Buttigeig's Healthcare Plan has "Retroactive Enrollment"

[HorusRa2 5,005]

Consider the recent controversy over Pete Buttigieg’s health care platform. Like other moderates in the Democratic presidential race, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor would create a new, government-run insurance plan and let Americans choose whether to buy it or stick with private coverage. Buttigieg has done a particularly good job marketing his version of the proposal, calling it “Medicare for all who want it,” a smart bit of branding so ringing with common sense that Joe Biden has recently co-opted it to describe his own, slightly different plan. When he’s talking to voters from the debate stage, Buttigieg’s core pitch is that, if you don’t like the public option, you won’t be forced onto it.

Except, as the Washington Post recently pointed out, you might be. In order to achieve universal coverage, Buttigieg’s proposal relies on a slightly roundabout mechanism called “retroactive enrollment,” which would essentially require Americans to buy into the public option if they fail to purchase any other health plan. It would work in two steps. First, the government would set up a so-called backstop fund to cover the uninsured by paying doctors, hospitals, and other providers for their care. Then, at tax time, people who never got around to obtaining their own coverage would be required to “retroactively” sign up for the public option—meaning that they would have to pay all of the back premiums they would have owed over the previous year, even if they didn’t seek any medical treatment during that time. Going uninsured to save money would no longer be a choice.

Buttigieg’s critics have suggested that retroactive enrollment will prove poisonous with voters, comparing it to a “supercharged” version of Obamacare’s individual mandate, the perennially unpopular and much litigated requirement that Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty. “Instead of paying a $695 fine at the end of the year for being uninsured, you are hit with a bill to pay an entire year of premiums that could be ten times that amount,” People’s Policy Project founder Matt Bruenig, a vocal single-payer advocate, told the Post. “This will be a political nightmare.”

Source: https://slate.com/business/2020/01/pete-buttigieg-health-care-plan-retroactive-enrollment.html

 

I cherry-picked the part of the article I wanted to discuss. The fact that Pete thinks it's a great idea to make people retroactively sign up for the public option if they do not have health insurance is disgusting. Here's why: the people who don't have health insurance likely cannot afford it and fining poor people because they can't afford health insurance is egregious. This is actually worse than Obama's healthcare plan which had the fee at a flat rate whereas Pete would make you pay the full year's premiums at the public option cost. 

And yet the people on this forum get angry when I argue that Medicare for All is the better system because the people who can afford to pay for it would have to pay more in taxes to ensure people can have health insurance. This is why the public option does not work. Not only would the separate risk pools prevent the public option from being solvent, would prevent healthcare costs from going down because of the administrative costs, would prevent the public option from being able to force insurance companies to lower premiums because it wouldn't be competitive but it would disproportionately affect the poor and working class by giving them another expensive expenditure at tax time, likely taking away families tax refunds. 

 

[StarstruckIllusion 53,564]

I read the title as “Pete’s HCP is a retroactive virus” and tbh I’m not that far off..

[Buddy 5,686]

I heard. What a disaster. I... think it must be a mistake.

As a college student, that would be like half my income. 

[HorusRa2 5,005]

2 minutes ago, Buddy said:

I heard. What a disaster. I... think it must be a mistake.

As a college student, that would be like half my income. 

I just don't know why people would want to support a candidate for president that actively shows contempt for POC and working people in this country. It's just something that I don't understand. 

[Economy 52,844]

18 minutes ago, HorusRa2 said:

I just don't know why people would want to support a candidate for president that actively shows contempt for POC and working people in this country. It's just something that I don't understand. 

Pete of the 4 main candidates is probably the one I know the least about tbh

 

What's this narrative with POC ppl on GGD keep bringing up? What has he done and said?

[Gabe 2,582]

"Except, as the Washington Post recently pointed out, you might be. In order to achieve universal coverage, Buttigieg’s proposal relies on a slightly roundabout mechanism called “retroactive enrollment,” which would essentially require Americans to buy into the public option if they fail to purchase any other health plan"

That makes perfect sense, if you don't have private insurance, then you're in the public option. Hence UNIVERSAL. Meaning, everyone will have coverage in some shape. 

I think its just the U.S. mindset of not wanted to pay more taxes for health coverage- Or pay more in general. 

[HorusRa2 5,005]

1 minute ago, Gabe said:

"Except, as the Washington Post recently pointed out, you might be. In order to achieve universal coverage, Buttigieg’s proposal relies on a slightly roundabout mechanism called “retroactive enrollment,” which would essentially require Americans to buy into the public option if they fail to purchase any other health plan"

That makes perfect sense, if you don't have private insurance, then you're in the public option. Hence UNIVERSAL. Meaning, everyone will have coverage in some shape. 

