Tag Archives: Single-Payer

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Boeing announces higher health care premiums for 90,000 workers

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From the Chicago Tribune.

Excerpt:

Aerospace giant Boeing is joining the list of companies that say the new health care law could have a potential downside for their workers.

In a letter mailed to employees late last week, the company cited the overhaul as part of the reason it is asking some 90,000 nonunion workers to pay significantly more for their health plan next year. A copy of the letter was obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

“The newly enacted health care reform legislation, while intended to expand access to care for millions of uninsured Americans, is also adding cost pressure as requirements of the new law are phased in over the next several years,” wrote Rick Stephens, Boeing’s senior vice president for human resources.

[…]Spokeswoman Karen Forte said the Boeing plan is more generous than what its closest competitors offer, and the company was concerned it would get hit with a new tax under the law.

The tax on so-called “Cadillac” health plans doesn’t take effect until 2018, but employers are already beginning to assess their exposure because it is hefty: at 40 percent of the value above $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for a family plan.

[…]Boeing said annual deductibles and copayments will increase for all its plans next year.

Deductibles, the share of medical costs that employees pay annually before their plan kicks in, will go up to $300 for individuals, an increase of $100. For families, the new deductible will be $900, an increase of $300.

In addition, Boeing is instituting a copayment of 10 percent after the deductible has been met. The copayment will rise to 20 percent in 2012.

You can read more about companies affected by Obamacare here.

News

Canadian woman has miscarriage after 3 hour wait in ER

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From the Prince Edward Island Guardian. (H/T The Way The Ball Bounces)

Excerpt:

Losing her first baby was devastating enough but having to do it in a crowded waiting room is what angered Christine Handrahan the most.

The 29-year-old Peakes woman was nine weeks pregnant when on July 12 she started bleeding.

Fearing the worst, Handrahan and her husband, Michael, headed to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s new emergency room.

There she waited more than three hours, blood seeping out of her jeans, tears rolling down her face as she feared she was losing her baby — or that she might be bleeding to death.

Still, she waited and waited.

More than three hours passed before Michael had enough.

Only one patient had gone through the big glass doors to see a doctor so he knew the wait was going to be extensive.

Michael helped his wife out of a wheelchair into his truck and they made the 45-minute drive to Prince County Hospital in Summerside. There she was immediately rushed into the hospital’s emergency room where the mother-to-be was told that she had a miscarriage.

[…]Handrahan says nobody at the hospital showed her any compassion.

“They could have given me a room to go in. Not necessarily a room with a bed. Even if it had been their TV room, or their lunchroom, or their closet. That waiting room was jam packed full of people.

“Somebody should have cared enough to say ‘Oh my goodness, you’re going through a miscarriage, do you need some quiet time?’ I was fighting my tears. I wanted a place to go cry.”

[…]Health Minister Carolyn Bertram maintains safety is not being compromised at the Charlottetown hospital.

Click through all 3 pages, until you have supped full with horrors, as the Thane of Glamis would say. And don’t worry, the socialist executive director apologized – although she would not say that the miscarriage was inappropriate. So we’re all good, right? Well, the bureaucrat is good – because she already got paid through your taxes. And no, you can’t have your money back. And good luck suing the government, too. They’ll use more of your tax money to overpay their defense lawyers.

But if you need an abortion or a sex change? No problem – then it’s free courtesy of Canadian taxpayers.

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Obamacare’s impact on ER wait times and low-wage workers

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First, ER wait times. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

As the number of insured people goes up while health care reform takes place, the long waits and crowded lobbies at emergency rooms are anticipated to increase as well.

“We’re starting out with crowded conditions and anticipating things will only get worse,” American College of Emergency Physicians president Dr. Angela Gardner told the Associated Press.

Nearly 32 million more people will have health insurance as a result of changing health-care laws, and about 16 million are to be added to the Medicaid system, but that apparently won’t keep them out of the ER, the AP reported.

“Just because we’ve insured people [that] doesn’t mean they now have access,” Dr. Elijah Berg from Boston told the AP. “They’re coming to the emergency department because they don’t have access to alternatives.”

[…]Since 2006, when it began offering government-run health care to its residents, Massachusetts has been considered the test model for the federal health changes, requiring health coverage for everyone, but data has shown visits to the ER have continued to rise since the Massachusetts law took place.

ERs are already overly crowded, with the biggest users being those under the federal Medicaid plan. Many doctors limit the number of Medicaid patients that they see because of the low rate of reimbursement from the government.

Here’s what should have happened. Voters should have looked at Massachusetts and Tennessee and seen what government control of health care does to health care. Universal coverage increases demand, but supply stays the same because of onerous certifications, taxes and regulations that block new entrants. Somewhere along the line there will be a shortage. And that means waiting lists, abortion, denial of care, and eventually euthanasia in order to keep costs down.

But there’s more – from the Heartland Institute.

What about Obamacare’s impact on low-wage workers? (H/T Rob)

Excerpt:

The requirements of President Obama’s new health care regime could penalize low-wage workers and cause a further slowdown of hiring for positions at chain restaurants and other small businesses.

White Castle, a national fast food chain, recently announced it would slow planned expansion in the United States and curtail hiring at its numerous restaurant outlets thanks to Obama’s law, which the chain says will cut its earnings in half.

According to a White Castle representative, the requirement that employers pay a $3,000 fine to the federal government for every employee whose out-of-pocket cost of health insurance exceeds 9.5 percent of their income will destroy their business model.

[…]Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a health care analyst at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC, says much of this process is out of the employer’s control.

[…]Furchtgott-Roth says this aspect of Obamacare is part of a larger trend toward government pricing low-skilled workers out of the U.S. economy.

“The burden of all these Obamacare provisions is going to fall more on America’s low-skilled workers—the workers at White Castle, Burger King, and so on. Because their labor will become more expensive for companies to use, we’re going to see more mechanized solutions, a trend that is already happening in Europe,” Furchtgott-Roth said.

Well, some of these people who don’t pay income taxes are certainly going to be getting a wake-up call. Larger companies like John Deere, Verizon, Valero, Caterpillar, etc. already announced that they were going to be taking huge hits to their bottom line as a result of Obamacare. All these good intentions and high-minded blabberings don’t amount to any benefits for American working families. Happy-talk wins elections, but it doesn’t pay the bills or feed the children.

Next time, we need to be more diligent at looking at what actually happens in other countries and even in our own states when people try to nationalize health care in order to provide universal coverage. We can have universal coverage – we just need to let people choose what level of coverage they want and we need to make market reforms to the health care industry. Choice and competition works better for consumers. That’s real health care reform.