Nice try to switch the topic - if you look up I was referring to government provided health insurance in general. The reason I deliberately kept it general rather than focusing on one specific bill was because I don't have the time to go through the entirity of it and determining whether it will or won't increase prices and all the other effects, especially since long term it is mostly irrelevant (and even if I do spend ages scouring a bill to highlight an error in your argument, it'd just get ignored so I see no point) - even if what you say is true though and the government would force healthcare providers to offer healthcare below the market rate, the supply will fall and the government will need to decide whether it wants to continue with not providing healthcare to everyone that is insured (i.e. having an insurance system that also features a waiting list as a way of restricting demand) or whether it will make sure everyone insured will get supplied, in which case it will pay the market rate.

Now if you read the earlier posts you'll see I've already gone over this, and am working on the basis that the government wasn't restricting supply from the people it was providing insurance to. See post 107 by Leuki:

We're already working on the basis that the government is paying the market rate, NOT forcing suppliers to receive a below-market rate. In that context, your insistence that the supply will decrease is wrong. Similarly, if working on the basis that the government is providing the healthcare insurance to everyone rather than restricting it, they can't force a below market rate, because then demand will exceed supply.

There is no such thing as a 'market rate' when there is no market.  UHC replaces a market with a monopsony, as Leauki has explained.  This monopsony will have no 'market rate' it will need to match when paying suppliers.  Medicare has been paying below 'market' for years, and it's going bankrupt despite that.  It would already be bankrupt & in the red if it paid 'market rates.'

When the government controls and artificially suppresses the price of a service (as compared to its 'market value'), consumer demand will go up, but the ability of those providing the service to make a 'market living' will go down.  The government will force suppliers to accept 'below-market' rates - they already do, and there's no other way to control costs.  They'll simply decree that 'below-market' is the new 'market.'  There will be no market mechanism enabling prices & supply to adjust to demand.  'Market rate' becomes a meaningless phrase when the government controls the funding of all aspects of a segment of the economy.

You may think that's all well & good, but it will lead to a shortage of qualified providers of that service unless you're ready to involuntarily indenture people.  Since we would all hope that those making life & death decisions about our personal health were well-educated, highly-trained individuals strongly motivated to make those decisions in our best interest, attracting smart young folks to those professions should be a priority.  If you think those smart young folks, when contemplating their career choices, aren't going to notice what's going on, you're not thinking things through.  Significant numbers of them will look elsewhere, because they have their own futures to consider, their own hopes & dreams for themselves and their families.  As much as some would wish, you can't expect other humans to sacrifice themselves voluntarily for your benefit, which is what UHC will demand.  You can squeeze the balloon in one place, but it will expand elsewhere, unless you have the power to squeeze the entire balloon.  That's been tried before, and didn't work out too well, unless you really liked the old Soviet Union.

If UHC is enacted, not only will our grandchildren & their children suffer a dramatic decline in their standard of living, something they're already destined for thanks to our existing debt, they'll end up with crappy health care.  But it will be 'fair' (except for those in control, as always).

You seem to be arguing that the price for the insurance (free?) translates into the price for the service. It doesn't work that way.

The supplier doesn't care whether he is paid by an insurance company acting for the consumer or the consumer himself. The fact that a universal health insurance will lower prices for medical services does not translate into increased demand.

What will happen is that more people will compete for the same services. The insurance will need some way to distribute available medical care.

You are again running into the insurance company. Increased demand for insurance payments for services received does not translate into increased demand for actual services.

I don't think you can make a difference between supplier price and consumer price.

So you want to lower prices to increase demand to increase prices to increase supply?

In fact, Congress just tried to avoid pushing Medicare physician reimbursement even further below 'market rates' and failed for political reasons, with an ironic reversal of roles - the Dem leadership tried to help (some would say 'pay off') physicians, while Republicans & more conservative Democrats (who normally support physicians) opposed it because of the $247bn price tag.

This is a small example of the kind of whim to which 'prices' will be subject when all decisions in healthcare are made in the political arena rather than in the market.  Fannie & Freddie crashed for the same reason - the disconnect between policy & market reality.

I'm arguing that 1) people want more of something when it's cheaper and 2) Suppliers want to supply more of something when it's price rises

The alternative of no distinction means that the price the consumer pays is the same as the price the supplier receives. This clearly isn't the case with insurance, where the entire point of insurance is to avoid you paying the same price the supplier receives.

More or less, yes. Your apparant refusal to accept that the price the consumer pays isn't the same as the price the suppliers receive is likely the cause of your implied confusion here.

