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AustonT wrote:If we really think that health care needs to be under government control it's time to nut up and start the process of socializing medicine. The AHCA was never that.

Y'all should; socialized medicine friggin' awesome.


-I truly am sorry to hear that you've currently been put between a rock and a hard place, though.

streamdragon wrote:what's so bad about this one?

What's so bad is that it's the most regressive tax hike in american history.

It's a tax that the rich can EASILY avoid paying, and the the middle class mostly already can avoid paying. Meanwhile, it only taxes people who couldn't afford health insurance in the first place - the poor.

If you're completely destitute then you'll be able to avoid the tax through medicare, but for the millions of poor people just above the poverty line (who are still hand-to-mouth poor, but just don't technically qualify for tax exemption), they're stuck finding out where they're going to magically get $200 per month per person from. Likely it will be by losing their homes (purchased or rented), in favor of even worse living conditions and by defaulting on their other debts (unless they're student loans, which is a crime to attempt to default on). Meanwhile, the cost of employing people will go up as employers will likewise be taxed for not providing insurance. Who are the people who don't get health insurance from work? Poor people. Now there will be fewer jobs for them.

In the end, it crucifies the poor and lower middle class in order to make the extra poor a little better off while rich people don't do anything at all. If you're a liberal, socialist, or progressive, you've got to feel terrible about yourself (as well as less this law), as the democratic party basically screwed the poor yet again.

Of course, if you're a neocon, then there really isn't much to complain about, as you got to meddle with your inferiors and practice social engineering. More importantly, you got to do it without costing rich people anything.

If you're a libertarian, of course, this is also a disaster. Now, instead of the government being to arbitrarily tell you what to do and wave the commerce clause, now the government gets to arbitrarily tell you what to do and magically turn the word "penalty" into the word "tax" and make it constitutional.

Really, the only people who benefit from this are the richest of the rich, and the poorest of the poor. You wonder what's causing the wealth gap in this country...

As for me, personally, what's wrong is that if the ACA stands, my wife and I are going to lose our home. Combined we work the equivalent of two full time jobs, and after rent, food, utilities, car insurance, and student loan repayments, we make only an extra $80 per month. The only way to make ends meet once I have to spend hundreds of dollars per month on insurance will be to move into a smaller place closer to the edge of town. I'll be able to hold off for a little while, what with a new contract job coming up this fall, but even then, it's limited, and, ironically, assumes that nothing bad happens, like unforseen medical expenses...

That's what's wrong with it.

Ailaros wrote:

streamdragon wrote:what's so bad about this one?

What's so bad is that it's the most regressive tax hike in american history.

It's a tax that the rich can EASILY avoid paying, and the the middle class mostly already can avoid paying. Meanwhile, it only taxes people who couldn't afford health insurance in the first place - the poor.

If you're completely destitute then you'll be able to avoid the tax through medicare, but for the millions of poor people just above the poverty line (who are still hand-to-mouth poor, but just don't technically qualify for tax exemption), they're stuck finding out where they're going to magically get $200 per month per person from. Likely it will be by losing their homes (purchased or rented), in favor of even worse living conditions and by defaulting on their other debts (unless they're student loans, which is a crime to attempt to default on). Meanwhile, the cost of employing people will go up as employers will likewise be taxed for not providing insurance. Who are the people who don't get health insurance from work? Poor people. Now there will be fewer jobs for them.

In the end, it crucifies the poor and lower middle class in order to make the extra poor a little better off while rich people don't do anything at all. If you're a liberal, socialist, or progressive, you've got to feel terrible about yourself (as well as less this law), as the democratic party basically screwed the poor yet again.

Of course, if you're a neocon, then there really isn't much to complain about, as you got to meddle with your inferiors and practice social engineering. More importantly, you got to do it without costing rich people anything.

If you're a libertarian, of course, this is also a disaster. Now, instead of the government being to arbitrarily tell you what to do and wave the commerce clause, now the government gets to arbitrarily tell you what to do and magically turn the word "penalty" into the word "tax" and make it constitutional.

Really, the only people who benefit from this are the richest of the rich, and the poorest of the poor. You wonder what's causing the wealth gap in this country...

