Heeeeeeere's Obamacare!

[sunmaster14]

Well I do blame the Republicans, and I'll explain why. When the ACA passed, the GOP had just won Ted Kennedy's seat and the dems no longer had 60 votes. Had the GOP not been 100% obstructionist, 60 votes wouldn't have mattered, but they were. So the crafters of the bill couldn't do any of the usual conference committee work of fine tuning the law before it was signed by Obama. This resulted in some of the poorly worded phrasing that's allowing the Halbig stuff to even happen, and that's allowed far too many states to opt out of Medicaid expansion for the sole purpose of appearing to fight the tyranny of the ACA. But again, had the GOP been part of the process apart from attempting to "kill the bill", then the execution would have gone smoother, kinks in the law would have been smoothed out over the last 5 years, and there's be no reason to doubt that future kinks wouldn't be smoothed over as well. Medicaid expansion would be working as designed, and people in red states would have cheaper insurance right now. Believe me, I am a strong believer in a two party system, and I don't think liberals are always right. I just think that the modern GOP has chosen to appeal to some really ugly base instincts as a strategy to win, and the result is not only that the ACA execution is poor, but we now live in a country where nothing gets done. All issues are insurmountable because we can't pass a budget. We can't agree on any laws. We can't improve anyone's lives. And we can't even keep up our infrastructure. I fear that we're going to be a failed state, in large part because a huge portion of the country thinks that President Obama literally wants to kill Americans because his loyalties lie with foreign muslim terrorists. It's crazy.

You're really in need of a reality check. I'll just list a bunch of points in no particular order:

(1) it was Obama's job to convince voters that his prescription for health care reform made sense; if he had done that, the Republicans would not have opposed it; if the Republicans saw political advantage in obstruction, it's because that's what a significant fraction of the country wanted;

(2) there is little doubt that the restriction of subsidies to state exchanges was intentional; videos of Jonathan Gruber and Jonathan Cohn spelling this out almost three years ago make this clear; it was the old carrot and stick trick; turned out to be too clever by half, but that doesn't mean the Democrats should get a do-over;

(3) we do not live in a country where nothing gets done;

(4) people's lives can and do improve without bills being passed by the Federal government; in any case, lots of bills do get passed; despite the hyperbole about an obstructed government, >95% of the Federal government has been operating as usual;

(5) the infrastructure is good enough, and it gets fixed as needed; would things be done more efficiently and at lower cost if the government were more proactive about investing in infrastructure? perhaps, but the fundamental problem is the way government has always worked; any temporary political fights have little to do with it; Obama tried to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on shovel-ready projects in 2009 and 2010 only to find out (by his own admission) that, like fairies and unicorns, they really are mythical;

(6) I predict that Democrats are going to (re)learn the virtue of obstructionism very quickly; of course it's only a good thing when you're obstructing the enactment of laws you don't like.

 

[Unabogie]

(3) we do not live in a country where nothing gets done;

I don't want to get into a five point debate so I'll just choose this one. You're delusional if you think we still live in a country where we can take on big projects and get them done. We once built an entire cross country rail system, and a national highway system, and the internet. Those were extremely expensive public works projects that were designed to put America in a position to succeed and were financed with tax dollars. Their benefit today is so obvious that I'm sure no one opposes them. But right now, our energy grid is completely antiquated and there is no private sector actor who would pay for the new "smart grid" that we need. Conservatives are no longer "fiscal conservatives" who want smaller government. They're radicals who want no government at all. They think all taxation is theft and that all government spending is waste. They think Obama's modest attempts to goose the solar power capability of the country was tyranny and "socialist" and that a lightly regulated free market health care system like the ACA is a "government takeover". They think climate change is a "hoax" and just made James Inhofe chairman of the Senate Environmental committee. So looking at the challenges of the coming decades, does anyone think we'll be able transition from fossil fuels to clean energy fast enough to avoid catastrophe? Will we fix our problem of having some of the worst public schools in the first world, and a generation of kids who manage to graduate college emerging with crushing debt, while Germany just made all education free to everyone? Will we continue to fund scientific research? Will we have high speed rail and the fastest internet and a stable and universal healthcare system to take care of our aging population? Name one area in which America is still leading the world aside from obscene military expenditures, and I'll show you how Republicans want to end all of that funding. There are no national projects that we can get done anymore, and the situation is only getting worse.

The irony is that your response to my rant will be a two parter. You'll explain why none of the things I've listed are actually good things (all government spending is waste) and how some magical market faerie will fly in to build the things that other countries have already built and are using to kick our asses and that it's wrong to ask the public to pay for things private companies would do for profit (all taxation is theft).

IMO, this country is screwed.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

They're radicals who want no government at all.

Straw Man.

