Supreme Court Upholds Health Care Mandate

[Daseal]

Originally Posted by skinsguy

I think what gets lost in the argument is the fact that both sides agree that something needs to be done to curve the rising costs of healthcare insurance. However, anytime the government steps in and takes something over means more tax dollars coming out of all of our pockets. The logic of it all is that if ONLY those who do not have health insurance are "taxed" to get on this program, how in the world is that going to be enough to support this program? I can't see it being enough to pay for all types of healthcare needed.

Also, speaking from experience, any time a healthcare agency deals with state money, their reimbursement is not nearly as quick as it is dealing with private insurance. It can take up to six months, sometimes longer to get reimbursement back. The argument that someone else had the other day was, "at least the health agency is getting reimbursed" but that argument fails when you consider that the health agency has to have money coming in every month to maintain its day to day operations, purchase supplies, pay its employees, etc...I hope you guys keep in mind that the same issues will take place when these health agencies are waiting for this government reimbursement. I work for a mental health agency, and 70% of our money comes from medicaid and medicare, while the other percentage comes from private insurance and self pay. When your payer source is a governmental payer, then you have to deal with the government approving/or denying the health services rendered. To assume this wouldn't happen in the medical health field as much as it does the mental health field is being quite ignorant to the way in which government interference works when it comes to healthcare.

I hate to say it, but too often, the American people only take a small portion of something instead of looking at all of the components. I'm all for everyone having affordable health insurance, but I'm also for everyone having access to that health service without some government no-name approval of that service.

Please correct me if I was wrong -- but this is forcing insurance companies to cover everyone -- but along with that, forcing everyone to buy insurance. While the government is mandating it, they won't be 'running' it directly. Most government interactions will be between the government and the insurance agency, not the gov't and consumer and/or provider. If that is wrong, please point me in the right direction.

[12thMan]

Originally Posted by Daseal

Please correct me if I was wrong -- but this is forcing insurance companies to cover everyone -- but along with that, forcing everyone to buy insurance. While the government is mandating it, they won't be 'running' it directly. Most government interactions will be between the government and the insurance agency, not the gov't and consumer and/or provider. If that is wrong, please point me in the right direction.

That's the gist it. To put a fine point on it, the law now requires insures to end discriminating based on gender, they can no longer deny coverage to kids based on pre-existing conditions, or drop coverage based on sudden illness. It also eliminates lifetime cap limits on patients.

[skinsguy]

Originally Posted by Daseal

Please correct me if I was wrong -- but this is forcing insurance companies to cover everyone -- but along with that, forcing everyone to buy insurance. While the government is mandating it, they won't be 'running' it directly. Most government interactions will be between the government and the insurance agency, not the gov't and consumer and/or provider. If that is wrong, please point me in the right direction.

That's only part of it:

For people who can't afford health insurance, the Federal government will pay the states to add them to Medicaid. The income requirement will be expanded to include more of the working poor.
Those who don't qualify for the expanded Medicaid will receive tax credits. States will be required to set up insurance exchanges to make it easier to shop for private health insurance coverage.

You're still going to have several million more people going on medicaid instead of purchasing private health insurance - which means rising taxes on everyone to help shoulder the burden of the cost. I think it remains to be seen just how lower premiums could and will be with more people paying into the private health insurance companies. That I cannot argue for or against until I actually see it put into motion, but my earlier argument would still remain the same; health agencies still having to deal with a long wait period on reimbursement by medicaid, and I could possibly understand an even lengthier wait when adding millions more onto the program.

However, my personal opinion, I do see some good points from Obamacare, although some of it is kind of a wait and see approach. I can understand that subsidizing health insurance enough so that many more could afford to pay the premiums could help lower the premiums. That's basically how it's set up in many workplaces - more employees who are on the company insurance plan, the lower the rates ---- I just wished it was THAT easy though! You also have to consider the flipside - the more people on the insurance, the more claims, which often averages in higher insurance premiums the next year.

I do like the idea of being able to keep children on your insurance plan until they're 26. Seems like more and more kids are graduating college around that age because they're either in grad school or they have had to take a bit longer to get through their schooling. The upside is that I'm assuming parents would still get to possibly claim those children as dependents (although I could be very wrong on that one)?

Lastly, I do like the idea of who are falling into that "doughnut hole" of medicare being able to be covered. That happened to my mother, and I think she has skipped a lot of healthcare that she needed to be on because of not being covered.

Overall though, if the argument is that the right does not have a better plan to put in its place, it's because the right is thinking more in terms of job creation and getting folks back to work - at least that's the claims from the Romney camp. Whether if that comes to fruition or not would remain to be seen, but having people working is ultimately the best solution to a lot of this economic stuff that the government keeps jumping into.