For the most art, people who have insurance, are not affected.
Geeze … the dishonesty ...
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/21/us/health-care-reform.html
March 21, 2010
You can keep your current plan— or —you can buy coverage through new state-run insurance marketplaces, called “exchanges,” starting in 2014.
If you are insured and pay on your own
If you keep your current plan
Within six months, the plans will have to stop some practices, like setting lifetime limits on coverage and canceling policy holders who get sick. They will also have to allow children to stay on their parents’ policies until they turn 26 and cover children with pre-existing conditions, but can still deny adults with medical problems until 2014.
And what do you think will be the consequence of those changes will be? Will insurance companies be able to keep rates the same as now? Of course not. Don't be silly.
Premiums for individual policies will be 10 to 13 percent higher by 2016 than the average premium that year under current law, according to Congressional estimates.
Promises promises. Keep in mind that those *estimates* came from people (and are reported by people) who were trying to sell this bill to the public and who are trying to put a happy face on what has happened. Keep in mind those estimates are coming from the same sort of people who promised Medicare would only cost $12 billion in 1990 (it ended up costing $98 billion).
I predict the reality will be even higher increases than that … that is for people who don't get the *insurance* for free. And the increases will not only be in terms of increased premiums but higher taxes and lower gdp growth. Afterall, someone has to pay for all the free (subsidized) health care that the government will be handing out (especially to democrat constituents).
But most people would qualify for subsidies, meaning they might pay less than they do now.
Except there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone eventually has to pay for the health care those people will receive. It won't be only those who don't get subsidies. It will show up in higher taxes for everyone, because companies will pass on their higher health care costs to the public via higher prices. And democrats are going to force our children to pay far into the future (through the increased debt) for the health care that democrat constituents will be getting now.
High-income earners — families making more than $250,000 — will pay several thousand dollars more in Medicare payroll taxes starting in 2013. Their unearned income, now exempt from the payroll tax, would also be subject to a 3.8 percent levy.
Bet you it works out to more than that. And how many fewer jobs will those *high-income earners* (mostly people who own small businesses) create as a result? Bet it's not only the upper class who end up paying something in the end. The lower income class may pay in terms of higher unemployment.
If you are insured through your employer
If you keep your current plan
Within six months, the plans will have to stop some practices, like setting lifetime limits on coverage and canceling policy holders who get sick. They will also have to allow children to stay on their parents’ policies through age 26 and cover children with pre-existing conditions, but can still deny adults with medical problems until 2014.
Same comments as before. Expect premiums, taxes and prices of most everything to go up as a result of this largess. But heck, according to Shalamar, we won't be affected.
Insurers will have to pay a 40 percent excise tax on high-value group plans – those in which premiums for families are $27,500 or more, for instance – starting in 2018. Experts say the tax will likely be passed on to employees through higher premiums or lower benefits and wages.
Of course, many democrat union supporters (friends of Obama) got an exemption written into the law so they won't have to pay this. That only means that the rest of us wil see even higher premiums and lower benefits/wages.
Starting in 2013, flexible spending accounts, which allow users to escape taxes on many medical expenses now, will be limited. There will be a $2,500 maximum on accounts that typically carry $4,000 or $5,000 limits now, and you will no longer be able to use the accounts for over-the-counter medicines.
No, we won't be affected.
High-income earners — families making more than $250,000 – would pay several thousand dollars more in Medicare payroll taxes starting in 2013. Their unearned income, now exempt from the payroll tax, would also be subject to a 3.8 percent levy.
Not affected in the least.
I predict that many companies that currently offer health insurance are going to stop doing so … thus effectively throwing people onto the government plan. I predict that many companies are going to have to cut back on the number of employees to pay for what the government is now going to require companies to give the government to fund all those new healthcare freebie handouts. And I predict the government run plans will be just as cost effective as ... Medicare (which Obama recently told us is threatening to bankrupt the country). Care to make a wager?