As I have repeatedly said, too many of our hard-working families and small businesses continue to be hurt by the negative impacts of ObamaCare. Maine taxpayers deserve a government that works for them, not against them.
Last week, I became an original cosponsor of a bill that will help repeal ObamaCare’s overreaching Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).
This unaccountable board is made up of fifteen unelected bureaucrats, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate (who had majority control until recently), and is tasked with cutting Medicare spending. Without a three-fifths vote from the Senate, IPAB’s proposals will be “fast-tracked” and Congress will only be able to modify the type of cuts proposed instead of the amount.
The power to adjust Medicare spending, which will affect our senior’s health care, should go through the appropriate channels in Congress, not from fifteen unelected bureaucrats. Mainers need and deserve a government that works for them, not against them.
Additionally, I joined my House colleagues in sending a letter to Speaker Boehner urging him to fast-track a bill, of which I am an original cosponsor, which will repeal the penalizing medical device tax.
As a result of ObamaCare, this 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices has eliminated thousands of good paying jobs across the county and reduced research and development budgets for several companies. In an industry with more than 400,000 workers nationwide and generating roughly $25 billion in payroll, this medical device tax has had an extremely negative impact on jobs and our economy.
Most importantly, this penalizing excise tax has stifled medical innovation and creativity which, in turn, threatens patient’s access to revolutionary life-saving and life-improving products.
For example, Hardwood Products Company, located in Guilford, creates medical single-use disposable swabs and other vital medical devices. These Maine made products are extremely helpful and important for doctors all across the country to help diagnose their patients.
Unfortunately, ObamaCare’s medical device tax is making it very difficult for Hardwood Products Co. to hire more employees in order to create new innovative technology. Washington should be working to help our companies expand, create new jobs and become global leaders in their industry.
I will continue to repeal the parts of ObamaCare that are hurting our seniors, families and small businesses.
Congressman Bruce Poliquin
http://www.hardwoodproductsco.com/
………………..its difficult to find fault with single use tongue depressor and popsicle sticks
Carbon fiber re-useable for the military would be an easier sell
“For example, Hardwood Products Company, located in Guilford, creates medical single-use disposable swabs and other vital medical devices. These Maine made products are extremely helpful and important for doctors all across the country to help diagnose their patients.
“Unfortunately, ObamaCare’s medical device tax is making it very difficult for Hardwood Products Co. to hire more employees in order to create new innovative technology.”
Mr. Poliquin, is this the best writing you can do?
“This unaccountable board is made up of fifteen unelected bureaucrats, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate (who had majority control until recently),”
The Senate had a majority control of what?
“I will continue to repeal the parts of ObamaCare that are hurting our seniors, families and small businesses.”
You going to do that all by yourself, Mr. Poliquin? Good luck.
“As a result of ObamaCare, this 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices has eliminated thousands of good paying jobs across the county and reduced research and development budgets for several companies”
Check the earnings reports and stock prices for the major medical manufacturers ( I do), they are going up, not down. Meanwhile, you and your pals just voted to cut medicare and medicaid benefits while expanding military spending. Your constituents meanwhile, will be losing some of the National Guard personnel, thanks in part to the GOP budget you voted for , and our inept governor.
As usual, Representative Poliquin is many days late, and thousands of dollars short
Thank you Mr. Poliqiun. Keep up the good work.
“I will continue to repeal the parts of ObamaCare that are hurting our seniors, families and small businesses.”
That’s a far cry from “repeal Obamacare”. I wonder which part of the ACA the congressman now finds worthy.
As for the bill, companies that aren’t in the business of soaking Medicare should make out just fine without any tax breaks from the GOP. Much of the language in this letter is straight from the Medical Device Manufacturers Association and the Advanced Medical Technology Association. Surprise.
What about those of us whose employers don’t offer healthcare coverage. I had private, not so great coverage for $564 a month and it was really hurting my budget. Now I have Obamacare and pay $188 a month and the coverage is good. I am in good health and don’t go to the Drs at the drop of a hat. I am very appreciative of this coverage.
Becky,
How’d you get it so cheap????? I called about the ACA (Obama care) and was quoted 535.00 and that was basically for catastrophic coverage! That seems to be one of the problems with Obama Care,no one knows how it works and who gets what. What a joke it all is.
