Obamacare Saves Consumers $2.1 Billion Since 2011

[Upgrade Dave]

Did it ever occur to you, that Obama (e.g. the "government") is just piling on "solution" after "solution" that caused this mess instead of just fixing it?

Get rid of HMOs, which Nixon brought in the 1970s, and all these problems with access to healthcare would disappear. It actually works instead of just blaming the public for shit they didn't cause.

Unfortunately, too many Obama ass-kissers like to solve simple problems, with complicated solutions, and then turn around and justify the stupidity with dumb rationalizations and irrational arguments without any facts or evidence to support anything their promoting.

Government will save us. Government will save us. Obama is the white Jesus. The politicians know all. It's the public's fault. The poor are the problem.

This country loves short-term thinking for long-term consequences. It is always worshipping at the altar of stupidity. A country can't last too long like that and keep its standard of living, as we are all witnessing.

Let's try something new from you

Kill all this rhetorical crap you spew and actually offer some of those solutions and show how they've worked before or elsewhere.

There is no such animal as free health care. Obamacare is not saving money, rather it is causing excess spending by everyone. For some reason, people believe they are entitled to free health care, free food stamps, free housing, free graduate education, and free retirement (federal and state workers).

I just deleted the rest of your post because it was filled with a lot of unoriginal catchphrases that you heard from someone else but hadn't thought about at all.
You set up the strawman argument (the bolded) and then argued against it.
No one, not one serious person, is believing or expecting "free" anything and "Obamacare" doesn't offer it and never has.

 

[Cruise]

Let's try something new from you

Kill all this rhetorical crap you spew and actually offer some of those solutions and show how they've worked before or elsewhere.

Did you not read where I said get rid of the HMOs? Go back to the way it was back in the 1960s and early 1970s.

Whenever I offer real, practical solutions, that have clearly worked, you Obama-lovers play stupid and act like the past never existed so therefore Obama (or the government) is always right with their stupid, short-sighted, power-grabbing schemes.

Solve the budget deficit? Stop all these damn wars and reduce the military to where it was before World War 2.

Solve the mass incarceration? Stop this bullshit WAR ON DRUGS and get rid of the DHS, TSA, DEA, and all these dumbass taskforces.

Salvage the financial crisis? Reinstate Glass-Steagall, return silver to the money supply and currency and get rid of National branch banking.

But, oh no, the gubmint-lovers always have some excuse why their latest "solution" is going to fix the problem they just created.

I sometimes wonder if you are intentionally being stupid or is that just natural for you.

 

[thoughtone]

Solve the budget deficit? Stop all these damn wars and reduce the military to where it was before World War 2.

I would be satisfied if were reduced to pre Korean War levels.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Did you not read where I said get rid of the HMOs? Go back to the way it was back in the 1960s and early 1970s.

.

I deleted the rest hoping to help you focus. If you want, we can actually discuss those other topics instead of you creating other people's opinions out of whole cloth.

I did read that but I was hoping (against hope really) that you would add something to that. Simple, one line solutions to complex problems are bound to fail so I'm thinking you have more to offer.
Take another shot. How would eliminating HMOs stop the rising costs of care?

 

[Cruise]

I deleted the rest hoping to help you focus. If you want, we can actually discuss those other topics instead of you creating other people's opinions out of whole cloth.

I did read that but I was hoping (against hope really) that you would add something to that. Simple, one line solutions to complex problems are bound to fail so I'm thinking you have more to offer.
Take another shot. How would eliminating HMOs stop the rising costs of care?

I was hoping against hope that you would quit playing stupid and realize I answered your question.

Then, without any basis in fact, I thought you would benefit by seeing how simple solutions can solve a lot of problems your government creates.

Instead of accepting that you were called on your bullshit, now you are trying to save face by asking more questions without first admitting you were wrong in the first place by saying I never provide solutions.

I provide the solutions, show when and where it has worked, and then you promptly whine about why it can't work and only Obama will save us.

Do you have anything to offer other than simple-minded worship of government "solutions" and Obama promises? Because that shit is why things keep getting worse.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

I was hoping against hope that you would quit playing stupid and realize I answered your question.

Then, without any basis in fact, I thought you would benefit by seeing how simple solutions can solve a lot of problems your government creates.

Instead of accepting that you were called on your bullshit, now you are trying to save face by asking more questions without first admitting you were wrong in the first place by saying I never provide solutions.

I provide the solutions, show when and where it has worked, and then you promptly whine about why it can't work and only Obama will save us.

Do you have anything to offer other than simple-minded worship of government "solutions" and Obama promises? Because that shit is why things keep getting worse.

So you don't know how eliminating HMOs would bring down costs?
Gotcha. You were just saying something you heard someone else say. Cool.

If I wanted a back and forth battle where we just insult each other, I'd do that on the main board. But if that's all you have, fine.
I never, ever have to "save face" on an anonymous board. You really take yourself far too seriously and far more seriously than I take you.

I provide the solutions, show when and where it has worked,

When did this happen?

 

[Greed]

Fed: Obama's health law leading to layoffs

Fed: Obama's health law leading to layoffs
By Pete Kasperowicz - 03/06/13 03:45 PM ET

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday released an edition of its so-called "beige book," that said the 2010 healthcare law is being cited as a reason for layoffs and a slowdown in hiring.

"Employers in several Districts cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff," said the March 6 beige book, which examines economic conditions across various Federal Reserve districts across the country.

That line was found in a section of the Fed's report on employment, wages and prices. That same section also said the Atlanta district noted that healthcare regulations are so burdensome there is a shortage of compliance specialists.

"Atlanta noted a lack of compliance specialists due to heavier regulations in the healthcare industry," it said.

In a later section focusing on the Philadelphia district, the beige book said that "Health insurance costs are mixed, ranging from very high increases to no change." The Cleveland district reported that "rising health insurance premiums remain a challenge" in the manufacturing industry, and that many in the energy sector cited "rising health insurance premiums as a concern."

The Atlanta district reported that higher healthcare costs "have contributed to a modest decline in consumer confidence" as it relates to consumer spending and tourism.

Higher healthcare costs were also reported in the districts of Chicago, and the Kansas City district reported "changes in health care policy and fiscal uncertainty as reasons for delayed hiring."

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatc...s-health-law-leading-to-layoffs#ixzz2MnSuUTaD

 

[Upgrade Dave]

^^^^^this doesnt say anyone has been fired due to "Obamacare".



The healthcare industry has been gaining jobs since the inception of "Obamacare".

 

[Greed]

With Obamacare entrenched, Democrats feel free to gripe

With Obamacare entrenched, Democrats feel free to gripe
By: Jennifer Haberkorn
March 11, 2013 11:44 PM EDT

A funny thing happened once Democrats grew confident that Obamacare is truly the “law of the land.”

They started complaining about pieces of it in public.

Democrats aren’t walking away from the overall law and its sweeping goals; they still see it as a historic achievement they had sought for generations.

But now that they feel its future is protected and it’s safe from repeal, Democrats are slowly becoming more vocal about small parts of the law that they want changed or eliminated — device taxes, a Medicare board, even kids’ dental coverage, to name a few.

And with important 2014 deadlines closing in, they’re more willing to point out where they think the Obama administration isn’t implementing the law correctly.

For instance, four Senate Democrats and two dozen House Democrats have signed on to Republican bills to repeal the law’s tax on medical-device manufacturers. Another 10 House Democrats want to repeal one of the law’s boards charged with containing Medicare spending.

