Supporters of ACA wrongly argued that its repeal means taking healthcare away from people and that healthcare is a human right. The Apelate Court will almost certainly point out that no one can ‘make up laws and rights to fit their political agenda’ (paraphrasing of the projected ruling). Repeal of the ACA will mean unlimited choice will be restored to US citizens, rather than a choice between expensive, bloated coverage packages or a mandatory ‘tax penalty’ that is actually not mentioned in the 2,000+ pages of ACA.
Freedom to choose the type and quantity (including zero) of healthcare and health insurance is a right granted by the US Constitution. That type of choice leads to market competition, which ultimately satisfies consumers and lowers prices through cost efficiencies and innovation.
Do you know that when people don’t have, (read can’t afford), health insurance they use emergency rooms as their doctor. They then, surprisingly, also cannot afford the inflated cost of “emergency” care. They then default on their hospital bills. The hospital then writes it off as a loss. The hospital then claims those losses on their tax returns. The American taxpayer then ultimately holds the bill, (or the approximate 1/3 write off value) of the unpaid hospital bill. So it is fiscally responsible to ensure that every American can afford and has health insurance.
The only caveat to that would be someone who can afford to “self-insure”, in which case they should be required to demonstrate that they can afford the cost of a cancer diagnosis, or hell, even a diabetes diagnosis.
This train of thought brought to you by an **actual** fiscal conservative.
Ugh- so if it’a loss, wouldn’t that simply mean the hospital pays less in taxes? And the taxes we pay as business owners , if I’m not mistaken, is the business owners money anyway?
Your statement indicates the taxpayers actually pay the hospital for the loss? Or worse yet, you think the hospital shouldn’t keep their money?
Yes, the hospital pays less in taxes when they write things off. Our government still can’t figure out how to balance a checkbook, so this is bad. Excessive write offs are not a good thing, they are a bad thing.
No I don’t believe the taxpayers pay the hospital. Nor do I believe the hospital shouldn’t keep their money. What I believe is that write offs for non-emergency care due to emergency room visits has a negative impact on the government balance sheet. One that is already shot to hell through incompetence and political grandstanding from both sides.
Polar is also right in that the paying customers end up footing the bill through increased pricing to cover the expected losses of non-paying customers. So again, it would seem that it is to everyone’s benefit to ensure that all people can afford and maintain health coverage, unless you can demonstrate that you are financially sound enough to cover your own care.
I make some heavy assumptions here, in that I assume everyone here intends on paying their hospital bills and I am going out on a limb here in thinking that no one in this thread could afford a $600,000 hospital bill.
Only a portion of the write-offs are burdens to US taxpayers; e.g. a healthcare providers’ tax bracket rate. The rest is spread among PAYING customers. In other words, payers subsidize non-payers to roughly a (1-tax rate of provider) portion of the write-offs.
Polar, this “law” has been a disaster since it was passed. Nothing but a wealth re-distribution scheme and a way to tax people more for not buying insurance. It was also intended by the lefties to lead to Medicare for all which would literally bankrupt the economy. That is what they are working toward with every breath they take along with all the other give a way schemes. Had they been smart about it, they would have given choices to people instead of forcing coverage many Americans didn’t need. However, being true Progressive Socialists, they wanted to control 1/5th of the economy. No wonder so many rebelled.
Trump recently signed an EO allowing more choices of health insurance coverage. That will ease some of the market problems; e.g. affordability improved through individual cover choice.
The Appellate Court will set things right and it will go back to the Supremes. We all remember what John Roberts did last time. He better not do it again.
Leftists wonder how they lost the vote of the working class to Trump. Here is a hint: the overwhelming majority of people who paid the Obamacare tax/penalty/tax were low income people who didn’t qualify for the subsidies.
Add that to the contempt the left has for people (white people I mean) who didn’t go to college (those deplorables clinging to their guns and religion), and it doesn’t take a climate scientist to figure it out.