As for me, personally, what's wrong is that if the ACA stands, my wife and I are going to lose our home. Combined we work the equivalent of two full time jobs, and after rent, food, utilities, car insurance, and student loan repayments, we make only an extra $80 per month. The only way to make ends meet once I have to spend hundreds of dollars per month on insurance will be to move into a smaller place closer to the edge of town. I'll be able to hold off for a little while, what with a new contract job coming up this fall, but even then, it's limited, and, ironically, assumes that nothing bad happens, like unforseen medical expenses...

That's what's wrong with it.

Isn't this a good reason to write to your congressman to vote for the single payer option next time that comes up? That's what makes the current plan stupid. They got rid of the single payer option so the people who are not quite broke and not quite well off have no recourse.

bogalubov wrote:Isn't this a good reason to write to your congressman to vote for the single payer option next time that comes up? That's what makes the current plan stupid. They got rid of the single payer option so the people who are not quite broke and not quite well off have no recourse.

If quid proed quo, then yes, I'd write to ask for a single payer. As actual empirical data shows, it does not, so I wouldn't.

Single-payer medicine does allow the government to arbitrarily fix prices, but when you step back and look at things comprehensively, a single-payer system is still more expensive than the old system. Poor, healthy people still need to find money to pay poor, sick people, except they gain the added burden of also needing to pay for rich, sick people. Moreover, it still screws over poor people as the economy moves more resources away from productive things, and in to non-productive things. I guess it will create a few jobs in the healthcare industry, but the economy as a whole will suffer, and guess who is hurt by a suffering economy? The poor, yet again.

The best solution more closely approximates what we had than what we're getting or what socialists want. Poor people need to be able to consume the appropriate level of healthcare for their budget. Forcing poor people to consume healthcare beyond their means, regardless of the means, will hurt them. The only question how is if we also want to bankrupt the state as well as bankrupting the poor, or if we want to just screw the poor while leaving the state solvent.

There could have been a lot of changes that would have helped, like breaking up hospital cartels and ending insurance collusion. Things, you know, that would have punished the people that are actually making the system worse. Instead, the people responsible can grin all the way to the bank as the poor are now forced to participate in their corrupt system. Forcing the government to participate in said system wouldn't be any better.

Ailaros wrote:
The best solution more closely approximates what we had than what we're getting or what socialists want. Poor people need to be able to consume the appropriate level of healthcare for their budget. Forcing poor people to consume healthcare beyond their means, regardless of the means, will hurt them. The only question how is if we also want to bankrupt the state as well as bankrupting the poor, or if we want to just screw the poor while leaving the state solvent.

The one payer system would not really be over burdened by adding the rich people into it. There's not that many of them and I'm sure that private practices would still exist that cater to the ultra rich who want every expensive, over kill test to be performed.

I'm not sure what you mean by "poor people need to be able to consume the appropriate level of healthcare". The issue now is that the only time the poor show up at the hospital is if they are really sick and injured. That takes a lot of money to fix usually. If they went to the doctor more regularly than problems could be caught early and treated before they spiraled out of control. That's how the Japanese system works. Frequent check ups with primary care physicians. If everyone has access to a primary physician the more expensive treatments could be avoided.

That of course gets to the next problem in American healthcare. There are not enough primary care doctors. That goes to the price of medical school. Once you're faced with 200k plus school loans, people are not too interested in taking "low" paying primary care positions. They want to find the specialties that shell out a lot more so they can pay off school and make the big bucks to afford fancy stuff. However, the government could fix this by excusing the loans people took out if they serve as a primary care doctor in a government funded facility.

Ailaros wrote:Meanwhile, the cost of employing people will go up as employers will likewise be taxed for not providing insurance. Who are the people who don't get health insurance from work? Poor people. Now there will be fewer jobs for them.

Worse, for many companies, it's cheaper to pay the tax(if the tax rate from when the bill was first passed stays the same) than it is to provide insurance for their employees. So now, not only are companies spending less, but they're paying the same amount as before to people whose insurance costs suddenly went up drastically(some to the point that they're looking at your situation).

azazel the cat wrote:
Y'all should; socialized medicine friggin' awesome.

Yup.
Just takes a government with real balls to implement it. That's unlikely in most democracies, unfortunately.

Ailaros wrote:

bogalubov wrote:Isn't this a good reason to write to your congressman to vote for the single payer option next time that comes up? That's what makes the current plan stupid. They got rid of the single payer option so the people who are not quite broke and not quite well off have no recourse.

If quid proed quo, then yes, I'd write to ask for a single payer. As actual empirical data shows, it does not, so I wouldn't.

