Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

THE GREAT HEALTHCARE LIES 3/16/2010
http://www.americanbenefitsplanning.com/

By: Donald B. Hoffman, CFP,CLU,RHU,LUTCF

Before you vote to Socialize Healthcare and end your career, consider these facts (For they will be known by the public eventually, and when they are those who committed this treason against our country will be held in contempt for all time.)

Lie #1...Big groups are cheaper.
This is the first false assumption that has been pushed to drive a federal takeover. There is a minimal savings due to an economy of scale, but that is only minimal. The true cost of any group is driven by its demographics.
A group of 2 healthy 20 year old males would be so inexpensive you wouldn’t believe the rates. Conversely….A group of 1 million 60 year old sick people would be so expensive you would want to put someone in jail. It’s not the size of the group, but rather the health and age that drives rate differences.
Creating a giant Government plan WILL NOT reduce rates! You may hide the true expenses as you do with Medicare, but it will not truly reduce costs. In fact it will increase them.

Lie # 2 Insurance companies profits are the reason rates are going up.
This is the most obvious lie of them all, but it is necessary (under “Rules for Radicals”) to have a villain. The truth is the 3% - 4 % profit margins of the Insurance Companies are far less than the 10% + waste and fraud margins of Medicare and Medicaid. These are the plans the Government currently runs. To suggest that you should takeover more before you get control of these numbers would be considered criminal negligence in the private sector.
For 30 years the Health Insurance Industry has REDUCED profits and expenses as a percentage of the total costs. The fact is that if the rest of the healthcare system was going in this direction we wouldn’t be discussing healthcare as a problem at all.
According to CBO and HHS data les than 7% of US Healthcare spending is on administration and the net cost of private insurance.
The reason “premiums” are going up is because Medical costs are going up. Not profits.
Over the last 5 years 75% of the rising costs were due to higher Hospital, Physician, and Drug costs.
Higher utilization is another factor. In the last 10 years MRI/CT/PET scans tripled. Hip replacements are up by 33%. Knee replacements are up by 70%. Kidney and Liver transplants are up between 31-42%. Statin drug usage is up by 1000%.
In 1980 prescription drugs accounted for 3% of a plans premium. Today they are 28% of a plans premium. Attacking the middleman (Insurance Companies) for these systemic increases is unfair and disingenuous.
If you want to attack a real cost increaser on the Private Health Insurance premiums, stop cost shifting your Medicare and Medicaid obligations to the private sector. When you fail to pay healthcare providers an acceptable fee for service they raise the fees charged to everyone else (i.e.: Private Insurance). Currently this practice results in somewhere around 10% of the total premiums paid are necessary because they have to pay YOUR bills! Pay your own bills. You made the promises. Keep them. Without the funny math.

Lie#3 The Public plan will compete fairly with the Private sector.
I just pointed out above where the Government is already moving their responsibilities to the private health insurance market with ease. The health providers cannot negotiate. They are dictated to as to reimbursement levels, etc. They in turn have to raise the fees charged to private insurance plans to make up for the underpayments. The private insurance industry has no choice but to pay it for you. The result is 10% higher premiums.
This practice would not only NOT stop, it would be magnified many fold if we created a Public (Government) Health Plan. The government would also run their plan at any loss level necessary to bankrupt the “Competition” while demand the private plans retain “acceptable” reserve levels to “protect the public”. They could mandate (as they do now) as many ridiculous Mandates as they needed to push up costs and expedite the collapse. There is no “Fair” playing field when one of the competitors is also the Referee, The Rule Maker, and the final Arbiter of all disputes.

