PeakTrader.com Forum Index PeakTrader.com
Economics, Portfolio Optimization, and Technical Analysis
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 
Log inFast Charts

Obama Recovery - Health Care

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic     PeakTrader.com Forum Index -> Articles
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
administrator
Site Admin


Joined: 28 Dec 2005
Posts: 11965

PostPosted: Wed Jul 09, 2014 3:22 am    Post subject: Obama Recovery - Health Care Reply with quote

PeakTrader:

It’s a dismal expansion from the June 2009 trough. We’ve added $5 trillion of additional federal debt for this “recovery.”

The $700 billion in TARP by the Bush Administration was almost or entirely paid back, with interest, under the Obama Administration. So, those huge Obama budget deficits would’ve been even worse without the TARP repayments.

Moreover, the recovery is actually weaker than reflected in GDP growth, because trade deficits shrunk substantially as a percent of GDP, which adds to GDP growth.

****

U.S. real GDP growth was 1.9% last year and the forecast for this year is around 2%.

UCLA Anderson Forecast: U.S. economy falls short of true recovery
June 05, 2013

“U.S. real GDP is now 15.4 percent below the normal 3 percent trend. To get back to that 3 percent trend, we would need 4 percent growth for 15 years, 5 percent growth for eight years, or 6 percent growth for five years, not the disappointing twos and threes we have been racking up recently, which are moving us farther from trend, not closer to it. It’s not a recovery. It’s not even normal growth. It’s bad.”

****

“The biggest single source of discrepancy from the earlier estimates came in health care services.”

The top 20% of income earners are likely doing well, while the other 80% seem to be struggling.

Deductables with the mandatory insurance premiums may be reducing demand for health care.

Much of the “middle class” either don’t qualify for a subsidy or receive a tax credit that covers a small percentage of the premium.

For example, according to Kaiser, if you’re single, 30 years old, earn $35,000 a year, with no employer coverage available, and don’t smoke, your health care premium for 2014 is $2,877 for the Silver plan, or $2,385 for the Bronze plan (of course, the Gold plan would be more), and receive no tax credit subsidy. The out-of-pocket maximum for a Silver plan (not including the premium) can be no more than $6,350.

Also, “Do not mess around. Pay your premium,” admonishes Karen Pollitz, a consumer specialist at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Otherwise that will be the end of you and you won’t get to sign up again until the next open season.”

Even underpaying the premium by a few cents could give the insurance company grounds to kick you off, she said. Insurers allow a brief grace period if you get behind — somewhat longer if you’re receiving premium subsidies — but they will terminate coverage for nonpayment.

The health law says that, once you join a qualified plan, you won’t pay more out of pocket per year than $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family. But this applies only to in-network care. Whether you’re in an HMO that pays almost no out-of-network benefits or a PPO that covers some, the pocketbook protections don’t apply if you use a non-network doc or hospital.

---

BC:

Peak, appalling, yes? The gov’t-sponsored and -protected mandate to enrich the insurers is a classic example of a corporate-statist cartel and a huge incremental tax on young people who are already struggling to subsist.

Note that 50% of for-profit “health care” (HC), i.e., “disease care”, is spent on the sickest 5% and 65% of spending is on the sickest 10%, most of whom are middle age or older, obese, have unhealthy diets, are smokers or have smoked, and who are sedentary, with a disproportionately larger share being women.

Moreover, 20% is spent on obscenely costly late-life procedures, treatments, and hospital stays for the terminally ill and dying elderly. That leaves the proportionally small remainder of HC spending for prevention, routine follow-up, and education services for the healthy, healthier, or non-elderly 70% to 80-90%.

Finally, combined total local, state, and federal gov’t spending (including public HC), debt service (“rentier taxes”), and private HC spending is an equivalent of 50% of US GDP. Therefore, the US economy cannot grow unless gov’t, private debt, and HC grow; however, with these sectors at 50% or more of GDP, this spending cannot grow if the economy cannot grow, i.e., catch-22.

A similar situation exists in the Eurozone (EZ), with 52% of GDP being gov’t spending, but the Europeans tax for public HC and generally have less private household debt to incomes and GDP (with notable exceptions, to be sure). Still, as in the case of the US, without growth of gov’t spending, including public HC, the EZ can’t grow, but the EZ can’t grow because gov’t spending is now over 50% of GDP.

Put differently, for the US economy to grow, we need a growing number of the ill, elderly dying, and debtors, but the incomes of the bottom 90-99% after taxes, debt service, and HC costs cannot support more debt, costly illness, and aging and dying.

Yet, most economists, and the likes of the IMF’s Lagarde, argue for spending SPEND MORE ON HC.

---

BC to Baffling:

I understand it very well. I have family members in the medical profession, as well as friends and acquaintances in the insurance racket.

The system should be segmented between healthy people who pay very little for “insurance” and who make decisions to remain healthy and NOT consume “health care”.

What we call “health care” is actually costly profitable “disease care” for the sickest 5-10%, most of whom have created their conditions from lifestyle choices, including those conditioned by socioeconomics, “education”, advertising, and so on. Healthy people (and their employers) who do not NEED costly medical services should not be paying for it so that doctors, clinics, hospitals, biomedical and pharma companies, and insurers can profit from ignorance about health and from illness and death.

Healthy people should have access to low-premium insurance with a relatively high deductible for costly services, whereas they pay out of pocket for affordable routine care.

The sickest 5-10% should be covered by gov’t but rationed on the basis of requirements for healthy lifestyle changes. The gov’t should be encouraged to say, “If you smoke, drink to excess, don’t exercise, maintain an unhealthy diet, are overweight or obese, and expect your healthy fellow Americans to pay through the nose for your bad habits and predictable outcomes, sorry, we’re not paying for your costly procedures, hospital stays, and follow-up care. And, no, you 74 year-old, you can’t have hip and knew replacement that someone else pays for so that the orthopedic surgeon can make $500,000/year.”

The processed, high-fat, salty, sugary, high-glycemic junk subsidized and sold as “food” by agribusiness and large “food” companies should be acknowledged for the debilitating costs the “food” creates for society and gov’t.

No one but the top 0.1-1% can ACTUALLY afford what we refer to as “health care” because the cost of the cartel is not meant to prevent illness but for the top 0.1-1% TO PROFIT FROM IT.

Not only is this BAD ECONOMICS, it’s just plain “unhealthy”, perverse, and wrong.

The US risks being the first country in history to go bankrupt and its economy collapse because we chose to allow the gov’t to subsidize poor health and to encourage profitability from illness and death for a small minority of the population.

---

PeakTrader:

In some regions of the country, where the cost of living is high, income of $100,000 a year isn’t much, when you didn’t buy a home, owe student loans, or are saving some money for retirement.

Moreover, it seems, there were more and better sales before the economy peaked in 2007.

Also, the assumption was if people had to buy health care insurance, they’d use health care more. That doesn’t seem to be the case.

Skin problems top Mayo’s list of reasons people visit doctors
01/17/13

“If you’ve sought care from a doctor recently, the odds are you did so because of a skin problem, a joint disorder or back pain.”

http://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2013/01/skin-problems-top-mayos-list-reasons-people-visit-doctors

---
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic     PeakTrader.com Forum Index -> Articles All times are GMT - 8 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by PeakTrader 2.0.8 © 2001, 2002