Fox baselessly suggests states opting out of public option would be paying something for nothing
Following Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement that the Senate health care reform bill will include a public option that each state could opt out of, several Fox News commentators baselessly suggested that states choosing not to participate in the public option would, in Karl Rove's words, have to pay taxes "for this sucker for decades," but "we're not going to get any of our money back." However, while Reid has yet to release details of the compromise Senate legislation, every other proposed bill with a public option so far has required the costs of the public plan to be covered by the premiums of those who enroll in it, and the taxes proposed in each of the bills are used to cover the expansion of coverage through Medicaid and subsidies to help certain families purchase insurance, both of which are provided to residents of every state regardless of any public option.
Fox News figures baselessly suggest health care reform taxes will be used to run public option
Rove claims states not participating in public option will have to "pay for this sucker for decades," but "we're not going to get any of our money back." Rove stated of Reid's announcement, "What state is going to say -- what governor and legislature of Republican or Democrat majority is gonna say to its citizens of its state, 'You can pay for this sucker for decades and decades to come, but you're not gonna -- we made a decision -- we're not going to get any of our money back?' I mean, it's like your choice is pay a buck and get some of it back, or pay a buck and get nothing of it back." [Hannity, 10/26/09]
Gingrich: "What if a big state like Texas opts out? Does that mean they don't have to pay taxes on it?" Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich stated that "nobody knows what this idea is. Nobody knows how it would work. And I think you have to raise a question. What if a big state like Texas opts out? Does that mean they don't have to pay taxes on it?" He added, "Or are they going to opt out and pay for California and New York's health care?" [On the Record, 10/26/09]
Van Susteren: "I pay ... into the federal fund, but my state then decides to opt out ... I am paying twice, essentially." During an interview with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), On the Record host Greta Van Susteren stated of Reid's proposal, "Is it like this? If I am from Wisconsin and I pay into it because I am a taxpayer, into the federal fund, but my state then decides to opt out so I'm now going off and getting my private -- I am paying twice, essentially." She added, "There is no rebate back to the state that opts -- that opts out. There's no -- in the plan?" Cornyn responded, "Apparently not," and stated that "of course, the government is going to need the revenue from taxpayers in all 50 states in order to pay for it regardless of whether your state opts out." [On the Record, 10/26/09]
Bills already written with public option require its costs to be covered by premiums
House, Senate Health Committee bills require premiums to cover costs of public plan. Although the Senate has not released the text of its compromise bill, both the House tri-committee bill and the Senate HELP Committee's bill require their public options to charge premiums sufficient to cover administrative costs as well as the cost of enrollees' benefits.
From the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, as introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives:
SEC. 222. PREMIUMS AND FINANCING.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT OF PREMIUMS. --
(1) IN GENERAL. -- The Secretary shall establish geographically-adjusted premium rates for the public health insurance option in a manner --
(A) that complies with the premium rules established by the Commissioner under section 113 for Exchange-participating health benefit plans; and
(B) at a level sufficient to fully finance the costs of --
(i) health benefits provided by the public health insurance option; and
(ii) administrative costs related to operating the public health insurance option.
From the Affordable Health Choices Act as passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee:
''(5) PREMIUMS. --
''(A) PREMIUMS SUFFICIENT TO COVER COSTS. -- The Secretary shall set premium rates in an amount sufficient to cover expected costs (including claims and administrative costs) using methods in general use by qualified health plans.
Bills' tax revenues are used to cover expansion of coverage, with or without public option
Senate Finance bill with no public option requires tax on high-cost plans to cover expansion of Medicaid and subsidies for lower- and middle-income Americans purchasing insurance. The revenues from the excise tax and penalty payments, along with the savings from Medicare, would pay for the expansion of the Medicaid program and the subsidies to help certain lower- and middle-income Americans purchase private insurance through the exchanges. From the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis of the Senate Finance Committee bill, which does not include a public option:
According to CBO and JCT's assessment, enacting the Chairman's mark, as amended, would result in a net reduction in federal budget deficits of $81 billion over the 2010-2019 period (see Table 1). The estimate includes a projected net cost of $518 billion over 10 years for the proposed expansions in insurance coverage. That net cost itself reflects a gross total of $829 billion in credits and subsidies provided through the exchanges, increased net outlays for Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and tax credits for small employers; those costs are partly offset by $201 billion in revenues from the excise tax on high-premium insurance plans and $110 billion in net savings from other sources. The net cost of the coverage expansions would be more than offset by the combination of other spending changes that CBO estimates would save $404 billion over the 10 years and other provisions that JCT and CBO estimate would increase federal revenues by $196 billion over the same period. In subsequent years, the collective effect of those provisions would probably be continued reductions in federal budget deficits. Those estimates are all subject to substantial uncertainty.
