Health care

[billybob]

Well its started, i am personal friends with my internist, who also sees my wife and her mother. Effective seept 1st, he begans the implementation of a yearly fee. Needless to say, this is due to our new fantastic health care system.

Yearly fee existing patients new patients

individual $300 $500

couple $500 $750

family $600 $950

now my mother-in-law has medicare and supplement, with no increases in her social security, no way to supplement her income at all, everything going up for her except her income.

My drs partners are pulling out of private practice, my uncles dr has told him he is getting out, all because they feel there is no way to make it with their prices going up.

I hope the obam supporters are satisfied !!

[DJQ]

Sounds like you need a new doctor. You've got the "Republican" kind. The kind that only cares about how much money he makes and doesn't really give a fuck about his patients.

[billybob]

Think he would like to make a living, unlike democrats, they want it give to them.

[billybob]

And you will see more and more drs, not taking new medicare patients.

[billynomates]

So if it fails it will be the Republicans fault- making excuses right at the start. That's unlike the Democrats !

[mrkromer]

Our business just got our quote for renewal: 23% increase. We had a 97% loss ratio which is good and lost our biggest catastrophic experience. I hate to think what would've happened if we had a bad year.

mike

[skyguy2007]

Just wait until the first of the year, all these people jumping on this stupid health care band aid that fixes NOTHING will start screaming when they see the health premiums they get for free are considered taxable income.

[giveupleasur]

eh screw doctors-they "practice" medicine n treat symptoms-they cure nothing---homepathic is way to go!! Obama-ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH

[mrkromer]

Just wait until the first of the year, all these people jumping on this stupid health care band aid that fixes NOTHING will start screaming when they see the health premiums they get for free are considered taxable income.

Well, thankfully there are cutoffs before it's considered taxable income. The premium would have to be fairly steep.

mike

[billynomates]

Mr. Reed specifically cited a change in the tax treatment of retiree health benefits. When Congress created the Medicare prescription drug benefit in 2003, it included a modest tax subsidy to encourage employers to keep drug plans for retirees, rather than dumping them on the government. The Employee Benefit Research Institute says this exclusion—equal to 28% of the cost of a drug plan—will run taxpayers $665 per person next year, while the same Medicare coverage would cost $1,209.

In a $5.4 billion revenue grab, Democrats decided that this $665 fillip should be subject to the ordinary corporate income tax of 35%. Most consulting firms and independent analysts say the higher costs will induce some companies to drop drug coverage, which could affect about five million retirees and 3,500 businesses. Verizon and other large corporations warned about this outcome.

U.S. accounting laws also require businesses to immediately restate their earnings in light of the higher tax burden on their long-term retiree health liabilities. This will have a big effect on their 2010 earnings.

While the drug tax subsidy is for retirees, companies consider their benefit costs as a total package. The new bill might cause some to drop retiree coverage altogether. Others may be bound by labor contracts to retirees, but then they will find other ways to cut costs. This means raising costs or reducing coverage for other employees. So much for Mr. Obama's claim that if you like your coverage, you can keep it—even at Fortune 500 companies.

In its employee note, Verizon also warned about the 40% tax on high-end health plans, though that won't take effect until 2018. "Many of the plans that Verizon offers to employees and retirees are projected to have costs above the threshold in the legislation and will be subject to the 40 percent excise tax." These costs will start to show up soon, and, as we repeatedly argued, the tax is unlikely to drive down costs. The tax burden will simply be spread to all workers—the result of the White House's too-clever decision to tax insurers, rather than individuals.

A Verizon spokesman said the company is merely addressing employee questions about ObamaCare, not making a political statement. But these and many other changes were enabled by the support of the Business Roundtable that counts Verizon as a member. Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg's health-reform ideas are 180 degrees from Mr. Obama's, but Verizon's shareholders and 900,000 employees and retirees will still pay the price.

Businesses around the country are making the same calculations as Verizon and no doubt sending out similar messages. It's only a small measure of the destruction that will be churned out by the rewrite of health, tax, labor and welfare laws that is ObamaCare, and only the vanguard of much worse to come

.