A new New York Times/CBS poll has some really interesting numbers when it comes to dealing with the budget. For example; 55% of respondents feel that cutting military spending is the right way to go, including 42% of Republicans, which was the winning cut for the GOP in the poll. That really goes against the […]
The healthcare Gestapo is up to their old tricks: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today will release a new report showing more dramatic health insurance premium increases are proposed in Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington. Keying off the Obama administration’s recent probe into a planned 39 percent rate hike from […]
We face big and difficult challenges. And what the American people hope – what they deserve – is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics. For while the people who sent us here have different backgrounds and different stories and different beliefs, […]
Something I have been meaning to do is figure up the cost impact of health care for people with diabetics. Most insurance policies don’t cover diabetic testing supplies. That gives diabetics an extra $100-$120 expense every month. I want to take a minute and figure up what premiums plus average out of pocket expenses would […]
Something I have been saying all along was just repeated on Countdown by former health insurance executive Wendell Potter – there is nothing to stop insurance companies from raising rates. The bill backers have been touting out charts and tables derived from the CBO report to highlight savings with the new reform. One thing they […]
Without the public option the Senate bill still will cost an additional $19 billion according to the much anticipated CBO report. Also premiums won’t go down with the removal of the public option, as some had been pushing: The CBO has concluded that, on average, premiums will be the same as they would have been […]
Nate Silver points out: The Record Profits Myth strikes again — I don’t like the insurance companies either; I’d gladly get rid of them and replace them with single payer. But the industry’s profits are low: only about 3.3%. So what happens when insurance companies are forced to spend 85-90% of premiums on health care […]
The New York Times is reporting that the Senate bill will result in much higher premiums. One example is a family of 4 earning $54,000 in 2016. They would be elligible for a $10,100 subsidy under the new system, but if they buy into the most popular federal plan then the monthly premiums would be […]
Here’s Conrad’s latest: Kent Conrad is pushing to decouple this Medicare buy-in from Medicare. Conrad wants to make it fake Medicare. He wants people in this fake Medicare to pay much higher reimbursement rates. and be placed in a separate risk pool. The people in fake Medicare might not even be able to use the […]
About time the Democratic leader in the Senate showed some balls. Here he is today fired up over the news that Aetna is going to shit-can up to 650,000 clients just so they can get better profits: Transcript via The Plum Line: “You see, one of the largest private insurance companies in America made a […]