FYI

[brynndragon]

Today at 3PM on WBUR (90.9 FM and online at WBUR.org) fucking Romney and members of the state legislature will be discussing the new health care plan with the public. I'll be listening, because I want to know if my (and some friend's) impression that this is taking a nice notion[1] and turning it into a nightmare for people who are eking out a living or are (or become) GoLs[2].

[1] No matter how feasible you think it is (I'm up in the air about it myself), quality health care for everyone (aka universal health care) is a fabulous idea.

[2] Gentlepeople of Leisure, also known as the unemployed

Comments

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

I don't know if that qualifies as "offering healthcare" or not. I would hope not, but with fucking "I only like people who can give me lots of money so I can run for President" Romney in charge, I wouldn't count on it.

I think it's a fantastic idea to make companies pay for health insurance if they won't do it voluntarily. But charging companies $295/year and individuals up to $1200/year makes this whole thing into a farce. Gods, I want to hit fucking Romney with a clueX4.

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

Romney ain't in charge of shit, especially where this healthcare bill is concerned. It's strictly a compromise between the people who want an individual mandate, the people who want an employer mandate, and the demands of the federal government with regard to keeping that $385 million in federal funding. What Romney thought of this bill just didn't matter at any point in the process, because it was pretty much a given that whatever bill ended up approved by both chambers would pass by a veto-proof margin. Now, chances are Romney will line-item veto the employer assessment and offer some other idea for that instead, because he thinks $295/employee/year is just too high a price for poor, struggling businesses like Wal-Mart to have to pay. But that won't matter anyway, because the legislature will just override him and put the bill into law as it stands.

I don't like the individual mandate at all -- in fact, I don't like the employer mandate all that much, if we're talking about what the best solution would be; but if we're talking about what the best feasible solution would be, then an employer mandate is better than an indivudual mandate, since we just aren't going to get real single-payer health care anytime soon. And I think it's possible, with the expansion of MassHealth, and depending on how "affordable" gets defined and how much arm-twisting is done to the insurance companies to get them to offer low-cost plans that don't suck ass, for the individual mandate to fail to be really onerous. I'm reserving judgment on whether it will be onerous or not, since obviously a lot of these things haven't been determined yet. But if it ends up that the standard for affordability is a reasonable one, so no one is forced to make untenable choices in order to have the health care required by law, and that the health plans available at the lowest "affordable" level aren't all shitty high-deductible-low-coverage plans that are only cheap as long as you stay healthy, then the individual mandate is an acceptable price to pay to get broader coverage and to force non-insuring employers to contribute something -- $295/employee/year isn't a lot, but it's more than they're contributing right now.

Of course, there are other arguments that bear on this. Bob at Blue Mass Group argues that it's inappropriate for the government to require individuals to enter into contracts with private entities, and he's not wrong. But there were a lot of people, both in business and in the state government, who really wanted an individual mandate and no employer mandate, so unfortunately this bill was about the best thing we could get. It's not great, but it's far from a disaster.

[c1.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where you got the $100 number: the last one I saw was the the *initial* goal for the law was $200/month, but the legislature balked at a number of chances to meet this goal, opting instead for the goal of an average policy cost of $300/month.
I'm not sure I can afford to live in this state with a second car payment.
How legislators are seeing fit to pat themselves on the back, calling this "a good piece of legislation" is beyond me. It's really a free handout to the insurance companies. No wonder the state's losing residents.
And, of course, Mitt won't call this a tax like it is, because he doesn't want to look like a "tax and spend Massachusetts liberal."

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Uh. . . I don't see anything in my comment that refers to $100. I refered to $1200 per year for people who don't have health insurance, which is the closest I can see to $100. Did I miss something in someone else's comment?

I wonder if having some sort of "companies that have $more-than-X profits/year need to pay $something_more_than_individuals/year per uninsured employee" clause, which would compliment the "people who make $more-than-X/year need to pay in full for their coverage with no substidies or else get tax penalites", would be useful. I'd feel a lot better knowing the underemployed weren't paying more than Wal-Mart or Mobil for health care.

[greyhame.livejournal.com]

Looking at your original post, and c1's comment, I think it is a reference to the $1200 figure -- that is, you're talking about a yearly cost and c1 is talking about a monthly cost -- $1200/year = $100/mo.

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

Ah, OK. c1, that's the amount of the tax penalty for anyone who doesn't get insured, supposed to reflect half the cost of getting health care (I wonder if they're going to raise that to $1800 since they're now working with a base of $300/month?). I'm compared a person who doesn't get health care coverage for themselves to a company that doesn't pay at least partially for health care coverage for its employees, where the company is paying 1/4 of what an individual pays for what seems to me to be the same behavior (actually, the company gets a better deal, since they only need to partially pay for the coverage). That just feels wrong to me.

The answer to this difference when the host of the piece on NPR was, "But the insurance will be so damn cheap, everyone will have it!" Sounds like a smoke-and-mirrors response to me. My fears that the companies get off light, the private insurers get more money, and the taxpayer gets the shaft were most definitely not reassured.

[friode.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It typically costs something surprisingly close to $295 per _month_ to provide health care to an _individual_ (no spouse/domestic partner/child coverage there). I can't imagine companies saying ``we'll spend $3600/yr so that we don't have to pay the government $300/mo''

The $300/mo should come down if we can successfully get the people who pay for health insurance to not end up having to pay for both themselves and the poeple who don't pay for health insurance (which _is_ what happens now), but still...