They think all taxation is theft and that all government spending is waste.

Straw Man.

And so on.

If it doesn't violate any site rules, let me post an image that came into my FaceBook feed that I think perfectly illustrates this line of thinking:

Exaggerating and demonizing opponents is a pretty low form of discourse.

You know, it should give one pause when a majority of the electorate disagrees with them. I know it does me.

Yet I refrain from exaggerating the positions of those who disagree with me.

 

[Unabogie]

Straw Man.



Straw Man.

And so on.

If it doesn't violate any site rules, let me post an image that came into my FaceBook feed that I think perfectly illustrates this line of thinking:

[qimg]https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7558/15547302949_f78c7f5903.jpg[/qimg]

Exaggerating and demonizing opponents is a pretty low form of discourse.

You know, it should give one pause when a majority of the electorate disagrees with them. I know it does me.

Yet I refrain from exaggerating the positions of those who disagree with me.

It's not a straw man at all, there have been many posters, such as Robert Prey, who come on here and say the same things.

I presume you think of Fox News as mainstream Republican thought?

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/04/18/taxation-is-theft-so-why-do-americans-put-up-with-it/

 

[Fast Eddie B]

It's not a straw man at all, there have been many posters, such as Robert Prey, who come on here and say the same things.

OK, I'll grant you that that particular argument is more a Hasty Generalization - taking an outlier with an extreme position and using that to paint your opposition with a broad brush.

I presume you think of Fox News as mainstream Republican thought?

Nope - don't have much of an opinion on that one.

 

[Unabogie]

OK, I'll grant you that that particular argument is more a Hasty Generalization - taking an outlier with an extreme position and using that to paint your opposition with a broad brush.

Nope - don't have much of an opinion on that one.

Taxation as theft is a pretty common refrain among Tea Party types, and the Tea Party is pretty much ruling the GOP these days. But as for "all government spending is waste", can you name a single public works project the GOP has supported over the last decade? Maybe even going back to 1994? The projects I listed above are projects that ought to garner bipartisan approval.

• Upgrading the electrical grid to provide more efficient use of our power sources.
• High speed rail to facilitate interstate travel without cars.
• Finding and perfecting new energy sources to make us energy independent.
• Repairing our roads and bridges, many of which are falling apart.
• Improving our public schools, some of which are so broke you think this an Onion article.

Can you explain why there is opposition to these things from anywhere? Yet they are.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

I'm not deep into politics.

So I really can't answer specifics.

But did not the Democrats have the presidency and both houses of congress for a while?

For that time span, bipartisanship should not have been necessary on the items you mentioned.

Things are not always the other side's fault.

But, again, I was pointing more towards your arguing technique than the facts put forth.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

And back to that cartoon, living in a red state, I'm surrounded by Republicans.

Yet very few would agree with most of the signs in that cartoon.

I don't feel like taking them one at a time, but especially egregious is the one that say "Please Tap Our Computer Messages".

I mean, how much has the current administration done to ensure out privacy?

I think the Snowden revelations revealed plenty of excesses, from both parties, and certainly not decreasing since Obama took office.

Surprising, and disappointing, him being a "Constitutional Scholar" and all that.

 

[Unabogie]

I'm not deep into politics.

So I really can't answer specifics.

But did not the Democrats have the presidency and both houses of congress for a while?

For that time span, bipartisanship should not have been necessary on the items you mentioned.

Things are not always the other side's fault.

But, again, I was pointing more towards your arguing technique than the facts put forth.

Well, no. The Democrats had to overcome a filibuster with 60 votes. They only had this for a short time, but since every piece of legislation was guaranteed lockstep opposition, this gave inordinate power to folks like Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman, who seemed more interested in enjoying this influence than in helping to craft good laws.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/di...have-60-votes-in-the-senate-and-for-how-long/

But this only underscores my point. Bipartisanship should have been easy to find on these issues. On taxes? No, perhaps not. But on bread and butter items like infrastructure and science and technology, there used to be universal support for these things. That kind of support made things like the highway system, NASA, and the internet possible, since both sides could count on each other to get them done. How long do you think we as a nation can continue to rest on our laurels? How long can we ignore global warming? How long can we survive with a nation of non-college grads who got a substandard education and can't afford to get a degree?

As for my arguing technique, well I'm willing to retract my claim if you can find me one nationally elected Republican who supports a public works project that isn't the military.

 

[foophil]

Does building a giant wall on the southern border count?

 

[Unabogie]

Does building a giant wall on the southern border count?

Touche. We can always use more giant walls to propel us to national prominence.

After all, they call it STEMW.

(science, technology, engineering, math, walls)

 

[foophil]

Touche. We can always use more giant walls to propel us to national prominence.

After all, they call it STEMW.

