Curious to get some opinions on this. Seems to be in contrast to what we’ve been told about gov’t run healthcare:
http://ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=332548165656854
Clarifying: it seems to outlaw private health insurance for individuals. I.e., people who are not covered by an employer plan.
I don’t know enough to have an opinion off the top of my head, but I thought the distinction was important.
IIRC, Hilary ran into the same issue - she was denying that her plan would make competing health care plans illegal, until some Congresscritter read her own bill to her.
I thought one of the goals was to disassociate health insurance from employment.
Regards,
Shodan
I’d never heard the Hillary story, could you be bothered to send a cite down this way?
On Topic: IANAL, but I’m pretty sure that the section refers to being grandfathered in. That is to say, that in order for a specific plan to be grandfathered in it has to have people enrolled before the day the law goes live.
Then once the law goes live, all insurance will have to abide by the law, so nothing can be grandfathered in.
I’m sure a lawyer will be along to clarify, but this seems to be a ruckus about nothing.
http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/07/15/comparing-employer-health-mandates-from-the-house-and-senate/
Great - further reading shows that we’re screwed too. We’re an HSA family, which is a fantastic option, with a tax deduction and a pseudo-retirement angle as well.
I’m thinking it’s time to get pro-active politically again. The UHC plan is waste and a crime.
The House bill does not make private health insurance illegal.
The bill does add various legal requirements for health insurance, for example, that they not withhold coverage from individuals with pre-existing conditions. Instead of simply immediately requiring that all insurers change their structures and conditions, the bill allows existing coverage schemes to be grandfathered in.
Thus, if you already have an individual plan that excludes people with pre-existing conditions, you can keep that plan. But new enrollees cannot choose that plan. New enrollees can enroll in individual plans, but they will have to meet the new requirements.
In short, the editorial is, at best, extremely misleading.
Well, this isn’t law yet. But, I don’t like where this is going. Once you get past the hyperbole (of which it isn’t too far off), the quoted text does mean what it says, and I just looked it up on Thomas, and it’s still there. I didn’t read the whole thing, obviously. It doesn’t look good, based on the quoted paragraph.
The most troubling thing I find is the unwillingness to allow a free market for insurance. The government should be setting standards, which are easy to identify and follow. And, to a lesser extent, it should provide statutory remedies (civil and penal, and if necessary, criminal). The bill is a mess, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone as most legislation is written in a very convoluted manner.
Like it’s been stated many times before, I thought the goal was to not tie insurance to employment. That makes the most sense to me. If the government should provide anything, it should be something similar to HSAs and catastrophic care, even on a sliding scale e.g. super rich people will pay out of pocket for most everything; middle class will pay up to a heart attack or brain surgery; poor people can get bullet and knife wounds taken care of (I’m not sure what kind of message this sends, but I think I made my point).
The bill neither disallows a free market for insurance (except insofar as any regulation of a market destroys its free market status) nor ties insurance to employment.
I don’t think you read close enough. The bill doesn’t stop private insurance. The bill would allow you to have private insurance in its current form up to the start date of the law.
After that date the private insurance you buy would have to conform to the law. That is to say, if your insurance plan doesn’t allow sick people now, you can keep it, but after the start date the plan for new members will have to allow sick people.
Seriously, can we get a lawyer up in the hizzy, after re-reading it, I’m sure that’s what it says.
What am I, chopped liver?
How about my HSA? That appears to be gone. And if we decide to throw all our money into a savings account and just use that for medical care, we’re penalized to the tune of 2.5%, which works out to about $2200 per year for my family.
Why is there no provision to just opt out entirely? Say, I decide not to pay in, then I cannot use any of it, and cannot ever file bankruptcy on the bills. Seems like a fair deal to me.
The catch is - they need people like us to pay in, to cover the expenses of all. So we’re being forced to share a pool with everyone, at our expense.
I missed the part of the Constitution where it authorizes the government to act in this fashion. I have a lot of sympathy with people who cannot afford good care, but my decision regarding my own health care is being taken away from me.
It won’t matter. You can get Clarence Darrow in here saying that the law doesn’t outlaw private health insurance and those opposed to it will say he’s lying and/or unqualified. See how Richard Parker was already ignored.
Oh, sorry. You’re a lawyer aren’t you. Sorry. 
It’s a little early yet.
What section of the bill eliminates HSAs? I can’t find a reference to them.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3.
I did a search for both Health Savings Account and HSA and turned up no hits in the bill. I imagine if this were to come to pass you could keep your HSA and your High Deductible Health Plan. I certainly haven’t seen anything to the contrary.
There is an option to opt out, you can keep the health care plan you currently have.
No it isn’t.
I’m searching, but it’s slow going - I’m supposed to be working 
THOMAS gets me one hit in each House/Senate bill, but parsing out the section and code needs more attention than I have now. My concern would be the HDHP - they are setting “standards” for things like lifetime caps, deductibles and the like. If they apply them to the HDHPs, then they are priced out of existance - and if I can’t carry a HDHP, than I can’t legally have a HSA.
But, I’m reading it say that if I opt out, I pay a 2.5% penalty.
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No it isn’t.
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Yeah, it kinda is…
I think one of us is misunderstanding something. And it very well may be me, I got up too early.
From my casual read of the section in the bill, you can keep your current HDHP account. It’s just that the provider of the HDHP can’t offer your current plan to new customers after the law goes live. If your HDHP provider goes out of business, then I guess you’d have to choose a new one, but I assume the market will create other HDHPs to fill the gap.
Here’s the way I read the editorial’s take on HSAs: If this legislation takes 120 million people out of the current health insurance customer pool, it will potentially end the economic viability of the private health insurance industry.
Once the private health insurance industry as a whole is gone, that portion of it that currently is involved in HSA administration will go away with it. Without that infrastructure in place, HSAs will become orphan artifacts of a defunct system, and will disappear entirely, screwing Sateryn76 out of his chosen plan.
It looks like a slippery-slope argument, which, since it relies on the premise that is becoming more apparently dubious with each post, reaches the usual level of honesty for such things
Why can’t it be run just like most other developed country in the western world? Two health care systems - one public, one private?
Even without this, insurance only works if the price of coverage reflects the benefit the customer receives. Forcing insurance companies to ignore obvious sources of risk means they’re going to have to charge their low-risk customers more to compensate, and that’s going to drive their best customers away.