> You call it a power grab, I call it regulation. Same thing. It's not supposed to be the role of the federal government to do a lot of things that it does now... but that's a completely different argument. Health care is already regulated by the government through the FDA, surgeon general and federal funding grants. There are also already heavy regulations on insurance in each state.
> The 1.4 million dollars a day that the health insurance industry is > spending on defeating a public option doesn't count for anything? > Please, the insurance industry is being heard just fine thank you very > much. Personally, i don't give two shakes of a rattlesnake's ass about how much the Insurance lobby is spending. HR 3200 is a bloated piece of crap legislation that, depending on your source, between 50 and 65% of the voting American public don't like. It has the power to change the tax code, giving the government direct access to your bank account. That doesn't scare you? It provides the federal government access to your medical and tax records. That doesn't scare you? It mandates an audit of any company that is self insured to make sure they are offering "enough" coverage based on their standards. That doesn't scare you? It fines businesses that have a payroll of more than $400,000 a penalty of 8% and employers with payrolls as low as $250,000 can be fined between 2 and 6% if they don't meet the government defined minimums of insurance for their employees and all employees don't have that insurance. That doesn't scare you? Furthermore, any individual that does not have an "adequate level" of health care by choice will be fined 2.5% of their gross earnings (not AGI from what I can tell). That doesn't scare you? It places the "Public Option" above judicial review - if there is a claim or service denied the patient or their surviving family members have no recourse against the organization. That doesn't scare you? I'm sorry if you think the proposed legislation is anything other than a power grab. Some of the elements are constitutionality fights in the making. > Which is awesome. Wouldn't that be great if everyone could have a > choice of going through a co-op like yours or getting their own plan? > Isn't more choice the watchword of conservatives? What do you mean, "wouldn't it be great if..."? Anyone CAN be a client of ours. I wasn't being hypothetical with the pizza shop analogy - the pizza shop down the street from me IS a client of ours; so are all of the Dunkin Donught stores run by a particular franchisee that has stores in Buffalo and Las Vegas. Services start at around $1,000 per employee per year for smaller clients. That gets billed on a per pay-cycle so the cost to the pizza shop is something like an extra $100 per pay cycle (bi-weekly). >> A public option or the "non-profit co-op" would destroy our industry >> and put me out of work. It would also put a serious dent in the >> Chamber of Commerce organization, which offers insurance to its >> members in much the same way. > > As someone who has been a small business owner, let me pause for a > moment to say how much I really really loathe the Chamber of Commerce. > Dear lord. Those people represent me in about the same fashion that > the Mayor of Nairobi does. > > As for your industry, I'm confused as to why it would destroy it. > Would people not need outsourced HR? It sounds like being an insurance > co-op is a nice service you provide but you also seemed to indicate > that you do lots of other things too. In any case, I'm not here to > guarantee you a profit. I'd rather see universal health care coverage. I'll agree with you on the Chamber, I didn't have much love for them or need for their services when I had my business. However, many of our small clients are with us ONLY because they can get top of the line medical insurance at a lower rate. If a public option comes along and they say, "hey, we can just put our employees on that policy" they have much less of a reason to go with our services overall. The pizza shop doesn't use the HR services beyond the mandatory employee manual review. If all of our smaller clients pulled out that would reduce our overall headcount. That is what empowers us to get the lower rates. If our rates go up because of a smaller headcount, the advantage to the larger clients is reduced and they very likely would begin to look elsewhere themselves. Just like many things in business, this is only a projection and a negative one at that, but every hurricane has a wide prediction map. > We've had some great, forward thinking reforms here in Oregon. This > year we have finally passed health care coverage for all children in > the state. Which is great. What's wrong with us progressing as an > entire nation? At a Constitutional level, it's not the ROLE of the Federal government to provide it... but as I said at the beginning of this email, there are already lots of things the Federal government does that aren't supposed to be done at this level either. If you want a state-run health care system, try implementing it at a state level... maybe make it portable like a drivers license. The problems like medical malpractice suits and medical research costs will still be there. There are lots of ideas on how to move the Insurance and health care issues, HR3200 is the worst of them ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? 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