(science, technology, engineering, math, walls)

Building a giant wall takes all that! And it'll protect us from those job stealing, ISIS loving, Ebola carrying immigrants!

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Another idiot

An architect of ObamaCare on Tuesday said he regretted his 2013 comment that a "lack of transparency" and the "stupidity of the American voter" helped Congress pass the healthcare law. . . . "If you had a law that made it explicit that healthy people are going to pay in and sick people are going to get subsidies, it would not have passed," he added.

thehill.com/policy/healthcare/223658-obamacare-architect-i-regret-stupidity-of-the-american-voter-comment


Er, isn't that how health insurance is supposed to work?

 

[ehcks]

Another idiot



thehill.com/policy/healthcare/223658-obamacare-architect-i-regret-stupidity-of-the-american-voter-comment


Er, isn't that how health insurance is supposed to work?

That's how the entire concept of insurance works. Where do they get these people?

 

[sunmaster14]

That's how the entire concept of insurance works. Where do they get these people?

That is not the concept behind normal insurance. For normal insurance there is an underwriting process, and people who are at high risk for making claims are charged more than people who are at low risk for making claims. The premiums charged per year should be equal to the expected cost of health care for the subscriber plus 15% or so for overhead and profit. Gruber was referring to the community rating system built into Obamacare, whereby risky subscribers are charged much less than their expected cost, and non-risky subscribers are charged much more than their expected cost. He was referring to the fact that Obamacare redistributes money from young to old and from people in good health to people in poor health. This is a statistical fact, even though in any given year it's entirely possible for a given healthy 30 yr old to rack up $1MM of medical costs and a given unhealthy 60 yr old to rack up none. Anything can happen to any individual in any given year, but on average, the healthy people are paying more than they should, and the unhealthy are paying less.

 

[ehcks]

That is not the concept behind normal insurance. For normal insurance there is an underwriting process, and people who are at high risk for making claims are charged more than people who are at low risk for making claims. The premiums charged per year should be equal to the expected cost of health care for the subscriber plus 15% or so for overhead and profit.

That only makes sense when the reason for being higher risk is by personal action. Car insurance premiums going up when you get into multiple accidents makes sense. You are not a safe driver.

Health insurance premiums going up because you were born a genetic immune disorder does not make sense because that would mean being punished for something you can't possibly change. Same with being older.

Health insurance premiums going up because you smoke make sense, because you're choosing to increase your own health problems.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

He was referring to the fact that Obamacare redistributes money from old to young and from people in poor health to people in good health.

Isn't that backwards?

 

[sunmaster14]

That only makes sense when the reason for being higher risk is by personal action. Car insurance premiums going up when you get into multiple accidents makes sense. You are not a safe driver.

Young people have higher car insurance premiums than older people. Men have higher car insurance premiums than women. The insurance companies don't care why you're a higher statistical risk; they only care that you are.

Health insurance premiums going up because you were born a genetic immune disorder does not make sense because that would mean being punished for something you can't possibly change. Same with being older.

Health insurance premiums going up because you smoke make sense, because you're choosing to increase your own health problems.

Life is unfair in many ways. If you want to use government to even out outcomes for people a little bit, why not be honest about it? Is it because you don't trust others to have the same level as sympathy as you?

Also, the redistribution in Obamacare is not entirely fair. There are many people who quite purposefully declined to pay for insurance when they were healthy and/or young and then got stuck when they became unhealthy and/or old. These people rolled the dice and lost, and now have gotten bailed out by Obamacare. In addition, there are many older people who are benefiting from the lower rates from community rating even though they already had insurance and were quite capable of paying the appropriate rate for their age and health status. Since older people tend to have more money and higher incomes than younger people, there is a reverse Robin Hood effect in play.

Actually, I encourage everybody here to watch the video of the panel discussion where Gruber made his Kinsley gaffe. There is a quite interesting and frank discussion of Obamacare's deficiencies. I learned many things I didn't know, some of which I think will have positive effects, but which Obamacare supporters will hate. But more instructive I think is to see how arrogant a central planner like Gruber is. When certain features of the bill turn out to be a mess, all he can do is blame the idiot politicians and staffers who didn't follow or understand his recommendations. And when the American people start behaving in a way contrary to his models he'll blame them too for being idiots. I guarantee you that Gruber is not uniquely arrogant and stubborn. He's probably a lot better than the average. But the job of planning society is way too difficult for these guys, and they just won't acknowledge it.

 

[sunmaster14]

Isn't that backwards?

Crap. You're right. I'll fix.

 

[DavidJames]

Got my open enrollment info today. My health insurance costs stayed the same. I can't remember a year in which they haven't gone up (assuming I've kept the same insurance).

Thanks Obama.