Single-payer medicine does allow the government to arbitrarily fix prices, but when you step back and look at things comprehensively, a single-payer system is still more expensive than the old system.

A single payer system is most certainly not more expensive then a private, premium based model. Currently were paying 1.5-2 times more then any other country in the world for health care.

youbedead wrote:

Ailaros wrote:

bogalubov wrote:Isn't this a good reason to write to your congressman to vote for the single payer option next time that comes up? That's what makes the current plan stupid. They got rid of the single payer option so the people who are not quite broke and not quite well off have no recourse.

If quid proed quo, then yes, I'd write to ask for a single payer. As actual empirical data shows, it does not, so I wouldn't.

Single-payer medicine does allow the government to arbitrarily fix prices, but when you step back and look at things comprehensively, a single-payer system is still more expensive than the old system.

A single payer system is most certainly not more expensive then a private, premium based model. Currently were paying 1.5-2 times more then any other country in the world for health care.

However we really can't compare the US with European countries. being the size of Europe, we have issues that Europe doesn't have.

We can't centralize or socialize medicine as easily as they do because of our landmass. Think about what would happen if the EU was what provided medical coverage for everyone coming out of one pocket. It would be an expensive bureaucratic nightmare.

I think that healthcare, if it ever gets done by the government, should be done by the states. The Federal government's influence should extend to the military, interstate commerce, and facing external and, some, internal threats.

Medical problems are way too invasive for the government to be involved in, even Statewide coverage is iffy IMO.

It's a tax that the rich can EASILY avoid paying, and the the middle class mostly already can avoid paying. Meanwhile, it only taxes people who couldn't afford health insurance in the first place - the poor.

A lot of them are going to be exempt. Wonder where they're going to make up the shortfall

Except alot won't be exempted.

A family that is living at the poverty line is going to benifit from it. but a family thats living above the poverty line, but still barely hanging on, is not going to be exempt. It will increase their costs because they will be forced to pay the tax.


its kinda like how my family is middle class, and because of that I am not eligible for many scholarships. But being middle class doesn't mean I can afford to go to college any more then others. In some ways, I have less money for school then people several income brackets below my family.

"Help, Im white and middle class and because of that i can't get scholarships to pay for school. But some broke black student from Oakland has all the money he needs"

Grey Templar wrote:
However we really can't compare the US with European countries. being the size of Europe, we have issues that Europe doesn't have.

Hi. I live in a country that absolutely dwarfs you. We have socialized health care. It's great.

Oh, also, your argument is ridiculous and unfounded. The size of the territory and the populate has no bearing on the argument, as the costs are conducted as a rate. What you are saying is exactly what I tried to discount when I asked in the other thread: outside of propaganda-fueled rhetoric, why would anyone not want universal health care?

With the waste and fraud found in all Government programs, and a weak economy, this will be the final straw that will break our back. With over 14 trillion in debt and a weak economy, It is unsustainable.

Grey Templar wrote:"Help, Im white and middle class and because of that i can't get scholarships to pay for school. But some broke black student from Oakland has all the money he needs"

Don't get me wrong; I'm against statistical-average-based affirmative action. However, the odds of a middle class white male getting into college is exponentially higher than the odds of a poor African-American girl, living in an impoverished city/sometimes warzone, if you're thinking of Campbell, CA.

bogalubov wrote:The one payer system would not really be over burdened by adding the rich people into it. There's not that many of them

But there are a nonzero amount. In any case, poor healthy people like me are still needing to pay for what will be a deluge of poor sick people.

bogalubov wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by "poor people need to be able to consume the appropriate level of healthcare".

The amount they can afford.

Would I like unlimited free healthcare? Certainly. Would I like a solid gold toilet? How about three? The amount of any good or service you consume must be limited by the amount of productive labor that you can trade for it. Everybody getting something for nothing eventually leaves everybody with nothing. That's the empirical position.

bogalubov wrote:The issue now is that the only time the poor show up at the hospital is if they are really sick and injured. That takes a lot of money to fix usually. If they went to the doctor more regularly than problems could be caught early and treated before they spiraled out of control.

Once again, though, this isn't true. Preventative medicine costs more than it saves. For every one person you save a hundred thousand dollars on by catching their cancer early (or whatever), you have to pay the cost of millions of physical examinations that yield no results (other than "you're healthy").

It may save those lucky individuals, but someone's got to pay for all that unnecessary preventative care that does nothing.

bogalubov wrote:That's how the Japanese system works.

