Georgia Health Insurance 411

Posts Tagged ‘stupid government tricks’

Free mortgage loans (the kind you don’t have to pay back), free health insurance (unless you make over $250,000 per year) so why not ask for free funerals? The government is doling out money to save or create jobs, when in actuality our money was used to give raises to people who already had a job and in no danger of losing it, buy trucks for drivers training, make 9 pair of boots for the Army, or (get this) pay taxes owed.

So if Poppa Washington can do all that, why not provide free funerals?

Coroners and funeral directors in several cities say the number of people seeking government-paid funerals, cremations and burials is spiking. Most counties and states will use public money to cremate or bury people who are too poor to pay for private services.

“People just aren’t in a position to pay $7,000 for a private funeral and burial,” says Lt. David Smith of the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, where the number of people seeking county burial has nearly doubled since last year.

Sounds like a public option to me.

Health insurance reform is about give and take. If you waddle through the maze and countless pages in all the various bills before Congress you really have to wonder what is going to come out on the other end if and when this massive spending bill is finalized.

I have wondered about all the new taxes to pay for health insurance (supposedly for the uninsured) but something I read this morning crystalized the games they are playing in Washington with our money. The AP reported this on the tax credits that everyone got as part of our share of stimulus.

The tax credit, which is supposed to pay individuals up to $400 and couples up to $800, was President Barack Obama’s signature tax break in the massive stimulus package enacted in February.

Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in April. The tax credit was made available through new withholding tables issued by the Internal Revenue Service.

The withholding tables, however do not take into account taxpayers with multiple jobs or married couples in which both people work. They also don’t take into account Social Security recipients with jobs that provided taxable income.

The Social Security Administration sent out $250 payments to more than 50 million retirees in the spring as part of the economic stimulus package. The payments were meant to provide a boost for people who didn’t’ qualify for the tax credit.

However, they went to many retirees who also received the credit. Those retirees will have the $250 payment deducted from their tax credit — but not until they file their tax returns next year, long after the money may have been spent.

That’s a bit of a rude awakening.

President Obama called and he wants his money back.

Congress is doing the same thing with health insurance reform under the guise of taxing the rich to pay for health insurance for the poor.

That finding from a new Associated Press poll will be welcome news for House Democrats, who proposed doing just that in their sweeping remake of the U.S. medical system, which passed earlier this month and would extend coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

The poll found participants sour on other ways of paying for the health overhaul that is being considered in Congress, including taxing insurers on high-value coverage packages derided by President Barack Obama and Democrats as “Cadillac plans.”

That approach is being weighed in the Senate. It is one of the few proposals in any congressional legislation that analysts say would help reduce the nation’s health expenditures, but it has come under fire from organized labor and has little support in the House.

Lawmakers also are looking at levying new taxes on insurance companies, drug companies and medical device makers.

Think about this for a moment.

They want to assess health insurance companies, drug companies and medical device makers to pay for health insurance for the poor. But what happens when the tax is imposed?

Drug companies will pass the tax on to consumers who will pay more for medication. Prescriptions covered by health insurance will be more expensive which will result in higher premiums.

Medical devices like pacemakers and wheelchairs will become more expensive which will result in higher costs to the consumer and health insurance company. This mean higher premiums.

Of course let’s not forget that drugs, pacemakers and wheelchairs are also covered by Medicare and Medicaid, so those costs will increase as well.

And that tax on health insurance companies? It will be passed through as well to those who pay the premium.

As health insurance premiums rise, to cover the cost of new taxes, higher prices for medication, pacemakers and wheelchairs those plans are in danger of becoming a “Cadillac” plan . . . which will be taxed.

These changes don’t even take into account the required 30%+ increase in premiums caused by health insurance reform that mandates more expansive (and expensive) coverage for wellness and mental health parity as well as the “no restrictions on pre-existing conditions” requirement.

So just like the government is giving us a break by lowering our withholding taxes and tossing a bone to Social Security beneficiaries, then taking it back next April, they are doing the same thing with health insurance reform.

