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"The new costs, according to the budget office, would be more than offset by savings in Medicare and by new taxes and fees, including a tax on high-cost employe

"The new costs, according to the budget office, would be more than offset by savings in Medicare and by new taxes and fees, including a tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health plans and a tax on the investment income of the most affluent Americans." I have a friend who works in a tech company that is going to lay off people and move their jobs overseas once this bill passes. I have another friend who runs a medium-size business, who will stop offering corporate health insurance in lieu of salary raises. This bill is gonna cost 2-5X what they say, and is gonna bankrupt small/medium companies.

j_b_f 17y ago
Sounds a lot like the people who said they would move to Canada if George W Bush won. It's one thing to make threats like this, it's another thing completely to follow through with them.
zaidf 17y ago
Why are there businesses supporting it? Someone I know just paid $27,000 health insurance for his LONE Califnornia employee. From his perspective, it can't get much worse.
- fnid2 17y ago
  How much revenue does that employee generate?
coreyrecvlohe 17y ago
That's real patriotic of him. By the way, wage arbitrage is old hat, if he was really hip to the scene he would have done that years ago. Care to backup your claim that the bill will cost 2 to 5 times more? I can read xlsx format. Also never mind the fact the bill covers 30 million more people, ends insurance caps on care, lowers per capita costs, and rids the hideous practice of denying care because of preexisting conditions. The only set back in this bill is that we never got a Public Option, but we will get it, if it takes another 3 or 10 years, we will get insurance coverage that finally covers every single citizen in the United States.
- ktsmith 17y ago
  If this bill fails to meet expectations expect it to be used as a red herring for why government run health care can't work in the US. That will set back true health care reform by 10 to 20 years.
  - rdtsc 17y ago
    Once they took the public option out. I stopped following. Yes, the foaming at the mouth Tea Baggers already won. This will be a flaming red herring for generations to come. Expect lobbyist, PR firm workers and paid town hall agitators everywhere to get nice bonuses at the end of the year.
    - fnid2 17y ago
      Are they still requiring everyone to get health insurance?
      - rdtsc 17y ago
        Not until 2014 apparently. Here are some highlights of highlights for HNers from from Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319 http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319) This year: - Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. Lifetime coverage limits will be eliminated and annual limits are to be restricted. - Insurers will be barred from excluding children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions. - Uninsured adults with a pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain health coverage through a new program that will expire once new insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014. - A tax credit becomes available for some small businesses to help provide coverage for workers. In 2011: - Employers are required to disclose the value of health benefits on employees' W-2 tax forms. - An annual fee is imposed on pharmaceutical companies according to market share. The fee does not apply to companies with sales of $5 million or less. In 2013: - The threshold for claiming medical expenses on itemized tax returns is raised to 10 percent from 7.5 percent of income. The threshold remains at 7.5 percent for the elderly through 2016. - A 2.9 percent excise tax in imposed on the sale of medical devices. Anything generally purchased at the retail level by the public is excluded from the tax. In 2014: - State health insurance exchanges for small businesses and individuals open. - Most people will be required to obtain health insurance coverage or pay a fine if they don't. Health-care tax credits become available to help people with incomes up to 400 percent of poverty purchase coverage on the exchange. - Health plans no longer can exclude people from coverage due to pre-existing conditions. - Employers with 50 or more workers who do not offer coverage face a fine of $2,000 for each employee if any worker receives subsidized insurance on the exchange. The first 30 employees aren't counted for the fine. - Health insurance companies begin paying a fee based on their market share. In 2018: - An excise tax on high cost employer-provided plans is imposed. The first $27,500 of a family plan and $10,200 for individual coverage is exempt from the tax. Higher levels are set for plans covering retirees and people in high risk professions.
hga 17y ago
"will stop offering corporate health insurance in lieu of salary raises" Which is a tax increase, moving tax free compensation to taxable. As for those Medicare "savings", being disabled and on Medicare I'm watching them closely. E.g. the annual "doc fix" (every year since 1997), which if not renewed at the beginning of next month will cut the already low Medicare payments to doctors by 21%. Which they can't afford, nor can Congresscritters who'd like to avoid Rostenkowski's fate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qre7DzEtxyc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qre7DzEtxyc). That's 208 billion "savings in Medicare".
jsz0 17y ago
No surprise there. As long as health care is tied to employment it gives any business an immense amount of control over their employee's lives and well being. No better way to keep your workers in line. They do not want that power taken away.
rdtsc 17y ago
Too late. Health insurance companies have just increased their premiums by at least 20%. And the bill hasn't passed yet. 0ur company will start taking salary pay cuts starting next month based on this. > This bill is gonna cost 2-5X what they say, and is gonna bankrupt small/medium companies. The health insurance companies raised the premiums even without the bill passing. Blame them. Don't blame the bill. If they can't stay solvent, then fuck them, let them be taken over by the government just like the banks, or even better let them go bankrupt. As inefficient as the government is, at least voters can have some control over the government, as of now voters have not control over the health insurance companies. If other countries can provide better health care, at lower total cost, with better coverage and have better over-wall health and life expectancy, so can we. So far, this whole health bill debacle has demonstrated 2 things to me: 1) our legal system is corrupt and 2) a large swath of our people are brainwashed and easily controlled by fear and propaganda. 2) is the expected result of a declining and failing education system.
- startuprules 17y ago
  I think I should clarify; I meant the bill is going to cost 2-5X the $940 billion for the healthcare proposal. Why? Because our government is handling it.
  - blueben 17y ago
    In other words, you have absolutely no evidence to support your claim and you're making up absurd extremist claims to scare us. This isn't Fox News, and the audience on HN is not generally susceptible to these kinds of low-grade scare tactics.

