Insurance for all / LJWorld.com

Opinion

By Mark Larson - Lawrence

November 7, 2009

To the editor:

As far as I can tell from news reports, health care “reform” is mostly “more of the same.” Twelve million of our citizens will be left without health insurance. Overhead expenditures will continue to account for nearly 50 percent of money paid in premiums.

There are few incentives for insurers to focus on maintaining subscribers’ health and preventing illness. Expenditures will continue upward, although new taxes will cover government’s increased share.

There is a simpler way to achieve better results: Require that insurers take all applicants, regardless of physical condition or history. This would do two things. It would cut out much of the administrative overhead, significantly reducing costs of insurance. Further, when insurers must accept all applicants they will, sooner or later, become interested in programs to keep those insured as healthy as possible.

We could achieve these results through a variety of approaches. We could maintain the present private and public mix. We could adopt a government-administered Medicare for everyone. We could even follow the British system, expanding the Veterans Administration health system to cover everyone. The one constant is that everyone must be included!

Lobbyists for private insurers will probably argue that their profits will plummet. They now claim only 2 percent profits. When much of the administrative overhead costs are gone, very likely profits will inch upward. After health maintenance programs are in place, profits may inch upward again.

Reform is when everyone is insured, and has full access to health care!

Discussion

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7 November 2009
at 5:50 a.m.

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BigPrune (Anonymous) says…

Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail
JCT Confirms Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

In response to the JCT letter, Camp said: “This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail. It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately.”

Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]

“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]

“Criminal penalties

Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:

• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]

When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties. The Pelosi bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail.

“The Senate Finance Committee had the good sense to eliminate the extreme penalty of incarceration. Speaker Pelosi’s decision to leave in the jail time provision is a threat to every family who cannot afford the $15,000 premium her plan creates. Fortunately, Republicans have an alternative that will lower health insurance costs without raising taxes or cutting Medicare,” said Camp.

According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.
7 November 2009
at 8:15 a.m.

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bkgarner (Brent Garner) says…

Sieg Heil, Feuher Pelosi!
7 November 2009
at 8:30 a.m.

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commuter (Anonymous) says…

People can buy health insurance- I think too many people complain that it is unaffordable. I pay too much to health insurance too but I don't go crying to Obama saying that the government should pay for my health care.

As for overhead costs, is the writer wanting insurance compnaies to lay people off to reduce overhead?? If so, is he prepared for the increased unemployment??? Probally not. He has a short sided view and there are lot of issues that must be included if you really want health insurance reform.
7 November 2009
at 8:46 a.m.

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Godot (Anonymous) says…

All those unemployed insurance administrators will go to work for the government for shorter hours, higher pay, more vacation and zero accountability. Maybe its not such a bad thing for them, after all, as long as they can put up with the mediocrity.
7 November 2009
at 9:07 a.m.

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merrill (Anonymous) says…

“Where Does All the Money Go?

After you’ve finished gasping in surprise at the share of your income that is already going into health care, you may wonder where all that money goes.

One answer is that the United States has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world, including over 1,500 different companies, each offering multiple plans, each with its own marketing program and enrollment procedures, its own paperwork and policies, its CEO salaries, sales commissions, and other non-clinical costs—and, of course, if it is a for-profit company, its profits.

Compared to the overhead costs of the single-payer approach, this fragmented system takes almost 25 cents more out of every health care dollar for expenses other than actually providing care.

Of the additional overhead in the current U.S. system, approximately half is borne by doctors’ offices and hospitals, which are forced to maintain large billing and negotiating staffs to deal with all the plans. By contrast, under

Canada’s single-payer system (which is run by the provinces, not by the federal government), each medical specialty organization negotiates once a year with the nonprofit payer for each province to set fees, and doctors and hospitals need only bill that one payer.

Of course, the United States already has a universal, single-payer health care program: Medicare. Medicare, which serves the elderly and people with disabilities, operates with overhead costs equal to just 3% of total expenditures, compared to 15% to 25% overhead in private health programs.

Since Medicare collects its revenue through the IRS, there is no need to collect from individuals, groups, or businesses.

Some complexity remains—after all, Medicare must exist in the fragmented world that is American health care—but no matter how creative the opponents of single-payer get, there is no way they can show convincingly how the administrative costs of a single-payer system could come close to the current level.

