Affordable Care Act, I felt the effect
Moderators: carlson1, Charles L. Cotton
Re: Affordable Care Act, I felt the effect
Free market? Free market in healthcare hasn't really been in play since Teddy Kennedy & the gang pushed through managed care during Nixon (birth of HMOs). Being subject to third party payers and not knowing or being in a position to negotiate the cost for services is far from free market...
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"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance..."
- John Philpot Curran
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance..."
- John Philpot Curran
- The Annoyed Man
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Re: Affordable Care Act, I felt the effect
I started writing this post just after getting home from a weekly local business networking meeting I attend every Wednesday morning. At each meeting, one of the members does a 10-15 minute presentation about his/her business or industry. Yesterday morning's speaker was an independent insurance agent.
There are a whole LOT of small business killing events which are going to start taking effect in 2014 that democrats do not want to talk about now. They cynically scheduled the roll-outs of the most poisonous various implementations of the AHCA so as to occur after their liar in chief gets (hopefully for them) reelected. They did this so that they would not have to face the political music for their own treason to our way of life. Their goal all along has been a "single payer" system. They lied and told us that there would be no such thing. In fact, there will. The very structure of what they have done will force "single payer" to happen.
Here are just a few of these poison pills:
Remember those pesky subsidies I mentioned above? They will come from the penalties/taxes (again, whatever the lying communist illegitimate children of the democrat party are calling it these days...) paid by those small business people who can either A) no longer afford to offer their employees healthcare insurance and who elect to pay the fine as a business decision, and other small business people like me who couldn't afford healthcare insurance to begin with, won't be able to get it from the "exchanges" because the insurance companies won't be participating any longer, but who could afford to pay for the occasional doctor's office visit out of pocket.......but will receive not even a thank you for being forced by communist dictator democrats into paying for the healthcare of people who make more money than I do.......because I own a small business (which that complete retard in the oval office says I didn't build) instead of working for a large corporation (or a parasitic government agency union job trying to bleed the citizens dry).
Ultimately, the ONLY way the AHCA can work is to put what would be essentially Soviet style healthcare. Sure, you can see a "doctor" (in the USSR, "doctors" were trained to about the level of what we would call a Physician's Assistant here in the U.S.), but it will take a while. Maybe you'll live until then, maybe you won't. Doesn't matter, because human life no longer has the same value it once held.
IS ANYBODY BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND WHY MY POSTS ABOUT DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN SO BITTER LATELY? There is no difference between a democrat and a bully. Here is their political philosophy in a nutshell: "GIVE ME YOUR LUNCH MONEY!!"
That's it. That's all they have to offer. I truly do hate them.
There are a whole LOT of small business killing events which are going to start taking effect in 2014 that democrats do not want to talk about now. They cynically scheduled the roll-outs of the most poisonous various implementations of the AHCA so as to occur after their liar in chief gets (hopefully for them) reelected. They did this so that they would not have to face the political music for their own treason to our way of life. Their goal all along has been a "single payer" system. They lied and told us that there would be no such thing. In fact, there will. The very structure of what they have done will force "single payer" to happen.
Here are just a few of these poison pills:
- The "insurance exchanges" will be implemented in 2014. What this means is that, if your job does not provide you with insurance and you cannot afford to buy insurance direct from a provider, you will be able to buy it from one of the federally mandated insurance exchanges. But, that mandate does not require any insurance company to participate. They can choose to participate or not.
- Under the "insurance exchange" system, consumers will be able to choose between a bronze, silver, gold, or platinum plan. Each level of service will offer differing levels of coverage and/or deductible, etc. The problem is, nobody knows yet, including the people who wrote the law, what those levels of coverage will include. That part of the law has literally not yet been written. This will not be decided until 2014. (We had to pass the law to find out what's in it.) In all those thousands of pages, all the law did was totally restructure the system, without detailing what it will cover. Furthermore, reread #1: insurance companies can choose to participate in the exchanges or not. Most will not, because they won't be able to afford to provide the coverages mandated by the law at a rate approved of by the law. So much for insurance. The only way that the bill can make this work is to subsidize the pricing to the consumer by some amount per consumer, that subsidy to come from the penalties assessed by the law. (See more below for what the actual penalties are.)
- Medicaid will be expanded in 2014 by raising the maximum income threshold for a family of four from something around $12K/year to $48K/year. This will be nationally, despite the fact that $48K/year provides a better standard of living in Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee than it does in California, New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois. The net effect of this is that approximately 30 million people—an increase of over 400%—will be added to the Medicaid rolls.
