Healthcare
OPEN LETTER REGARDING POTENTIAL SELF-INSURANCE PLAN
OPEN LETTER TO WISCONSIN JOINT FINANCE COMMITTEE
REGARDING POTENTIAL SELF-INSURANCE PLAN
POWRS (Protect Our Wisconsin Retirement Security), February 19, 2017
Dear Joint Finance Committee Members:
POWRS has closely followed events leading to the Wisconsin Group Insurance Board (GIB) approval of the self-insurance program proposal. We have been and continue to be deeply skeptical of this proposal. We believe that since the health insurance marketplace is already in turmoil due to dismantling of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), conducting such a radical change ...
WHO CARES?
“Who cares?” was House Speaker Paul Ryan’s reply to a question from Scott Pelley on a 60 Minutes segment after Trump tweeted lies about the election.
The question “Who cares?” must be applied to the impact the repeal of the Affordable Care Act by the president-elect and Republicans will have on the lives of our fellow Americans.
***“Who cares” about people who were denied coverage for pre-existing conditions?
My Mom was a small business owner in northern Wisconsin and was the hardest worker I have ever known. One of her young employees was ill for ...
OLD FASHIONED AMERICA AND THE “WELL-BEING” STATE
“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper,
you're misinformed.” Mark Twain
This quip accurately describes the results of today's for-profit news media and cable TV. Americans are uniformed and misinformed on many topics. One example of misinformation is life in the “socialist” Scandinavian countries. The media portray them as welfare states that have nothing to teach us. These countries supposedly suffer from high taxes and oppressive bureaucracies that kill initiative, free enterprise, and personal freedom.
A new book, ...
WEALTH AND MONEY PART XXVI: WHO IS BANKRUPTING AMERICA?
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said: “Because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke.” But the Medicare trustees themselves, along with a host of experts, say the Affordable Care Act’s changes to Medicare – including holding the line on spending and raising taxes [a surtax on high income earners] – actually puts Medicare in better shape than before the law was adopted. That’s a long way from making Medicare go broke. We rate Ryan’s statement Pants on Fire. - - Tom Kertscher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Pants on Fire” has become standard operating proced...
ENEMY OF THE ELDERLY (AND ALL OTHERS WHO PLAN ON AGING)
“The Center for Media and Democracy has learned that AARP has recently [2014] joined ALEC, and that it is a named sponsor of the ALEC annual meeting taking place in Indianapolis, Indiana from July 27-29, 2016.” - - The Center for Media and Democracy, July 28, 2016
“It was very recently revealed that AARP is a supporting member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Koch brothers’ organization dedicated to, among many other things, destroying Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.” - - Politicususa, August 5, ...
LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP: KNOW THE EFFECTS OF SELF-INSURANCE BEFORE ADOPTING
The Walker Administration is racing to complete final work on adopting a self-insurance program for the 2017-2019 biennial budget. The lure is more than $42 million in potential annual savings promised by Segal Consulting, the consultant to the Group Insurance Board (GIB). While there is nothing wrong with looking at ways to save money, there is something wrong when doing it to the exclusion of considering the adverse effects of such a change.
The health insurance marketplace is extremely complex and inter-connected: pull it here and something moves over there. To ...
ARE LOWER HEALTH CARE COSTS ON THE WAY?
Last Thursday Wisconsin Citizen Action held a press event in the Marathon County Court House to announce a low “out-of-pocket” health plan.
A local health care insurance company has agreed to this plan: WPS/Arise.
Across the country, the cost of health care has gone up in premiums as well as out-of-pocket dollars. In recent years deductibles alone have risen faster than average wages. Consumers are feeling the pinch at all levels of the health system.
The federal government stepped forward to help consumers reduce high health care costs. The feds designed an ...
