Hidden Health Care Costs Surface

This past week my employer held its yearly benefits meeting to discuss any changes in our policy.  While most parts of our health coverage stayed the same there was one change that jumped out at me.  I was preparing to write about it here when I found a letter to the editor in the Telegraph that explained it perfectly.  You can read the letter in full HERE but I'd like to share a couple parts of the letter with you along with my comments on it.

My Democratic congressional representatives have told us taxes on the middle class would not go up to pay for the health care bill.

Very true.  Obama and the Democrats who pushed ObamaCare claiming it would lower our medical costs which many Democrats repeated time and time again.  Which leads us to the next point...

Last week, my employer informed us that, starting in 2011, the health care reform law makes all over-the-counter medicines ineligible for reimbursement from our medical flexible spending accounts without a doctor’s prescription.

Can you say hidden cost?

Anyone who used a flex spending account I'm sure understands right away what this means, those who don't here's the break down.  Every year you can choose to set a fixed amount you know will be used for medical costs aside in a pre-taxed account.  This lowers your base pay the government taxes on and could save you a substantial amount depending on how much per year you spend on medical costs.  In the past you could use that account to pay for not only doctor visits and treatment costs but for the purchase of over the counter medical supplies.  Things like aspirin, allergy medication, hair restoration treatments, humidifiers, back braces, bandaids, etc.  The Health Care bill now disallows that.  All the money you saved is now taxable or you are forced to contact your doctor to get them to write out a prescription for you to purchase such items in order for them to qualify for flex spending.  This takes up the doctors time that they could otherwise be using to treat patients and depending on your doctor could end up costing you even more if they require a visit with a co-pay before they'll write a prescription.

Under this new law, I will be paying $400 more in taxes because I can’t afford the time it takes to get prescriptions. I’m sure that’s what they wanted; get the middle class to pay for it and hope they don’t notice.

The lower and middle classes who have the most medical costs who need the tax breaks are the ones who will end up paying more as a result of this.  There are people who by putting that $500 or $1000 aside each year are able to lower their incomes down low enough to qualify for additional tax breaks and even earned income tax credits but now having that additional amount show as income it will cost them more in taxes.  This brings us back to the opening statement in the letter reminding us of the promise Democrats made when pushing their health care plan on us, that it would lower our costs, not increase them.

Health Care Cost Shifting

This morning after listening to 96.9's discussion about State Senator Kathleen Sgambati (D) pushing to rewrite history and make documents like our state Constitution gender neutral in it's text (despite the fact that both men and women are equally covered) I went looking for more information about the story.  In doing so I stumbled on an article on the Blue Hampshire website that for once gets it right, of course Democrats being who they are eventually come to the wrong conclusion but I'll get to that.  The main point being, not that they came to the wrong conclusion but for once they recognize a problem that they themselves are helping to create.

You can read the article in full HERE, but here is the key eye opening revelation:

Shira Schoenberg, at the Concord Monitor, is continuing to report on the effects of recent cuts to the state's Health and Human Services Budget. These are manifold, but one that is not generally understood, except by the wonks among us, is the cost shifting that occurs when the state and federal Medicaid/Medicare reimbursement rates fall below the level of what it costs hospitals, clinics, doctors, nursing homes, to  provide  care.

Now we can quibble as to whether that cost is justifiable or not, but that is another conversation. Presently, services cost what they cost and when the reimbursement from the government side is lacking, the provider can do one of two things: refuse to care for patients who are insured via these programs (and some cannot do this), or take the difference between cost of care and reimbursement for these patients and shift it to privately insured people and self-payers by raising rates on them. This, of course, raises insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, etc. because the for-profit insurance industry will not take the hit, and cause more health care related bankruptcies, homelessness and general poverty.

This is a point I've argued for quite a while now, that if you force a service to be provided and you do not give the full amount for the service, the person or company providing that service will recoup the loss elsewhere.

We see this not just in the example Blue Hampshire raises above but elsewhere in the medical industry as well.  Drug companies that spend millions developing new drug treatments are told by governments such as Canada how much they are allowed to sell their product for.  Since they are forced to take a loss there, they in turn must sell higher in other countries such as the USA.

As I said though, Democrats being who they are of course come to the wrong conclusions.  The article goes on to use this to justify government spending and argue against budget cuts.

What is ignored is what is causing the costs to go up in the first place.  Any time government gives money it includes strings with that money.  Regulations and rules that must be followed and as a result of following them, costs go up.

