My Generation - Healthcare Blog

Boomer Health Care Summit

2010-02-09T13:20:00.002-05:00

Hey Boomers. Health care or health insurance reform, whatever you want to name it is still with us. Below is Ms. Turner's most recent article on the upcoming Summit.

Be well!
Denny
Cincinnati

Solutions or Showmanship at the Summit?
National Review Online: Critical Condition
By Grace-Marie Turner
February 8, 2010

The White House believes it has identified a new way to put Republicans on the spot on health reform — a big bipartisan summit that forces both parties to explain their ideas before C-SPAN cameras.

The president reportedly plans to bring with him a copy of the merged House/Senate bill that was within days of being enacted before Scott Brown’s election slammed the brakes on their hugely unpopular legislation.

During his interview before the Super Bowl, Mr. Obama challenged Republicans to come up with specific plans: "How do you guys want to lower costs? How do you guys intend to reform the insurance market so people with preexisting conditions, for example, can get health care? How do you want to make sure that the 30 million people who don't have health insurance can get it? What are your ideas, specifically?"

The Republicans will bring their own legislation and ideas. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said his team will take a “step-by-step approach” that doesn’t try to solve every problem in one gigantic bill. Mr. McConnell signaled the Republican approach, saying “We know there are a number of issues with bipartisan support that we can start with when the [Democrats’] 2,700-page bill is put on the shelf.”

But that’s not the president’s plan. He will use the forum to try to explain — One. More. Time. Very Slowly — that his overhaul approach is the only one that will work.

The summit idea grew out of the president’s performance before the House GOP retreat in Baltimore ten days ago.

Despite virtually no preparation time after the president’s surprise request that the event be televised, Republicans offered focused and informed questions, engaging in a dialogue over issues ranging from health reform to budget deficits to transparency in political decisions.

During the session, Mr. Obama forecast what is likely to be his approach during the health summit, scheduled for February 25 at Blair House across the street from the White House.

Acknowledging that Republicans actually do have ideas for health reform, the president told the Baltimore gathering that many them were incorporated into legislation written by the Democratic leadership, including:

Allowing inter-state purchase of health insurance
Catastrophic health insurance for young people
High-risk pools for uninsured people with pre-existing conditions
Small business health plans
Incentives for wellness
Allowing young adults to stay on their parents' policies
Republicans might add to their list ideas incorporated in the platforms of both Senators McCain and Obama during the campaign, including agreement on the importance of:

Targeted financial help for the uninsured
Incentives for prevention and early treatment
Coordination of care and disease management
Greater use of information technology and electronic medical records
New approaches to "best practices" in treatment
There are serious differences about how to structure the underlying policy on all of these items. But these lists nonetheless could be a start for a bipartisan conversation.

However, we likely are too far into the political season to expect a genuine exchange of ideas. Democrats believe their interlocking chain of mandates, taxes, and expansion of government control over virtually every aspect of health care is the only viable solution.

And that is the basic disconnect that will make agreement so difficult. Republicans would never agree, nor should they, to plugging a few of their ideas into the monstrous bill the White House and congressional leaders have devised. This legislation cannot be redeemed. They know that.

Starting over is the only genuine solution, but the president has taken that off the table. A White House statement Sunday said Obama is "adamant about passing comprehensive reform similar to the bills passed by the House and the Senate." That clearly shows the intent of the summit is about showmanship, not solutions.

So health care will again dominate the airwaves for the rest of February with little to show for it except a battle over who can score the most political points.

Beleaguered House Democrats are likely among those most discouraged by the latest announcement since they had hoped to change the conversation to jobs and the economy as they head home for recess next week.

Nope. Health care will stay in the spotlight. For better or, most likely, for worse.

Boomer Review of House Healthcare Bill

2010-02-02T14:52:00.004-05:00

How different things were just a few months ago when it appeared the so-called health care reform bills were going to pass. The frantic pace may be over for a time. But I assure you, the national debate will continue.

It is important to remember why Boomers are saying health care reform is important. We are getting older and will be more dependent on medical care. SO, why can't we just slow down the dialogue and pursue a rational action plan that makes sense. Here are some suggestions which can be done without significant changes in the delivery and financing of health care:

1. Let's get the uninsured covered, if they choose to be, through tax credits.
2. Introduce choice by having insurance companies sell across state lines.
3. Decrease the amount of legislative burdens that impeded company health plans.
4. Let individuals who purchase health insurance on their own take the tax deduction.
5. Encourage the growth of consumer-based models such as Health Savings Accounts.
6. Let's not forget tort reform too!

Easy to implement and lower administrative cost means lower taxes. And, we don't need huge changes in the health care system!

Be well!
Denny
Cincinnati

Boomer Changes in Reform

2010-01-21T08:32:00.001-05:00

Hey Boomers. Here is the latest on healthcare.

Massachusetts: The new epicenter of the health reform debate

The biggest news on health reform, of course, hasn't been what's going on in Washington, where negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate bills have quietly continued. It's what's been going on in Massachusetts.

A month ago, no one believed it could happen. A week ago, it still seemed only the slightest possibility. But Tuesday night, Republican Scott Brown won the right to be the new senator from Massachusetts – and his election will have a big impact on health reform.

Brown was elected despite the fact that Massachusetts is a reliable Democratic state (both chambers of the Legislature are Democrat-run, the congressional delegation is all Democrats and so are the state office-holders), despite the fact that he vowed to vote against health care reform (Sen. Kennedy, his popular predecessor, spent his lifetime trying to accomplish reforms like those Brown campaigned against), and despite the fact that just a little over a year ago, President Obama carried the state by 26 percentage points.

Brown beat state Attorney General Martha Coakley 52 percent to 47 in a contest that has been at the top of the national news for the last few days. As Brown said in his victory speech, the campaign started quietly, but "Air Force One made an emergency trip to Logan Airport" on Sunday so the President could try to rescue Coakley's campaign. Former President Bill Clinton stumped for her for three days in the past week. As probably everyone in the Western world knows at this point, Brown's victory gives the Republicans their 41st Senate seat, which means the Democrats no longer have a filibuster-proof majority.

That shifts the balance of power in the Capitol for lots of issues: bank reforms, cap and trade and the debate over how suspected terrorists should be tried and treated. But the immediate question is what it will do to health care reform, which has occupied Congress and the President since last summer. The House and Senate have been working on a final draft of the bill and had hoped to pass it in the next few weeks. Now that the Democrats have lost their critical 60th Senate vote, however, in a campaign that sometimes felt like a referendum on health reform, the big question is what happens to that health reform bill? And the answer is, nobody knows.

For the past few days, the Capitol has been buzzing with talk about a Plan B for passing a reform bill, in case Brown should win. Some lawmakers have advocated that the chambers finish their negotiations quickly so members can vote before Sen. Brown is seated, or for scaling back the bill and passing it through the budget reconciliation process, which would only take 51 Senate votes.

The most popular Plan B, however, has been to convince the House to pass the bill the Senate already passed – with no changes – and send it to the President to sign. That would obviate the need for the Senate to vote on the issue again.

But that plan seems increasingly unlikely. First, House members, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, say they are adamantly opposed to some parts of the Senate bill. And now that a conservative Republican has defeated a Democrat in a blue state, some Democrats who supported the bill last time may have second thoughts about supporting it and other items on the Democratic agenda. For example, moments after Brown's win, Rep. Anthony Weiner, a liberal Democrat from New York, told CNN, "We need to internalize this…We've got to recognize we have an entirely different scenario…There's a limit to saying (the people) just don't get it – that if we just pass a bill they'll get it."

