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+--- Thread: George Bush did a great thing (/showthread.php?tid=10139)
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- Galt - 03-02-2005
The Medicare Modernization Bill is crap, but there was one tiny rider in the bill that allowed for Healthcare Savings Accounts. It will revolutionize the world
(back story...I'm not staffed on a project right now, so I'm helping writing a whitepaper on these things -- I hadn't heard about them before)
They're like an FSA (where you can pre-tax money and have it pay for medical expenses), but unlike the FSA, if you don't use the money, it rolls over to the next year. It grows with interest, so it's identical to an IRA, with an added bonus that you can take the money out for medical expenses and never have to pay a cent of tax on it.
Why its going to change everything, is that it has to be tied to an insurance plan with a high-deductible. So you personally have to pay for the first $1,000 (as an individual) or $2,000 (as a family) of your medical expenses, no matter what they are. Then after that, your insurance company pays. So you pay for the incidental stuff, and if anything major happens, your insurance company pays for it.
You put $1,000 in, but it's really only about $500 because you're saving the tax. Also your company can put money in, instead.
So that's reason #1 why it's going to change the world. Instead of your company paying $5,000-$10,000 a year per employee for insurance (where that cost is wasted for about 50% of the people who don't ever go to the doctor), they can pay like $3,000 a year for high deductible insurance, and put $1,000 into your account. They'll save money, and you'll get $1,000 asset.
Now reason #2. You have $1,000 that you have to spend. It's your money. When was the last time you asked a doctor (if you have insurance) "how much does this cost?". Because it's not going to be a "I pay the first $10 and anything after that is covered by my insurance company, no matter how much" people are going to start putting pricing pressure on doctors and hospitals and drug companies.
For instance, my company offers vision coverage. Up to $1,000 a year. I have no need for glasses. But I went the other day and bought a pair because why not? I gave them my insurance card. Didn't ask how much the frames cost; didn't ask how much the visit cost; didn't ask anything about the lenses. Wouldn't you know it...the glasses cost $992.56. It's people like me that are driving costs so high. No one gives a shit about how much anything costs.
If I had an HSA, I probably wouldn't have even gotten glasses. And if I did, I would have been more jewish about the prices, and even haggled a bit. As more companies start to realize the savings you can have with these things, and more people start adopting them (Bernstein Research projects 25% marketshare by 2010), it will start putting pricing pressure on all the members of the healthcare system.
Sure, it won't be overnight, but as more people start spending their own money, it will have an effect.
Worries from the commies who don't like it:
"People will horde their money and not go to the doctor, thus causing longer-term, and more expensive problems later in life." Not a worry. the high deductible plans cover preventative issues like yearly checkups, prenatal and shit like that
"It's going to cause more unemployed". I don't know why, but that's what people have been saying. 1/4 of the people who started HSAs in '04 previously had no insurance
There really is no downside to these HSAs. If you own a company, you should look into it. If you are at a small company, you should tell your HR department to look into how much they could save by going to High Deductible plans and putting the difference into your HSA account.
- OAS - 03-02-2005
When I read that W did a good thing, I thought he might of resigned.
- Galt - 03-02-2005
In 2020, peole will look back on W and see when he was president, the following occured:
HSAs introduced
Freedom in Iraq
Freedom in Lebanon
Peace in Palestine
Bin Ladin Caught
Social Security revamped
Slowly grew the economy out of the 2000-2002 recession
and they'll forget that he couldn't speak, and they'll forget his intercom to God, and they'll forget the Patriot Act, and they'll foget that the rest of the planet hated us during his presidency and they'll think "Wow, he really got a lot of shit done. He was a pretty good president."
- Mad - 03-02-2005
The world as you know it, ends in 2012. Some huge comet wipes us all out.
- fbd - 03-02-2005
stop spreading your liberal bullshit, mad
- Mad - 03-02-2005
It's true I tell ya, I saw it in a movie.
- fbd - 03-02-2005
a movie made by your damn hollywood commie bastards!
- Keyser Soze - 03-03-2005
HSAs introduced...check (good for him)
Freedom in Iraq...not yet, who knows if there will ever be, there are still major issues.
Freedom in Lebanon...nope.
Peace in Palestine...you must be joking.
Bin Ladin Caught...ill believe it when i see it.
Social Security revamped...not yet, ill be happy and impressed if he pulls it off.
