You may be right that the CBO estimates the number of people who will not buy insurance but I have not been able to find anything that explains how they come up with a number. They could be correct or the number could be an underestimate.
Out of curiousity, what is stupid about the argument that 10 years of taxes with only 6 years of service is the reason WHY there are any savings? This means that there really are no savings.
Here is one article that explains some of the accounting gimmicks:
There are some obvious ways to do this. The first, is to simply raise the fine. It’s also the mostly likey to raise a stink, so don’t expect to see it.
Another way of doing it is to institute reasonable waiting periods for people buying health insurance for the first ime after paying the fine for not buying it. Sure, you can’t be denied coverage, and pre-existing conditions can’t be denied, but if coverage only starts 90 days after you apply for it, you run the risk of not being covered for those 90 days. Plan your illness and accidental injuries wisely if you intend on buying insurance only when you are sick.
What’s that, a 90 day exclusion and people are still ok with that? It can be ramped up a bit - the exclusion period doubles for every year that you pay the fine. Go five years without insurance, face a 1,440 day exclusion period before you are eligible for coverage. That’s extreme, but reasonable.
It saves more money in the second ten years. Does that suggest to you that it is somehow a money loser?
Also, the day they started funding the interstates it was years before you could drive across country. What the fuck is up with that?
It takes time to set up complex systems. Do you want them to start the systems with money we don’t have and then pay it back? It makes far, far, more sense to accrue money up front then create it when we can, than increase the deficit to do it. Remember, it lowers the deficit.
I don’t think anyone is saying the CBO assessment is prophecy. I think they’re saying it’s the best assessment we have.
As for the future congress being willing to make the cuts, obviously a future congress can do whatever they want. The very next congress could implement single payer, re-instate the draft and amend the constitution for mandatory gay marriage.
The future congress will have Paygo to deal with however, so they’ll have to remove something else to make up the money.
It is a bit comical that people used to stomping the insurance industry are now defending the government’s right to do the same.
I might be completely off base but it is comical none the less.
Good question. We make it so they can’t be turned down, make sure that pre-exisitng conditions are covered, and even give them a tax break to help them pay for it and they STILL turn it down. Until they get sick, of course.
The CBO clearly states that making predictions for the second decade is much more problematic and imprecise than for the first decade. I’m sure it will be a money loser. The government has predicted the cost of entitlement programs incorrectly for longer than I’ve been alive. Here are a few examles:
In 1965, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the hospital insurance program of Medicare — the federal health care program for the elderly and disabled — would cost $9 billion by 1990. The actual cost that year was $67 billion.
In 1967, the House Ways and Means Committee said the entire Medicare program would cost $12 billion in 1990. The actual cost in 1990 was $98 billion.
In 1987, Congress projected that Medicaid — the joint federal-state health care program for the poor – would make special relief payments to hospitals of less than $1 billion in 1992. Actual cost: $17 billion.
What is so complex about the system. The government doesn’t have to build one hospital. The law could be enacted almost immediately. I think the hardest part would be enforcement of the tax penalty for those who do not buy insurance. Interestingly enough this is not budgeted for.
First you had not heard an intelligent description of the “shady price tricks” and then you just dismiss them out of hand as something that cannot be known. You know that no Congress, Democrat or Republican, is going to make those cuts.
You are contridicting yourself. First they CANNOT be turned down, yet you expect them to pay more than the penalty until they need it. What you will quickly see is a plan that looks just like the old plan but more expensive.
Congress doesn’t estimate those things, the CBO does.
No it doesn’t. You’re right in one way: while it’s not exactly true that there are “10 years of taxes for 6 years of spending”, you’re right that for the next few years the bill saves more money than it spends. In the first ten years this allows it to save $143 billion. In the second ten years, where there are 10 years of savings, and 10 years of spending, the bill saves $1.2 trillion. How does that mean there are no savings?
Imagine it this way. You want to replace your windows with double glazing to save money. In the long term it’ll save you $1000 on heating bills, but replacing the windows will cost $500. So instead of replacing them now and paying for it on credit card, you save up $600 by not going to any baseball games for a few months. You save up $600 - you spend $500 of it on new windows - and in the long term those windows save you $1000. That’s what this bill does. What part of those savings are fake?
Do yourself a favor and look up what the life expectancy was in 1965 and in 1990. Also look up what treatments, drugs, and equipment was invented in those years. Then get back to me.
Again, this is the result of people living longer, and having actual treatments for things that just killed you in earlier years.
This I would think because of the failure on the insurance system and the inflow of poor into emergency rooms.
The mechanics of distributing the subsides have to be enacted. The exchanges have to be created and tested and the capital to run these things has to amass. After it does and we begin the savings can begin. You want to own a hot-dog stand. You can either borrow money to get one (deficit spend) or you can save money until you have enough to get one (what the bill is doing).
It’s a tax. On turbo tax there’s a button that says do you have health insurance? □ Y □ N.
Not at all, the opinion piece you pointed to was long on speculation and short on facts.
I know that a Republican congress isn’t likely to make them. Because the Spend and Borrow Republicans don’t give a fuck about balanced budgets. Take some time to inform yourself about the economy under Clinton.
Again, because you can’t imagine something has no bearing on how likely it is to happen.
This is happening already with the current system. You may have heard of Anthem’s request to raise rates on individual policies by 37%. The reason for this is that increasing rates - and the recession - are forcing relatively healthy people out of their pool, leaving those who are more expensive and who, given their pre-existing conditions - would not be able to get coverage anywhere else. As rates go up, the pool gets more and more expensive. If you kick these people out they become a drain on society, not to mention the bad publicity. So we’re screwed either way.
