I'm having an ACA discussion with some friends...

[angelatc]

All Obama had to do to fix fucking health care is to overstep the states and allow health insurance providers to freely compete with each other in every state. It's in the fucking Constitution: CONGRESS CAN REGULATE INTERSTATE COMMERCE.

That worked so well when they allowed the banks to avoid regulation by the states, didn't it?

Your statement is spoken as someone who doesn't understand what actuaries do and how insurance is supposed to work.

The interstate commerce clause was designed to keep states from passing taxes on items imported and exported from other states. It was never, as you imply, supposed to strip the individual states of the right to regulate the products sold within said states or to force providers to sell products to markets in which it did not wish to participate.

 

[angelatc]

Is there a reliable website I can go to that has like "All of the facts about Obamacare that no one is telling you"...that sort of place?

If you were to find a site like that, the people you are arguing with would just screech that the site was biased.

 

[angelatc]

However this same person also said regarding someone who has no health insurance, "So we should just let them die?" I feel like this guy wants to rob Peter to pay Paul.

Well yes, he does want to rob Peter to pay Paul. That's their very nature. Trying to change that is like trying to turn a lion into a vegetarian.

That's a silly argument - there's already a huge safety net in place for people who can't afford medical care. In all the years that we've been arguing about this I have never seen the Democrats produce any proof that a single American has died from a lack of medical care in the past 40 years.

This article references pre-Obamacare polling, that indicates that a HUGE majority of Americans, even those with no insurance, were happy with the medical care they were receiving. They were only wanted change because the media and Democrats were telling them that bad things were happening to other people.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/362776/no-such-thing-free-lunch-john-r-lott-jr

So no, we did not "just let people die." But was it really the best solution to hand the evil insurance companies a guaranteed windfall, making them entirely immune from market pressures, and destroy a system that 90% of the country was happy with? If getting treatment while uninsured was a problem, then perhaps expanding MEdicare and MedicAid would have been a better solution.

 

[LatinsforPaul]

How do I rebut this?

http://www.factcheck.org/2010/10/health-care-spin-again/

There seems to be so much information and so many sources that I'm a bit overwhelmed.

This might help...

 

[Katt]

I wasn't happy with the system before but now I'm screwed. My job-provided insurance, of which I pay 25%, is more than doubling. My portion, (individual - I don't have a spouse or children on the plan) is going from $100 a month to $230 a month. On top of this my employer has warned me that 2014 will probably be the last year they provide insurance, thanks to obamacare and astronomically higher premiums.

I wish there was a website that was documenting how many people's premiums are skyrocketing and how many people are losing their insurance. This would certainly sway those drinking the obamacare koolaid.

 

[otherone]

That worked so well when they allowed the banks to avoid regulation by the states, didn't it?

I prefer competition to regulation.

Wall Street Journal:
The Competition Cure
A better idea to make health insurance affordable everywhere.
"Competition" has become a watchword of Team Obama's push for its health-care bill. Specifically, the Administration has defended its public insurance option as a necessary competitive goad to the private health insurance industry.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius routinely calls for more choice and competition in health care. In his weekly address this past weekend, President Obama raised the issue directly: "The source of a lot of these fears about government-run health care is confusion over what's called the public option. This is one idea among many to provide more competition and choice, especially in the many places around the country where just one insurer thoroughly dominates the marketplace." We take it this refers to a state in which one insurer holds most of the business.

It is no secret that this page is all for competition in the marketplace. If indeed that's the goal, allow us to suggest a path to it that will be a lot easier than erecting the impossible dream of a public option: Let insurance companies sell health-care policies across state lines.

This excellent idea has been before Congress since at least 2005, when Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona proposed it. It came up again recently in an exchange between Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday and John Rother, executive vice president of AARP.

Mr. Wallace: "If you really want competition why not remove the restriction which now says that if I live in Washington, D.C. I've got to buy a D.C. health plan, and instead create a national market for health insurance, so that if there's a cheaper plan in Pennsylvania, I could buy in Pennsylvania?"

Mr. Rother: "There are states and localities where health care is much less expensive than others, and if we allow people to buy all their insurance from those places, it will raise the rates there. And it's called risk selection. It's a real problem, given the fact that health care costs can vary substantially from one place to another. So I think while the idea sounds appealing, the consequence would be it would make health care more expensive for those people who live in those low-cost areas."

