On sick list: Elderly and the ill pay more under GOP health care reform bill

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Daily News

Republican leaders are pleased their health reform plan would lower premiums on average up to 10% - and shave $68 billion from the federal deficit.

But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found an odd feature in the 230-page bill: Coverage would be more expensive for older people and folks who are sick.

And it would not bar insurers from excluding preexisting conditions.

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"Some provisions of the legislation would tend to decrease the premiums paid by all insurance enrollees, while other provisions would tend to increase the premiums paid by less healthy enrollees," the CBO analysis says.

"The pool of people without health insurance would end up being less healthy, on average, than under current law," the CBO says.





Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/11/06/200...

[SpiralHawk]

1. How perfectly Republicon

How perfectly unAmerican

Rush 'DraftDodger' Limbaugh and the other overpaid Republicon chickenhawk propagandists (Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc) will just LUV the Homelander 'plan'

[No Elephants]

2. Great. Death without the panels. There's a cost savings right there.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Surely there's been a mistake. They've always been so "pro-LIFE!"

[nolabear]

4. The nice thing about global warming is there are plenty of ice floes.

[cmd]

5. Health care for the healthy

If you are not healthy, pull yourself up by your boot straps and get healthy. Or use the alternative medicine a reader from my local newspaper recommends:


"All we need is prayer. Prayer is stronger than medical attention."

Yesterday I encountered 4 health care protestors. One of them was on SSI.

How can you have a logical discussion with people who are so ignorant?

[ladywnch]

6. to quote Dickens, 'So let them die then and decrease the surplus population.' n/t

[Le Taz Hot]

13. Dickens, hell.

We have DUers who believe that. Less than a week ago there were several posts by young DUers wishing that we'd all just hurry up and die off. (It had to do with marriage inequality and his/her perception that ALL people over 50 voted to repeal marriage equality.) I wouldn't be looking so much at Dickens or the Republicans for that shit, I'd look around at your fellow DUers. Don't 'cha just LOVE neo-liberalism?

[amandabeech]

7. The House bill will allow insurers to charge 2X the premiums for older people

across the board even though pre-existing conditions won't trigger higher premiums.

The bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee was 5X.

Many of us older (50-65) folks have lost our jobs and can't find anything that pays even close to what we were earning and getting health care through an employer is rare. I certainly won't have the money for a 5X premium unless my life turns around dramatically.

[Paper Roses]

8. Even if you are over 65, finding a job is next to impossible.

I am trying but the cards are stacked against me. Many of us who have worked all our lives are now without the skills to compete with the younger applicants. How many jobs do you look at on Monster.com or other job sites that list requirements for which you are not qualified. I may be interested in a listing but when I get to the requirements, I'm sunk.

Yes, I have Medicare but I will have to buy a supplement now as I have just become eligible--and unemployed. I wonder how the changes will effect me.

This stinks. It is, however, the same as it has always been. No sweat for the rich. The rest of the population can sweat it out.

I never thought I'd see the day that I thought our government was useless. Time has come.

[amandabeech]

10. I understand completely, and I may join you in 8.5 years, although

I won't receive SS until I'm nearly 67.

One of my elderlies is nearly gone, and I may receive a small inheritance. I plan to use it to take computer classes because I haven't been so good at teaching myself things like Exel and Outlook, not that it might matter.

Maybe it is time for the gray panthers to make a come back. After all, we vote each and every time, including off-year elections.

Best of luck to you, sincerely.

[No Elephants]

11. Our government is not useless. It serves its true masters very well. We need to

throw them all out, as an object lesson. Except for handful, like Kucinich in the House and Feingold in the Senate. The rest gots to be primaried, sez I. And, first, we have to protest to the DNC its policy of siding with incumbents, no matter what. How the hell does that serve us, the donors (many of whom are now FORMER donors). Also the super delegate policy. Enough of this crap.

[Vinca]

9. For the Republicans, this is a step up. They'd rather shoot us.

[No Elephants]

12. All in good time. All in good time.

[Autumn]

14. Those bullets would cost too much,

give them time to come up with a cheaper more cost effective way to get rid of us. And I'm sure some of our Democratic Representatives will be happy to help them.