- What is the effect of #3? In order to make this work, the law is reducing the payout to the healthcare providers. Back when Hector was a pup, a doctor who charged an out of pocket payee $100 for an office visit would be reimbursed by the insurance company about $60 for the same visit, and Medicaid would pay that doctor about $40 for that same visit. In 2014, Medicaid will pay that same doctor $20 for that same visit. Now, when you go see your doctor, you may only be with him/her for 15 minutes in the exam room, but there is a total of about an hour of his/her office time involved in that visit between the pre-exam nurse taking your weight, BP, heart rate, the actual doctor exam room visit, the dictation, the charting, the collecting of payment/co-payment, the followup interpretation of lab results, the charting of lab results, the call to the patient to notify them of their lab results, etc., etc. I don't know about you, but I don't know a single person in ANY profession who can keep a staff of other professionals on the payroll with $20/hour of revenue. The end results include the following:
- More and more doctors are limiting the number of Medicaid/Medicare patients they will accept into their practice, reducing the total number of physicians available to take on this sudden greater than 400% increase in the number of Medicaid patients. Many are no longer accepting Medicaid patients at all. Period.
- More and more of the older, more experienced doctors are deciding to retire. They don't need the hassle, and they are approaching the age where retirement is becoming a viable option. Thus, not only is the available pool of physicians taking Medicaid reduced, but we're losing our most experienced medical practitioners.
- So increasingly, this shrinking pool of doctors will consist of less experienced practitioners, without the benefit of older, wiser, and more experienced doctors to guide them in best practices, etc.
- The way the AHCA is structured, "taxes/penalties" (whatever the criminal liars in the party of treason choose to call them on any given day) are lower than the cost of providing group insurance, and small business with 49 or fewer employees are not required by the law to provide insurance. Therefore, it is a given that companies employing 49 or fewer employees are going to stop providing healthcare insurance to their employees, no later than 2014. It's not personal; it's just good business. So why is that so critical?
What happens to a guy like me? I'm one of that 52% which are home-based businesses or francises.Small Business Administration wrote:http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/sbfaq.pdf
Small firms:- Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
- Employ about half of all private sector employees.
- Pay 43 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
- Have generated 65 percent of net new jobs over the past 17 years.
- Create more than half of the nonfarm private GDP.
- Hire 43 percent of high tech workers (scientists, engineers, computer programmers, and others).
- Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.
- Made up 97.5 percent of all identified exporters and produced 31 percent of export value in FY 2008.
- Produce 16.5 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms.
- http://housedocs.house.gov/energycommer ... NESSES.pdf
What this means is that companies employing 50 employees or more in 2014 are going to be treated differently by paying a penalty which companies employing 49 to 79 employees will not be paying. This is a disincentive to growing your small business beyond 49 people before 2014, even if you are able to do so now. In other words, IT'S A JOB KILLER. And the that 30 employee difference is not going to be honored by government forever....only during the startup. And after that part of it cancelled, no small business will ever have an incentive to grow beyond 49 employees OR provide health insurance to their employees—killing even more jobs.THE SHARED RESPONSIBILITY REQUIREMENT FOR FIRMS WITH 50 OR MORE EMPLOYEES:- Under the bill, beginning in 2014, employers with 50 or more employees that do not offer health insurance coverage will pay an assessment of $2,000 per full-time worker if any of their employees obtain premium tax credits through the Health Insurance Exchanges.
- However, to avoid disincentives to hire an additional employee above 49 employees, the bill subtracts the first 30 employees from this payment calculation.
- I know of at least one doctor currently in practice who is about two years from retiring who has telephoned his son who just graduated from medical school to advise his son to go into research instead of medical practice. He can't be the only one......and again, we're talking not just about a shrinking pool of older, wiser, more experienced doctors, but also a shrinking pool of younger doctors who will choose to do something else with their educations.
- Lastly, I've actually gone and read the law....or at least large parts of it. Beginning in 2015, and ramping up through 2017, I will, as an uninsured owner of a single owner LLC, will begin paying a penalty/fine/tax (again, whatever the criminally minded liars in the democrat party choose to call it on any day of the week....trying to pin them down on terminology is like trying to catch and hold onto a greased pig; they flee from the truth as fast as their liar liar pants on fire little feet can carry them). Here is the start of it, and I've been assured by my CPA that there are other penalties described in the law that will add to these amounts, but here is the first part, beginning on page 39 of the text of the law, and starting with:
- SEC. 5000A. REQUIREMENT TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM ESSENTIAL COVERAGE.
- (a) REQUIREMENT TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM ESSENTIAL COVERAGE.—An applicable individual shall for each month beginning after 2013 ensure that the individual, and any dependent of the individual who is an applicable individual, is covered under minimum essential coverage for such month.