But I think the new rules will make things much better. While it is possible that a young person will get sick, the odds are against it, and the system as a whole probably makes money due to the penalty. This person is likely to start buying insurance before a calamity - for instance when someone in the family gets pregnant, or when they have a relatively inexpensive scare. Sure someone could choose to join when they discover they have cancer - but as they get older they will realize that without checkups they increase their chances of letting the cancer spread far enough so that they have to worry about funeral expenses more than hospital bills. Once you have insurance, you will probably keep it.
Do yourself a favor and think about all that could happen over the next 20 years and then get back to me. If you still think it is so easy for the CBO to estimate out 20 years then there is no hope for you.
Insurance mandates could start relatively quickly. I don’t think it takes 4 years to figure the rest out. I will admit that an exchange would take time but not 4 years.
Well, you have to enforce the tax code. As of now there is no provision for enforcement of the tax penalty and the government will just have to trust that we are being truthful…much like declaring internet purchases on a state tax form.
No, the piece was nothing but facts. The **CBO report **is long on speculation.
Now is not the best time to whine about the spending habits of republicans. Get your head out of your ass and look around at all the red ink caused by this administration. Then keep in mind all the other things they want to subject us to over the next few years.
Nobody will cut spending in this type of program. To do so would be political suicide. Once people have their entitlement you can’t touch it.
You put your insurer and policy number on the form. The IRS matches it with data sent in by the insurers. Duh. Some of our mortgage is with my father-in-law. We fill in his name and address and SSN to get the deduction. The IRS actually does check.
It might have escaped you that a Republican caused recession is happening. If you people hadn’t driven the economy off the cliff we wouldn’t need big deficits.
They can estimate based on the info we have now. Just like in the 60s they had to estimate with their best info. I think there is at least as likely a chance that costs will go down with new medical advances as up, so we have to look at things according to our best understanding.
Insurance mandates are being pushed out because subsidies have to be paid out with mandates silly. They are a matched set, you can’t have mandates without subsidies for the poor. The subsidies have to be paid into so we have a working fund. Have you given this much thought?
Just like you have to enforce the rest of the tax code. This will likely not add much to that cost.
Not true. The CBO report is based on intelligent, highly competent economists. The article is based on some guys who don’t have solid issues so are creating a bunch of scary what-ifs.
Sure it is. Republicans are against paygo. They are against HCR that will save us billions. They are against everything except tax cuts. They’re fools.
You should educate yourself on what is causing our budget woes now. I’ll give you a hint: Lowered revenue from the recession. Medicare Part D (which Borrow and Spend Republicans didn’t bother paying for), Wars, Bush Tax Cuts, Tarp (which was actually necessary) and the Stimulus.
You are informed enough to know that the stimulus was necessary, right? Obama isn’t adding nearly as much as Bush did to this year’s deficit. And what he’s adding is helping. Repeat helping and doing something useful.
The CBO estimates it will take $5-10 billion to enforce.
Yeah…spending your way out of a recession. And, of course, GWB is to blame for the recession. Do you think ALL the spending has been to get us out of a recession? I think you have a short memory.
Look, we were almost at a depression. The economy is a motor and it needs money to be moving around to run. When things are bad and no one is spending the motor might seize. We don’t want that. When no one else will spend it is the government’s job to keep money moving or the engine stops, businesses sell off capacity and we do real, permanent damage to the machine.
This is a fact. It’s not a liberal lie or communist disinformation. When things are falling apart you need to keep the economy going so it can heal itself. If you think the stimulus was unnecessary, you either like soup lines or don’t understand the issue.
What spending in particular are you talking about? The stimulus… what else do you have issue with?
Uh, no contradiction. I said they couldn’t be turned down. But you do bring up a point that I didn’t see before.
People who chose to buy insurance get the benefits of insurance. No problem with that. People who choose not to get insurance get to pay a fine - the fine doesn’t but them the benefit of insurance, but it actually does buy them something worth money - the ability to buy insurance when they need it. So it’s not really a fine as much as it is an option fee (the option to buy insurance). And that option fee is a deal because right now, under the current system, that isn’t available - if you waited until you got sick to buy insurance, too bad, it would cost far too much and not cover your sickness anyway.
The situation that might make you happy is adding a third possibility - no insurance at all. You don’t pay the insurance premium, you don’t pay the fine (er, option fee), you don’t buy anything at all. But when you get sick, you pay the entire bill and not on credit either, up front and in cash - we can’t risk you going bankrupt and sticking the bill to the providers who then pass it along in inflated costs to the insured.
Try finding a list of entitlements that stayed within budget. I don’t think costs are just as likely to go down as up. History agrees with me.
Sure. You can mandate that all those above the income limit for subsidies must purchase insurance now or pay a fine. Also, figuring out subsidies should be simple after April 15th.
The CBO estimates $5-10 billion.
Yes, they are intelligent and competent. But, they can only work with the facts given to them. Both parties know how to game the system and it is easy to see that it is being done with this bill.
Everybody in congress is against paygo. The dems passed it and almost immediately violated it. You are delusional if you belive the dems are in favor of paygo.
Stimulus (complete waste), the $30 billion expansion of SCHIP, the $410 billion spending bill. Didn’t the Dems propose a prescription drug benefit that would have cost $800 billion over 10 years? Good thing we only have to deal with Bush’s smaller plan. TARP has been paid back but, instead of paying down the deficit, Obama wants to spend that money again. You should educate yourself and stop being so selective.
Sure the stimulus was necessary. Otherwise unemployment would have gone all the way up to 8% :). Obama will add in 20 months as much debt as Bush did in 8 years.
That is interesting but incorrect. The fine goes to the government but premiums go to insurance companies. These people will be milking the insurance companies who will not be able to recoup those penalties from the government. The only ones who will pay are the insurance companies and I’m starting to think that may be the plan.
