Whitehouse.gov is news endorsed by Trump: lists a news report by the Washington Post praising Trump for revolutionizing the Insurance market place. Has Bezos decided to mix negative and positive news stories to reach a wider viewership?
Anyway, here is the article Trump wants you to read:
Trump could revolutionize the private health insurance market (Grace8: why doesn't WAPO follow common grammer rules for this title?I bolded it so you can tell its a title.)
Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, speaks in Washington last week. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News)
By Avik Roy
June 17
Avik Roy is president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity and a former policy adviser to Mitt Romney, Rick Perry and Marco Rubio.
For decades, economists and health-care experts have warned about flawed incentives and rising costs in America’s system for employer-sponsored health insurance. That system, through which more than 150 million Americans get their coverage, has proved difficult to reform — until now.
Last week, the White House finalized a rule that allows employers to fund health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) that can be used by workers to buy their own coverage on the individual market. This subtle, technical tweak has the potential to revolutionize the private health insurance market.
Today, employer-based health coverage is a defined benefit. If — and only if — an employer buys group coverage for its employees, the value of that benefit is excluded from taxation. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates this tax break is worth more than $300 billion a year.
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A big tax break may sound good, but this one creates perverse incentives. In the employer-based market, not only is a third party — the insurer — paying for health care, but another third party — the employer — is choosing and funding the insurance plan. Call it ninth-party health care.
In this system, workers almost entirely lack the tools they need to shop for low-cost, high-quality health-care services. For the typical worker, 80 percent of health care is paid for through insurance. Without transparency on the price of health insurance, workers lack transparency on the price of health care.
The employer tax exclusion is also highly regressive, because those in higher tax brackets receive a larger benefit from the rule than those in lower ones. Silicon Valley programmers and Manhattan lawyers get a far bigger tax break for health insurance than do cashiers or truck drivers.
In 2008, GOP presidential nominee John McCain proposed replacing the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance with a fixed, $2,500 credit with which to buy coverage on the open market. The idea was pilloried by then-Sen. Barack Obama, who said it would “tax health benefits for the first time ever, meaning higher income taxes for millions.” (In reality, it was Obama’s Affordable Care Act that introduced the first tax on employer-sponsored health insurance.)
In the decade since, the cost of employer-based coverage has continued to rise. Deductibles have more than tripled since 2008. A new study from the RAND Corp. finds that, on average, hospitals charge those with private insurance 2.4 times what they charge Medicare for the same services.
Enter President Trump and his team at the National Economic Council, led by Larry Kudlow. The council found an elegant way to give employers the opportunity to voluntarily convert their health benefits from a defined benefit into a defined contribution. For example, an employer could fund an HRA for each worker and their family, which they could then use to shop for a plan that best suits their needs.
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The administration estimates that as many as 800,000 employers — mostly smaller businesses — will choose this option, expanding health-care choices for 11 million workers in the next decade. These employers will benefit from having fiscal certainty over their health expenditures. And workers will benefit from being able to choose their coverage and take it from job to job.
Furthermore, if those estimates are right, the new rule could dramatically expand the market for individually purchased health insurance, encouraging more plans to enter the market and lowering premiums for all participants. The White House estimates that the rule could expand the number of Americans with health insurance coverage by as many as 800,000.
The Trump HRA rule should be seen as the beginning — not the end — of reforms to improve the quality of private health insurance. Congress also needs to repair the individual market for health insurance by reforming Obamacare-era regulations that punish young and healthy people for buying coverage.
And the White House should consider building on the HRA rule by requiring that all newly incorporated businesses seeking the tax break for employer coverage do so through HRAs. Such a reform would preserve traditional employer-based group health insurance for those who have it, while ensuring that start-ups that evolve into the Googles and Apples of the future deploy the new model.
Together, over time, these changes would give workers more transparency into — and more control over — the health-care dollars that are now spent by other people on their behalf. That transparency and control, in turn, would create a powerful market incentive for health-care payers and providers to lower prices and increase quality.
Some in Washington want to take health insurance choices away from workers and replace them with the diktats of politicians. The Trump initiative moves in the opposite direction, placing health- care choices right where they have always belonged: in the hands of hard-working Americans.
Counterpoint A different view on the issue
Opinion
Trump actually wants to make the election about health care. Good luck with that.
It'll be spectacular
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[–] Qdini 0 points 2 points 2 points (+2|-0) ago
A head fake. They write horrible stories about him every day. Including one about a fake rape that never happened that we should believe.
[–] Cloudrdr 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Every once and a while a blind squirrel stumbles over a nut.
An additional and HUGE incentive for smaller businesses to be thrilled with this is that what had been a Human Resources SINKHOLE, with permanent employees or contracted services, spending hundreds of hours each year 'managing' the company's healthcare.
From analyzing and CHANGING health plans from year to year (which frequently disrupts ongoing care that employees are undergoing) to dealing with Insurance company issues with and between employees and caregivers.
These company expenses will vaporize into simple accounting rules.
BIG benefit for business wrapped into delicious benefits for the employees and the caregivers and probably the insurance companies as well. WIN-WIN-WIN
EXACTLY the kind of thoughtful policy initiatives we would expect from a RATIONAL Businessman.