House tri-committee bill requires tax on high-income Americans to cover expansion of Medicaid and subsidies for lower- and middle-income Americans purchasing insurance. CBO's July 17 cost estimate of the House bill indicates that expanding Medicaid and providing subsidies for some families to purchase insurance through the exchanges would cost around $1.2 trillion. This cost is offset, in part, by revenues from a surtax on high-income Americans as well as savings from Medicare and other federal health programs. Congress Daily reported that House leaders "released CBO estimates for liberals' preferred version of the public option that show $85 billion more in savings than for the version the Blue Dogs prefer."
CBO score of Senate HELP bill shows bulk of cost is for subsidies for lower- and middle-income Americans purchasing insurance. CBO's July 2 analysis of the Senate HELP Committee's bill, which does include a public option, shows that the subsidies to help certain low- and middle-income Americans purchase insurance through the exchange would cost around $723 billion. CBO also found that the public option "did not have a substantial effect on the cost" projections for the bill.
I could refuse to pay taxes toward wars that I feel I receive no direct benefit from.
I could refuse to pay taxes that maintain lighthouses, because I'm not the captain of a ship.
The list goes on forever.
Rove seems to lack a fundamental understanding of how a tax system works.
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The Midnight Review
Mum Is The Word
This whole deal is getting pretty convoluted...I think we need 3 plans, one each for no public option, one with a public option that is truly OPTIONAL, and one for single payer, and then put them up for votes.
This is more of the "What's in it for me?" mentality that conservatism has embraced in recent years. They have absolutely no concept of common good.
This country was founded for "life, liberty & the pursuit ... " for white, male landowners. This is not our "founder's" country any more.
"The only reason some other countries do that is a cultural self-interest as they are very homogenous. "
Do you mean that Americans do not care about their fellow citizens, because they are different?
Nevertheless...
It is to my benefit to pay taxes to support the education of others, and to pay for lighthouses, and to support the good health of others.
The United States is not an "every man for himself" society. That is not what the Founding Fathers had in mind.
Does your philosophy include the opportunity to pursue life/liberty/happiness without going bankrupt when your kid gets sick?
Why don't you ask the millions of children who came from poor families who grew up to be wealthy adults, they can give you a road map.
If you really believe a kid in a poor household and a kid in a wealthy household have equal opportunity to be successful in life, then I wonder how you have time to visit MMfA when there's so much Fox News programming you need to watch.
Why are against the civil and human right to healthcare?
A little melodramatic, don't you think? "right to life"? We don't deny people a right to life, would you say the same about the unborn? In any event, you believe health care is a right, that is your right. I don't believe it is a right, but I do believe we need the issue addressed. The devil is in the details.
this phrase is as bogus today as when it was written. when the founders wrote that all men are created equal, they then got their slaves to drive them home and fix them a nice dinner. yeah, real equal. as for today you have the people like bush and Cheney who used their money to get influence so that they would not have to serve thier country and could go to the best schools. while i on the other hand got to be drafted and sent off to fight an immoral war to help prop up those same rich people. so don't tell me about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. you have no idea what your talking about because you see everything through the prism of you ideology. there is no level playing field in the U.S. and the rest of the world seems to have figured out that providing healthcare to it's citizens is a worth venture. do you know how many bankruptcy's there are in england, france, canada ect? zero. to bad we can't make the same claim. we abondon our people to live on the streets because either them or their child got sick and the insurance company reneged on it's promise to pay for their healthcare which they paid in advance to recieve.
god you people on the right are the worst people on the planet. you are all so selfish. i would rather deal with terrorist, at least they are more reasonable.
