The President is focusing on the horrific job situation, and he here announces a job creation forum to be held in December. But regardless of forums today’s Boston Globe detailed (again) the huge hike coming for small business in the area of health care. A local company, Coady’s Towing, is looking at a 28% increase in health care costs next year. That translates to about $58,000 for that one company. The CFO at Coady’s is stunned by the increase.
“We’re a small company, and that’s a huge raise,’’ said Bouchard. “How much more can you expect an employer and its employees to contribute?’’
The answer to that question ends up being pretty straightforward. Cost shifting by all players, outright dropping of coverage in some cases, and certainly a perverse incentive to not hire anyone new. The cost shifting is highlighted in the Globe story:
According to Blue Cross, the majority of its customers have been redesigning their plans through “buydowns,’’ which use higher deductibles and other features to shift more of the cost to employees.
And Blue Cross of course highlights the fact that those companies that engage in this type of cost shifting can expect increases of “only” 10 to 12 percent. Wow. What a bargain.
It is the same story that has been occurring annually for years, and then folks express puzzlement at the fact that jobs are disappearing and not coming back. You can’t grow anything with numbers like that, especially jobs. Health care cost escalation needs to be addressed. If not I do not believe that the jobs situation will improve any time soon. Read the Globe story here.
Bill Manzi.com 
Your Honor,
You address two issues here; the high jobless rate in excess of 10%; and health-care which you and the Boston Globe (1/2 the news that is fit to print)are going to favor the Democratic bill.
Why this president has summit meeting for every issue only proves to me he has no answer to these problems. He was voted in to be a catalyst of change regarding these problems. He is going to get a bunch of muck-a-muck and some union buddies to what? Have a beer? Doesn’t he have some high priced experts to dope out solutions? Obviously not as he has never solve anything in a year. It is a delaying action to give the appearance of doing something.
Your point about health-care is interesting. The “private” sector insurance is not “private” as it is replete with federal and state law. Why can’t Coady look at plans in Oregon or Mississippi or for that matter, anywhere else in the country? Why can’t Coady look at health savings plans? Why can’t tort reform be ‘reformed’? Oh, yes, the lawyers are Deval and Obama’s friends. These fixes coulld be a cheap way of helping.
Are you favoring the Democratic 2,000 page incomprehensible Heathcare plan? Your honor do you have any concept what those Bureaucrats can do with 2000 page of free rein over the nation’s health care? I hope there are enough jails to hold all the holdouts.
Note: Medicare, touted as a success is 31 Trillion short of being fully funded. What do think is going to happen when the whole country is under Government healthcare?
Jules
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PS What happened to the stimulus plan?
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Jules:
I see you’ve been getting sloppy again … I have to admit, I haven’t been paying as much attention to your postings as I used to, but just sitting here watching a terrible Dallas / Green Bay game waiting for Pats / Colts, I have some spare time …
I guess I’m wondering why you think it’s not a good idea for Obama to actually talk with people before implementing policy, but now I remember you like the more Bush/Cheney approach of talk to no one but your own gut, and let it decide. How did that work out for us? I’m thinking the President’s way might be a little better.
He hasn’t solved anything? Are you selling pencils on a streetcorner yet? We’re right now beginning to come out of the deepest recession since the Great Depression, which we apparently avoiding by the narrowest skin on the narrowest tooth. The stock market has recovered half its losses since the bottom (not that I don’t think this is another bubble, mind you, or that things may go down again before going up …) Not enough for you? What, you think we should start growing GDP at 15% again by tomorrow? Took us 30 years to get into this mess, vast majority of debt incurred on Republican watches, it’s going to take a little bit of time to get out of it. Turn off your TV, try to cure your short attention span, take a chill pill and try to gain some perspective on where we were 9 months ago and where we are now.
Besides, I thought your argument was that government doesn’t create jobs … so where is the private sector in all this (when Evergreen Solar manufacturing jobs are not moving to China, that is)?
The point the Mayor is making about health care is the same one that’s been made since the beginning: private sector healthcare’s costs are being driven up by leaps and bounds and are unsustainable for those that pay for it, be they individuals, corporations, cities, states, or the Federal government. You may have missed this, given the amount of time you spend glued to Fox News, so I understand. Private insurance is adding anywhere from 20-40% to that cost in overhead alone, depending on the study you read.
We’ve talked about this before: without reform, Medicare goes broke in 2015, and stops being able to support people like you. Are you sure you want be rooting for this effort to fail? How old will you be in 2015?
