Caution: Either this "article" was written by a junior high student or a liberal. Or a junior high school student with liberal parents. Whatever the case, I couldn't resist.It sounds like a silver lining. Even if the Supreme Court overturns President Barack Obama's health care law, employers can keep offering popular coverage for the young adult children of their workers.
But here's the catch: The parents' taxes would go up.
Not an issue. It could only be a small amount. If it's so bad, they can decline to cover their kid. Or the kid can get a paper route for a week out of every year and pay for their own costs. Or work it off around the house or by mowing a few lawns each week. It might be easier to open a lemonade stand, but the Lemonade Stand Nazis out to save us from all the broken health regulations would shut them down and fine them.
| Surely the Ay Pee journalist and his highly paid editors mean fees rather than taxes. Fees are paid to an insurance company to purchase an extra service, whereas taxes are paid to the government to provide services to others. |
Oh my goodness. And how messy that last example was in
| It seems to me the first example is simply a return to the status quo ante, the way things were before that travesty of a bill was forced through Congress. That is the point, isn't it? |
We don't even know what's in the stupid bill yet. Worst case: Either way will be painful. At least if it's overturned, the pain will represent the gain of getting rid of this socialist monstrosity which, by the way, also has provisions to create a "civilian" army under POTUS's control. The last thing anything with a brain wants, including my goldfish.
Better Medicare prescription benefits, currently saving hundreds of dollars for older people with high drug costs, would be suspended. Ditto for preventive care with no co-payments, now available to retirees and working families alike.
If it's so great, redo the best parts of the bill and throw out the stuff that nobody likes. It's not like it's the end of the world.
Partially overturning the law could leave hospitals, insurers and other service providers on the hook for tax increases and spending cuts without the law's promise of more paying customers to offset losses.
Partial? My money's on the whole thing being thrown out. How are nine justices going to be able to decide what should be kept or trashed? Would that not be legislating from the bench? The best they can do would be to indicate a few of the unconstitutional power grabs that the bill contains and hope for something that is less than 2800 pages in length and without all the anonymous "amendments" sneaked in at the last second the second time around. In either case, the concept of severability is crap IMNSHO. It can be used for bait-and-switch tactics.
If the law is upheld, other kinds of complications could result.
Not really, but do blather on.
| The world could come to an end next Tuesday, too, but that's not how the smart money is betting. Anything is possible -- it behooves us to spend our time thinking about things that are probable. |
Some impressive unfounded handwringing there.
| Given reports that the computer programs do not yet exist to run the insurance markets -- a major dropped ball on the part of the Democrats -- it is not the unpreparedness of the Republicans that is the limiting factor, dear Ay Pee journalist. |
Who cares. If it's so wonderful, they'll redo the legislation.
| Ms Ferguson needs to work on her thinking skills... |
That's because it's a state's right to do so, not the fed's. The states are like 50 separate laboratories. When one of them comes up with a winner, the rest will follow. The fed can't force losing "solutions" on everyone. The feds should only get rid of unfair practices like dumping chemicals in rivers, etc..
While it's unclear how the justices will rule, oral arguments did not go well for the Obama administration. The central issue is whether the government can require individuals to have health insurance and fine them if they don't.
So what could they not push through in the name of the nation's "best interests"?
That mandate takes effect in 2014, at the same time that the law would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with existing health problems. Most experts say the coverage guarantee would balloon costs unless virtually all people joined the insurance pool.
Simple: If they choose not to buy health insurance when they are able to afford it, then they die in the street. If they go on government insurance while out of work or have too-low an income, they have to work where the state needs them to work enough to pay their premiums or until they get a good job again. Heck, maybe even make some kind of training program out of this mechanism too. Win-win.
Opponents say Congress overstepped its constitutional authority by issuing the insurance mandate. The administration says the requirement is permissible because it serves to regulate interstate commerce. Most people already are insured. The law provides subsidies to help uninsured middle-class households pay premiums and expands Medicaid to pick up more low-income people.
Another one of the liberal triumphs is to redefine the meaning of the word "regulate". The word does not mean "control". It means to "make regular". There is quite a difference between the two.
| The Supreme Court will soon render all those other opinions moot, one way or another, and then professional blithers like our esteemed Ay Pee journalist will move on to other topics |
Bravo! Please raise my rates to compensate for any additional expense resulting from this good idea.
Families will be watching to see if their 20-somethings transitioning to the work world will get to keep that newfound security.
Easily fixed if Healthcare Takeover is overturned. If your politician doesn't vote your will, vote him out next opportunity and let it be known why you did so.
Because the benefit is a winner with consumers, experts say many employers and insurers would look for ways to keep offering it even if there's no legal requirement to do so. On Monday, UnitedHealth Group Inc., the nation's largest insurer, is announcing that it will continue to offer coverage to young adults even if the health care law is struck down.
But economist Paul Fronstin of the Employee Benefit Research Institute says many parents would pay higher taxes as a result because they would have to pay for the young adult's coverage with after-tax dollars. Under the health care law, that coverage now comes out of pre-tax dollars.
It will be a small amount. Stop having a cow, man. Way cheaper than trying to jam the square peg of Obamacare into the round hole of a sensible insurance plan all because of one little issue that is easily implemented in any of a thousand other ways.
Fronstin says there's no way to tell exactly how much that tax increase might be, but a couple of hundred dollars a year or more is a reasonable ballpark estimate. Upper-income taxpayers would have a greater liability.
"Adult children aren't necessarily dependents for tax purposes, but an employer can allow anyone to be on a plan, just like they now allow domestic partners," said Fronstin. "If your employer said, 'I'm going to let you keep this,' it would become a taxable benefit for certain people."
Advocates for the elderly are also worried about untoward ripple effects.
Scare tactics, by chance?
If the entire law is overturned, seniors with high prescription costs in Medicare's "donut hole" coverage gap could lose annual discounts averaging about $600. AARP policy director David Certner says he would hope the discounts could remain in place at least through the end of this year.
Another problem that is easily fixed.
Yet that might not be possible. Lacking legal authority, Medicare would have to take away the discounts. Drugmakers, now bearing the cost, could decide they want to keep offering discounts voluntarily. But then they'd risk running afoul of other federal rules that bar medical providers from offering financial inducements to Medicare recipients.
"I don't think anyone has any idea," said Certner.
And neither do you. But that doesn't seem to slow down your handwringing one bit, does it?
A mixed verdict from the high court would be the most confusing outcome. Some parts of the law would be struck down while others lurch ahead.
Won't happen.
That kind of result would seem to call for Congress to step in and smooth any necessary adjustments. Yet partisan divisions on Capitol Hill are so intense that hardly anyone sees a chance that would happen this year.
Partisan divisions put there and nurtured by voting taxpayers. For a reason. Mostly centered around the triad of Obama, Pelosi, and Harry. All who live in some form of bubble or another that were formed by voters suffering from varying degrees of temporary insanity. Go ahead and vote for the idiot in your district who is in a position to pull the nation's strings as a whole and see what happens to your party as a whole. Liberals are lucky that the entire congress wasn't up for reelection in 2010.