That's because you lack imagination.
This is without a doubt the dumbest post I have ever read. You should change your name to "stupidity4all" and try to explain to all the 9-11 families how reasonable those terrorists are....nitwit.
Hahahaha. Just telling it exactly how it is. It's your own problem that you can't deal with the truth of your position. Face it, you cons have always fought progress in this country. You fought against MLK. You fought social security, the 40 hour work week, minimum wage, child labor laws, you fought against federal clean water and food standards. You didn't want to pay for the federal highway system. You fought the suffragists. Healthcare is no different and you're gonna lose this fight too.
We know that people are denied the right to life - tens of thousands of people every year die from the lack of healthcare insurance!
Fail. Desegregation compelled the south to open their schools, and every facet of society, to blacks.
Unless of course you think civil rights were not human rights?
But I'm sure you'll hire a poor minority at the very first opportunity...
I was born to college-educated parents, so my chances of ending up wealthy -- which I am -- were much better than someone born to a minority, single, minimum-wage-earning parent.
But I don't live in Limbaugh Land, where everyone becomes a millionaire except for the dirty, lazy people.
If you re-read what I've written, you'll note that I said people like me start life with greater access to opportunity.
Get well soon.
Whenever we get on this topic of social mobility, I'm reminded of Helen Keller's famous quote:
I had once believed that we are all masters of our fate – that we could mould our lives into any form we pleased. I had overcome deafness and blindness sufficiently to be happy, and I supposed that anyone could come out victorious if he threw himself valiantly into life’s struggle. But as I went more and more about the country I learned that I had spoken with assurance on a subject I knew little about. I forgot that I owed my success partly to the advantages of my birth and environment. Now, however, I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone.
I'm simply saying that the countries that do put the state or the "common" ahead of the individual do so in part because they see the "same" in their fellow countrymen, vs the US, where very few of us are really natives...i did this in the context of asking for an example of another heterogenous society at our level of diversity.
The system is broken, dex. It's been broken by anti-government conservatives who have ripped the people from their government.
What's holding you back from not being able to afford health insurance?
Too expensive? Make more money and cap medical fees. "Dirt" wages? Take a look inward first, and don't live beyond your means...once there's public health coverage, there aren't any more excuses, really. "under-served communities"? So people can get together in a "community", and it's all of our jobs to make sure it's just as nice as the one I live in, regardless of how those in said community conduct and support themselves?
THE GOVERNMENT (THE PEOPLE) WAS NOT, IS NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE THERE FOR HANDOUTS, TO CORRECT "WRONGS" THAT YOU WAKE UP ONE MORNING AND THINK IS THERE.
If you don't like the rules, I'm up for changing them...but that's where you should start.
Not bellyaching because the handouts aren't enough.
You both can kiss it.
And Dex, maybe you can name a modern society that has managed prolonged and sustained prosperity that does not offer a hand up. There is no example of a major rich nation in the world whose government does not support those who are temporarily unemployed and provide a public pension to the elderly and a subsidy to the poor.
And another problem with you condescending conservative jerks is you think you can pawn off, onto the individual, the responsibility you hold for creating this broken system of low wages for all and sweetheart tax deals for the rich. Once again we see cons taking no responsibility for your failures or considering the consequences of your policies.
That being said, if a society goes after its winners and artificially props up its losers, everybody loses.
Before you cry out in disbelief and offense, there are winners and losers in every system and society...and the winners will win regardless of how you try to manipulate it otherwise. Humans are equal under the law, but they are not naturally equal, period.
If you decided to start a family and that you need to stay in your job because that's the best you can do for them, then you are where you are because of your choices. I'm not against unemployment or contributed-to social programs for pensions or whatever else you're talking about, and I do support an expansion of medicare until we can get costs under control.
And in America, we're not here to maintain the status quo...we're here to promote an environment of achievement.
