That is incorrect for a couple of reasons:
1. many employers offer multiple options for health plans and
2. there are actually many individual and affordable options out there. HSA's tied to high-deductible plans, for example.
1. Even if an employer has multiple options, they are generally through the same insurance company. Which was your original statement.
2. HSA encourage people to skimp on preventive care, and will only increase overall healthcare cost in the long run as preventable chronic conditions are not discovered in early stages.
You can better achieve the AHA's goal (which according to the CBO it will fail to achieve) of closer to universal coverage by equalizing the tax treatment of insurance purchased by individuals with that of insurance purchased by employers, and then offering a refundable tax credit based on family size for the purchase of health insurance.
Average family coverage cost $15,000 annually in 2011. Making entire amount "Pre-Tax" would save $3,000 assuming a 20% tax rate. Helpful, but not the answer you are making it out to be. As for the Tax Credit, well that all depends on the size of the credit, which you conspicuously left out.
:lol: yes. and they told us that the stimulus saved or created approximately 3 Jillion Jobs, too :mrgreen:
Got nothing on lifetime limits do you?
In reality, finding "efficiencies" such as denying care to those who are no longer cost effective is the purpose of the IPAB, and the main tool that they have (mostly via their ability to control the payment schedule) to achieve their mandate to keep the cost of Medicare inflation at inflation+1%.
False: The law bars the IPAB from rationing care, restricting benefits or changing eligibility criteria.
What is the IPAB authorized to do? Beginning with fiscal 2015, if Medicare is projected to grow too quickly, IPAB will make binding recommendations to reduce spending. Those recommendations will be sent to Capitol Hill at the beginning of the year, and
if Congress doesn't like them, it must pass alternative cuts -- of the same size -- by August. A super-majority of the Senate (at least two-thirds of those present) can also vote to amend the IPAB recommendations. If Congress fails to act, the secretary of health and human services is required to implement cuts or more likely, restrictions on Medicare's growth. At no time can the IPAB "deny care", you watch too much Faux News.
Your next false fact: The IPAB's mandate is not to keep the cost of Medicare at inflation + 1%, but rather GDP +1%.
What if Medicare's projected spending doesn't exceed the targets? In that case, the board isn't required to make the recommendations. And in fact, the Congressional Budget Office last year said that is likely to be the situation for almost a decade.
CBO is expecting Medicare spending to remain below the threshold that requires action.
