Florida to launch its own health insurance marketplace

Source: Kaiser Health News

Florida, which is fighting to overturn the federal health overhaul, is preparing to launch an insurance marketplace early next year that looks like a distant cousin of the ones being created under the federal law.

Florida’s version aims to give small businesses — those with 50 or fewer employees — an online tool where they can easily shop for health plans offered in their county. The idea, backers say, is to entice employers who otherwise wouldn’t offer coverage.

Florida will be the third state — and by far the largest — with an insurance exchange, following Massachusetts and Utah. The Florida program is a public-private partnership.

But there are key differences between Florida’s exchange and the type that will be available in 2014 in all states through the federal law:

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/florida-to-launch-its-own-health-insurance-marketplace/2011/10/07/gIQA1Ns8VL_singlePage.html

• Florida’s exchange is open only to small employers, not individuals.

• The federal law provides subsidies to help lower-income individuals buy coverage through the exchange, and tax credits to some small businesses that cover their workers. Florida does not.

• The federal law requires health plans to offer certain “essential health benefits.” Florida does not.

In other words, it's no better than the current racket.

Health care legislation should be left to the states, as prescribed by the Constitution. There would no doubt be potpourri of state regulations, but that is what was intended. What's more, the wide range of policies would facilitate a better understanding of what works best.

A one-size-fits-all approach is just plain stupid.

I'm really getting tired of reading tea party talking points all day in DU.

Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Constitution does not belong to the Tea Party and the fact that you believe it does, demonstrates that you know very little about either.

provide for the well-being of its citizens. Surely health insurance does that.

I will be most appreciative if your will place your finger on the Constitutional verbiage that supports your assertion.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...

Article I, Section 8, Clause 3: ...to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes...

Article I, section 8, clause 18: ..to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer there of.

General Welfare, Interstate Commerce, Necessary and Proper... Yep, got it covered!

Welfare

welfare n. 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being. <<ME wel faren, to fare well> Source: AHD

Welfare in today's context also means organized efforts on the part of public or private organizations to benefit the poor, or simply public assistance. This is not the meaning of the word as used in the Constitution.

the definitions you provide indicate the opposite of your assertion. Your "logic" ≠ logic. Your statements do ≈ assertion based on one opinionated defense of a particular interpretation of a document that, much like the bible and many other older doccuments, lends itself to multiple reasonable interpretations.

Edited because apparently titles do not like some symbols

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." - James Madison, 1792

The Father of American Independence also had an opinion:

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." - Thomas Jefferson, 1798

...who considered the general welfare clause as an enumerated power. And his view prevailed in the Washington and Adams administration (chalk up two more founding fathers).

The SCOTUS was not asked or given the opportunity to issue judgement until United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936). They went for Alexander Hamilton:

The clause confers a power separate and distinct from those later enumerated <,> is not restricted in meaning by the grant of them, and Congress consequently has a substantive power to tax and to appropriate, limited only by the requirement that it shall be exercised to provide for the general welfare of the United States. … It results that the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution.

Sorry about that, but that's not only the way it SHOULD BE, that's the way IT IS.

and withheld support for the French, even as they had supported the American Revolution.

Mr. Hamilton, was the architect of the First Bank of the United States, a pioneer of central banking and a forebearer of the modern Federal Reserve.

On the other hand, Mr. Jefferson believed that a central bank would put too much power over the government in the hands of the bank's owners.

And the Jefferson/Hamilton conflict continues to this day...Democrats v. Federalists to Democrats v. Republicans.

They handled thing a bit differently during that era. Mr. Jefferson's vice president, that fellow Burr, was a pretty good shot.

... the conflict was not Jefferson vs. Hamilton, it was Madison & Hamilton vs. Jefferson. The conflict was formally ended with Rhode Island's ratification of the constitution on May 29, 1790; and was settled for good by the Civil War.

