Real Health Care Reform

Sometimes, predicting the future is easy. AHIP has now analyzed the provisions in the current healthcare proposal, and they've come to the same conclusion. According to Karen Ignagni, AHIP's president and chief executive, "The report makes clear that several major provisions in the current legislative proposal will cause health care costs to increase far faster and higher than they would under the current system. Between 2010 and 2019 the cumulative increases in the cost of a typical family | Continue reading this entry »

Why I like to call the senate bill the "Health Insurance Premiums Increase Bill." | Continue reading this entry »

The Senate should be voting on a bill next week. As it stands now, the bill mandates that starting in 2013 everybody must carry health insurance. It will be guaranteed issue, so everyone will be approved no matter what your health condition. Typically, when coverage is guaranteed issue, the rates are much higher. In the five states that currently have guaranteed issue laws (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine), rates are at least twice as expensive as here in Colorado | Continue reading this entry »

The real purpose of the public option is a total government take-over of health insurance, that will reduce, not increase, competition. There are much better ways to promote competition. | Continue reading this entry »

We're getting close, folks. The Senate Finance committee will soon be voting on a bill, as will the House. Here is what Greg Scandlen says is coming with whatever they do: A mandate that you must buy health insurance and be fined or even jailed if you fail to comply. A major increase in the deficit to pay for all the new subsidies and bureaucracies. Rationing of services as determined by a federal committee. Increased taxes on everyone involved in health care. More | Continue reading this entry »

One of the key aspects to creating a consumer-driven healthcare system - with real choice and competition - is to reform federal tax treatment of health insurance. Currently, there is an unlimited tax break available for employer-sponsored health insurance. But individuals and families buying coverage on their own don't get this tax break. Instead, individuals should get their own tax break, or even better a tax credit, so that they can afford to go into the individual marketplace and buy | Continue reading this entry »