Panel: Complex health care law will take time to understand Wichita Business Journal
27.04.10
The sweeping changes of the federal health care reform law can dramatically affect businesses, a local panel of experts said Tuesday.
But the exact ramifications of the law, enacted March 23, are too extensive for many businesses to understand fully, they said. Businesses first should look at the comprehensive reform law in smaller pieces, starting with the most immediate compliance deadlines.
“You have to be exposed to this dialogue multiple times,” said Karen Vines, director of employee benefits at IMA of Kansas Inc.
Vines was one of three speakers at a health care forum sponsored by the Wichita Business Journal at the Hyatt Regency Wichita. Other speakers were Clinton Baker, manager of the general practice group at Kennedy & Coe LLC , and Terry Mann, an attorney at Martin | Pringle Attorneys at Law .
Hoping to address concerns about the law, the panel discussed key areas businesses should be mindful of as the law is implemented during the next four years.
Source:
Public Health Care: Always Low Prices?
Green Mountain Daily has a post this morning about the upcoming health care reform battles. It, of course, misrepresents the opposition to the “public option” because how else can the left win a debate on any issue other than mischaracterizing the opposition? (You’ve gotta give them credit for being proactive, though.)
A “public option” would be a government payer (a la medicare or medicaid) as one of the menu choices. Obviously this makes subsidizing easier on the one hand, but also allows the feds more control over the types of coverage. Private insurers are afraid any public option would be too appealing and affordable and draw away business - and both opponents and proponents of a single payer system see this as a way to potentially facilitate a transition to such a model.
The bolded selection is my emphasis, obviously. That’s the part that’s, let’s say, less than accurate.
How about this?
Private insurers are concerned that any public option will be given an unfair advantage and, as a result, look more appealing and affordable.
The public option will be artificially low in cost, as the current medicaid and medicare systems are. There’s the obvious, that the public option has the advantage of tax payer funding, but that is not the only advantage. The government does not pay fair market value for services rendered. This is possible because the rest of us are subsidizing it though our insurance or cash payments.
Once the public option entices unsuspecting consumers with her siren song of low, low prices, the private firms will be driven out of business and all of the sudden the public plan will be in a world of financial hurt, since there won’t be anyone around to offset the below-value payments.
Oh wait, the public option already is in a world of financial hurt. How about we fix the public plan before we lure more people onto it?
Here’s an analogy the left ought to appreciate: The public option is like when Wal-Mart moves into a neighborhood and puts everyone else out of business with their artificially low prices. And how does it get such low prices? By forcing companies to charge them less, in exchange for doing business with the country’s largest retailer. That’s exactly what the government does to doctors.
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![Obama addresses AMA: doctors beware Examiner.com]("http://nt3.ggpht.com/news/tbn/z9BDZjE4JwaaCM/6.jpg")
Examiner.comObama addresses AMA: doctors bewareExaminer.com no one would ever worry about what happened when they needed to enter a nursing home and there would be no need to purchase long-term health insurance. and more »
![Obama arrives in Chicago for health-care reform speech Xinhua]("http://nt1.ggpht.com/news/tbn/PdE-TKD-HTS-1M/6.jpg")
Telegraph.co.ukObama arrives in Chicago for health-care reform speechXinhuaAMA leaders said they are opposed to a government-funded option if it were to expand the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly to those under Obama in Chicago to pitch American Medical Association on health Obama looks to nation's physicians to help with health care reformThe first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. - (Act IV all 2,558 news articles »