Obamacare
October 8th, 2008 by Shiplap
During the Democratic primaries, Hilary Clinton took a great deal of flak over her comments on punitive actions on those failing to comply with her universal healthcare package, up to and including garnishing wages.
Tonight, we received a similar surprise in the second debate between Senators McCain and Obama. During the debate, McCain informed the viewing audience :
To giving every American a $5,000 refundable tax credit and go out and get the health insurance you want rather than mandates and fines for small businesses, as Sen. Obama’s plan calls for.
If you’re a small business person and you don’t insure your employees, Sen. Obama will fine you. Will fine you. That’s remarkable. If you’re a parent and you’re struggling to get health insurance for your children, Sen. Obama will fine you.
Fine you. Standing alone, this is not an overly powerful statement. What is striking is that Obama did not refute it as he had many, if not most of, McCain’s other talking points. Obama left this unchallenged, adding an air credibility to this charge.
Obama’s health care plan is really beginning to sound like that in Massachusetts, where many opt to pay the fine as the penalty is well less than the cost of health insurance. What if you don’t pay the fine, what penalties does Obama envision then? Will he opt for the garnishment of wages as did his Democratic Party rival ? Obama needs to be pressed hard on these and other punitive actions that he plans for Americans not signing up to his nationalized health care program, i.e. Obamacare.
For those that already have health care, I believe Obama has a plan for us as well, stating during the debate :
So here’s what I would do. If you’ve got health care already, and probably the majority of you do, then you can keep your plan if you are satisfied with it. You can keep your choice of doctor. We’re going to work with your employer to lower the cost of your premiums by up to $2,500 a year.
Well, he’s going to work with my employer to cut my annual premium by up to $2,500, this sounds very appealing. Thinking about this a little more, I am expected to believe that cutting my premiums by this margin, that I can expect the same level of benefits myself and my family currently enjoy ? Right…..
But can my insurance company continue to offer me the same level of coverage at this greatly reduced premium ?
The truth is, IT CAN’T ! This can’t be done, a significant decrease in policy premiums must be offset by a significant decrease in benefits. I believe the Obama plan here is to modify existing plans so much that conversion to the nationalized health care plan is our only option for decent health care coverage at a reasonable price.
For Obamacare, as with Hillarycare, the success of universal health care depends upon universal participation. Obama has just told us how he will make that happen. Fines for those refusing to participate, and making existing health care plans so lacking in coverage, that his plan is the only choice should we want protection similar to what we currently have.
What we are seeing is an amalgamation of failed liberal policies, dressed up in a new suit.
This is certainly not change that we need..
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 12:18 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 8th, 2008 at 8:12 am
What caught my ear was his refusal to challenge McCain as having presented false information.
As a small business with employees, I’m VERY concerned about the fines….
So is all of Wall Street. The financial mess is being complicated by companies stuffing their money away for a rainy day…one that comes when Obama is no longer a threat to that money.
If McCain is victorious on November 5th, you’ll see the markets come back online that day.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Obama needs to be pressed on the details of his plans, and the American people need to be given a full accounting and understanding of what his soaring rhetoric means to our fundamental rights, and our pocketbooks.
The devil is always in the details, and in the above debate exchange, McCain showed us a little bit of Obama’s horns.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Obama Health Care Plan explicitly states that small businesses are exempt:
(3) TAX CREDITS FOR FAMILIES AND SMALL BUSINESSES. Barack Obama and Joe Biden understand that too many families that do not qualify for public health programs like Medicaid and SCHIP have trouble finding affordable health insurance. They know from talking to small business owners across the nation that the skyrocketing cost of healthcare poses a serious competitive threat to America’s small businesses. The Obama-Biden health care plan will provide tax credits to all individuals who need it for their premiums. They will also create a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to provide small businesses with a refundable tax credit of up to 50 percent on premiums paid by small businesses on behalf of their employees. To be eligible for the credit, small businesses will have to offer a quality health plan to all of their employees and cover a meaningful share of the cost of employee health premiums.
(4) EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION. Large employers that do not offer meaningful coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan. SMALL BUSINESSES WILL BE EXEMPT FROM THIS REQUIREMENT.
http://mediamatters.org/rd?to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.barackobama.com%2Fpdf%2Fissues%2FHealthCareFullPlan.pdf
October 8th, 2008 at 11:37 am
Many small businesses don’t pay taxes at all. Instead, their earnings or losses are reported on IRS K1 forms for the people who own them, and they’re reported and taxed on 1040’s. So, the tax credit isn’t going to help these businesses.
October 8th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Let’s also consider who and what a small business actually is :
http://www.sba.gov/services/contractingopportunities/sizestandardstopics/faqs/index.html
Obama’s plan can really work by excluding businesses that meet these SBA definitions of a small business ? Not really..
October 8th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
http://www.rightsidenews.com/200810062147/culture-wars/-no-usa-chants-in-carson-city-defining-moment-in-election-08.html
anyone see this one?? check out the video
October 8th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
More accurately, Zimmmmmmer.
“The Obama-Biden health care plan will provide tax credits to all individuals who need it for their premiums. They will also create a new Small Business Health Tax Credit to provide small businesses with a refundable tax credit of up to 50 percent on premiums paid by small businesses on behalf of their employees, OR THEY’LL FACE FINES. To be eligible for the credit, small businesses will have to offer a quality health plan to all of their employees and cover a meaningful share of the cost of employee health premiums, OR ELSE, THEY’ll
FACE FINES.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
What I find reprehensible is the statements by Obama’s campaign that he intends to reduce costs without explaining that means reduced benefits. Insurance works by distribution of costs among many payers. The insurance company takes a small cut in managing the payments and negotiating rates with providers, but all the rest of the payments go toward the medical costs of the people insured.
Cutting “costs” in insurance can only be accomplished through cutting the benefits at this point. The insurance companies do not make a lot of money on the payments — the industry has way too much competition for that to happen (even without the regulation that exists). So the vast majority of premiums goes toward paying medical bills for those that are insured. To do any substantive cut in cost, the payments would have to go down. The insurance companies already negotiate with providers in order to have the lowest prices available … so how do you cut costs? The only way to do so is to cut benefits. You have cancer and only 3 years to live with treatment? You are going to die anyway, so he would just have you get pain meds and die now rather than later (and so what if you might be one of the 20% or so that would be cured with treatment, it costs too much!) Obama is either stupid, or he is telling you to just go off and die.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
The Obama-Biden health plan says four things to me:
1. Employer payrolls will be reduced as employers either increase health care coverage for their employees or pay the mandated fines.
2. Lower-paid workers will be the first to go.
3. Salaries for higher-paid workers will become stagnate as employers attempt to hold down payroll.
4. If small businesses really won’t be fined if they fail to provide insurance for their employees, many of those employees will be forced to buy insurance themselves since children MUST be covered, which will mean poorer families with children will be hit the hardest.
The fact that the plan does not concretely define terms such as “meaningful coverage”, “meaningful contribution” and “percentage of payroll” gives me the distinct impression that this plan is “vaporware” designed to look good, but with no real substance. In addition, saying health care costs for people keeping their current plans could be reduced by “as much as” $2,500 is like a retail store advertising you can get “up to” 75% off on a sale item. When you get to the store, you end up with 15% off and you even have to open a store credit card to get that.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
[…] a previous post I presented a brief discussion on my thoughts after hearing Obama discuss his health care plan […]
October 10th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
And this comment :
“for my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies”
While I sympathize with his mother, I must ask, where was he ? Isn’t this the duty of a son ?
October 10th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
He doesn’t care about his brother, either. So what insanity makes the liberals think he cares about us?