Or are you rich and can afford whatever procedures you may need for the rest of your life?
On tort reform: in the states where reforms have been implemented, the have had almost no noticeable effect on the rise in costs. In fact, the CBO estimates that all medical malpractice legal costs at about 2% of the total spending in health care. Call 25% of that invalid. That’s 0.5%. You’re playing in the decimal point.
Now, be nice or I’m going to have to come back here and give those hamsters running around in your head some more exercise.
-FM
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PS:
Not for nothing, but I’m not all that impressed with the House plan as passed, and will likely not be impressed with the merged plan either.
To my mind, there is not enough there in terms of cost containment. A strong public plan would have begun to attack the 20-40% overhead in private insurance plans, but the strong public plan did not make it into the House bill. Without strong influence which up to now has not been forthcoming from the White House, what we’ll end up with is a bill that provides universal coverage, at least some of the private insurance company abuses addressed in the denial of care areas, but only a slight bending in the cost curve. The can will be kicked down the road for a future administration to solve.
It has only reinforced my view that too many Congressional Democrats are Republican-lite.
-FM
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WOW Fred!! Both those barrels you just fired have obviously been primed for some time…feeling better? 😉
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Jim:
Just bored, is all. How y’all been, my man?
-FM
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Fred,
I missed you. I thought I was the only person, along with the Mayor working this blog.
But, like a Phoenix, you rise from the ashes.
I am sorry you had to see that Pats/Colts fiasco after your disappointing time with Dallas/ Green Bay.
But, I know you will soldier on.
Now, down to business.
I see, like your savior, it’s blame Bush time. How far do we have to get into the Obama presidency to make it the Obama presidency? Geeze, Fred, he has been in office nearly a year. On TV until even his admirer’s are sick of seeing him. Pontificating and dithering on issues such as Afganistan – he had a summit for that, but no decision; Health care – he’s had summits with doctors, pharmaceutical companies all of whom are sorry they gave their time. He is only terrorizing them into doing his bidding; and now jobs, a problem from the time he took charge. He claimed his Stimulus plan would limit unemployment to 8.2% – that hasn’t worked since we are now at 10.2%.
To repeat myself, he should have the solutions at hand within his administration. But, since they turned out to be racists, commies and other reprobates and had to quit he may be having problems with his ideology.
Where are Christine Romer, Larry Sumner and Paul Volcker on this? These are super smart guys and gals and I believe volcker is a Nobel Prize winner. And we now the value of that scrap of paper. All told there are about 23 economists available to the President, and he and all that brain power can’t figure out how to encourage job growth almost a year after he took office? Pshaw. I would answer you that this president has no solution. Heck, I don’t think he has a clue.
Note: Bushes presidency was largely noted for unemployment rates of 5% or less.
9 months aga we were 1/2 trillion in debt. Now under Obama we are 2 trillion for this year and he keeps spending. Trillions wanted for health care and who knows how many trillions under Cap and Tax. Wait ’till that tax bill comes in. It will under Obama’s signature.
9 months ago we were at 5% and now we are 10.2% unemployment. Check out the URL below for conformation.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&tdim=true&q=unemployment+rate+chart
PS, I have an order of Pencils and a tin cup coming soon. I will need a license from the Mayor.
Government doesn’t create jobs (except in Government). They have an effect on job creation in the dreaded private sector by monetary and fiscal policy. We conservatives believe if you cut taxes including capital gains taxes you create an atmosphere for job growth. Liberals believe you tax the pants off everyone you can. The Healthcare abortion your guys have concocted claims to tax the super rich, but, as usual,it’s a lie – the house plan calls for taxing medical equipment. Want a cane, pay a tax. The middle class will suffer this indignity the most.
All that other stuff you spout only proves to me you have keeping up your reading of the Little Red Book and watching MSNBC (Olberman the nut) and reading the Globe.
Medicare, by the way is underfunded by 31 trillion dollars. Medicare and S.S. combined in excess of 100 Trillion Dollars. This is a political class created problem. It has been ignored by everyone for a long time.
Be Well,
Jules
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Jim, you are alive.
Jules
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Jules:
Aw, shucks. So nice to be missed. Too bad it turned out to be TWO terrible games in a row. But, such is life in the big leagues. And Belichek made the right decision, if not the right play call.
