HCR: where do we go from here, both politically and with the issue in general?)

Great Debates
41

Greetings, Yog, and may Cthulu eat you last!

I wonder about that. What causes me to wonder is how bitterly and furiously they fought this legislation, they spent a metric buttload of money, now all pissed away and gone. I figure they had a good reason, and I figure that reason is money.

I’m wondering how they fared in the Recent Unpleasantness. Hedge funds, pension funds, the endowments of non-profits, all took a beating. They didn’t?

Now, insurance companies are the very paragon of cautious investment, but nobody just lets money sit around waiting for someone to step up and claim it, no, they invest it in rock solid investments, and then the interest is theirs to hand over to their CEO for his solid gold bidet. You bet they’re cautious, so they would only put their money in triple-A rated securities, and you don’t get any more rock solid than…oopsy! Money gone bye-bye?

My question has always been, if they could make a modest but fair profit without doing all this awful shit, why don’t they? And if they can’t, who fucking needs them? Why should we tolerate a criminal conspiracy that injures our people just because its a bunch of white guys with nice suits and MBA’s?

42

I was wondering the same thing, and here is a chart for United Health Care (UNH) for the past two years. They did take a beating, but recovered almost completely. They are down around 7% in the past few days - Marketplace said that hospitals and big Pharma was up.

43

I don’t mean stock price, I mean the capital they take in from premiums.

44

The idea is simple: if you’re young, healthy, and not making huge money, you just pay the penalty for not having insurance, because it’s less than the premium would be. If/when you become ill, then you sign up for insurance. They have to take you, because you can’t be denied for a preexisting condition.

Of course, if people start doing that, the pool of people who are paying premiums gets older and sicker, making premiums rise, making more drop off, and the spiral goes around higher and higher.

They’re going to have to make the penalties more costly than the premiums. And if they stick to a sliding scale based on reported income, they give an incentive for under-the-table work.

45

Greetings elucidator, I’ve always wondered why you didn’t capitalize your name?

I think your question sort of answers itself. When health is run by for-profit enterprises, the profit becomes the goal, health second. They can make a modest but fair profit, but they can also make an obscene profit. They chose the latter.

46

I don’t think that’s true. While I agree the penalties do seem a bit on the low side, I think they will spur some people into taking insurance. After all, even young people typically don’t have zero cost in health care, it’s just that insurance covers so little and costs so much that it doesn’t pay off for quite some time. I know for myself (30 year old), it is sometimes tempting to tempt fate. Though, part of it too is that people had such a strong disincentive to get diagnosed early due to pre-existing conditions being a hassle at best or a horrifying, financially-destroying mess at worst. (For example, I suspect I probably could have benefitted from anti-depressants but I didn’t want to be tied into an insurance carrier, and thus a job.)

If you add a penalty to the mix, I think a lot of people will go with the insurance just to be on the safe side - why risk paying the penalty AND the medical bills if something goes wrong?

47

I find it exceptionally rude that legislators don’t seem to know who put them there and show a lack of proper respect for due constituted corporate authority. Once they get into office they need even more poking and prodding from their benefactors? Do your damned job!

But yes, the poor things had to spend even more money to kill the suggestion of an end to insurer’s anti-trust exemption, drug-reimportation, bulk price negotations, Medicare expansion, and we all know they killed even the whiff of a public option right quick, then everyone pretended it wasn’t a big deal. Yeah, next time dance with the one who brought ya!

48

Well, from what I gather, the Republican strategy is solidifying around using parliamentary procedures to fight changes to the bill, to add addendum’s that will have to be voted on, and generally to use every trick in the book to delay, stifle or kill as much of it as they can. No big shock, considering that, from their perspective, it was rammed down their collective throats (to the joy of many 'dopers no doubt…wonder how joyful they will be if the Republicans manage to actually delay, stifle or partially or fully kill this thing).