How did Mr. Rother arrive at this conclusion?

His claim assumes that what makes insurance expensive in places like New Jersey—where the annual cost of an individual plan for a 25-year-old male in 2006 was $5,880—is merely the higher cost of medical services in the Garden State. He sounds an alarm in the rest of the country by suggesting that an individual living in, say, Kentucky—where an annual plan for a 25-year-old male cost less than $1,000 in 2006—would be asked to subsidize plan members living in high-priced states.

That's not how interstate insurance would work. Devon Herrick, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis who has written extensively on this subject, notes that insurance companies operating nationally would compete nationally. The reason a Kentucky plan written for an individual from New Jersey would save the New Jerseyan money is that New Jersey is highly regulated, with costly mandated benefits and guaranteed access to insurance.

Affordability would improve if consumers could escape states where each policy is loaded with mandates. "If consumers do not want expensive 'Cadillac' health plans that pay for acupuncture, fertility treatments or hairpieces, they could buy from insurers in a state that does not mandate such benefits," Mr. Herrick has written.

A 2008 publication "Consumer Response to a National Marketplace in Individual Insurance," (Parente et al., University of Minnesota) estimated that if individuals in New Jersey could buy health insurance in a national market, 49% more New Jerseyans in the individual and small-group market would have coverage. Competition among states would produce a more rational regulatory environment in all states.

This doesn't mean sick people who have kept up their coverage but are more difficult to insure would be left out. Congressman Shadegg advocates government funding for high-risk pools, noting that their numbers are tiny. The big benefit would come from a market supply of affordable insurance.

Mr. Rother also said "risk selection" is a problem. But the coverage mandates cause that. As more healthy people opt out of health insurance because it is too expensive relative to what they consume, the pool transforms into a group of older, sicker people. Prices go higher still and more healthy people flee. High-mandate states are in what experts call an "adverse selection death spiral."

Interstate competition made the U.S. one of the world's most efficient, consumer driven markets. But health insurance is a glaring exception. When the competition caucus in Team Obama has to look for Plan B, this is it.

also, an interesting article from Forbes for those interested.

 

[angelatc]

I prefer competition to regulation.

Wall Street Journal:
The Competition Cure

You realize that none of the people making the point in that article are fiscal conservatives, or even constitutionalists?

I do not care what the WSj said. As far as I know, there was no law that prohibited any insurer from entering into any market they wanted to enter into. Blue Cross Blue Sheid seems to manage quite well. There is also the right of the states to regulate the industries that sell products in those states - that's something the WSJ does not believe in.

Twenty years ago, he WSJ journal said the same thing about erasing the state lines for banking. The banks used to be prohibited from banking across state lines - they erased those boundaries and the small banks disappeared. Now, the states are allowed to regulate banks but federa banks are allowed to ignore the state laws.

If people in New Jersey could buy insurance from a company in Alabama where the cost of medicine is much less overall, the people of New Jersey would succeed only in driving up the price of insurance in Alabama.

It's a stupid talking point out out by evil progressives in both parties who know that most peope don't understand insurance, and want to seize another opportunity to erase the states entirely.

 

[James Madison]

I would find new friends, TC.

 

[Peace Piper]

...I do not care what the WSj said.

It's quite clear that you do not care what anyone or anything that disagrees with you says.

As far as I know, there was no law that prohibited any insurer from entering into any market they wanted to enter into.

The laws preventing interstate health insurance sales are due to each state having different rules and regulations. Insurance sold in a state must comply with that state's rules and regulations. The roots of this lie in the McCarran–Ferguson Act

Georgia tried introducing out of state sales and had to pass laws to do it.

Georgia Cross-State Health Insurance Sales Law A Major Bust

Last year, Georgia became the first state in the nation to legislate into existence the holy grail of GOP health care policy- cross-state sales of health insurance policies...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickung...tate-health-insurance-sales-law-a-major-bust/
​

Blue Cross Blue Sheid seems to manage quite well. There is also the right of the states to regulate the industries that sell products in those states - that's something the WSJ does not believe in.

"The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) is a federation of 38 separate health insurance organizations and companies in the United States." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_cross_blue_shield
There isn't one BCBS- policies sold by a BCBS org in CA can only be purchased by CA residents.