CNN political commentator David Gergen, who has served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, said Tuesday night, "I think we're seeing the obituary written tonight for universal health care in the U.S. It's very unlikely to pass in its current form."

He's looking further down the road than others seem willing to look. Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid were both maintaining that they will pass a reform bill. And as AHIP and Humana have said for several years, the U.S. health care system needs to be reformed.

But this election does change the landscape, and it will soon be apparent how. Will the bill's content change? Will it be scaled back? Will the timetable for passing it be delayed?

A week from now, the President will be making his State of the Union Address. Will he be talking about reform, or will he "pivot," as some in Washington are guessing, and make jobs and the economy his central theme?

Where the negotiations stand
The arguments over why Brown beat Coakley have already begun. Was Martha Coakley a terrible candidate? Did she lose because she took her victory for granted and started campaigning too late? Or were voters communicating dismay over what's going on in Washington – maybe even specifically, over what's going on with health care reform?

What isn't debatable, however, is that Brown's victory will have a big impact on the future of health reform. And here's where the negotiations stand:

Last week, talks between the House, Senate, the President and top administration officials were like a three-day marathon. From 10:30 a.m. until 6:40 p.m. last Wednesday, from Thursday morning until about 1 a.m. Friday, and then for most of Friday, Democratic leaders were at the White House trying to work out the differences in the House and Senate bills.

The meetings were described as unusual (rarely does a president spend such big blocks of time working on issues with members of Congress), intense (no BlackBerrys or cell phones were allowed), and productive (in a joint statement on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said they had made "significant progress in bridging the remaining gaps").

On Friday, the White House released this statement: "We've worked through the gamut of issues in great depth, but there are still not final agreements and no overall package. The next step in the process is to evaluate the costs and savings associated with the various proposals for each tenet of the legislation."

Therefore, some parts of the bill were sent to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis. The issues that lawmakers and the administration have been grappling with include the details of how to pay for the bill, how much Medicaid should be expanded, how generous the subsidies to help individuals buy insurance should be, and whether there should be exchanges in every state or just one, national exchange.

The details of policy provisions that have been tentatively agreed on have not been released, but some are known:

Unions and employees of state and local governments won a five-year reprieve on the tax on "Cadillac" health plans. This creates a need for $60 billion more in revenue
Pharmaceutical companies were asked to raise their financial contribution from $80 billion over 10 years to $90 billion.

Cuts to Medicare Advantage were $118 billion in the Senate bill and $170 billion in the House bill. At this point in the negotiations, the cuts reportedly stand somewhere between those numbers Republicans have been left out of all these discussions.

In addition, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., who became notorious for negotiating a special Medicaid-payment deal for his home state as a condition of his vote for reform, requested that either the deal be granted to everyone, or removed from the legislation. He insisted it always "was intended to serve as a placeholder that would be removed during the conference negotiations and replaced with a mechanism applying to all state governments."

Meanwhile, a CBS News poll released last week showed that the health reform debate is hurting the approval ratings of the President and members of Congress. Only 36 percent of Americans approve of the way President Obama is handling the issue (54 percent disapprove), and only 46 percent approve of the job he's doing overall (down from 56 percent in October). Only 1 in 5 Americans thinks the health reforms in Congress strike the right balance when it comes to expanding coverage, controlling costs and regulating insurance companies (some people think it does too much; others think it does too little).

But the news for members of Congress is worse: 57 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Democrats in Congress have dealt with the issue of health reform (in fact, only 48 percent of Democrats approve of the way Democrats have dealt with it), and 61percent of Americans disapprove of the Republicans' approach (only 43 percent of Republicans approve of the Republican approach).

Boomer Update on Health Care

2010-01-15T14:21:00.001-05:00

Hello Boomers. It just gets more complicated all the time.

Big Labor, Big Favors
By Grace-Marie Turner
The Cornhusker Kick: Just when we thought the health care legislation could not possibly get any worse, any more damaging, or any more disgusting in its vote-buying kickbacks and special favors, then along comes this!

In marathon meetings at the White House, the president and congressional Democrats came up with a "big, fat wet kiss for labor unions" (New York Post) in exempting them from the tax on high cost health plans until 2018.

The deal exempts them from one of the "revenue generating" parts of the Senate health overhaul bill that exposes expensive health plans to a 40% excise tax. The tax on plans costing more than $24,000 a year for families and $8,900 for individuals would be paid by insurance companies, who would simply pass it along in even higher premiums.

And how is Congress going to make up the revenue? With another jobs-killing tax that would subject investment income to Medicare payroll taxes. This will hit small businesses and others that rely on investment income to build their businesses. Apart from the economic damage this would do, it is terrible policy to start thinking of Medicare taxes as yet another piggy bank to fund special political deals.

It is relatively clear that President Obama's economic policy is strictly one dimensional: raise taxes everywhere and anywhere you possibly can to expand the size and scope of government. And the only people who will be exempt from these crushing taxes will be political friends who have cut special deals.

This is not a democracy. This is banana republic politics. Unless you have political connections and lots of campaign cash, expect to get hit.

It's clear that the winners are the powerful labor unions who've bought a place at the table with their huge campaign contributions and election spending. That bought them the deal that exempts union members from $60 billion in taxes on health benefits.

But who are the losers? For starters, workers in states that have fewer labor unions, such as Nebraska. Is Sen. Ben Nelson going to be able to defend a deal that would tax health insurance for workers in his state, most of whom are not unionized, at a higher rate than the more highly-unionized workers in Pennsylvania? This might be called the "Cornhusker Kick."

The union payback shows the same raw politics as a deal in the Senate bill that would force construction companies with five or fewer workers to provide expensive, government-mandated health insurance to their employees. (For other industries, the mandate doesn't kick in until a firm has 50 workers.) The unions had complained that exempting the small, non-union firms from the mandate put unionized companies at a competitive disadvantage.

This is disgraceful.

Political guru Charlie Cook writes today: "Honorable and intelligent people can disagree over the substance and details of what President Obama and congressional Democrats are trying to do on health care reform and climate change. But nearly a year after Obama's inauguration, judging by where the Democrats stand today, it's clear that they have made a colossal miscalculation."

Massachusetts: And what impact is the Massachusetts special Senate election going to have on health reform?

You know the world has changed when people around the country are looking to Massachusetts to stop expansion of a liberal social agenda. One member of Congress told me his constituents are stopping him on the street to ask what they can do to send a message to Massachusetts voters, saying they are all that stands between them and passage of a health reform bill that frightens them.

Republican Scott Brown had the quote of the campaign during Monday night's Massachusetts Senate debate when moderator David Gergen asked him, "Are you willing … to say I'm going to be the person -- I'm going to sit in Teddy Kennedy's seat and I'm going to be the person that's going to block [health reform] for another 15 years?"

Brown replied, "Well, with all due respect, it's not the Kennedys' seat and it's not the Democrats' seat, it's the people's seat."

The public plan lives on, despite most claims that this central pillar of Big Labor's agenda won't be part of the final health overhaul bill.

There is a reason they are silent on this issue. Their government-run health plan just has a new name. It's now called a national health insurance exchange.

The federal government, rather than the states, would have the authority to set up the new health insurance purchasing exchange. This would be the vehicle to centralize health insurance regulation, with Washington dictating what benefits must be covered, what insurers can charge, and how health plans must operate.

The House bill calls for the national exchange to be run by the Orwellian "Health Choices Administration," vesting vast new power for health insurance regulation with the federal government and giving states, consumers, and businesses little or no say over the health "choices" available to them through the exchanges. The national exchange would quickly become a vehicle for price controls and excessive regulation of insurance markets, which have driven up costs and driven out competition in many states.