Slowly grew the economy out of the 2000-2002 recession...nope, not yet.
come back to me when he accomplishes more than 1 of those things on your list. ill continue to remember the total mismanagement of the iraq war, isolating america from the free world, creating a huge defecit, spending more money than any president in our history democratic or repubican (so much for repubicans making government smaller, fiscal responsibility, should i go on?
- The Sleeper - 03-03-2005
freedom in lebanon? are you saying we are gonna take out syria? they'll drop a nuke on our ass.
- HedCold - 03-03-2005
they have missiles that can go that far?
- The Sleeper - 03-03-2005
probably. there's also planes.
- HedCold - 03-03-2005
how many planes are sneaking into american airspace?
and only a few countries have missiles that can go that far. not sure which ones though.
- The Sleeper - 03-03-2005
well uh either way going to war with syria is not a good idea
- Mad - 03-03-2005
Draft starts next week.
- Galt - 03-03-2005
Who said anything about going to war with Syria. "Iraqis have tasted freedom, and the Lebanese have seen how much the Iraqi people love it, and are clammoring for their own freedom and free elections. We Americans spread our ideals through speech and freedom like Martin Luther King, not terror. That is why freedom will always win" -- not an actual quote, but it might as well be.
I don't know why there's this ideal that the economy is doing poor. If Wall Street is happy with corporate earnings and hirings continue, then it means that business is doing swell. And that's all that matters. The economy is "slowly" growing out of the two year recession (which started while Clinton was in office)
Freedom in Palestine. Why not? Arafat is gone, and there have already been signs of a possibility
Freedom in Iraq. Whether really "free" or not in 3 years, you won't be seeing daily stories about US troops in Iraq and insurgent bombings. Just like you didn't see a lot of stories about Russia's chaos in the early 90s. They were free, and the US made it happen. Huzzah! Iraq will be shown as sovergn and free. Becuase it's best for everyone involved for it to be presented as such.
Social Security revamped. Absolutely. SOMETHING will definitely happen. I don't know exactly how privatized it is, or what's going to happen, but something will happen. And it will be an improvement, and it will at least the ball rolling for saving/fixing/replacing/srapping that horrible horrible system.
I'm no Bush apologist. I've voted against him twice, and I'd do it a third time. These are optimistic predictions to be conservative, but there's a very strong possibility that some, if not most of these things will happen, and when its thought of fifteen years later, they are going to seem like monumental, world-altering changes that took place when he was in office.
I can't really think of any collection of changes so major domestically or internationally during one presidency in the last thirty years.
The Clinton years were great, but what did he really do? NAFTA? The aborted heathcare debacle? Fuck a bunch of whores, have guys killed, and watch a bunch of his friends/colleagues go to jail?
- The Sleeper - 03-03-2005
Well considering Syria currently occupies Lebanon and recently assasinated their former prime minister, I'm guessing they'd need to be taken out for there to be a free Lebanon.
- Galt - 03-03-2005
chanting in the streets will get it done
- Goatweed - 03-03-2005
or just asking them - with a "please" attached to it.
- Sir O - 03-03-2005
I'll say now that I don't know enough about Healthcare Savings Accounts to really say anything...where's the money coming from though?
Freedom in Iraq - Invading a non-threatening country, provoking a civil war and years of deadly occupation...FREEDOM!
Freedom in Lebanon
Peace in Palestine
Bin Ladin Caught
Social Security revamped
AND YELLOW BRICK ROADS!
Slowly grew the economy out of the 2000-2002 recession
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.nber.com/cycles/november2001/">http://www.nber.com/cycles/november2001/</a><!-- m -->
Quote:The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee has determined that a peak in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in March 2001. A peak marks the end of an expansion and the beginning of a recession. The determination of a peak date in March is thus a determination that the expansion that began in March 1991 ended in March 2001 and a recession began. The expansion lasted exactly 10 years, the longest in the NBER's chronology.
NBER's president, Martin Feldstein, was a Bush campaign adviser.
- Galt - 03-03-2005
I ain't no policy wonk, but alls I know is the stock market began its two and half year crash in March/April of 2000 and soon after there wasn't a technology company who was buying anything. That to me was the beginning of the downfall.
And "where does the money come from", for HSAs initially will be lowered taxes. Rather than taxing the money, consumers can put in an account and pay for healthcare. A secondary effect will be a lot more pricing power by patients, since they'll be directly paying for it rather than the healthcare provider (the "first dollar"), so people will actually be asking "how much does this cost? Do I really need this test? Is there a less expensive medicine? etc" Which will help control medical expenses, which have been growing at 10% a year because the current system has no real way to control prices.