Lie # 4 COBRA was another plan written to help protect the public.
Many people are beguiled by the lie of COBRA. It was never written to help anyone except the power hungry lawyers filling Congress. Like the current abominations being discussed it was 1500 pages long. Its stated purpose was to extend benefits to people who left their employment and lost Insurance coverage because of that. Like today, a real problem that needed a real solution. But that’s not what we got from Congress. We got a nightmare of responsibilities, obligations, and notifications loaded onto the backs of private companies who were offering insurance to their employees. Failure to comply with the unbelievable labyrinth of interlocking regulations would make a business owner liable to lawsuits and or huge fines from the Federal Government. A whole new industry had to be created to deal with all the compliance issues dumped on businesses as small as 20 employees. Oh by the way, if you work for a company with less than 20 you don’t matter. You get NO protection.
If the Congress REALLY wanted to fix the problem of loosing coverage they would have enacted a 1 or 2 page bill (rather than 1500) that simply said that if an employee of ANY size company left employment and was dropped from the group plan as a result, the INSURANCE COMPANY (not the Employer) had to notify and offer the ex-employee an individual policy with no medical underwriting or preexisting issues to worry about. That’s it! No need for 30 days this, and 60 days that, 18 months normal, 27 months disability, 36 months divorce. Just an individual policy they could keep forever.
I bring this up because Congress is doing the same thing to us again. You are pointing to a real problem, but instead of looking for the simplest, non intrusive way of dealing with it, you are instead creating a monster to gobble up power for you and your cronies! The truth will come out. This Congress will be unmasked for the deceitful, power hungry, liars you are. When they understand, the American people will never forgive you.

Lie # 5 Preexisting conditions clauses were written to deny righteous people coverage.
This is yet another slanderous attack on a logical practice in an effort to demonize (rules for radicals) the Insurance companies. The basic premise of insurance is based on a set of statistical models that allow an entity to compute, based on available data, an amount that a group of people could all contribute into a fund on a consistent basis. This would produce enough in the fund to cover the participant’s unexpected expenses when they arise. To allow people to wait until they have an event and then let them bleed the fund dry with those known expenses destroys the entire concept. It would be unfair to the people who had contributed for years when they were in good health, to let another go for years without contributing and then collect the same benefits when illness strikes.
A pre-existing condition clause is also not forever. The clause allowed by current law only allows an insurance company to exclude a condition “for which they have received treatment, advice or attention in the last 180 days”. A condition which meets these criteria is not covered for 12 months after the effective date. After that it is covered as “any other illness.” Also according to HIPAA laws, as long as there is no more than a 63 break in coverage, time served on a prior plan counts toward the 12 month pre-ex period. Therefore an individual may change companies without having to deal with the pre-existing condition clause as long as he gets new coverage somewhere.
It’s UNAMERICAN as well as UNCONSTITUTIONAL to force any citizen to buy any product as a condition of life. If a citizen decides to take the risk of going without insurance that is his right. It is also his responsibility. If he is bankrupted as a result of this decision, that is the consequences of his actions.
Now you have branded me as heartless. I am not. I would suggest you, who murder unborn children with other people’s money, are the truly heartless ones.
We do have another real problem that needs a real solution. We need to explore a limited Open Season or something to allow people for a limited time with existing conditions to get into the pool with as little abuse as possible. Not an unlimited NO Pre-ex system that begs for fraud and abuse. Solutions here are too long to elaborate.

Lie #6 Insurance companies can cancel you if you get sick.
There is a very specific stipulation in every contract approved in every State that says that an Insurance Company CANNOT cancel you because you get sick. The only case I can think of would be for failure to disclose an existing condition on an application that asks you a direct question (better known as fraud). Or.. COBRA. Thank you Government. Fix COBRA my way and that part of it goes away. True Fraud SHOULD be handled with revocation of coverage.

Lie #7 The American People will forget.
There are real problems with our HealthCare System. There are real solutions. But you’re not looking for them. You are only trying to secure power through Socialism.
You are governing against the will of the people. In Secret, with Bribes, Graft, and Corruption. You are attempting to enslave us to a system we don’t want!

WE WILL NEVER FORGET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Moved to Politics (non-firearm related)...

OakRidgeStars wrote:Moved to Politics (non-firearm related)...

Forgot about this section. Thanks!

I’m glad COBRA was mentioned.
That entity was mentioned to me once. The statement was Insurance for your whole family!!!
I looked into it. A family of 3 could get decent insurance, for $700 plus a month.
That was over 10 years ago.