House And Senate Conferees Will Have To Reconcile Two Bills
- Abortion: The House version includes stricter language designed to prohibit the use of federal funds for abortion coverage, except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in danger. That helped appease House conservatives, but abortion was even more of a make-or-break issue in the Senate, so that chamber’s slightly milder language could win out.
- Taxes: The House and Senate bills would fund health reform in entirely different ways. The House bill would tax individuals making more than $500,000 a year and families making more than $1 million. The Senate bill would tax so-called “Cadillac” or high-cost health plans – an idea opposed by labor unions and many House Democrats. The Senate version would also impose annual fees on health insurers starting at $2 billion in 2011 and going up to $10 billion in 2017.
- Public plan: The House bill includes a government-run plan that progressives fought hard to include. Instead of a government-run plan, the Senate version would instruct the federal Office of Personnel Management to contract with private insurers to offer at least two national health plans for individuals and small businesses. One of those plans would have to be nonprofit. Conventional wisdom says the final, combined bill will not include a public plan, but House leaders could seek other tweaks in exchange for dropping the idea. Possibilities include increasing federal subsidies to help low- and middle-income people afford coverage, creating a single, national insurance exchange instead of one in each state, or introducing those exchanges earlier – in 2013, a year earlier than the Senate bill stipulates.
- Medicare Advantage:Each bill would cut funding for the Medicare Advantage program, but the amount differs substantially. The House bill includes cuts of $170 billion over ten years. The Senate bill would trim reimbursements by $118 billion over the same ten-year period. We didn’t mention the potential impact on Health Savings Accounts (HSA) because it is unclear what if anything will change with the final bill. As stated previously, two components of health care in this country that work are Medicare Advantage and Health Savings Accounts. Ironically these are two programs on the chopping block of both pieces of legislation. Very unfortunate how we have come to accept mediocrity in this Great Country.
For more, check out these side-by-side comparisons from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
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IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
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Health Care Reform Bills Impact HSA’s
Is your HSA being impacted?
Congress will soon vote on health care reform legislation that could harm the more than 8 million Americans who have a health savings account (HSA) and restrict those who want to purchase HSA coverage in the future.
Starting this week, the House of Representatives will begin debate on the Affordable Health Care for America Act, and the Senate is expected to finish work on its version of health care reform shortly.
Both the House and Senate bills make major changes that would impact people with HSAs:
- Both bills mandate benefit levels for most health plans that could eliminate HSAs as an option.
- Both bills prohibit you from using any money in your HSAs to buy over-the-counter drugs such as allergy medications that you now get without a prescription.
- The Senate bill may place a tax on high-value health plans, so-called “Cadillac” plans, by taxing the cost of such coverage, including employer contributions to your HSA.
- Both bills raise the penalty for the use of HSA dollars for non-qualified medical expenses from 10% to 20% of the reimbursement.
It is important that you take the time to contact your members of Congress and let them know that you depend on your HSA for affordable coverage and the flexibility to set aside tax-free dollars to pay for your health care expenses.
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IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
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Two Steps To More Affordable Health Insurance
There’s no need to wait around on Uncle Sam-he can’t help you anyway. Only you know what’s best for you and your family.
Read entire article by Dave Ramsey.
Get quotes for individual/family health insurance in Arizona here. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 to find out how an HSA can benefit you.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
HSA Tool For Employers And Their Employees
STREETWISE HSA is a great tool for employers and their employees to maximize the benefits of Health Savings Accounts (HSA). Click on the logo above and check out all of the tools and information available.
Get quotes for individual/family health insurance in Arizona here. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 to find out how an HSA can benefit you.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
Kneale: Save ObamaCare – By Killing It
Published: Monday, 21 Sep 2009 | 12:41 PM ET
President Obama’s health-care revolution is dying before it hits the House floor. Now killing Obamacare is key to saving any semblance of health-care reform.
Instead of whipping this dead horse, the Obama Posse should wage a broad retreat and return with a spare, stripped-down, less-is-more plan.