Craig, I give your first paragraph a thumbs up. However, I give your second paragraph a big thumbs down. Why did you bring race into this discussion, when it has nothing to do with race? I agree the left (elitists who think they are the smartest people in the room) has a distinct disregard for the unwashed masses (of all races). They (the left) have a definite contempt for the American people of all races.
Did you see Insurance Journal deleted my factual and completely true and fair comment about how the Left shafts the working class of all colors? Totally relevant in a discussion about the ACA, which punished working class people more than anyone else (funny how the Left hates that truth).
Out here in California, they are celebrating “only” a 5% rise in Covered California (ACA) premiums, down from an average annual increase of 8.4% (still waiting for Obama’s promised $2,500. premium reduction per family. Heh Heh.)
The good news is the working class in California can watch all the illegals get health care paid for 100% – it’s free if you come across the border illegally now.
Maybe American working class people will renounce their U.S. citizenship and then go to Mexico and come back as an illegal to get free schooling, health care, driver’s licenses, attorneys and liberal sympathy.
Emergency care is NOT health care. Gavin Newsom made that point over and over as a reason to give the illegals the free coverage.
And why do non-citizens get better benefits than citizens? Free! And you don’t even have to pay taxes!
As if that won’t bring every sick person from Central and South America up to the border . . .
July 11, 2019 at 6:20 pm
Well... says:
Like or Dislike:
1
0
That is exactly what I am saying Craig. Emergency care is not health care. If you don’t have heath insurance, you likely don’t have a PCP. You then turn to the emergency room for your health care. This is bad. By ensuring that people are covered, you prevent this.
July 12, 2019 at 5:41 pm
Craig Cornell says:
Like or Dislike:
1
0
Try thinking for a second: Emergency room care is for emergencies, not for all other health care (such as colds, flu, check-ups, skin sores, abrasions, etc. etc.)
That is why insurance for emergencies is so much cheaper than broad-based health insurance that covers everything.
Gavin Newsom said the Emergency Room approach was cruel. If every condition could be treated with the Emergency Room, as you imply, why even bother giving illegals MORE coverage?
And how about the obvious: every sick person in Central and South America will be running for the Open Border, claiming “asylum” and then not showing up for the court hearing but heading down to the nearest California health clinic.
As Milton Friedman long ago said: you can’t have open borders with social welfare. It is mathematically impossible for any country to afford that. This is just so obvious.
I swear, in order to be a Lefty these days, you either have to be dishonest or completely lacking in common sense.
July 15, 2019 at 2:15 pm
Well... says:
Like or Dislike:
0
0
Again…not a “lefty”. Craig you didn’t write the book on conservatism, so stop acting like anyone who disagrees with you is a “libtard”.
I agree. The emergency room should not be used for healthcare. Glad we can get this out of the way.
Guess where people go for healthcare when they don’t have healthcare coverage.
I mostly have no problem with a “catastrophe” only policy, when it is reasonable – like when you are 23 (they still get cancer and have heart attacks too though). If you are a 65 year old, you have no business with a catastrophe only policy.
July 8, 2019 at 1:20 pm
Jack says:
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
19
9
ACA was NOTHING more than wealth redistribution. Just like a ” green economy” will be.
If they would focus their efforts on repair vs replace, this would be over.
Get rid of the web site and put distribution back in the hands of local / licensed / trained / regulated insured & bonded agents that have a real office on main st USA.
Agree. Repeal of the whole thing via a Constitutional challenge, followed by regulations intended to increase market competition is a start. Many more things need to be done to improve affordability of HI and healthcare.
Public health care systems sound good on the surface, but view the results in socialized medicine nations; e.g. Canaduh, the UK….. and the US VA. In all 3 examples, there are delays and denial of treatments/ rationing.
Lets ask Mick Jager why he had
his surgery in New York rather then in England.
