Another Tricare lie from Canada

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ObamaCare mandates the same draconian disincentives on insurance providers retroactive to December 31, 2008, annual taxes and penalty ratios for profits over competitors. It remains to be seen how this will affect the VA, but it will devastate Tricare and its already strained reimbursement rates.
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/21458


Rpely From MOAA in next post

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1. From Military Officers Association of America (MOAA)

Sir,


I had our Legislative team look into the Canada Free Press article and here is the response:



TRICARE and VA beneficiaries pay a flat-dollar copay for medications, and that won’t change because the pharmacy companies get hit with a tax. Will copays rise to some extent in the future? Sure. But that would have happened with or without health reform.



Same thing for VA prostheses, durable equipment, etc. VA may pay more for them, but disabled vets don’t pay a cent for them for service-caused conditions. So much for impact on wounded warriors.



Anyone who uses the term “Obamacare” in their blog has an obvious ax to grind, and many reach to find any possible argument, regardless of whether it’s accurate or not.



According to the Senate Finance Committee staff that prepared the legislation, the insurers who manage the TRICARE contracts are exempt from the excise tax, because they are considered to be delivering a government benefit. If they have a large parent company (e.g., Humana), the parent will be subject, but not the subsidiary that manages the TRICARE contract.



Steve

Steve Strobridge
Colonel, USAF (Ret)
Director, Government Relations
Military Officers Association of America (MOAA)
201 N Washington St
Alexandria, VA 22314-2539

[Captain Hilts]

2. MOAA has made a real effort to stop the disinformation campaign. nt

[Lucy Goosey]

3. As a Canadian...

..can I say please don't take canadafreepress.com as any sort of reputable news outlet; it's really more like World Net Daily or Drudge. They really don't represent the way most Canadians think - even most conservative Canadians I know can recognize the bullshit that site generates.

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4. Thanks and I understand. My aplology sent.

[fasttense]

5. The Canada Free Press Conservative site only theory of cost increases is based

on the consumer getting to foot the bill because higher profits are being taxed and that tax will be added to the cost of the item or service.

But that is simply a theory, NOT a fact.

1. Only the higher profits will be taxed. If the corporation makes the same amount (percentage) of profit as all the other corporations in that industry, guess what? NO TAX INCREASE. Profits over the industry norm (usually called windfall profits) will be taxed. So how does a corporation pass on to consumers a tax that they don't know IF they will get or how much it will be. Are they going to price themselves out of the market because they MAY get a tax? I doubt it.

2. It has yet to be proved that increased taxes on corporate profits get passed onto consumers. When a corporation finds a way to do it cheaper, those price savings do NOT get passed on to consumers. Nike is a good example. When they had starving children in third world countries sewing their shoes together for slave wages, their shoes did NOT go down in price. Why would price increases but not a decrease automatically get passed on to consumers?

In addition, when corporate profits are taxed, corporation make extraordinary efforts to reduce their profits by reinvesting what would have been profits back into the corporation. It is simply a theory that higher taxes get passed on to consumers. Most corporations base their prices on what the market will bear and NOT on how much tax they pay.