Heeeeeeere's Obamacare!

[sunmaster14]

Under any un iversal healthcare system (or anything masquerading as one) that happens. That's the only way it can happen with anyone other than the extremely rich who can afford to pay circa US$10K/day for an ICU bed.

Insurance at least levels these costs out among the population. A situation that allows anyone to go unisured means that these costs will be unequally distributed.

I don't mean having the insurance company pay. If you have been paying un-subsidized premiums to the insurance company, then you have covered your expected cost of health care. It is irrelevant that you got unlucky (or lucky, depending upon your perspective) and incurred an enormous health care bill that the insurance company was on the hook for.

Obamacare, however, is using taxpayer money to subsidize the premiums and deductibles of lower income people who were previously uninsured (and some who were already insured). From a financial perspective, how is that much different than just paying for health care when these people got sick and cutting the insurance companies out of the loop?

 

[3point14]

I don't mean having the insurance company pay. If you have been paying un-subsidized premiums to the insurance company, then you have covered your expected cost of health care. It is irrelevant that you got unlucky (or lucky, depending upon your perspective) and incurred an enormous health care bill that the insurance company was on the hook for.

Obamacare, however, is using taxpayer money to subsidize the premiums and deductibles of lower income people who were previously uninsured (and some who were already insured). From a financial perspective, how is that much different than just paying for health care when these people got sick and cutting the insurance companies out of the loop?

I see. that makes more sense, thank you.


No, not a lot of difference apart from, perhaps (I'm speculating) allowing hospitals that otherwise would have no-one to charge for emergency procdures to charge someone

As someone said upthread, the ACA is hardly ideal but it seems (from the outside looking in) to be better for most than the previous system. Single payer UCH would have been better but wasn't going to wash with the party that wrote the ACA and then fought so hard aganst it.

 

[jimbob]

It's still health insurance.

Under the the previous business model we were still paying for the poor anyway, but under much more adverse conditions.

What is your suggestion?

This isn't what we were doing under the previous system. In the previous system 30 million people were uninsured and millions paid for their own insurance in a free market.

A solutions, the solution is to remove the employer's ability to pay health care pre tax.

That would force individuals to all pay for their own health insurance which would have the effect of creating a more efficient market. This would ultimately reduce costs.

Again you don't seem to get this because you don't understand insurance

And the US government still spent more on healthcare than the UK government (as a proportion of GDP). See my sig.

Eta: healthcare is a really rubbish system to be run under a mythical free market. The annual costs for a healthy individual are often very small, but subject to unpredictable cripplingly expensive incidents. There is a vast asymmetry in knowledge and in economic power between large suppliers and customers/patients.

And that's just for starters

 

[Neally]

The stupidity of the American public has been well established. The Republicans have thrived on it for years. It's about time Democrates used to their advantage. The difference, of course, is Demoratic policies help the public.

I wondered how long it would take before someone would actually try to justify Gruber embarrassing quote by agreeing with it. You win! Now please elaborate on how and why the public was so stupid to elect all those new GOP candidates in this last election and compare and contrast this with how the public was so stupid to elect BO twice.

 

[DavidJames]

I wondered how long it would take before someone would actually try to justify Gruber embarrassing quote by agreeing with it. You win! Now please elaborate on how and why the public was so stupid to elect all those new GOP candidates in this last election and compare and contrast this with how the public was so stupid to elect BO twice.

I don't need to do that as I never made the claim in bold. So please don't make **** up.

But please tell me how smart the public was last week voting to increase the minimum wage, turn down "personhood" laws while voting for Republicans on record committed to the exact opposite.

 

[Neally]

I don't need to do that as I never made the claim in bold. So please don't make **** up.

Your the one agreeing and doubling down on the "stupid public" idea. Was the public stupid in electing BO twice?

 

[DavidJames]

Your the one agreeing and doubling down on the "stupid public" idea. Was the public stupid in electing BO twice?

I understand how important the question is for you, I really do. I stand by what I said. You are welcome to interpret my comment in any way which makes you feel better.

 

[Neally]

I understand how important the question is for you, I really do. I stand by what I said. You are welcome to interpret my comment in any way which makes you feel better.

Just trying to point out the probable hypocrisy of your position. Since you won't answer the question, you're obviously aware of it, and are afraid to admit it. My work here is done.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Just trying to point out the probable hypocrisy of your position. Since you won't answer the question, you're obviously aware of it, and are afraid to admit it. My work here is done.

I think the clearest explanation is that DavidJames is smarter than all those idiot voters.

Or at least thinks he is!

 

[Fudbucker]

The stupidity of the American public has been well established. The Republicans have thrived on it for years. It's about time Democrates used to their advantage. The difference, of course, is Demoratic policies help the public.

This is disgusting nonsense. We shouldn't accept obfuscation from EITHER party. If you can't convince the American people of the rightness of your cause without resorting to trickery, then get out of politics or find another cause.

If ANY law is found to have been made overly confusing or complicated in order to fool the public into accepting it, that law should be declared null and void, on the spot. I say this as a Democrat, as an Obamacare supporter, and someone who voted for Obama twice.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

There was mention today on Fox News of calls for Congressional hearings on the matter.

Not at all sure what that would accomplish.

Don't see at first blush what laws may have been broken.

Then again, bringing the level of deception into the light could be edifying.

Reminiscent of "What did the President know, and when did he know it?"

 

[Unabogie]

There was mention today of Fox News of calls for Congressional hearings on the matter.

Not at all sure what that would accomplish.

Don't see at first blush what laws may have been broken.

Then again, bringing the level of deception into the light could be edifying.

Reminiscent of "What did the President know, and when did he know it?"