I don’t know how effective this strategy will be for the 'Pubs (or even how wise it is to pursue this particular course at this stage)…from what I understand (and I want to start a thread on this later, time permitting), many of the least painful and least costly aspects of the plan will go into effect widely mere weeks before the next cycle of elections (fancy that :p), so it’s possible (probable maybe) that the Republicans are overly optimistic in their assessment of how well their message is going to play to the masses. Couple that with the fear and heaps of misinformation they have been spouting about all of this (which, while playing well to their base is going to bite them in the ass with more thoughtful voters), and while they may pick up a few seats, it probably won’t be enough to do anything major.

But I think where we go from here is to the next round of fighting, with the Republicans using every trick in the book to try and delay things…

-XT

49

Err…your aware that Obama has already signed the bill, right? It’s done. All the Republicans can do is try and nitpick the Reconciliation changes, but even if they’re successful there (and they won’t be, the Senate Parliamentarian has already ruled against their main objection), the huge bulk of Health Care Reform is already law.

50

[QUOTE=Simplicio]
Err…your aware that Obama has already signed the bill, right? It’s done. All the Republicans can do is try and nitpick the Reconciliation changes, but even if they’re successful there (and they won’t be, the Senate Parliamentarian has already ruled against their main objection), the huge bulk of Health Care Reform is already law.
[/QUOTE]

Er…huh? Perhaps you are unaware that there will be multiple changes to the bill, and that the Senate will have to present this to the President to sign (again)? Seriously…how did you think they got those recalcitrant Dems to vote on the thing?

And the Republicans certainly seem to think that they can delay things by using parliamentary procedures and adding additional things to vote on to the mix. Whether this is reality or not I couldn’t say…but you seem to think it’s a done deal, and from what I’ve read this is far from the case. Unless the Dems decide to not make any changes, I suppose…which is not going to make the reluctant hero’s among the Dems who signed the thing after the arm twisting and back room deals very happy, I’d say.

Feel free to elaborate, as I freely admit this is a confusing situation here, and I may not be grasping the finer points.

-XT

51

The changes are a separate bill, even if it totally crashes and burns for some reason, HCR will still be law. Maybe you know this, I can’t really tell from your post, but your saying the Republicans were trying to “fully kill this thing” made me think you were under the mistaken impression that HCR is still killable by GOP hijinks at this point. All they can do is fight the Reconciliation changes, and something like 56 Dems voted to move ahead with that package (they only need 50 to pass it), so I’d take a minor miracle to stop even the changes from passing.

Maybe, though it appears that they have a limited ability even to delay in this case.

Plus the package of changes are more popular then the HCR bill itself. The GOP might drag things out for a few days just on principle, but even if the can draw it out beyond the end of the week, I don’t think they really want to have the public watch them enter a drawn out, no-holds barred struggle to block a bunch of popular changes to an already passed bill that they’re more or less guaranteed to loose in the end anyways.

52

[QUOTE=Simplicio]
The changes are a separate bill, even if it totally crashes and burns for some reason, HCR will still be law. Maybe you know this, I can’t really tell from your post, but your saying the Republicans were trying to “fully kill this thing” made me think you were under the mistaken impression that HCR is still killable by GOP hijinks at this point. All they can do is fight the Reconciliation changes, and something like 56 Dems voted to move ahead with that package (they only need 50 to pass it), so I’d take a minor miracle to stop even the changes from passing.
[/QUOTE]

Not to say that I have more than a tenuous grasp of all this, but yeah…I fully realize that Obama has signed it into law. I think the Republicans still think they can ‘fully kill this thing’, however, by delaying the changes and thus delaying implementation long enough to achieve the votes needed to really start tearing into it. My estimation is, as I said, that they are over estimating their chances of doing so…but I think they have a decent chance of stifling any changes, which will probably make the Dems who voted reluctantly on this a bit unhappy, at the least.

Why? Again, from what I’ve read, the Republicans seem to think they have at least some ability to delay things. Here we get into deeper waters, from my own perspective, so if you could expand on your point here I’d be much obliged.

Perhaps. I don’t think they see it this way, however. Granted, how much their assessment is reality based is, again, beyond my own ken on this topic. I’ve been reading some articles on CNN broadly laying out the Republicans possible strategy, and THEY don’t seem to agree with your own assessment here.