July 9, 2019 at 9:29 am
PolarBeaRepeal says:
Like or Dislike:
9
0
When asked, Jagger said “Stent me up, stent me up…. I’ll never stop, never never never stop.”
July 8, 2019 at 2:23 pm
Lars says:
Like or Dislike:
6
3
Congress and Obama never had the authority to do the ACA. They knew it but scammed it through anyway knowing it would be at least a decade before anything could be done to get rid of it. They also knew that once people had it forced on them they would eventually adjust their lives to compensate no matter how much they hated it or how badly it worked. The simple fact is this, Congress and Obama underneath the Federalist Papers and The Laws of this country have absolutely no right to force you to buy anything, nor do they have the right to impose financial penalty or any other type of penalty because you did not drink the kool-aid. This was done to see what they could get away with plain and simple. Yes congress can impose taxes for things that are for the betterment and sustaining of the entire country in order to protect it. Health Care never has and never will fall into that category. If you think Government health care is so damn good wait until they kill one of your family members or better yet check out your local VA hospital. Did you know any government hospital the doctors, nurses and (nurse practitioners who think their doctors) don’t even have to be licensed with the state which means their license could be from Antarctica and they can still get a job.
The real tragedy as I see it, which is not addressed by either the ACA or this article, is that MAD Magazine will be winding down its publication. It was a huge part of my childhood. That magazine taught us how to laugh at ourselves, and God knows we could all use a little more laughter around here, especially lately. Answer me this: Where the heck am I supposed to find out if the Black Spy beats the White Spy, huh???
2019 Spy vs Spy plot twist: It was the same spy this whole time – he just had multiple personality disorder and didn’t know it (also allows us to not have a “white beat black” or “black beat white” racial discussion).
I’m with you. Felt the quality went down as soon as (1) they started including advertisements and (2) they started printing their mag’s in color, but that might just be me becoming an old fogey after all these years :)
Don Martin once wrote a story about a Notary Public that was a superhero. Every time I have something notarized I laugh about that story. Long Live Alfred E. Neuman!
Supporters of ACA wrongly argued that its repeal means taking healthcare away from people and that healthcare is a human right. The Apelate Court will almost certainly point out that no one can ‘make up laws and rights to fit their political agenda’ (paraphrasing of the projected ruling). Repeal of the ACA will mean unlimited choice will be restored to US citizens, rather than a choice between expensive, bloated coverage packages or a mandatory ‘tax penalty’ that is actually not mentioned in the 2,000+ pages of ACA.
Freedom to choose the type and quantity (including zero) of healthcare and health insurance is a right granted by the US Constitution. That type of choice leads to market competition, which ultimately satisfies consumers and lowers prices through cost efficiencies and innovation.
Do you know that when people don’t have, (read can’t afford), health insurance they use emergency rooms as their doctor. They then, surprisingly, also cannot afford the inflated cost of “emergency” care. They then default on their hospital bills. The hospital then writes it off as a loss. The hospital then claims those losses on their tax returns. The American taxpayer then ultimately holds the bill, (or the approximate 1/3 write off value) of the unpaid hospital bill. So it is fiscally responsible to ensure that every American can afford and has health insurance.
The only caveat to that would be someone who can afford to “self-insure”, in which case they should be required to demonstrate that they can afford the cost of a cancer diagnosis, or hell, even a diabetes diagnosis.
This train of thought brought to you by an **actual** fiscal conservative.
Ugh- so if it’a loss, wouldn’t that simply mean the hospital pays less in taxes? And the taxes we pay as business owners , if I’m not mistaken, is the business owners money anyway?
Your statement indicates the taxpayers actually pay the hospital for the loss? Or worse yet, you think the hospital shouldn’t keep their money?
Yes, the hospital pays less in taxes when they write things off. Our government still can’t figure out how to balance a checkbook, so this is bad. Excessive write offs are not a good thing, they are a bad thing.
