Cleo's Mom

Report Shows Health Reform Will Reduce Health Care Spending By Nearly $600 Billion While Improving Access To Care For 32 Million Uninsured The Center for American Progress and The Commonwealth Fund released a report today that details the effects of the health reform law passed in March. The report, "The Impact of Health Reform on Health System Spending," concludes that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010's significant payment and system reform provisions will begin to realign health care system incentives and reduce cost growth far in excess of that predicted by the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of the Actuary within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The report projects the new law's effects on total national health expenditures and the insurance premiums families are likely to pay. Most assessments of the law have focused only on how it will affect the federal budget. The new report by CAP Senior Fellow and Harvard economist David Cutler, Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis, and Senior Research Associate Kristof Stremikis takes into account implications of important research not reflected in previous analyses and estimates that the health reform law will result in: - Total reductions in health care spending of $590 billion from 2010 to 2019 - Reduction in the annual growth rate in national health expenditures from 6.3 percent to 5.7 percent from 2010 to 2019 - Savings of nearly $2,000 on annual health care premiums for the typical family by 2019 - Deficit reduction of up to $400 billion over 10 years - Medicare savings of $524 billion The authors find that establishing new insurance market rules, health insurance exchanges, and innovative provider payment and delivery system reforms will result in substantial health system modernization and improved access to care for millions of previously uninsured and underinsured Americans. "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the most significant piece of health care cost-reducing legislation ever passed in the United States," said David Cutler, CAP Senior Fellow and Harvard economist. "It gives us the tools to improve the quality and lower the cost of medical care. Now we need to use those tools to make reform work." "With passage of the Affordable Care Act we have entered a new era in American health care-one in which all Americans will be able to get the care they need, and in which families will be protected from high health care costs," said Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis. "By changing the way we pay for and deliver care to reward high performance, we will begin to bend the health care cost curve, and all Americans will see real economic benefits." Source The Commonwealth Fund

