–The facts about “Obamacare,” without all the political BS. What you really need to know.

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Mitchell’s laws:
●The more budgets are cut and taxes increased, the weaker an economy becomes.
●Until the 99% understand the need for federal deficits, the 1% will rule.
●To survive long term, a monetarily non-sovereign government must have a positive balance of payments.
●Austerity = poverty and leads to civil disorder.
●Those, who do not understand the differences between Monetary Sovereignty and monetary non-sovereignty, do not understand economics.
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Reader “Bro_Pelini” sent me the best outline of “Obamacare” I ever have seen. Many thanks, Bro.

I urge everyone to click the above link, go to the site, review what he has said, look at the comments, and maybe copy the whole thing onto your computer, so you can refer to it, later.

I’m going to give you just a taste of it here, but do go to the site for a more complete listing of features.:

So what does it do? Well, here is everything, in the order of when it goes into effect (because some of it happens later than other parts of it):

Already in effect:
–It allows the Food and Drug Administration to approve more generic drugs (making for more competition in the market to drive down prices)
–It increases the rebates on drugs people get through Medicare (so drugs cost less)
–It establishes a non-profit group, that the government doesn’t directly control, PCORI, to study different kinds of treatments to see what works better and is the best use of money.

8/1/2012
Any health plans sold after this date must provide preventative care (mammograms, colonoscopies, etc.) without requiring any sort of co-pay or charge.

1/1/2013
–If you make over $200,000 a year, your taxes go up a tiny bit (0.9%).

1/1/2014
–No more “pre-existing conditions”. At all. People will be charged the same regardless of their medical history.
–If you can afford insurance but do not get it, you will be charged a fee. This is the “mandate” that people are talking about. Basically, it’s a trade-off for the “pre-existing conditions” bit, saying that since insurers now have to cover you regardless of what you have, you can’t just wait to buy insurance until you get sick. Otherwise no one would buy insurance until they needed it. You can opt not to get insurance, but you’ll have to pay the fee instead, unless of course you’re not buying insurance because you just can’t afford it.
–Insurers now can’t do annual spending caps. Their customers can get as much health care in a given year as they need.
–Make it so more poor people can get Medicaid by making the low-income cut-off higher.
–Small businesses get some tax credits for two years. ( Citation: Page 138, sec. 1421 )
–Businesses with over 50 employees must offer health insurance to full-time employees, or pay a penalty.
–Limits how high of an annual deductible insurers can charge customers.
–The elimination of the “Medicare gap”

There is lots, lots more. Those of you who already favor the plan will be pleased. Those who think they know why they hate the plan will be amazed.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

P.S. (Added 6/29/12) You also will want to read this: Factbox: Tax provisions in Obama’s 2010 health care law

And this: Healthcare Decision: Winners and Losers

And this: Health-care decision: What happens now?


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No nation can tax itself into prosperity, nor grow without money growth. Monetary Sovereignty: Cutting federal deficits to grow the economy is like applying leeches to cure anemia. Two key equations in economics:
Federal Deficits – Net Imports = Net Private Savings
Gross Domestic Product = Federal Spending + Private Investment and Consumption + Net exports

#MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY

Published by Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MBA Northwestern, business turnaround expert, economist

Published

17 thoughts on “–The facts about “Obamacare,” without all the political BS. What you really need to know.”

  1. according to faux “news” this is the end of america. is rupert murdock even a fucking citizen of this country? useless tools, every last one of them

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  2. Neither your recap nor the one at the link mentioned the PCIP (Pre-Existing Insurance Program). My husband is one of the 67,000 people enrolled in this plan and I am very thankful for today’s ruling. I think PCIP has been in effect for two years.

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        1. Yes, but probably not until 2014, when the mandate increases the number of healthy insured to offset the high risk of the pre-existing. A lot of people can still get sick and face economic hardship in the interim.

          The unanswered question is how much will insurance COST for pre-existing conditions? Will it be at the same rate as a low risk, healthy person?

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  4. So if the fee is 1% of income, and the costs of heath insurance are 10-20% of income, why shouldn’t I just drop my insurance and wait till I get sick? I think that come 1/1/2014, that is exactly what I will do. It’s like letting people get car insurance after an accident. If this law stands until 2014, watch for the number of uninsured to skyrocket. I will be one of them.

