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If people are truly unable to comprehend the difference between why all republicans always wanted to get rid of the ACA and why some democrats want a delay now, then there really isn't much anyone can do.
You see them claiming to be persecuted patriots, I saw a reference to the Tea Party.
It was a reference to the Tea Party, or at least Tea Party Republicans. Representatives of the Tea Party have made a great deal of hay regarding the ostensible persecution of real/patriotic/conservative Americans.
So it is disingenuous to claim that the Democrats acted in a hypocritical manner by refusing to delay the individual mandate (which in part caused the shutdown) and lecture the Republicans that their wanting to delay the mandate was illegal and unconstitutional, and then the Democrats go ahead and delay the same mandate with nary a word of protest about their supposedly illegal deferral?
Yes, because the relevant pieces of legislation were not identical.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/10/29 00:30:27
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
dogma wrote: It really isn't. It is an example of the GOP, and its sympathizers, painting themselves as persecuted patriots (hence the tricorne hat) and, an example of how little Americans know about the Federal legislative process.
Simply because a particular provision was part of a particular piece of legislation does not mean that all elements of the two pieces of legislation were identical, and it is disingenuous to claim otherwise.
You see them claiming to be persecuted patriots, I saw a reference to the Tea Party.
So it is disingenuous to claim that the Democrats acted in a hypocritical manner by refusing to delay the individual mandate (which in part caused the shutdown) and lecture the Republicans that their wanting to delay the mandate was illegal and unconstitutional, and then the Democrats go ahead and delay the same mandate with nary a word of protest about their supposedly illegal deferral?
Isn't the counter argument that the Democrats say the manner in which the Republicans were doing it was illegal,
Not illegal.
irresponsible,
Arguable...
and dangerous to the nation's economy
Nah... it wasn't a true "shutdown" when the vast majority of the Federal Government was operational.
while the Democrats are trying to do it through the proper channels?
You mean like passing the PPACA via budget reconciliation (that by-passes any filibuster) rather than let it be voted on the floor on its own merit?
You will not die without health care. You will not go untreated without health care in the US. I don't know how you can even equate those two.
You've missed the point. I didn't say both were essential. Seaward made the point that making healthcare a legal requirement distorted the market. I replied that was actually very similar to the argument socialists used to make about the market for goods like food - that because the buyer simply has to buy it no matter the price, they argued that the market would be rife with price gouging and extortionate prices.
The socialists were completely wrong, of course, because while the consumer may potentially pay anything... in reality your competitor is always there competing with you on price.
The same can be said of the ACA market mechanism - with two important provisos. The first is that as you say you don't actually need healthcare, and if the pricing gets too high you can just pay the fine and get coverage if you actually get sick. The second is that competition doesn't exist in adequate amounts in some rural areas - this is a genuine problem that will need resolution.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
And the irony of her situation is not lost on her. In a recent email addressed to her former boss, Illinois Congressman Bill Foster, and other Democratic colleagues, she wrote:
“I spent two years defending Obamacare. I had constituents scream at me, spit at me and call me names that I can’t put in print. The congressman was not re-elected in 2010 mainly because of the anti-Obamacare anger. When the congressman was not re-elected, I also (along with the rest of our staff) lost my job. I was upset that because of the health care issue, I didn’t have a job anymore but still defended Obamacare because it would make health care available to everyone at, what I assumed, would be an affordable price. I have now learned that I was wrong. Very wrong.”
For Klinkhamer, 60, President Obama’s oft-repeated words ring in her ears: “If you like your health plan, you will keep it.”
Well, possibly not.
When Klinkhamer lost her congressional job, she had to buy an individual policy on the open market.
Three years ago, it was $225 a month with a $2,500 deductible. Each year it went up a little to, as of Sept. 1, $291 with a $3,500 deductible. Then, a few weeks ago, she got a letter.
“Blue Cross,” she said, “stated my current coverage would expire on Dec. 31, and here are my options: I can have a plan with similar benefits for $647.12 [or] I can have a plan with similar [but higher] pricing for $322.32 but with a $6,500 deductible.”
