Once again, it's time for another controversial post!!!
What's going on with Congress
・Approaching the end of the fiscal year, the House of Representatives was in charge of passing a spending bill. However, since the House is controlled by Republicans, their approach was of course conservative.
・Even though Obamacare is not directly linked to the new spending plan, the GOP is using its influence to defund portions of it.
・Prior to the deadline for submitting the new budget, the House submitted a new spending plan that included two amendments that attempted to defund parts of Obamacare.
- The first attempted to delay the plan for one year.
- The second tried to cut out something called the device tax- a provision in the Affordable Care Act.
- This device tax imposes a 2.3% tax on companies that make medical devices like defibrillators and pacemakers. These companies are all fortune 500 companies so they make a ton of money.
- President Obama and other promoters of the Affordable Care Act think that these companies can afford to pay this measly tax for several reasons. Firstly most of them have profit margins of around 15%. Which basically means that annually they make 15% more than they spend. Furthermore, since more people will be utilizing health care under the Affordable Care Act- white house officials believe that they will be bringing in more money.
・So basically, Ted Cruz and his republican supporters are stalling the government for the sole purpose of delaying Obamacare and saving HUGE companies a little bit of money. It's a little ironic because the money that the device tax would generate only makes up .08% of the federal budget. Furthermore, analyst’s believe that if the government shutdown persists for the next 3-4 weeks, it will cost the economy around 55 billion dollars- which comes out to about 1.4% of the federal budget. So don't believe the illusion that the GOP cares about saving the American worker money.
・I'll admit that I'm biased in the matter, but even though Obamacare is expensive, there is money that will offset the initial cost of the Affordable Care Act.
- Obamacare will cost 1.7 trillion over the next ten years. However, the government will be making:
- $506 billion in penalties from companies and individuals who don't sign up, along with other savings over same decade.
- $711 billion in overall healthcare spending, mostly savings on Medicare (Obama cut programs to pay for the Affordable Care Act... new taxes aren't the only thing paying for the plan).
- And a list of other taxes, fees and revenue raisers will bring in another $569 billion over 10 years, the CBO figures (Congressional Business Office).
- This adds up to about 1.78 trillion- enough to keep America out of debt for the plan.
・But the GOP didn't get away with their revisions. The senate has to approve any budget proposals, and they didn't approve of the Obamacare amendments and the spending plan was denied.
・So the House proposed another plan- this time their amendment sought to cut out the individual mandate that comes along with Obamacare. This notion is preposterous because without individual mandate, Obamacare won't work.
- Individual mandate means that everyone has to get health insurance. This is in place to offset the money insurer's will lose by providing healthcare to poor people. It may seem villainous, but it really doesn't affect that many people.
- 86% of people under the age of 65 have health insurance already and aren't affected by individual mandate.
- Pretty much everyone over 65 is covered by Medicare.
- That leaves 30 million Americans who will need to get insurance. However many of these people won't be getting insured (illegal immigrants for instance). Others will be exempt.
- There will be exemptions available for Native American tribes, people who had financial hardships (like a death in the family or bankruptcy), those who were only uninsured for short period of time and people who belong to religious groups that reject all insurance benefits, among others.
- So... that leaves around 6 million people who will have to get health insurance or they will face penalties. They can either get one of the Obamacare plans or they can get insurance from a private company. If they don't they will have to pay a penalty of 1% of their annual income. This penalty will slowly go up to 2.5% by 2016.
- However, for many, it'll be cheaper to simply pay the fine and not get health insurance. Individual mandate only has so much weight. But it seems stupid to throw money down the drain when it could be used to get affordable health insurance.
Currently, the Senate and the House of Representatives are working together to find a compromise, but it's very likely that no amendments to Obamacare will be passed. Also public opinion blames the GOP for the belligerence. See the following charts:
・Of course there is a lot of uncertainty that goes along with the Affordable Care Act and that paranoia is well founded, but at this point a government shutdown is beyond counterproductive and I think that America will remember the GOP's idiocy come next election. I hope this shed some light on any ignorance that any of you still have. Hillary Clinton 2016!!!
Most of my information came from these sources:
Your entire principal is wrong. The government is entitled to nobody's money. It violates individual property rights, therefore it is immoral.
ReplyDeleteHow does the government run without people's money? Are you implying that entire governments should be run by altruists? Or are you just saying that citizens should give the government money out of the goodness of their hearts? I sense the fervor in your statement but it really isn't practical. Capitalism has been a nice mistress for greedy businessmen over the years, but privatized insurance doesn't work. Healthcare costs astronomically more than the healthcare of countries with universal healthcare. Which begs the question, if you think Obamacare is bad, propose an alternative because what we've got going on right now doesn't work.
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