Now, the states are allowed to regulate banks but federa banks are allowed to ignore the state laws.

What is a "Federal Bank"?

If people in New Jersey could buy insurance from a company in Alabama where the cost of medicine is much less overall, the people of New Jersey would succeed only in driving up the price of insurance in Alabama.

That's funny, that is very similar to one of the arguments that so called liberal/progressive idiot Ezra Klein makes.

Selling insurance across state lines: A terrible, no good, very bad health-care idea
Ezra Klein | February 17, 2010

But those top-line numbers hid a more depressing story. The legislation "would reduce the price of individual health insurance coverage for people expected to have relatively low health care costs, while increasing the price of coverage for those expected to have relatively high health care costs,"...

...That is to say, the legislation would not change the number of insured Americans or save much money, but it would make insurance more expensive for the sick and cheaper for the healthy, and lead to more healthy people with insurance and fewer sick people with insurance. It's a great proposal if you don't ever plan to be sick, and if you don't mind finding out that your insurer doesn't cover your illness. And it's the Republican plan for health-care reform. ...>
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/selling_insurance_across_state.html​

If you would spend a fraction of the time that you waste here berating and trying to censor other posters on educating yourself the forum would be a nicer place. And you'd be smarter!

But that won't be happening, will it. In your case, ignorance is a special kind of bliss- mixed with contempt and disgust.
Just curious, has anyone ever seen you and LE in the same place at the same time?

I'm going to try to make this my very last post to you and I'd request that you ignore me as well from here on. It's a waste of both of our time. Nothing I say will ever change your mind and you haven't ever said anything of importance that I can remember. TIA

 

[Woods]

If people in New Jersey could buy insurance from a company in Alabama where the cost of medicine is much less overall, the people of New Jersey would succeed only in driving up the price of insurance in Alabama.

Only if the insurance company is stupid enough to charge the same premiums for differently priced services.

 

[Woods]

If people in New Jersey could buy insurance from a company in Alabama where the cost of medicine is much less overall, the people of New Jersey would succeed only in driving up the price of insurance in Alabama.

Maybe if the insurance company is stupid enough to try to charge the same premiums for differently priced services.

If selling things across state lines is such a bad idea, then why doesn't Amazon split itself into 50 separate companies?

 

[Acala]

It was not the lack of insurance that drove up the cost of health care. Indeed, the opposite is true. Insurance helps drive UP the cost of health care. Having a third party pay for health care makes the customer disinterested in shopping for the best price and also encourages them to consume health care services they don't really need. The problem is even worse when employers are induced by tax laws to pay for the insurance. Then the consumer is not only shielded from the direct cost of the health services because it is paid for by insurance, but the cost of the insurance itself is disguised because it is paid for by the employer. So health care providers keep raising prices because they can, and insurance carriers pass the increases along in higher rates because they can.

There are far more Americans with health insurance now than there were forty years ago, and the coverage is much broader, yet health care prices have soared at a rate far greater than the general inflation-driven prices. This is strong evidence that the availability of health insurance does not keep prices down. On the other hand, the cost of services NOT covered by health insurance DO go down. A prime example is lasix eye surgery. It is not typically covered by insurance so the consumer must pay directly out of pocket. As a consequence, the cost of lasix surgery has DROPPED dramatically while at the same time covered expenses have increased dramatically.

The focus on universal health insurance as a solution to the problem of health care is doomed because it misses the point entirely. Any reform measure that does not address the root cause of high prices - crimped supply and government subsidy of demand - will succeed only in shifting the costs around. And the costs have already reached the point of collapse.

The only solution to this problem is, big surprise, FREEDOM in the market place for all health care, not just insurance.

 

[angelatc]

It's quite clear that you do not care what anyone or anything that disagrees with you says.



The laws preventing interstate health insurance sales are due to each state having different rules and regulations

I get it. You do not support state's rights. Neither does the Wall Street journal. Neither do the progressives. I see a connection.


The cost differences between states are based on a myriad of differences, mandated coverages only being one piece of the puzzle. I can assure you that both routine MD visits and long term hospitalization in Manhattan costs more than it does in Mobile. Therefore a health insurance policy in New York costs more than it does in Alabama.

 

[angelatc]

Maybe if the insurance company is stupid enough to try to charge the same premiums for differently priced services.