She went on, “Blue Cross also tells me that if I don’t pick one of the options, they will just assume I want the one for $647. ... Someone please tell me why my premium in January will be $356 more than in December?”
The sticker shock Klinkhamer is experiencing is something millions of individual policyholders are reeling from having gotten similar letters from their private insurers.
As UCLA Public Policy expert Dr. Gerald F. Kominski told CBS News this week, “Half of the 14 million people who buy insurance on their own are not going to keep the policies they previously had.”
Part of the reason those policies will be more expensive, he explained, is that Obamacare is requiring insurers to offer “a better product with better protection.”
Congressman Foster, Klinkhamer’s former boss who has since been returned to Congress, told me by phone Friday, “A very large number of people are very grateful” for Obamacare.
No doubt about that.
But right now Sue Klinkhamer, no novice to government or public policy, isn’t among them.
“I am a Democrat and I believe in health care for all,” she said.
“And I was excited that previously uninsured people could now get insurance on the open market. But this is not affordable to me.”
Klinkhamer suggests renaming the Affordable Care Act.
“Just call it,” she said dryly, “the Available Care Act.”
heh... I like that... “the Available Care Act”. TACA for short...
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/10/29 02:47:15
Evolving in to pure light and no longer needing human food is a solution available to a rare few. Growing our own food is available to perhaps even less. The rest of us have to buy our food or starve.
And competition would not be strong enough in the new insurance market without the billions in federal money being pumped in, so, again, I'm not sure that referring to the current situation as a free market is entirely accurate, leaving aside the entire issue of many aspects of coverage being mandated.
The idea that a market should be 'free', and that this freedom is defined by an absence of government involvement is a zombie myth. What you actually want is what in economics is called a perfect market, and this state doesn't much care if government is playing a role. The closest thing we have to a perfect market is the stock exchange, and that's among the most heavily regulated markets in the world.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date — the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example — the policy would not be grandfathered.
Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”
That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.
Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”
Piston Honda wrote: Have to wonder why Obama and company doesn't want to repeal or replace it at this stage.
Obama already has his second term, trashing it will not make him look weak. Keeping it will only kill Dems in 2014, 2016 and beyond.
There is no advantage of keeping this.
Which parts do you think should be repealed, and what should they be replaced with? Just remember that Single payer and Public options are off the table so long as the house remains republican.
Plus, nothings going to happen in the next two months (there are only 19 legislative days before years end, and the republicans want to cut even those down), and in two months time it won't be able to be cancelled without throwing millions of people with pre-existing conditions to the lions again (one of the big points that brought about health reform in the first place), not to mention the millions of low income earners now covered by the Medicaide expansion (at least in blue states) and subsidies that will also be thrown off coverage. "Repeal and Replace" is a great slogan, but a terrible plan, especially as there is no republican plan.
Plus considering that Republicans have been calling the plan the communofascist plan that's worse than Hitler and Stalin together and will crash the economy and introduce death panals, finding out that it's just insurance reform is going to be a big "eh" from most of the electorate.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/10/29 05:42:30
Looking for a club in Brisbane, Australia? Come and enjoy a game and a beer at Pubhammer, our friendly club in a pub at the Junction pub in Annerley (opposite Ace Comics), Sunday nights from 6:30. All brisbanites welcome, don't wait, check out our Club Page on Facebook group for details or to organize a game. We play all sorts of board and war games, so hit us up if you're interested.
Pubhammer is Moving! Starting from the 25th of May we'll be gaming at The Junction pub (AKA The Muddy Farmer), opposite Ace Comics & Games in Annerley! Still Sunday nights from 6:30 in the Function room Come along and play Warmachine, 40k, boardgames or anything else!
Maddermax wrote: "Repeal and Replace" is a great slogan, but a terrible plan, especially as there is no republican plan.
Heck, if they would have given any kind of effort to "Replace and Repeal" or "Fix and Replace" we probably would have been better off.