The japanese system is almost completely bankrupt (as is their country as a whole). There's a really good frontline on this about how the japanese system is, in fact, one of the worst in the developed world as doctors get paid so little that they're in poverty while access is still so limited that there's rationing, while it's still so expensive that it's brought Japan to the brink of fiscal ruin.

As much as I don't want to lose my apartment, I don't think I'd be better off if the US government becomes insolvent.

youbedead wrote:A single payer system is most certainly not more expensive then a private, premium based model. Currently were paying 1.5-2 times more then any other country in the world for health care.

That's spending per capita, not spending per illness. Americans overconsume healthcare. Of course we're going to have to pay more for it.

The only way to bring the price down is to decrease people's access to healthcare (like they do in all those other countries on that graph), or to create a maximum wage law for doctors.

Plus, that graph only shows a couple of european countries. What about other countries that also have socialized medicine? It may be cheaper to pay for healthcare in spain (when you have access to it), but spain is on the brink of total collapse. Much like Italy. Much like greece.

The plain fact is that, regardless of price, when you move more of your society's resources towards something, you move it away from something else. If you are going to increase the amount of healthcare consumed, you are going to decrease the amount of food, housing, cars, and eduction (etc.) that you are able to consume instead. In my particular case, I'm now going to be homeless or begging for food from the church in order to be able to pay for healthcare that I'm not even using.

If you wanted to make the argument that it's better because socialized medicine reduces the amount of healthcare consumed (and thus frees up stuff for other use), then fine, but I was already not consuming healthcare (nor, I would note, aren't a lot of people), so making me pay for it is just screwing the poor in my case (and in the case of millions of others).

Jihadin wrote:

It's a tax that the rich can EASILY avoid paying, and the the middle class mostly already can avoid paying. Meanwhile, it only taxes people who couldn't afford health insurance in the first place - the poor.

A lot of them are going to be exempt. Wonder where they're going to make up the shortfall

More won't be.

The worst part is that if I choose to pay the tax (which, currently, I'm going to have to, as it's going to be much cheaper than paying for insurance), I now have to spend money I don't have and get absolutely nothing in return.

azazel the cat wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:
However we really can't compare the US with European countries. being the size of Europe, we have issues that Europe doesn't have.

Hi. I live in a country that absolutely dwarfs you. We have socialized health care. It's great.

Oh, also, your argument is ridiculous and unfounded. The size of the territory and the populate has no bearing on the argument, as the costs are conducted as a rate. What you are saying is exactly what I tried to discount when I asked in the other thread: outside of propaganda-fueled rhetoric, why would anyone not want universal health care?

True but the US has @10x the population:
Canadian population - 33,487,208
US Population - 307,212,123
And it is more widely dispersed.

Also, "Obamacare" is not "universal healthcare", It is a bow to the insurance companies. The law requires all 307,212,123 US citizens to buy insurance. Yeah, the ins companies have to accept them, but they also are getting all those payments as well.

The law also requires the insurance companies to actually cover the insured instead of simply taking their money and saying "you had cancer before you got insurance, so we are not paying for it".

Every time I hear this measure referred to as "Obamacare"( a reference to the original idea that was vehemently protested and stalemated), I die a little inside.

Resurrection Orb FTW

Ailaros wrote:
The japanese system is almost completely bankrupt (as is their country as a whole). There's a really good frontline on this about how the japanese system is, in fact, one of the worst in the developed world as doctors get paid so little that they're in poverty while access is still so limited that there's rationing, while it's still so expensive that it's brought Japan to the brink of fiscal ruin.

I don't know where you get your information but you're wrong.

Japan’s current account surplus — the widest measure of its trade — totaled $196 billion in 2010, up more than threefold since 1989. By comparison, America’s current account deficit ballooned to $471 billion from $99 billion in that time. Although in the 1990s the conventional wisdom was that as a result of China’s rise Japan would be a major loser and the United States a major winner, it has not turned out that way. Japan has increased its exports to China more than 14-fold since 1989 and Chinese-Japanese bilateral trade remains in broad balance.

I lived in Japan and my wife is Japanese; as of her conversation with her parents a few days ago there is no "rationing" and the country is anything but broke, even after the earthquake and nuclear disaster.

A good read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/the-true-story-of-japans-economic-success.html?pagewanted=all

Ailaros wrote:The only way to bring the price down is to decrease people's access to healthcare (like they do in all those other countries on that graph), or to create a maximum wage law for doctors.