Craig, your salary is too high for you to qualify for a health care subsidy. Quit your job and you”ll get health care for 18 dollars a month
Wow!!! Gr8t, for Becky! She got deal the most can’t. Now the reality and ¿question is? Who is paying her shortfall created by her bargain insurance plan in the amount of $ 376.00?
I don’t know anyone who has NOT been hurt by Obamacare. Everyone I hear talking about their insurance is going through turmoil. Losing coverage, getting premiums jacked, deductibles increasing massively, having to pay huge sums upfront for much-needed surgeries. And what if you don’t have that money? Sorry….you lose. Insurance has never been pleasant to deal with, but with this craziness this has created, if you get sick, or have an injury, you’re basically are out-of-luck. Well, unless you’re carrying that “free” card.
My premiums have doubled in 4 years.
My family of 4 was covered under my employer provided health insurance. I paid $500/month out of my paycheck to cover the four of us. The company paid an additional $1200/month for my family to be covered. Then I was laid off in 2009 after working for the company for 18 years. With only my husband’s income, we could not afford the $1800/month it would have cost us for private insurance. We went without insurance for two years. Our children qualified for MaineCare but my husband’s income was too high for us to qualify.
Then Obamacare happened. Then I was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 49. Under Obamacare my family of four is covered for $600/month and the State of Maine is no longer paying for my children’s healthcare coverage. The millions of us who now have good coverage and the millions of us with pre-existing conditions should now be cut loose? I am grateful to have healthcare I can afford again.
Nancy see below the report excerpt from Gorman Actuarial report on the impact of Maine’s health insurance reform championed by governor Lepage. I don’t want to make assumptions about a lady’s age but you will note that The governors health reform package allows the insurer to charge significantly more for older Mainers and up to a 50% surcharge for those living in rural areas. While I believe you when you report your premium increases you can see you might be looking in the wrong place for the reason.
4.1. Open and Closed Blocks and Rating Rule Changes
For the Individual Market, PL90 provides additional rating flexibility by allowing an
insurer to close its current block of business on July 1, 2012, and open a new block of
business. In addition, the law allows two sets of rating rules for these blocks of business.
These rating rules are shown in Table 4. Currently, insurers can charge age and
geography adjustments within a 1.5to1 band, or +/20% of a community rate.
Beginning July 1, 2012, insurers can charge rates using a 3to1 age band on the open
block and additionally can surcharge premiums up to 50% for geography.11 This change
will result in higher premiums for the older demographics and for individuals who live in
more expensive regions. Beginning July 1, 2012, insurers can charge rates using a 2to1
age band on the closed block and in addition can adjust for geography up to a 50%
surcharge. This change will also increase rates for the older demographic but resulting
rates will not be as high as rates in the open block. Note that the age band expands to 4
to1 for the open block in 2014 and 5to1 in 2015, but only to the extent permitted by the
ACA. Since these age bands are not compliant with the ACA in its current form, we
assume that the age band will remain at the 3to1 age band prescribed by the ACA. We
also assume the open and closed blocks will merge back into one rating pool in 2014
because the ACA requires a single rating pool for all nongrandfathered individual
Please do not take this the wrong way, but, really? Nancy & Mitra are you going to sit there and pretent that you were able to get the same health care/insurance or better at a lower cost without someone else forced to pay your shortfall? There is a difference between charity and taking from someone to pay someone else. That to me is more like stealing, don’t you think? Obamacare has created divisive issues in America today as both of your examples show.. Though its intentions might of been good or presented; to find a way to pay for healthcare for the poor and uninsured, the way Obamacare goes about achieving this is wrong, i.e., involving bigger government, raising taxes and negatively affecting the existing (and functioning) aspects of the healthcare system.
There are better and creative solutions to this problem, i.e., embedding charitable healthcare within existing private clinics. Using such a system, not only can you provide care for the poor, but we also give all physicians a chance to participate and help to solve the problem. I witnessed this as a child with our local doctor that lived next door. He helped my mother and other families by either reducing his fees or not charging at all. Then later in life as I started a family we also went throught hard times early on and our pediatrician also extended charitable care to us and others in his care. This is very different than Obamacare and did not impact others in the community, yet achieved the same goals.