Giving us more benefits (no pre-existing, low copays, wellness, mental health parity) which increase premiums so we will have to pay more tax. Actually, it is a double tax.

We pay the tax the first time when we consume goods like medication and medical devices, and then we pay again because we were forced to buy an expensive “Cadillac” plan.

This is a dog only a politician could love.

Change you can believe in. Yes you can.

On 11/6/2009 the CDC reported there were 129 swine flu related deaths year to date beginning 4/26/2009 and going forward. Six days later Fox news is reporting the CDC claims 4,000 have died as a result of swine flu.

So which is it?

Have over 3,800 people died in the last 6 days from swine flu? Are these swine flu cases “saved or created” like so many other numbers coming out of Washington these days?

Is it just a coincidence that the number of deaths increased after the House voted to approve H.R. 3962?

Is this just another stupid government trick?

Change you can believe in.

Poor Charlie Brown. Problems with the  kite eating tree. Lucy always pulls the football away just as he is about to kick it. A dog that is more popular than him.

Maine is the Charlie Brown of health care. The state’s legislators have tried for decades to fix its system, but their efforts have always fallen short: health insurance premiums are still among the least affordable in the nation, health care spending per person is among the highest and hospital emergency rooms are among the most crowded. Indeed, many overhauls to the system have done little more than squeeze a balloon — solving one problem while worsening another.

Sound familiar?

Like the great health care debate in Washington.

But like the Peanuts character, the state keeps trying. Indeed, Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Maine’s senior United States senator and so far one of only two Republicans in Congress to vote for an overhaul, spent two years in the late 1970s as chairwoman of the State Legislature’s joint Health and Human Services Committee pushing small reform efforts. “That’s where I garnered an enormous deference to the issue of health care and its complexities,” Ms. Snowe said in an interview.

Based on what I have read Ms. Snowe in Washington it seems like she hasn’t learned that much over the last 30 years. If she can’t fix health care for Mainiacs then how can she expect to fix it for a nation of 330 million?

To conservatives, Maine proves that government efforts to strictly regulate the nation’s health insurance market are doomed. Many of the reform proposals circulating on Capitol Hill have already been tried in Maine.

“These reforms are very well-intentioned, but in reality they have yet to produce the promised results or even be financially sustainable,” said Tarren R. Bragdon, chief executive of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, a conservative research organization in Portland.

And nothing in the House or Senate version will do anything to control the cost of health care either.

To others, Maine’s failures show why some reforms can be tackled only on a national level. Maine has the nation’s oldest population, its poor are among the sickest, and its median income ranks low.

That sounds like the Medicare population. Another government albatross that is a financial Titanic.

Every time the government tries to fix things it only get’s worse and costs more than it did before. Why is that so difficult to follow?

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Obama did not rule out the possibility of jail time for those who refuse to buy health insurance.

If you have the ability to buy insurance, it’s affordable and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you, you know, there’s a thousand dollar hidden tax that families all across America are — are burdened by because of the fact that people don’t have health insurance, you know, there’s nothing wrong with a penalty.

I think the general broad principle is simply that people who are paying for their health insurance aren’t subsidizing folks who simply choose not to until they get sick and then suddenly they expect free health insurance.

Is that a yes or a no on jail time?

I believe attorney’s refer to that as being non-responsive.

TAPPER: Are you willing to pledge that whatever cuts in Medicare are being made to fund health insurance, one third of it, that you will veto anything that tries to undo that?

OBAMA: Yes. I actually have said that it is important for us to make sure this thing is deficit neutral, without tricks. I said I wouldn’t sign a bill that didn’t meet that criteria. And what I also said in that speech to the joint session was that I’m willing to put in some safeguards where if we don’t obtain the savings that have been promised, that we’ve got to make adjustments in terms of the benefits, because the goal here is to reduce costs for families, give them more security, but do so in a way that is not adding to our deficit, that, in fact, over the long-term, if we can bend the cost curve, will reduce our deficit.

