I had coffee yesterday with a couple of really good guys, writers of newspaper columns, one sort of a lefty, the other sort of a righty. One told an astounding story of a series of serious medical calamities that had befallen a family member, one after the other, just as they'd lost health insurance. And just as the Affordable Care Act was taking effect. It saved them from financial ruin.
So this seems a good time to post something I wrote a while back but never got around to clicking the "publish" button:
As people understand what's in (and, overcoming the lies of the RWS™, what's not in) the Affordable Care Act, they change their fox-fed negative opinions of it. From a column in a Michigan newspaper, written by a small businessman:
With the economy still in a slump, small business owners like me are doing everything we can to keep our costs down. A particularly troublesome cost for my business is health insurance.
However, I recently learned there are tax credits in the new healthcare law specifically for small businesses that will help us pocket some extra cash.
In Michigan, 85.1 percent, or 126,300 small businesses were eligible for a credit in 2010; 39,600 small businesses qualified for the maximum tax credit that year.
Unfortunately, I saw a survey from Small Business Majority that said 57 percent of small business owners don't know about the credits. If more small employers took advantage of this opportunity to save money, there would be more cash circulating in our community.[...]From my perspective as a lifelong, small, downtown business owner, a relatively small health care reform tax credit helped our company put tens of thousands of dollars into the economy. I see healthcare reform as powerful economic stimulus that really works.
Any cash boost, large or small, is welcome in this economy. We can use the money we save to invest in new equipment and new workers, so we can expand and help grow the economy.
I hope all small businesses owners in Michigan will look into these credits. We need all the help we can get.
Here's a few more facts about the ACA that'll never be known to those who get their "news" from Fox.
Guess what? Thanks to provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA/ObamaCare) and to an unprecedented effort by the Obama Administration, more progress has been made in the past three years to combat health care fraud and abuse than ever before. There was a 68.9 percent increase in criminal health care fraud prosecutions from 2010 to 2011, and 2010 was already the highest ever.
And there are these things already in place:
* brought coverage to 2.5 million young adults* delivered big savings for seniors on prescription drug costs;* given a significant boost to small businesses through ACA tax credits;* slowed the growth of Medicare spending;* provided new treatment options for cancer patients like Spike Dolomite Ward;* saved taxpayer money by cracking down on fraud;* and offered new coverage protections for those with pre-existing conditions.
People knowing stuff. It's the greatest fear of the RWS™ and Fox "news" and every single one of the R presidential candidates.
Dr. S: I agree that there are positive aspects of the Affordable Care Act. However, I am not convinced that the government is the entity that should provide "universal healthcare". I found an interesting report from the Cato Institute that discusses options and reaches this conclusion:
ReplyDelete"It is crucial, therefore, that any federal law aimed at regulatory federalism do nothing more than allow consumers to purchase health insurance regulated by another state and ensure that those are the only regulations that govern."
(source: http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb111/hb111-16.pdf)
Maybe if people could freely purchase health insurance that fit their needs and their budget, the price (for that coverage) would come down making the over-all cost of healthcare more affordable for employers and individuals.
DD
Well, as I've written here many times, I fail to see the value-added of health insurance companies, given the money they suck out of the system in profits, dividends, salaries, etc; and the fact that there are hundreds of them, with their own rules, forms, etc. That's why I find the right-wing cries of socialism so laughable. Obama, sadly, made his plan dependent entirely on private insurers, giving them billions... Hardly anti-capitalist, right?
ReplyDeleteMedicare functions pretty darn well, as a government entity. Low overhead. More irony: Obama's brave attempts to control the rising costs in medicare, which are well-reasoned and necessary, are decried by those deficit-worried right wingers as "killing grandma."
We'll never get anywhere as long as such idiots control at least on house of Congress.
I don't get it. Why would anyone looking for empirical facts choose to use only one source of biased information to come to any logical and pragmatic decision about what the facts are? Obviously DD is curious enough to look for answers, before or after reading your post, and seems genuinely unconvinced that government should regulate our health care, but why on earth would anyone think that Cato would discuss any "options" and come to any conclusion other than that that promotes a righty agenda. Is it that people in this country just don't know or haven't been educated in the process of finding empirical evidence to substantiate a hypothesis? Is it a science background and training that prompts one to look for facts everywhere, and those with no science research training simply don't understand the concept of empirical truth? Somethings going on that I don't understand, that people like DD find their answers at the Cato or Heritage without looking elsewhere with the same hunger for answers or truth. Is it that they just don't know any better? What the f**k is it? Drives me crazy, I'm baffled. Does science have an answer? Or is Bill Maher correct- Americans are just f***king stupid? Is the bar really that low?
ReplyDelete