How does it feel to now be a taxpayer?

You've got 40 million who don't have insurance, who is going to pay for them? The Supreme Court was clear on it yesterday, the money can't come from Medicare, it can't come from state appropriations, and you can't fund it using the commerce clause. They upheld the individual mandate, which means everyone will have to buy insurance, and insurance will have to cover everyone. But who is going to pay for the people who can't afford to pay? And you really don't believe your premiums are going to increase because of this? They'll have to increase, or you'll have to fork over 30% of your pay to cover the tax liability of public option. The choice of hiding the costs under shells and moving them around as you debate the greatness of your idea, isn't going to work anymore.

1) Even if what you are saying is true, that does not make it a tax, it makes it an expendature. Do you call Bush's war in Iraq a tax?

2) I cant tell the future, but I belive that the requirement that more people are insured will bring the price down as a larger percentage of healthy and young into the pool of insuredand thus the cost for insurance will be spread out.
 
???....I pay over $600 with a $5k deductible....

Then your insurance company is screwing you over.

My wife, myself and our daughter are all covered under the same typical 80/20 plan.

We pay something like $192.00 a month with a $1,000.00 deductible and $2,000.00 total out of pocket for the year for each of us.
 
Then your insurance company is screwing you over.

My wife, myself and our daughter are all covered under the same typical 80/20 plan.

We pay something like $192.00 a month with a $1,000.00 deductible and $2,000.00 total out of pocket for the year for each of us.

He has a pre-existing condition known in England as grumpy git syndrome!
 
1) Even if what you are saying is true, that does not make it a tax, it makes it an expendature. Do you call Bush's war in Iraq a tax?

2) I cant tell the future, but I belive that the requirement that more people are insured will bring the price down as a larger percentage of healthy and young into the pool of insuredand thus the cost for insurance will be spread out.

It has to be a "tax" because the SCOTUS ruled it couldn't be anything else! What part of that haven't you comprehended? That essentially MAKES it a tax...doesn't matter what I say or what you think. Bush and Iraq didn't have a thing to do with the SCOTUS ruling.

I can't tell the future either, but I already know, the cost of insuring 40 million people at $400 a pop each month, is not going to be cheap. I also know that "insurance" is a fundamentally complex formula and calculation based on risks and payouts... therefore, having to cover things like pre-existing illness, and grown children, is going to cause premiums to necessarily increase. Factor in probably several hundred thousand habitual hypochondriacs who will literally drain every ounce of resource out of our already short-handed medical staff, and you have the recipe for a great big giant clusterfuck... and that's what's coming! ...Grease up!
 
I thought it did... Well. I've been going on wrong information then. I'll have to revisit.
I've got one, and it isn't going away any time soon.

What it does, is increase the tax if you choose to take money out for non medical reasons...which is perfectly understandable.
 
Yah, well.. unfortunately, not everyone will be able to afford it. Insurance cost has risen about 30% since Obamacare passed, and that was BEFORE the SCOTUS mandated that every single American purchase it. Now that insurance companies have something that everyone has to buy, you can expect the rates to increase... especially since they will now be covering all the pre-existing illnesses out there, and 'children' until they are 26.

No, it's going to get quite expensive, but you've planned for this, right? I mean, you had it all figured out how we could do this and not cost anything, didn't you? Oh yeah, that's right... the SCOTUS isn't going to allow you to steal $600 billion from Medicare to fund this now.... oooo... that's a problem. You see, the key can be found in the term, "individual mandate." I know that many of you have been accustomed to a system of entitlement, whereby, nothing could be 'mandated' or even expected from the 'less fortunate' souls out there, but the court has changed this philosophy now. You will be required to pay for your health care insurance, and it won't matter if you are struggling and having difficulty getting by, it's still a mandate and you are still required to follow it.

Sounds like you need to be hating the insurance companies rather than the Affordable Care Act.

Medicine for profit is the problem.
 
Then your insurance company is screwing you over.

My wife, myself and our daughter are all covered under the same typical 80/20 plan.

We pay something like $192.00 a month with a $1,000.00 deductible and $2,000.00 total out of pocket for the year for each of us.
Are you paying all of the premium, or is an employer contributing?