How Health Care Reform Reduces the Deficit in 5 Not-So-Easy Steps Americans think the bill is too expensive because they don't understand its cost controls. It's hard to overstate how important the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)—which makes the official judgments on how much bills cost and save—is in Washington. "I consider CBO God around here," Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, recently said. But that's a faith peculiar to Washington, D.C. The rest of the country doesn't know what the CBO is, and it doesn't care. "Washington may live and die by the pronouncements of the Congressional Budget Office," wrote the pollsters Doug Schoen and Scott Rasmussen in the Wall Street Journal, "but 81 percent of voters say it's likely [health care reform] will end up costing more than projected." That's left Democrats in a worst-of-both-worlds situation: They've built a bill that Washington's toughest scorekeeper says will cut the deficit by more than a trillion dollars over 20 years. They're getting attacked for the taxes and Medicare reforms that save all that money. But the country doesn't believe the savings are real. One of the problems Democrats have had is that it's very easy to understand the one thing the bill does to spend money—purchase insurance for people who can't afford it—and considerably harder to explain the many things it does to save money. Another is that a lot of the savings have to do with changing how medicine is practiced, which people are less familiar with than how insurance is purchased. But the fact that the cost controls are complicated and numerous doesn't mean they're absent, or that they won't work. Here's a guide to a few of the bill's best ideas, and how they work: Create a competitive insurance market: This is the bill's first, and most important, step. Right now, the insurance market's version of competition is pretty brutal. Companies compete to avoid the sickest people and sign up the healthiest people. Offering the best coverage for the lowest cost isn't much of a priority, because most consumers don't know whose coverage is best, and the ones who really do know are probably sick customers who spend their days researching this stuff. Outlawing the bad kind of competition while enabling the good kind, which the bill does, is more than just a humanitarian measure. It's a cost control. The insurance "exchanges" imitate the market in which federal employees (including congressmen) purchase their health care insurance. Participating insurers can't discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, they have to answer to regulators if they attempt to jack up premiums, and consumers will be able to rate their insurers, a rating that everyone else will see when shopping for their insurance. If all goes well, consumers will be able to log onto the exchange's Website, compare insurance plans, and choose their favorite. That means insurers will have to compete for customers. As any free-market conservative will tell you, that should drive prices down and quality up. If it doesn't, insurers will have some annoyed legislators to answer to: The bill says congressmen and their staff members need to buy their insurance from these exchanges, too. The Medicare Commission: The next cost control worth mentioning is an effort by Congress to solve the problem of, well, Congress. Medicare's cost problem is, in many ways, a political problem: Saving money means cutting someone's profits or someone's benefits, and politicians are afraid to do either. Enter the Independent Medicare Advisory Board. Modeled off of the highly-respected (but totally toothless) Medicare Payment and Advisory Commission, IMAC is a 15-person board of independent experts chosen by the president, confirmed by the Senate, and empowered to cut through congressional gridlock. IMAC will write reforms that bring Medicare into like with certain spending targets. Congress can't modify these proposals, it can't filibuster these proposals, and if it wants to reject them, it needs to find another way to save the same amount of money. Making the process of passing tough reforms easier is the single most important thing you can do to make sure tough reforms actually happen. A tax on "Cadillac plans": The least popular, but most direct, cost control is the tax on expensive, employer-provided coverage. Today, the average employer who offers insurance pays more than 70 percent of a worker's premiums, all of it tax-free. This amounts to an annual $250 billion subsidy for private insurance for people with good jobs. But it's not just the size of the subsidy; it's how we use it that matters. People have their employers pay for their health-care insurance, which means individuals don't know how much their insurance really costs and don't have as much incentive to keep those costs down. Imagine the pressure for cost control if the 70 percent that employers pay were coming out of our own pockets, instead of quietly coming out of our wages. In 2018, the proposed excise tax on so-called "Cadillac plans" slaps a 40 percent tax on every dollar spent on an insurance plan above $27,500 annually. So if your plan costs $27,600, the final $100 bucks would be taxed (technically, the insurer pays the tax, but it'll pass that onto your employer). But the idea isn't that people will pay this tax. It's that they, or their employers, evade it by choosing insurance that holds its costs down more aggressively. That gives insurers who hold costs down a competitive advantage against insurers who don't. because those who don't are not only more expensive, but also paying a hefty tax on their excess spending. Medicare "bundling" programs: The most obviously illogical part of our current health care system is that we pay doctors the way we pay car dealers: They get more money for every item they sell. But while we aren't afraid to ignore a car dealer's recommendations, we are afraid to disagree with our doctors. As you'd expect, this pushes costs higher. The health-care bill seeds Medicare with many experiments to change this status quo, the most immediately promising of which are the "bundling" programs. Instead of getting paid for everything they do to help a diabetic, hospitals will get paid once for treating that person's diabetes and all related conditions over a certain period of time. If this leads to lower costs and doesn't harm patients, it will be expanded. That would be the beginning of the end of paying for quantity of treatment, and the beginning of paying for quality of treatment. Changing the politics of reform: Republicans and Democrats both agree that we need more cost control in the health-care system. But politicians don't like to actually cut costs, because those votes reduce benefits and make people angry. So we've played a game in the past: We passively control costs by letting people become and stay uninsured, or by letting their insurance deteriorate and cover less, because those things don't require a vote in Congress. But because the individual mandate in the bill brings everyone into the insurance market and the subsidies for those who can't afford insurance on their own put Washington on the hook for costs, Congress will have to get serious about holding costs down in the system. The alternatives, for lawmakers, are high costs infuriating constituents who're being forced to buy something they can't afford, or yawning deficits forcing them to vote to take subsidies -- and thus health-care coverage -- away from people who currently have it. The days of letting inertia win the day and watching the system fall apart on its own are over. There's more, of course. Five is just a good round number. The bill's basic theory is to try pretty much everything in the hopes that some of it works out. The net effect is to make reform a continuous, rather than occasional, process, with different cost cops patrolling different beats. Insurers will have to work hard to stay a step ahead of the excise tax because employers won't want to buy plans that trigger it. The industries that provide medical care and technologies will have to hold their costs down because they don't want to become a target for the Medicare Commission. Hospitals will need to make sure they don't spend more than their competitors because they'll lose money under bundling. Until now, our health care system has had few internal cost controls and the comforting knowledge that Congress doesn't have the gumption to pass any. No longer. If the bill passes, it's change the health-care industry will have no choice but to believe in.

