Health care questions...please be objective.

Firstly, what the bill covers will change year to year in the first 10 years of its existence (assuming it isn't repealed in that time)

This covers the basics of what year what parts are being introduced
http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyb...h-care-reform/

and this one goes through the basics of the bill and how they were changed to get it passed, you need to read both the senate and reconciliation bill sides to get the full picture
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...ion.html#tab=6

It is not going to be completely government funded, it basically makes it illegal not to have health insurance while adding some laws about the way insurance companies operate to ensure everyone can buy insurance (they can't refuse you because of pre-existing conditions for example) however, they made few changes to make the insurance more affordable.

States will set up 'insurance exchanges' for those who are not covered under employer insurance, and there are some expansions to medicaid.

I haven't read the actual bill, but from the overviews, I haven't seen anything in the way of incentives for health care professionals

Yeah - Great link

See, this one point seems very sensible. That link rocks. I'll be reading through it all day.

I still have to say Im confused. I read the article but I feel really dumb because it still doesnt make sense to me. *Must not have had enough coffee yet* Now I get that everyone will HAVE to have health insurance understandable but what about those who cant afford it. I was given an option to purchase the state funded insurance that Im currently on a wait list to get because I dont qualify for medical assistance (basically I was told I have to get pregnant to recieve it). That "low cost" insurance was going to cost $800 a month each for me and my BF. That doesnt seem too low cost imho. Also BF is in the process of owning his own business. Is there going to be something for covering people who are self employed? This whole thing confuses me beyond belief because it just seems to me like people are still going to fall thru the cracks especially those who just cant afford to get insurance at this moment. People like me!



P.S. I just want to add that BF is not funding the buying of property its his step brother that is basically loaning him the money for the costs and property and stuff like that...I dont want it to be mistaken that we are paying for it ourselves...I wish but it just could never happen right now.

In all honestly, not, it does very little to make insurance more affordable until later in the life of the bill.

All individuals buying private insurance will get a tax subsidy on the amount spent on health insurance, if you are below 150% of the poverty level ($33,075 for a family of four) the new coverage, priced at 2-4.6% of your income will kick in, there is a sliding scale that goes up to 9% of income for their basic health plan - no mention of when it will be completely introduced though

According to the things I have read, I am under the impression there is going to be no excuse for not having insurance. People's bank accounts will be charged and they will have insurance.

I take the above statement to mean: The money my employer pays for my health insurance will be added to my total annual gross income. Soooo, that will mean we will be required to pay Federal Income Tax on that money.

Is that not correct?

So, if your employer pays $1,000.00 dollars a month for your health insurance, there will bne $12,000.00 added to your total gross income.

Now, from what I have read months ago, the Unions were going to get a sweetheart deal and be exempt from this. I wonder if that is still true.

Shouldn't we all be equal?

The Government will tell you, based on your income and amount of dependants, if you can afford it or not. While you may not feel you can afford it, the government may feel that you can.

This article gives a good summary of what consumers can expect:
For Consumers, Clarity on Health Care Changes

This one deals with the industry and doctors:
In Health Care Overhaul, Boons for Hospitals and Drug Makers

Im at the point right now where Im about ready to tell the goverment to kiss my ***! When they figure out away to get people who cant afford medical insurance approved for the county assitance without having to get pregnant then Ill see about getting medical insurance. If someone tries to even think about taking money out of my bank account without my permission.....good luck with that because Ill close it out and get one of those walmart visa cards to put money on to pay my bills since thats the only reason I have a bank account right now..to pay bills......Id like for someone to tell me how a household of 2 people barely scraping by on $400 a month is going to afford to pay $800 per person for medical insurance. Especially when neither person has been to a doctor in 6 years for anything. The last time I went to a doctors office was when I got my IUD put in and the next time I go will be to get it taken out in 4 years.



Sorry to be so pissy about this but there are other circumstances along this stuff that just adds to me being mad. Like how my bf and I both went thru DUI court graduated with nothing but the highest recommendations from probation and our judge yet Penn Dot still wont even consider giving BF a worker license so he can get a real job till he starts his own business...instead they take his license away for another 5 years on top of his 1 yr suspension. Or why if his dad can get his work done somewhere else cheaper..Then GO THERE! Let your son get a real job that will pay our bills since your such a tight wad and wont pay him enough to just make it! This stuff just all adds up and then you add the goverment who wants to "help" everyone....yea well paying out of pocket for something I really just dont need right now isnt helping me any. Medical insurance right now is in the "dont need" side of my list. Ok yeah can you sense the stress just radiating from me!!! Ok Im going to go do something mindless right now that just doesnt make me think about how much I hate finances and our goverment right now!