Giving the federal government power over health insurance through this new regulatory mechanism would create the foundation for a government-run public plan. Speaker Pelosi gave a preview of the power that she believes will be invested in the national exchange when she said at a recent news conference that once the legislation is passed, the insurance companies "will be crying out for a public option."

The politics of intimidation and political favors will not win support for this plan. Stay tuned. This still is not over yet.

Boomer Health Care Federal Update

2010-01-14T10:53:00.001-05:00

Greetings Boomers. Congressional Democratic leaders met with the President last week while the rest of Congress remained back home, still on recess. The President pressed the Senate Majority Leader and the House Speaker to get health care reform done quickly in time for the State of the Union speech during the first week in February -- before the opposition can mount an effective grassroots campaign to scuttle the bill. To this end the Democratic leadership has agreed to bypass a formal conference, which would be fairly public, contentious and time-consuming. However, no deadline was promised, and there was some pushback from Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the House would not simply accept the Senate bill. The plan calls for the two chambers (Reid/Durbin, Dodd/Harkin and Baucus for the Senate, and Pelosi/Hoyer, Miller, Rangel and Waxman for the House) to work on a compromise, pass it first in the House and then in the Senate. Under this "ping-pong" process, the Senate will have but one vote in which 60 Senators will have to vote “Yes.” While it seems very unlikely that the public plan option (in the House bill) or the Medicare buy-in provision, already rejected by the Senate, will make the final cut, there are more than enough issues in conflict to keep negotiators busy for several weeks. They include: abortion; immigration; the House tax surcharge on the wealthy vs the Senate's Cadillac tax; the insurance company tax; changing McCarran-Ferguson (pushed by the House); and increasing subsidies to low-income Americans. The current betting is that Democrats will get a bill to the President for signing sometime in the coming weeks, but there is absolutely no margin for error.

Boomer Update on Health Care

2010-01-08T11:03:00.000-05:00

Hey Boomers. The beat goes on!!!

Denny
Cincinnati

Reform will be an albatross around Democrats' necks
Belleville News-Democrat
Grace-Marie Turner
January 7, 2010

Health reform is the Holy Grail for Democrats, but it may turn out instead to be their political death march.

President Obama has told Democrats in Congress they must usher in "historic change" by courageously voting for reform, assuring them the voters will thank them later.

But "later" may be too late for many members who feel they are being forced to walk the plank and vote for a bill that becomes more unpopular by the day.

For starters, the bills cover only about half of the uninsured - missing by miles the Democrats' goal of universal coverage. The Senate bill would leave 23 million people without insurance, and the House bill, at least 18 million, while spending nearly $2.5 trillion in the first year the program is implemented.

Next, people will feel the pain well before they see the gain. The bills start collecting new and higher taxes in 2010, but people won't start seeing any subsidies to help them buy insurance until 2014. Sending collection agents out four years before benefits begin is one of the budget gimmicks that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used to claim his bill is paid for.

But health insurers and medical suppliers who must pay the new taxes will quickly raise their prices, leading to higher health insurance costs. Because Obama repeatedly has claimed the legislation will lower health-care costs, small businesses and citizens expecting relief will feel especially betrayed.

The Congressional Budget Office says the legislation will actually make the cost problem worse. It found that families purchasing health insurance in the individual market would actually see an increase in their premiums by $2,100 in the year 2016.

That's over and above the increases they already would face. A family would pay $15,200 for health insurance in 2016 with reform, and $13,100 if Congress does nothing.

Young people get hit the hardest with reform. Most of them don't have a clue that the federal government is about to slap them with a new mandate requiring them to buy expensive health insurance. And studies show the legislation would force them to pay premiums two or three times the amount they otherwise would be charged based upon their age and expected use of health services.

And seniors already are outraged because of nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare and are on high alert about potential rationing.

The Democrats didn't lose Congress in 1994 because they failed to enact the Clinton health reform bill, as members of Congress are being told. They lost because they were pushing a plan that was hugely unpopular with the voters. Just like today.

The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that only 32 percent of the American people support ObamaCare. Democrats will face a torrential backlash if they vote for legislation that is so unpopular with their constituents.

The only Democrats may able to save themselves are those who stand up and vocally oppose passage, becoming heroes to the majority of Americans who are desperate for somebody to put on the brakes.

Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska had a chance to be that one vote in the Senate, but he sold out for a few million dollars in Medicaid money for his state. Now his approval ratings have dipped so low that he has been forced to respond with a costly statewide advertising campaign defending his deal-making even though he's not up for re-election until 2012.

Republicans don't have the votes in either house of Congress to stop passage. Before Congress takes a final vote on compromise legislation, the only Democrats who may find health-care to be a political gain are those who stand up and say, "Stop!"

Boomer's: Senate Begins Again

2009-11-30T06:39:00.003-05:00

Hello Fellow Boomer's. I trust you all had a fun Thanksgiving with your families. Today the Senate begins debate again on our future. Be aware and be informed, your future depends on it!

Ten Reasons Public Won't Buy Senate Health Care Plan
The Washington Examiner
Grace-Marie Turner
November 25, 2009

At a time of record deficits and a $12 trillion national debt, President Obama and the Democrats are pulling out all of the stops to pass a plan that dramatically expands government powers over health care.

According to a Nov. 23 Rasmussen survey, only 38 percent of Americans polled now support the Democrats' health reform plans, and 56 percent oppose them. That's unlikely to change as people learn more about what's in the 2,074-page bill.

Here are the top 10 reasons why:

1. Exploding costs: The actual 10-year cost of the legislation, once the spending begins, will be at least $2.5 trillion. Budget expert James Capretta estimates that the bill will lead to a $4.9 trillion spending increase over 20 years.

2. Losing your current coverage: At least five million people would lose their current employment-based coverage, and millions of seniors would lose their private Medicare Advantage coverage as the program is cut by $118 billion.

3. Job-killing taxes on employers: Employers will be faced with new penalties, taxes, and regulatory hassles. One example: Firms with more than 50 workers that don't offer insurance would have to pay a penalty of $750 for each full-time worker if any of their workers qualify for subsidized health insurance.

4. Budgetary gimmick -- tax now, spend later: The bill starts collecting new and higher taxes next year, but the coverage benefits don't start until 2014 or later. Sending collections agents out four years before benefits begin is one of the budget gimmicks that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., used so he can claim that the cost of his bill is under $900 billion, as the president has demanded.

5. Increasing future health care spending: Despite the president's promise to lower the cost curve, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says that the federal commitment to health spending "would be about $160 billion higher under the legislation than under current law."

6. Cost-shifting gimmick: Reid's bill on paper would slash Medicare payments to doctors by 23 percent after one year. This won't actually happen because Congress always blinks to restore the payments, adding another $210 billion to the actual cost of the bill.

7. Taxpayer-financed abortion: The public does not support using federal taxpayer dollars to finance abortions. Yet the Reid bill would require some plans to cover abortions, allow the newly created government insurance plan to cover abortions, and allow companies that receive federal funds to offer policies that include abortion coverage.

8. Twenty-four million uninsured -- still. The bill leaves 24 million people without insurance by 2019, not even close to the promised goal of universal coverage. This will be a serious problem for hospitals that still will be treating uninsured people, including illegal immigrants, but which will be facing payment cuts of $43 billion.

9. Scarce subsidies: Despite spending $338 billion on new subsidies through the health insurance exchange, just 19 million people will qualify for help with their costs -- even though everyone is required to have government-defined health insurance or pay a penalty.

