Health Care Politics

View 791 Wednesday, September 25, 2013

“Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

President Barack Obama, January 31, 2009

 

Christians to Beirut. Alawites to the grave.

Syrian Freedom Fighters

 

What we have now is all we will ever have.

Conservationist motto

The MRI went well. I don’t have any results yet, but I don’t expect any anomalies. I continue to be impressed with the courtesy and efficiency of Kaiser. A few glitches here and there, but none that waste more than a few minutes of my time, and their system lets all my test results be available to all the myriad doctors who are involved in keeping me going. If Kaiser can do this so well, making something as unpleasant as an MRI easy to afford ($170 co payment; not cheap but it’s only once a year – if they find something that requires more those get charged differently). We had to take Roberta out there Monday for unscheduled medical, and that worked out well also. On this the co payment was $5 for the visit, $20 for a lab fee, and about $20 for prescriptions.

Before I reached 65 I paid Kaiser about $400 a month to take care of my entire family, and everything worked out very well. Co payments were about the same then as now, I think. When I reached 65 I was given two options: pay membership fees of about $1800 a month, or pay $20 a month and let Medicare – which is to say you – take care of the rest. This seemed unreasonable, but those were the choices, and investigation revealed there were no others.

Given that I pay self-employment taxes and at that time the Kaiser premiums would not have been deductible, I didn’t see any real choice. We were more than satisfied with Kaiser before I reached the magic age, and while I was still making a reasonable income $1800 a month in non=deductible premiums was still a large hit. As to why I only cost Kaiser $400 a month until August 6, and they needed $1800 from then on, no one ever explained that in a way I could understand. So I thank all of you for paying some of my medical insurance bills. Of course the law also continued to collect self-employment taxes just in case I made some money.

I don’t know the solution to the health care dilemma, but I do know this: if you put more money into a system, the prices will rise. Make it easier to get home loans and home prices will go up, and if continue to inject more money into the system prices will spiral, and there will be ads on the radio for courses on how to flip houses in forty days. Eventually there will be a bubble.

Make it easier to borrow money to go to college, and college prices will rise. Continue to inject money into the education system and costs will spiral.

Inject more money into public schools, and the result is Pennsylvania where only 40% of the students in the system can read at a satisfactory level – which is pretty damned low – while 99.5% of the teachers are rated as satisfactory or above; and they get $110,000 a year in salary and benefits. Inject more money into that system and the results will not change except that it will cost even more.

There is in economics an elementary principle called the law of supply and demand. If you increase demand – there is more money available to buy the goods – then prices will rise. In theory supply will then increase to bring about equilibrium, but if there are restrictions in the supply – credentials needed before you can supply that demand – then it’s a bit more complex. The demand for credentials will increase. That raises the prices. Those with the credentials will now want more, and –

Well, you get the idea. It’s not complicated and everyone understands it although many political leaders pretend not to. The get better at sincere speeches, though. Apparently the voters believe them.

And they never catch wise.

Over 60 killed in Kenya, and it took days to retake the shopping mall. Either the terrorists learned a lot in the past few years, or more likely, India is just better at some things than Kenya. Either way, we may come to need the otherwise dangerous and generally unneeded SWAT teams that proliferate like mushrooms in the United States. Even the Department of Agriculture has a SWAT team, presumably better to arrest stage magicians who have an unlicensed rabbit in their performances. Of course it’s legal – at a federal level anyway – simple to bit the rabbit’s head off in the performance, in which case no federal law has been broken, but to be sure we need to pay legions of bunny inspectors.

And now we can debate raising the debt ceiling. The US can possibly survive on the trillions it already collects. Have to inject more money into the government system. Which will of course raise the prices…

Obamacare exemptions

Re: Federal employees’ "exemption" from Obamacare– Federal employees are NOT exempt from Obamacare; they have met the requirement to have insurance, in exactly the same way that anyone subject to employer-provided insurance has met the requirement. Same goes for congressional staffers, for that matter. Let’s punish only those responsible, please! 🙂

Paul Barner

There is a Congressional staff whose sole job is to show Congresscritters and their staffers how to get the maximum subsidies that are guaranteed to them in Obama Care. Those subsidies allow them to have the insurance they want. It’s just a matter of figuring out how.

I am sure you have an agency whose job it is to tell you how to maximize our subsidies.

In other words, Congress’s health-care premiums will not rise, but yours may. Members of Congress will be able to afford to keep their health-insurance plan, but you may be kicked off yours. They will be able to afford to keep their doctors, but you may have to find a new one.

Rep. Ron DeSantis, a Republican from Florida, recently put forward legislation—aptly named the James Madison Congressional Accountability Act—which would end the special exemption. In the Senate, Republicans David Vitter of Louisiana and Mike Enzi of Wyoming have also introduced legislation to end the exemption.

In response, several Democratic senators have reacted by drafting legislation that would punish anyone who votes for Sen. Vitter’s plan by permanently blocking an exemption from them and their staff, even if Mr. Vitter’s law doesn’t pass. It doesn’t get more vindictive and petty than that.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324665604579080921594857770.html

Bill Bennet

Or see http://www.nationalreview.com/article/358550/congresss-exemption-obamacare-john-fund

And in fact there have been Presidential exceptions granted, some of those not being in the law but inferred as part of presidential power. I do not think anyone in Congress will be inconvenienced by Obamacare; while many outside it will lose theirs (consider the recent Trader Joe actions)**. But your faith in Congress may be justified. Many journalists say it is.

Certainly there is political posturing, but it is also clear that the nation wants Congress and their staffs to experience the same effects of the laws as the citizens must experience; and it is clear that no such thing will happen with Obamacare.

We not only have to pass the law to see what’s in it, we have to life with it a while to see what’s in it. And there will be many more surprises.

 

** Note: Trader Joe’s formerly had health insurance for part time employees, but in preparation for the upcoming Obamacare TJ management has eliminated health insurance benefits for all part time employees.  They will offer about $500 a year with which the part timers can purchase whatever they can get on the new exchanges.