Some opponents use current U.S. government expenditures for Medicare and Medicaid to arrive at frightening cost estimates for a universal single-payer health care system.

They may use Medicare’s $8,568 per person, or $34,272 for a family of four (2006). But they fail to mention that Medicare covers a very atypical, high-cost slice of the U.S. population: senior citizens, regardless of pre-existing conditions, and people with disabilities, including diagnoses such as AIDS and end-stage renal disease.

Or they use Medicaid costs—forgetting to mention that half of Medicaid dollars pay for nursing homes, while the other half of Medicaid provides basic health care coverage, primarily to children in low-income households, at a cost of only about $1,500 a year per child.”
7 November 2009
at 9:09 a.m.

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merrill (Anonymous) says…

See for yourselves:

Single Payer Vs Public Option

http://www.healthcare-now.org/report-…
7 November 2009
at 9:51 a.m.

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commuter (Anonymous) says…

I think Merrill gets paid by the post- Does anyone else?? maybe MOveOn.org wants someone to posts stuff for them and have employed Merrill.

7 November 2009
at 10:41 a.m.

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snap_pop_no_crackle (Anonymous) says…

His reptoid masters need to give merrill some new material.
7 November 2009
at 10:51 a.m.

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GardenMomma (Anonymous) says…

I was under the impression that insurance companies take the insureds premiums and invest that money which then earns more money so that the insurance company can pay out on claims.

If that is true, then with a down market any money invested would most likely lose money. It would then follow that if the insurance companies offered insurance to all who applied, regardless of health status, then more people would have a higher than average payout.

And it then follows that the insurance companies would not have to funds to cover all the pay-outs. What I surmise would happen next is that premiums would increase across the board in order to cover the increase in pay outs needed.
7 November 2009
at 10:58 a.m.

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notajayhawk (Anonymous) says…

merrill believes if you keep repeating the same lies often enough, they become true.

Sadly, there are too many brain-dead people on these forums who read his posts and actually believe his cr*pola.

“But they fail to mention that Medicare covers a very atypical, high-cost slice of the U.S. population: senior citizens, regardless of pre-existing conditions, and people with disabilities, including diagnoses such as AIDS and end-stage renal disease.”

We don't fail to mention that at all, myrtle. The fact that Medicare covers a group that has higher-than-average healthcare costs is precisely why their administrative costs seem so low - as a *percentage* of claims paid. If you look at the per-person expenditures, it's a different story, isn't it, buffoon?

And you have absolutely no idea of what you're talking about if you think half of Medicaid goes to nursing homes and half to children. And by the way, the cost of insuring children is pretty low with most private insurers, too, myrtle, since kids have lower healthcare expenses.

Just keep posting the same lies, myrtle. After all, when the LTE writer can say something as stupid as “There are few incentives for insurers to focus on maintaining subscribers’ health and preventing illness.,” it's apparent there is no shortage of mindless idiots who will listen to them.
7 November 2009
at 12:04 p.m.

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Pilgrim2 (Anonymous) says…

“There is a simpler way to achieve better results: Require that insurers take all applicants, regardless of physical condition or history.”
*******************************************

Then it is no longer insurance. All you're doing is forcing companies or the government to pay your medical bills for you.

Sponge.
7 November 2009
at 12:26 p.m.

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puddleglum (Anonymous) says…

yeah, kinda like all the other industrialized nations on the planet…
huh.
if switzerland can do it, why can't we?
7 November 2009
at 2:22 p.m.

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Godot (Anonymous) says…

For a preview the bureaucratic maze we citizens will have to navigate to receive healthcare if Obama has his way, go here:

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives…

At least this plan will create jobs - all of them mind numbing administrative, regulatory jobs in our new plutocracy.
9 November 2009
at 8:39 p.m.

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Pilgrim2 (Anonymous) says…

puddleglum (Anonymous) says…

yeah, kinda like all the other industrialized nations on the planet…
huh.
if switzerland can do it, why can't we?
*******************************************

It's like your momma (you know, that lady who lives up the basement stairs from you) asks, “If all the kids jump off a bridge, are you going to do it, too?”
9 November 2009
at 9:07 p.m.

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ComradeRedRooster (Anonymous) says…

The Nazi's had Heil Hitler,
We get Obey Obama

What is the left going to call their prisons? Detainment camps. Nah, too negative.

Happy fun time adjustment centers, Probably.

These whacko's are completely out of control. What the He!! happened to America?