There is still a market, and as a result there is a market rate. You have 1 buyer, and many sellers; 1 demand curve and 1 supply curve; a price at which the supply will equal the demand; etc.

If the government forces too low a price it won't have enough supply, meaning it'll need to raise prices to the market rate to ensure enough supply. If it forces too high a rate there'll be too much of a supply, and the competing suppliers will then cause prices to be driven down by undercutting each other until they reach the market rate.

Hearing is not the same as listening.  With UHC, 'raising prices' means raising taxes, and taxes, at least in a representative republic, are subject to the political process.  It's not just some 'management' decision, and there will be no 'market' rate - there will only be a calculation of what can be afforded, and just look at what a great track record the government has on that score.  As a practical matter, the government has already demonstrated it won't pay 'market' rates, even when there is a market.  Government actively suppresses prices artificially and the 'market rate' will be whatever the government decrees it to be.  The current administration is bent on eliminating the market, not promoting 'competition.'  They don't believe a word of that 'competition' rhetoric - it is purely a smokescreen to hide their intent, not to mention a despicable lie.  You want Venezuelan health care, fine, but are you really OK with them missing the mark and creating a shortage of physicians that may take decades to remedy?

You should spend a little time studying Nixon's fiasco with wage & price controls.

To amplify, that sounds simple enough, doesn't it?  Supply a little too low? Nudge the price up a tad, all's well.  It's the seductive simplicity of the concept that fools some people into thinking a market can be centrally, and efficiently, controlled.  Central command & control bureaucracies are inherently inefficient, in fact are inefficient by design in order to minimize fraud & abuse, though never inefficient enough to prevent them.

Those of us opposed to the government takeover of healthcare are not alone: WSJ

Don't know if this can be seen by non-subscribers:

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=video&video-id=2657

 How sad indeed that healthcare has become a commodity.

The issue is not just about the cost. We need to keep in mind the care of those on the outside of our health care system. I am becoming aware of a growing number of employed Americans that are losing their Health Insurance as companies cut back on benefits to improve the bottom line. These are hard working people now suddenly faced with an insurance bill that for a family of four, is easly over $1000 per month. That is unacceptable.

You are becoming aware of a lie.  They are cutting insurance because of Obamacare.  They cannot afford the cost, so are cutting it out.  The alternative is to go bankrupt and then no one has a paycheck OR health insurance.  That is the plan of the law. 

How does one expect to add medical coverage to 30 million new people that for whatever reason (including not wanting it) did'nt have it, make pre-existing conditions a non-issue, and expect no additional cost for everyone to pay? Prior to Obama care 80% of Americans were happy with their health care. How many government services today have an 80% satisfaction rating? 

Not many, but I can think of two.  The FAA's Civil Aviation Medical Institute and the Arizona DMV.

Well, you asked.

The government included a provision where "certain companies that can prove that they will have healthcare costs RISE and employees will lose coverage under obamacare get a one time 1 year exemption"... this one time exemption is to last conveniently after these midterm elections.

Currently McDonnalds and the NY Teachers union have each gotten an example for the their ~300K Employees, with a bunch of other companies having the same for a total of 1 million employees.

Most companies are either too small to have the means or too callous to care enough to get such an exemption, so you are seeing the first round of people losing coverage due to increasing costs due to the inefficiency of communism.

When the exemption ends (forever) next year you will see a new round, as teachers and McDonald employees and others all suddenly lose their their healthcare due to obama care.

The most amazing thing to me, is that you point at the CAUSE of the problem and say "This is the solution".

Those growing number of american's with insurance premium of 1000/mo because of disease? that is because that is how much it costs to TREAT disease. What you don't get is that under socialized care:

1. Cost per individual goes UP due to increased waste, mismanagement, and decreasing size of care (practices going under due to the extra load of compliance with a 2800 page bill, that costs money, you need a team that has read it and complies with it).

2. Individuals are simply denied care in order to keep costs down. (medicare and medicaid deny more then twice as much coverage then any private care; and in single payer countries people are denied care all the time)

Is it SAD that people get insane costs of care when they are very sick? yes.

Do I wish they could get all the treatment they needed for free, forever? yes.