Most of his spending is on bush's policies and on mandated programs. Did you even look at the charts I posted - #853 on "bet your sorry you voted for obama" thread? Maybe it's too complicated for you to understand. I would be happy :thumbup: to explain it to you yet AGAIN.

That's because the rich have been getting a free ride for too long. It's time to tax them and then tax them some more. The millionaires and billionaires in this country don't need a tax cut or a 5th home (I think mccain has 8 but I could be wrong). They need to pay more because the middle class is paying for them. Very wrong. But trust the conservatives to defend the rich.

All of those things that you planned could go up in smoke in a minute. Your husband's pension plan could be lost if where he works goes out of business or files for bankruptcy. The insurance company (like AIG) could have sold you a policy that they don't have money to back up (they actually did this). The 401k and stocks could (and did) tank. You could find yourself with no renters due to the economy. The only think guaranteed is your savings in the bank and that's because it's guaranteed by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. So, quit being so smug. Just like a neocon. Your plans could fall apart like so many american's.

LeighaMason, thank you for that heartwarming and poignant story about your grandfather. We've all seen the pictures of his generation with their sooty faces as they mined coal, or their sledge hammers as they built railroads, or their sweat soaked clothes as they made steel. These people were the ones who built our nation and they were democrats and FDR didn't forget about them and he promised to help them and he did and thus formed the middle class that the republicans are out to destroy.

It's what I, congress, the CBO and those paying for it know.

I absolutely will not stop doing it. You can't negate the impact of the 8 years of bush's failed policies - to use that slogan from the fire/water damage company - like it never even happened. It happened all right and the impact of bush's failed policies is still impacting us today. Put your head in the sand if you must, but I will continue to post the facts.

That was exactly my point. All the things you stated are what drives our economy and that is my business and everyone's business because it affects all of us.

Then the republican party is in big trouble because they sure haven't shown much in the way or morals or character lately.

Originally Posted by Cleo's Mom Pattygreen - you often say that you have no control over other's behavior and that everyone is a sinner and that each person has their own moral code that you, again, have no control over. Then you say the reason to vote for republicans is that they are more moral and are anti-abortion and anti-gay rights. So, I guess it is your belief that the republicans can force people to be more moral by enacting laws against those things? No, no one can force anything. Here's a an example that I can share from my own family. My daughter has grown up in a home with very happily married parents who do not even mention divorce as an option to problems in marriage. Love is a decision we make. We taught her that she should be very sure of who she is going to marry because marriage is meant to be for life. (exceptions are made for unfaithfulness) She grew up with this example. Most all of her family members, aunts, uncles, grandparents (over 60 years married), etc. are life time married people. This is very good, for God hates divorce. Her boyfriend of 4 years, OTOH, came from divorced parents and family members that have all been divorced once or twice. He is afraid to make the marriage committment because he fears that divorce is inevitable once you get married and he loves my daughter and doesn't want to lose her. See how allowing divorce can screw up a kid? When society makes laws that are immoral, people get hurt by them. I agree that divorce screws up kids, but I don't think it should be illegal. Marriage is recognized by the state and it can be dissolved. I believe abuse in a marriage, along with infidelity, is a reason for divorce. Parents make rules for their children for their own protection. Would you agree? God does also. The moral rules he sets for us as a standard of living are for our own good. They protect us and others form hurt, harm, heartbreak, etc. Just because society doesn't always follow the moral laws, doesn't mean we should not make them. If abortion were illegal, would you not have one because it is illegal or because it's immoral to you? Because it's immoral to you. So if it's immoral to someone, how can having it be legal change that? If each person is responsible for his/her moral conduct? Should we then make stealing legal? because it's immoral, too. People who have a moral sense don't steal, lie, or murder only because there are laws against those things. They don't do them because they're wrong. You want to legislate morality not because you think it will change one's morals (it won't) but for the punishment end of it. That's what I have been saying on all my posts. That's what you are interested in. Not the behavior, but the punishment. If someone is gay, do you think they will stop being gay because the law says they can't marry? If someone does drugs, do you think they will stop doing drugs because the law says they can't? No. So, should we make drugs legal? Just because some will not follow the moral laws, doesn't mean we should not make them. The laws are meant to punish, not deter. As I have said before, that's what it's about for you. So how does voting for a republican because they are anti-abortion and anti-gay change anything for people about getting jobs, getting a mortgage, putting your kids through college, etc..? The things that matter the most to the majority of americans?