Please explain to me how Canada, the UK, Sweden, etc. have decreased access to healthcare?
Outside of right-wing-radio LIES, nobody gets turned away in Canadian hospitals, nor is our quality of care inferior to that of the US.

Ailaros wrote:Plus, that graph only shows a couple of european countries. What about other countries that also have socialized medicine? It may be cheaper to pay for healthcare in spain (when you have access to it), but spain is on the brink of total collapse. Much like Italy. Much like greece.

But they're not on the brink of total collapse due to their health care, so please try not to create a straw man.

helgrenze wrote:

azazel the cat wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:
However we really can't compare the US with European countries. being the size of Europe, we have issues that Europe doesn't have.

Hi. I live in a country that absolutely dwarfs you. We have socialized health care. It's great.

Oh, also, your argument is ridiculous and unfounded. The size of the territory and the population has no bearing on the argument, as the costs are conducted as a rate. What you are saying is exactly what I tried to discount when I asked in the other thread: outside of propaganda-fueled rhetoric, why would anyone not want universal health care?

True but the US has @10x the population:
Canadian population - 33,487,208
US Population - 307,212,123
And it is more widely dispersed.

Also, "Obamacare" is not "universal healthcare", It is a bow to the insurance companies. The law requires all 307,212,123 US citizens to buy insurance. Yeah, the ins companies have to accept them, but they also are getting all those payments as well.

Right. That's why I didn't say "Obamacare"; I said "Universal Health Care". As in, the real kind.
And for what it's worth, the population size doesn't really factor in any more than does the territorial size. That's why I said as much. I've underscored that part for your so that you won't miss it a second time.

Ailaros wrote:What's so bad is that it's the most regressive tax hike in american history.

Well, that's a really wild claim. The mandate is $600... and meanwhile you have sales taxes of around 10%. So no, it really, really isn't the most regressive tax hike at present, let alone in history.

Second up, it's a huge mistake to look at a single piece of legislation in isolation and dismiss it because of a regressive impact, when that piece of legislation is tied to a system with a strongly progressive element. Right now if you can't afford insurance then your option is to hope you don't get sick, and if you do get really sick then you liquidate your assets to pay for it and declare bankruptcy. That $600 charge means if you do get sick you can go and get coverage. It might not be ideal, but it is a million times better than the current situation, and hyper-focusing on the regressive impact of the $600 charge shouldn't be used to ignore that.


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Ailaros wrote:Single-payer medicine does allow the government to arbitrarily fix prices, but when you step back and look at things comprehensively, a single-payer system is still more expensive than the old system.

This is objectively false. Healthcare systems in France, the UK, Germany, Australia and other developed nations deliver results that are at least as good as US health outcomes, and do it for somewhere between a third to a half as much per capita.

I mean, you just have to go and actually look at the numbers, and it becomes clear the US system has the most incredible waste.

There could have been a lot of changes that would have helped, like breaking up hospital cartels and ending insurance collusion.

Actually, for a system that costs as stupidly high an amount as US healthcare, it's surprising how few people are making much from the system. Private Insurers are very profitable, but that's about it. Hospitals make little money, and doctors aren't really paid much better than in other healthcare systems. Most of the extra cost in the US system is actually just waste - the cost of overtreatment, the systemic bias to emergency treatment over preventative care, the cost of additional account expenses (as money goes through so many more hands than in a more streamlined system), and the cost of chasing people through law courts for outstanding bills (and the eventual cost of bankruptcy proceedings).

Picking out some randoms and claiming they're making money they shouldn't is an easy answer, but its a wrong one.


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Joey wrote:Yup.
Just takes a government with real balls to implement it. That's unlikely in most democracies, unfortunately.

Except most every democracy has socialised medicine, so it's actually the exact opposite of unlikely.


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Grey Templar wrote:However we really can't compare the US with European countries. being the size of Europe, we have issues that Europe doesn't have.

We can't centralize or socialize medicine as easily as they do because of our landmass.

Australia and Canada have much lower population density, and yet our socialised systems deliver better outcomes for less money. So that claim is simply wrong. Geography doesn't impact the cost of healthcare meaningfully.

Ailaros wrote:

youbedead wrote:A single payer system is most certainly not more expensive then a private, premium based model. Currently were paying 1.5-2 times more then any other country in the world for health care.

