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9/23/2010
When will people get it through their heads?
Just stuff today. A completely miscellaneous collection. So much news every single day that needs commenting on. I hope you are able to take time most every day to review the news links in FoxPolitics News – stay informed and form your own outrage!
Yesterday – all I’m hearing about is that health insurers are ripping off America. Geez. Why are health care insurance costs increasing? Because health care costs are increasing. Duh. Because mandates to cover more and more health care are increasing. Removal of lifetime caps, mandate to cover all children until age 26, ultimate requirement to cover everyone, regardless of medical history and/or pre-existing conditions. More procedures are required to be covered. And all this is supposed to come paid for by the stratosphere?
Oh and yes, there’s the one little factor of increased usage. Imagine. Health care costing more because folks think it’s free and they access it more.
Sheboygan County Administrator Adam Payne would like to see county employees pay 12.5% of their health insurance premiums, up from 10% this year. (Oh horrors.) And so the continuous discussion of rising health care insurance costs….
[Sheboygan County Human Resources Director Mike] Collard said the averages in this area are generally higher than the national averages because employees here pay a smaller share of the premium and plans offered have minimal out-of-pocket expenses.
When will people get it through their heads?
School districts struggle to spend new federal dollars. Great way to spend billions. Geez.
"We did not have substantive layoffs in the Cedarburg School District," Superintendent Daryl Herrick said Wednesday. "This money allows us to do some programming we wouldn't have done otherwise."
In addition to math coaches and ACT tutoring, Cedarburg will hire an additional second-grade teacher, hire three kindergarten aides for each elementary school and reinstate full-time status to several teachers who were moved to part time in the last budget cycle, Herrick said.
…. Grafton Superintendent Jeffrey Pechura, whose district received $678,754, calls the federal money "a cursed blessing."
"You either use it, lose it or have to pay it back the following year," Pechura said. "After those three years, the district is responsible for that money."
While nothing has been prioritized yet, Pechura said the district is looking to use the amount for something that's not a recurring cost, such as a literacy coach.
Geez.
Not known as a flaming right wing nuthouse, still Milwaukee’s Public Policy Forum is calling MATC on the carpet for outlandish wages and benefits. Well, they don’t quite say it that way, but you certainly get the picture. Hey you guys, you are overpaid. And the public is suffering.
This turbulent financial picture leaves MATC little choice but to examine current levels of employee staffing, pay and benefits, which are quite robust based on comparisons with state and national peers. For example, the report finds that MATC ranks first among a group of 85 national peers in operating expenses, salary expenditures and fringe benefits expenditures per full-time equivalent student.
Quite robust? Yeah, I guess.
So much more. Contradicting conservative commentaries on Boehner et. al’s new “Pledge to America.” Interesting. Erick Ericson at RedState doesn’t like it.
National Review does. Take it with a grain of salt I guess.
It’s started. The screaming about some candidate or another being “Extreme.” Oh horrors. Cory Liebmann pinned the target on Rebecca Kleefisch for starters. Now that I’ve highlighted it for you – it’s great stuff to simply ignore over the next 5 ½ weeks.
And then there’s all that out-of-state LGBT money that will head in to Democrat Assembly campaigns once again.
And the rabidly liberal “Greater Wisconsin Committee” has only begun to spend Doyle’s millions to batter down Scott Walker.
And so it goes. Batten down the hatches...
Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net
COMMENTS
Jo,
I enjoyed your "stuff" today. Jo, I heard yesterday that Appleton is looking at an 8% tax increase for the schools. Have you heard that?
Davic (Thu Sep 23 07:21:22 2010)
Jo,
Seen the Kagen ad attacking Ribble on Social Security? Scare tactics aimed at the elderly at their finest. Anyone with any finanical knowlege KNOWS that Social Security as it currently exists is unsustainable down the road, so yes, as it exists to day must be phased out for future generations and a retooled version phased in. But no one, including Ribble, is suggesting that current retirees reliant on Social Security are going to lose their benefits. Deplorable ad by Kagen. But then, why should I expect better of the man?
Charles (Thu Sep 23 07:33:01 2010)
Letting people die early sure saved us some money. I agree, let's go back to the old way.
Oh, wait. Premiums were increasing at 17% per year while medical costs were only rising at 5%. Gee, I wonder why that happened? Could the executives have been taking higher salaries and shareholders making more money? Oh, I see.
Quit complaining. It is what it is because the campaign bribes kept Medicare-for-all off the table, which cost Americans a $400 billion savings and coverage for the 40m uninsured and the companies that needed a break from health care costs (without simply eliminating coverage).
So live with it. And oh, that hogwash about "folks think it’s free" and use it too much? That hasn't happened -- yet -- and when it does, few people will be longing to spend their afternoons in a doctor's office.