Except the difference is that the public option the way pete and others have proposed is a voluntary enrollment. So you can choose to enroll in the public option or not. If somebody does not purchase health insurance through their employer and choose not to purchase insurance through the public option, Pete's plan makes you pay an entire year's worth of insurance premiums as part of your annual tax filing. That doesn't make perfect sense. 

And considering, as I already indicated, that the public option is not going to drive costs of premiums down, people aren't going to be able to afford the healthcare on his plan if they are poor. And then he rewards them for being poor by fining them. I don't see how that makes perfect sense. 

[Antoni 5,332]

This is absolutely disgusting. I already knew his plan was better for insurance companies than people, but this?!

The thing that the article fails to mention -- and that most articles about his plan fail to mention -- is that these types of plans allow insurance companies to push out low-income people with a wide variety of health issues. They make their plans only available to people who don't have a history of health issues, and force everyone else on to the public option, making sure that private insurance companies lose the least money and the government system is overwhelmed with huge bills that private insurance doesn't have to deal with. In the long run, it makes private insurance the better option. Which is why, many years ago (I'd need to go back to my research to find the exact time period), Republicans were pushing for this form of healthcare.

[HorusRa2 5,005]

4 minutes ago, Economy said:

Pete of the 4 main candidates is probably the one I know the least about tbh

 

What's this narrative with POC ppl on GGD keep bringing up? What has he done and said?

Majority of the issues with POC has to do with the firing of the black police chief that was black and the fact there were white police who were going to Pete's donors and pushing them to tell Pete that if he wanted their money for his campaign he would need to fire the black police chief. 

There's also the fact that under his time as mayor, rents have went up because of the gentrification that occurred downtown in south bend. It has pushed many POC out of the city because they can't afford the rent/housing in the area. 

He's also had issues with black lives matter of south bend and other activists. 

He is also responsible for not providing any kind of shelter for homeless people in south bend, one person froze to death. He had the police remove all of the tents that the homeless people had pitched up near the highway of the city. 

I could go on and on and on. If you're interested, I'll get you sources for this later this weekend so you can see/judge for yourself (i'll pm). 

 

[Jenina 15,331]

I've been criticizing his disability and healthcare plans since November. Bernie's disability plan is in my opinion the best followed by Elizabeth Warren's

[TheQueenLG 2,469]

Yikes

[Economy 52,844]

48 minutes ago, HorusRa2 said:

Majority of the issues with POC has to do with the firing of the black police chief that was black and the fact there were white police who were going to Pete's donors and pushing them to tell Pete that if he wanted their money for his campaign he would need to fire the black police chief. 

There's also the fact that under his time as mayor, rents have went up because of the gentrification that occurred downtown in south bend. It has pushed many POC out of the city because they can't afford the rent/housing in the area. 

He's also had issues with black lives matter of south bend and other activists. 

He is also responsible for not providing any kind of shelter for homeless people in south bend, one person froze to death. He had the police remove all of the tents that the homeless people had pitched up near the highway of the city. 

I could go on and on and on. If you're interested, I'll get you sources for this later this weekend so you can see/judge for yourself (i'll pm). 

 

I would honestly need to go deeper into this cuz a lot of these issues ur bringing up can have other factors and intents to them that have nothing to do with POC specifically even if that was the result (like downtown gentrification)

 

Superficially stuff can seem like stuff they are not so I'd need to know more

 

If u do PM sources I'l will read them

[JusKeepBreathin 19,311]

22 minutes ago, Economy said:

I would honestly need to go deeper into this cuz a lot of these issues ur bringing up can have other factors and intents to them that have nothing to do with POC specifically even if that was the result (like downtown gentrification)

 

Superficially stuff can seem like stuff they are not so I'd need to know more

 

If u do PM sources I'l will read them

His black police chief gathered evidence that his senior officers were using racist language about him by illegally tape recording their phone conversations.  The white officers have not been fired yet because it is still in the courts. All of this happened in his first 13 weeks as mayor. These were issues that were happening way before he was even elected.  

[Economy 52,844]

12 minutes ago, JusKeepBreathin said:

His black police chief gathered evidence that his senior officers were using racist language about him by illegally tape recording their phone conversations.  The white officers have not been fired yet because it is still in the courts. All of this happened in his first 13 weeks as mayor. These were issues that were happening way before he was even elected.  

So I'm trying to understand the full scope here. Did he hire these white officers and defend them? Did he somehow push it? What was his involvement in all this?

 

The other user said he got the black chief fired for campaign money

[JusKeepBreathin 19,311]

Just now, Economy said:

So I'm trying to understand the full scope here. Did he hire these white officers and defend them? Did he somehow push it? What was his involvement in all this?

 

The other user said he got the black chief fired for campaign money

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/us/politics/buttigieg-black-police-chief-fired.html