How to Protect Yourself From Obamacare

[Gaspar]

A concerned citizen doing his part to provide quality health care, and for free...

I like your hat.

[guido911]

[Hoss]

Fail.  Says the link is forbidden.

[guido911]

I read today that a district court enjoined Obamacare as it applies to religious institutions on "free exercise" grounds. Here is what really caught my attention though:

Cook Medical Inc. had been planning to open five new manufacturing plants over the next five years in small communities around the Midwest, including Indiana, but has shelved those plans because of the hit it will take from a new U.S. tax on medical devices.

The Bloomington-based medical device maker estimates it will pay between $20 million and $30 million once the tax takes effect in January, Pete Yonkman, executive vice president of strategic business units at Cook Medical, said this week.

The 2.3-percent tax on sales of all medical devices was created as part of President Obama's 2010 health reform law to help pay for its expansion of health insurance coverage to as many as 30 million more Americans. The tax is projected to raised about $2.9 billion per year.

"It is a challenge for us, no doubt," Yonkman said in an interview after the IBJ Life Sciences Power Breakfast on Wednesday (see video below). "We have fewer resources to be able to spend on those kinds of projects."

http://www.ibj.com/cook-medical-shelves-midwest-expansion-plans/PARAMS/article/35735

[nathanm]

$30,000,000 will not set up 5 manufacturing plants. Moreover, unless the tax is 100%, which it is not, building new production capacity would still be profitable for these fools. Why don't you apply the skepticism you show towards Obama towards things you like, too. It might help you notice when people are feeding you BS.

I don't see Proctor & Gamble whining about sales tax, why are these folks whining?

[joiei]

lets see now

The 2.3-percent tax on sales of all medical devices was created as part of President Obama's 2010 health reform law to help pay for its expansion of health insurance coverage to as many as 30 million more Americans. The tax is projected to raised about $2.9 billion per year.

A tax of 2.3% is projected to raise $2,900,000,000 per year.   How much in total sales does that ring up to on  the cash register? 

[Red Arrow]

lets see now

A tax of 2.3% is projected to raise $2,900,000,000 per year.   How much in total sales does that ring up to on  the cash register? 

$Sales x .023 = $2,900,000,000. 

$Sales = $2,900,000,000 / .023

$Sales = $126,086,956,522.

[Red Arrow]

$30,000,000 will not set up 5 manufacturing plants.

He didn't say it would, only that $30M would not be available to set up the plants that were planned.

[nathanm]

He didn't say it would, only that $30M would not be available to set up the plants that were planned.

Guido quoted:

Cook Medical Inc. had been planning to open five new manufacturing plants over the next five years in small communities around the Midwest, including Indiana, but has shelved those plans because of the hit it will take from a new U.S. tax on medical devices.

That sentence states that the reason Cook Medical will not open five plants is because it cannot afford to build even one due to the medical device tax. (that's BS in and of itself, but I digress) Later, the article states that the tax will amount to $20 million to $30 million.

Your interpretation is likely closer to the truth, but that is not what the article said. Besides, if a 2.3% tax on medical device sales prevents them from increasing production, there are bigger problems at Cook Medical than the tax. We're not talking about a small company here. They had something like $1.5 billion in revenue a couple of years ago, which agrees reasonably well with their claimed new tax burden. Raising money should not be a problem for them.

More likely they're not building the plants because they know that they're about to get their lunch eaten by SLS systems. The tax just provides a convenient excuse.

[guido911]

Even more good news:

Moreover, across the country, fewer than half of primary care clinicians were accepting new Medicaid patients as of 2008, making it hard for the poor to find care even when they are eligible for Medicaid. The expansion of Medicaid accounts for more than one-third of the overall growth in coverage in President Obama's health care law.

Providers say they are bracing for the surge of the newly insured into an already strained system.

Temetry Lindsey, the chief executive of Inland Behavioral & Health Services, which provides medical care to about 12,000 area residents, many of them low income, said she was speeding patient-processing systems, packing doctors' schedules tighter and seeking to hire more physicians.

"We know we are going to be overrun at some point," Ms. Lindsey said, estimating that the clinics would see new demand from 10,000 to 25,000 residents by 2014. She added that hiring new doctors had proved a struggle, in part because of the "stigma" of working in this part of California.

Across the country, a factor increasing demand, along with expansion of coverage in the law and simple population growth, is the aging of the baby boom generation. Medicare officials predict that enrollment will surge to 73.2 million in 2025, up 44 percent from 50.7 million this year.

"Older Americans require significantly more health care," said Dr. Darrell G. Kirch, the president of the Association of American Medical Colleges. "Older individuals are more likely to have multiple chronic conditions, requiring more intensive, coordinated care."

The pool of doctors has not kept pace, and will not, health experts said. Medical school enrollment is increasing, but not as fast as the population. The number of training positions for medical school graduates is lagging. Younger doctors are on average working fewer hours than their predecessors. And about a third of the country's doctors are 55 or older, and nearing retirement.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/health/policy/too-few-doctors-in-many-us-communities.html?_r=1

[Teatownclown]

Even more good news:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/health/policy/too-few-doctors-in-many-us-communities.html?_r=1

Right. The fact that there are fewer docs seems to have started several years ago and was predictable. Obama's fault? Hardly.

When there are too many engineers and plumbers you will see an increase in doctors. Already there's many immigrants filling the void.

Meanwhile, be thankful medical care has improved. It will continue to do so....

[nathanm]

So you think the solution to not having enough doctors is...rationing care?

[Conan71]

Right. The fact that there are fewer docs seems to have started several years ago and was predictable. Obama's fault? Hardly.

When there are too many engineers and plumbers you will see an increase in doctors. Already there's many immigrants filling the void.

Meanwhile, be thankful medical care has improved. It will continue to do so....

Improving the quality of medical care was one of the stated goals of Obamacare.

How is the quality going to improve when half our medical system is staffed by candidates from Baby Doc University in Haiti?

[nathanm]

You don't think there are well trained doctors who would like to come work here? Or that we have a monopoly on good medical programs? If that were the case, I'd expect outcomes to be better relative to other nations.

[swake]

You don't think there are well trained doctors who would like to come work here? Or that we have a monopoly on good medical programs? If that were the case, I'd expect outcomes to be better relative to other nations.

That's already happening, as I was going though my mother's lung cancer her pulmonologist was an Arab guy and her pain specialist was from India. They were also the two doctors I trusted the most out of her fleet of physicians.