Comments on: Already Insured? Get Ready to Pay More
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- I've worked hard for everything I have. Why should I have to pay more for someone who is on welfare or not interested in working? Most of those who say they cannot afford it have a nice vehicle payment and HDTV. It is all about choices. We get the shaft again.
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- The harder you work, the more successful you are, the more you pay to the government. The American Dream apparently is dead if our country continues to head in this direction. No incentives anymore.
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- CBS, who are you representing or speaking for? Well, apparently you are speaking for people who earns more than 200k huh? GOOD JOB being a typical republican commentator.
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- Wow, thanks CBS. Way to put out the information people need to make decisions AFTER the vote has already taken place. It's no wonder so many think this bill will save them money...you all sit on the facts until passage is safely behind us.
And you people wonder where the dismissal of mainstream media as 'liberally biased' comes from? - Reply to this comment
- Look. This legislation isn't that hard to follow. The top 5-10% of earners will effectively pay more for the same coverage they have now. About 75% will see no real change in what they pay. 10% will get coverage, where they had none before. 5-10% will pay less. Plus there will be no pre-existing condition nonsense.
There's costs for setting it all up, and there's down the road savings for reduced inefficiencies once it's all in place. The net savings wind up paying for the costs of setting it all up in 10 years or so, with minor surpluses after that.
Why anyone is getting worked up about it is beyond me. As far as legislation goes, it isn't remotely radical. You people are crazy, and need to stop listening to the rabble-rousers (right and left). - Reply to this comment
- Things are different now, except that most citizens are so disengaged that they cannot fathom how they've been duped. Sure, no one wants to repeal Social Security and Medicare. This is because we still believe that we will get our fair share from these programs. The reality of it is that most of our children won't.
This is the first year that Social Security has paid out more than it brought in. That was not supposed to happen until another 10 years or so down the line. Medicare is broken, with doctors and pharmacies dropping services due to the program not reimbursing at even a break even rate, and the new bill aims to cut Medicare even further.
Our national debt has gotten so large that now a dollar of debt actually causes a decrease of more than a dollar in our GDP, due to the gargantuan debt service required from all the accumulating interest. This is untenable, and in the most plain, realistic, and stark terms, means America is sliding headlong into financial calamity.
Yes, we are emotionally wed to our entitlement programs. The fact of the matter is that there is a real world that exists beyond this dysfunctional marriage. In this real world, countries go bankrupt, they default on their debt, they debase their currency, and they fight to keep an unemployment rate from rising faster than inflation, and they struggle to keep the peace as citizens begin to turn on each other.
This is the world in which America exists. This is our stark reality. To add health care for all or not to add health care for all is not about whether it is the right thing to do. It is not about whether or not some people should have health care and others shouldn't. It isn't a moral, ethical, or even a spiritual consideration. 50 years ago, those would have been the primary considerations. It is too late to be weighing those considerations.
The question to be asked now is very simple. Millions of American families ask this question every day. The question is, "Can we afford it?" The answer is firmly, "No we can't."
Unfortunately, our country is facing a threat that is more severe than any threat posed to the roughly 15% of the population without health insurance. This threat will affect 100% of our population, rich and poor, people of all races, creeds, and religions.
When America begins to default on its debts, when inflation makes even the richest poor, when entitlements are cut and government employees become the scourge of a free society, what will be lost will be the greatest country the world has ever known. What will be lost is the promise of opportunity. What will be lost is the freedom to work hard, and to be rewarded for hard work. What will be lost will be the dreams of our forefathers. What will be lost is the idea that a gov't by the people for the people really allows liberty to flourish. What will be lost is the hope we have for our children, that being a citizen of America means they will automatically have a better life. And when the hope for our children dies, our nation dies.
America cannot afford the unfunded liabilities that already exist. Even without this new legislation, it will be very tough to continue our way of life without significant changes in our lifestyles. We will be forced to choose between education, taking care of our elderly, or protecting our nation. Public employees will find that governments have to choose between cutting pensions or paving the streets. And at some point, there will be a generation that gets caught in the middle of this nightmare, with no money to fund their promised entitlements, little employment, and no savings to fall back upon. Pray that your children are not part of this generation, as they will be left in a wasteland of debt, disillusionment, disdain, and despair.
The generation that gets caught holding this bag, empty yet filled with decades of promises, will feed upon each other and the State like vultures. And their blood will never be on the hands of our many leaders who bought and sold their votes and perceived their populace to be too stupid to handle the truth. The blood will never mark the hands of our leaders, who consumed this great nation, like a dense cancer, from the inside out, cutting it with debt, slicing it with outright fraud, so they could more quickly gorge themselves on the fresh spoil. The blood will be on the hands of your sons and daughters, as they will be left to start anew.
Wake up America. The reality is that it doesn?t matter what you feel. Debt has no emotion, only obligations. When the obligations are no longer met, (or perceived not to be able to be met) our great country will quickly succumb to its most base nature, and no amount of health insurance will heal it. - Reply to this comment
- Oh for crying out loud. Your premiums were going to go up REGARDLESS and you know it. And most people who make over $200,000, own a big home and by the time they get done with the mortgage deductions, etc., often pay LESS tax than people who make zip in this country.
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- "Already Insured? Get Ready to Continue to Pay More" would be a more accurate headline for this story.
Your premiums were going up anyway.
The caps won't kick in for 4 years. - Reply to this comment
- "Already Insured? Get Ready to Pay More"
As opposed to premiums going through the roof without health care reform.
At least in four years there will be some controls on this economic predation.
And if this had been done four years ago we'd have them now.
Anybody who tells you that Free Markets are an automatic panacea, doesn't drive a Prius. - Reply to this comment
- The bill doesn't reduce costs. So a newly- insured walks into a hospital and the hospital bill is now covered. But the bill removes 500 million from medicare, puts a tax on equipment sold to hospitals and will force insurers to pass along new taxes they have. So the hospitals are still going to be short, can break even, and will have to reduce care. Already Mayo Clinic in Arizonia stopped taking medicare patients and a region of Walgreens will also not take new patients. The bill increases taxes on everyone. Workers who had HSAs and FSAs to reduce taxes will have lower ceilings. Insurers will raise prices on insurance. And from a REP-AM.com editorial last week, the program will be as expensive as SS and Medicare. "When Medicare was approved in 1965, Democrats predicted it would cost just $9 billion by 1990; it actually consumed $67 billion that year. Using that yardstick, the $200 billion underestimated annual cost of Obamacare could be $1.5 trillion 25 years hence; that was the total federal budget in 1995. Today, Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid have promised nearly $108 trillion in benefits for which the government has no money; each American's share of that unfunded liability is almost $350,000. "
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