The real question is - what will be the “unintended” consequences of this new law. People and businesses will change their behavior. Here is my prediction of one - Businessess will now be required to provide health insurance for THEIR EMPLOYEES. In the past -for most businesses - this also included a significant contribution toward their spouses and children ie their dependants. This will change. Providing insurance will increasingly be an employee only relationship.  We will still all be able to add dependants - just at a higher cost. Nice hit for the families with only one working spouse. This change will start with the larger businesses and filter down to the smaller. Anyone have any thoughts on other - unintended results?

I see an overload on primary care physicians schedules ahead.  As it stands, there are alreadt not enough, and especially so in rural areas.  Since physicians can not be mass produced with any quality in the short term, look for more primary care to be performed by physicians assistants.  And if reimbursements fall, look for fewer and fewer people entering medicine, considering the rigors and expense of a med school education.  As it is, the ‘brightest and best’ head off to the top 10 business schools to emerge, ready to make a killing in finance.

The I ask what in Heaven’s name do business people expect?  How else can employees pay for their medical care?  How much more burden can they bear?  Our son and daughter in law can barely afford their medical premiums, and they both work long hours six days a week.  Their rates are through the roof, and they’re the lowest they could find in the San Francisco area.  Ditto for our daughter and her husband.  The only difference is that they live and work in the Central Valley…...and she works for an insurance agent!

Ooh, interesting point, Paul PA.  I am upset enough about the intended consequences, without the unintended ones.

What business people would have hoped for is that a plan would be put forth that would help control costs. One of the touted benefits is that “kids” can stay on their parents plan till they are 26. Since the price paid for a plan is based on the average age taking out some 22 - 26 year olds will increase the cost.

If your son/daughter work for a small business my suggestion would be game the system (thats what happens people work the rules in response - thats what will happen here and why costs will not really go down) - heres how in their case - you add a 20 year old which will reduce the average age (the smaller the group the more it will reduce it) - there are a few ways to do this. This is the best way - hire one to work for a few weeks starting right before your company’s renewell date this works particularly well if it is around a vacation - august is a great time to renew insurance. When they then go back to school they can be dropped/back on their parents plan but the rate is set for the year- (they lost their job which is an acceptable change in status) if they didn’t have insurance they can go on cobra - under present terms the government pays 70% of the cost and their age will help again the following year (have the company pay the other 30% so they do it - you’ll still come out ahead) - people on cobra count toward the groups average age for rate purposes

Ronald Reagan was right.  Big Government is never the answer to deep seated social problems.  Rather, Big Government solutions like this new health plan ARE the problem.  The road to financial and political hell is paved with good intentions, like Obama’s desire to cover the millions of uninsured Americans.

It’s time for the American public to tell this Democratic President and his sycophants in Congress that we recognize that the Emperor has no clothes.

Catepillar Corporation has said that this bill will cost their company alone about $100 million.  That may or may not be an accurate prediction.  But at a time of deep economic crisis like this, such an underfunded or nonfunded health care plan that places unreasonable burdens on businesses and grossly expands our already intolerable federal deficit is simply insane.  Absolutely insane.  And extremely irresponsible.

I hope that in November, an awful lot of the bums who voted for this terrible bill are kicked out of office.

David Handy+

They undoubtedly will be looking for jobs.  Unfortunately, most already have legal careers to fall back on.

Hear that ‘giant sucking sound’?  That’s the sound of US jobs vanishing overseas.

#2 graydon, it’s not if reimbursements fall, it’s when they fall.  Primary care docs already are faced with marginal reimbursement for much of their care, and keep their heads and offices above water by trying to see as many patients as humanly possible.  Extending coverage to many non-covered people by using Medicaid, which this bill does for roughly half of the 30-odd million uninsured, is a recipe for massive primary care MD burnout and early retirements.

I’m not opposed to the notion of expanding coverage, or at least harnessing the markets to create adequate basic coverage which is also portable across state lines.  But among the many reasons to intensely dislike and distrust this piece of “reform,” IMHO, is the budgetary IEDs that it plants in our already overdrawn federal and state budgets.  Anyone who thinks that this piece of work will be deficit-neutral, let alone lower the deficit in ten years, is either in serious need of reality testing or is completely ignorant of the creative math used to sell it.  To say nothing of the history of virtually ALL federal health entitlement programs grossly exceeding their predicted budget targets.

Small wonder that a majority of state attorneys-general are talking about a court challenge.  Once the initial federal subsidy for state Medicaid programs to cover all the new enrollees disappears, the states will be screaming for debt relief.