like your employer heathcare? good luck.

KCJoe's Avatar
  • KCJoe
  • 06-08-2011, 04:24 PM
Employers were dropping or scaling back health insurance coverage for employees before Obamacare. Of course many people are losing insurance coverage because of layoffs. Big employers are moving jobs overseas to take advantage of cheap labor and no need to provide any benefits at all.
CuteOldGuy's Avatar
I'm certain Obamacare will fix everything.
Longermonger's Avatar
The author is a corporate shill. The source is the Wall Street Journal. Their motive is profit...their profit, not your health.

They will say whatever they need to say to get you to do what they want you to do so they can get your money. Nothing more.

Just for shits and giggles I challenge you to post the name of the author's institute.
CuteOldGuy's Avatar
Atta boy, Longer. Attack the messenger. Never mind the points made, if you don't like what he says, attack him! Everybody knows that employer health care is out the window with Obamacare.
Atta boy, Longer. Attack the messenger. Never mind the points made, if you don't like what he says, attack him! Everybody knows that employer health care is out the window with Obamacare. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy
Well, anyone with a brain and a basic level of what happens under economic incentives and disincentives. That leaves LM out.
Longermonger's Avatar
Atta boy, Longer. Attack the messenger. Never mind the points made, if you don't like what he says, attack him! Everybody knows that employer health care is out the window with Obamacare. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy
1: SHE, not HE, is a shill.
2: You failed my challenge. You can't even research her background with a simple Google search. You just lap up whatever vomit she writes.
3. The messenger is attacking you. Wake up! I'm just trying to open your eyes.
Bkbird650's Avatar
Of course, they were.....The cost of health insurance is skyrocketing. What we need is a single payer and that single payer should be the government. Just so you know, Medicare is operated at something like 20% less than the comparable "Advantage" plans operated by insurance companies. Between 35 and 55 MILLION Americans have no health care insurance. When they inevitably end up requiring health care, they get the most expensive and the least effective health care.....at emergency rooms....AND THE REST OF THE PEOPL IN THIS NATION PAY FOR IT. Yup, it really is that simple.
kcbigpapa's Avatar
Atta boy, Longer. Attack the messenger. Never mind the points made, if you don't like what he says, attack him! Everybody knows that employer health care is out the window with Obamacare. Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy
COG, you will have to explain why and how the health care plan plays into effect? Did the employers not have this option before? How come they would only do this with the new health care plan? With the ever increasing health care costs, was there a reason pre-Obama's plan that would have stopped the employers from significantly reducing or removing their health care plans?
CuteOldGuy's Avatar
It was government regulation that was keeping health insurance costs high. The inability to compete across state lines, requiring certain coverage, like pregnancy coverage for men and older women, forbidding certain groups from forming for group rate purposes, etc.

You forget, the purpose of a business is to make money, not provide health care. Now I'm not going to argue that the US is a capitalist system, it is not. It is corporatist. But capitalism does still prevail in the small business community for the most part. I think if regulations had been eased, it may not have come to this. Let people choose the coverage they need, kind of ala carte.

And I hate to sound like a broken record, but there is nothing in the Constitution that allows the government to have any voice in health care whatsoever.

However, I would support a Constitutional Amendment allowing a single payer system if there were safeguards that the government would not be in charge of what care a person receives. Right now, the President's bill puts the IRS in charge. President Bush the First was prophetic when he said "Government health care would combine the efficiency of the Postal Service with the compassion of the IRS." Not for me.

It's a big ass problem that needed reform. President Obama promised a bipartisan consensus plan. That didn't happen, the bill was passed with threats, gifts, exceptions, and all kinds of holes, and almost 100% Democrat support, and almost 0% Republican support. It's not a good bill. In my opinion, it made a bad situation worse.

Government needs wholesale reform, including health care. Work on one, and another pops up. It's political whack-a-mole. Going at it piecemeal is going to end up with a morass of unintelligible regulations, and no one knowing what is going on.

Anyway, I'm not going to say the status quo was wonderful, it sucked. Insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies are among the most corrupt, and politically powerful entities in the country. But I would have taken reform in a different direction.

And yes, the Democrats get some credit for trying to do something. The Republicans are too attached to the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies. But I also think that those lobbies will eventually come out well under the Democrat plan, because I think the Democrats are beholding to them, too.
Longermonger's Avatar
Single-payer "Medicare for everyone" with Republican's natural instinct to cut cost focused on making it inexpensive would have been best. Democrats would have been in charge of making sure it was funded. Instead Republicans fought it for political gain on behalf of big business and we got what we got. Imperfect, but better...with lots of potential for future improvements.

The status quo was bad, but the way forward was easy to find. Just find out what big health insurance companies want to do...and do the OPPOSITE.

And whatever you do, don't let those insurance companies; police themselves, make their own rules, decide if they want to pay, etc. They're worse than Las Vegas casinos.
CuteOldGuy's Avatar
Longer, they are BUSINESSES! They are created to MAKE MONEY! If they were required to lose money, they would never have formed in the first place. Yes, they are now part of the problem, but they aren't the only part of the problem. Government shares much of the blame. But don't deride them for making decisions based on profit, or their union employees which you love so much, wouldn't have a job at all.