During one recent Senate hearing, more fire came from the left than the right as several Democrats grilled a top administration health care official on how he’s getting the law up and running.

The Democratic critique of the law wasn’t unheard of last year, but it was quiet.

Since President Barack Obama’s signature health reform law passed in early 2010, Democrats banded together — just about universally — to defend it against a Republican Party that was just as uniformly set on repealing it.

But now that Obama has been reelected and there is no chance Republican repeal attempts would get past his veto pen, the political dynamic seems to have opened a door to Democrats to critique the law — and push back when they think the Obama administration isn’t putting the law in place as they want.

There’s also an oversight role: The law’s major provisions are slated to go into effect next January. Consumers can start signing up in October. Backers want that to go as smoothly as possible, lest Republicans say the rollout was the failure they had predicted all along.

As with any big piece of legislation, most members who supported it have pieces they would like changed.

Senate Democrats have taken a hard line against the pieces of the law that trouble them.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has threatened to vote against Obama’s nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services unless the administration allows states to run a Basic Health Plan, an optional program that allows states to use federal subsidies to insure people just above the federal poverty level. But the administration has put that option off for at least a year.

In a recent Finance Committee hearing, Cantwell pressed Gary Cohen, the director of the HHS Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, on why the agency is slow-walking the Basic Health Plan and not other pieces of the law.

“It seems as if the agency is taking, I don’t know, how many pages out of 900 [pages of the health law] and saying, that’s the health plan,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, I think the president signed all 900 pages.”

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) then demanded that Cohen explain why the Obama administration “negotiated away” money for another small piece of the law, one to set up insurance co-ops to compete with commercial insurers in the state-based health insurance exchanges. He warned that the administration is risking the entire law’s success.

“If we have this kind of implementation, then we’re not going to fulfill the goal that we all set when we laboriously put together … this health care bill,” Nelson said.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) went to the Senate floor recently to criticize an HHS regulation, stemming from the health law, that he said doesn’t do enough to ensure that children have access to dental care.

“I am thoroughly concerned that our progress [on pediatric dental health] is about to be stalled,” he said, marking the anniversary of the death of a Maryland child, Deamonte Driver, from untreated tooth decay that led to a fatal infection. The rule that HHS released wouldn’t ensure that other children have dental care and “was not what Congress intended.”

Four Senate Democrats — Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken of Minnesota, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Donnelly of Indiana — are co-sponsoring a Republican bill to repeal the law’s medical-device tax. None were co-sponsors last year (although Donnelly was just elected to the Senate in November).

Two dozen Democrats have signed on to a corresponding House bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen, also of Minnesota, which is home to many device makers. Only five Democrats co-sponsored the bill in the last Congress, although many more backed it when it came up for a vote.

Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin was the lead Democrat on the medical-device bill this year.

“I’ve always come to health care reform from the perspective that it isn’t the perfect end-all, be-all bill,” Kind said. “We have to learn what is working and what isn’t working and make adjustments along the way. And that’s going to be true regardless of the politics and who is up for reelection.”

Kind acknowledged that there is a new tone on health care since the president was reelected and some Republican governors decided to move ahead on implementation.

“The repeal efforts aren’t going anywhere. The states now, especially, are coming to grips with how we are implementing this. That changes the conversation,” he said.

Ten House Democrats are co-sponsoring a bill to repeal the law’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, a controversial panel that is designed to keep Medicare spending in check. Last year, only one Democrat voted to repeal the board, but others supported an earlier version of the bill. The panel, which was a Senate idea, has never had strong support among House Democrats.

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) says he strongly opposes the board because it grants the executive branch power over spending that should be reserved for Congress. But he stressed that his opposition to IPAB doesn’t diminish support for the rest of Obamacare.

“I think that the essential themes of the health care bill are strong, and I continue to support them,” he said. “In some areas, I wanted it to go further.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/aca-is-here-to-stay-so-democrats-feel-free-to-gripe-88717.html

 

[Greed]

Study: Health law to raise claims cost 32 percent

Study: Health law to raise claims cost 32 percent
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR | Associated Press – 8 hrs ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new study finds that insurance companies will have to pay out an average of 32 percent more for medical claims on individual health policies under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

What does that mean for you?

It could increase premiums for at least some Americans.

If you are uninsured, or you buy your policy directly from an insurance company, you should pay attention.

But if you have an employer plan, like most workers and their families, odds are you don't have much to worry about.

The estimates from the Society of Actuaries could turn into a political headache for the Obama administration at a time when much of the country remains skeptical of the Affordable Care Act.

The administration is questioning the study, saying it doesn't give a full picture — and costs will go down.

Actuaries are financial risk professionals who conduct long-range cost estimates for pension plans, insurance companies and government programs.

The study says claims costs will go up largely because sicker people will join the insurance pool. That's because the law forbids insurers from turning down those with pre-existing medical problems, effective Jan. 1. Everyone gets sick sooner or later, but sicker people also use more health care services.

"Claims cost is the most important driver of health care premiums," said Kristi Bohn, an actuary who worked on the study. Spending on sicker people and other high-cost groups will overwhelm an influx of younger, healthier people into the program, said the report.

The Obama administration challenged the design of the study, saying it focused only on one piece of the puzzle and ignored cost relief strategies in the law, such as tax credits to help people afford premiums and special payments to insurers who attract an outsize share of the sick.

The study also doesn't take into account the potential price-cutting effect of competition in new state insurance markets that will go live Oct. 1, administration officials said.

At a White House briefing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said some of what passes for health insurance today is so skimpy it can't be compared to the comprehensive coverage available under the law. "Some of these folks have very high catastrophic plans that don't pay for anything unless you get hit by a bus," she said. "They're really mortgage protection, not health insurance."

Sebelius said the picture on premiums won't start coming into focus until insurers submit their bids. Those results may not be publicly known until late summer.

Another striking finding of the report was a wide disparity in cost impact among the states.

While some states will see medical claims costs per person decline, the report concluded that the overwhelming majority will see double-digit increases in their individual health insurance markets, where people purchase coverage directly from insurers.

The differences are big. By 2017, the estimated increase would be 62 percent for California, about 80 percent for Ohio, more than 20 percent for Florida and 67 percent for Maryland. Much of the reason for the higher claims costs is that sicker people are expected to join the pool, the report said.

Part of the reason for the wide disparities is that states have different populations and insurance rules. In the relatively small number of states where insurers were already restricted from charging higher rates to older, sicker people, the cost impact is less.

The report did not make similar estimates for employer plans that most workers and families rely on. That's because the primary impact of Obama's law is on people who don't have coverage through their jobs.

A prominent national expert, recently retired Medicare chief actuary Rick Foster, said the report does "a credible job" of estimating potential enrollment and costs under the law, "without trying to tilt the answers in any particular direction."

"Having said that," Foster added, "actuaries tend to be financially conservative, so the various assumptions might be more inclined to consider what might go wrong than to anticipate that everything will work beautifully." Actuaries use statistics and economic theory to make long-range cost projections for insurance and pension programs sponsored by businesses and government. The society is headquartered near Chicago.

Bohn, the actuary who worked on the study, acknowledged it did not attempt to estimate the effect of subsidies, insurer competition and other factors that could offset cost increases. She said the goal was to look at the underlying cost of medical care.

"We don't see ourselves as a political organization," Bohn added. "We are trying to figure out what the situation at hand is."

On the plus side, the report found the law will cover more than 32 million currently uninsured Americans when fully phased in. And some states — including New York and Massachusetts — will see double-digit declines in costs for claims in the individual market.