Does a socialized system give them that? no, it actually makes things worse for them

You see, EVERY person, as they get older, develops chronic illness which causes potential health costs to go to infinity. People eventually cannot pay and go untreated. Their insurance is limited to certain cost of operation (so no 2 million dollar a shot experimental cure for you) etc... by nationalizing it you haven't solved this problem, you just moved the decision on when to cut someone off from care to the government. Lo and behold, the government, trying to keep costs manageable, cuts off the most expensive people to treat to keep costs down. So those people are flat out denied care (expensive treatments are not allowed under socialized care, or held in waiting lists until they die from said condition). Care they would have received under a private system...

now you might say "but you reduce the cost because the government isn't trying to make a profit!"... well, the government also isn't made of businessmen, so they mismanage the crap out of it. Healthcare organizations might gross billions, but their profit margins are in the 2 to 3% range. The losses due to government inefficiency are greater than the losses due to large business inefficiency (any large organization has to deal with inefficiency, great businessmen are the worlds best experts in doing so; but inefficiency is never completely eliminated) the government inefficiency extra cost also is greater than that 2 to 3% measily profit.

Then there is the issue of implementation, this SPECIFIC healthcare bill is not like its european cousins. It is 2800 pages long, that means you need whole organizations dedicated to following it, which greatly increases overhead costs. There are companies who literally all they do is manage compliance for your company, for a price. But a lot of private practices will close, which results in less care to go around between people.

Then there is the "no limit on malpractice", something that all socialized care countries have... this is because trial lawyers are huge obama donators.

Then there is the fact that "no prior conditions" means that people can and already DO abuse the system by NOT getting healthcare until they are sick, and canceling it as SOON as they are done getting treatment... what does that mean? well, in Massachusetts 95% of all people were on NON FOR PROFIT healthcare organizations that has gotten the obamacare treatment a few years later... people canceled policies in droves, then signed up when sick, got care, dropped it again. On average each of those renters took out 39x what he paid in. thats not 2 to 3% profit, that is 3800% loss per individual. The non for profit healthcare organizations wanted to raise prices to not go bankrupt, but the governor who nationalized them run on lower costs, so he ordered that costs be slashed. So they opened their books to the public to show they are going bankrupt and flat out STOPPED selling new policies, to anyone (since every policy was costing them 3800% loss)... resulting the governor making threats to throw them in jail... you got to first hand observe the total collapse of care in mass. last year. Just like child care collapsed in hawaii when they foolishly nationalized it. 

This Obamacare health nationalization bill is a messy POS and is one of the poorest pieces of legislation ever conceived.

Just an FYI, some healthcare reform is needed, the democrats MANDATED the HMOs via laws they passed in the 1970s, they said it was cruel that people didn't have care, so they passed laws that will result in people losing care and having less of it... under the guise of "compassion". It just so happens that the old laws were less stupid then this new one.

The old ones were bad because the dems thought that the way to have everyone have care is to force the EVIL TM capitalist scum businessmen TM who were they bosses to provide company care... They also limited healthcare plans to within one state only per plan, etc. this resulted in price increases and lock in... you can't quit your job or you lose healthcare, you can't move to another state you lose your care, you can't try to pay for it yourself, its too expensive due to the way its shared... oh, and there are no prior preconditions allowed, again. This causes the cost to employers to be much higher and forces companies to hire less people and pay them less money.

Now, aren't I just a cruel bastard with the no prior preconditions? well, it really SUCKS if you got cancer and nobody will give you care, it does. The thing is, cancer costs hundreds of thousands to MILLIONS to treat... per person, and a huge amount of people get it at SOME point in their life. And this is just cancer, there are other diseases... anyways, you need a lot of people to pay when healthy so that if/when you get sick you get paid back. that is the ONLY way to sustain it. By elimininating preconditions you allow predatory behavior towards insurance companies that results in those 3800% loss per individual, which just causes NOBODY to have healthcare. (of course that works for other diseases too). You should be paying when you don't have cancer to receive care when you do have cancer, otherwise you are trying to steal from everyone else, diminishing total available care, and directly resulting in the death of others who are unable to get proper insurance because you ripped off the system.

A huge problem with the employer lock in is that if you DID pay for 30 years while healthy, then you get sick, then you get fired for completely unrelated reasons a year or two later... well, you lose your care since you were fired! since it was never YOUR care, it was your bosses...

Insurance companies are not allowed to drop care to you because you got sick, and shouldn't be allowed to... you pay when healthy and if you get sick then they pay you back potentially your whole life, and much more then you paid in... that is why it is INSURANCE. Life insurance you pay 30$ a month while young and healthy, if you die your family gets a million dollars, much more than YOU paid, but most people don't die young and healthy... everyone benefits. But imagine that if you were to lose a job, move to another city or state, etc you lose your insurance... its random, its arbitrary, and its hurting the system and makes it dysfunctional... the solution is to make it illegal to tie insurance to a place of business or state. That the insurance is YOURS And it is yours for life, as long as you don't cancel it... that jobs that are required to provide insurance instead provide insurance money (money they pay your insurance on your behalf, because its YOUR insurance, not the company's insurance).