The Rethuglicans don't care about reducing the deficit, how can they when their very first vote in the House will be a vote to repeal the healthcare reform bill?! Repeal of the HC bill will ADD at least 230 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years, this is a CBO estimate which the GOP ignores. The GOP are still trying to convince you the people want them to repeal the HC bill, amazing since Americans love the new provisions like keeping their kids on their plans til age 26, not being dropped from coverage should you get sick, no denying coverage because of preexisting conditions, tax credits to small businesses that cover their employees.
From Salon...Republicans on the healthcare repeal warpath might want to take a hard look at a recent Los Angeles Times article reporting a surprising -- to the insurers -- uptick in the number of small businesses offering health insurance to their employees. The businesses are taking advantage of a tax break in the Affordable Care Act that is designed specifically for enterprises with fewer than 25 employees and moderate pay scales.
"We certainly did not expect to see this in this economy," said Gary Claxton, who oversees an annualsurvey of employerhealth plans for the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. "It's surprising."
... In the six months after the law was signed in March, UnitedHealth Group Inc., the country's largest insurer, added 75,000 new customers who work for companies with fewer than 50 employees. The Minnesota company called the increase notable but declined to reveal further details.
Coventry Health Care Inc., an insurer in Maryland that focuses on small businesses, signed contracts to cover 115,000 new workers in the first nine months of this year, an 8 percent jump.
In California, Warner Pacific Insurance Services in Westlake Village, a major servicer of insurance brokers, has seen business grow more than 10 percent this year, a company executive said.
And Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City, the largest insurer in the Kansas City, Mo., area, is reporting a 58 percent jump in the number of small businesses buying insurance since April, the first full month after the legislation was signed into law.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius warned on Tuesday that repeal of the health-care overhaul law
would not only add to the deficit but would also bring back the "worst abuses of the
insurance industry."
Her remarks came in a telephone press conference
with regional reporters in response to a potential early vote by House
Republicans to scrap the landmark Affordable Care Act. She said the
agency would send Congress a letter on Wednesday showing how Americans
are adapting to the first steps taken to carry out the law.
She expressed confidence that the law would prevail
because she says Americans are now seeing its benefits. She suggested
that Republicans needed to have conversations with their constituents to
appreciate those benefits. Republicans have argued that Congress
overstepped its powers by enacting the law, and that the law itself
would add to the deficit.
In Washington, incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor defended the GOP's upcoming effort to repeal the health-care law, reported the Washington Post, saying, "The American people are expecting quick action from the Republican majority."
Sebelius said legal challenges are likely to end in a
series of "mixed rulings" over years. She added that two key rulings so
far have sided with the law. Another took issue with one provision, the
insurance mandate, but did not call for a complete dismantling of the
law. She said the Congressional Budget Office's study found that the
law would save $1 trillion, adding that the number refutes GOP arguments
that the law would add to the deficit.
"There is no question that repeal would be a huge step backward that we can't afford," she said.
She said her agency would distribute state-by-state
data on how the law has benefited individuals, families,
seniors and small businesses. She says the data would "show what will
happen if Republican leaders in Congress got their way and the law was
repealed."
She singled out Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas
City as an example of how the new law had brought relief to businesses
and workers. The insurer, she said, had already enrolled more than 9,000
new members who are insured through 400 employers. About one-third of
the new members didn't have
In her home state of Kansas, she said, 50 employers
and unions have been able to maintain health coverage for early retirees
because of the act's early retiree reinsurance program.
"If repeal succeeds, it would put care for those
retirees in serious jeopardy," she said. She said repeal also would mean
16,000 young Kansans would lose health insurance under their parents'
"We know that countless people would continue to see
their premiums rise without new rules that now limit the amount of
health-care premium dollars that insurers can spend on administrative
costs, like marketing and CEO salaries," she says.
She added that 30,000 seniors in Kansas had received $250 checks to cover the so-called doughnut hole in prescription
"Repeal would take tax credits away from 4 million
small businesses," she said, adding that "what's happening in Kansas we
can see replicated across the country. We can't afford to take benefits
away from families, to bring back all of the worst practices of the
insurance industry, to deny coverage to 32 million and add a trillion to
the deficit by the end of the next decade."
She said Republicans needed to look at the evidence
that "reforms are working for millions of Americans." She said HHS would
continue carrying out the law and added, "What we intend to do is focus
on continuing to implement the law effectively, improving it where we
can."