But, as you say, we’re off to the races …
For the foreseeable future, it will be blame Bush and the Republicans time: this is not a recent revelation, I’ve held this position for some time. Long term series of disastrous policy choices have left us with precious little choice in terms of starting to fill in the deep hole that’s been dug. We’ve been through The Perfect Storm: massive debts accumulated by Republicans, tax cuts that depleted revenues, and a belief that Americans would borrow themselves silly to support lifestyles they couldn’t afford. Add to that mix deregulatory policy that put the Wall Street foxes (no allusion to your revered Foxes yet) in the proverbial henhouse, it truly is a wonder to me that anything is left standing.
Did I forget anything? Oh, yeah. Healthcare costs are going up faster than gasoline at the pump. That pesky free trade thing has turned industrial America into a vast wasteland, and the jobs, they just keep a bleedin’ offshore. And we’re pumping too much CO2 into the atmosphere.
Obama does nothing else but to hold our collective heads above water while we begin to sort out what the future economy is going to look like, he’s earned himself a “B”. One thing looks like it’s fo-sho: the days of wine and roses are over. 6% of the population is not going to be able to support 25% of the consumption.
On your DEFICIT (not debt) numbers, you better check your facts (again). While you’re looking at your own posted graph to correct your unemployment numbers as of 9 months ago (I make it 8.9%, not 5%), consider too that throughout the Bush administration, any war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan did not appear in the deficit numbers. Why? They weren’t budgeted. Wars were funded with emergency spending bills. Before last fall, I would have said that no company could have gotten away with such accounting trickery. I stand corrected, on that count.
All the Obamanator did was provide some honest accounting for his debts. Maybe we should go back and do like any company would be forced to, and restate Bushes debts (which, of course, we know your 500B number can’t be true, since the TARP he signed to provide the first of the bank bailouts was 700B. What you must have really meant to say was 1.3T. Or more.).
We’ve had 30 years of bubble economies and accumulated debts to understand how conservative economic theory works in practice. Tax cuts haven’t stimulated job growth, they’ve stimulated income disparity growth. Any jobs so stimulated end up somewhere else. One bubble after another. Debt as far as the eye can see. Jobless Americans looking overseas at the jobs they used to have.
Republican theory, Republican practice. You cannot walk so blithely away from such abject failure. You know the first step of any good twelve step program is to admit you have a problem. Go ahead. It’s OK. We all already know it. Stop trying to defend the indefensible in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary …
Quoth the Dickster, with props to St. Reagan:
“Cheney to Treasury: “Deficits don’t matter””
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was told “deficits don’t matter” when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis.
O’Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush’s economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from “the corporate crowd,” a key constituency.
O’Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. “You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: “We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due.” A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.
-FM
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Fred good posting. I have been arguing for years that the Reagan policies of the deregulaton of the banking industry was the root cause of the bank and lending institution failures. Somewhere along the line we allowed Reagan to become some kind of demi-god in politics. The truth is more as you stated. He invented the “fuzzy math” that created the greater disparity between the rich and the poor. I am not sure what the answer is but here we are the greatness nation in the world and we no longer “make anything”. Tax incentives were given to companies to expand, which they did, but not in this country. No tax breaks should be given to any company unless they expand and increase production in this country and provide jobs in this country.
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Fred,
You certainly reached down to put every Liberal talking point in this one entry. If I argue every Point I don not believe I could even change your mind on anything.
I am not capable of undoing this Gordian Knot of this convoluted entry.
Just to prove a point, let’s talk about your knowledge of Global Warming that you alluded too when you mentioned Co2.
Are you game? 1 issue only. Should be easy for you. No Dick Cheney. No George Bush. Just you and me.
Jules
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Summer:
Then I think you were right all along …
I myself struggle, though, with what the right answers to sustainable growth are. The free market is still a good and powerful thing, but it doesn’t stand alone – it also requires a social component to go along with the profit component.
I think the observation comes from George Orwell, but the price and production levels of shoes don’t at all matter if no one can afford to buy or wear the shoes.
-FM
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Jules:
Aw, shucks again. It wasn’t a reach at all. Just a little honest observation and study is all. You have to show me where my premises are wrong, or I’ve drawn the wrong conclusions from my premises. I’ve been known to change my mind, if presented with a proper argument.
I see your offer to go mano a mano, and you know I’ll never shy away from a discussion, because in the end, either I get smarter, or someone else does. Or some combination of the two.
But we’re not done with this one yet.
See, if we’re going to get beyond the talking points, we actually have to reach conclusions. I’m an engineering manager by trade: I’m interested in creating solutions to problems, but I know I cannot reach correct solutions unless I understand and quantify the correct problem. Nor can I reach a solution if half my engineers see black where the other half see white.