Is that 1k deductible per person?

That would be 9k OOP/year for your family.
 
So many variables in this. I keep hearing about the tax, but how much are we paying now for the uninsured? What do we pay when they can't afford their medical costs? What do we pay when they go bankrupt because of a medical emergency, and foreclose on their house & collect welfare & food stamps? What do we pay when the gov't picks up the tab and there is no cost shopping as a result?

I have a hunch that whatever the tax will be, it won't be more than we're paying for the above.

Still, I sincerely hope that the next big focus is cost cutting & control. It has to be for this to work.
 
The short answer is that the only direct impacts the law has on HSA are (1) no use of HSA for over the counter medicines and (2) increased penalties for early withdrawals for ineligible medical expenses. However, there are some indirect impacts and it's unclear how they will shake out:

http://www.ifebp.org/inforequest/0160537.pdf
Going to read your link, but for y.e.'11, you couldn't deduct contributions (and maybe premium payments) until after you compute self employment tax.
 
Sounds like you need to be hating the insurance companies rather than the Affordable Care Act.

Medicine for profit is the problem.

I don't know why I should hate insurance companies, they are in business to make money. They can't provide insurance coverage if they don't. Now they charge a fee... a premium... and that is based on the number of times they have to pay a claim. Lots of things can factor into that, how often people get sick and use insurance, how healthy you are, how well you eat and exercise... all kinds of things. But the insurance company, figures out, based on what they are having to pay out in claims, about what they need to collect from me each month in the form of a premium, so that all the books add up at the end of the year, and they make a profit for their efforts. That's just how insurance works in the real world.

Medicine for profit might really be our problem, but here's the deal on that... I have a daughter, several nieces and cousins, aunts, uncles... all members of my close family, who have devoted their lives to the medical profession. To a fault, every one of them has done so because they wanted to help people. Also, to a fault, each one of them was smart enough they could have done any number of other things... physics, engineering.. they are incredibly smart people. They spent an enormous amount of study time, learning procedures, passing certifications and registries, studying night and day without sleep, etc. Now here's the REAL problem... as generous and benevolent as they have been to devote their life to the medical profession, they just aren't willing to do what they do for nothing. I'm sure they would LOVE to be wealthy and not have expenses, but they do... so, they have this funny little tendency to want to get paid to do medical work. Dagnabit! And since what they do is really really complicated and important stuff, and they had to work and study so hard to be able to do it, they generally expect to be paid very well. Now I would just be willing to guess, if you suddenly didn't want to pay them, or wanted to substantially cut their pay, they might consider using their brains and doing something else in life besides medical work. And probably, since in your idea, this should be something that is free, a lot of young people out there looking to start careers, might think about that and say... yaa.. I kinda want to do something and get paid...so no... medical field-- not for me!

Don't you think?
 
It has to be a "tax" because the SCOTUS ruled it couldn't be anything else! What part of that haven't you comprehended? That essentially MAKES it a tax...doesn't matter what I say or what you think. Bush and Iraq didn't have a thing to do with the SCOTUS ruling.

I can't tell the future either, but I already know, the cost of insuring 40 million people at $400 a pop each month, is not going to be cheap. I also know that "insurance" is a fundamentally complex formula and calculation based on risks and payouts... therefore, having to cover things like pre-existing illness, and grown children, is going to cause premiums to necessarily increase. Factor in probably several hundred thousand habitual hypochondriacs who will literally drain every ounce of resource out of our already short-handed medical staff, and you have the recipe for a great big giant clusterfuck... and that's what's coming! ...Grease up!

You are mixing things up and clearly do not understand the S. Ct. Ruling. (you are dumb or disengenous or blindly beliving what idiots are telling you) The PENALTY for not having HEALTH INSURANCE is a TAX, the bill itself is not a tax. Read the opinion.
 
I don't know why I should hate insurance companies, they are in business to make money. They can't provide insurance coverage if they don't. Now they charge a fee... a premium... and that is based on the number of times they have to pay a claim. Lots of things can factor into that, how often people get sick and use insurance, how healthy you are, how well you eat and exercise... all kinds of things. But the insurance company, figures out, based on what they are having to pay out in claims, about what they need to collect from me each month in the form of a premium, so that all the books add up at the end of the year, and they make a profit for their efforts. That's just how insurance works in the real world.

