As I write, the house has passed the health care bill but it has not yet been presented to Obama for signature. Subject to changes in Senate Reconciliation this is what we face.
If you wish to remain self insured, as many youth do, you will pay a $750 annual fine to the government.
You may be a young, healthy, drug free non smoker but will still be charged a rate that enables the program to pay for services for obese drug addicts who smoke two packs a day because it will be unlawful for insurance companies or Medicare to differentiate.
You will no longer be able to choose less expensive policies with higher deductibles because they will be outlawed.
If you are a small business owner your cost to provide insurance to employees will increase. You will need to provide insurance that covers employees children up to age 26.
Everyone will have to buy insurance that covers maternity, newborn care and pediatric services. How this got by the gay lobby I do not know.
Everyone, including drug free alcohol abstainers will be required to buy insurance that covers substance abuse, mental health, chronic disease management, oral and eye care.
Insurance companies will be in competition with the government insurance program but insurance companies will not be allowed to adjust their premiums to compete without permission of the government.
If you are a physician with an equity interest in a hospital the hospital is not allowed to expand unless the county in which it is located has experienced a population expansion exceeding 150% in the last 5 years. So if your hospital provides superior performance Obamacare limits your ability to expand to meet the increased demand.
If you are a physician in private practice the government will begin to monitor your claims, not just for fraud, but to compare how you have used your resources in comparison to your peers. If you have performed more of a certain service than your peers, the government will be armed with the data to restrict those services they deem to be excessive.
Financial penalties are extracted from pharmaceutical companies that develop new medicines and sell them as branded drugs. The greater your success the greater the penalty under a formula that compares your sales to overall sales. The expected total penalty is forecast to be $2.3 billion annually.
Medical device makers face a similar schedule of penalties, called fees, forecast to total $2 billion annually.
The deferred compensation of insurance company executives is capped at 500,000. Compensation for executives in the entertainment industry remain unlimited for the time being.
The extraction from the insurance industry is forecast to be $6.7 billion annually. The formula is complex but it is based on a ratio of premium income to administrative costs. The higher the ratio the higher the penalty. It is a penalty for efficiency.
If you have investment income or income from trusts or estates it will be subject to a new 3.8% tax. The same will apply to earnings over 200,000 or 250,000 if you file jointly.
You may ask why insurance and pharmaceutical stocks continue to do well. The answer has two parts, first there will be more volume, second the penalties will be passed on to the consumer. To paraphrase Reagan, corporations do not pay fees to the government, they just collect them from the consumer and pass them on to the government.
Bob B
A plea
Random Thots is but a small voice. Others speak the same message, broader, louder and with greater eloquence. You know who the good ones are. The Quick Links sidebar is a good start. Point your fellow Americans to these grass roots sources of truth not obtainable from other sources. If you also see fit to include this little blogger I will be gratified.
RANDOM THOTS 