10. Mandates cause higher premiums and more uninsured: Individuals will be required to purchase health insurance, and younger workers will be forced to pay higher premiums to subsidize older Americans. This will create a death spiral for health insurance, as young people opt to pay penalties rather than expensive premiums, and premiums soar higher and higher for those left in the insurance pool.

This is one Christmas present the American people hope they don't receive.

Boomers Focus on Health Reform

2009-11-12T14:53:00.003-05:00

Hello Boomers. Here is a synopsis of the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962). Not sure how affordable this is, but you be the judge.

Denny
Cincinnati

http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/housebill_final.pdf

Boomers Taxed To Death

2009-11-10T11:05:00.001-05:00

Hey Boomers. Do you know that taxes are a Boomers biggest expense in our lifetimes, and now MORE!!!

Denny
Cincinnati

The Washington-based Americans for Tax Reform outlines other taxes the will result if the Pelosi bill is passed:

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a single employee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Nonprescription medications no longer would be able to be bought from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs, which are not capped now, would face an annual cap of $2,500.

Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)

Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services. Managers' amendment delays until 2012

Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.

Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. The law now limits it just to people for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.

Repeal in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Repeals the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act. Original bill merely delayed for nine years

Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.

Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.

Application of “More Likely Than Not” Rule (Page 357): Publicly traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been sufficient to cover final tax liability.

Boomer Jail Time - Health Care Bondage

2009-11-10T10:37:00.002-05:00

Hello Fellow Boomers. I thought many of you would be interested in the article.

Denny
Cincinnati

PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail

JCT Confirms Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail
Friday, November 06, 2009

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.

In response to the JCT letter, Camp said: “This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail. It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately.”

Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]

- - - - - - - - - -

“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]

- - - - - - - - - -

“Criminal penalties

Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:

• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]

When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties. The Pelosi bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail.

“The Senate Finance Committee had the good sense to eliminate the extreme penalty of incarceration. Speaker Pelosi’s decision to leave in the jail time provision is a threat to every family who cannot afford the $15,000 premium her plan creates. Fortunately, Republicans have an alternative that will lower health insurance costs without raising taxes or cutting Medicare,” said Camp.

According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.

Boomer's Ask: What's Next After PelosiCare?

2009-11-09T14:25:00.002-05:00

Greetings Fellow Boomers. Been on the "sick" side lately and have not kept up with the Blog, but on the mend and eager to discuss health care issues. When the House passed the monumental health care bill this weekend, this marks a huge step. The question come up, if this huge legislative step is walking in the right direction. Do we really want the Federal government to control 1/6 of our economy and make decisions for all of us! I really would enjoy hearing from you all on this most important legislation, and importantly, will it pass the Senate? Continues to be an interesting ride!

Denny
Cincinnati

What’s next after PelosiCare?

By Grace-Marie Turner

Speaker Pelosi and President Obama are declaring political victory for getting their health reform bill through Congress just before the stroke of midnight on Saturday, but they’ve gone against the will of the American people who believe overwhelmingly, and correctly, that it would increase their health costs, threaten the quality of care they receive, and lead to a flood of unfunded entitlement spending.

Democratic leaders have convinced themselves -- and enough of their rank and file to pass the bill -- that they know what is best for the country, even if the American people aren’t smart enough to see their far-sighted wisdom.

But it’s the American people who are right in fearing the massive House bill which would turn our health sector into a nightmare of government bureaucracy.

Many Democratic House members were strong-armed into voting for a bill that they know violates the basic freedoms upon which this country was founded, but they didn't want to be the ones to hand defeat to their president or party.

Now they will head home to answer to constituents who will be learning more and more of the details about the bill their elected officials voted for -- the jobs-killing mandates on businesses; higher taxes on the middle class as well as the rich; higher health costs; government intrusion into personal medical decisions; federal dictates about the kind of health insurance Americans must have to avoid federal penalties; cuts in Medicare; a dramatic expansion of government entitlement programs; and much more.

Members also will have to explain the false promises that the president made to win passage of the bill. In his statement Saturday, Mr. Obama said: "The bill that the House has produced will provide stability and security for Americans who have insurance; quality, affordable options for those who don't; and lower costs for American families and American businesses.” In fact, the bill the House passed violates every one of those promises, as numerous independent studies have proven.

And members will have to explain to their constituents why they supported legislation that dramatically changes the relationship between the American people and their government -- forcing them to relinquish freedom over health care decisions for themselves and their families to the political will of Washington.

It is a mistake for political leaders to ignore Americans who are deeply concerned about the growing size and reach of government and trillions of dollars in deficit spending. They are not going to be swayed by flowery rhetoric. They are going to want real answers because it’s their future that is at stake.

Now the battle heads back to the Senate where Majority Leader Harry Reid still is wrestling in back rooms with the Congressional Budget Office to get a favorable price tag on a bill he’s trying to craft to garner 60 votes. The president yesterday insisted he get a bill through the Senate before Christmas.

Confusion has reigned in the health reform debate, with the American people assured the bill will offer them all gain and no pain, while independent analyses show just the opposite.

Many people don’t know who to believe, especially since coverage of the debate is obscured by bewildering terms like the “public option,” “guaranteed issue,” and “sustainable growth rates.” All the while, people are being told it’s too soon to form an opinion because no one knows yet what’s going to be in the bills.

Well, we do know. The House bill is a federal take-over of our health sector, as evidenced by the 118 new programs and bureaucracies it will create. The Senate bill will be cut from the same cloth.

The mainstream media covers the speeches and the news conferences by Democratic leaders but gives short shrift to the facts and analysis that show the true impact of their health reform plans.

The fact is that their plans would mean higher heath insurance costs, a loss of private options for coverage, higher taxes, and huge new federal spending commitments that won’t be paid for by the fake funding schemes.

Please continue to follow what we and all of our free-market friends and colleagues are writing and saying at www.HealthReformHub.org This battle is far from over.

Boomer Health Care Updates October 28, 2009

2009-10-29T08:00:00.002-04:00

Hello Fellow Boomers. Here is an update on health care. Seems like our lives are being consumed by this topic.

Reid decides Senate bill will include a public plan:

For the past week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has been merging the two health reform bills passed by two different Senate committees. On Monday afternoon, he announced that the bill he takes to the floor for a full-Senate vote will include a public plan option. States, however, can choose not to participate in the government-run plan if they “opt out” by 2014.

This decision, he said, shows that he believes such a bill will have "the support of my caucus." He admitted, however, that he did not have commitments from all 60 Democrats, which he will need to prevent a filibuster.

A statement from the White House said Reid had the President’s support. As President Obama “said to Congress and the nation in September,” the statement said, “he supports the public option because it has the potential to play an essential role in holding insurance companies accountable through choice and competition.”

Other public-option approaches had been suggested. They included an "opt in" provision for states instead of an “opt out,” and a "trigger" that would create a government plan only if private insurers didn’t offer policies at affordable prices. The Senate Finance Committee’s bill included nonprofit health care cooperatives, instead of a public plan, and the new merged bill put together by Reid contains a provision for them as well.

Democratic moderates have said they prefer the “opt in” provision; Sen. Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, the only Republican to vote for health-care reform in either chamber, says she prefers the trigger and was “deeply disappointed” that Reid had chosen to put the public plan option in the bill. Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said he will not back any bill that includes a public plan, and Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said she was reluctant to sign on with Reid's plan.

The Business Roundtable immediately issued a statement in opposition to Reid’s decision, saying, “The public plan option will not only shrink the pool of individuals covered by private insurance, but it will siphon off those most needed to create balanced risk pools. To keep costs low, the public plan will also reimburse providers at a sub-market rate. Taken together, these two effects will exacerbate the cost shift to businesses, providers and insurers alike, creating an unsustainable system.” Read the entire statement here.