Uncertainty over costs has been a major issue since the law passed three years ago, and remains so just months before a big push to cover the uninsured gets rolling Oct. 1. Middle-class households will be able to purchase subsidized private insurance in new marketplaces, while low-income people will be steered to Medicaid and other safety net programs. States are free to accept or reject a Medicaid expansion also offered under the law.

http://news.yahoo.com/study-health-law-raise-claims-cost-32-percent-070021624--finance.html

 

[Greed]

Big Brother Has A New Face, And It's Your Boss

Big Brother Has A New Face, And It's Your Boss
Paul Hsieh, Contributor
4/25/2013

Recently, the CVS Caremark Corporation began requiring employees to disclose personal health information (including weight, blood pressure, and body fat levels) or else pay an annual $600 fine. Workers must make this information available to the company’s employee “Wellness Program” and sign a form stating that they’re doing so voluntarily.

CVS argues this will help workers “take more responsibility for improving their health.” At one level, this makes a certain sense. Because the company is paying for their employees’ health insurance, they naturally prefer healthier workers. But at a deeper level, CVS’ action demonstrates a growing problem with our current system of employer-provided health insurance. If our bosses must pay for our health care, they will inevitably seek greater control over our lifestyles.

Although most Americans take it for granted that they receive health insurance through the workplace, this is an artifact of federal tax rules from World War II. When the U.S. government imposed wartime wage controls, employers could no longer compete for workers by offering higher salaries. Instead, they competed by offering more generous fringe benefits such as health insurance. In 1943, the IRS ruled that employees did not have to pay tax on health benefits provided by employers; in 1954, the IRS made this permanent.

The federal government thus distorted the health insurance market in favor of employer-based plans. If a company paid $100 for health insurance with pre-tax dollars, the employee enjoyed the full benefit. But if the employee received that $100 as salary, he could only purchase $50-70 of insurance after taxes. Over time, this tax disparity helped employer-based health insurance dominate the private insurance market. In 2008, over 90% of non-elderly Americans with private insurance received it through their workplace.

Hence, government policy artificially injects the employer into the relationship between a patient and the health insurance system. Normally, what a worker ate or whether he smoked at home would be of no concern to his boss (unless it affected job performance). But U.S. government policy makes it the employer’s business.

To make matters worse, ObamaCare reinforces this status quo. ObamaCare requires large employers to offer health insurance to workers (or else pay a penalty). As a result, more people are discussing how best to link employment to healthy behavior. For example, the New England Journal of Medicine recently featured a pair of high-profile editorials debating the merits of allowing companies to discriminate against smokers, “for their own good.”

Furthermore, ObamaCare pays government grants to encourage companies to implement these “wellness programs.” Hence, employers who wouldn’t otherwise concern themselves with workers’ lifestyles now have an incentive to do so in order to collect federal funds.

My state of Colorado is even attempting to lure businesses from other states by arguing that Coloradans are less obese (and thus incur fewer medical expenses).

Note that the issue of employers controlling employee lifestyles arises because the government artificially couples employment with health insurance. In contrast, we don’t receive automobile insurance or homeowner’s insurance through our jobs. Hence, most employers don’t care about employees’ driving records or the number of smoke detectors in their houses. There are no “safe driver” workplace programs along the lines of “employee wellness programs.”

This is the flip side of coupling health insurance to employment. Some employers (like Regal Cinema) are cutting back on worker hours to reduce those insurance costs. Others will still cover their employees — but will want to monitor those employees’ health and activities.

Instead of reinforcing the current system linking health insurance to employment, we should uncouple the two. We should equalize the tax status of employer-provided health insurance with insurance purchased by individuals outside of work. This is a key element of many free-market health reform plans (such as Docs4PatientCare.org “Prescription for Health Care Reform”). This would also help create a robust market for truly portable insurance that stayed with the customer when he changed jobs (just as one’s auto or homeowners insurance is unaffected by job changes).

As a physician, I encourage everyone to adopt a healthy lifestyle, including proper diet and exercise. It’s also entirely appropriate for insurance companies to charge higher rates for customers who smoke or engage in other unhealthy activities. Likewise, employers and workers should be free to voluntarily agree to contract terms that include incentives for healthy behavior, provided it’s without government nudging.

But it’s wrong for the government to use economic carrots and sticks to induce private employers to become enforcers of healthy behavior. This is just a subtler form of “nanny state” controls, such as NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg outlawing soft drinks he considers unhealthy. And once employers start monitoring employee behavior on the grounds of “health costs,” there’s no end to the potential meddling. Who will be the next politically disfavored group after smokers or the obese? Do we want bosses discouraging their employees from owning guns or enjoying mountain biking on the weekends? This is a dangerous road.

The nanny state is bad enough. We don’t need nanny bosses.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulhsieh/2013/04/25/big-brother-has-a-new-face-and-its-your-boss/

 

[Upgrade Dave]

Re: With Obamacare entrenched, Democrats feel free to gripe

With Obamacare entrenched, Democrats feel free to gripe
By: Jennifer Haberkorn
March 11, 2013 11:44 PM EDT

A funny thing happened once Democrats grew confident that Obamacare is truly the “law of the land.”

They started complaining about pieces of it in public.

Democrats aren’t walking away from the overall law and its sweeping goals; they still see it as a historic achievement they had sought for generations.

But now that they feel its future is protected and it’s safe from repeal, Democrats are slowly becoming more vocal about small parts of the law that they want changed or eliminated — device taxes, a Medicare board, even kids’ dental coverage, to name a few.

And with important 2014 deadlines closing in, they’re more willing to point out where they think the Obama administration isn’t implementing the law correctly.

For instance, four Senate Democrats and two dozen House Democrats have signed on to Republican bills to repeal the law’s tax on medical-device manufacturers. Another 10 House Democrats want to repeal one of the law’s boards charged with containing Medicare spending.

During one recent Senate hearing, more fire came from the left than the right as several Democrats grilled a top administration health care official on how he’s getting the law up and running.

The Democratic critique of the law wasn’t unheard of last year, but it was quiet.

Since President Barack Obama’s signature health reform law passed in early 2010, Democrats banded together — just about universally — to defend it against a Republican Party that was just as uniformly set on repealing it.

But now that Obama has been reelected and there is no chance Republican repeal attempts would get past his veto pen, the political dynamic seems to have opened a door to Democrats to critique the law — and push back when they think the Obama administration isn’t putting the law in place as they want.

There’s also an oversight role: The law’s major provisions are slated to go into effect next January. Consumers can start signing up in October. Backers want that to go as smoothly as possible, lest Republicans say the rollout was the failure they had predicted all along.

As with any big piece of legislation, most members who supported it have pieces they would like changed.

Senate Democrats have taken a hard line against the pieces of the law that trouble them.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) has threatened to vote against Obama’s nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services unless the administration allows states to run a Basic Health Plan, an optional program that allows states to use federal subsidies to insure people just above the federal poverty level. But the administration has put that option off for at least a year.

In a recent Finance Committee hearing, Cantwell pressed Gary Cohen, the director of the HHS Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, on why the agency is slow-walking the Basic Health Plan and not other pieces of the law.

“It seems as if the agency is taking, I don’t know, how many pages out of 900 [pages of the health law] and saying, that’s the health plan,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, I think the president signed all 900 pages.”

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) then demanded that Cohen explain why the Obama administration “negotiated away” money for another small piece of the law, one to set up insurance co-ops to compete with commercial insurers in the state-based health insurance exchanges. He warned that the administration is risking the entire law’s success.