Deficit neutral, without tricks. Tricks such as cutting benefits in one bill and then stuffing them in something separate like “doc fix”.

Or maybe bribing a Representative to change their vote by funding pork projects outside of health reform legislation by way of a special grant.

If they don’t achieve the savings as projected they will cut benefits. Wonder what the gray panthers think about that?

And just exactly how does one “bend the cost curve”?

Seems to be a credibility issue here.

Full interview on video here.

Health care reform has become a lottery windfall for members of Congress willing to sell their vote in exchange for dollars.

Washington correspondent Jamie Dupree Tweets and blogs on a regular basis, giving readers and insiders view of sausage making inside the beltway. It is not a pretty sight.

The recent debate in the House resulted in a narrow approval of health care reform. The debate over abortion funding with taxpayer dollars got the headlines but there was more going on behind the scenes.

Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA) made clear he had won money for a medical school in his Fresno-based district and more.

“During my negotiations to help improve the bill for our Valley, I was able to achieve funding for a medical school in the Valley, with studies at UC Merced and residency in Fresno, as well as additional incentives to bring health professionals to our Valley,” Costa said in a statement.

Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-CA) – who last week was quoted as saying he was leaning against the bill – said he won $167 million in health care funding for hospitals in his district.

So Rep. Cardoza was against the bill before he was for the bill.

Of course all of this is transparent, as promised by Obama during his bid for the White House, right?

Not necessarily.

I went through the final version of the House bill, as printed in the Congressional Record, and couldn’t find anything related to what these members were taking credit for, which means that probably would be worked out through grant funding by the Obama Administration.

So when is a budget item not a budget item?

When funding falls outside the scope of health care reform.

That would mean these figures are not part of the CBO’s price tag for  H.R. 3962.

So what else is included in health care reform that has nothing to do with health care? Here is a partial list.

• Patterson Irrigation District Pumping Plant and Fish Screen

• Patterson Irrigation District Pipeline Project

• Diversify Level 2/Level IV Refuge Program

• Announce 2011 rescheduled water decision in the Spring, 2010

• Additional federal support for the Westside Water Use Efficiency and Conservation program

• Support the removal of restrictions under the Emergency Drought Relief Act which restrict funds to temporary projects

• Mendota Dam Replacement

• San Luis Drain Rehabilitation

Transparency you can believe in. Yes you can.

Seems the folks at SNL “porked” a little fun at the CDC and Goldman Sachs over swine flu vaccines . . .

Just another stupid government trick.

The CDC reports 129 confirmed swine flu deaths through 11/6/2009. They also indicate that, on average, there are 36,000 flu related deaths each year.

They report there are 38,000,000 doses of swine flu vaccine “ordered or available.”

Why does this sound like jobs “created or saved” rhetoric?

It has been reported that doctors and clinics are running low on seasonal flu vaccine. So far, over 70,000,000 doses of seasonal flu have been delivered with another 40,000,000 on the way.

I have no idea how much of taxpayer dollars is being spent on the swine flu vaccine promotion, but I have trouble reconciling 129 deaths to 36,000 during the course of normal flu season. Not to be dismissive, because any death is not insignificant, but it seems almost like the fuss about Y2K.

It makes me wonder, after all this is over, if some will be asking “what was all the fuss?”. Is this just another stupid government trick?

Ever wonder how things become law? Someone uses YOUR tax dollars to buy votes. Keep in mind if YOU were to give money or favors to a legislator in exchange for favors you would be committing a criminal act. But that is not the case when members of Congress do likewise.

Roll Call indicates 20 Democrats will vote against the HR 3962 unless language on illegal immigrants is changed.

Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) warned President Barack Obama on Thursday that 20 members of her caucus are prepared to vote against the House Democratic health care plan if language restricting the rights of illegal immigrants to buy insurance is added to the bill.

Many don’t buy health insurance now. Why should they buy a government plan, especially when they can get Medicaid?