You’re an intelligent person. You’re an engineer. You understand the process as well as I do. It is our nature to see problems and create lasting solutions. It’s who we are as well as what we do.
There are many topics on which I am sure you can open my eyes, but most of your arguments hinge on a certain partisan way of looking at things. I think you start with faulty premises and thus reach incorrect conclusions, but maybe that’s my partisan way of looking at things.
All this to say: if you want to go one on one where one or both of us might learn something, then we have to be able to agree on conclusions when presented with valid, logical, fact based arguments. I want to think in terms of building something that works at the end of the discussion.
So, I ask you very simply:
Was Ronald Reagan wrong in thinking that deficits don’t matter?
Yes, or no?
-FM
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Ahhh Fred, there you go obfuscating and then changing the subject entirely. Jules didn’t want to talk about Ronald Reagan, he wanted to talk global warming. You my friend have just proven yourself to be another typical ‘librul’–changing the rules to fit your game plan… 😉
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Fred,
You treat liberal talking points each like a bead of different colors. You then string the beads in random order to make your logic necklace. You are right about our partisanship, which I assume, on your part, is a result of your progressive beliefs, and mine because of my conservatism. We end up in circular arguments trying one up the other. Most of your talking points are past history as if that matters now. It doesn’t.
What matters are the issues before us: Cap and Trade and Health care, both of which make significant changes to our society.
I want to discuss these matters in a debate format. You give you position and then I give mine. We then work on the components in each.
No George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Dick Chaney, etc. Keep in 2009 and beyond.
What do you think?
Jules.
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Jim / Jules:
Jim, see, that’s right. What I’m trying to get Jules to understand is the art of a consistent argument: and in a very simple way, to get him to see that if his position is that deficits are horrible under Obama (without my taking a position either way), then they must have been horrible under Reagan.
You see that he couldn’t bring himself to do it. So his argument gets rejected, out of hand.
He doesn’t want to look back, because looking back holds too many inconvenient truths: that what he’s believed for so many years not only has a chance of being wrong, but when actually measured objectively, IS actually wrong. Most people understand that understanding history, you have a chance to avoid making the same mistakes. You learn, you evolve, you try something else. Not our right honorable friend here, though. Strange to me, given that he’s at least a part time historian. Strange indeed.
Jules:
Though I will continue to needle you on every factual mistake I think you’re making, I’m not really all that interested in circular and cherry picked debates with you. If you cannot concede, rightly or wrongly, that your position has been shown faulty, then what’s the point? You shout your talking points, I give my refutations, and in the end, we’re no further along than when we started.
With the possible exception that I get to exercise some vocabulary skills.
On global warming, I can give you scientists opinions, I can give you the US military’s position. But you’ve picked your “truths”, even though they seem to be at odds with the “facts”.
We can “debate” cap and trade, we can “debate” health care. I think I can even write your side of the conversation. “Libruls. Anti-Christ. Socialism. Lost Freedom”. Have I got it?
This is the basis of your conservatism, I think: you are afraid of change. You seek to preserve what you have, exactly as you have it.
My good friend, no matter what you or I think or believe, the rate of change in this world is accelerating, be it man made, nature made, business made, or politically made. You don’t control it, nor do I. So, learn to adapt, or don’t. But don’t wrap it up in “conservatism”. Call it what it is.
There are people out there that are attempting to take on the challenges that the world is presenting, and the world is a target rich environment for solutions right now. So join in the solution, or continue to be part of the problem.
Answer my very simple question:
Was Ronald Reagan wrong in thinking that deficits don’t matter?
Yes, or no?
-FM
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Fred,
I knew you would chicken out. I am not surprised you are unable to deal in facts.
So what have we to talk about other just good nature ribbing?
Jules
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Jules:
Aw, shucks.
I think you’re not quite ready for me yet. When you can at least begin to solve some of your internal inconsistencies, then you can work your way up to dealing in facts.
I’ll still be right here for you, ready and waiting. Arguing with dining room tables, and all.
So, for a record third time:
Was Ronald Reagan wrong in thinking that deficits don’t matter?
Yes, or no?
-FM
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“I am not surprised you are unable to deal in facts. ”
Jules,
With all due respect, this sentence SURE did give me a chuckle! 😉
And Fred Mertz?! MAN, you must have driven Ethel wild!!
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Jim:
Just because I wear my pants pulled up to my chest shouldn’t lead you to conclusions.
😉
-FM
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Fred and Jim,
I’m out of the daycare center.
Jules
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Damn! And I was JUST needing my diaper changed!!
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