“If we have this kind of implementation, then we’re not going to fulfill the goal that we all set when we laboriously put together … this health care bill,” Nelson said.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) went to the Senate floor recently to criticize an HHS regulation, stemming from the health law, that he said doesn’t do enough to ensure that children have access to dental care.

“I am thoroughly concerned that our progress [on pediatric dental health] is about to be stalled,” he said, marking the anniversary of the death of a Maryland child, Deamonte Driver, from untreated tooth decay that led to a fatal infection. The rule that HHS released wouldn’t ensure that other children have dental care and “was not what Congress intended.”

Four Senate Democrats — Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken of Minnesota, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Donnelly of Indiana — are co-sponsoring a Republican bill to repeal the law’s medical-device tax. None were co-sponsors last year (although Donnelly was just elected to the Senate in November).

Two dozen Democrats have signed on to a corresponding House bill, sponsored by Republican Rep. Erik Paulsen, also of Minnesota, which is home to many device makers. Only five Democrats co-sponsored the bill in the last Congress, although many more backed it when it came up for a vote.

Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin was the lead Democrat on the medical-device bill this year.

“I’ve always come to health care reform from the perspective that it isn’t the perfect end-all, be-all bill,” Kind said. “We have to learn what is working and what isn’t working and make adjustments along the way. And that’s going to be true regardless of the politics and who is up for reelection.”

Kind acknowledged that there is a new tone on health care since the president was reelected and some Republican governors decided to move ahead on implementation.

“The repeal efforts aren’t going anywhere. The states now, especially, are coming to grips with how we are implementing this. That changes the conversation,” he said.

Ten House Democrats are co-sponsoring a bill to repeal the law’s Independent Payment Advisory Board, a controversial panel that is designed to keep Medicare spending in check. Last year, only one Democrat voted to repeal the board, but others supported an earlier version of the bill. The panel, which was a Senate idea, has never had strong support among House Democrats.

Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) says he strongly opposes the board because it grants the executive branch power over spending that should be reserved for Congress. But he stressed that his opposition to IPAB doesn’t diminish support for the rest of Obamacare.

“I think that the essential themes of the health care bill are strong, and I continue to support them,” he said. “In some areas, I wanted it to go further.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/aca-is-here-to-stay-so-democrats-feel-free-to-gripe-88717.html

Some of these are actually good ideas and reasonable suggestions that need to be strongly considered.

 

[QueEx]

Re: With Obamacare entrenched, Democrats feel free to gripe

With Obamacare entrenched, Democrats feel free to gripe

By: Jennifer Haberkorn
March 11, 2013 11:44 PM EDT

A funny thing happened once Democrats grew confident that Obamacare is truly the “law of the land.”

They started complaining about pieces of it in public.

Democrats aren’t walking away from the overall law and its sweeping goals; they still see it as a historic achievement they had sought for generations.

But now that they feel its future is protected and it’s safe from repeal, Democrats are slowly becoming more vocal about small parts of the law that they want changed or eliminated — device taxes, a Medicare board, even kids’ dental coverage, to name a few.

I wonder how much lobbyist and special interest money is finding its way into these Democrats and Republicans hands/campaigns ??? Maybe they feel that outright repeal is not possible; but chipping away at the edges until the law is rendered unworkable is the Goal ??? <s>Death</s> Repeal by a thousand seemingly insignificant cuts ???

 

[Greed]

Health-Care Cost Slowdown Seen Saving Up to $770 Billion

Health-Care Cost Slowdown Seen Saving Up to $770 Billion
By Alex Wayne
May 6, 2013 3:00 PM CT

People with health insurance saw increases in their medical costs slow from 2009 to 2011, signaling potential structural changes in the industry that could cut health-care inflation and save the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars, according to two studies.

The changes include greater use of generic drugs, higher out-of-pocket costs and more efficient care, a trend encouraged by the 2010 health-care overhaul, said David Cutler, a Harvard University health economist. If they permanently slow growth, the U.S. may reap $770 billion in unexpected savings from projected expenditures by 2021, wiping out a fifth of the budget deficit, one of the studies found.

The research, published today in the journal Health Affairs, suggest that while the recession accounted for almost 40 percent of the decline, hitting those who can’t afford medical care, other factors also were at work. The analysis will be part of the debate between President Barack Obama and Republicans over how to control spending growth for Medicare and Medicaid.

“Folks have gotten the message: The money flows are going to be different, and they’re very much responding to that,” said Cutler, who co-authored one of the reports.

The two studies aim to shed light on why the annual growth of medical spending slowed from a high of about 8.8 percent in 2003 to an average of about 3 percent per capita from 2009 to 2011, according to data reported in January by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Total health spending in the U.S. amounted to 17.9 percent of gross domestic product in 2011 or about $2.7 trillion, the agency said.

Indirect Effect

While neither study calculated a direct effect from the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Cutler, a former Obama adviser, said in a telephone interview that its influence is “gathering steam over time. It’s not a coincidence these things are happening at the very same time that policies are starting to penalize re- admissions, infections and things like that.”

Opponents of the 2010 law have said the slowdown is almost entirely attributable to the recession, and they expect when the law kicks in full force next year, spending growth will begin to surge again.

In one study, researchers analyzed health spending from 2007 to 2011 by employees with insurance supplied through 150 large companies. The growth of their medical spending dropped from more than 5 percent annually in 2009, adjusted for increases in out-of-pocket spending, to less than 3 percent in 2010 and 2011, the research found.

‘Something Else’

“I don’t want to downplay the importance of the recession,” said Michael Chernew, a professor of health-care policy at Harvard Medical School in Boston who also was an author of the study. “But even if you get rid of at least the direct effect of the recession, there was really something else going on.”

The indirect effect is harder to gauge, he said. While large firms maintained health insurance for their employees, the recession may have pressured them to work harder at holding down spending growth, he said.

“An alternative theory is that the slowdown in health-care spending growth reflected structural changes in the factors underlying the health-care system and that spending growth will remain low for some period of time, even after the economy fully recovers from the recession,” Cutler said in his paper.

Cutler’s research compared the U.S. government’s growth projections for health spending from 2004 to 2012 with actual increases in the period. It found that the real growth rate was about half of the government’s prediction, leading to a gap of more than $500 billion in 2012 between the projections and spending.

Multiple Reasons

The paper calculates that the recession accounted for about 37 percent of the slowdown in health costs from 2003 to 2011. Declining private insurance coverage and cuts in payments by Medicare, the government health plan for the elderly and disabled, accounted for another 8 percent and the remaining 55 percent is “unexplained,” Cutler wrote. That’s where the structural changes come in, he said.

If the current lower-than-expected rate of growth continues, the country may reap savings of as much as $770 billion through 2021, the research found.

Keith Hennessey, a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and former director of the U.S. National Economic Council under President George W. Bush, said he believes growth will increase again once the health-care overhaul kicks in starting next year.

Higher Demand

Hospitals and doctors supported the law “because they thought the increased revenues they’d get from increased demand for their goods and services would exceed lower payments for those goods and services, which suggests to me total health spending will be increasing,” Hennessey said. “As a general rule in designing federal health programs, more coverage costs taxpayers more money.”

That Cutler data also contradicts an April 23 finding by health economists at the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation of Menlo Park, California, and the Altarum Institute of Ann Arbor, Michigan, which said the recession accounted for about 77 percent of the slowdown.