That's spending per capita, not spending per illness. Americans overconsume healthcare. Of course we're going to have to pay more for it.

The only way to bring the price down is to decrease people's access to healthcare (like they do in all those other countries on that graph), or to create a maximum wage law for doctors.

Plus, that graph only shows a couple of european countries. What about other countries that also have socialized medicine? It may be cheaper to pay for healthcare in spain (when you have access to it), but spain is on the brink of total collapse. Much like Italy. Much like greece.

The plain fact is that, regardless of price, when you move more of your society's resources towards something, you move it away from something else. If you are going to increase the amount of healthcare consumed, you are going to decrease the amount of food, housing, cars, and eduction (etc.) that you are able to consume instead. In my particular case, I'm now going to be homeless or begging for food from the church in order to be able to pay for healthcare that I'm not even using.

If you wanted to make the argument that it's better because socialized medicine reduces the amount of healthcare consumed (and thus frees up stuff for other use), then fine, but I was already not consuming healthcare (nor, I would note, aren't a lot of people), so making me pay for it is just screwing the poor in my case (and in the case of millions of others).

Presently American are the least likely to see a doctor for illness then any other western country on earth. Its a combination of having to pay to see a doctor and that businesses in america are more likely to punish a worker for taking sick days then their European counterparts. If you don't have to pay for doctors visits you are far more likely to take preventive measures thereby reducing future costs dramatically and overall reducing the cost of healthcare. Can you show support for your claim that more people are denied healthcare in socialized medicine (This goes out to anyone, does anyone have actual numbers of those denied coverage in America, Britain, canada, etc,) How would a socialized system funded by a progressive tax not benefit you, it would cost you less then current premiums and it would not cost you to see a doctor.

Grey Templar wrote:Except alot won't be exempted.

A family that is living at the poverty line is going to benifit from it. but a family thats living above the poverty line, but still barely hanging on, is not going to be exempt. It will increase their costs because they will be forced to pay the tax.

But when they get seriously sick they can go and apply for health coverage and not get rejected for a pre-existing condition. That's a huge thing that absolutely dwarfs the yearly payment.


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Brushfire wrote:With the waste and fraud found in all Government programs, and a weak economy, this will be the final straw that will break our back. With over 14 trillion in debt and a weak economy, It is unsustainable.

Healthcare that's up to double the cost per capita of other countries, for no greater results, is unsustainable. That's what you've got now, as a result of failing to meaningfully reform your healthcare system for many decades*. The rest of us, with our government programs are delivering the same healthcare results for a fraction of the price.

This is easily located information. Go out and read. Learn this. Accept it.




*Nixon recognised it was broken, and the first moves towards a better structured government involvement were first tried when he was president. Minority interests and cheap politics have been preventing reform since then.


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Ailaros wrote:But there are a nonzero amount. In any case, poor healthy people like me are still needing to pay for what will be a deluge of poor sick people.

Well, yeah. Healthy people cover sick people. It works that way so that if you do become one of the sick, the other healthy people will cover you. It spreads risk, because one person getting unlucky can't afford the cost of treatment by themselves.

I mean, this is how insurance works.


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helgrenze wrote:True but the US has @10x the population:
Canadian population - 33,487,208
US Population - 307,212,123
And it is more widely dispersed.

Okay this is just silly. The US can't provide healthcare as cheaply because it's a bigger landmass than Europe. Then when it's pointed out Canada also delivers cheaper, better healthcare, we see the reasoning that the US has more people. None of these things impact the cost of healthcare in any meaningful way. It's just

There is no magic 'America' reason that healthcare costs so much. It's just a straight up poorly constructed system, that's been outdated for arguably up to 50 years. That's it. You have a system with the worst of both private and public systems, and every year this costs you about 5% of your GDP for no benefit over any other developed country.

Also, "Obamacare" is not "universal healthcare", It is a bow to the insurance companies.

Actually, that's the one thing it isn't. The insurance companies fought the bill tooth and nail, and never engaged in negotiations over it. That's why most of the good parts of it are about curbing their worst excesses - namely the requirement spend at least 80% of their revenue on actual medical costs, and preventing them from rejecting a person with a pre-existing condition.

Pharmaceutical companies, who worked with the administration of producing Obamacare... now those guys made out like bandits.