After it was passed I went searching for something that was non-biased and would actually show what was what in the bill. I found a really great tool from Kaiser that was meant to show the differences between everything that was originally proposed, but since the Senate Bill was signed into law I just looked at that. It gave a detailed summary. Of course, I can't find the tool now, and I'm heading out the door. I did, however, make a PDF of the summary which I can try to get online later if I can't find the real link again.

Try to take a deep breath - and, based on the facts you give, you're going to be one of the people who will benefit most by insurance reform. I hope there are some positive changes for you and your boyfriend soon - it's hard to see good in anything when you're undergoing such large amounts of stress.

If you can't afford it, from what I understand you can choose to be "not covered" --- but you'd pay a fine or a series of fines. Who knows if it's just a fine OR a fine plus criminal chargesand/or Big Brother puts you on a list. It's so tough to guess at this stage.

Edit to strike text and apologize: I guess I shouldn't speculate...

Hopefully things pick up. Thanks to some good people in our family aka BFs step brother things will start picking up..Fingers crossed! Basically bf and his step brother are going to buy a building start a business with BF running it and it benefitting both of them...Fingers crossed.....we are hoping to have it all said done and started by the end of summer beginning of fall. The building I want is the one we are going to see this weekend...the one I dont want is his dads which is tiny and not enough space for the 6 of us..2 humans 3 cats 1 dog...

sorry for the ranting earlier its just all this healthcare stuff with the goverments involvement is driving me crazy. Now granted I want to eventually have a child with bf whom ill marry someday but I dont want to have a kid just to get medical coverage....that imo isnt a reason to have a kid its just a way to mooch. Granted I do mooch because I do get food stamps but by no means does that mean I use that money to buy food we dont eat because we eat out all the time....we dont eat out at all unless its a change day and we get a couple dollar menu cheese burgers maybe once a month....I use our food money for real food and make it stretch as long as I possibly can!

I had the same problem, and I'm having the devil of a time finding an unbiased straight up summary of the thing - its either the left saying its the greatest thing since sliced bread or the right saying we're all doomed. I want to know the truth of this thing, not political spin.

Is this it?
Side-by-Side Comparison of Major Health Care Reform Proposals
http://www.kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm

Yay for me - I actually found it again! Of course, it would have been a lot simpler if I were at work today (snow day!) where I found it since I knew it was a Kaiser something or other comparison. They have a bunch of resources, and here are links to a few.

Here is one of their PDFs that compares 3 bills - the first column is the combination of both bills that the House passed on Sunday (Senate + Reconciliation), the second column is just the Senate bill (in case the Reconciliation doesn't pass the Senate for some reason), the third is the House bill which means a whole lot of nothing since that didn't go anywhere legislatively. It isn't light reading; it's still 40 pages. But at least it isn't the legal language and over 2000 pages like the actual bill!

http://www.kff.org/healthreform/uplo...bill_final.pdf


Summary of Coverage of Legislation (Senate Bill) (2 pages): http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8023-S.pdf

Summary of Coverage of Legislation and Reconciliation (3 pages): http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8023-R.pdf

You can also do side by side comparisons of bunches of different options, most notably what was signed into law and the reconciliation, as well as various different committees or individuals proposed.

http://kff.org/healthreform/sidebyside.cfm

Here is also a calculator for figuring how much you would be required to pay for insurance and what type of subsidy you would be eligible for.

http://healthreform.kff.org/SubsidyCalculator.aspx

And just for fun they have a really cool timeline of the History of Health Reform in the U.S. It doesn't say anything about what party did what or anything like that. Just an interesting thing to look at.

http://healthreform.kff.org/flash/he...eform-new.html

Yup that was it! I was actually looking at the site when you posted that. I "found" a bunch of their resources regarding this legislation that I posted above, as well as that link.

They will not be able to just go one increasing their plans like they do now. It is not going to be as easy...

They will also have competition... And that is a key thing, IMO.

Cindy, if you are referring to the actual cost that is billed from the health care providers I don't think there is anything directed specifically toward that. There is no tort refort or standardization of forms (that I can see) that might lower the cost of overhead for healthcare providers.

Nor is there anything that regulates what doctors or hospitals can charge, or the amount of markup they can do on drugs (even OTC) or supplies or things like that, where the "savings" might be passed along to the consumer. I guess that part ties into theory of charges below.

I think the theory is that since there would be more of an even playing field as far as the providers at least being paid a majority of the cost the overall costs would go down (i.e. instead of losing out on 100% of the billable rate, they would be paid 60-80% via the insurance company if the patient runs out on the bill). Since they aren't covering the ones who skip on the bill completely they wouldn't be artificially inflating the costs for everyone, therefore they would bill closer to the real costs. And hopefully then the insurance companies would then cover closer to the real costs of doing business (+ reasonable profit) instead of having to negotiate rates every year.