...are certainly not inconsistent with the health, happiness, prosperity and well-being of the body politic. Basically, judgements as to what does and does not constitute the General Welfare are best made by the legislative branch, and their judgement should be deferred to.

Which, of course, is just exactly how the Constitution is set up. :patriot:

...or supply public assistance are certainly not inconsistent with the health, happiness, prosperity and well-being of the citizenry and the body politic. Basically, judgements as to what does and does not constitute the General Welfare are best made by the legislative branch, and their judgement should be deferred to.

Which, of course, is just exactly how the Constitution is set up. :patriot:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Health care legislation obviously falls into the "promote the general Welfare" category.

we must refer to the legal definition.

PREAMBLE. A preface, an introduction or explanation of what is to follow: that clause at the head of acts of congress or other legislatures which explains the reasons why the act is made. Preambles are also frequently put in contracts to, explain the motives of the contracting parties,
2. A preamble is said to be the key of a statute, to open the minds of the makers as to the mischiefs which are to be remedied, and the objects which are to be accomplished by the provisions of the statutes. It cannot amount, by implication, to enlarge what is expressly given. 1 Story on Const. B 3, c. 6. How far a preamble is to be considered evidence of the facts it recites, see 4 M. & S. 532; 1 Phil. Ev. 239; 2 Russ. on Cr. 720; and see, generally, Ersk. L. of Scotl. 1, 1, 18; Toull. liv. 3, n. 318; 2 Supp. to Ves. jr. 239; 4 L. R. 55; Barr. on the Stat. 353, 370.

reform was. So you're not free to mischaracterize it in such a way.

The health care reform legislation provided lots of things, including basic mandates for who and what MUST be covered.

Florida wants to flaunt the basic mandates, cover a selected, smaller healthier population, and cheat their citizens with LESS THAN basic minimum mandates of coverage, and charge them more $ !! Florida wants to say to heck with the unemployed, the recent post college kids, and those working only a few hours a week.

What is wrong with Florida? Is it the heat and humidity that makes people there elect some convicted criminal faudster in health care insurance like Rick Scott to be their Governor?

Having 50 different states with different health insurance schemes is just crazy!

50 different models would provide an enormous amount of knowledge with respect to what works best. The best models would be adopted by other states, thereby raising the standard of health care for all.

companies over the years. NONE of them covered what needs to be covered, young adults just out of school without a job yet, women who are poor, children who are poor, people with previous health conditions.

We have "experimented" long enough, the time for experimentation is OVER! All modern western and many eastern industrialized countries have models that WORK BETTER THAN the US private health care markets have worked for the last 50 years!

People by the millions also move from state to state, for their jobs, their family responsibilities, e.g. taking care of elderly relatives, or to start fresh in a new career. Having 50 competing sets of rules and regulations has already proven to be unworkable.

...would make not ensure the folks in Mississippi are given the same justice as the folks elsewhere.

John Kerry proposed. A government "re-insurance" plan that paid for catastrophic medical costs. For example, any costs over $50,000 in a year.

This would allow small companies who have an employee who gets sick and incurs significant costs to continue offering affordable insurance to their employees. As it is, if that happens, the insurance company either jacks up the cost significantly to the company for the next year or refuses to write insurance for them at all.

This coverage of the catastrophic portion of the costs would reduce the cost of private insurance to these companies and make it more possible for them to offer it to them employees.

Also, it would would put all the employees of these companies into a large "risk pool" to more appropriately reduce the cost of the catastrophic coverage.

it will be a loser.

so Rick Scott is exposed. More importantly, to cause people to wake up and embrace the changes coming down the pike. Having something to compare to will definitely wake up some people.

is out of whack and it's high time the voters en masse put liberals in power to make the super rich pay more for their, often crooked, ways of coming about their hundreds of millions and billions.

http://www.zazzle.com/obama_biden_2012_magnet-147764302703368412?rf=238107662556833486

I'm sure Rick's bank account will be a winner though.

...that's funny.