-XT

53

They sure do! I’m still unemployed, don’t have any insurance (yet!), there are homeless people, education is erratic… :smiley:

When can the republicans stop worrying about themselves and represent the other major issues? (Note: I’m not a Donkey or Elephant lover.)
This bill is passed, now negotiate if you feel necessary, but quit trying to stop it, Reps.

54

Ah, OK, sorry.

Still not sure what you mean by “fully kill this thing”. But delaying changes would only delay, well, the changes. Presumably the provisions of the already passed bill will go into effect as scheduled, regardless of the status of the Reconciliation Bill.

The Dems appear to have six more votes to pass the Reconciliation Changes then they need. I can’t really see how the Republicans are going to convince that many to change their votes,

Well, my knowledge of the ins and outs of Congressional Procedure is also far from perfect, so take this with a grain of salt. But my understanding is that the only way the GOP can delay the Reconciliation is to continuously bring up amendments to vote on. And so long as the amendments are being voted on, effectively keeping the Senate from voting on the bill and moving on to other business. It’d be more or less what a filibuster was like before they allowed filibustered bills to be “moved to the side” so that other business can be dealt with.

I can see the GOP doing this for a day or two to get their point across, but I seriously doubt their willing to effectively shut down Congress, in the middle of a Recession, to delay a bunch of popular changes to an already passed law. It’s not totally inconceivable that the public would rally behind them, but it seems way to likely to backfire to risk. So they’re bluffing, they’ll make a vague effort to block for a day or two to please their base, and then give-up and move on to court challenges or whatever their Plan C is.

55

But if they just want to minimize costs, they could have dumped employee health insurance last year. Or never offered it. They aren’t obligated to provide health insurance, instead health insurance is part of the total compensation package they offer employees.

So why dump insurance NOW? Just because Obama says they have to have it, now they don’t want it?

56

[QUOTE=Lemur866]
So why dump insurance NOW? Just because Obama says they have to have it, now they don’t want it?
[/QUOTE]

Seems obvious to me…they think (whether this is fact or not I couldn’t say) that the costs are going to go up regardless, and are trying to work out a path that costs them the least. It has nothing with Obama saying they have to have health insurance, and everything to do with how much additional it will cost them, vs paying the penalty. Several of the folks in the discussion voted for Obama, so I doubt they are knee jerking because they just hate their workers, Obama, health care or anything else. They seem to seriously be considering dropping health care and paying the penalty (or shifting more of the burden on their employees) because this course might cost them the least.

Whether this is true or not I couldn’t say…but you seem to think this has to do with dislike of Obama or some sort of knee jerk reaction. I assure you, neither is the case with most of these guys.

Why would they have done that? Again, you don’t seem to be grasping the point (again, whether it’s true or not)…which is these guys think that under the new bill their costs are going to go up. Substantially. Regardless of whether they maintain their current health insurance or not. And they are examining whether their costs will go up LESS if they drop the insurance (even with the morale hit they would take, and possible loss of employees) and pay the penalty vs changing the proportions vs doing nothing and just carrying on.

Last year this wasn’t really an option, since there was no such bill as was signed today then, ehe? Last year their costs for health care was X ($2000/employee per month was one of the figures thrown out in the discussion)…now it might be X+Y, where Y might be $200…or $500…or, well, who knows? IIRC, and per the discussion, the penalty might be less than the X+Y they are projecting. Easy, ehe?

In these kinds of companies? Yeah…they pretty much were if they wanted to get decent employees. Perhaps they are STILL so obliged, in fact…jury is still out on that. It will depend on what their competitors do, for one thing, and how they want to position themselves wrt those competitors. It will also depend on if the difference between dropping health care completely and paying the penalty is substantial enough to make up for the negative effects…or if it’s better to shift the ratio from 80/20 to 70/30 or 60/40…or 50/50 (my guess is that this will be what they will mostly end up doing, though the exact ratio is still being debated).

-XT

57

Well, they apparently started their tantrum early. We’ll see, but I really can’t see them sticking with this level of obstructionism for more then a week. Way too likely to backfire, especially since they’re still poised to make gains in the next election.

58

Never underestimate a Pub’s loyalty to extremism. I say they will keep trying until they’re out of options, and even then they will try some more.