Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
There is a depressing piece in the New York Times about employers passing on increasing amounts of their health care costs to employees. What the piece neglected to mention, however, is that the new health care law is going to exacerbate this problem by driving many employers out of the health coverage business altogether.
AT&T, for example, found that it could save over a billion and a half dollars by dropping coverage and sending employees into the government run exchanges. While AT&T might not do this for political reasons, many less high profile companies, upon seeing similar potential savings, will make the switch. This will not only put employees in a worse situation, it will also put more pressure on taxpayers, who are going to subsidize the exchanges, as well. Expect the health care cost crunch on employers, and their employees, to continue.
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Re: Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
"AT&T might not do this for political reasons."
Are we sure about that? As best I can tell, AT&T faces an increasing squeeze from its competitors, particularly Verizon. How long can it be before some group or other of AT&T shareholders stands up at the next meeting to demand that the company realize that $1.5 billion in savings?
(And welcome to Ricochet, Tevi. A delight to have you with us.)
May '10
Re: Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
The big question is: will enough employers do what conservatives warned they'd do - and in rapid enough succession - to prevent the hedging and triangulation that's already begun among GOP senators?
It looks impossible to repeal Obamacare right now, and in January it probably will be. But if conservatives are principled in their opposition and Americans keep seeing reminders that we've been right all along, I think a surprising number of Ds will decide they don't want November 2012 to look like November 2010.
Jul '10
Re: Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
I thought the Federal Government was supposed to be fighting against terror. That 40% rise in my health insurance premiums this year was another gift of love from the Regime. If Obamacare operations and enforcement are defunded, the worst can be averted while the whole train wreck serves to light up the remaining targets that voted for this Democrat managed terror.
Re: Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
So is this the successful bringing about of the Final Crisis of Healthcare Financing which will immanentize the Single-Payer Eschaton?
Edited on Nov 10, 2010 at 10:17pmSep '10
Re: Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
As I understand it, there is some hope in the fact that the GOP won so many Governorships because each state regulates its Health Insurers and the Gov has a lot of power in how the exchanges get funded.It will be a long hard fight.
May '10
Re: Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
Has anyone else noticed the radio spots being run by HHS which pose as an anti-corruption campaign for Medicare but are in reality subtle pro-Obamacare ads ("Thanks to the new healthcare law...etc.")? In Ohio, these were as frequent as any campaign ads in the run-up to the election. Sinister, these people. This law will be difficult to undo on so many levels.
And I fear that AT&T (or anyone) dropping coverage will actually make overturning the bill more difficult if we don't get it done pronto. Once businesses make a million little accommodations to the new law, a new complex status quo will exist which itself will require disruptive changes to roll back. Businesses want issues settled, one way or the other, and once Obamacare has inertia, it'll be the Republicans who will be percieved as the willy-nilly disrupters.
Big challenges ahead.
Aug '10
Re: Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
This was the intent all along, to destroy the private health care industry by driving everyone toward a government run system. Nobody can compete or survive when the feds enter the game. They write their own rules that they don't honor, while forcing others to honor them.
Unless and until all Americans wake up to the malicious intent and malignant nature of the Obama Regime, this cancer will continue to metastasize.
Sep '10
Re: Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
Bill Walsh: So is this the successful bringing about of the Final Crisis of Healthcare Financing which will immanentize the Single-Payer Eschaton? · Nov 10 at 9:48pm
Edited on Nov 10 at 10:17 pm
I think the answer to that, as a Canajun, is yes. BTW, speaking of Eric Voegelin (and, really, when do we not in some way, shape or form?) Louisiana State University, home of Voegelin scholar Ellis Sandoz, has had their budget cut. I don't know how well heeled Ricochet members are juxtaposed against say the NRO cruise participants, but it would be a thing of beauty if a private donor or donors stepped forward to pick up the slack.
Or, as they say in Louisiana -- Trust But Quantify.
Sep '10
Re: Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
During the last 20 years we have seen the slow socializing of the health care in the US. O care put this process in overdrive. If the GOP repeals O care, which appears doubtful, we will be returned to the slow socialization process. When will the GOP begin to forcefully argue against this 3rd party, pre-paid medical scheme that is referred to as health insurance? It cannot function as an effective cost control mechanism and thus will invariably lead to government control. The theory underlying HSA provide a realistic option , but it is almost never explained and never forcefully argued for by the GOP.
Re: Can't Fix Health Care Soon Enough
Thanks for the welcome, Peter. I am not sure that AT&T never drops coverage, but I am confident that companies like AT&T will not be first out of the box to drop employee coverage. Large, high profile, politically vulnerable, heavily regulated companies will be wary of dropping coverage because of the public relations consequence of doing so. Once the first companies take the political risk and drop their employees, others will follow, and the initial trickle will become a flood.