“Picking And Choosing”: The Church, Taxes, And Health Insurance
The other day Tim Noah used the occasion of the Senate’s vote on allowing any employer to prevent their employees’ insurance from covering anything and everything the employer doesn’t like (which every Republican senator except Olympia Snowe voted for) to argue that this is yet more evidence that employers ought to get out of the business of providing health coverage, and we ought to just have the government do it. In a single-payer system, these kinds of decisions can be made by our democratic process, and not by every employer individually.
There’s just one note I want to make about this. Conservatives have been talking a lot about the importance of preserving the “conscience” of the Catholic Church, their right not to participate in anything that violates their beliefs. That, of course, is a privilege that the rest of us, being citizens of a democracy, don’t enjoy. We pay taxes, which go to a lot of things we dislike. I don’t like the fact that our government spends as much on the military as every other nation on earth combined. I also don’t like the money we spend on tax subsidies for oil companies. My conservative friends don’t like the fact that the government gives food stamps to poor people, and pays the EPA to make sure our air and water are clean. But we all pay taxes, because that’s how it works—we don’t get to pick and choose each line item we want to pay for and which ones we don’t.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, like all religious institutions, doesn’t pay taxes. Nor do their affiliated organizations like hospitals and universities, because they are nonprofit organizations. So if we had a single-payer system, the Church wouldn’t be involved in anybody’s insurance. The only way they could influence the law would be the way they do on other issues now: not by demanding that the law give them yet more special treatment, but through their moral persuasion on how they think the rest of us should act. And you can imagine how much force that would have.
By: Paul Waldman, The American Prospect, March 5, 2012
PolitiFact’s Pants On Fire For Choosing “Ryan Will End Medicare” As “Lie Of The Year”
This morning, PolitiFact announcedthat the Democrats’ charge that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) budget will end Medicare is the biggest lie of the year — even though it’s 100 percent true!
Here is why: Ryan’s plan ends traditional fee-for-service program and forces all future retirees to ultimately enroll in private coverage.
Under his proposal, beginning in 2022, people turning 65 will receive a pre-determined “premium support” payment to purchase private insurance. Insurers will offer a basic package of benefits, but traditional Medicare — the program that President Lyndon Johnson enacted in 1965 — will literally stop enrolling new beneficiaries. Rather than paying health care providers directly — and using its market clout to secure better bargains and other efficiencies for enrollees — the government would now pay multiple private health insurers pre-determined amounts per beneficiary to act as middle men between patients and providers.
It will no longer guarantee seniors a defined package of benefits, but will instead only offer a defined contribution towards their health care costs. As the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of Ryan’s proposal explains, “the payment for 65-year-olds in 2022 is specified to be $8,000, on average, which is approximately the same dollar amount as projected net federal spending per capita for 65-year-olds in traditional Medicare.” However every subsequent year, as health care costs increase, the government’s contribution “would grow at a slower rate,” inflation, and the age of the enrollee. By 2030, under the proposal, the premium support would “only cover 32 percent of a typical 65-year-old’s total health care spending” and would decrease every subsequent year.
PolitiFact concedes that this is, in fact, “a huge change to the current program.” But it’s more than that. Capping costs to beneficiaries, closing the traditional fee-for-service program, and forcing seniors to enroll in new private coverage, ends Medicare by eliminating everything that has defined the program for the last 46 years.
By: Igor Volsky, Think Progress, December 20, 2011
Mitt Romney’s Healthcare Competence Called Into Question
The conventional wisdom keeps telling me that Mitt Romney, for all his many faults (chronic dishonesty, incessant flip-flopping, cowardice, etc.), is at least a smart guy who cares about policy. Romney may lack integrity, we’re told, but at least he’s a vaguely technocratic wonk.
Except, I’m not at all convinced this guy is any smarter than his hapless Republican rivals. Romney speaks in complete sentences, which makes him look like a genius compared to Rick Perry, but consider some of the things the former governor says about his understanding of public policy. Here’s a gem from Iowa earlier today:
“Medicaid. You wonder what Medicaid is; those who aren’t into all this government stuff. You know, I have to admit, I didn’t know the differences between all these things until I got into government. Then I got into it and I understood that Medicaid is the health care program for the poor, by and large.”
I see. So, Mitt Romney, despite two degrees from Harvard, learned what Medicaid is when he became governor in 2002. He was 55 years old at the time.
Before he “got into government” and discovered what Medicaid is, Romney helped run a health company, which relied heavily on funding from — you guessed it — Medicare and Medicaid. What’s more, in his book, Romney boasts about having been a health care consultant, where he developed an expertise in how to deal with entitlements.
But he didn’t know what Medicaid was until he got into government?
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. “Romney didn’t mean what he said this morning,” you’re going to tell me. “He was only saying he didn’t understand Medicaid so that he could pretend to relate to the people in the audience. This wasn’t ignorance; it was pandering.”
Perhaps. I can’t say with certainty what Romney is ignorant of, and what he only pretends to be ignorant of.
But if this is the accurate explanation, let’s appreciate a disconcerting fact: Romney is so desperate to appear folksy, he’s willing to lie about his lack of awareness to get people to relate to him. And that’s just sad.
By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, December 16, 2011
‘Multiple-Employer’ Health Plans: Using Federal Law As A Shield From State Insurance Investigators
Federal officials hope to crack down more effectively on operators of “multiple employer” health plans that have defrauded small businesses and their workers of hundreds of millions of dollars, often leaving them stuck with unpaid medical bills, according to new rules proposed Monday by the Obama administration under the health care legislation.