No I don’t believe the taxpayers pay the hospital. Nor do I believe the hospital shouldn’t keep their money. What I believe is that write offs for non-emergency care due to emergency room visits has a negative impact on the government balance sheet. One that is already shot to hell through incompetence and political grandstanding from both sides.
Polar is also right in that the paying customers end up footing the bill through increased pricing to cover the expected losses of non-paying customers. So again, it would seem that it is to everyone’s benefit to ensure that all people can afford and maintain health coverage, unless you can demonstrate that you are financially sound enough to cover your own care.
I make some heavy assumptions here, in that I assume everyone here intends on paying their hospital bills and I am going out on a limb here in thinking that no one in this thread could afford a $600,000 hospital bill.
Only a portion of the write-offs are burdens to US taxpayers; e.g. a healthcare providers’ tax bracket rate. The rest is spread among PAYING customers. In other words, payers subsidize non-payers to roughly a (1-tax rate of provider) portion of the write-offs.
Polar, this “law” has been a disaster since it was passed. Nothing but a wealth re-distribution scheme and a way to tax people more for not buying insurance. It was also intended by the lefties to lead to Medicare for all which would literally bankrupt the economy. That is what they are working toward with every breath they take along with all the other give a way schemes. Had they been smart about it, they would have given choices to people instead of forcing coverage many Americans didn’t need. However, being true Progressive Socialists, they wanted to control 1/5th of the economy. No wonder so many rebelled.
Trump recently signed an EO allowing more choices of health insurance coverage. That will ease some of the market problems; e.g. affordability improved through individual cover choice.
The Appellate Court will set things right and it will go back to the Supremes. We all remember what John Roberts did last time. He better not do it again.
Leftists wonder how they lost the vote of the working class to Trump. Here is a hint: the overwhelming majority of people who paid the Obamacare tax/penalty/tax were low income people who didn’t qualify for the subsidies.
Add that to the contempt the left has for people (white people I mean) who didn’t go to college (those deplorables clinging to their guns and religion), and it doesn’t take a climate scientist to figure it out.
Craig, I give your first paragraph a thumbs up. However, I give your second paragraph a big thumbs down. Why did you bring race into this discussion, when it has nothing to do with race? I agree the left (elitists who think they are the smartest people in the room) has a distinct disregard for the unwashed masses (of all races). They (the left) have a definite contempt for the American people of all races.
Did you see Insurance Journal deleted my factual and completely true and fair comment about how the Left shafts the working class of all colors? Totally relevant in a discussion about the ACA, which punished working class people more than anyone else (funny how the Left hates that truth).
Out here in California, they are celebrating “only” a 5% rise in Covered California (ACA) premiums, down from an average annual increase of 8.4% (still waiting for Obama’s promised $2,500. premium reduction per family. Heh Heh.)
The good news is the working class in California can watch all the illegals get health care paid for 100% – it’s free if you come across the border illegally now.
Maybe American working class people will renounce their U.S. citizenship and then go to Mexico and come back as an illegal to get free schooling, health care, driver’s licenses, attorneys and liberal sympathy.
When they had no coverage, they just went to the emergency like their regular doctor and didn’t pay. Guess who foots the bill then?
Emergency care is NOT health care. Gavin Newsom made that point over and over as a reason to give the illegals the free coverage.
And why do non-citizens get better benefits than citizens? Free! And you don’t even have to pay taxes!
As if that won’t bring every sick person from Central and South America up to the border . . .
That is exactly what I am saying Craig. Emergency care is not health care. If you don’t have heath insurance, you likely don’t have a PCP. You then turn to the emergency room for your health care. This is bad. By ensuring that people are covered, you prevent this.
Try thinking for a second: Emergency room care is for emergencies, not for all other health care (such as colds, flu, check-ups, skin sores, abrasions, etc. etc.)
That is why insurance for emergencies is so much cheaper than broad-based health insurance that covers everything.
Gavin Newsom said the Emergency Room approach was cruel. If every condition could be treated with the Emergency Room, as you imply, why even bother giving illegals MORE coverage?