Also on Tuesday, the Small Business Majority
released a poll showing that the health-reform law would make most of
them more likely to provide health insurance for their workers.
The organization, a national nonprofit advocacy
group for small businesses, said the survey included 619 business owners
with fewer than 50 workers. It said 33 percent of businesses that don't
offer insurance said they'd be more likely to do so because of the tax
credits.
To qualify for the credits, the businesses must have
fewer than 25 workers whose average annual wages must be under $50,000.
The law allows small businesses to get tax credits of up to 35 percent
of their health insurance costs, beginning in the 2010 tax year.
"These findings are very encouraging," said John Arensmeyer, CEO of Small Business Majority.
The poll found that only 31 percent of small
business owners were familiar with the insurance exchanges. Insurance
exchanges, which go into effect in 2014, will allow small businesses and
individuals to band together to buy insurance. Among the survey's other
findings:
|
19 comments:
If I were in the Congress, Sue, I would have voted against this measure. My reasoning is that it would have been far, far better to hold my misgivings and try to improve upon Obamacare (and, no, I'm not using the term pejoratively) later. But for the Democrats to be throwing around this 230 billion dollar figure is ridiculous. Yes, that is in fact the number that the CBO is providing. BUT, it only incorporates those factors that the Dems have provided to them. It doesn't, for example, include the Doc-fix (which the Democrats sleazily omitted from the package and passed separately) or the fact that we're basically paying 10 years worth of taxes for 6 years worth of benefits (yes, there are some things that started immediately but vast, vast bulk of the spending doesn't kick in until 2014).......The thing is, Sue, we can fix this whole health-care mess. But BOTH SIDES have to knock it off with this food-fight of misinformation (death-panels, Obamacare reducing the deficit, etc.). I mean, they just have to.
If the GOP would stop lying to the people and admit the bill is a good workable beginning, then maybe they could get down to business. This stupid talk that they are doing the will of the people by trying to repeal is ridiculous, they are just putting the nails in their own coffins. They want to put up a show of repeal to appease the teabaggers, but where are those baggers and why aren't they reading the reports? Oh wait maybe they are, that's why they are silent.
That's why I said, "both sides", Sue......I just love it when it's only the 2 of us. LOL
This bill (the health-care bill, I'm saying) is virtually identical to the one that the Republicans (Hatch, etc.) proposed in 1993. And, so, yeah, I totally agree with you here - the Republicans HAVE BEEN cynics and idiots on this issue. I just with that the Dems would rise above it all and ALSO be square. That's all.
you flirt...
where are the dems not being square? look what Sebelius says, you would have to call her a liar if you don't believe her reporting on the facts. I don't believe she is a liar.
did you hear Cantor today in his rebuttal of Obamas weekly address? I'll get some snippets....
The budget amount arrived at would be due to a removal of a tax increase levied to cover the cost of the program and more.
From a purely budgetary standpoint, I suppose the GOP could push for repeal and keep those tax increases in place, thereby lowering the budget deficit, but I am not holding my breath.
As a monetary consideration, the repeal seems like it could help accomplish the goal of cutting government programs that rely on our taxes to survive.
Whether we like it or not, the GOP is doing exactly what they told their base they were going to do on this.
They are trying to keep their promises.
It took 100 years of both Democratic and Republican administrations to get this health care reform. The US is the ONLY western democracy that did not have a health care program for its citizens.
I would have been for adding the uninsured to Medicare.
The law is flawed because of all the special interests involved in it-the worst of which are the insurance companies that have screwed over their premium payers for ever.
The insurers have been allowed to deny coverage to sick people and to throw people off coverage when the bills start adding up, in addition to their charming practice of fighting tooth and nail the claims submitted by people with ligitimate illnesses.
What the hell kind of country thinks that's a good free market way to treat its citizens?
Because the Dems and the Repubs are at each others' throats, this is the health care bill we got, and now it's time to fine-tune it.
The GOP's nonsensical attempt to repeal it is another piece of evidence of why this country will achieve little so long as one political party's goal is to defeat a sitting president and nothing else.
In just two short days, we've witnessed the hare-brainedness of the GOP: the two idiot House members who "forgot" to be sworn in, and instead attended an illegal fund raiser and then who illegally voted on legislation the same day.
But those aren't the only embarrassments. There is the incomparably stupid Rep. Steve King of Iowa who took to the House floor and praised the GOP leadership's mendacity!
Very impressive 112th! NOT!