Jack Lohman (Thu Sep 23 07:38:39 2010)
In our screwed up health care system there isn't anything anyone can say about what the total cost or savings will be. But I can tell you for sure about the benefits. I am a small business person and a single policy holder. With my new policy (effective after today) we will be able to get wellness (colonoscopy, mammogram etc)covered and paid for. Prior to the law it was out of our pockets. Thousands and thousands out of my pocket just for standard wellness. Just to be sure that we don't have colon cancer? Now we are covered, and for what cost? Well, the difference from before September 23 to after September 23 (I have a quote for the exact same policy but without the benefits) is about $70 per month. And that "increase" is actually less than the increases per month I have faced in prior years under the old rules. I don't believe anyone who criticizes the reforms has the right to do so unless they know what they're talking about by actually paying for their own health care costs like I do. Come on, walk the walk . If you want to criticize the reforms drop your coverage, save your employer (or Medicare) the cost and be the truly independent self paying person that you should be.
dave allen (Thu Sep 23 07:43:45 2010)
Jack, I'd like to see your sources for the statements about medical costs and premiums. It's just too easy to add and subtract items from those figures. I'm not saying you did it, just that sometimes it suits those who are free with figures to bend them a little to suit their particular slant.
That this overbearing government is taking over our healthcare doesn't seem to bother either Jack or Dave. As a matter of fact, they welcome it. Dave, how about being able to join a pool of businesses like yours and get your insurance that way? It would be much cheaper for you.
I don't need obstetrical care but I'll have to pay for it. Do you think the government will give you your choice of policies?
At the first of the year my premiums went up and so did my co-pays. We were doing fine until then, but when the costs go up again it might start getting a tad difficult but then with another raise we'll have to do what was the aim of the Obama administration all along........... take government insurance. Not being young any longer, I will then be on the cusp of being the first to have treatment denied.
Of course, this doesn't show up in the first few years of a plan but when it is realized that this plan is unsustainable (as the European Union and Canada has discovered)then methods of offing myself will be tendered and more babies born/unborn discovered to have defects will be killed because it costs too much to either fix the defect or care for them.
Jack, that people do use health care a lot more when they don't have to pay for it is a figure easily found out. Look it up!
Barack Obama and the Democrat Party are not my parents and I'd like them to get the hell out of my life and find something to do that is in the Constitution - like protecting our borders!
C. R. Stevenson (Thu Sep 23 09:08:30 2010)
CR - right on! You've said what I wanted to say. Couldn't agree more.
Andrew Ellis (Thu Sep 23 09:25:18 2010)
As a former small business owner and former health insurance agent, I'd like to make address some issues that have been brought up.
First of all, the hogwash that people think it is free - I've literally heard people say, "now it's free", meaning that they have reached in benefits the total of their portion of the premium and out-of-pocket expenses, and now it's free to them. I've looked at claims reports and seen the utilization just take off when the out-of-pocket maximums are reached. It's not everyone, but they are out there. People such as you and I may be too busy to be going to the doctor, but there are those who with every little sniffle are running to get help.
Regarding the comment about the new policy premiums being less costly than the renewal, please keep in mind that the new insurance company is picking up maybe 9 or 10 months in claim costs for 12 months of premiums. There is a lag in the time that claims are incurred and paid. So, any claim incurred today is not paid for some time. Your renewal next year will reflect 12 months of claims for 12 months of premiums. Expect an increase.
Tom (Thu Sep 23 10:06:16 2010)
C.R., I don't know if you'll believe 18,000 physicians, but you can check HERE. And specific to the $400 billion savings, check Harvard HERE. And overall benefits check HERE.
Yes, my ideas are indeed warped. I've been in health care for 40 years (as a Medicare provider for 20 years). I had private healthcare during all of that time but switched to Medicare when I retired. It is, incidentally, 95% provided by private doctors and hospitals, though they only get paid for validated procedures. Anything not paid for by Medicare I can still get, the good old-fashioned free-market way... with cash dollars.
Going to a Medicare-for-all system will save about 20% of the $2.7 trillion we are currently spending on healthcare. But we'd likely extend the system to add dental and mental parity, plus 40m uninsured, thus gobbling up some of the savings.
Yes, by the time we add the uninsured they will increase the need for care (and add 2 jobs for every 1 lost in the insurance industry). Yes, we'll increase the number of visits that are found to be not needed and not critical, at least for a year or two, but nobody will be denied necessary care. So even you will survive it.
The European and Canadian systems are unsustainable only because they are trying to do too much with two little. Canada spends only 10% of GDP and if they increased that to 12% they could eliminate their wait times. Our costs in the US are (now) 17.5% of GDP. And easily 90% of Canadians prefer their system to ours (they pay an extra 2% in taxes compared to ours, and they would have to go up if they wanted to eliminate wait times.) Britain has a totally socialized system similar to our VA and military systems, and their costs are about 8% of GDP.
C.R. and Tom, when people have to pay a deductible or otherwise have skin in the game, they often delay seeing a doctor until the disease is more costly to treat or it becomes untreatable. Sure that's fine... unless it's one of your loved ones.
There is simply no reason for us to continue spending good dollars on high salaries and benefits packages to insurance executives, broker commissions (sorry Tom), actuarial costs, and even the campaign bribes that are passed onto the patient. It is, in fact, absolutely stupid. But that comes from an ex-CEO who would find it equally stupid to give a chauffeur to every pizza delivery guy, but that's what we are doing with the private insurance industry. They are a make-work industry that adds nothing to patient care.
Jack Lohman (Thu Sep 23 16:40:15 2010)
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