After the bills passed by the Senate Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee are merged, the final bill – along with some alternate scenarios – will be sent to the Congressional Budget Office, which will attach a price to the plan. The goal is to bring the bill to the Senate floor for debate the week of Nov. 9.

Reality check on health insurance industry profits:

From the Associated Press: A story that fact checks the insinuations that health insurance companies make “immoral profits,” as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put it. The story was posted on the New York Times political blog with the headline “FACT CHECK: Health Insurers' Profits 35th of 53.”

“Insurers are an expedient target for leaders who want a government-run plan in the marketplace,” the story says. “But in pillorying insurers over profits, the critics are on shaky ground. Ledgers tell a different reality.”

The story goes on to cite statistics many Humana employees are familiar with: “Health insurance profit margins typically run about 6 percent, give or take a point or two. That's anemic compared with other forms of insurance and a broad array of industries, even some beleaguered ones.”

“Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th of 53 industries on the Fortune 500 list. As is typical, other health sectors did much better – drugs and medical products and services were both in the top 10.

“The railroads brought in a 12.6 percent profit margin. Leading the list: network and other communications equipment, at 20.4 percent.”

Humana's 2008 consolidated pretax margin was 3.4 percent.

Read more of the Fact Check here:

Insurance industry responds
An op-ed in the Washington Post, written by Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, responded to criticism of the health insurance industry for a report it commissioned from PricewaterhouseCoopers . That report was issued a few days before the vote of the Senate Finance Committee and showed the unintended effects of some of the committee’s proposed health reforms. The “central finding,” as Ignagni put it, was that implementing insurance market reforms without a strong requirement that everyone participate would significantly increase costs for individuals and small businesses.

This conclusion “has long been noncontroversial in health policy circles,” Ignagni wrote. “(It) echoes the message President Obama delivered in his address to Congress last month: ‘And unless everybody does their part, many of the insurance reforms we seek – especially requiring insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions – just can’t be achieved. And that’s why, under my plan, individuals will be required to carry basic health insurance,’ (Obama) said.”

“Doc fix” not fixed yet:
One of the more perplexing problems for members of Congress during the reform conversation has been to find a way to execute a “doc fix” – that is, to change a Medicare formula so physician payments aren’t automatically reduced when their costs exceed budget targets. For example, payments to physicians are scheduled to decrease by 21 percent next year.

Most years, Congress votes to block the cuts, largely out of fear that lower rates will lead to fewer doctors accepting Medicare patients. Physicians, of course, want the formula eliminated once and for all, but the cost – $247 billion for the first 10years – is high. A “doc fix” passed this year would create special problems, since that $247 billion would be on top of the $900 billion to $1.2 trillion cost of proposed reforms. And the President has promised Americans he will not sign a reform bill that adds “one dime” to the national debt.

So Senate Majority Leader Reid’s strategy to fix the problem and get doctors on board for reform was to separate the “doc fix” from the health care overhaul. The legislation he wanted members to consider, however, did not include a way to pay for it. This addition to the national debt bothered a number of senators, and on Wednesday, a majority of them refused to go along. Reid needed 60 votes to proceed, but he got only 47. Twelve Democrats and an independent voted with the Republicans instead.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was triumphant. He said, “In the Senate’s first vote on health care spending this year, a bipartisan majority rejected the Democrat leadership's attempt to add another quarter trillion dollars to the national credit card without any plan to pay for it.”

The Capitol Hill publication Roll Call called the vote “an ominous beginning for Democrats on the health care debate.” The New York Times said, “Democrats lost a big test vote on health care legislation….The Medicare bill has become a proxy for larger issues in the debate.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., explained his "no" vote this way: “On the eve of a historic debate on health care, it’s essential to show a commitment to real reform,” which he said includes fiscal responsibility.

HHS says House reform plan bends the curve in the wrong direction
A report from the Health and Humana Services Department says that the nation’s health care bill would increase under the House leaders’ proposed reforms. The analysis says that if H.R. 3200 passed, costs between 2010 and 2019 would actually increase by 2.1 percent over what they would be without reform. Health care would account for 21.3 percent of the economy in 2019, compared to 20.8 percent if no bill passed.

The report also said:

“With the exception of the proposed reductions in Medicare…(the legislation) would not have a significant impact on future health care cost growth rates.”

“The additional demand for health services could be difficult to meet initially with existing health provider resources and could lead to price increases, cost-shifting and/or changes in providers’ willingness to treat patients with low-reimbursement health coverage.”

Forty percent of the 27 million people who would buy coverage through the health insurance exchange would choose the public plan because its premiums would be about 11 percent lower than private insurance.
It’s “doubtful” that proposed Medicare cuts would stay in place.
Anti-trust and other regulations
Last week, the House Judiciary Committee voted 20-9 to repeal anti-trust regulations for health insurers. The Senate is expected to include similar legislation in its health reform bill.

Since 1945, the McCarran-Ferguson Act has given states broad authority to regulate the insurance business without interference from federal intervention. But as Karen Ignagni of AHIP said in a letter to the Judiciary Committee chairman, the bill is an “attempt to remedy a problem that does not exist.” She pointed out, “Health insurance is one of the most significantly regulated areas of the economy.”

Associated Press said the vote “signaled a growing determination by Democrats to punish the insurance industry for its criticism of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul agenda.”

Boomer Health Care Updates as of October 23

2009-10-23T14:44:00.002-04:00

Hey Boomers! So much going on in the Great National Health Care Debate. Here is a brief synopsis of what is going on as of October 23. Remember this affects you now and in the future so stay an informed consumer!!!

Be well!
Denny - Cincinnati

WellPoint Shows Premiums Will Increase: WellPoint this week released analysis that sheds further light on the impact of the Senate Finance Committee's proposed health care reform legislation on premiums. The findings show increases in premiums due to new fees placed on industries such as drug manufacturers, medical device makers and the insurance industry.

AHIP Provides More Context to Premiums Study: Karen Ignagni, President and Chief Executive of American's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) provided greater context to the recent report from Pricewaterhouse Coopers that showed the Senate Finance Committee bill to have the unintended consequence of increasing the cost of health care coverage. Ignagni stated in an op-ed in Tuesday's Washington Post, "[AHIP] continues to strongly support reform. In fact, last year we proposed new insurance market rules and consumer protections to achieve universal coverage, remove restrictions on preexisting conditions and end the practice of basing premiums on health status or gender. We firmly believe that all the cost concerns the report raised can be resolved."

Senate and House Negotiations:

Public Option Continues to Shape Debate: White House officials appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press," ABC's "This Week," CNN's "State of the Union," and CBS's "Face the Nation" this past weekend to set the parameters for this week's round of negotiations around health care reform, particularly regarding a public option. The officials, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, and Senior White House Advisors Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod indicated that President Obama continues to prefer a public option, but will not demand its inclusion in the final legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) continues to face mounting pressure from liberal lawmakers to revive a proposed government-run option. As Sen. Reid (D-NV) works to craft the legislation, reports indicate he is 'more likely' to include a version of the public option that requires the government to negotiate rates with providers, as private insurers do, and not just peg them to Medicare reimbursement rates as a way of creating fair competition in the marketplace.

On the House side, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) continues to voice strong support of the public option, declaring in a news conference last week, "our House bill will have a public option."

Senate Finance Committee Courts AMA: Lawmakers on Wednesday voted to block a $247 billion measure proposed by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) aimed at eliminating scheduled Medicare reimbursement cuts for doctors and enacting a permanent, predictable system for future rate increases. Lawmakers criticized the bill for adding to the budget deficit. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) brought the measure to the floor in an attempt to court the American Medical Association's (AMA) support for the Senate health care reform legislation. AMA's President, Dr. James Rohack, countered the attempted appeasement indicating that reform legislation must also address significant medical liability reform to win AMA support.

