MUST READ: How Nancy Pelosi plans to bankrupt private medical insurers

Story here at Director Blue. (H/T Fausta’s Blog via ECM)

Here’s section 2714 of the health care reform bill.

(a) In General- Each health insurance issuer that offers health insurance coverage in the small or large group market shall provide that for any plan year in which the coverage has a medical loss ratio below a level specified by the Secretary (but not less than 85 percent), the issuer shall provide in a manner specified by the Secretary for rebates to enrollees of the amount by which the issuer’s medical loss ratio is less than the level so specified.

Unless I am mistaken, this means that medical insurers will be forced to pay out 85% of premiums collected as either losses (claims) or as rebates to customers.

So, private medical insurers will only be able to use 15% of all premium collected for operating expenses, such as salaries, rate dvelopment, claims processing, etc. But is 15% of income from premiums enough to keep a business afloat?

Director Blue writes:

Why would a loss ratio that permits only a 15% administrative margin for insurers cause companies to fail? Consider that the administrative expenses include collecting premiums; processing and paying claims; monitoring patient care; staffing customer service functions; paying costs to state and federal regulators; paying sales agents; and general overhead (rent, power, heat, light); etc.

I repeat: No company has ever survived with a loss ratio approaching 85%.

What are we to make of Obama’s claim that we could keep our health plan if we liked it, in light of this new evidence? If what Director Blue has argued is true, you will be depending on the federal government for health care. You will have no choice. And whatever they tell you to do, you will do it. They will be the sole provider of health care for you  and your family. This is how liberty dies – to thunderous applause.

What the Democrat’s health care bill means to you

Director Blue also has a post up about what the Democrat health care bill means to you, in 90 seconds.

Excerpt:

The CBO now estimates health bill spending at $3 trillion over 10 years. Since the CBO historically underestimates expenses, assume massive new deficits for a country that can ill afford them.

You’ll be required to buy a ‘qualified’ health plan. A family earning $102K a year will pay $1,700 a month in premium and out-of-pocket expenses. ‘Willful’ failure to buy a plan will result in a fine of up to $250,000 and ‘imprisonment of up to five years’. Illegal immigrants are exempt from fines and imprisonment.

Every business in America must provide a ‘qualified plan’ for employees and pay 72.5% of the cost. Failure to do so results in an 8% payroll tax.

Read the rest. I would think that some people who worked for medical insurers voted for Obama. Actually, one of the strongest Democrats I know actually left our company recently to go work for a medical insurer. He said that health care was a safe industry during a recession. He’s going to learn the importance of studying economics if this bill passes.

How the Democrats got endorsements from the AMA and AARP

One last thing. ECM also sent me this article on how the Democrats were able to get endorsements from the AMA and the AARP.

Filed under: News , AARP, Abuse, AMA, Bribe, Bribery, Bureacracy, Business, Choice, Competition, Costs, Economics, Equality vs Liberty, Free Market, Government, Health-care, Insurance Companies, Liberty vs Equality, Loss Ratio, Markets, Medical Insurance, Medical Insurer, Monopoly, Nancy Pelosi, Overhead Cost, Price Control, Price Fixing, Wealth Redistribution

Conservative Party of Canada wins two seats in by-elections

Congratulations to our conservative neighbors to the North!

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives pulled off an amazing political upset in federal by-elections Monday night, stealing a rural Quebec stronghold seat from the Bloc Quebecois.

The Conservatives also reclaimed a traditionally Tory seat in Nova Scotia, ultimately winning two of the four by-elections held Monday.

The results suggest the minority Conservative government’s political fortunes are undimmed by the recession and far stronger than expected in Quebec.

Let’s compare results:

Montmagny – L’Islet – Kamouraska – Rivière-du-Loup (Quebec)

2008:

• Bloc Quebecois 20,494
• Conservative 13,640
• Liberal 6,835
• New Democrat 2,428

2009:

• Conservative 12,162
• Bloc Quebecois 10,737
• Liberal 3,768
• New Democrat 1,363

Cumberland – Colchester – Musquodoboit Valley (Nova Scotia)

2008:

• Independent 27,303
• New Democrat 4,874
• Conservative 3,493
• Liberal 3,344

2009:

• Conservative 11,167
  
• New Democrat 6,267
• Liberal 5,193

So, now the Conservatives have 145 of 308 ridings. Closer and closer to a majority.

Aside: why is it so freezing these days?

But I also note that October 2009 was our 3rd coldest in 115 years. Canadian readers: please keep the cold up there, we don’t want any of that down here. But if you could have Stephen Harper visit Washington more often, and perhaps give the ACORN lawyer some advice on how to run a country without bankrupting it, that would be OK with us. Or at least give us Monte Solberg – you’re not even using him!

Australia: same deal. We want John Howard to visit us. But keep your record cold October to yourself.

Filed under: News , 2009, By-Election, Canada, Canadian, Conservative Party, Conservatives, Election, Election Results, Federal Election, Greens, Harper, House of Commons, John Howard, Liberals, Monte Solberg, NDP, New Democrat Party, New Democrats, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Stephen Harper

Indian and Canadian governments defiant against global warming alarmism

Story from the UK Guardian. (H/T Celestial Junk)

Excerpt:

Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, released the controversial report in Delhi, saying it would “challenge the conventional wisdom” about melting ice in the mountains.