BTW, the % of Americans in poverty since 1966 has improved...get ready for it....less than 1%. How have your social programs worked to PREVENT poverty and IMPROVE the numbers? How have they promoted ACHIEVEMENT, EMPLOYMENT and FINANCIAL GAIN?
You and I both know that we can't guarantee a job to everybody, it simply is not feasible. In fact, not a soul has suggested that to be our ultimate aim. But we can make opportunity more available by at least making work pay better than welfare. Those who won't do for a living, well they are actually few and far between, but we have to spark their imaginations too. Besides, it's not human nature to sit and do nothing. We are overwhelmingly driven by a need to play and stay busy.
Not everybody can or should be compensated equally, but there needs to be greater equity in income disparity due to the very fact that, every human has an inherent dignity. There is no moral justification for the economic phenomena that states one person's labor is worth 500 times more than anybody else's. And history will show us that any modern culture, or society, is doomed to collapse that has as top heavy an accumulation of wealth as we do here and now. No one can feel as though those words that say, "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal," have much weight when even economic equality is so mocked by the have mores.
You're being an offensive arrogant jerk, but it's my problem? Whatever. You're an insult to people everywhere who struggle to get by.
To your crap about poverty; social programs are only half the battle. They are effective when they aren't being gutted by anti-government conservatives, however, labor laws and wages have been neglected. Did your condescending self ever stop to consider that if the minimum wage had kept pace with worker productivity and corporate profits that it would around 25 dollars an hour today? So once again, we see a conservative trying to deny responsibility for their laissez faire economic ideology and union busting warfare tactics.
God conservatism is such a scam.
Too expensive?"
In fact, yes. The very fact that you think that it's acceptable for my health to be a privilege that I can either afford or not, is pretty gross. Health is not a food processor that you can do without, but is nice to have.
To your point,
"...if nothing institutional is holding you back..."
is a pretty massive "if."
And that's my point.
This opt out is a similar tactic that Eisenhower used to sell the highway system. He put it on the states to accept or deny picking up the bill for the highway. No Republicans declined even though they pitched a fit like cons today are crying.
Yeah, whatever. If I want an opinion informed by something besides partisan ideology and selfishness, I will clearly need to look elsewhere, right FOX Propaganda?
L-I-E is the only analogy, let's not BS each other!
WEll there's another lie right there old Newty. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't medicare start out having an opt-out provision? Can you name one state that opted out of that "socialist" program?
Nobody can, they're aren't any.
I don't believe there will be an actual choice as the OPT-OUT will probably come with so many federal funding strings attached to it that there won't be a choice.
If this is going to be forced down our throats, why not allowe individuals to opt-out instead of the state?
Well, then that would be the original public option then, wouldn't it? That was the whole idea behind the idea of a "public option". Option being the key word here. If we were to have a straight up robust public option in all states that would let the individual "opt-out" by staying with their own private insurance or going to any private insurance, but at the same time allows people who are unhappy with their insurance provider or who have been turned down by a service provider the option of taking the government run insurance.
The main thing I worry about is how robust our public option will be. If it only includes those who cannot afford or cannot get private insurance then it's doomed to fail. Why? Because it's client base with be the sickest people in the country. In other words only the people who need the most medical treatment, ie the most expensive treatment. If it were open to everyone and anyone who wanted to choose it, then it were thrive and give real and sorely needed competition to the big insurance companies.
You're arguement against the opt out is ironically for the real public option.
You said you personally do not want any type of public option. Then don't take it, stay with yours. But don't take away mine or anyone elses right to choose.
What are these ways you are talking about? Because, so far what you describe is the worst possible way to reform healthcare. And it's what I thought Reid would do. I am glad he didn't. If we have laws that say they can't deny people etc without having a robust public option in place the results would be disasterous. The insurance giants would jack the rates up to nose bleed levels siting the fact they have to insure everyone regardless of pre existing conditions as the reason or excuse.
We need something to keep them honest. THat's the real reason the current system sucks. Haven't we learned anything from our recent economic and wall street crash? Wall Street went unchecked when the regulations were taken away and disaster was the result. Same with the giant insurance companies, many of whom are double villains because they were highly involved in the economic crises as well.