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President Obama opened his conference with a clear, passionate, and generally accurate depiction of the state of current health system with some broad goals for reform.  Most importantly there was the new admission, as we have been pointing out in previous entries, that the main reason for this reform is “the biggest driving force in the federal deficit is the skyrocketing cost in Medicare and Medicaid. If we do not control these costs, we will not be able to control our deficit” .   The ...

It’s not just Federal Taxes that will go up.   State and local taxes will too. 

President Obama appears to be giving daily updates on Healthcare legislation and progress.   Here is a bullet point review of some of his noon statements today with  and fact checks.     

• Objections (to reform) are Politically based -  Doesn't pan out.  This isn't about $30 million for the Harvest Mouse in Nancy Pelosi's district that was essential in the economic stimilus bill in 2/2009.   This is about a $2.5 Trillion threat to scrap a healthcare system that, right or wrong, has existed for 60 years and, with all it's flaws, does currently cover over 250 million ...

If anyone has seen any other general projections of how it would work for individuals or families, please let me fact check it. 

I get a significant number of private emails daily with fears and anxiety about what these bills will do to them.   Some are for it and against it for reasons that appear to be unsubstantiated on each side.   Here is my projection of how it will work for individuals and businesses. 

Big picture:  Everyone must have health insurance protection.  No exceptions.  

For the Employer:

Huh?  What's that?

Back when Congress and the American Public cared about having a balanced budget, a section of the 1997 Balanced Budget act was injected to allow high priced doctors to opt out of Medicare and not be subject to any price controls.  In return for that, it prohibits doctors from participating in Medicare for two years and treating any patient without the patient agreeing that the patient is 100% responsible for payment and that Medicare deemed the treatment unnecessary.   This "PRIVATE CONTRACTING" has created a under the radar type, of better quality healthcare available only to those ...

How may people are uninsured and is this about helping them? 

The answer is it depends who you ask.  It appears that the answer is NO.   National Institute for Healthcare Mangement (April 2008) Brief:  says there are now 47 million, or 15.8% of the population uninsured.  Is that what it really says? On July 17th, 2009,  Howard Dean said on CNBC that the core issue is not about providing insurance to the uninsured, its " about the Private Sectors failure to control costs"

Is President Obama following through on his pledge or is something else really happening? The Answer is probably both. Most of us agree that "productive" healthcare reform is needed. Most of us recognize that President Obama campaigned for Health Reform and is following through. Has anybody wondered why this is being ramrodded through the houses of Government to get done so fast? I have. I don't presume that this is the answer, but I contend that the answers lie within GOOGLE, Yahoo, and MSN (bing!) I encourage you to do variations of the following search on your favorite engine " medicare reimbursement cut 2010 "

Currently providers charge significantly different amounts for the exact same procedure or service based on who you are.  

Health Insurance Reform:  

(Ground Rules and Goals) 

Major Healthcare reform is necessary.   I will spend the next few weeks providing short to medium length editorial articles explaining why I believe that major reform, some painful, is necessary.    I will cite specific and sometimes personal examples of what is wrong with the current system.   While I have a bias, and make my living off the existing system,  I will do my best to try and ignore my personal interests.   

On July 15th, 2009: Three Health Insurance Reform bills reached the House and Senate floors:

Each of these bills is over 1000 pages long.  As John Stewart said on his 7/15/09 show, ' A lot of these...ahhhh.. Congress people.... aren't really readers'.   

Please also note that most of these people have never run a business, big or small, and have no idea about real-life Health Insurance issues.    While I love the guy, I include President O'bama as not having a broad understanding of the issues.   He may be the best informed President on the issue since Richard Nixon, yes Nixon, but I ...