The other bit of irony they completely ignore is the very title they used for this article.  "Cost Shifting: Cutting Peter and Making Paul Pay More".  What's ironic about this that they completely miss is that it's Paul's money that's being used to pay for Peter in the first place.  So what's really being discussed here is whether more money should be taken from Paul to pay for Peter directly or if less money should be taken via taxes and Paul should just pay more when he uses the doctor.  Either way you look at it Paul ends up being the one who pays, but they don't understand that.

The only real solution here is to lessen the regulations that increase the costs in the first place so both Peter and Paul can afford to pay their own way without taking money from the other.

Bill Offers "Free" Services

From today's NY Times:

Breaking a three-day stalemate, the Senate approved an amendment to its health care legislation that would require insurance companies to offer free mammograms and other preventive services to women.

The vote was 61 to 39, with three Republicans joining 56 Democrats and the two independents in favor

The Republican senators voting in favor were the two women from Maine, Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, and David Vitter of Louisiana. Among Democratic senators, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Ben Nelson of Nebraska opposed the proposal.

So this amendment will force insurance companies to provide "free" care to women.  How exactly is this accomplished?

For them to provide this additional service "free" then one of a few things must first happen.

A) Those providing the service (ie the doctors) are required by government to work for people without pay, this equates to slavery which was ended with the 13th amendment.  So for this to be the case such an amendment to the bill would make it unconstitutional.

B) They expect the insurance companies to pay and lose money by not increasing rates.  If this is the case then we should all be very worried because our government is knowingly harming the nations economy by forcing businesses to lose money.

C) They understand that this actually isn't free and that someone will pay for it but want to mislead people into thinking its free so they wont blame the government when they see insurance rates continue to rise.

Personally I have no problem with insurance companies offering these services but if I were shopping around as a policy as a guy, I don't need woman's services so I would personally choose a company that does not offer them so my own rates would remain lower.  Now I don't have a choice, the senate is seeking to take that away from me and they will force me to pay out more money as a result.

Al Franken Tried Some Magic

Take a moment and watch the following video of Al Franken and before reading on see if you can catch his slight of hand.

Did you catch it?

He is attempting to show that in a government run health care system all our problems will just go away.  In Switzerland there are no bankruptcies filed as a direct result of health care because Switzerland has a 100% government run health care system.  It's hard to have a bankruptcy when the person receiving the treatment has no burden of the cost.

The real question here is WHO is paying and what are the results of their being saddled with the bill?

The fact is Switzerland as a country is going bankrupt.

In an interview with Swiss daily Tagesanzeiger, a well-known economist has warned that Switzerland risks bankruptcy, if the recent market turmoil centering on Eastern Europe is not contained quickly.  At issue are loans made in Swiss francs to Eastern European debtors.  With  many countries in the region falling into depression, currencies and asset prices are plunging. Therefore, debtors domiciled in Eastern Europe are increasingly expected to have difficulty with mounting foreign debt loads — and that spells trouble for Switzerland.

Is that the example Franken thinks we should follow?

Watch the Magician's OTHER Hand

Magicians use distractions to focus attention in order to deceive audiences and get people to believe something amazing happened.  In reality the other hand, the one they divert you away from is simply dropping a ball in their pocket or shuffling a deck in an improper fashion.

A story I read today on the left wing site "Crooks and Lairs" does just that.  They put the focus of their story on the details they want you to focus on while avoiding the real details.

You can read the story in full HERE, but here some excerpts of the important details...

Let's start with the title, "Unemployed Family Man Joins the Army to Cover His Wife's Ovarian Cancer". So faced with bills and not having a job, this guy takes a job option which in this case was the army in order to pay his bills.  But see how it's worded, it implies that joining the army is some horrible choice and is only a last resort for the desperate.  Of course this is how the left sees the military.  It's not seen as something honorable, instead it's for the scum, the bottom rungs.  They show us time and time again this is how they view our military.

You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq. - John Kerry

A last resort for those not smart enough for other options.

Moving on into the story...

Chelsea Caudle began signing her text messages this summer with a countdown. At 14 years old, she knew no better way to express what was coming. Day Zero was to be Oct. 7, the day Dad left for Army basic training in Fort Jackson, S.C. He was moving 950 miles from their home in Watertown, 950 miles from Mom.

He was leaving, even though Mom was sick with ovarian cancer. Even though he had been at her side through two long, miserable rounds of chemotherapy. Even though she now faced the likelihood of a third.

In fact, Dad was leaving because Mom was sick.

Read that a few times if you need to.  See where the focus is, the poor father having to leave home while the mother and young daughter are left alone and the mother fighting such a horrible illness.  Building the case for why we should have government health care, right?

In March, he was laid off from his job as a raw materials coordinator for a plastics company called PolyOne, where he'd worked for 20 years. His severance package had provided several months' salary, but by August the paychecks were winding down. Soon the cost of his family health coverage was going to triple, then a few months after that, nearly triple again. They needed coverage so Mom could fight her cancer.

