[GeneV]

Making insurance plan independent of employment would have been much more pro-worker than having every American in the country join a union. And it would have benefited small businesses the most. I wonder how this idea could have slipped everyone who was writing the bills mind.

Single payer would have accomplished that as well. As a small employer who pays for such coverage, I'd certainly agree that getting coverage away from employment would be a good thing.

[lowspark86]

Heath insurance premiums were going up every year any way. It is where the raises for my employees have gone in recent years.

Everyone should remember this when they hear the insurance companies and talking heads screaming "but but Obamacare is making your health care and insurance more expensive!"

Because without Obamacare insurance companies were going to start charging responsible premium increases and they would stop inflating the price of "old risk pools" - the ones where people started getting sick and they actually have to pay out. They would also stop looking for any reason to cancel or not pay costs charged to them. These companies are set up to do one thing, they take the money and try to keep as much as possible. Providing real comprehensive insurance and taking the health of their customers seriously is sadly not one of their goals anymore.

[jeffkrol]

YOU KNOW universal Medicare is soo darn simple but..........

The insurance industry is working to persuade the next Congress to roll back a roughly $70 billion tax on insurance companies that takes effect in 2014, saying it will disproportionately hit small businesses that insure their workers. It also wants lawmakers to allow insurers to widen the rating bands that dictate how much more insurers can charge older customers.

Insurers also want to tackle the growth of health costs by enacting a new measure to give robust protections against medical malpractice lawsuits to doctors who follow certain "best practice" guidelines, said Karen Ignagni, the insurance industry's top lobbyist.

"We always reach out to both sides of the political aisle and we'll continue doing that because we have had concerns," said Ms. Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans. She said her group would be most focused on parts of the bill that it believes fail to lower the growth of health costs.

Drug makers want to eliminate a part of the law creating an independent committee to recommend cuts reducing the per-capita rate of growth in Medicare spending, known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board. Such a panel could lead to cuts in federal spending on prescriptions, which would hurt pharmaceutical companies.

"It will come down to specific policies," said Wes Metheny, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry's main lobby. "We were very supportive of health-care reform last year and there are some good things we think need to stay in place."

Republicans have been highly critical of the law's requirement that nearly all Americans carry insurance or pay a penalty. Some industry groups, which fought fiercely for such a mandate, say they are now looking for other ways of ensuring that healthy customers are funneled into insurance pools should that provision get dismantled.

"If there's a way to make sure that the primary goal" is met of ensuring access to affordable coverage, "we're open to lots of different ideas," Mr. Metheny said.

Health-care lobbyists say ideas under consideration include imposing higher rates for people who don't buy insurance in the law's early years and automatically enrolling people who are eligible for coverage subsidies. An administration official said Democrats initially looked at auto-enrollment and concluded it had drawbacks.

Most health-industry groups—including Ms. Ignagni's insurance group, which criticized the final law—say they're not ready to take a position on the Republicans' repeal effort.

Some of the architects of the health law say they fear a repeal less than inadequate funding for putting the law into effect. Two officials said underfunding could cripple efforts to set up federally regulated exchanges where individuals and small businesses can shop for insurance.

At the same time, the federal government will still have to enforce parts of the law that force insurers to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions and curb caps on coverage. Insurance companies fear that if they face new mandates but the law fails to bring millions of healthy uninsured Americans into the system, they could wind up with a relatively unhealthy customer base.

"It's absolutely the worst possible outcome," one former White House official said.

Industry Seeks to Shape GOP Health-Care Agenda - WSJ.com

Insurance industry experts argue it’s not about bashing health care form. They point to a host of provisions under the new law that begin as of 2011 — including extending dependent coverage to 26-year-olds and the elimination of lifetime caps on medical care. These provisions are driving some of the cost increases for next year, they argue.

“I would attribute at least 2.5 percent to 5 percent of the increase directly to the bill,” said David Goldfarb, founder and principal of DSG Benefits Group, an employee benefits brokerage and consulting firm. Additional health reform measures starting next year that are driving the project increase, he added, include the elimination of pre-existing condition exclusions for children under age 19 and additional administrative costs associated with reform.

Nancy Metcalf, senior program editor for Consumer Reports Health, said it’s unfair to measure the impact of the Act at this point because it’s too early to tell how health care reform will affect overall costs. “It depends on the characteristics of a workforce and how terrible the coverage was in the first place,” she noted.

When you improve coverage, added Cheryl Fish-Parcham with Families USA, it does cost more.

“We shouldn’t be blaming health reform but the cost of health care that’s been rising,” she continued. “As health reform gets costs under control, costs will stop rising.”

No matter the real culprit, the bottom line is employees will be handing over more of their paychecks next year for health care coverage.

According to an analysis by HR consulting giant Aon Hewitt:

* The average premium per employee for large companies will be $9,821 in 2011, up from $9,028 in 2010.
* The employee share will be $2,209, or 22.5 percent of the total health care premium. This is up 12.4 percent from 2010, when employees contributed $1,966, or 21.8 percent of the total health care premium.
* Average employee out-of-pocket costs — such as copayments, coinsurance and deductibles — are expected to be $2,177 in 2011. That’s a 12.5 percent increase from $1,934 in 2010.

In the past decade, the worker’s share of medical costs, including premiums and out of pocket costs, has more than tripled to $4,386 (projected for next year) compared with $1,229 in 2001, according to Aon Hewitt.

Small firms are also seeing health care costs rise, said Donald Mazzella, COO of Information Strategies Inc. Nearly 50 percent of small firms surveyed by the company expect premiums to rise and 61 percent expect to ask workers to pay more for their coverage. Another 41 percent said they will drop coverage when full implementation of healthcare reform hits.

Tom Lerche, Aon Hewitt’s health care practice leader, said the majority of projected increases in health care costs nationally can be attributed to “the aging population and increasing prevalence of chronic diseases.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39911555/ns/business-careers/

Republicans had offered amendments during the health care debate to cut the board, and some Democrats have come out against it, too, making it possible the new Congress could repeal that section of the law. The Republican-controlled House could also try to choke off its funding, although the health care law already appropriated $15 million to set up the board in 2012.

Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, introduced legislation in July to axe the board, called the Health Care Bureaucrats Elimination Act. The American Hospital Association has endorsed the legislation, but the drug makers group has not taken a position on it.

“We don’t have at this point specific legislation we’re going to be trying to move on the Hill,” Mr. Metheny said. “It’s too early to tell what that looks like but it is definitely a priority.”

Otherwise, the drug industry is generally sticking to the deal it struck with the administration and Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Finance Committee, Mr. Metheny said.

The drug makers had agreed to pay $80 billion (later raised to $90 billion) over 10 years in rebates and cost savings in return for Democrats’ promise not to push for drug price controls or direct negotiation of drug prices by the Medicare system.

With that deal, the pharmaceutical industry became the first major industry group to support the health care overhaul in June 2009. President Obama came under sharp criticism for the backroom deal because he had backed away from campaign promises, but it proved essential to passing the health package.

The deal also hinged on the addition of more than 30 million newly insured people who could afford to buy more drugs.

“Expanding coverage was a fundamental principle for us and it’s important to maintain,” Mr. Metheny said.

http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/04/industry-targets-medicare-...er=rss&emc=rss
Fun little article:
And yea, what about that smoking/tanning thing????????
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2010/11/04/131065512/