Look, I think everyone deserves to see a physician when they are sick, regardless of their economic status. I’m not saying fuck the poor. Far from it. Hell WE don’t have insurance per se. We have AFLAC and a dental/vision discount plan. But there are some very real consequences of Obamacare that no one is addressing, right OR left.
First and foremost: this healthcare tax will crush small businesses. It’s not some crazed right wing conspiracy theory, it is a FACT. Companies with 50 or more employees must raise prices (A LOT), layoff employees, cut everyone to part time (less than 30 hrs/wk) or at the very least freeze hiring. Think of all the small businesses you patronise. Think about that family owned restaurant chain with a couple of locations. THOSE are the businesses facing bankruptcy or harsh measures to stay afloat. Go read this article from the New York Post, Nov 17, 2012. I’ll wait. Does that clarify it for you?
Many companies will likely choose to pay the penalty instead, which is still expensive — $2,000 per worker multiplied by the entire workforce, after subtracting the statutory exemption for the first 30 workers. For a 50-person company, then, the tax would be $40,000, or $2,000 times 20.
That might not seem like a lot, but for many small businesses that could be the difference between survival and failure. – Michael Tanner, NYPost, 11.17.12
All the dumbasses bitching at John Schnatter (Papa John’s) for his plans to adjust for this tax, saying “well, I’ll pay 10¢ more per pizza!”, are just being reactionary and not seeing the full picture. Sure, raising prices will be one part of the adjustments, but so will cutting employee hours and/or layoffs. The liberals screaming “BOYCOTT” to companies who have publicly stated their plans to add surcharges and cut hours are clearly missing the point. This WILL happen across the board. Just like raising the minimum wage causes price increases across the board, so will Obamacare.
But it’s not the higher prices that we should worry about. It’s the ripple of layoffs, hiring freezes, cut hours and small business closures we should be worried about. You don’t think small business matters? Read this. I’ll wait. This particularly sticks out:
The latest figures show that small businesses create 75 percent of the net new jobs in our economy. -SBA Report
Obamacare will push this country’s fragile economy even further towards collapse. This tax will rot our economy from the inside out. It’s a very bad idea. The restaurant industry will be particularly hard hit. And this is the industry I want to go into, so, yah, it’s important to me.
So, what to do? I propose we do nothing – other than STOP Obamacare. Of course, it’s too late for that. Obama’s raison d’etre is to be remembered as the President Who Gave Everyone Healthcare. Fuck everything else, this is his goal. Fuck the economy, fuck the small businesses, fuck the people who will be laid off or have their hours cut. Fuck all of it, he wants his place in history.
If we could stop Obamacare, then what have we lost? NOTHING. Everything remains as fucked up as it is.
Well, you ask, how is that helping? I’ll tell you: concierge doctors. That is the fancy name given to doctors who don’t take insurance, just cold hard cash. Some offer monthly fees, sort of like a retainer, others just charge you for whatever service you need. They are often not cheap like this 82 year old Illinois doctor that charges $5, but paying $500 for a treatment or even $5000 for a surgery beats the shit out of your $12,000/yr insurance payments with a $5000 deductible. Look at the numbers! Even if you pay only $6000/yr w/ a $2500 deductible, it is still cheaper to PAY CASH. But no one will have cash because we’ll all be paying for coverage we don’t necessarily want with Obamacare.
In one fell swoop, our chance of eventually having a real choice of who we want to take care of us and another small business model is demolished.
There is a rebirth of the independent doctor small business model. These doctors just want to practice medicine and not deal with the Byzantine insurance industry (like in the olden days of the 20th century). Many, many doctors will offer cash discounts right now, if you ask. I know, I’ve been paying cash for years. It’s not as horrifying as the insurance industry would have you believe. If we reverse Obamacare and leave this broken system alone for a bit longer, I believe that there will be a surge of independent doctors who will fill the gaps and give everyone a REAL choice about their care. Taking away my money and handing it to a faceless corporation will prevent this nascent small business model from ever getting a foothold, killing even more entrepreneurial opportunities.
I’m sorry, but the government telling me I have to choose a private company or be fined is 100 kinds of WRONG. Worse, it’s a private insurance company with overworked underpaid doctors who don’t give a shit about me. NO THANKS. I’d rather have that money in my hand to pick an independent doctor and pay her a decent fee for her services. Why is that so radical?
The United States will NEVER be like the rest of the world when it comes to healthcare. NEVER. The insurance and pharma industries OWN our government. They are in bed with the politicians who are in charge and NONE of those dickless assholes will ever willingly change this. Bitches gotta get paid, babies. Which is why Obamacare is happening. What better way to get control than to have your buddies in the government force everyone in America to pay you? And then you can hold every hospital, doctor, nurse and patient hostage to this system and pay the professionals whatever you want.
Doctors are currently forced to see as many patients as possible just to cover expenses. The costs of the Byzantine insurance filing system are huge. Malpractice insurance is monstrously expensive. Then the insurance companies come around and tell a doctor that she can only make $250 for her time and effort, which in the real market would be worth $500. But that $250 is just a small portion of the $1000 that’s actually billed to the insurance companies – the only ones making billions. So the doctor gets a pittance and the huge profit is divvied amongst the players.