j_b_f 17y ago

Sounds a lot like the people who said they would move to Canada if George W Bush won. It's one thing to make threats like this, it's another thing completely to follow through with them.

zaidf 17y ago

Why are there businesses supporting it? Someone I know just paid $27,000 health insurance for his LONE Califnornia employee. From his perspective, it can't get much worse.

fnid2 17y ago
How much revenue does that employee generate?

coreyrecvlohe 17y ago

That's real patriotic of him. By the way, wage arbitrage is old hat, if he was really hip to the scene he would have done that years ago. Care to backup your claim that the bill will cost 2 to 5 times more? I can read xlsx format. Also never mind the fact the bill covers 30 million more people, ends insurance caps on care, lowers per capita costs, and rids the hideous practice of denying care because of preexisting conditions. The only set back in this bill is that we never got a Public Option, but we will get it, if it takes another 3 or 10 years, we will get insurance coverage that finally covers every single citizen in the United States.

ktsmith 17y ago
If this bill fails to meet expectations expect it to be used as a red herring for why government run health care can't work in the US. That will set back true health care reform by 10 to 20 years.
- rdtsc 17y ago
  Once they took the public option out. I stopped following. Yes, the foaming at the mouth Tea Baggers already won. This will be a flaming red herring for generations to come. Expect lobbyist, PR firm workers and paid town hall agitators everywhere to get nice bonuses at the end of the year.
  - fnid2 17y ago
    Are they still requiring everyone to get health insurance?
    - rdtsc 17y ago
      Not until 2014 apparently. Here are some highlights of highlights for HNers from from Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319 http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1914020220100319) This year: - Insurance companies will be barred from dropping people from coverage when they get sick. Lifetime coverage limits will be eliminated and annual limits are to be restricted. - Insurers will be barred from excluding children for coverage because of pre-existing conditions. - Uninsured adults with a pre-existing conditions will be able to obtain health coverage through a new program that will expire once new insurance exchanges begin operating in 2014. - A tax credit becomes available for some small businesses to help provide coverage for workers. In 2011: - Employers are required to disclose the value of health benefits on employees' W-2 tax forms. - An annual fee is imposed on pharmaceutical companies according to market share. The fee does not apply to companies with sales of $5 million or less. In 2013: - The threshold for claiming medical expenses on itemized tax returns is raised to 10 percent from 7.5 percent of income. The threshold remains at 7.5 percent for the elderly through 2016. - A 2.9 percent excise tax in imposed on the sale of medical devices. Anything generally purchased at the retail level by the public is excluded from the tax. In 2014: - State health insurance exchanges for small businesses and individuals open. - Most people will be required to obtain health insurance coverage or pay a fine if they don't. Health-care tax credits become available to help people with incomes up to 400 percent of poverty purchase coverage on the exchange. - Health plans no longer can exclude people from coverage due to pre-existing conditions. - Employers with 50 or more workers who do not offer coverage face a fine of $2,000 for each employee if any worker receives subsidized insurance on the exchange. The first 30 employees aren't counted for the fine. - Health insurance companies begin paying a fee based on their market share. In 2018: - An excise tax on high cost employer-provided plans is imposed. The first $27,500 of a family plan and $10,200 for individual coverage is exempt from the tax. Higher levels are set for plans covering retirees and people in high risk professions.

hga 17y ago

"will stop offering corporate health insurance in lieu of salary raises" Which is a tax increase, moving tax free compensation to taxable. As for those Medicare "savings", being disabled and on Medicare I'm watching them closely. E.g. the annual "doc fix" (every year since 1997), which if not renewed at the beginning of next month will cut the already low Medicare payments to doctors by 21%. Which they can't afford, nor can Congresscritters who'd like to avoid Rostenkowski's fate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qre7DzEtxyc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qre7DzEtxyc). That's 208 billion "savings in Medicare".

jsz0 17y ago

No surprise there. As long as health care is tied to employment it gives any business an immense amount of control over their employee's lives and well being. No better way to keep your workers in line. They do not want that power taken away.

rdtsc 17y ago

Too late. Health insurance companies have just increased their premiums by at least 20%. And the bill hasn't passed yet. 0ur company will start taking salary pay cuts starting next month based on this. > This bill is gonna cost 2-5X what they say, and is gonna bankrupt small/medium companies. The health insurance companies raised the premiums even without the bill passing. Blame them. Don't blame the bill. If they can't stay solvent, then fuck them, let them be taken over by the government just like the banks, or even better let them go bankrupt. As inefficient as the government is, at least voters can have some control over the government, as of now voters have not control over the health insurance companies. If other countries can provide better health care, at lower total cost, with better coverage and have better over-wall health and life expectancy, so can we. So far, this whole health bill debacle has demonstrated 2 things to me: 1) our legal system is corrupt and 2) a large swath of our people are brainwashed and easily controlled by fear and propaganda. 2) is the expected result of a declining and failing education system.

startuprules 17y ago
I think I should clarify; I meant the bill is going to cost 2-5X the $940 billion for the healthcare proposal. Why? Because our government is handling it.
- blueben 17y ago
  In other words, you have absolutely no evidence to support your claim and you're making up absurd extremist claims to scare us. This isn't Fox News, and the audience on HN is not generally susceptible to these kinds of low-grade scare tactics.