(b) SHARED RESPONSIBILITY PAYMENT.—
- (1) IN GENERAL.—If an applicable individual fails to meet the requirement of subsection (a) for 1 or more month during any calendar year beginning after 2013, then, except as provided in subsection (d), there is hereby imposed a penalty with respect to the individual in the amount determined under subsection (c). [Dave, look 5 lines below this one]
(2) INCLUSION WITH RETURN.—Any penalty imposed by this section with respect to any month shall be included with a taxpayer’s return under chapter 1 for the taxable year which includes such month.
(3) PAYMENT OF PENALTY.—If an individual with respect to whom a penalty is imposed by this section for any month—
- (A) is a dependent (as defined in section 152) of another taxpayer for the other taxpayer’s taxable year including such month, such other taxpayer shall be liable for such penalty, or
(B) files a joint return for the taxable year including such month, such individual and the spouse of such individual shall be jointly liable for such penalty.
- (A) is a dependent (as defined in section 152) of another taxpayer for the other taxpayer’s taxable year including such month, such other taxpayer shall be liable for such penalty, or
- (1) IN GENERAL.—The penalty determined under this subsection for any month with respect to any individual is an amount equal to 1⁄12 of the applicable dollar amount for the calendar year.
(2) DOLLAR LIMITATION.—The amount of the penalty imposed by this section on any taxpayer for any taxable year with respect to all individuals for whom the taxpayer is liable under subsection (b)(3) shall not exceed an amount equal to 300 percent the applicable dollar amount (determined without regard to paragraph (3)(C)) for the calendar year with or within which the taxable year ends.
(3) APPLICABLE DOLLAR AMOUNT.—For purposes of paragraph (1)—
- (A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in subparagraphs (B) and (C), the applicable dollar amount is $750.
(B) PHASE IN.—The applicable dollar amount is $95 for 2014 and $350 for 2015. [Dave, this means that the $750 above begins in 2016]
(C) SPECIAL RULE FOR INDIVIDUALS UNDER AGE 18.— If an applicable individual has not attained the age of 18 as of the beginning of a month, the applicable dollar amount with respect to such individual for the month shall be equal to one-half of the applicable dollar amount for the calendar year in which the month occurs.
(D) INDEXING OF AMOUNT.—In the case of any calendar year beginning after 2016, the applicable dollar amount shall be equal to $750, increased by an amount equal to—- (i) $750, multiplied by
(ii) the cost-of-living adjustment determined under section 1(f)(3) for the calendar year, determined by substituting ‘calendar year 2015’ for ‘calendar year 1992’ in subparagraph (B) thereof. If the amount of any increase under clause (i) is not a multiple of $50, such increase shall be rounded to the next lowest multiple of $50.
- (i) $750, multiplied by
- (A) IN GENERAL.—Except as provided in subparagraphs (B) and (C), the applicable dollar amount is $750.
- (1) IN GENERAL.—If an applicable individual fails to meet the requirement of subsection (a) for 1 or more month during any calendar year beginning after 2013, then, except as provided in subsection (d), there is hereby imposed a penalty with respect to the individual in the amount determined under subsection (c). [Dave, look 5 lines below this one]
- Beginning in 2013, all individuals are required to maintain a minimum amount of healthcare coverage. "Minimum amount" is defined elsewhere in the law, and I did not look it up, but I assume that is BASIC health insurance....whatever that means. [section 5000 (a)]
- In General (meaning unless you have some exception from this law, and there are precious few exceptions), failure to maintain health insurance for more than one month in a calendar year will result in a penalty. [section 5000 (b)(1)]
- If you are assessed a penalty, it will be processed with your tax return. [section 5000 (b)(2)
- If you are assessed a penalty, it will be in the amount called further down in the document, the "applicable dollar amount." [section 5000 (b)(3)(c)(1)]
- The actual fine will be equal to one twelfth (1/12) of the "applicable dollar amount," for each month you are uninsured. That means that if you are uninsured for the whole 12 months of that calendar year, then your penalty will be equal to the entire "applicable amount." [section 5000 (c)(1)
- The "dollar limitation" is that nobody shall be fined a total amount more than 300% of the "applicable dollar amount." [section 5000 (c)(2)]
- The "applicable dollar amount" beginning in 2015 is $750.00. The "phase in" amounts for 2013 and 2014 respectively are $95.00 and $350.00. [section 5000 (c)(3)(A) and (c)(3)(B)
- Beginning after 2016, the total applicable amount will be $750 PLUS ($750 multiplied by the cost of living adjustment), and that amount will be rounded up or down to the nearest $50. [section 5000 (c)(3)(D)(i) and (c)(3)(D)(ii)
- So, what does #8 mean? It means this, in 2017, if the cost of living has gone up (for example) 5% since 2016, then your total penalty will be: $750 + ($750 x 1.05). That equals $1,537.50, and the IRS would tax you 1/12 of that total for each month you did not have insurance. If gas goes up another dollar a gallon (which it is guaranteed to do under Obama, and will go up more if you live the People's Republic of California), your cost of living could go up 8% in 2018, so your penalty for 2018 would be $750 plus $750x1.08, or $750+810=$1,560.00..........and when was the last time the cost of living went down? NEVER!!! It never has. So your tax bill is going to continue to get higher for the rest of your life........and that assumes that they don't go back and update the law to change "$750" to "$900" or something like that.