Oops, sorry Nancy, I meant Becky & Mitra…I really should proof read my post and disable the auto spelling correct function, hehehe
Looks like JL’s solution is to seek a doctor who’ll treat you for free. Good luck with that! While there could be selfless physicians, how would you get lab work, prescription drugs, x-rays, etc. for nothing? “Obamacare” is here to stay, stop hating it and its namesake.
Ever known anyone to get through life without needing healthcare? I once met a man, who told me his father lived to be 100 years old and (he thought) his father never was sick a day in his life. I don’t know if that was true, and it didn’t address if his father ever needed care for an injury. That is the only circumstance I ever heard of a person never needing health care.
Sooner or later, all of us do. We need it at birth, we need it as infants, children and and finally (if we are healthy adults) most likely we will need it in our final days.
Who can afford it? Not many of us.
When I was a boy, I was in a minor accident involving me on a bicycle and a moving car. It was my fault, I rode into the car. I fell off the bike and banged my elbow hard on the pavement. Partly out of concern and ( I guess) to make sure the liability issues, I was taken to the hospital. In the emergency room, the doctor looked at my arm, pronounced that I would live and that was that.
That happened in 1965. My parents paid the bill and I still have it. The total cost, for the emergency room visit, and the Dr.’s exam? Five (yes, $5) dollars. No, it was not reduced in anyway, for any reason.
How much would five dollars be today?
$37.80.
How many readers think they could go to the emergency room at the hospital today, be examined by a doctor and be billed $38?
And so, you see, we all have to have health insurance. What amazes me, is that for ALL of the rhetoric, all of the opposition to the Affordable Care Act, for all the discussion, debating, screaming, and protests- No where do I hear anyone saying, that the real issue is the astounding, unbelievable gouging done to the population by the healthcare industry.
Find some old re-runs of Marcus Welby, MD. Anybody remember that? It was Marcus, a family practitioner, and his nurse receptionist. That was it. Then, the story line went, Marcus had a mild heart attack and had to hire on a new, young (handsome) Dr. to help carry the case load. That was it. Just the three of them.
Sound crazy? Well, that was how it used to be. That was how most of the Doctors I ever saw worked.
I went to the Dr. the other day, just to get a prescription renewed. Just a routine script, for a common drug with little to no known side effects. I went through a receptionist. Then a nurse who took my BP. Then the Dr. came in. He said hello, wrote out the prescription renewal and left. He was there for less than 5 minutes.
Total expense? $160.00 I spent less than a total of 10 minutes with all of them combined. That’s nearly $1000.00 per hour. One person needed a high school diploma, one needed a nursing degree and the Doctor.
From time to time, I read about Doctors who claim they can’t make enough to live on. I have never met such a person. I did know a Dentist who went bankrupt, but it was because he developed a severe case of alcoholism. I have known several retired doctors, perhaps a dozen or so, who could afford to retire well before the age of 65 and who lived a very comfortable life. Not a few of the second homes in Carrabassett belong to medical professionals, both active and retired.
I would like republicans to just shut up about the ACA. Instead, I want all of our politicians, all of our policy makers, all of our healthcare industry- to figure out how to make healthcare affordable again. If the costs were reasonable, paying for it would not be such an issue. We could all move on to more important things, like why doesn’t any care about inspecting the nukes that Israel has, as well as the ones we are worried the Iranians might get?
Again, read my comments slowly…there is no hate in my comments, nor did I suggest getting something for “free”
Many doctors have suggested and have extended charity in their practices. I even have a couple in my family that before Ob-care have done so in current times as others did in my past. My point is that their is no “free” care someone is paying the difference. It’s how you make-up that difference, charity vs stealing. 1 plus 1 does not equal 5.
isn’t it so predictable that once again the libs roll out the “H” word..
Like Al said in a previous article , the libs are very tolerant until someone says something they disagree with,,
Then they start yelling “HATERS”. (it’s their version of the Rebel Yell,,,gets em all pumped up).
Every level headed adult should understand that it’s not possible to disagree with Comrade Obadma unless you HATE him.
Likewise if you think his healthcare mess is a mess,,,,You must therefore be Filled With Hate.
I mean otherwise you would always agree with the lib agenda and his band of rebels..
Everyone knows this.
