[Vision2020] Story in Chicago Tribune Oct.15, 2012

[Ron Force]

The exchanges were designed to serve people not eligible for Medicaid who do not receive health insurance from their employers. During the drafting of the ACA, Senator Grassley (R, Iowa) proposed an amendment requiring Congress, their staffs, and high-ranking members of the administration to purchase their insurance on the exchanges, hoping to embarrass Democrats when they voted against it. Rather than take the bait, they approved it. This created an implementation problem, since the exchanges weren't designed for employer-subsidized insurance. In fact, under the ACA, all employers with more than 50 employees have to provide health insurance to their employees.
HEW issued a work-around allowing the government to continue to subsidize insurance purchased on the exchanges for individuals specified under the Grassley Amendment.

Hoping to provide the embarrassment that Grassley failed to produce, Senator Vitter (R, Louisiana) got the House to include  an amendment to the continuing resolution that would prohibit the government from subsidizing health insurance under the Grassley Amendment. House and Senate members heard from their staffs--overworked, underpaid, and now facing a huge cut in salaries ($20-$40K in most cases). Oops. The Vitter Amendment was quickly revised to exclude Congressional staffers. It's still stupid game-playing, just designed to produce talking-points propaganda.
 
Ron Force
Moscow Idaho USA



On Tuesday, October 15, 2013 5:27 PM, Sunil Ramalingam <sunilramalingam at hotmail.com> wrote:
 
Wayne,
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>If they are not covered under the Act, isn't it because their insurance is covered as an employment benefit? Isn't the same true for University of Idaho employees?
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>Or am I wrong about this?
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>Sunil
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>________________________________
>From: bear at moscow.com
>Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 17:15:59 -0700
>To: lfalen at turbonet.com
>CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
>Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Story in Chicago Tribune Oct.15, 2012
>
>
>Roger,And this is a surprise ?
>Why do you seriously think that neither the White House nor Congress is part of  "Affordable Health Care"?
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>Wayne
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>On Oct 15, 2013, at 5:08 PM, lfalen wrote:
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>>Adam  Weldzius, A Nurse Practitioner is privately insured. His monthly insurance premium  of $233(deductible of $3,500) will more than double.  For the same coverage his deductible will be $12,500.
>>A Tribune analysis shows that 21 pf the 22 lowest plans on the Illinois health exchange for Cook County would have annual deductibles of over $4,000 for individuals and $8,000 for family coverage.
>>People who have health insurance threw their employer have an average deductible of $1,100 according to The Kaiser Family Foundation.
>> 
>>This is from a story in the Chicago Tribune. They are not my figures.
>>Roger=======================================================
>>List services made available by First Step Internet,
>>serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>>              http://www.fsr.net
>>         mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>>=======================================================
>
>=======================================================
 List services made available by First Step Internet,
 serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
               http://www.fsr.net
          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
=======================================================
>
>=======================================================
>List services made available by First Step Internet,
>serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>              http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
>=======================================================
>
>
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