Two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN agency which evaluates the risk from global warming, warned the glaciers were receding faster than in any other part of the world and could “disappear altogether by 2035 if not sooner”.

Today Ramesh denied any such risk existed: “There is no conclusive scientific evidence to link global warming with what is happening in the Himalayan glaciers.” The minister added although some glaciers are receding they were doing so at a rate that was not “historically alarming”.

However, Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC, told the Guardian: “We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don’t know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement.”

Ramesh said he was prepared to take on “the doomsday scenarios of Al Gore and the IPCC”.

Jairam Ramesh has gone above and beyond the call of duty in denouncing global warming hysteria. He is from the Congress Party, and from Andhra Pradesh, the same state as YSR Reddy, who I wrote about before. The Congress Party recently passed income tax cuts and Ramesh is an economist.

And Canada is also skeptical of global warming alarmism

I notice that Joanne over at Blue Like You has a round-up of articles, and this quotation from the Conservative Party Environment Minister Jim Prentice:

…Canada will not sign any deal that doesn’t force India, China and Brazil to meet negotiated targets for their own greenhouse gas reductions — a demand that may well be rejected by those countries.

“These countries are responsible for 97 per cent of the growth in emissions,” he says. “Canadians don’t want us to sign on to something that obliges us to reduce emissions, but doesn’t impose obligations on principle emitters.”

So it’s not just India, it’s Canada, too, although Celestial Junk says that India is a lot more defiant than Canada.

Related posts

• Comparison of hockey stick graph data to a larger data set in the same area
• Government-funded research unit destroyed original climate data
• The state of the debate about catastrophic man-made global warming
• Peer-reviewed article in journal Science says solar activity impacts climate
• Famous UN IPCC hockey stick graph is based on cherry-picked data
• Princeton physics professor testifies to Senate about global warming
• Global warming advocates refuse to give their data to skeptics
• Peer-reviewed article in journal Science says prior ice melting caused by solar variation
• Oceans are not warming now
• Polar ice caps are not melting now
• Polar bear populations are not decreasing now
• Global warming is not caused by humans

Filed under: News , Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Economics, Global Warming, Ice Caps, India, Indian, Mountains, Science, Temperature

University of St. Thomas hosts symposium on intelligent design and the law

More information here. (H/T Evolution News)

Excerpt:

The Journal of Law and Public Policy, published at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, will host a fall symposium, “Intelligent Design and the Constitution,” from 9:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10, in the Frey Moot Courtroom of at the School of Law, located on St. Thomas’ downtown Minneapolis campus.

The symposium, free and open to the public, will bring together scholars to debate and analyze various constitutional and philosophical issues surrounding evolutionism and intelligent design, particularly as they affect U.S. public schools. C.L.E. credits have been applied for. For more information, call John Sandy, (651) 245-0199.

Pro-ID scholars Casey Luskin and David DeWolf will be speaking. And two religionists from the Naturalistic Church of Sophistry and Evolutionism (NCSE) will also be there to burn anyone they can catch at the stake. (I think that’s what NCSE means)

Filed under: Events , Catholic, Catholicism, Constitution, Constitutional, Dover, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Law, Minneapolis, Minnesota, NCSE, Public School, Teach the Controversy, Teaching

Government-run health care: Ireland cancels scheduled surgeries to cut costs

Story from Irish Central. (H/T Secondhand Smoke via ECM)

Excerpt:

Three Irish surgeons have revealed that they are being paid a whopping $350,000 to do nothing. The three orthopedic consultants at Letterkenny General HospitalCounty Donegal have revealed that the Irish Health Service is paying them to “sit around doing nothing” while operating theaters are empty. Senior consultant and team leader, Peter O’Rourke said he is “frustrated and depressed” about the current working climate in Letterkenny General Hospital. The surgeon claims there is little or no work for his team in the busy hospital despite massive waiting lists for essential knee and hip surgeries known as elective surgeries. The health service has put such surgeries on hold until next year as the “elective” budget has overrun by $3.3 million.

It might be a good time to check out Thomas Sowell’s four-part series on the economics of health care cost-cutting in a government-run system. This story from Ireland shows how the government “cuts costs” in a government-run system. They ration health care services and products for the elderly, who have paid into the system their whole lives.

As I’ve said before, government-run health care is about equalizing life outcomes regardless of personal health and lifestyle decisions. It’s about giving some people health based on need because of their own choices, including sex changes, drug needles, in vitro fertilization, abortions, etc. And the care is paid for by people who avoided those costly behaviors, but have their incomes garnished in order to pay for the decisions of others who engage in costly behaviors.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” – Karl Marx. This is Obama’s worldview, in my opinion, and the worldview of all those who voted for him.

 

Filed under: News , Communism, Cost Cutting, Elderly, Equality, Expense, Government waste, Health-care, Ireland, Karl Marx, Liberty, Nationalized Health Care, Public Option, Ration, Rationing, Redistribution of Wealth, Socialized Medicine, Waiting List, Wealth Redistribution