It is a racket. If you can’t see that, then I don’t know what to say to you. Obamacare is making this racket (Insurance Mafia, if you will) legit and forcing everyone to pay them. Or else get fined.
If the racket is removed and doctors are allowed to run their practices like any other small business, I truly believe we’d have a normally functioning healthcare system. But you can’t remove the Insurance Mafia. They are here to stay. So this brings us back to leaving the current fucked up system in place. At least with all the holes in the Mafia’s current control, there is opportunity for independent doctors to offer a choice.
By leaving the current system alone, warts and all, we have wiggle room for new small businesses such as concierge medicine to grow and offer choice – REAL choice to Americans. There’ll still be Medicaid and Medicare and companies can still offer insurance to employees if they want, but it will not be mandatory and therefore not be a burden on small businesses and the middle class. Perhaps Americans will open their eyes and look at the various alternatives such as AFLAC. There are prescription plans available too, that are hella cheap, not to mention the gazillion meds that are already generic.
Americans need to wake up and stop being so afraid of the Insurance Mafia. The scare tactics used by big insurance are just that: scare tactics. They prey on everyone’s fear of catastrophic injury or their kid getting leukemia. Hey, it could happen, I don’t argue that. What I do argue is the huge cost of this false sense of security offered by the Insurance Mafia. How is it somehow better to pay these companies every month and STILL have a $5000 deductible than to stick that money in savings and have supplemental insurance like AFLAC that’s hella cheap?
The idea of a Health Savings Account (HSA) has been around for years, but good luck getting it to work. We tried it and lost $1500 to Assurant for our trouble. Here is my post about that fiasco. HSAs are just another way for the insurance industry to make sure they get their cut of your money. I say screw HSAs as well, just put the fucking money in a regular savings account and be done with it.
Let’s do the math. Let’s say your insurance is $1000/mo. If you work for a large corporation, they pay half, so now it’s $500/mo. out of your pocket. That’s $6000/yr. Now add on a conservative deductible of $3000 (I think they are usually more like $5000). Now you’re in for $9000 a year before you get one dollar of coverage. I don’t understand why people would rather pay the Mafia $9k a year for nothing rather than put it in savings. How is that even logical?
You say, “But if I have to have surgery, then it will pay for itself”. Yah, it would. Do you expect to have surgery? No? Then again, how exactly is that $9k working for you again? It is FEAR that motivates people to pay the Insurance Mafia.
AFLAC pays you a set amount for whatever is going on. We have the Supah Cheep plan, so our payouts are pretty low ($25-10,000), but since we are healthy and young, it’s all we really need. We pay $160 every six months and if anything happens, they send us whatever the payout amount is for that incident (5cm or less sutures: $50). We also get a $60 Wellness Benefit each year, which can be applied towards any routine exam. We usually put it towards dental exams, which we get a discount on with our Careington Dental/Vision Discount plan that is $10/mo. We have a savings account, which is about to be drained when we move but I’m not worried about that, either. If anything does happen (outside of an auto accident, which is covered w/ auto insurance), all hospitals have payment plans which are cheaper than paying for insurance every month. And let’s not forget auto insurance, which also has Bodily Injury coverage so any auto accident injuries are covered (plus we still get AFLAC payments on top of that). We pay $440/year for our AFLAC and Careington and take generic drugs that are $10 for 3 months. Our auto insurance is about $1500/yr. All told that makes our insurance expenditures $1940 (plus drugs and the occasional Dr visit). Again, I fail to see how we are being so radical. We’re reasonably covered and have money to spend as we see fit.
For all of you out there who have corporate subsidized insurance and are fine with it, then bully for you. Keep it. What do I care? My point is that it is NOT a necessity to pay the Insurance Mafia. If I *really* wanted to get a hysterectomy, I’d spend the money to do it. I’d fly to Costa Rica and get that bitch yanked out for about $15,000 all inclusive. As opposed to the $45k it would cost here (maybe less) to pay cash. Pricing is so distorted by the Insurance Mafia that you can’t even GET a real price unless you happen to know a doctor. It’s not a necessity, so I would rather take that money and use it to relocate. It is MY CHOICE. When Obamacare starts taking our money, there will be no choice other than “Which branch of the Insurance Mafia would you like to make your payments to?” And since we don’t see doctors very often, we’ll STILL have to pay for our visits out of pocket anyway thanks to the motherfucking deductible. This is beneficial to me how, exactly?
I say let’s get rid of Obamacare ASAP after his reign is over and dial it back. Let’s allow the independent doctors to have their chance to offer us a choice.
Let’s not break the entrepreneurial backbone of our country in the name of Obamacare.
I’d kind of like to have the last half of my life lived in the America I know, not a broken shell of a country like Russia. Once I’m gone, you assholes can do whatever you like – the United States will fall just like ALL countries and regimes do. I just pray that it’ll be after I’m dead. Economic collapse is not imminently likely due to the tangled nature of global economics (look at Greece) but USA as a world power is a goner fer sure. History shows the rise and fall of all countries. Just hold off for another 40 or so years, ok?
Citizens of the United States need to take back our country from the “royalty” who control it. Refusing Obamacare is a step towards that. Firing every overpaid asshole in Washington DC is another. Or at least forcing them to get rid of lobbyists, pay their own retirement and pay their own insurance. But that’s a post for another day. :)