If selling things across state lines is such a bad idea, then why doesn't Amazon split itself into 50 separate companies?

This clearly indicates that you don't actually have a clue about how insurance works.

 

[angelatc]

It was not the lack of insurance that drove up the cost of health care. Indeed, the opposite is true. Insurance helps drive UP the cost of health care. Having a third party pay for health care makes the customer disinterested in shopping for the best price and also encourages them to consume health care services they don't really need.

Absolutely. And we can point out that the employer-paid insurance model only became commonplace because the government instituted wage controls during the war. But those ships sailed a long time ago. Now we're stuck arguing with progressives who think that the federal government should be the only entity allowed to license and mandate coverages.

And we're losing that battle. The bill that would have allowed insurers to sell policies across state lines came from the business-friendly (not consumer friendly) GOP, and was likely written by the insurance companies who have no interest in bringing down prices.

 

[angelatc]

What is a "Federal Bank"?

A federally chartered bank. They're allowed to ignore state legislation. For example, a lot of states have laws that make pre-payment penalties on mortgages illegal, but federally chartered banks are allowed to ignore that law.

Before they tore down the interstate banking walls, I likely would have agreed with the concept that GOP was presenting. But I am at least smart enough not to fall for the same trick twice.

As for the rest of your post, I will not ignore you. You came here to do nothing but post progressive talking points, and I have nothing better to do than to keep refuting the nonsense.

As for Ezra Klein, I agree with Dylan Ratigan on Obamacare too. Listening to what the person is saying instead of dismissing it because of who is saying it is something I occasionally fail at too.

 

[Acala]

Absolutely. And we can point out that the employer-paid insurance model only became commonplace because the government instituted wage controls during the war. But those ships sailed a long time ago. Now we're stuck arguing with progressives who think that the federal government should be the only entity allowed to license and mandate coverages.

And we're losing that battle. The bill that would have allowed insurers to sell policies across state lines came from the business-friendly (not consumer friendly) GOP, and was likely written by the insurance companies who have no interest in bringing down prices.

Yup. Crony-capitalism and socialism ruined health care and nobody in Washington is going to unwind it all now. It is going to have to crash and burn in a really spectacular way. People are going to suffer. It isn't going to be pretty.

 

[Prog Snob]

Absolutely. And we can point out that the employer-paid insurance model only became commonplace because the government instituted wage controls during the war. But those ships sailed a long time ago. Now we're stuck arguing with progressives who think that the federal government should be the only entity allowed to license and mandate coverages.

And we're losing that battle. The bill that would have allowed insurers to sell policies across state lines came from the business-friendly (not consumer friendly) GOP, and was likely written by the insurance companies who have no interest in bringing down prices.

That was another issue I was having in my discussion. After mentioning that government interference is what created the downfall of the American health care system, someone asked me when and how. To be honest, I am not sure I know exactly when it started or how. Does it go back to the New Deal?

 

[Acala]

That was another issue I was having in my discussion. After mentioning that government interference is what created the downfall of the American health care system, someone asked me when and how. To be honest, I am not sure I know exactly when it started or how. Does it go back to the New Deal?

Professional licensing got started early at the State level. The licensing requirements spread to include doctors, nurses, technicians, even massage therapists. Licensing requirements are entrance barriers that crimp the supply. Essentially it is a closed shop union enforced by government for the purpose of raising wage rates artificially.

Local laws restrict the construction of new hospitals without approval that can be withheld based on a perceived lack of need. Restricting the supply of hospitals is eliminating competition and raises prices.

The FDA weighed in heavily, making it illegal to offer any drugs, treatments, or medical equipment without prior approval. Restricting the entrance of new drugs and therapies raises the prices on approved drugs and therapies.

That's how government restricts the supply. Pure crony-capitalism with government using force to bestow economic favors on special interest groups.

On the other side, the Federal government subsidizes health care through medicare, medicaid, and state governments offer a variety of programs in which health care bills are paid by taxpayers. The Federal government also uses tax incentives to push employers to provide health care, and then the Federal and State governments force insurance carriers to cover an ever-expanding list of health care services. These subsidies and third party payment programs boost demand for services.

By restricting supply on the one hand and boosting demand on the other, government intervention has caused prices to rise dramatically.