Fiscal Year 2009 U.S. Federal Spending - Cash or Budget Basis. Fiscal Year 2009 U.S. Federal Receipts. Just look at the small amount corporate income taxes make up as a part of our total receipts. Also, look at where the money is spent - all those programs are mandated - social security, medicare, medicaid and other mandated programs. So what brave teabagger is going to step up and say he'll cut those programs? I want to hear them say HOW they are going to do it. Come on now, be brave - if you want to cut spending, you can see from the chart where to do it. So step right up to the microphone you teabagging phonies and declare that you will reduce social security, medicare and medicaid by 50%. Say it loud and say it often. Tell people that's what needs to be done to reduce our spending. And then let's sit back and see if they get elected. We all know the answer to that. None of them are brave enough to say any of that. Phonies & hypocrites - all of them.:thumbup:

I didn't ask who caused it, I asked why hasn't it been "fixed" by the republicans? When they had all the power why didn't they make a smaller government, reduce spending, reduce the deficit, cut programs, ad infinitum, ad nauseum? Can you answer that? Because if you can't they why would you believe any of the tea party candidates who say THEY can? What makes them any different? It's not about being different. It's about making promises that you can't keep. Like telling the people that there would be no more crazy spending and that everything he okays will have the peoples okay and will be published for every eye to see (transparency)and that pork spending will be eliminated, and then not keeping ONE bit of his Word. The list of waste is below and He has NOT stopped ANY of it!!!!! Again, I ask you - why didn't the republicans, when they had the power, create a smaller government, cut the deficit, reduce spending and make program cuts? This is the agenda they and the teabaggers are running on. Are they going to be able to keep these promises? Because so far, the conservative republicans haven't been able to do any of this during any of the times they held all the power in the last 50 years, most recently under bush. So, if we're talking about keeping promises, why didn't the republicans when THEY had the chance? They're big talkers now. They would do this differently and that differently - well they had their chance for 8 years and they royally effed up this country. It's going to take awhile to clean up, but progress is being made.

Healthcare is paid for, unlike bush's policies that took us from a surplus to a deficit - a fact that you keep ignoring. And I know, there were never any payments to the UN, or pork barrel project or wasteful spending under bush. It all started under Pres. Obama. Oh, wait, it didn't - it just started to be criticized under Pres. Obama. :thumbup:

WOW!! What hypocrisy!!! :thumbup: You have called me a racist a number of times. But I guess since a conservative did it - it doesn't count. That's the general consenses among the elected republicans - if they did something wrong it doesn't count or matter, it's only when the current democratic administration does it that it matters. That's my first mantra: without hypocrisy the republicans would have nothing.

And whose Chinese communist a$$ did bush kiss to fund the unnecessary Iraqi war? Just think of how that money could have been used to help our economy here at home and create jobs instead of killing 4000 soldiers. Or not borrowed at all and help reduce the debt. It doesn't matter any more, that's already been done. Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because Bush didn't do what was right doesn't make it okay for Obama to follow in his footsteps. I am sick and tired of hearing about what Bush did from you. It's like a little kid who does wrong and when questioned by his mom says, "but, jeffy did it too, he did even worse than me." (whine) Obama is doing his own share of spending, and it is much more than any president we have ever had!!!! It doesn't matter anymore? :thumbup: This is typical conservative illogical thinking. Of course it matters because it is a BIG part of the current deficit that you neocons keep yapping about. And to make matter worse, it was totally unnecessary. Geez.

Where did I say that we should "tell" people who or what to value? I said that who and what they value is what drives the economy and is very telling about the things people find important. And that is MY business.

When I see these old, stooped over people bagging groceries I look at them and think "that's the republican's retirement plan for the rest of us".