Medicine for profit might really be our problem, but here's the deal on that... I have a daughter, several nieces and cousins, aunts, uncles... all members of my close family, who have devoted their lives to the medical profession. To a fault, every one of them has done so because they wanted to help people. Also, to a fault, each one of them was smart enough they could have done any number of other things... physics, engineering.. they are incredibly smart people. They spent an enormous amount of study time, learning procedures, passing certifications and registries, studying night and day without sleep, etc. Now here's the REAL problem... as generous and benevolent as they have been to devote their life to the medical profession, they just aren't willing to do what they do for nothing. I'm sure they would LOVE to be wealthy and not have expenses, but they do... so, they have this funny little tendency to want to get paid to do medical work. Dagnabit! And since what they do is really really complicated and important stuff, and they had to work and study so hard to be able to do it, they generally expect to be paid very well. Now I would just be willing to guess, if you suddenly didn't want to pay them, or wanted to substantially cut their pay, they might consider using their brains and doing something else in life besides medical work. And probably, since in your idea, this should be something that is free, a lot of young people out there looking to start careers, might think about that and say... yaa.. I kinda want to do something and get paid...so no... medical field-- not for me!

Don't you think?

There is abuse, though. I don'[t begrudge the high salaries - doctors should be paid a lot. But a friend of mine paid over $500 for an 8 minute visit the other day. It's a unique market - the market itself will bear almost anything, because people NEED care.

Reform is needed, and on both sides. Lawsuits & malpractice cost way too much.

They have to attack healthcare & insurance costs with a moonshot type of effort, imo.
 
You are mixing things up and clearly do not understand the S. Ct. Ruling. (you are dumb or disengenous or blindly beliving what idiots are telling you) The PENALTY for not having HEALTH INSURANCE is a TAX, the bill itself is not a tax. Read the opinion.

Well no, the BILL isn't a tax, the FUNDING for the bill HAS to be, that's what they ruled.

Yes, there is a 'penalty' for not having insurance, and that is also a tax.

You Libs have been so busy dancing in the streets and celebrating, it hasn't dawned on you that Roberts cut the funding mechanisms out of Obamacare. You can't steal the Medicare money like you wanted to... you can't force states to use their Medicare money.... there is no way to borrow it from something else, the court said that was off the table... The Feds can't just appropriate money to fund it, because now... it's a TAX. Congress will have to pass tax legislation to support it. I really don't think that is going to be as easy as you think.
 
I don't know why I should hate insurance companies, they are in business to make money. They can't provide insurance coverage if they don't. Now they charge a fee... a premium... and that is based on the number of times they have to pay a claim. Lots of things can factor into that, how often people get sick and use insurance, how healthy you are, how well you eat and exercise... all kinds of things. But the insurance company, figures out, based on what they are having to pay out in claims, about what they need to collect from me each month in the form of a premium, so that all the books add up at the end of the year, and they make a profit for their efforts. That's just how insurance works in the real world.

Medicine for profit might really be our problem, but here's the deal on that... I have a daughter, several nieces and cousins, aunts, uncles... all members of my close family, who have devoted their lives to the medical profession. To a fault, every one of them has done so because they wanted to help people. Also, to a fault, each one of them was smart enough they could have done any number of other things... physics, engineering.. they are incredibly smart people. They spent an enormous amount of study time, learning procedures, passing certifications and registries, studying night and day without sleep, etc. Now here's the REAL problem... as generous and benevolent as they have been to devote their life to the medical profession, they just aren't willing to do what they do for nothing. I'm sure they would LOVE to be wealthy and not have expenses, but they do... so, they have this funny little tendency to want to get paid to do medical work. Dagnabit! And since what they do is really really complicated and important stuff, and they had to work and study so hard to be able to do it, they generally expect to be paid very well. Now I would just be willing to guess, if you suddenly didn't want to pay them, or wanted to substantially cut their pay, they might consider using their brains and doing something else in life besides medical work. And probably, since in your idea, this should be something that is free, a lot of young people out there looking to start careers, might think about that and say... yaa.. I kinda want to do something and get paid...so no... medical field-- not for me!