[–] ScorchedEarthAnon 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
There needs to be a “freedom for mental health act” now that forces mental and developmental health practitioners to accept new patients WITHOUT a referral. I’m having to jump through hoops to get my 5 year old in for services and one extra thing I have to do is take him to his PCP so she can fax a letter of referral. As if she knows anything about his needs - it’s just a forced visit and a $35 copay and a waste of my time. Pisses me off.
[–] SuckaFree ago
What are the other 7 news articles?
[–] grace8 [S] ago (edited ago)
There are only 6 others:
Mexico Becomes First Country to Approve USMCA
-Washington Examiner “Mexico’s Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of approving the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade, a deal that would replace the North American Free Trade Agreement,” Zachary Halaschak reports. “[Canadian] Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said last week that Canada would be working ‘in tandem’ with the U.S. in hammering out final passage of the historic trade deal.”
Share: President Trump hosts Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau
How Trump’s Tax Cuts Are Helping the Middle Class -The Daily Signal “Steve, it’s almost like a light switch was flicked from off to on the day after the election,” one small business owner says about the effect of the Trump Presidency on his company. Tax reform expert Stephen Moore say that “the economic ramifications [of tax cuts] have been almost universally positive . . . Almost 90% of taxpayers don’t have to itemize their deduction any longer because we doubled the standard deduction.”
🎬 Reagan economist Art Laffer receives Medal of Freedom from President Trump
Ivanka Trump, Wilbur Ross: President Redoubles Efforts to Ensure Good Jobs for All -Salisbury Post “With a record 48 states registering unemployment rates below 5%, President Trump’s economic agenda is paying off,” which means more opportunities for job seekers, Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross write. As of today, the President’s efforts have resulted in more than 250 companies pledging more than 9 million new training opportunities for American workers and students.
🎬 Ivanka Trump in Charlotte: “We are approaching 10 million commitments” Pence Says Maduro ‘Must Go’ as Navy Aids Venezuelan Refugees -The Washington Times
“Vice President Mike Pence called anew for the ouster of Venezuela’s embattled President Nicholas Maduro on Tuesday, asserting that the socialist leader’s removal is the only way democracy can be restored in the South American nation,” Carlo Muñoz reports. “We are with our neighbors and we will stand with [the Venezuelan people],” the Vice President said.
🎬 Vice President Pence: U.S. compassion “sets sail” with the USNS Comfort Bahrain Workshop on Palestinian Economy is the Opportunity of a Generation -CNN
“This is exciting—an opportunity of a generation. We are grateful to the Kingdom of Bahrain for extending the invitation to [the Trump Administration] to host the June 25 and 26 workshop with them for the benefit of Palestinians and others in the region, offering us a unique opportunity to communicate our economic vision,” White House Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt writes. President Trump’s goal is to present “a realistic resolution and a brighter future for all those burdened with this conflict.”
Hundreds of Migrant Caravan Members Found to Have US Criminal Histories: DHS Files -Fox News
“Hundreds of illegal immigrants attempting to cross the southern border as part of massive migrant caravans were found to have criminal histories in the U.S., according to newly obtained Department of Homeland Security documents,” Brooke Singman reports. One caravan of nearly 8,000 migrants arrived south of California in December 2018. “660 of them had U.S. criminal convictions—with 40 convicted of assault or aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and three convicted of murder.”
President Trump Could Revolutionize the Private Health Insurance Market
-The Washington Post “Last week, the White House finalized a rule that allows employers to fund health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) that can be used by workers to buy their own coverage on the individual market,” healthcare expert Avik Roy writes. “Some in Washington want to take health insurance choices away from workers and replace them with the diktats of politicians. The Trump initiative moves in the opposite direction.
[–] CR302 ago
Get the damn government out of healthcare and the price of insurance will drop. The health insurance industry is treating your health like a wrecked car. Example: If you crash your car, you call the insurance. The insurance sets up a claim, you pick your car doctor and take in the patient. Next, the repair shop does an examination....estimate writer equals the nurse. Then, the technician looks over the car, looks deeper for damage, which can't be seen from the outside...like exrays and probing the damaged area, looking for where it hurts. The technician/Doctor then makes a list of all the damage not included in the initial exam. A well trained doctor, who nows the steps of each repair procedure and knows that every part he removes to fix the underlying damage has time attached to it...time is money. The dr tech sends the repiar plan up to the blueprint writer (billing specialist/insurance negotiator). The blueprinter send it to the insurance agent. The insurance says...well we're only going to pay you to take this part way off, rather than following ICar industry standards, which instructs the Dr tech on proper repair procedures...but it cost the insurance more and takes the tech more time, as he is actually doing the work in proper order. Problem arises when you have cut rate insurance...they only do set backs on bumpers (take it part way back...ICar never trains the tech to do that) leave in the glass and remove the door handle ( but thats not how they built the door at the factory). I digress...the better insurance compnaies pay the Dr tech for all the work involved in following proper repir procedures. Health insurance is trying to implement the same system of payment for your health care. They have devised all these new codes for every procedure so they can add a price to each step. The smarter human dr's and blueprinters are going to bill the insurance for every item...beacuse there is money on they table, all they have to do is cliam it on the invoice. Major difference is that the repair facility for your car eats what the insurance won't pay and the health insurance rejects it and the bill goes to you. Healthcare prices have doubled since Obamacare if you pay cash. It used to cost $65 to run in if I was ill...now it's 150 for an annual asthma check up and 249 for a well child check. Because the government got involved and took my tax money to pay the insurance companies.