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uclayoda87 (30.57)

Obama's likely strategy to pass the health care bill.

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August 24, 2009 – Comments (7) | RELATED TICKERS: USA , SCI

The President will make a smoke filled room deal with the liberal democrats of the congress.

Here is the deal:  Give the President a simple health care bill without a public option, but with a buried statement:  "The US government will encourage and support competition within the health care insurance industry for the purpose of providing affordable and equitable care for all".

The democratic lawmakers would be encouraged to criticize the bill as too prudent or weak to accomplish any meaninful change.  This will alleviate the public's anxiety concerning the President's Health care plan and will facilitate its passage without too much more pollitical capital being lost.

This festering bomb will then be left dormant as the congress works to retain their own jobs in November 2010.  Following the election, if the democrats maintain a majority, then the public option will spring from the seed which was hidden in the bill.  Just like some evil malware, the public option will grow through regulation supported by the President and which no longer requires congressional approval.  It will be like tarp, trap, thud or any other treasury run program of the executive branch.  But this time the banks won't be the take over target, it will be the insurance companies and private medical care.

The risk for the President is that too many old people will survive to vote against him in 2012 and the risk for the libertarians among us is that too few of them will be left.

 

Universal Health Care – The Final Solution to the Social Security and Medicare Problems

April 29, 2009 – Comments (39)

 

Service Corp International (SCI) CAPS Rating:

 

 

 

 

7 Comments – Post Your Own

#1) On August 24, 2009 at 7:26 AM, devoish (99.65) wrote:

I am not worried the healthcare bill goes to far..

President Obama lost the left, not the right, because it did not go far enough.

I woud not want to be a Republican running on "Death Panels".

"We lied to you because we love you"... The Republican Party.

"You've been lying again, here's the divorce papers"... America.

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#2) On August 24, 2009 at 9:42 AM, TimesTenFlorida (< 20) wrote:

Wow, what a joke this healthcare bill is...

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#3) On August 24, 2009 at 9:51 AM, leohaas (99.29) wrote:

Devo is likely right. I am not with the left wing Dems, but as far as I can see now (read the Nation or Huffington or any of the other left wing sites), the left will not sign on to a diluted reform bill.

See, when they set out, they wanted a single-payer system. Medicare for everybody. The public option that is now in discussion was for them the ultimate compromise. And it looks like there will be no public option either. The left will simply not vote for something that they perceive as even weaker than the public option.

In the House, there are close to 100 representatives who are in this category. That means any reform cannot be passed without the support of a significant number of Republicans. I just don't see that happening. Even if it does, how would it get 60 votes in the Senate?

So here is my analysis: healthcare reform is dead. It will not happen. Just like it did not happen in Clinton's first term. And if I am right, 2010 will shape up very much like 1994...

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#4) On August 24, 2009 at 10:16 AM, uclayoda87 (30.57) wrote:

leohaas

 Devo is likely right. I am not with the left wing Dems, but as far as I can see now (read the Nation or Huffington or any of the other left wing sites), the left will not sign on to a diluted reform bill.

=

The democratic lawmakers would be encouraged to criticize the bill as too prudent or weak to accomplish any meaninful change.  This will alleviate the public's anxiety concerning the President's Health care plan and will facilitate its passage without too much more pollitical capital being lost.

In the end, they will still support the bill.  This current political move is to give political cover for their congressional members from angry independents and to help mobilize their base for the 2010 election.

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#5) On August 29, 2009 at 3:13 PM, uclayoda87 (30.57) wrote:

Note that SCI's price has fallen a little on news that the health care reform may not pass with any meaningful changes.  If this stock falls further on the passage of any "benign" health care bill, this would be a good buying opportunity if you are willing to wait a year for a good payoff.

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#6) On September 06, 2009 at 12:22 AM, uclayoda87 (30.57) wrote:

WSJ OPINION
AUGUST 19, 2009, 7:12 P.M. ET


Health Co-ops: Slow Road to Government Care

 The potential benefits are nil; the potential costs are large.

 By SCOTT HARRINGTON

 There are hints that the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leadership might be willing to negotiate on the inclusion of a government health insurer as part of health-care reform. The most likely alternative proposal, which has been discussed by the Senate Finance Committee, is to establish some system of consumer cooperatives or "co-ops."

While details are sketchy, the basic idea is to subsidize the creation of nonprofit health insurers on a state or regional basis. These supposedly would be run independent of the government and compete with traditional private health-insurance plans.

These government-authorized co-ops would serve no useful purpose. And they would risk the same adverse consequences as a public plan.

Democrats' health insurance proposals already require private insurers to accept all applicants with no pre-existing condition exclusions, at premium rates that do not reflect health status and vary only within a narrow range based on age. These changes guarantee people access to health insurance at rates that would not price the ill or near-elderly out of the market—without creating government-authorized co-ops.

Democrats' proposals expand eligibility for Medicaid and provide significant premium subsidies to buyers with incomes up to 300% or even 400% of the poverty level. These provisions would make insurance substantially more affordable for people with low-to-moderate income—without creating government-authorized co-ops.

Government-authorized co-ops also are not necessary to provide consumers with nonprofit alternatives. Nonprofit mutual insurance companies, most notably many Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, already offer health insurance in many states. They are dominant players in some states.

Absent taxpayer subsidies or special rules, co-ops would not have any inherent advantage over private health insurers in establishing provider networks, negotiating with providers, and monitoring health-care utilization and fraud. Proposed co-ops instead would require billions of dollars of "start-up" subsidies.

More important, the creation of government-authorized co-ops would entail significant risk of ongoing subsidies by taxpayers (if not by private health-insurance buyers), of substantial private insurance crowd-out, and of eventual conversion to a government-run plan. Like a proposed public plan, government-authorized co-ops would be backed implicitly if not explicitly by taxpayers.

They would not have to hold the amounts of capital that private health insurers hold to back their promises. Government-authorized co-ops would almost certainly not have to pay income or premium taxes that private for-profit and nonprofit insurers must pay.

Although co-ops might initially be required to negotiate their own reimbursement rates with hospitals and doctors, substantial pressure would arise over time for centralized negotiations, with eventual benchmarking off Medicare reimbursement rates.

Compared with a public plan, government-authorized co-ops could simply be a slower road to government health care. The potential benefits are nil; the potential costs are large.

Mr. Harrington, professor of health-care management and insurance and risk management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, is an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

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#7) On September 06, 2009 at 1:22 AM, zloj (98.66) wrote:

The public option being proposed was toothless anyway because it didn't envisage vertical integration from the insurance company all the way down to the hospital bed. Without such integration it would be just another HMO, only 20% cheaper. When that too was removed, what remained of the bill sounded like an ice cream without ice, a brothel without sex, or a jar of coffee without ground coffee beans. At this point it doesn't matter whether it passes or fails, and I would prefer to see it fail, if only to deny the Illinois demagogue a face-saving opportunity.

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