“The one thing that is still clear is that I think we’re all in agreement that not all of the slowdown is attributable to the economy or to the recession,” said Charles Roehrig, the Altarum economist who was one of the authors of the earlier report.

Also in Health Affairs, research by the nonprofit Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington challenges the idea, promulgated by hospitals and insurers, that cuts in payments by public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid lead to a “cost-shift” to employers and other private payers.

Rate Spillovers

Hospitals with relatively slow growth in Medicare payments from 1995 to 2009 also saw relatively slow growth in payments from private insurers, said Chapin White, a researcher at the center. A 10 percent reduction in Medicare payments led to a 3 to 8 percent reduction in private payment rates, he said.

“These payment rate spillovers may reflect an effort by hospitals to rein in their operating costs in the face of lower Medicare payment rates,” he wrote. “Alternatively, hospitals facing cuts in Medicare payment rates may also cut the payment rates they seek from private payers to attract more privately insured patients.”

The results argue against repealing cuts in Medicare payments, he said, because that may lead to increased charges to private payers as well.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...-slowdown-may-last-as-habits-show-change.html

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Health-Care Cost Slowdown Seen Saving Up to $770 Billion

Health-Care Cost Slowdown Seen Saving Up to $770 Billion
By Alex Wayne
May 6, 2013 3:00 PM CT

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...-slowdown-may-last-as-habits-show-change.html

 

[Greed]

Some unions now angry about health care overhaul

Some unions now angry about health care overhaul
By SAM HANANEL | Associated Press
2 hrs 0 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Barack Obama pushed his health care overhaul plan through Congress, he counted labor unions among his strongest supporters.

But some unions leaders have grown frustrated and angry about what they say are unexpected consequences of the new law — problems that they say could jeopardize the health benefits offered to millions of their members.

The issue could create a political headache next year for Democrats facing re-election if disgruntled union members believe the Obama administration and Congress aren't working to fix the problem.

"It makes an untruth out of what the president said, that if you like your insurance, you could keep it," said Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. "That is not going to be true for millions of workers now."

The problem lies in the unique multiemployer health plans that cover unionized workers in retail, construction, transportation and other industries with seasonal or temporary employment. Known as Taft-Hartley plans, they are jointly administered by unions and smaller employers that pool resources to offer more than 20 million workers and family members continuous coverage, even during times of unemployment.

The union plans were already more costly to run than traditional single-employer health plans. The Affordable Care Act has added to that cost — for the unions' and other plans — by requiring health plans to cover dependents up to age 26, eliminate annual or lifetime coverage limits and extend coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

"We're concerned that employers will be increasingly tempted to drop coverage through our plans and let our members fend for themselves on the health exchanges," said David Treanor, director of health care initiatives at the Operating Engineers union.

Workers seeking coverage in the state-based marketplaces, known as exchanges, can qualify for subsidies, determined by a sliding scale based on income. By contrast, the new law does not allow workers in the union plans to receive similar subsidies.

Bob Laszewski, a health care industry consultant, said the real fear among unions is that "a lot of these labor contracts are very expensive and now employers are going to have an alternative to very expensive labor health benefits."

"If the workers can get benefits that are as good through Obamacare in the exchanges, then why do you need the union?" Laszewski said. "In my mind, what the unions are fearing is that workers for the first time can get very good health benefits for a subsidized cost someplace other than the employer."

However, Laszewski said it was unlikely employers would drop the union plans immediately because they are subject to ongoing collective bargaining agreements.

Labor unions have been among the president's closest allies, spending millions of dollars to help him win re-election and help Democrats keep their majority in the Senate. The wrangling over health care comes as unions have continued to see steady declines in membership and attacks on public employee unions in state legislatures around the country. The Obama administration walks a fine line between defending the president's signature legislative achievement and not angering a powerful constituency as it looks ahead to the 2014 elections.

Union officials have been working with the administration for more than a year to try to get a regulatory fix that would allow low-income workers in their plans to receive subsidies. But after months of negotiations, labor leaders say they have been told it won't happen.

"It's not favoritism. We want to be treated fairly," said Hansen, whose union has about 800,000 of its 1.3 million members covered under Taft-Hartley policies. "We would expect more help from this administration."

Sabrina Siddiqui, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, declined to discuss the specifics of any negotiations between the administration and union officials. But she said the law helps bring down costs and improve quality of care.

Katie Mahoney, executive director of health policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said employers were concerned about possible increases in health care costs and would do what was needed to keep their businesses running and retain worker talent. The Chamber has not taken a position on the union concerns, but Mahoney said it was highly unlikely that the administration would consider subsidies for workers in the union plans.

"They are not going to offset the expense of added mandates under the health care law, which employers and unions are going to pay for," Mahoney said.

Unions say their health care plans in many cases offer better coverage with broader doctors' networks and lower premiums than what would be available in the exchanges, particularly when it comes to part-time workers.

Unions backed the health care legislation because they expected it to curb inflation in health coverage, reduce the number of uninsured Americans and level the playing field for companies that were already providing quality benefits. While unions knew there were lingering issues after the law passed, they believed those could be fixed through rulemaking.

But last month, the union representing roofers issued a statement calling for "repeal or complete reform" of the health care law. Kinsey Robinson, president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, complained that labor's concerns over the health care law "have not been addressed, or in some instances, totally ignored."

"In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the act's provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer-sponsored coverage could keep it," Robinson said.

Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Firefighters, said unions have been forceful in seeking solutions from the Obama administration, but none have been forthcoming. While Congress could address the problem by amending the health care law, Schaitberger said Senate Democrats told union leaders earlier this month that any new legislation was highly unlikely.

http://news.yahoo.com/unions-now-angry-health-care-overhaul-074904729.html

 

[Greed]

Fed Ponders Part-Time Shift as Obamacare Role Questioned

Fed Ponders Part-Time Shift as Obamacare Role Questioned
By Alex Nussbaum & Jeanna Smialek
Jul 18, 2013 11:01 PM CT

Bailey Brewer, 28, is a writer with a graduate degree in journalism. She’s been employed since the start of the year as a temporary office worker, unable to find a full-time job.

“The part-time thing, I’m really grateful for the work, but it’s also really frustrating because nothing is renewable,” Brewer said. “I want to feel settled in Los Angeles.”

Brewer isn’t alone. The number of workers holding full-time positions fell in the U.S. in June as part-timers hit a record after rising for three straight months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics household data. Part-time employment has been outpacing full-time job growth since 2008. Economists cite still-tough economic conditions as the root cause, with some saying President Barack Obama’s 2010 health-care law exacerbates the trend.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a House committee July 17 that policy makers consider underemployment, which includes part-time workers who want full-time jobs, one of the gauges of labor-market strength.

“As we look at the unemployment rate and try to determine what it means for the labor market, we look at these other indicators as well,” Bernanke said in response to a question from Marlin Stutzman, a Republican representative from Indiana, during the Fed chairman’s semiannual testimony to Congress.

Part-time Share

The number of part-time employees in June rose by 360,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, based on its survey of households. Full-time workers fell by 240,000, erasing much of the gains from April and May. The share of Americans who work part-time for economic reasons, meaning they can’t find full-time jobs or because their hours have been cut, is 78 percent higher than in December 2007, when the 18-month recession began.

“It’s hard to make any judgment,” Bernanke said when Stutzman asked if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s mandates are slowing the economy. Bernanke said that it has been cited in the economic outlook survey known as the Beige Book, which the Federal Open Market Committee considers in assessing the economy.

