Jane Hamsher convinced me: Pass The Bill!

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Mon Dec-21-09 07:18 PM
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Jane Hamsher convinced me: Pass The Bill!

Jane Hamsher convinced me: Pass The Bill!

by deaniac83

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None other than Jane Hamsher has convinced me that the Senate health care bill is, in fact, better than the status quo. I know, what? Jane Hamsher? Isn't she the FDL warrior fighting against this Senate bill? Yes, yes she is. But she gave me some particular pieces of information that I was very impressed by.

I got an email from her this morning excoriating the vices of the current Senate bill. Don't get me wrong, I think the bill is full of vices. It's also on the FDL website with a petition. And it convinced me that this bill must pass and is much, much, much better than the status quo.

She argues that the bill:

Forces you to pay up to 8% of your income to private insurance corporations -- whether you want to or not

What? Really? 8%? That's incredible! If American families could get health insurance for only 8% of their income, you could bet a lot more of us would have it. In 2008, the average family premium for health insurance was $12,298. In 2003, the median income of a family of 4 was $67,019. So, umm... a typical family of 4, in the status quo is paying, let's see, over 18% of their income in health insurance premiums. Put it another way, a typical family of four would see their premiums reduced from $12,298 under the status quo to $5361.52. And remember that incomes over about $66,000 a year are not provided premium subsidies by the government, and still cannot be charged more than 8% by law - indicating a real and overall significant reduction of premiums going to insurance companies. Wow. This is fantastic!

Oh and by the way, the 8% cap is also an improvement over the House bill, which has a cap of 12% on premiums. It is also improved from the previous senate version, which had a 9.8% cap (link). This is real insurance reform.

If you refuse to buy the insurance, you'll have to pay penalties of up to 2% of your annual income to the IRS

Yes, yes you will. That is, if your premiums aren't entirely covered by subsidies. Let's see. If you have the means to, but refuse to purchase insurance (these are the only people subject to this penalty, since there is a hardship exemption), you are going to use emergency rooms as your primary health care center. And we, as taxpayers, will be paying for you. Don't you think it's fair for you to pay a little bit in so that when you do come to the emergency room, they are not all closed down?

After being forced to pay thousands in premiums for junk insurance, you can still be on the hook for up to $11,900 a year in out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Where is she getting this $11,900 number? Out of pocket expense cap? If that's where she is getting it, I would like to compare this to the out of pocket expenses under the status quo. There are no caps. You can have a "deductible" per incident of $1000 or more. If you have "good" insurance, maybe your insurance covers 80% of your hospital care up to 30 days every year. That's the status quo. Under the senate bill, it caps your out-of-pocket expenses. That's supposed to be worse than the status quo? I'm at a loss over here.

Jane is also a little misleading. The Senate bill's out-of-pocket cap of $11,900 is on a family plan. An individual plan would have a $5,950 cap. What's more, not everyone would be subject to this high cap. The cap is actually 10% of one's income, and no more than the dollar amounts capped.

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