Obamacare, Healthcare, etc.

[Salodin]

I thought it was a relevant question, but w/e.

[kuronosan]

I work in health care directly with patients.

[hey]

I thought it was a relevant question, but w/e.

Of course it's relevant. If he was able to give more information, he probably would have.

[aurik]

So our CEO released a statement basically condemning the ACA and supreme court, chiming that justice Roberts forced the others to accept a law that is unconstitutional by rewriting laws so that it's okay. Anyone else getting things like this?

Nope. Not sure why we should care what some random CEO has to say about this subject.

[Tyche]

Our CEO/company threw a party for the one year anniversary lol.

[kuronosan]

Nope. Not sure why we should care what some random CEO has to say about this subject.

Not so much the who as the what; are people really thinking this kind of shit?

[Ragnus]

Your CEO is an idiot. I recommend getting a new job.

[aurik]

There are a tremendous amount of stupid people in this world, so no I'm not surprised in the least that people think all sorts of undeniably wrong shit about things.

I mean look at the amount of people that believe that the earth is only 6000 years old and that dinosaurs are a lie.

[Tyche]

I think it was swampy who first posted the link for the scotusblog live blog of the decision, so credit where credit is due, good job swampy. Now, for an incredible write up on the clusterfuck of events in the first few minutes of the decision orchestrated largely by CNN and Fox's need to see who can ejaculate the fastest.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/07/we...g-assessments/

My favorite part was the quoting of the dumbasses saying they were wrong and that CNN and Fox were right because they were first.

[Acturus]

So our CEO released a statement basically condemning the ACA and supreme court, chiming that justice Roberts forced the others to accept a law that is unconstitutional by rewriting laws so that it's okay. Anyone else getting things like this?

Wow, your CEO has done a wonderful job of letting his politics get in the way of running a business. I'm curious if your board of directors will let him keep his job over that.

[kuronosan]

Wow, your CEO has done a wonderful job of letting his politics get in the way of running a business. I'm curious if your board of directors will let him keep his job over that.

Not really sure what the deal was, all I know is whether my coworkers agree or not I think we're all throwing up a collective frown.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Here's an interesting article on some of the effects of Obamacare on business's, from CNN no less.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/07/13/smal...oyer/index.htm

Also, I wonder if the SCOTUS decision means Repub's could never privatize social security. Five Justices held that a mandate is unconstitutional, but did not join in that decision. Five would still have to join for it to be binding. So if they did, if SS is privatized then it's nothing but a mandate right? If the govt. is no longer even collecting the revenue I don't see how it could be a tax, unless some Justice wants to be creative again.

[Acturus]

Yeah, the employee threshold is one of those stress points of the reform.

It's similar to the definition of what an "administrative cost" is for insurers.

A lot of the regulatory changes will put existing participants in this system in a state of flux for the next several years.

I didn't realize there was a gap between the number of employees in a company to mandate coverage, and the per-employee penalty for not covering. What will be predictable going forward, though, is that new businesses in this range will understand that if they grow to 50 employees, they have a $40K expense to account for once employee #50 is hired.

I can't think of a way to insure 50 people for $40K a year. Even if the employees pay a third above it, that's still a monthly premium of about $30 per employee. Insurance doesn't exist at levels that low while still accounting for minimum benefits.

[archibaldcrane]

Remember, you have to offer a qualified plan, not "provide 100% of their insurance costs" for 40k a year. You offer the plan, and the employee decides whether to pay their share to join it. It's not like there's no employee contribution to heath care costs anymore.

Oh, you addressed that. I'm not sure how much insurance plans will change when or if Obamacare is in full effect, but there are high deductible individual plans right now for non-smoking decent health 32 year old men like myself for under $100/mo. They're shitty plans, and I'm not sure if they will exist upon full implementation, but yeah.

[mallister]

not to belabor the obvious but that's exactly what most people are expecting from obamacare: that your employer or the government is going to cover all your costs.

[Acturus]

Remember, you have to offer a qualified plan, not "provide 100% of their insurance costs" for 40k a year. You offer the plan, and the employee decides whether to pay their share to join it. It's not like there's no employee contribution to heath care costs anymore.