Look at the statistics in pattygreen's home state. Wow! That median salary is huge!! And the median price of a home - again - wow! They can and should pay their teachers what they do because they are getting a lot of bang for their buck. Teaching salary summary page for the state of Connecticut Salary range: $40,973 - $90,998 Average teacher salary: $58,688 Average beginning teacher salary: $40,657 Median household income: $77,452.20 Median house price: $254,700 Per-Pupil Spending: $10,001 Cents spent on benefits for every dollar paid as salary: 27.1¢ Cost of living calculator Cost of living analysis Grade: Summary: Connecticut is one of the richest states in US with casinos growing into massive entertainment facilities annually bringing in millions of visitors and kept money pumping in to the coffers of the government. The impact of the gaming industry created employment, on time response to teacher’s salary hike and health care. It brings less than $430 million each year to Connecticut’s general fund. The state’s high teacher’s salary scale made them constantly ranked among the top ten in the nation’s overall survey on teaching salaries for years. Connecticut was even named as the smartest state by private research and publishing group Morgan Quitno Press being observed as having the strictest requirements for teachers yet able to provide the highest salary. They are the envy of the nation having been included in the top ranked women’s college basketball program and schools. Connecticut wisely uses local education foundation to improve public education. Local citizens take their part in improving education in their area by forming nonprofit organizations who aims to create fundraising programs to support local schools. The state’s utilization of human resources has put them to an edge with other states. Local communities had established rapport with school boards and school administration in an aggressive pursuit to community development. The raise in teachers salaries are also being negotiated between the school board and teachers representatives. Connecticut teachers’ proposals for classroom materials are also being answered by their donors through the website DonorsChoose.org run by a nonprofit organization whose mission is to match teachers through the site with philanthropist who want to get involve simply by donating in kind. Connecticut’s economy depends on the teaching effectiveness of their public schools and they were right on the track with their organization and community building to achieve the demands of the business world from their graduates. Looks like the teachers are doing a great job and have the right to expect to be justly compensated.

We don't believe the world is only 10,000 years old We don't believe that Adam & Eve rode dinosaurs, either.

From: Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor,now a professor at Berkeley. June 4, 2010 Why are we having such a hard time getting free of the Great Recession? Because consumers, who constitute 70 percent of the economy, don't have the dough. They can't any longer treat their homes as ATMs, as they did before the Great Recession. Businesses won't rehire if there's not enough demand for their goods and services. The only reason the economy isn't in a double-dip recession already is because of three temporary boosts: the federal stimulus (of which 75 percent has been spent), near-zero interest rates (which can't continue much longer without igniting speculative bubbles), and replacements (consumers have had to replace worn-out cars and appliances, and businesses had to replace worn-down inventories). Oh, and, yes, all those Census workers (who will be out on their ears in a month or so). But all these boosts will end soon. Then we're in the dip. Retail sales are already down. So what's the answer? In the short term, more stimulus -- especially extended unemployment benefits and aid to state and local governments that are whacking schools and social services because they can't run deficits. But the deficit crazies in the Senate,(they're not just in the Senate, they're the teabaggers and those who support them) who can't seem to differentiate between short-term stimulus (necessary) and long-term debt (bad) last week shot it down. In the longer term, we need a new New Deal that will bolster America's floundering middle class. Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and extend it up through the middle class. Finance that extension through higher marginal income taxes on the wealthy, who have never had it so good. Boy, that's for sure! It's about time for them to start paying their fair share and stop living off the middle class.

Pattygreen - you often say that you have no control over other's behavior and that everyone is a sinner and that each person has their own moral code that you, again, have no control over. Then you say the reason to vote for republicans is that they are more moral and are anti-abortion and anti-gay rights. So, I guess it is your belief that the republicans can force people to be more moral by enacting laws against those things? If abortion were illegal, would you not have one because it is illegal or because it's immoral to you? Because it's immoral to you. So if it's immoral to someone, how can having it be legal change that? If each person is responsible for his/her moral conduct? If someone is gay, do you think they will stop being gay because the law says they can't marry? So how does voting for a republican because they are anti-abortion and anti-gay change anything for people about getting jobs, getting a mortgage, putting your kids through college, etc..? The things that matter the most to the majority of americans?

What and who we value as a society is everyone's business because it is what drives the economy. :tt2:

YOU make a stupid statement like that -that you now cannot support and you call me dense? The problem is not that you think I'm dense, which I'm not, the problem is that I never let you get away with your bulls**t.