deal. House Democrats have vowed to find a way to pay for that cost despite an acknowledgement by a Congressional Budget Office official that the deficit will increase $239 billion because of Medicare payments to doctors.
But fully phased-in coverage of Americans under the plan will only occur for six of the 10 years measured by the CBO. That's because the Democratic plan in the House will start collecting revenues in 2011 but won't start providing coverage until 2013 and won't be fully implemented until 2015.
According to an analysis by Republican staff of the House Ways and Means panel, the deficit from the health care reform bill would be $760 billion by 2024, the end of the first 10 years of full benefits coverage. It would be $1.6 trillion by the end of the 2020s.
The Republican projection takes the CBO estimates beyond the 10 years the agency is restricted by law from projecting and shows that while the program will cost about $1 trillion between 2011 and 2019, it will cost $2.2 trillion between 2015 and 2024, not counting offsets to reduce the cost.
Put another way, by 2019 the House proposals will be adding $65 billion a year to the deficit, even with all the revenue raisers Democrats are now proposing. The amount of deficit spending will continue to increase after 2019, which would mean Congress is creating another entitlement.
Another congressional source said deficits are "substantial and persistent."
"Longer term projections performed by congressional staff show annual deficits ranging from $50 billion to $250 billion a year depending on growth estimates," the source said.
That is not the only financial problem in the health care reform calculation. Since the CBO said the House plan does not lower costs -- and actually increases them -- Congress has to come up with money to offset the cost of the first 10 years, which is proving to be a political nightmare because every source of money creates its own set of political and economic problems.
For instance, one of the ways the House is raising funds to offset the cost of the health care reform is by "saving" some $380 billion from Medicare spending, according to the CBO.
But Medicare is already on the brink of collapse. Medicare Part A has $38 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Any savings from Medicare would likely be used to help prevent its own financial problems.
The Medicare Trust Fund also will not have enough money to pay its bills in 2017, just four years into the new reforms and yet no provision has been made to fix that. In fact, Medicare will need another $228 billion just from 2017 to 2019 to pay for promises already made by the federal government.
House Democrats say many savings will be realized by the reduction in illnesses as a result of preventive maintenance. However, that savings can't be measured by any existing scale because it's impossible to know what uninsured illnesses would be treated in the future.
Click here for the graphs demonstrating the impact of the Democratic health care reform proposal.
Please Bill the Council on Foreign Relations would just as soon have the USA turn over its independence to the EU than anything else. Health care costs do not go away by simply transferring them tothe government, and as said by a previous poster Obama's legislation penalizes companies that do not provide health insurance. That'll make them competitive. How about tort reform? How about government pension reform? How about reigning in union demands that have driven pension costs through the roof for those very same auto companies? How about not demonizing thosein the medical profession?
How about promoting the noble idea of self sufficiency and a strong work ethic instead of setting the stage for a new government hand out that only serves to grow the dependant class?
The number one problem in this country is greed. You will never fix any problem we have, whether it be health care, tort reform or pensions because of greed. Everyone is out for the biggest profit no matter what the expense to others. You can call it capitalism at its very best but it is still greed. I believe in the capitalist system but this country has taken it to the extreme. Like everything else we do, from over-sized food portions, credit card debt and all our other excesses, this country has forgotten about healthy living and well being. I would imagine it is much healthier to spend your time working towards making a living while considering the footprints you leave behind than spending your time screwing others because it'll make the biggest profit for you.
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