Poor right-wingers--betrayed by Roberts! Never trust anyone who spends summer vacations in Maine--typical behavior of a closet north-east liberal.

olympia wrote:Poor right-wingers--betrayed by Roberts! Never trust anyone who spends summer vacations in Maine--typical behavior of a closet north-east liberal.

What an intelligent comment. I wish you had entered this discussion on the first page.

Ailaros wrote:

bogalubov wrote:The one payer system would not really be over burdened by adding the rich people into it. There's not that many of them

But there are a nonzero amount. In any case, poor healthy people like me are still needing to pay for what will be a deluge of poor sick people.

bogalubov wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by "poor people need to be able to consume the appropriate level of healthcare".

The amount they can afford.

Would I like unlimited free healthcare? Certainly. Would I like a solid gold toilet? How about three? The amount of any good or service you consume must be limited by the amount of productive labor that you can trade for it. Everybody getting something for nothing eventually leaves everybody with nothing. That's the empirical position.

There's no such thing as unlimited free healthcare anywhere. Even in the normal (non-US) systems, there has to be some degree of rationing based on availability and cost of services between different areas.

That said, the reason why "unlimited free" healthcare works is because everyone isn't ill all the time. Most people go though most of their life with hopefully a few incidents when they need some kind of treatment.

People don't go to the doctor every day just because it's free.

bogalubov wrote:

Ailaros wrote:

streamdragon wrote:what's so bad about this one?

What's so bad is that it's the most regressive tax hike in american history.

It's a tax that the rich can EASILY avoid paying, and the the middle class mostly already can avoid paying. Meanwhile, it only taxes people who couldn't afford health insurance in the first place - the poor.

If you're completely destitute then you'll be able to avoid the tax through medicare, but for the millions of poor people just above the poverty line (who are still hand-to-mouth poor, but just don't technically qualify for tax exemption), they're stuck finding out where they're going to magically get $200 per month per person from. Likely it will be by losing their homes (purchased or rented), in favor of even worse living conditions and by defaulting on their other debts (unless they're student loans, which is a crime to attempt to default on). Meanwhile, the cost of employing people will go up as employers will likewise be taxed for not providing insurance. Who are the people who don't get health insurance from work? Poor people. Now there will be fewer jobs for them.

In the end, it crucifies the poor and lower middle class in order to make the extra poor a little better off while rich people don't do anything at all. If you're a liberal, socialist, or progressive, you've got to feel terrible about yourself (as well as less this law), as the democratic party basically screwed the poor yet again.

Of course, if you're a neocon, then there really isn't much to complain about, as you got to meddle with your inferiors and practice social engineering. More importantly, you got to do it without costing rich people anything.

If you're a libertarian, of course, this is also a disaster. Now, instead of the government being to arbitrarily tell you what to do and wave the commerce clause, now the government gets to arbitrarily tell you what to do and magically turn the word "penalty" into the word "tax" and make it constitutional.

Really, the only people who benefit from this are the richest of the rich, and the poorest of the poor. You wonder what's causing the wealth gap in this country...

As for me, personally, what's wrong is that if the ACA stands, my wife and I are going to lose our home. Combined we work the equivalent of two full time jobs, and after rent, food, utilities, car insurance, and student loan repayments, we make only an extra $80 per month. The only way to make ends meet once I have to spend hundreds of dollars per month on insurance will be to move into a smaller place closer to the edge of town. I'll be able to hold off for a little while, what with a new contract job coming up this fall, but even then, it's limited, and, ironically, assumes that nothing bad happens, like unforseen medical expenses...

That's what's wrong with it.

Isn't this a good reason to write to your congressman to vote for the single payer option next time that comes up? That's what makes the current plan stupid. They got rid of the single payer option so the people who are not quite broke and not quite well off have no recourse.

That or a good reason to start a second revolution.
(bad Godfather Lucazi accent) "Revolution II, this time is Bus - i - nezz" (intro Godfather theme)


INteresting take on the tax increases discovered so far:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/health3jpg/

Frazzled wrote:
That or a good reason to start a second revolution.

You know, no one takes this threat seriously anymore. It's like the boy who cried wolf.

At least Daniel Shays went all the way!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays'_Rebellion

Apparently Kaiser, of all people, has a page up with some good info. It gives specifics that a couple people may or may not find useful, regarding people at or near the poverty line, including even the "I make too much for Medicaid, but not enough to buy insurance, what about me?" group

Link totally stolen from the reddit link someone posted a bit back, but it was useful enough I felt it merited posting directly.