And how about the obvious: every sick person in Central and South America will be running for the Open Border, claiming “asylum” and then not showing up for the court hearing but heading down to the nearest California health clinic.
As Milton Friedman long ago said: you can’t have open borders with social welfare. It is mathematically impossible for any country to afford that. This is just so obvious.
I swear, in order to be a Lefty these days, you either have to be dishonest or completely lacking in common sense.
Again…not a “lefty”. Craig you didn’t write the book on conservatism, so stop acting like anyone who disagrees with you is a “libtard”.
I agree. The emergency room should not be used for healthcare. Glad we can get this out of the way.
Guess where people go for healthcare when they don’t have healthcare coverage.
I mostly have no problem with a “catastrophe” only policy, when it is reasonable – like when you are 23 (they still get cancer and have heart attacks too though). If you are a 65 year old, you have no business with a catastrophe only policy.
ACA was NOTHING more than wealth redistribution. Just like a ” green economy” will be.
If they would focus their efforts on repair vs replace, this would be over.
Get rid of the web site and put distribution back in the hands of local / licensed / trained / regulated insured & bonded agents that have a real office on main st USA.
Leave the Pre X’s alone.
Someone is going to figure this out.
Nope. Wrong. ACA is, by design, FUBAR.
Obvious it was designed to push us on a public health care system.
Agree. Repeal of the whole thing via a Constitutional challenge, followed by regulations intended to increase market competition is a start. Many more things need to be done to improve affordability of HI and healthcare.
Public health care systems sound good on the surface, but view the results in socialized medicine nations; e.g. Canaduh, the UK….. and the US VA. In all 3 examples, there are delays and denial of treatments/ rationing.
Lets ask Mick Jager why he had
his surgery in New York rather then in England.
When asked, Jagger said “Stent me up, stent me up…. I’ll never stop, never never never stop.”
Congress and Obama never had the authority to do the ACA. They knew it but scammed it through anyway knowing it would be at least a decade before anything could be done to get rid of it. They also knew that once people had it forced on them they would eventually adjust their lives to compensate no matter how much they hated it or how badly it worked. The simple fact is this, Congress and Obama underneath the Federalist Papers and The Laws of this country have absolutely no right to force you to buy anything, nor do they have the right to impose financial penalty or any other type of penalty because you did not drink the kool-aid. This was done to see what they could get away with plain and simple. Yes congress can impose taxes for things that are for the betterment and sustaining of the entire country in order to protect it. Health Care never has and never will fall into that category. If you think Government health care is so damn good wait until they kill one of your family members or better yet check out your local VA hospital. Did you know any government hospital the doctors, nurses and (nurse practitioners who think their doctors) don’t even have to be licensed with the state which means their license could be from Antarctica and they can still get a job.
The real tragedy as I see it, which is not addressed by either the ACA or this article, is that MAD Magazine will be winding down its publication. It was a huge part of my childhood. That magazine taught us how to laugh at ourselves, and God knows we could all use a little more laughter around here, especially lately. Answer me this: Where the heck am I supposed to find out if the Black Spy beats the White Spy, huh???
I’m not stressed out about as are you. What; me worry?
2019 Spy vs Spy plot twist: It was the same spy this whole time – he just had multiple personality disorder and didn’t know it (also allows us to not have a “white beat black” or “black beat white” racial discussion).
I’m with you. Felt the quality went down as soon as (1) they started including advertisements and (2) they started printing their mag’s in color, but that might just be me becoming an old fogey after all these years :)
yeah, I agree with you. Once they started accepting ads and printing in color, the magic died a little.
i was at my parent’s place over the weekend and found a box of my old MAD’s from about 30 years ago. Still great stuff.
Don Martin once wrote a story about a Notary Public that was a superhero. Every time I have something notarized I laugh about that story. Long Live Alfred E. Neuman!
Two good ones Polar!