Dad's solution: a four-year hitch in the Army.

The bolding is from the article and not of my doing.  See what they are doing here?  By bolding his choice in joining the army and bolding all the negatives about bills going up due to her sickness and her sickness itslef they link the two together as if it's equally as bad.

In the first week of class, one of the teachers asked: What do your parents do?

The question jolted Chelsea back to the shifting ground of her family. Mom was working part time at a Culver's restaurant, preparing for more chemo, worrying about how to pay the bills. In less than six weeks, Dad would enter the Army and her care would be covered.

Again with the bolding, linking the mom having to work part time while preparing for chemo and worrying about paying bills and the dad having to join the army.  He HAD to join the army and this is just awful.

The tradeoff was that he would be far away when Mom needed him home, when Chelsea needed him, too. He would miss all of her high school years. The band performances. Prom.

See the focus here?  It's not that he found a way to pay his bills in this horrible economic down turn.  No.  Instead the focus here is that his choice takes him away from home.

Mom and Dad are Michelle and Bill Caudle, high school sweethearts now 40 and 39, respectively. They have three children: Chelsea, the youngest; Alysha, a 21-year-old working at a nearby Holiday Inn; and Little Bill, an 18-year-old ex-high school wrestler.

The Caudles are not fond of politics. Michelle and Bill have paid little attention to the shouting this summer over health care reform. They have not gone to any of the town hall meetings. They are well aware that politicians and interest groups would like to trumpet their story or dismiss it to score points in the debate - and they would just as soon avoid all of that.

They don't want to be used as political "points" but yet that's what is being done here.  The left wing are pushing this story to attempt to justify why we need government health insurance.  They are using it to put your focus on wanting to help poor people like these.

It isn't until starting 19 paragraphs in that you see the following:

But this year the national story of lost jobs became their story. And the saga of families losing health insurance was about to become theirs, too.

Except that Bill wouldn't let it.

True, he had been interested in the Army for years. And he could always request an emergency leave to come home if Michelle's condition grew dire (Army regulations allow this if a family member's death is imminent).

There buried deep down into the story you see the real issue.  Here in the next paragraph you begin to see more of the real issue, the hand they don't want you to focus as much on.

But for weeks before enlisting, Bill had sought other options. He revised his résumé. He answered "help wanted" ads, then watched the companies cut workers instead of hiring them. He interviewed for one job that would have paid $13 an hour - less than half of what he was making at PolyOne. He didn't get the job.

They don't want you to look at the hand asking why can't he pay his bills.  They just want to to feel sorry and want you to feel like the government should help him so he doesn't have to leave.

And for the final they wrap up with this:

Chelsea learned about her dad's decision when Michelle picked her up from school. It had been a bad day already: a problem with one of her teachers, then she had to do the mile run.

"I have something to tell you," her mom said after Chelsea slid into her seat. "Your dad enlisted in the Army. There's more: He'll be gone for four years."

Chelsea started to cry.

Poor little girl crying because her daddy is going away.  Tragic yes?

The real story here can be summed up simply as follows.

Dad loses job and finds another one by joining the army in order to pay bills.

That's it.  He was unemployed and had bills just like any other family in America and he did what he had to in order to take personal responsibility and put food and money on his families table.  This father should be viewed as a hero and a true example of personal responsibility, not a tragic figure.

Instead in liberal land they would rather this family get "free" health care so he wouldn't need to resort to joining the army.  Of course it would also mean he would have less need to find work right away since there would be no need for personal responsibility.  Why work when your needs are just given to you right?  That means more money will be taken from my table and tables of other hard working families to pay his health insurance leaving less for us to feed our own families with.  The companies that would have hired him continue to have declining sales because those of us still working have more and more of our incomes taken from us leaving us unable to purchase the things we otherwise would have.  And the cycle continues down.

If the government wants to help people like this find jobs where they can stay close to home and have good benefits then they need to allow the rest of us to keep enough of our money to purchase and create the jobs.

There are plenty of private sector jobs that also include traveling and would have taken him away from his family but you don't hear about the traveling sales person who is able to bring in six figures but has to leave his family three out of every four weeks in order to do it.  You don't hear about the business man being sent on business trip after business trip to far away locations.  Or the computer engineer having to work 60 hours or more a week just to meet the deadlines demanded of him because the company had to let the rest of his department go.  No, these stories don't bring about the same emotion as the one above.

They want to put the focus on things that like magic will make you feel like you want to pay the bills of other people and away from the discussion asking why people can't pay them in the first place.