On Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:50:03 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:


"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:39:24 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:
snip
The way I read the plan, it just
switches private insurers to being the primaries. Are you suggesting that
uninsured vets wouldn't be covered under the VA, as secondaries?
snip
-------
There's a few small items such as co-pays and total lifetime
benefit limits/caps.

Well, I think the whole thing is still in the talking stages, so I don't
think those issues would be unsurmountable. For example, if VA benefits
operate as the secondary insurer, there will be no co-pays. The VA will pay
them. As for total lifetime benefits, those are almost sure to be outlawed
with any reasonable change in the way health insurance works in this
country. They probably won't survive the first round of change.

Key word is reasonable -- its not reasonable that people who run
their company into bankruptcy should get "performance bonuses"
either, or that people who have already let the company should
get "retention bonuses," but this is exactly the situation at
AIG. This is Washington DC you are dealing with.

Note that this will be another "off budget" item that would be
very difficult to track, and is an indirect "Robin Hood" tax,
administratively levied bypassing Congress on company
health/pharma benefits that Congress has said repeatedly are to
be tax exempt.

I'm not following you. The idea is to knock about $540 million off of VA
benefits, to pay for the 11% INCREASE in overall VA benefits that Obama has
proposed. What "item" are you referring to? The fact is that a high
percentage of vets now have private insurance and the private insurers are
offloading anything they can onto the VA.

Operationally this is a tax in that it takes money away from one
group [directly the private insurers, indirectly their policy
holders and stockholders] and gives it to another group [the
Vets.

Article I, sect 7 states
"All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of
Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with
Amendments as on other Bills." but the Congress has not been
involved.

Article I, section 8 states
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties,
Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common
Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties,
Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United
States;" Not some numb-nut bureaucrat.

Article I, sect 9 states:
"No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of
Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account
of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be
published from time to time."

As proposed this bypasses any accounting of the money so shifted
as it does not go through the Treasury.

Additionally, imposition of this proposal is a direct
contradiction to the expressed intent of Congress
http://www.ifebp.org/Resources/News/...+Exclusion.htm
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL34767_20081121.pdf


The most important things to remember when you're talking about private
health insurers are these: First, their strongest incentive is to find an
excuse not to pay claims. Second, they have a very powerful and effective
lobby.

In other words, don't ever believe a single word they say.

In other words if you can see their lips moving, their lying.

The private health insurers will not take a 540 million dollar
hit, it will be passed along in the form of reduced benefits,
higher co-pays and higher premiums for their existing insured,
and then because the business volume went up the executives get a
bonus for their hard work.

Nothing here that the summary dismissal of a few dozen GSA super
grades from the IRS and DHS wouldn't cure for a few more years.
They have plotted for years on how to finesses Congress and tap
the health insurance benefit boodle bag.


Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).