“One thing that we hear in the commentary that we get at the FOMC is that some employers are hiring part-time in order to avoid the mandate,” Bernanke said. He added that “the very high level of part-time employment has been around since the beginning of the recovery, and we don’t fully understand it.”

The health care law has been included as a job market concern by businesses surveyed in each of the Beige Books released by the Fed this year. In July’s report, for instance, the Chicago district noted that “several retailers reported that the Affordable Care Act would lead to more part-time and temporary versus full-time hiring.”

Small Portion

Studies by Federal Reserve Banks in Philadelphia and Minneapolis show only a small portion of respondents say they have changed their workforce structure because of the law.

The law requires employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees to provide benefits to those who work at least 30 hours a week, or pay a $2,000-per-person fine. The Obama administration said this month that it would give businesses an extra year to comply with the mandate, which was to take effect in 2014, while it aims to streamline reporting.

The high number of part-time workers is “primarily an issue of labor demand: we have a weak economy,” said Elise Gould, director of health policy research at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, which receives about a quarter of its funding from labor unions.

Economic Reasons

The number working part-time for economic reasons in June was at its highest since October. It has decreased by 1 million from a high of 9.23 million in September 2010.

Employer uncertainty surrounding the health-care law “is having a dampening effect” on full-time hiring, said Ken Mayland at ClearView Economics LLC in Pepper Pike, Ohio. He said he has “a strong suspicion” that it contributed to the recent increase in part-time workers.

Of about 75 manufacturers surveyed by the Philadelphia Fed, 5.6 percent said they have shifted from full-time to more part-time workers to avoid health-care rules and 2.8 percent have refrained from hiring or fired workers, based on results released July 18. Over the next year, 8.3 percent plan to have more part-time workers and 5.6 percent plan to fire or refrain from hiring workers because of the law.

For firms near the 50-employee cutoff “we did find that they were taking actions already,” said Michael Trebing, senior economic analyst for the Philadelphia Fed. “A lot of the comments that we received, and we received a lot of them, still suggested that there was a lot of uncertainty about long-run effects.”

Larger Companies

The businesses averaged 236 employees apiece, skewing the survey toward larger companies, Trebing said. All responded after the mandate’s delay was announced.

The Obama administration has questioned the law’s effect on part-time employment, saying that 96 percent of the employers it covers already offer health insurance.

“The health-care law will decrease costs, strengthen small businesses and make it easier for employers to provide coverage to their workers, as we saw in Massachusetts, where employer coverage increased when similar reforms were adopted,” said Joanne Peters, a Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman, in an e-mailed statement.

A March survey of 205 companies released by the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, which included a broader array of business types than the Philadelphia data, found 89 percent of businesses had no plans to shift to more part-time staff to avoid the rule.

‘No Impact’

“Because the president moved the date of the employer requirement to 2015, there should be absolutely no impact” on part-time employment in the near-term, said Gould of EPI.

Andy Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants Inc., a Carpinteria, California-based company that runs the Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. burger chains, takes a different view.

“While American businesses appreciate the reprieve, they still know this mandate is coming down the road, so I’m not sure it’s going to meaningfully change anyone’s behavior,” Puzder said. CKE has been hiring more part-time workers as a result of the law, though that hasn’t come at the expense of full-timers, Puzder said in an interview.

Virginia restaurateur Christopher Savvides said he has stopped hiring full-time and limited part-timers’ hours to steer clear of the law’s requirements. Savvides said he has no plans to change course at his three restaurants and an associated catering company based in Virginia Beach.

“Everyone I hire right now is going to be part-time,” he said in a phone interview. “I can’t afford health insurance for everyone.”

Income Cut

In Ohio, April Freely is among a few hundred adjunct professors poised to see their income cut after the University of Akron decided to strictly enforce limits on the number of courses part-timers teach. The college is among more than a half-dozen in Ohio that have said they’ll restrict hours at least partly due to the Affordable Care Act.

For Freely, who teaches English composition, that means losing about half the $12,000 she earned from the school last year -- and still not getting health benefits, she said.

“Some people are quitting academia all together, some are picking up courses at other campuses,” Freely, 30, said by telephone. “Mostly, it’s making people really angry.”

The university is awaiting legal advice and IRS guidance before deciding how to respond to the delay, said Eileen Korey, a spokeswoman. For now, it’s maintaining its limit on part-time faculty hours, she said in an e-mail. The school would have to find an extra $4 million to offer benefits next year to 400 part-timers now over the limit, Korey said.

Main Driver

Economic weakness is the main driver elevating part-time statistics and it is hard to separate out health care effects, said Alec Phillips, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economist and analyst based in Washington. Some employers do have a health-care-based incentive to hire part time, he said.

“We do expect to see more part-time workers and fewer full-time workers than we would otherwise have seen,” Phillips said. “There is probably a limit to how much employers can use the shift to part-time to reduce costs” even in the face of health-care mandates, he said.

In a stronger economy, Gould said, employees would have more power and employers would have less ability to cut hours to avoid health-care costs. “If there was more labor demand generally, then there would be a different reaction to these requirements,” she said. “Overall, we’re just still in a very weak economy.”

Brewer, the writer, agrees with that assessment. “I know a lot of people in my life who are also searching for jobs,” said the University of Missouri-Columbia graduate. “There are jobs out there, but I think it’s bleak.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-...-time-shift-as-obamacare-role-questioned.html

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Some unions now angry about health care overhaul

Some unions now angry about health care overhaul
By SAM HANANEL | Associated Press
2 hrs 0 mins ago

http://news.yahoo.com/unions-now-angry-health-care-overhaul-074904729.html

source: TPM

What’s Behind The Big Union Attack On Obamacare?

You know things have gone weird in the runup to Obamacare’s big rollout when Republicans are quoting big-name union leaders to make the case for scrapping the whole law.

But it turns out this alliance of convenience is bound by two interwoven acts of self-interest: the GOP’s unwillingness to fix one flawed piece of the law; and certain unions’ efforts to create a special carveout for their members — to offset potential disruptions Obamacare might create for workers and unions — at a politically vulnerable moment for the ACA.

Ironically, when Republicans side with labor against Obamacare, they’re unintentionally and obliquely endorsing efforts to secure tax subsidization for unions.

In a recent letter to the two top Democrats on Capitol Hill, the leaders of the Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers, and Unite Here wrote grimly about Obamacare, whose key benefits kick in five short months from now.

“nless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class,” the letter reads.

They raise three concerns in their letter. The first is well known.

“[T]he law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week,” the letter explains. “Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.”

This is a real issue, and was a big part of the reason the Obama administration has delayed implementation of the law’s employer mandate for one year. Ideally, Congress would simply tweak the offending provision, but the GOP has committed to never tinkering with the law to make it better, and so the provision in question does threaten worker compensation and benefits.

Until the GOP moves off its position, there’s nothing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi can do to fix it.

But that complaint serves as window dressing for the nex two items on the list, which are at the core of their concerns.

Instead of teaming up with big private insurers, some employers and unions have for years jointly run their own, non-profit group plans. These so-called Taft-Hartley plans function for many purposes like regular employer-sponsored insurance, and are treated as such in the tax code: employer contributions to premiums are tax deductible, and employee contributions are pre-tax. Nevertheless, unions are beseeching Democrats to reinterpret or change the law so that these particular beneficiaries also benefit from new tax credits intended to subsidize individuals who will be purchasing their own insurance in the exchanges. A double subsidy.