CBO Provides Estimates For House Versions: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced Tuesday that recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates showed that a health care overhaul by House Democrats would reduce the U.S. budget deficit over 10 years and cost less than $900 billion, a goal outlined by President Obama. Sen. Pelosi (D-CA) had asked the CBO to provide cost estimates for three competing House versions for executing the public option -- one based on reimbursement rates paid to healthcare providers under Medicare and two that would rely on reimbursement rates negotiated with the providers.

Medicare Office of the Actuary Points to Cost Increase Under House Legislation: The Medicare Office of the Actuary released a report on Wednesday that shows that total national health care spending would increase by an additional 2.1 percent from 2010 - 2019 under the bill drafted by House Democratic leaders. The report found that health care would account for 21.3 percent of the U.S. economy in 2019, slightly more than an estimated share of 20.8 percent of the economy if no bill passes.

Additional Activities:

Insurance Industry Antitrust Exemption Under Scrutiny: Top Senate Democrats, Sens. Reid (D-NV), Leahy (D-VT), and Schumer (D-NY) announced Wednesday that they are inclined to incorporate an amendment into the health care reform legislation to strip the health insurance industry of its exemption from federal antitrust laws. Also on Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted 20 - 9 to end the industry exemption that dates back to 1945. If enacted, the measure would increase federal regulation over the insurance industry.

White House Pushes to Influence Negotiations: As the final health care reform bills are taking shape in the House and the Senate, White House officials have stepped up their efforts to influence the negotiating process. On Tuesday, President Obama spoke from New York City by video to hundreds of small gatherings sponsored by Organizing for America, a spin-off of his 2008 Presidential campaign. Top White House aides will attend strategy sessions for the Common Purpose Project, a coalition headed by President Obama's former campaign officials. And, President Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and other aides will be at the table when Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) meet with their respective committees to negotiate and draft legislation.

Republicans and Democrats Back Medical Device Industry: Countering Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee who view medical device manufactures as a reason for increasing health care costs, Democrats and Republicans from Minnesota, Indiana, New Jersey, and other states have come together to defend the industry in their home states. The Senate Finance Committee approved last week a $40 billion fee on device makers over the next 10 years. In reaction, 14 Democratic senators sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) urging them to "moderate" the fees which will "threaten the existence of some manufacturers" and result in "significant job reductions." Five Republican governors also expressed objections to the fees.

Public Opinion:

Polls Suggest Remaining Divide: A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Survey poll released Wednesday showed that 53 percent of Americans say it would be better for the country if Congress passed a reform bill, with 44 percent feeling that things would be better if the current health care system was left in place with no changes. In addition, a USA Today/Gallup poll this week showed that Americans are increasingly worried about the cost and quality of medical care that could result from the health care reform. 49 percent of Americans believe that costs will increase under the measure, up from 42 percent last month.

Looking Ahead:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) may introduce a combined Senate bill for health care reform as soon as Friday of this week. If this happens, Senate floor debates are expected next week.

Boomer Health Care Decision is Near

2009-10-12T12:47:00.002-04:00

Greetings Fellow Boomers. The U.S. Senate Finance Committee tomorrow could decide on an important step in the health care reform. This is a very hot issue and will affect all of us. In discussions with many of you, health care costs will continue to be a large portion of our retirement expenses, whether it's through insurance premiums or taxes. We have a fantastic system of health care, but it does come with a price tag.

The Washington Post today reports that after "months of collaboration on President Obama's attempt to overhaul the nation's health care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected" under the plan sponsored by Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT). Industry officials "said they intend to circulate the report prepared by Pricewaterhouse Coopers on Capitol Hill and promote it in new advertisements. That could complicate Democratic hopes for action on the legislation this week." Meanwhile, Administration officials, "who spent much of the spring and summer wooing the insurers, questioned the timing and authorship of the report, which was paid for by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), an industry trade group."

Denny
Cincinnati

Boomer Cost for Healthcare Plans

2009-10-07T20:15:00.003-04:00

Greetings Fellow Boomers. As a Generation health care is one of many concerns we will have to deal with. Who would of thought when all of us were 20 something that this day would come!

The end of this week may indicate the direction of so-called health care reform. We shall see! Many of my clients ask me about the cost of legislation to them and their families. The Kaiser Foundation has put together a calculator to determine what that cost would be. Here is the website:

http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx

I think you will find this website informative and eye opening.

For all of us, let's continue to research, read and contact your representatives in Congress what you think, and what you feel.

Be well!
Denny
Cincinnati

Boomer Cost for New Health Care Legislation

2009-09-24T14:55:00.002-04:00

Greetings Fellow Boomers. What is the cost to us if so-called health care reform passes. The Kaiser Family Foundation has put together a calculator to answer your questions. I'm sure much will change in the new few weeks, but interested to review.

Be well!
Denny Paste the address below on your browser:
http://healthreform.kff.org/Subsidycalculator.aspx?CFID=996101&CFTOKEN=75862105&jsessionid=6030a0039e8b8517b7d77a577f6376f3d6f3

Health Reform Subsidy Calculator -- Premium Assistance for Coverage in Exchanges/Gateways ShareThis tool illustrates premiums and government assistance under the types of reform proposals being considered in Congress for people under age 65 who purchase coverage on their own in an Exchange or Gateway and are not covered through their employer, Medicare or Medicaid. While the proposals considered would not take effect until 2013, the results are presented in terms of 2009 premium and income levels to enable better comparisons to current circumstances. The tool allows the user to start with the provisions from one of several proposals and examine the impact at different income levels. Advanced settings allow users to change assumptions to show the effect of different policy choices.

Boomers, Baucus and Medicare

2009-09-24T06:42:00.004-04:00

Greetings fellow Boomers. Well the beat goes on! The health care debate is marching on in Congress and the attacks are increasing. The most recent is Senator Baucus attack on Humana informing it's Medicare Advantage subscribers to become informed citizens. I think our Constitution has something to say about free speech on that subject. Below is the Wall Street article which I'm sure you will find interesting. Boomers, make sure you are well informed on all aspects of health care delivery and insurance. With 78 million of us marching into Medicare in the next decades, your well being could depend on it!

Be well!
Denny
Cincinnati

Baucus Bludgeons Humana

Political intimidation has always been part of the current Congress's health-care strategy: "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu" is tattooed on every lobbyist and industry rep in Washington. But Max Baucus's latest bullying tactics are hard to believe by even these standards, as the Senate Finance Chairman has sicced federal regulators on the insurer Humana Inc. for daring to criticize one part of his health bill.

Earlier this month, Humana sent a one-page letter to its customers enrolled in its Medicare Advantage plans, which offer private options to Medicare beneficiaries. Humana noted that, because of spending cuts proposed by Democrats, "millions of seniors and disabled individuals could lose many of the important benefits and services that make Medicare Advantage health plans so valuable." The Kentucky-based company also urged its customers to contact their Representatives. Pretty tame stuff, as these things go.

Mr. Baucus took it as a declaration of war. He complained to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal health-care agency, which on Friday duly ordered Humana to cease and desist. CMS claimed the mailer was "misleading and confusing" and told the company it has opened an official probe as to whether the mailer violated laws about how the insurers that manage Advantage plans are allowed to communicate with their customers, as well as other federal statutes.

"Please be advised that we take this matter very seriously and, based upon the findings our investigation, will pursue compliance and enforcement actions," CMS concluded, ominously. Humana could be fined or booted from Medicare Advantage altogether.