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    1. Could be a good plan for you, depending on your circumstances. Blue Cross Blue Shield gives this example:

      An uninsured, non-exempt individual with household income of $50,000 would be forced to pay 1 percent of the difference between $50,000 and the tax threshold (let’s say $10,00 for an individual in 2014), or roughly $400. Since $400 is greater than $95, this individual would have to pay $400.

      I don’t know whether signup periods apply. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office projects that 4 million uninsured, non-exempt Americans will refuse to get medical coverage and face the penalty in 2016. (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/health-care-law-mandate-tax-how-much-is-it/)

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      1. Sounds like a very severe blow to private health insurance, to me. Many insurers and possibly even private hospitals as well may fold. After all, a lot of people will prefer to avoid paying 10-20% of income for healthcare, when they can get the basics or maybe the whole shebang for 1% (or less, according to Rodger Malcolm Mitchell, if I am understanding him correctly), and so they will give up their present plans. In the rosy glow of transition the result will not be immediately apparent, but must end up producing enormously crowded public health facilities, and poor care for all, with long waiting lists for operations, etc. Private doctors will have a very difficult time, and may have to accept salaried positions at public hospitals where the care is too often much more impersonal. The end result really will be socialised medicine, just as conservatives have said, with all the glorious results that prevailed behind the Iron Curtain. At the end of the Soviet Union in 1990, average life expectancy was 60 years of age.

        However, the devil is in the detail. If the whole thing is done more like the system prevailing in Australia, where I live, it might actually work well. Here there is something called “Medicare.” Everyone is taxed a certain amount, based on income, but those who have private health insurance get a rebate which covers a portion of the tax. Private hospitals and doctors thrive, and the public hospitals, financed by the Medicare tax, are also of excellent quality although those without insurance do have to suffer long waiting periods for operations.

        I do wonder, however, whether this is the best time to introduce yet another tax on income. With economic conditions still so bad, it seems a bit nutty.

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  5. Here’s another good site listing some of the features of Obamacare. http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/blog1.php/2012/06/28/healthcare-decision-winners-and-losers#more3415

    Fundamentally, there are two kinds of people who don’t like Obamacare:
    1. Those who don’t know what it is
    2. Republicans who don’t care one way or another about Obamacare, but simply want to beat Obama.

    People who see the features invariably will like it.

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  6. This list is a great example of the broken window fallacy. You’ve given a benefit to someone, but taken away funds and choice from someone else that may have led to a better outcome. If you want to list what Obamacare “really is”, you need to list all the things that will no longer be available once it is in place. Among the most obvious, which are actually written into the law, are the Medicare cuts, taxes on medical devices and tanning, the 3.8% tax on investment income, and the IPAB mandate to reduce future Medicare spending via reduction of payments to providers. As it stands this is a marketing brochure.

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  7. valleyforge,

    You’re right. Because the federal government pretends it’s not Monetarily Sovereign, it passes laws that are “revenue neutral.” So it gives with one hand and takes with the other.

    The same was true with Medicare and Social Security, which supposedly are supported by FICA (they’re not). So the question becomes, would you rather not have Medicare and not have Social Security and not have to pay FICA?

    Obamacare, politically required a tradeoff, so the question becomes, are the benefits more valuable than the costs?

    Congress and the President should have passed a law mandating the government to provide free Medicare for every man, woman and child in America — without all the convoluted process gymnastics.

    Nevertheless, I believe Obamacare is a step forward, pending realization that the federal government has the unlimited ability to create dollars, and thereby can pay for Medicare for everyone.

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  8. Vincent,

    Very good unanswered question. If the cost is too high, people simply will pay the penalty, which is quite low, and/or protest. Then, the government will do something stupid (set prices) or something smart (pay for everyone’s insurance).

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  9. Still individuals are forced to buy something that we cannot afford. I totally get that some need doctors but either way I am forced to chose to die on my own as I cannot afford it. I’ve checked prices. Still can’t afford it even with subsidies. It’s not fair to tell someone they have to buy something when they are already having trouble making ends meet.

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