Ha, so much for working together with the new Senate. As for what could be learned about the "level of deception", the law was posted online for 14 months while politicians from every party debated it. Remember death panels? Remember "illegals are going to get free health care"? Didn't the GOP already pull out all the stops with every scare tactic they could dig up in the law? Are you under the impression that something made it into the law that wasn't public for months and months prior to the final vote and wasn't subject to the Republican onslaught already? Regarding what Gruber said about the CBO scoring, it would make no sense for congress to care if CBO called it a tax or a mandate. The CBO would only be concerned with how much money comes in and goes out. They'd have zero care what the law calls it or what the people call it. But hey, considering how much the deficit has shrunk under President Obama, I guess the GOP is feeling flush and wants to waste some more money.

 

[Fudbucker]

Ha, so much for working together with the new Senate. As for what could be learned about the "level of deception", the law was posted online for 14 months while politicians from every party debated it. Remember death panels? Remember "illegals are going to get free health care"? Didn't the GOP already pull out all the stops with every scare tactic they could dig up in the law? Are you under the impression that something made it into the law that wasn't public for months and months prior to the final vote and wasn't subject to the Republican onslaught already? Regarding what Gruber said about the CBO scoring, it would make no sense for congress to care if CBO called it a tax or a mandate. The CBO would only be concerned with how much money comes in and goes out. They'd have zero care what the law calls it or what the people call it. But hey, considering how much the deficit has shrunk under President Obama, I guess the GOP is feeling flush and wants to waste some more money.

I don't care if it was posted online for 14 years. If they deliberately designed the ACA to be confusing, in order to sell it to a "stupid" public, that's a subversion of the democratic process. You wouldn't stand for the GOP doing that, nor should you. It's terrible. It's nothing but "Big Brother knows best".

An investigation should be done, and if it turns out the ACA was made needlessly complicated, it should be struck down.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

I don't care if it was posted online for 14 years. If they deliberately designed the ACA to be confusing, in order to sell it to a "stupid" public, that's a subversion of the democratic process. You wouldn't stand for the GOP doing that, nor should you. It's terrible. It's nothing but "Big Brother knows best".

An investigation should be done, and if it turns out the ACA was made needlessly complicated, it should be struck down.

I was mentally composing a reply.

Yours is better.

 

[Unabogie]

I don't care if it was posted online for 14 years. If they deliberately designed the ACA to be confusing, in order to sell it to a "stupid" public, that's a subversion of the democratic process. You wouldn't stand for the GOP doing that, nor should you. It's terrible. It's nothing but "Big Brother knows best".

An investigation should be done, and if it turns out the ACA was made needlessly complicated, it should be struck down.

What evidence do you have of the highlighted, aside from a tortured reading of something Gruber said? Seriously, you think they designed it to be confusing? Even though it's not confusing to anyone even though no changes have been made? Perhaps you can start with the part you're confused about and we can see if the answer isn't online somewhere for the last six years.

 

[Unabogie]

I was mentally composing a reply.

Yours is better.

Wait, his position is that if a law is confusing it should be struck down? You find that a reasonable way to govern? Doesn't that give enormous power to morons?

 

[Fudbucker]

Wait, his position is that if a law is confusing it should be struck down? You find that a reasonable way to govern? Doesn't that give enormous power to morons?

That's not my position at all and even a cursory reading of my post shows that.

In thread after thread, you attack strawmen and distort peoples' opinions. I haven't put anyone on ignore yet, but I'm getting awful close.

 

[Unabogie]

That's not my position at all and even a cursory reading of my post shows that.

In thread after thread, you attack strawmen and distort peoples' opinions. I haven't put anyone on ignore yet, but I'm getting awful close.

You said this:

An investigation should be done, and if it turns out the ACA was made needlessly complicated, it should be struck down.

I'm sorry if you meant something completely different from what you wrote there, but by any fair reading, you're saying that if a law is made "needlessly complicated" (by whom? who decides what is needless complication and who decides what was covering edge cases?) then it should be struck down. This is completely irrational as it makes being "simple" a criteria for good law, and any unsimple law would be struck down.

But fine, put me on ignore for noticing your argument is silly.

 

[Fudbucker]

What evidence do you have of the highlighted, aside from a tortured reading of something Gruber said? Seriously, you think they designed it to be confusing? Even though it's not confusing to anyone even though no changes have been made? Perhaps you can start with the part you're confused about and we can see if the answer isn't online somewhere for the last six years.

"Gruber also pointed to deliberate efforts by the administration and congressional backers to include mandates and subsidies for insurance rather than levying what might be called a “tax.”
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the Congressional Budget Office] did not score the [health-care] mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. OK, so it’s written to do that,” he explained.
“If you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in — you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.”
http://nypost.com/2014/11/13/obamacare-architect-catches-heat-for-calling-voters-stupid/

I'm going to say that that's prima facia pretty damning, but notice how I talked about an investigation, which implies getting to the truth of the matter?

Obviously, if there was no way to write the ACA that wasn't confusing, I can possibly accept taking advantage of that confusion.

HOwever, if it turns out the law could have been written much simpler, and DELIBERATELY WAS MADE CONFUSING in order to trick people, then it should be overturned immediately.

 

[Fudbucker]

You said this:



I'm sorry if you meant something completely different from what you wrote there, but by any fair reading, you're saying that if a law is made "needlessly complicated" (by whom? who decides what is needless complication and who decides what was covering edge cases?) then it should be struck down. This is completely irrational as it makes being "simple" a criteria for good law, and any unsimple law would be struck down.

But fine, put me on ignore for noticing your argument is silly.

Seriously? Are you that obtuse? Do you not know what "needlessly" means?