Don't you think?

I just had my knees done, I sat in the office for an hour, the doctor walked in, asked if I had any questions,gave me a pen to mark my knees,walked out, I then sat in the office again for another half hour, the PA walked in, listened to my heart, listened to my lungs.

I went to the reception desk to pay, $800.00 please! I was in shock. I do not deny there are some very devoted people in the medical profession, but it is charges like the one above that are obscene.

My surgery took one hour, the doctor's charge alone was $9,083.00. It is just obscene. I realize they have a high cost for education and malpractice insurance, but come on! The MRI's were $5,000.00. Something has to give!

It has become ridiculous!

I have paid out $6,000 dollars so far, that is my 20% so far and I haven't received all the bills, yet!

Other countries with socialized medicine have great doctors and devoted medical personnel and they don't pay what we in the USA pay.

I don't know where we start or how we go about this, but if we don't fix this, I hate to think what will happen.

People should not be denied healthcare because they can't afford it.
 
Well no, the BILL isn't a tax, the FUNDING for the bill HAS to be, that's what they ruled.

Yes, there is a 'penalty' for not having insurance, and that is also a tax.

You Libs have been so busy dancing in the streets and celebrating, it hasn't dawned on you that Roberts cut the funding mechanisms out of Obamacare. You can't steal the Medicare money like you wanted to... you can't force states to use their Medicare money.... there is no way to borrow it from something else, the court said that was off the table... The Feds can't just appropriate money to fund it, because now... it's a TAX. Congress will have to pass tax legislation to support it. I really don't think that is going to be as easy as you think.

That is simply NOT what they ruled. Read John Roberts Opinion.
 
There is abuse, though. I don'[t begrudge the high salaries - doctors should be paid a lot. But a friend of mine paid over $500 for an 8 minute visit the other day. It's a unique market - the market itself will bear almost anything, because people NEED care.

Reform is needed, and on both sides. Lawsuits & malpractice cost way too much.

They have to attack healthcare & insurance costs with a moonshot type of effort, imo.


A moonshot type effort? I think that's a pretty bad analogy. It isn't as though getting costs down is a problem of technological development that can be solved by spending massive amounts of money on engineering and development of new technologies. It's an entirely different kind of problem. We know how to reduce costs and could do it quite easily tomorrow by doing what the rest of the developed world does, but there isn't support for doing those things.

It's a political problem, not a technological one.
 
Well no, the BILL isn't a tax, the FUNDING for the bill HAS to be, that's what they ruled.

Yes, there is a 'penalty' for not having insurance, and that is also a tax.

You Libs have been so busy dancing in the streets and celebrating, it hasn't dawned on you that Roberts cut the funding mechanisms out of Obamacare. You can't steal the Medicare money like you wanted to... you can't force states to use their Medicare money.... there is no way to borrow it from something else, the court said that was off the table... The Feds can't just appropriate money to fund it, because now... it's a TAX. Congress will have to pass tax legislation to support it. I really don't think that is going to be as easy as you think.


Congress already passed the taxes to fund it, Dix. The Supreme Court decision has nothing to do with those taxes, other than the tax on people who don't get insurance.
 
A moonshot type effort? I think that's a pretty bad analogy. It isn't as though getting costs down is a problem of technological development that can be solved by spending massive amounts of money on engineering and development of new technologies. It's an entirely different kind of problem. We know how to reduce costs and could do it quite easily tomorrow by doing what the rest of the developed world does, but there isn't support for doing those things.

It's a political problem, not a technological one.

I concede the point; it was a lazy analogy. My emphasis was more on the focus & commitment given to that kind of effort.

They really can't make a few cosmetic changes on this one; cost cutting & control has to be at the top of the list. These costs can't be allowed to keep growing exponentially.

And there are plenty of areas they can address, imo.
 
Dixie you have made the mistake of beliveing Rush Linberger propaganda that is simply NOT true.
 
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