It’s clear that this healthcare mess is divided between the TAKERS and the GIVERS.
Pretty easy to tell who is who,,,eh.
Duh,,,wonder who’s going to GIVE once it’s all TAKEN?
I realize that will make them call me the “H” word.
And I dont mind that at all.
Snowman…I think we are making progress, and moving towards the same direction even though we may not agree 100%. I think it’s better than agreeing to disagree? It’s a shame your blinded supporter still is as cynical as usual and just comes out fighting mad as hell, with no coherent thought to offer, or rebuttal. It just makes her comments sound naive and worthless.
I don’t mean any disrespect, however, your story indicates that you are a bit older than me; yet, I sympathize with your experiences and cost of heath care versus today’s costs. In addition to the overall bill, I also priced a single aspirin pill cost administered during a family member’s hospital stay a few years ago. It was easy since they still itemize everything then in plain English unlike now, in code and thousands of acronyms. I don’t remember the dollar amount but it was ridiculous.
It appears that you are in support of Obamacare, however, everything you stated in your story and frustration with the rising costs of health care is further increased with the same policy you support. Also, OB-care moves American health care in the wrong direction by eroding the unique doctor–patient relationship, which I touched on in my story and most enjoyed here in America. If this were not true, then why so many people come from other countries including Canada to get treated here, that have a similar form of health care like Ob-care? Also with OB-care we lose centralizing control, thus further increasing health costs, which you stated in your story and everyone can agree to dislike. We need true health care reform that would empower individuals, with their doctors, to make their own health care decisions free from government interference.
What others and I believe in, is a free-market healthcare. Both you and I were privy to a form of free market healthcare as told in our stories. Therefore, Ob-care should be stopped and fully repealed. Then Congress and the states should enact patient-centered, market-based reforms that better serve Americans.
“I would like republicans to just shut up about the ACA.” Me, too, snowman, but then we are just “takers” and do a lot of “stealing” apparently.
I’m neither a ‘taker’ nor a ‘thief’. I do, however, consider it my duty as a good citizen/good human to advocate for those less fortunate who require help getting their needs met.
Unless it is folks just waiting around for the long awaited Republican “Health Care Delivery Plan” its is a total embarrassment that so may citizens have see fit to contract out “any” thinking about the utter failure/joke that our healthcare delivery system was pre ACA
TR Reid’s Healing of America is a very readable expose of the American wherein Reid (a Washington Post writer) used a personal medical “problem” to illustrate how he would be treated world wide AND how much it would cost
See the below (Physicians for National Health Plan) also
http://www.pnhp.org/
JL:
My opinion is, we must provide health care for all. In fact, we already do. The only alternative would be to ignore the suffering of those too poor to pay for their care, leave them with their broken bones unset, the wounds unbound, the infections left untreated.
The cost of some medical procedures will always be be beyond what most can pay. A heart transplant, or brain surgery, major reconstructive surgery from trauma.
There are only two ways to cover that. One is government controlled care. The socialist method. This does indeed work in some countries. In others, not so well.
The other way, is comprehensive insurance for all. That creates a large enough pool of insured that all can be covered.
Health care unfortunately does not lend well to a capitalist, free market system. In many respects, this is bad for the consumers. It makes it all but impossible to pick out the best doctors and the best facilities.
In my opinion, much of the problem lies with our societies expectations and norms. We are, most of us, unwilling to accept the inevitable. Most of our individual healthcare expenses happen at the end of life. So much would be saved , if we could just know when it’s time to let go.
I think of our health care industry as I think of the witch doctors in tribal societies. Not in the quality of care, but in exacting a fee from the those who are desperate for care and hope. The witch doctor knows he has his customers in his control. He can demand whatever he wants from his patients and their families, since they have no alternative.
If Farmington had as many hospitals, and doctors competing with each other as it does gas stations and convinced stores, healthcare costs would be a tiny fraction of what we pay today. I don’t know if the care would be as good.
We can’t do away with the AFA, before we can devise and implement something better. No one, not a republican, nor a democrat, nor a independent has devised such a plan and none will, because the healthcare industry and the insurance industry are controlling all of them.
Ted Cruz, Sarah Palin, John McCain, Barak Obama, Bruce Poliquin, the supreme court, they are all controlled and limited by the corporations that pay to get them elected.