"It is wholly inappropriate for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject—particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health-care reform," Mr. Baucus said in a statement yesterday, playing the role of Congressional censor. "The health-care reform bill we released last week strengthens Medicare and does not cut benefits covered under the Medicare program—and seniors need to know that."

In fact, the Baucus draft legislation slashes $123 billion over the next decade from Medicare Advantage, which Democrats hate despite the fact that almost one-fourth of beneficiaries have chosen it over traditional fee-for-service Medicare. One reason seniors like it is because private insurers focus on quality and preventive care and try to manage benefits, as opposed to simply paying bills.

A new study from America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry trade group, finds that seniors on Advantage in California spent 30% fewer days in hospitals over fee-for-service patients, based on federal data. Democrats say that insurers are "overpaid," but the cuts—as Humana correctly noted—mean that seniors may lose this coverage.

Mr. Baucus doesn't want seniors to be educated about these facts, and obviously he's willing to use his enormous power to punish any private company that doesn't affirm his, well, creative version of reality. Nearly half of Humana's yearly revenue comes from Medicare Advantage, and the insurer says that it is complying in full with the CMS investigation. Yesterday, the agency also barred all Advantage insurers from providing similar information to their beneficiaries.

This episode neatly shows how all U.S. health care will operate if Mr. Baucus's bill becomes law. For months Humana and the wider insurance lobby have been among ObamaCare's most prominent cheerleaders, with the exception of Advantage cuts and the public option—even though they'll be converted into government contractors in the business of fulfilling whatever Congress happens to dictate. The insurers are willing to give up their remaining business autonomy because Democrats intend to mandate that all consumers buy their products—but as with Advantage now, that means government will control the funds upon which the insurers' survival depends. They'll have no choice but to genuflect, or else the political class will pull out the tire irons.

Humana merely made the mistake of trying to tell seniors the truth about what will happen to their coverage, and now CEO Michael McCallister had better hire a good team of lawyers. Mr. Baucus and the Obama Administration are out to make him an object lesson to the rest of the business class, and that means they won't stop until Humana cries uncle or is ruined.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A24
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Boomer - Article from Noonan

2009-08-21T14:17:00.003-04:00

Hello Boomers. It seems we could blog ever minute of everyday on the big health care debate. This reminds me of 1992 during the Clinton administration and their mission to legislate a national plan. Peggy Noonman just published one of the better articles on recent health care developments. Good article to read.

Denny
Cincinnati

Pull the Plug on ObamaCare It's the best cure for what ails the Obama presidency.
By PEGGY NOONAN

Looking back, this must have been the White House health-care strategy:

Health care as a subject is extraordinarily sticky, messy and confusing. It's inherently complicated, and it's personal. There are land mines all over the place. Don't make the mistake the Clintons made and create a plan that gets picked apart, shot down, and injures the standing of the president. Instead, push it off on Congress. Let them come up with a dozen plans. It will keep them busy. It will convince them yet again of their importance and autonomy. It will allow them to vent, and perhaps even exhaust, their animal spirits. Various items and elements within each bill will get picked off by the public. Fine, that's to be expected. The bills may in fact yield a target-rich environment. Fine again. Maybe health care's foes will get lost in the din and run out of ammo. Maybe they'll exhaust their animal spirits, too.

Summer will pass, the fight confined to the public versus Congress. And at the end, in the fall, the beauty part: The president swoops in and saves the day, forcing together an ultimate and more moderate plan that doesn't contain the more controversial elements but does constitute a successful first step toward universal health care.

That's not what happened.

It all got hotter, quicker than the White House expected. The many plans of Congress congealed in the public mind into one plan, and the one plan became a poison pool. The president is now immersed in it.

Here's another thing that didn't work. (I write as if health-care reform or insurance reform or whatever it's called this week is already a loss, a historic botch, because it is. Even if the White House wins, they lose, because the cost in terms of public trust and faith was too high.)

Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity. You can understand it when you hear it, and you can explain it to people. Social Security: Retired workers receive a public pension to help them through old age. Medicare: People over 65 can receive taxpayer-funded health care. Welfare: If you have no money and cannot support yourself, we will help as you get back on your feet.

These things are clear. I understand them. You understand them. The president's health-care plan is not clear, and I mean that not only in the sense of "he hasn't told us his plan." I mean it in terms of the voodoo phrases, this gobbledygook, this secret language of government that no one understands—"single payer," "public option," "insurance marketplace exchange." No one understands what this stuff means, nobody normal.

And when normal people don't know what the words mean, they don't say to themselves, "I may not understand, but my trusty government surely does, and will treat me and mine with respect." They think, "I can't get what these people are talking about. They must be trying to get one past me. So I'll vote no."

In a more beautiful world, the whole health-care chapter could become, for the president, that helpful thing, the teachable moment. The president the past month has been taught a lot by the American people. It's all there in the polls. He could still step back, rethink, say it didn't work, promise to return with something better.

When presidents make clear, with modesty and even some chagrin, that they have made a mistake but that they've learned a lesson and won't be making it again, the American people tend to respond with sympathy. It is our tradition and our impulse.

Such admissions are not a sign of weakness. John F. Kennedy knew this after the Bay of Pigs. He didn't blame his Republican predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, or the agencies that had begun the invasion's tentative planning under Ike. JFK made it clear he'd learned a great deal, which increased confidence in his leadership. His personal popularity rose so high that he later wryly noted that the more mistakes he made, the more popular he became.

I suspect the American people would appreciate seeing Barack Obama learn from this, and keep going. He's their president. He will be for the next few difficult years, which will no doubt contain moments he will have to lead us through. They also probably wouldn't mind seeing a wry, modest, very human and self-critical stance from a new president who doesn't strut and doesn't swagger but does have a level of 1950s cool, Old Vegas cool, of supreme and confident smoothness that one wouldn't mind seeing ruffled a bit by that old ruffler, reality. Critics of George W. Bush will say here, "Did he ever show wry self-criticism?" No, he didn't. And that's why it ended so well for him.

Modern presidents are always afraid to show anything so human as modesty or doubt. They're afraid of the endless cable-news loop of "I think I was wrong, I think I misjudged, I didn't get it right." They're afraid of death by soundbite. Which is understandable. But they should get over it, especially when it comes to a bit of self-criticism, and even a bit of self-doubt. Modesty is one of the prevailing moods of the moment, it's part of where the American people are and have been since at least a year ago when the economy tanked. We all lived through the abundance, made investments, not only financial ones, that turned out good or bad, made mistakes of judgment, and are wondering about the past decade, and its mistakes, and our part in its mistakes.

It shouldn't become a wallow, but there's nothing wrong with self-reflection and trying to learn from everything we did that was wrong, and right. It wouldn't be so bad to see a president echo this.

A final factor contributed to the mess of the health-care debate, and that the White House might ponder it. Looking back, what a lucky man President Clinton was to have—to help bring about after his own health-care fiasco—a Congress controlled by the opposite party. What a great and historic team Mr. Clinton and Newt Gingrich were, a popular Democratic president and a determined GOP leader with a solid majority. Welfare reform, a balanced budget, and a sense the public could have that not much crazy would happen and some serious progress might be made. If Mr. Clinton pressed too hard, Mr. Gingrich would push back. If Mr. Gingrich pressed too hard Mr. Clinton pushed back. Two gifted, often perplexing and always controversial Boomers who didn't even like each other, and yet you look back now and realize: Good things happened there.

Right now Mr. Obama's gift is his curse, a Congress dominated by his party. While the country worries about the economy and two wars, the Democrats of Congress are preoccupied with the idea that this is their moment, now is their time, health care now, "Never let a good crisis go to waste," the only blazingly memorable phrase to be uttered in the new era.