Sue, the Dems are not being square with the American people in that a) they didn't include the Doc-fix in the original bill - something that, had they done so, would have quickly shot the overall bill into the red and b) are touting this deficit reduction shtick based upon very creative accounting strategies; 10 years worth of taxes for 6 years worth of benefits, etc........As for Mr. Cantor talking stupidly, not a humongous surprise there. That frigging guy couldn't parallel park on an empty cul de sac.
Well another benefit that has not been talked about applied to me the other day. I went to my doctor for the first time this year...lol yeah I know it's only a few days old, however my co-pay was denied, due to the ACA. The receptionist said they were informed that no one on Medicare has to pay a co-pay anymore.
It's not much, mine is only $10 but for people who go to the doctor a lot, this could be huge. Just one small advantage that I as a poverty living person can appreciate.
You are such a stupid ass-hole to writ the trash that you do.
It is people like you that are the cause of the distention of the American people.
Your blind following of this ass-hole in the white house just goes to show how stupid you are.
wow leo-pold, you really are a stupid moron asshole! Thanks for visiting!
that's great Annette, thanks for telling us that good news!
Yeah, that $230B over 10 years is just a figment of the CBO's imagination. Sure it is.
I love how they broke all their rule on the very FIRST DAY. Ha, you can't even follow your own f'ing rules. Jebus on a pogo stick.
Lisa, let me ask you something, why do YOU think that the Dems didn't include the Doc-fix in with the rest of the heath-care legislation? And, also, why do you think that they plugged into the equation 10 years of benefits and only 6 years of benefits?......Look, I'm not saying that the Republicans have even been remotely productive here. I'm just saying that it probably wouldn't be the best idea to be letting these Dems get away with such sneakiness, either. Citizenship, Lisa, is a constant vigil. It doesn't go away when the supposed good guys are in power.
So do you think the "in the cross hairs" rhetoric by Palin and her ilk will go away now that a gunman actually put a US Congresswoman in his cross hairs and killed a number of people today, including a 9 year old girl?
Rep. Giffords had been targeted by Palin as someone to get rid of.
Giffords won narrowly in November.
And now she's recovering from a bullet wound to her head.
This is what her grieving 75-year old father had to say about it today:
"Her father Spencer Giffords, 75, wept when asked if his 40-year-old daughter had any enemies.
"Yeah," he told The Post. "The whole tea party."
Don't even start to blame the tea-party on this shooting. The shooter was clearly deranged. He had been in a mental hospital. One of his favorite books was Mein Kampf. He was not a normal thinking person. We in AZ, conservatives and liberals liked Giffords and what she was doing. None of us, right or left, tea party or not, wish harm on anyone.
Anon,
You're missing the point completely.
And we cannot ignore this from Rep. Giffords herself:
GIFFORDS: Community leaders, figures in our community need to say “look, we can’t stand for this.” This is a situation where — people don’t — they really need to realize that the rhetoric and firing people up and, you know, even things, for example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list. But the thing is that the way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gunsight over our district. And when people do that, they’ve gotta realize there’s consequences to that action.
TODD: But in fairness, campaign rhetoric and war rhetoric have been interchangeable for years. And so that’s — is there not, is there a line here? I understand that in the moment it may look bad, but do you really think that’s what she intended?
GIFFORDS: You know, I can’t say, I’m not Sarah Palin. But I can say that in the years that some of my colleagues have served — 20, 30 years — they’ve never seen it like this.
Words have consequences. It doesn't matter what the perpetrator read or did not read. We've been living in a climate that accepted the call to wipe out the opposition in terms of using deadly violence.
That makes Anon defensive.
This is about the whole culture of encouraging violence and weapons as ways of getting rid of one's opposition.
Today we see the results of that rhetoric.
Will, it wasn't at all "sleazy" for the Democrats not to include the doc-fix in their legislation. What's sleazy is the Republican's attempt to link the two. A legislative fix that would have had to been passed regardless somehow increases the cost of the Affordable Health Care Act? It's a ridiculous claim.
Also, you say "we're basically paying 10 years worth of taxes for 6 years worth of benefits", but economist Paul Krugman says that claim is a LIE, because "[the] CBO projects bigger deficit-reduction in the second decade of the reform than in the first decade". How could we save more money in the second decade if in the first we need to tax 10 years for 6 years of benefits?
You may honestly believe both sides need to "knock it off with this food-fight of misinformation", but the lies are coming exclusively from the Right side of the aisle. (Republican talking points debunked by Media Matters).
Post a Comment