Known as Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangements, or MEWAs, such plans have a checkered history under operators who used federal law in the past as a shield from state insurance investigators. The plans are set up for small businesses to provide their workers with lower cost coverage by pooling premium contributions from the employers and workers together for benefits that are paid from the arrangement.
Yet an unintended consequence of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, which has restricted states from regulating multiple employer arrangements, allowed these plans to dodge state insurance examiners, often after high fees were paid and money was then unavailable to pay medical claims and other benefits.
In the last two decades, the Department of Labor said it had initiated 800 civil and more than 300 criminal investigations, but often had been unable to prevent the operators of the plans from draining assets of the plans through a variety of schemes that included “excessive administrative fees or outright embezzlement resulting in harm to participants and their families,” the agency said in a statement.
Under the rules proposed Monday, the Secretary of Labor would have the authority to issue a “cease and desist order” when federal officials believe fraud is taking place. The secretary can also freeze assets, stop marketing and certain other business practices.
“For the first time, the federal government has some tools that we have never had to get at these MEWAS early before the money is gone and everybody is left in the lurch,” said Phyllis C Borzi, assistant secretary of labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration. “Once we have these new tools, hopefully the losses will go down because we will be able to intervene before the money is gone.”
There have been many high profile cases of defrauded MEWAs, like that of TRG Health Plan, which had more than 11,000 plan subscribers and operated in more than 40 states and left behind more than $17 million in unpaid medical claims when it was terminated 10 years ago. The labor department alleged TRG’s operators diverted assets to accounts of an affiliated marketing firm, failed to charge adequate premiums and did not have sufficient assets to pay benefits.
Often, small employers, unions or trade associations will turn to a MEWA for affordable benefits because an insurance company will not cover those who may have an older population of workers or employees who might be in poor health. So analysts say operators of MEWAs bilked the most vulnerable of Americans in search of affordable coverage for themselves and their workers.
Take the National Writers Union, which turned to a MEWA known as Employers Mutual when their insurance carrier dramatically raised rates. The plan, based in Nevada, sold benefits to 22,000 policy holders and was unlicensed in states, claiming its structure did not require it to be licensed. The plan left behind more than $24 million in unpaid claims, a 2004 General Accounting Office report said.
“Whenever people are desperate for affordable coverage, they look for alternatives and unscrupulous individuals target those kinds of people,” said Mila Kofman, the former superintendent of insurance for Maine who is professor at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute. “Many have been hauled into federal court but the U.S. Department of Labor didn’t have tools to act quickly.”
Federal officials estimate more than 2 million Americans are enrolled in hundreds of MEWAs but they cannot be certain because they don’t know.
Another crucial part of the proposed regulations are that MEWAs have to register with the Department of Labor before operating or be subject to various penalties. The lack of licensure or registration made MEWAs a fertile opportunity for frauds.
“We don’t even know how many of these there are,” Ms. Borzi said.
Following a 90-day public comment period, the proposed rules will become final, probably by mid-2012.
The insurance industry, which is not known for welcoming new regulations, welcomed the labor department’s proposals.
“We are pleased the government is going to have these added powers,” said Alissa Fox, senior vice president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. “These entities are avoiding oversight and harming consumers. It hurts consumers and we are concerned when consumers are being hurt by entities that are not going to be paying these bills.”
By: Bruce Japsen, The New York Times Prescriptions, December 5, 2011
Is Utah About To Elect Another Senator Who Thinks Medicare Is Unconstitutional?
Last year, Sen. Mike “A Noun, A Verb, and Unconstitutional” Lee (R-UT) upset longtime Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) in the Utah GOP’s arcane candidate selection process — allowing the Tea Party to elevate someone to the Senate who believes that everything from Medicare to Social Security to child labor laws somehow violate the Constitution. Since then, Utah’s senior Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) has tripped over himselfto pretend that he is just as radical as young Sen. Lee.
Alas, all of Hatch’s extremist posturing may be for naught, as the Tea Party has found someone who shares their apparent policy goal of ensuring that people who can’t afford health care are left to fend for themselves:
During a recent media blitz in Washington, D.C., Dan Liljenquist, a state senator from Utah, went after Sen. Orrin Hatch, arguing he has done more than any other Republican to promote nationalized health care. […] The skirmish is the first between these potential 2012 opponents. Liljenquist, a Republican, says he won’t make an official decision until early next year, but he has prepared for a possible run for Hatch’s seat. […]
[Liljenquist] argued that Hatch is not committed to returning power to the states, focusing on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that Hatch spearheaded in 1997. That program, which pays for health coverage for poor children, has come under fire from tea party Republicans who see it as a step toward a national takeover of health insurance. Liljenquist went as far as to call it “unconstitutional.”
Liljenquist’s suggestion that the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is unconstitutional is absurd. SCHIP works by providing funds to states to help them pay for health insurance for children. Because the Constitution allows the federal government “to lay and collect taxes” and to use those revenues to “provide for the…general welfare of the United States,” there is simply no doubt that it can spend money on providing health care to vulnerable young people.
Moreover, other essential health care programs — such as Medicare and Medicaid — stand on similar constitutional footing as SCHIP. So if Liljenquist thinks one of these programs is unconstitutional, it is likely that he believes that we must eliminate all three.
In other words, if Liljenquist succeeds in taking Hatch’s Senate seat, Utah could become the only state in the union to have its entire Senate delegation believe that the Constitution requires millions of children, low-income Americans and seniors to be cast out into the cold with no meaningful access to health care.
By: Ian Millhiser, Think Progress, November 28, 2011
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 