Oh, you addressed that. I'm not sure how much insurance plans will change when or if Obamacare is in full effect, but there are high deductible individual plans right now for non-smoking decent health 32 year old men like myself for under $100/mo. They're shitty plans, and I'm not sure if they will exist upon full implementation, but yeah.

Yeah, the HDHP are big right now for employers that are trying to keep their costs level from year to year. Those are going to stick around, for the most part. I can't see of a way that they'll change significantly over the next 20 years, barring further regulation.

but the limited benefit plans are going away, and professionally, I'm happy about that. That was never insurance to begin with. One inpatient stay, and you've exhausted your "benefits" for the year.

[hey]

the government is going to cover all your costs.

That would have made more sense, yeah.

[Ragnus]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012...nents-think-so

New problems popping up for the health care bill. It may end up back in the courts.

If you thought last month's Supreme Court ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act was the final word on the legality of the health law, think again. Some conservative scholars believe they may have discovered a flaw that could send the law back to court, or at least cause some big problems for its implementation.

To understand the potential problem, first you have to understand a little about how the law is supposed to work. Starting in the year 2014, every state is scheduled to have a health exchange — a sort of online marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to go to shop for health insurance. For low- and middle-income individuals, there will be help — in the form of tax credits — to pay for the insurance.

States aren't required, however, to set up these exchanges. Indeed, many governors have already said they won't. The law takes that into account, and says if the states don't create an exchange, the federal government will set one up and run it instead.

But there's a problem.

"The statute doesn't authorize tax credits in federal health insurance exchanges; it authorizes them solely through state health insurance exchanges," says Michael Cannon, head of health policy at the libertarian Cato Institute and an opponent of the health law.

Cannon says when he first discovered the anomaly last year, he assumed it was a glitch. He says further research showed it might have been intentional. In a paper out this week, Cannon and Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, claim Democrats decided that it was important for states to run the exchanges.

The faction that prevailed in writing the law, Cannon says, decided to offer the tax credits in exchanges established by the states and not offer them in exchanges established by the federal government because that would be a tremendous incentive for states to create exchanges.

Cannon says as a result of that decision, recent rules issued by the IRS allowing tax credits to be offered in exchanges run by either the states or the federal government are, in his words, "illegal."

"The clear language of the statute and the legislative history show that the IRS does not have the authority to do that," Cannon says.

But that opinion is far from universal.

"That's, unfortunately for them, wrong," says Timothy Jost, a professor at the Washington and Lee University School of Law and a strong backer of the health law.

Jost admits the law isn't written as clearly as it could have been. But he says it is pretty clear that a federally run exchange will be able to do everything a state exchange can, including provide tax credits, despite Cannon's claim that federal exchanges can't.

"This is an interesting theory, but it's completely contrary to the structure of the legislation and even the language of the legislation," he says.

And what about Cannon's assertion that Senate Democrats gave only the state exchanges the right to provide tax credits as a way to encourage the states to create them? A quick survey of Senate Democrats involved in writing the health law didn't uncover any who recall it that way.

"No, I think they're available in both," says Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and senior member of the Finance Committee, remembers it the same way.

"That's correct, and I make that judgment based on everything that came up in the Senate Finance Committee and the fact that the exchanges were something that were popular on both sides of the aisle," Wyden says.

In fact, Democratic senators like Ohio's Sherrod Brown say that those who are still trying to challenge the law are just out to make trouble.

"They're just going to keep trying to find things in the law that they think, for whatever reason, won't work," Brown says. "I just think they should be ashamed of themselves."

Harkin was more blunt. "My advice to Republicans is get over it. The law is the law and we're moving ahead with it. Quit trying to scare people," he says.

But between now and Election Day, opponents of the health law are likely to continue to hammer at it any way they can.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

It's already been "back in court". There's at least 1 challenge still going on that relates to the Death Panels. It probably has not gotten as much attention because it wouldn't result in the entire law being struck down. The likely result of that suit is the Congress has to rewrite the provisions.

[Alarial]

Did you just say death panels?