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The more fiscal details of the health care bills emerge, the more appalling they seem. The Senate Finance Committee bill includes a broad provision taxing all manner of medical devices. This tax includes such frivolous luxuries as pacemakers, stents, artificial heart valves, defibrillators, automated wheelchairs, mechanized artificial limbs, replacement hips and knees, surgical gurneys, laparoscopic equipment, and the like.
President Obama is planning to reduce the cost of medical care by taxing it!
The most recent Gallup Poll reflected that 49% of respondents said they believed that the Obamacare plan will increase their health care costs. Only about 20% said it would lower them. It is taxes like these that substantiate this kind of concern.
The origins of this new medical device tax are troubling as well.
The medical device industry had its day at the White House as did the insurance industry, the drug makers, the nurses, and the doctors. In turn, each group heard the White House request that they come up with voluntary cuts in their health care costs and support Obama’s proposed changes in return for assurances that Congress would not impose deeper cuts (or, in the case of the doctors, that it would actually rescind cuts already scheduled under current statutes).
But, unlike all these other groups, the medical device industry refused the deal. This posture enraged the tyrants in the White House who vowed to punish the industry with cuts imposed by Congress. The result was a decision by the revenue-hungry Senate Finance Committee to extract billions in funds from the industry.
The legislation does not work like a sales or excise tax. Rather it follows the model of the punitive tobacco settlement imposed on cigarette companies in the 90s. It assesses an industry-wide payment which firms must make in proportion to their market share. It bars the them from passing along the cost of the assessment by charging more for certain basic products, but allows them to raise the price of others to raise the funds for the fee.
So, the result will be that virtually every piece of advanced surgical equipment will be subject to a price increase to meet the levy from Washington. No matter that these devices often make the difference between life and death and that, in effect, taxing them raises the cost of vital treatments.
The vengeful White House will have its pound of flesh from the medical device industry for daring to be independent and to refuse to knuckle down to Administration pressure!
This tax, imposed in a spirit of haughty arrogance, falls on totally inappropriate objects. Valves, prosthetic limbs, pacemakers, hearing aids, and such are essential therapies that make life longer, better, and less painful. To tax them makes no sense. Except in the world of sharp elbows and interest group politics that grips this take-no-prisoners and show-no-mercy White House.
Good for you, poster. What I can't understand, though, is how any Democrat could EVER get elected in a state where there is a majority of hard-working AMERICAN citizens.
Because they have been told the "evil doers" are the insurance companies who make shameful profits and the evil doctors who unnecessarily cut out organs and feet from their patients for no other reason then to pad their wallets.... oh yeah, and fat people and those who attend Tea Parties.
Because they have been told the "evil doers" are the insurance companies who make shameful profits and the evil doctors who unnecessarily cut out organs and feet from their patients for no other reason then to pad their wallets.... oh yeah, and fat people and those who attend Tea Parties.
Yeah, all those fat people are evil. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA Doesn't Obama know the mistake of over exaggeration.
"The insurance companies are evil" so let the government do the same things they are doing.
Why not let the companies compete with each other over state lines and let the American people decide on their health care for themselves.
The American Medical Association (AMA) was facing a 21 percent cut in physicians' reimbursements under the current law. Obama promised to kill the cut if they backed his bill. The cuts are the fruit of a law requiring annual 5-6 percent reductions in doctor reimbursements for treating Medicare patients. Bravely, each year Congress has rolled the cuts over, suspending them but not repealing them. So each year, the accumulated cuts threaten doctors. By now, they have risen to 21 percent. With this blackmail leverage, Obama compelled the AMA to support his bill...or else!
This is a huge factor that many seem to not realize. If I'm not mistaken (and I might be), I thought I heard it was 21% next year, followed by another 19% the next year (I think the current negative inflation we're having because of the bad economy adds to the cuts???). Even if that's not the case though, 21% is a huge cut....not only is the reported cost of UHC reform being based on this happening next year, if it goes into law, the re-imbursements doctors will be getting though are going to be the same as Medicare pays! The only reason so many accept Medicare now is because what they get from private insurance makes up for it. If they won't be getting that any more (reimbursed by private insurance at higher rates than Medicare), I can't see how they're going to be able to stay in business without at the very least making drastic cuts in their current expenses (like laying off staff)....if another 21% cut happens on top of all that, there's no way all of this is going to be feasible. My understanding is that the House was trying to pass another bill that guaranteed a 10 year freeze in cuts to doctors so, not only does it not consider inflation (under normal times), it just delays the cuts again.
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Originally Posted by janelle144
The drug industry backed ObamaCare and, in return, got a 10-year limit of $80 billion on cuts in prescription drug costs. (A drop in the bucket of their almost $3 trillion projected cost over the next decade.) They also got administration assurances that it will continue to bar lower-cost Canadian drugs from coming into the U.S. All it had to do was put its formidable advertising budget at the disposal of the administration.
That formidable advertising budget meant kicking in $150 million for ads supporting UHC reform.
"Obama is walking a tightrope here. He wants to keep PhRMA from opposing the bill, and benefits by having its support, which now includes a $150 million advertising campaign. That's a fortune in politics -- more than Republican presidential candidate John McCain spent on advertising during his entire campaign -- but it's loose change in the pharmaceutical business".
A demwit rep in California was bribed with 136 million dollars of OUR stimulus money for his district. He was not going to get it if he voted against it.
This should be investigated and if it is found to be true then Obama needs to be removed from office for breaking the law.
Where have you been the last few months? "Homie", "Barack the Magic Negro", "The Affirmative Action President", and many more.
I just call him the "village" idiot, that about covers it all for me.
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