“Under the ACA as interpreted by the Administration, our employees will [be] treated differently and not be eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens,” the letter reads. “As such, many employees will be relegated to second-class status and shut out of the help the law offers to for-profit insurance plans.”

The comparison is apples to oranges. The ACA is quite clear that workers with access to tax-preferred, affordable group coverage won’t be eligible for new subsidies that will be provided to uninsured people on the exchanges.

“If you’re eligible for a Taft-Hartley plan you’re treated as if you have employer health care, and you can’t get a premium tax credit,” explains Timothy Jost, an ACA expert at Washington and Lee University law school. “They’re not happy about that, because they want premium tax credits.”

But that would be double dipping. The ACA was designed to dissuade managers of group plans from dumping their workers on to the exchanges. It thus largely preserves existing tax subsidies for those who provide and receive group insurance — including Taft-Hartley plans. It separately establishes new pooled markets for individuals, and creates a new tax subsidy so that middle class people in those markets can afford to purchase insurance. Nobody in the exchanges gets to exclude their premium contribution from their income taxes; and nobody in a group plan gets to supplement their tax exclusion with a new exchange subsidy.

The authors of the letter want workers in Taft-Hartley plans to get both benefits.

For unions, the idea is a solution to a largely unrelated problem. They’re concerned that the ACA will entice employers — particularly small employers with unionized, low-income workers — to abandon the Taft-Hartley funds they contribute to, and place their workers into state-based exchanges instead causing the funds themselves to disintegrate.

If the funds disintegrate, some workers will get a good deal in the exchanges, while others — temporary workers with sporadic pay, for instance — grapple with temporary hardships, if their subsidies don’t fully cover the cost of their insurance. (In a February 2012 article for Benefits Magazine [PDF], employee benefit lawyers at the firm Seyfarth Shaw concluded there are “compelling reasons why bargaining parties may choose to continue to maintain multiemployer plans even if they cannot operate within the exchanges.”)

The solution unions are seeking, though, would effectively amount to taxpayer subsidization of unions and their employer partners at unknown cost. And it wasn’t part of the final version of the ACA, or publicly debated during the legislative process.

“Who knows what was discussed with whom when the law passed, but there was nothing on the face of the statute suggesting anyone other than people who aren’t offered affordable group coverage will be eligible for premium tax credits,” explains Gary Claxton, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation and director of the Health Care Marketplace Project. “I don’t see how when reading that how anybody with Taft-Hartley would be eligible for tax credits. I don’t see the legal argument. Maybe there’s some memo or some legal interpretation. Maybe they thought that there was a provision that they wanted in there that didn’t make it in. But it’s difficult to see.”

“What the unions are saying is ‘We have a problem here, can you help us fix it,’” explains Jared Bernstein, a liberal economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who served as Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economist. “They’re saying ‘can you help us here, can you bend the rules,’ and it’s a tough ask for the government.”

“There are lots of exceptions under this law,” Jost added. “[This issue] bubbled up to the surface pretty quickly [after it passed] and my response was where were you guys when this was being put together.”

Officials for the Teamsters and Unite Here would not comment on the record for this article. However, union officials have explained their grievances in multiple venues over the past several months.

Many UFCW members have what are known as multi-employer or Taft-Hartley plans. According to the administration’s analysis of the Affordable Care Act, the law does not provide tax subsidies for the roughly 20 million people covered by the plans. Union officials argue that interpretation could force their members to change their insurance and accept more expensive and perhaps worse coverage in the state-run exchanges.

[UFCW President Joe] Hansen, who is also the head of the Change to Win labor federation, told The Hill that his members often negotiate with their employers to receive better healthcare services instead of higher wages. Those bargaining gains could be wiped away because some employers won’t have the incentive to keep their workers’ multi-employer plans without tax subsidies.

“You can’t have the same quality healthcare that you had before, despite what the president said,” Hansen said. “Now what’s going to happen is everybody is going to have to go to private for-profit insurance companies. We just don’t think that’s right. … We just want to keep what we already have and what we bought at tremendous cost.”
​

On a related note, the unions’ letter takes issue with the fact that under the ACA, Taft-Hartley plans, like all plans, will contribute to a reinsurance fund that will backstop insurers on state exchanges, in the event that there’s a transition period during which a disproportionately sick and elderly population enrolls for benefits.

“If the claims are above a certain amount, you will get reinsurance to help cover your cost,” Jost explains.

But all group plans will contribute to this pool, not just Taft-Hartley plans. And yet the letter suggests unions would like a special exemption from that fee as well.

“[E]ven though non-profit plans like ours won’t receive the same subsidies as for-profit plans, they’ll be taxed to pay for those subsidies,” the letter reads.
<!-- 600x300_EdBlog -->

 

[thoughtone]

Re: Some unions now angry about health care overhaul

Some unions now angry about health care overhaul
By SAM HANANEL | Associated Press
2 hrs 0 mins ago

http://news.yahoo.com/unions-now-angry-health-care-overhaul-074904729.html

source: TPM

What’s Behind The Big Union Attack On Obamacare?

You know things have gone weird in the runup to Obamacare’s big rollout when Republicans are quoting big-name union leaders to make the case for scrapping the whole law.

But it turns out this alliance of convenience is bound by two interwoven acts of self-interest: the GOP’s unwillingness to fix one flawed piece of the law; and certain unions’ efforts to create a special carveout for their members — to offset potential disruptions Obamacare might create for workers and unions — at a politically vulnerable moment for the ACA.

Ironically, when Republicans side with labor against Obamacare, they’re unintentionally and obliquely endorsing efforts to secure tax subsidization for unions.

In a recent letter to the two top Democrats on Capitol Hill, the leaders of the Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers, and Unite Here wrote grimly about Obamacare, whose key benefits kick in five short months from now.

“nless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class,” the letter reads.

They raise three concerns in their letter. The first is well known.

“[T]he law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week,” the letter explains. “Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.”

This is a real issue, and was a big part of the reason the Obama administration has delayed implementation of the law’s employer mandate for one year. Ideally, Congress would simply tweak the offending provision, but the GOP has committed to never tinkering with the law to make it better, and so the provision in question does threaten worker compensation and benefits.

Until the GOP moves off its position, there’s nothing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi can do to fix it.

But that complaint serves as window dressing for the nex two items on the list, which are at the core of their concerns.

Instead of teaming up with big private insurers, some employers and unions have for years jointly run their own, non-profit group plans. These so-called Taft-Hartley plans function for many purposes like regular employer-sponsored insurance, and are treated as such in the tax code: employer contributions to premiums are tax deductible, and employee contributions are pre-tax. Nevertheless, unions are beseeching Democrats to reinterpret or change the law so that these particular beneficiaries also benefit from new tax credits intended to subsidize individuals who will be purchasing their own insurance in the exchanges. A double subsidy.

“Under the ACA as interpreted by the Administration, our employees will [be] treated differently and not be eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens,” the letter reads. “As such, many employees will be relegated to second-class status and shut out of the help the law offers to for-profit insurance plans.”

The comparison is apples to oranges. The ACA is quite clear that workers with access to tax-preferred, affordable group coverage won’t be eligible for new subsidies that will be provided to uninsured people on the exchanges.

“If you’re eligible for a Taft-Hartley plan you’re treated as if you have employer health care, and you can’t get a premium tax credit,” explains Timothy Jost, an ACA expert at Washington and Lee University law school. “They’re not happy about that, because they want premium tax credits.”