It's not especially pleasurable to see history held hostage to ideological vanity, but it's not the first time. And if they keep it up, they'll help solve the president's problem. He'll have a Republican congress soon enough.

Boomer Healthcare Research

2009-08-10T15:07:00.003-04:00

Hey Boomer. The health reform plans pending in Congress would cause more harm than good, Laffer et al. write. (full report link below) They find that legislation that provided an additional $1 trillion in federal health care spending would increase health care costs and medical price inflation, slow our national economy, and still leave 30 million Americans uninsured. Laffer emphasizes the need for patient-centered reform and urges Congress to work toward a solution that will not penalize the 70% of Americans who currently are happy with their health care arrangements, and that will not increase the federal deficit while only reducing the number of uninsured Americans by roughly one-third. Reforms need to focus on reducing costs by closing what Dr. Laffer has coined the "health care wedge" -- a separation of effort and reward by which a patient understands the true costs of their health care and is therefore driven to be more efficient in his or her spending.

http://lafferhealthcarereport.org/files/Laffer-HealthCareReport.pdf

Boomer Elderly Rationing AARP

2009-08-08T17:33:00.002-04:00

Hello Boomers. Good video on AARP. Glenn Beck is correct. Talk with your friends and neighbors from Canada and England. This could be our future!!! I have!

Denny
Cincinnati

Boomers and AARP

2009-08-08T17:18:00.003-04:00

Hello Fellow Boomers. I just cancelled my subscription to AARP. This decision was based on research and not a rash move on my part. The real push of the organization is to promote an Obama health plan. Again, like I do with all decisions both personal and professional is to do the research for yourself and decide. As for me, no Socialistic health care for me! I have no desire for any Government official determine my life and health choices.

Best regards,
Denny
Cincinnati

Boomer Health Care Debate

2009-08-06T14:27:00.003-04:00

Hello Fellow Boomers. Below is a YouTube video that was made of U.S Republican Tom Price of the 6th District on Wednesday. He is a member of the House Health Care Committee. It seems our Constitution is moving to the sidelines.

Denny
Cincinnati

Boomer Health - Read So-called Health Reform

2009-08-05T10:11:00.004-04:00

Hello Fellow Boomers. Many of us are researching the bills in Congress regarding our future healthcare plans. The 1018 pages of legislation is being pushed through without careful consideration and due diligence. Here is a synopsis so far of the first 500 pages. Please read and comment. This could be your future!!!

Denny
Cincinnati

• Page 22: Mandates audits of all employers that self-insure!
• Page 29: Admission: your health care will be rationed!
• Page 30: A government committee will decide what treatments and benefits you get (and, unlike an insurer, there will be no appeals process)
• Page 42: The "Health Choices Commissioner" will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice. None.
• Page 50: All non-US citizens, illegal or not, will be provided with free healthcare services.
• Page 58: Every person will be issued a National ID Healthcard.
• Page 59: The federal government will have direct, real-time access to all individual bank accounts for electronic funds transfer.
• Page 65: Taxpayers will subsidize all union retiree and community organizer health plans (read: SEIU, UAW and ACORN)
• Page 72: All private healthcare plans must conform to government rules to participate in a Healthcare Exchange.
• Page 84: All private healthcare plans must participate in the Healthcare Exchange (i.e., total government control of private plans)
• Page 91: Government mandates linguistic infrastructure for services; translation: illegal aliens
• Page 95: The Government will pay ACORN and Americorps to sign up individuals for Government-run Health Care plan.
• Page 102: Those eligible for Medicaid will be automatically enrolled: you have no choice in the matter.
• Page 124: No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "judicial review" is permitted against the government monopoly. Put simply, private insurers will be crushed.
• Page 127: The AMA sold doctors out: the government will set wages.
• Page 145: An employer MUST auto-enroll employees into the government-run public plan. No alternatives.
• Page 126: Employers MUST pay healthcare bills for part-time employees AND their families.
• Page 149: Any employer with a payroll of $400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays an 8% tax on payroll.
• Page 150: Any employer with a payroll of $250K-400K or more, who does not offer the public option, pays a 2 to 6% tax on payroll
• Page 167: Any individual who doesn’t' have acceptable healthcare (according to the government) will be taxed 2.5% of income.
• Page 170: Any NON-RESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes (Americans will pay for them).
• Page 195: Officers and employees of Government Healthcare Bureaucracy will have access to ALL American financial and personal records.
• Page 203: "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax." Yes, it really says that.
• Page 239: Bill will reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors and the poor most affected."
• Page 241: Doctors: no matter what specialty you have, you'll all be paid the same (thanks, AMA!)
• Page 253: Government sets value of doctors' time, their professional judgment, etc.
• Page 265: Government mandates and controls productivity for private healthcare industries.
• Page 268: Government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
• Page 272: Cancer patients: welcome to the wonderful world of rationing!
• Page 280: Hospitals will be penalized for what the government deems preventable re-admissions.
• Page 298: Doctors: if you treat a patient during an initial admission that results in a readmission, you will be penalize d by the government.
• Page 317: Doctors: you are now prohibited for owning and investing in healthcare companies!
• Page 318: Prohibition on hospital expansion. Hospitals cannot expand without government approval.
• Page 321: Hospita expansion hinges on "community" input: in other words, yet another payoff for ACORN.
• Page 335: Government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures: i.e., rationing.
• Page 341: Government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans, HMOs, etc.
• Page 354: Government will restrict enrollment of SPECIAL NEEDS individuals.
• Page 379: More bureaucracy: Telehealth Advisory Committee (healthcare by phone).
• Page 425: More bureaucracy: Advance Care Planning Consult: Senior Citizens, assisted suicide, euthanasia?
• Page 425: Government will instruct and consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney, etc. Mandatory. Appears to lock in estate taxes ahead of time.
• Page 425: Government provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death.
• Page 427: Government mandates program that orders end-of-life treatment; government dictates how your life ends.
• Page 429: Advance Care Planning Consult will be used to dictate treatment as patient's health deteriorates. This can include an ORDER for end-of-life plans. An ORDER from the GOVERNMENT.
• Page 430: Government will decide what level of treatments you may have at end-of-life.
• Page 469: Community-based Home Medical Services: more payoffs for ACORN.
- Page 472: Payments to Community-based organizations: more payoffs for ACORN.
• Page 489: Government will cover marriage and family therapy. Government intervenes in your marriage.
• Page 494: Government will cover mental health services: defining, creating and rationing those services.

Boomer Health Care - Hot in the News

2009-07-25T14:47:00.003-04:00

Greetings Fellow Boomers. The health care debate is now the number one issue in America, since we all use health care. It's relationship to cost is every body's concern. It appears many in the Congress are saying we need to slow down, study and make recommendations based on due diligence, logic and patient needs. We can come up with some revisions to make health care better for all of us. But, making hasty legislation would be a disaster!

As many of you know, I have been an Employee Benefit Consultant and Group Insurance representative for thirty-years and know something about how our system work. Believe me, you do not want a Governmental run system. Let's not destroy a America's shining star.

Boomer Healthcare D-Day

2009-07-16T18:41:00.004-04:00

Hey Boomer. This IS IT! If we nationalise the health care system we are DONE! You do not want under any circumstances a system run by a bureaucratic system in Washington, some invisible individual telling your wife she cannot have the necessary cancer treatment. Will be talking more on this soon! Do not be duped by radical liberals saying that people are not receiving quality care.

Any rulings will affect all Americans and Boomers more!!!

Denny
Cincinnati