Especially worrisome for the rookie in the White House, this ailing health plan has ignited a far broader and higher-stakes fight over how much government we really want, and what kind.
Do you really want the feds forcing you to buy insurance and taxing your family almost $4,000 a year if you refuse or decide you can’t afford it?
That’s what happens when health coverage–a personal responsibility of each of us–is transformed into an obligation of government, which now supposedly must provide it for all of us.
We simply can’t afford it. Rather than aim at all 300 million of us, an ObamaLite overhaul should narrow the target to two groups:
First: The 15 million or so Americans who are the Truly Uninsured: they want coverage, can’t afford it and don’t qualify for government help. So let’s give them some help.
Second: the 12 million who buy individual freelance policies rather than get coverage on the job. They need easy online access to a newly formed marketplace with interstate competition among the nation’s 1,300 private insurers.
Wait a minute–we have 46 million uninsured, based on the latest U.S. Census data. Why help only that first one-third? Because, among all the uninsured, one-third are people who could afford insurance but elect to take the risk of going bare.
Which is their right–until Bam & Co. take it away as the Baucus bill would do.
Another one-third of the uninsured already qualify for government help a la Medicare (for the aged) or Medicaid (for the poor). They just haven’t signed up because they’re too proud, lazy or clueless–or they are illegal aliens.
This scandalizes Democrats, the notion that two-thirds of the uninsured are partially at fault for their own going-bare status.
The other night, two liberal Democratic congressmen, Anthony Weiner of New York and Robert Andrews of New Jersey, accused me of passing along bogus statistics on this score.
They called the figures “hearsay” and “made-up.” But it turns out the figures come from Congress’s own non-partisan Congressional Research Service. Take a look at how Rep. Andrews responded (in the video); suffice it to say he refused to apologize.
It would be one thing if Obamacare’s universal, mandatory coverage would actually lower health costs. But it won’t. Covering more people will simply result in higher costs for more drugs, more devices, more surgeries and more visits to the doctor and the hospital.
That’s why the less-is-more plan should hold sway.
After narrowing Obamacare at the start to just the Truly Uninsured–the 15 million lower-income folks who want coverage but don’t qualify for government help-we also should make them pay some portion from their own wallets.
For them, Obamacare could cover, free of charge, catastrophic care and chronic care (for five often preventable diseases that pose over half of all costs: cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and pulmonary disease).
That “doughnut” would leave recipients to cover the hole in the middle: regular doctor visits for routine ailments and maintenance.
One big cost problem we already have is a function of too much insurance.
Some 50% of all healthcare costs already are paid by government. Employer health plans cover the other biggest chunk. And only a sliver of the total cost is paid directly out of our own pockets.
If that personal portion went up, only then would we behave as tougher, smarter shoppers and worry more about keeping our own expenses down.
© 2009 CNBC.com
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IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
Michael Porter, Harvard Business School Professor on Health Care Reform
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IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
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Toby Cosgrove, Cleveland Clinic President & CEO – Reform Model
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IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
Aetna CEO On Health Care Reform
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IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.
Sen. Baucus Introduces Senate Financial Committee Health Bill
The following announcement was released by the office of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D,Mont.). Click here to read article and specifics about the proposed bill.
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IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
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Study Conducted By Engelberg Center For Health Care Reform
- Develop better information tools, such as health information technology and comparative effectiveness research.
- Redirect provider payments toward rewarding improvements in quality and reductions in cost growth, including disease prevention and care coordination.
- Reform health insurance markets, including creating incentives for value improvement rather than risk selection.
- Help individual patients make better choices – support them in improving their health and reaching their health goals.
Get quotes for individual/family health insurance in Arizona here. Contact us today at 602-510-7507 to find out how an HSA can benefit you.
IQ Financial Group, llc. is a licensed insurance agency in the state of Arizona. We offer a complete selection of health insurance, term life insurance, disability insurance, long term care insurance and supplement plans to individuals, families, self-employed and small businesses throughout Arizona. We offer the best in Arizona Health Insurance.
© IQ Financial Group, llc.