Conservative Refocus

By Barry Secrest

So, journalist Rick Unger thinks that the profit component of healthcare should be pretty much eliminated, since profit has no place within the medical system. Therefore, this Liberal idiot, who hales, unsurprisingly, from California, totally misses the deeper science involved within free market economics and a free capital system.

We wonder if this simplistic  sage of liberaldom in Rick Unger, would also apply his motley theories to article writing, as well? Would you, Rick, be willing to give up your profit component of payment for the articles which you craft? If so, what would happen is quite simple in theory.

Profit, you see, is loosely defined as that which is left over from base expenses. Were the Government to eliminate your profit, you would have enough to pay your rent, make your car payments, buy your groceries and pay your taxes and various other piddling expenses, but that's it. You would be left to struggle to even perhaps go out to eat at that fine restaurant you so desire, and oh, give up largely going to those artsy, fartsy movies and, pretty much, most of the paid entertainment that you so copiously used to enjoy.

That fine but expensive wine that you relish after dinner? Pish-posh-- forget it, an unneeded extravagance, at best, besides, alcohol isn't very good for you, anyway.

Oh, and forget about investing in a promising future in that new writing contract.  You see, Forbes and your other venues are now forced to only pay what you appear to need and not what you truly desire or deserve. In fact, the government will now control and monitor every aspect of your existence. A single payer article-writing system is important, especially to the now-tighteningly controlled healthcare industry itself, which could possibly now suffer threat from your future diatribes against the government mandated and controlled system; so you will, therefore, be censured in the future, my Liberal, pinheaded friend.

Oops! Best be nice if you really want that hip repaired as well, "dude"...Meh, screw your love of tennis, the roundish bureaucrats don't like it anyway and hey! They know what's good for you, just take a pill or use a cane, younger people are more worthy anyway and there is, admittedly NOW, only so much to go around.

In fact, the finest healthcare system in the world is patently doomed, and now, so too,  is the quality of journalism in your now tightly controlled universe.

Sigh,it's so much better to urinate on someone else, rather than have them urinate on you, isn't it now, Rick? Oh, but wait, can we hear the squawking from Rick over this new barrier to his art? How dare they think to censure and control him!  By what right do they have to monitor his well-being and movements?

And how, you delicious moron, dear Rick, is this different from mandating government healthcare control and taking away the privatization of healthcare within the professionals as to that industry? In your smallish universe, healthcare needs controlling, but journalism? Government control of journalism would ruin what you actually do, now wouldn't it ?

So, how in the hell, Rick,  do you think the control of any one industry is totally different than the control of any other? Do you not, perchance dream, that perhaps the morays and the effects within healthcare are not also now victim in the same regard as would be in your precious journalism?

You see Rick, were this to happen, your future just got relegated and your quality of life negated as well.  So, what will you do, now, since much of your former income has been syphoned off? Well, forget about healthcare or journalism , or even both related industries, maybe write a book?

Oh, sorry, your book publisher just got included in the mandate as it applies to you. I hear school teachers get paid pretty well out on the left-coast...so good luck with that.

Below is one of the stupidest and most incipient posts I have ever read:

The Bomb Buried In Obamacare Explodes Today-Hallelujah!

By Rick Unger

Forbes

I have long argued that the impact of the Affordable Care Act is not nearly as big of a deal as opponents would have you believe. At the end of the day, the law is – in the main – little more than a successful effort to put an end to some of the more egregious health insurer abuses while creating an environment that should bring more Americans into programs that will give them at least some of the health care coverage they need.

There is, however, one notable exception – and it’s one that should have a long lasting and powerful impact on the future of health care in our country.

Rick Unger

That would be the provision of the law, called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of the consumers’ premium dollars they collect—85% for large group insurers—on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit. Failure on the part of insurers to meet this requirement will result in the insurers having to send their customers a rebate check representing the amount in which they underspend on actual medical care.

This is the true ‘bomb’ contained in Obamacare and the one item that will have more impact on the future of how medical care is paid for in this country than anything we’ve seen in quite some time.  Indeed, it is this aspect of the law that represents the true ‘death panel’ found in Obamacare—but not one that is going to lead to the death of American consumers. Rather, the medical loss ratio will, ultimately, lead to the death of large parts of the private, for-profit health insurance industry.

Why? Because there is absolutely no way for-profit health insurers are going to be able to learn how to get by and still make a profit while being forced to spend at least 80 percent of their receipts providing their customers with the coverage for which they paid. If they could, we likely would never have seen the extraordinary efforts made by these companies to avoid paying benefits to their customers at the very moment they need it the most.

Today, that bomb goes off.

Today, the Department of Health & Human Services issues the rules of what insurer expenditures will—and will not—qualify as a medical expense for purposes of meeting the requirement.

As it turns out, HHS isn’t screwing around. They actually mean to see to it that the insurance companies spend what they should taking care of their customers.

Here’s an example: For months, health insurance brokers and salespeople have been lobbying to have the commissions they earn for selling an insurer’s program to consumers be included as a ‘medical expense’ for purposes of the rules. HHS has, today, given them the official thumbs down, as well they should have. Selling me a health insurance policy is simply not the same as providing me with the medical care I am entitled to under the policy. Sales is clearly an overhead cost in any business and had HHS included this as a medical cost, it would have signaled that they are not at all serious about enforcing the concept of the medical loss ratio.

So, can private health insurance companies manage to make a profit when they actually have to spend premium receipts taking care of their customers’ health needs as promised?

Continue Reading--anti-Nauseatic recommended

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