- (a) REQUIREMENT TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM ESSENTIAL COVERAGE.—An applicable individual shall for each month beginning after 2013 ensure that the individual, and any dependent of the individual who is an applicable individual, is covered under minimum essential coverage for such month.
- SEC. 5000A. REQUIREMENT TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM ESSENTIAL COVERAGE.
Remember those pesky subsidies I mentioned above? They will come from the penalties/taxes (again, whatever the lying communist illegitimate children of the democrat party are calling it these days...) paid by those small business people who can either A) no longer afford to offer their employees healthcare insurance and who elect to pay the fine as a business decision, and other small business people like me who couldn't afford healthcare insurance to begin with, won't be able to get it from the "exchanges" because the insurance companies won't be participating any longer, but who could afford to pay for the occasional doctor's office visit out of pocket.......but will receive not even a thank you for being forced by communist dictator democrats into paying for the healthcare of people who make more money than I do.......because I own a small business (which that complete retard in the oval office says I didn't build) instead of working for a large corporation (or a parasitic government agency union job trying to bleed the citizens dry).
Ultimately, the ONLY way the AHCA can work is to put what would be essentially Soviet style healthcare. Sure, you can see a "doctor" (in the USSR, "doctors" were trained to about the level of what we would call a Physician's Assistant here in the U.S.), but it will take a while. Maybe you'll live until then, maybe you won't. Doesn't matter, because human life no longer has the same value it once held.
IS ANYBODY BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND WHY MY POSTS ABOUT DEMOCRATS HAVE BEEN SO BITTER LATELY? There is no difference between a democrat and a bully. Here is their political philosophy in a nutshell: "GIVE ME YOUR LUNCH MONEY!!"
That's it. That's all they have to offer. I truly do hate them.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
Re: Affordable Care Act, I felt the effect
One correction....
A 5% COLA on $750 is calculated as 750 + (750 x 0.05) [not x 1.05]...
So the adjusted number would be 750 + 37.5 = 787.50 rounded to the nearest 50 is $800, not $1,500
I hope that calculation was NOT from your accountant.
Otherwise, spot on.
A 5% COLA on $750 is calculated as 750 + (750 x 0.05) [not x 1.05]...
So the adjusted number would be 750 + 37.5 = 787.50 rounded to the nearest 50 is $800, not $1,500
I hope that calculation was NOT from your accountant.

Otherwise, spot on.

I am not a lawyer. This is NOT legal advice.!
Nothing tempers idealism quite like the cold bath of reality.... SQLGeek
Nothing tempers idealism quite like the cold bath of reality.... SQLGeek
- The Annoyed Man
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Re: Affordable Care Act, I felt the effect
Don't forget the increases not to exceed 300% of the applicable amount—5000A (c)(2). No, it wasn't my accountant. That was just me reading the bill. Either way, it's either $800 or $1,500 that I have to pay, which I didn't have to pay before, and which will be used to provide healthcare to people who earn more than I do, and which makes me even less likely to be able to afford it for myself.RoyGBiv wrote:One correction....
A 5% COLA on $750 is calculated as 750 + (750 x 0.05) [not x 1.05]...
So the adjusted number would be 750 + 37.5 = 787.50 rounded to the nearest 50 is $800, not $1,500
I hope that calculation was NOT from your accountant.![]()
Otherwise, spot on.
But what the heck, democrat commies don't mind breaking a few eggs to make their omelet.......so long as that pesky Constitution thingy (which apparently none of them have read) doesn't get in their way. Of course, along with "GIVE ME YOUR LUNCH MONEY!!!!" .....here is their strategy for dealing with constitutional conflicts: ignore the Constitution.
Bunch'a elitist pigs. It's time to convert some of them into bacon.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
― G. Michael Hopf, "Those Who Remain"
#TINVOWOOT
- sjfcontrol
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Re: Affordable Care Act, I felt the effect
As Nancy Pelosi said when asked about the constitutionality of requiring everybody to buy health insurance... “Are you serious?”The Annoyed Man wrote:...here is their strategy for dealing with constitutional conflicts: ignore the Constitution.
By the way, neither NBC, CBS, nor ABC considered her response worthy of being reported.
Range Rule: "The front gate lock is not an acceptable target."
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Never Forget.

Re: Affordable Care Act, I felt the effect
Tam needs to send that as an article to Texas city news papers. It is informative and will make small business people and others who are not in business think. I would hope.