But that would be double dipping. The ACA was designed to dissuade managers of group plans from dumping their workers on to the exchanges. It thus largely preserves existing tax subsidies for those who provide and receive group insurance — including Taft-Hartley plans. It separately establishes new pooled markets for individuals, and creates a new tax subsidy so that middle class people in those markets can afford to purchase insurance. Nobody in the exchanges gets to exclude their premium contribution from their income taxes; and nobody in a group plan gets to supplement their tax exclusion with a new exchange subsidy.

The authors of the letter want workers in Taft-Hartley plans to get both benefits.

For unions, the idea is a solution to a largely unrelated problem. They’re concerned that the ACA will entice employers — particularly small employers with unionized, low-income workers — to abandon the Taft-Hartley funds they contribute to, and place their workers into state-based exchanges instead causing the funds themselves to disintegrate.

If the funds disintegrate, some workers will get a good deal in the exchanges, while others — temporary workers with sporadic pay, for instance — grapple with temporary hardships, if their subsidies don’t fully cover the cost of their insurance. (In a February 2012 article for Benefits Magazine [PDF], employee benefit lawyers at the firm Seyfarth Shaw concluded there are “compelling reasons why bargaining parties may choose to continue to maintain multiemployer plans even if they cannot operate within the exchanges.”)

The solution unions are seeking, though, would effectively amount to taxpayer subsidization of unions and their employer partners at unknown cost. And it wasn’t part of the final version of the ACA, or publicly debated during the legislative process.

“Who knows what was discussed with whom when the law passed, but there was nothing on the face of the statute suggesting anyone other than people who aren’t offered affordable group coverage will be eligible for premium tax credits,” explains Gary Claxton, vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation and director of the Health Care Marketplace Project. “I don’t see how when reading that how anybody with Taft-Hartley would be eligible for tax credits. I don’t see the legal argument. Maybe there’s some memo or some legal interpretation. Maybe they thought that there was a provision that they wanted in there that didn’t make it in. But it’s difficult to see.”

“What the unions are saying is ‘We have a problem here, can you help us fix it,’” explains Jared Bernstein, a liberal economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities who served as Vice President Joe Biden’s chief economist. “They’re saying ‘can you help us here, can you bend the rules,’ and it’s a tough ask for the government.”

“There are lots of exceptions under this law,” Jost added. “[This issue] bubbled up to the surface pretty quickly [after it passed] and my response was where were you guys when this was being put together.”

Officials for the Teamsters and Unite Here would not comment on the record for this article. However, union officials have explained their grievances in multiple venues over the past several months.

Many UFCW members have what are known as multi-employer or Taft-Hartley plans. According to the administration’s analysis of the Affordable Care Act, the law does not provide tax subsidies for the roughly 20 million people covered by the plans. Union officials argue that interpretation could force their members to change their insurance and accept more expensive and perhaps worse coverage in the state-run exchanges.

[UFCW President Joe] Hansen, who is also the head of the Change to Win labor federation, told The Hill that his members often negotiate with their employers to receive better healthcare services instead of higher wages. Those bargaining gains could be wiped away because some employers won’t have the incentive to keep their workers’ multi-employer plans without tax subsidies.

“You can’t have the same quality healthcare that you had before, despite what the president said,” Hansen said. “Now what’s going to happen is everybody is going to have to go to private for-profit insurance companies. We just don’t think that’s right. … We just want to keep what we already have and what we bought at tremendous cost.”
​

On a related note, the unions’ letter takes issue with the fact that under the ACA, Taft-Hartley plans, like all plans, will contribute to a reinsurance fund that will backstop insurers on state exchanges, in the event that there’s a transition period during which a disproportionately sick and elderly population enrolls for benefits.

“If the claims are above a certain amount, you will get reinsurance to help cover your cost,” Jost explains.

But all group plans will contribute to this pool, not just Taft-Hartley plans. And yet the letter suggests unions would like a special exemption from that fee as well.

“[E]ven though non-profit plans like ours won’t receive the same subsidies as for-profit plans, they’ll be taxed to pay for those subsidies,” the letter reads.
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[Greed]

Ironically, when Republicans side with labor against Obamacare, they’re unintentionally and obliquely endorsing efforts to secure tax subsidization for unions.

Ironically, when Democrats side with big business for minimum wage increases, they’re unintentionally and obliquely endorsing efforts to increase cost for small business competitors.

Just saying.

 

[thoughtone]

Ironically, when Democrats side with big business for minimum wage increases, they’re unintentionally and obliquely endorsing efforts to increase cost for small business competitors.

Just saying.

I thought you were on the side of big bossiness, Walmart in particular to prevent the increase in minimum wage.

Oh, that's right Walmart is just out to make a profit.

 

[Greed]

I thought you were on the side of big bossiness

That's because you're a lazy thinker.

 

[thoughtone]

That's because you're a lazy thinker.

But an accurate one.

 

[Greed]

But an accurate one.

You're about as accurate as your spelling.

 

[thoughtone]

You're about as accurate as your spelling.

But you do side with Walmart!

 

[Greed]

But you do side with Walmart!

I said Walmart workers are idiots that don't deserve more than minimum wage. Did Walmart take that position?

 

[thoughtone]

I said Walmart workers are idiots that don't deserve more than minimum wage. Did Walmart take that position?

Sounds like it to me. Shall we take poll on it?

 

[Greed]

Sounds like it to me. Shall we take poll on it?

Go ahead, obviously nothing says right or wrong like majority opinion.

 

[spider705]

I said Walmart workers are idiots that don't deserve more than minimum wage.

You can't be serious with this remark...

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Xparent Skyblue Tapatalk 2

 

[Greed]

You can't be serious with this remark...

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Xparent Skyblue Tapatalk 2

Just do a board search for walmart.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

I said Walmart workers are idiots that don't deserve more than minimum wage. Did Walmart take that position?

Yes they did and do every day.

Your libertarian like views do support big business.

back on topic
Politics is funny as it makes for strange bedfellows when it comes to self interest.

 

[Greed]

Yes they did and do every day.

When did Walmart state their workers are idiots and too stupid to deserve minimum wage?

I'm sure Walmart's position as a business is they pay minimum wage because that's all their workers deserve for what Walmart is asking of them. It's not the same as Walmart thinking the workers aren't capable of more. My position is they aren't worth more because of the public education system and workers' attitude that they deserve better just because they showed up to work.

You're libertarian like views do support big business.

My views support detaching your opinion and thoughtone's opinion from the force of law. It would support big business that isn't bothering you and it would support workers that aren't bothering you.

 

[thoughtone]

Go ahead, obviously nothing says right or wrong like majority opinion.

Especially since you never, directly answer questions.

 

[Upgrade Dave]

When did Walmart state their workers are idiots and too stupid to deserve minimum wage?
I'm sure Walmart's position as a business is they pay minimum wage because that's all their workers deserve for what Walmart is asking of them. It's not the same as Walmart thinking the workers aren't capable of more. My position is they aren't worth more because of the public education system and workers' attitude that they deserve better just because they showed up to work.

I don't need for them to put out a public statement saying that, they're far too smart to do something so dumb. I look at their actions.

My views support detaching your opinion and thoughtone's opinion from the force of law. It would support big business that isn't bothering you and it would support workers that aren't bothering you.

Huh?

 

[Greed]

I don't need for them to put out a public statement saying that, they're far too smart to do something so dumb. I look at their actions.

So you're making a guess based on what MSNBC said.

Huh?

Don't worry about it. Just know that you've won.