SENATE BILL: Reforming Atlasian Public Health Act of 2014 (Debating)

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Allowing HSAs may be a good thing, but I am wary of the levels of reductions in benefits, especially given the huge amount people at all income levels are paying in taxes to fund the program.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

For the benefit of everyone involved, could someone who knows Atlasia's current healthcare system briefly explain its major elements, particularly those that differ from the American system? I've read the relevant laws in the past, but I still don't have a great handle on the subject. I suspect that the same holds true for most people who would like to participate in this debate.

The simplest way to describe its main feature I think is a taxpayer-funded public option. It is a two-tiered system rather than single payer in the sense that it doesn't pay for everything and people can buy supplementary insurance.   Beyond that I can try to help explain it but I'm not sure where to start.  At some point it gets complicated and perhaps contradictory.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

There are a few major problems I see with the current pay structure. The main one is that there are some very steep drop-offs for benefits, such that we can imagine, for instance, there are many people asking their employers to not give them a raise or not taking that higher-paying job for fear they will get stuck with a larger health care cost that will more than make up the difference.  This problem gets worse the more individuals there are being covered under a single income.
I'm not sure the best way to fix it, but it will probably require a major change.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

There are a few major problems I see with the current pay structure. The main one is that there are some very steep drop-offs for benefits, such that we can imagine, for instance, there are many people asking their employers to not give them a raise or not taking that higher-paying job for fear they will get stuck with a larger health care cost that will more than make up the difference.  This problem gets worse the more individuals there are being covered under a single income.
I'm not sure the best way to fix it, but it will probably require a major change.

We can make it look like other types of taxation, putting brackets on it and making it similar to the Income Tax. From x to y you pay z%; after y to m you pay r%...

I'm not sure how to put that into practice though in the structure we now have.  Instead of a percentage of a person's income, what is being paid is a percentage of the price of a person's healthcare, which is going to vary quite a lot from one person to another at the same income level, and isn't a predictable amount either.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I'm not inclined to support any ban on unions in healthcare either.  As for the other stuff, HSAs and High-Risk Pools seem like they may be a good idea, but I'm thinking there's just got to be a more straightforward way to do it. People in this bill are losing benefits in one place and gaining them in another, and if I can't figure out what's going on with that I can't expect the patient affected by it to figure it out either.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Nay

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

There's some ongoing discussion on this issue outside of the government.  Maybe we should wait and see if anything comes of that, or if someone else has a workable reform, and set this legislation aside for now.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

https://uselectionatlas.org/AFEWIKI/index.php/Health_Care_Reform_Act_of_2004

Wouldn't this have been repealed by the CSS? Or did that not extent to healthcare with its blanket repeal of prior programs?

The ANHA (as amended) only mentions medicare, medicaid and tricare. 

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Does 60:53 really solve the problem?  It seems like it would still ban providers from charging the uncovered portion of a procedure.   Can we just strike the whole clause?

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

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Yeah, that works.