But all we get is "let's get rid of every single thing, and after everything is just like it used to be we promise that we are going to do something....really guys!"
If Republicans were willing to fix the ACA or replace it with something else, they would have already introduced bills to do such a thing and campaigned on it.
Getting rid of it without something already passed to replace it would be stupid.
d-usa wrote: Because getting rid of all the positives of the ACA because of a crappy website with crappy code is the sensible thing to do...
Oh, dear. Please tell me you don't honestly believe that's the only bad aspect of it right now. The massive premium hikes on everybody who's not already half-dead, the fact that taxpayer "investment" into the system is going to fething skyrocket beyond even the imagining of the revised (tripled) CBO estimate...c'mon, man.
There are a number of things that I do like in the ACA, but have to face the facts, the downsides will out weigh the positives at the voting booths.
Euthanize it now will allow the potential for talk and moving forward for a better health care overhaul.
Not killing it will give republicans complete control of Washington and will get rid of the ACA anyway.
Whatever price the Democrats will pay for ACA will be paid no matter what they do now. If they canned it now, then the story would be 'Democrats put together a piece of healthcare reform, screwed it up entirely and ignored all the Republicans telling them it was screwed up, and then just as it was rolling out they realised it was screwed up and dropped it'.... and Republicans would pick up a lot of seats and the public would be right to punish the Democrats, because abandoning major legislation just as it rolls out is no way to run a country.
At this point, you just continue with the roll out, and work hard to remove the issues as they arise (the website is talked about a lot but ultimately is fixable and will be forgotten in time, but the scarcity of insurers in some regional areas is a real concern that will need to be fixed). In time, and remember a week is a long time in politics, a year is an epoch, so the odds of this having a meaningful impact on voters in 2014 elections, let alone the 2016 presidential is remote, in my opinion.
You mean like passing the PPACA via budget reconciliation (that by-passes any filibuster) rather than let it be voted on the floor on its own merit?
PPACA was not passed via budget reconciliation.
I'm more puzzled about the claim that it should have been voted for on the floor on its own merit... when the Republicans were filibustering to prevent it reaching the floor for a vote. It really is like we're through the looking glass, sometimes...
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“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
sebster wrote: The idea that a market should be 'free', and that this freedom is defined by an absence of government involvement is a zombie myth. What you actually want is what in economics is called a perfect market, and this state doesn't much care if government is playing a role. The closest thing we have to a perfect market is the stock exchange, and that's among the most heavily regulated markets in the world.
So you're saying that a market that the public is legally forced to participate in and is run by the federal government is in fact a free market? I dunno, man.
Seaward wrote: So you're saying that a market that the public is legally forced to participate in and is run by the federal government is in fact a free market? I dunno, man.
No, I'm saying the term 'free market' means nothing. It's not a thing in economics. Simply put, 'there's government in this market' doesn't mean gak in terms in figuring out how efficiently that market sets prices and optimises production.
And I'm also saying 'but the consumer has to partake' is an old debate, and the capitalists won with their argument that exploitation still won't happen as long as you ensure competition. And that's it is really funny that the guys who are supposed to be all about the market seem to have forgotten all about that victory for market economics once the other side designs a market that involves mandatory participation.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
But we're not ensuring competition in the exchanges, sebster.
On an unrelated note, the talking point that Obama's team has decided to go with as far as having lied about nobody losing their plan if they liked it is that nothing in Obamacare forces you out of your current plan, that's just the natural turnover of the individual insurance market.
d-usa wrote: Because getting rid of all the positives of the ACA because of a crappy website with crappy code is the sensible thing to do...
Oh, dear. Please tell me you don't honestly believe that's the only bad aspect of it right now. The massive premium hikes on everybody who's not already half-dead,
You mean the "massive premium hikes" on less than 10% of the population that would actually get their care through the exchanges, and which is also a hike that doesn't take into account that subsidies will be available that will be at least partially offsetting these higher premiums?
d-usa wrote: You mean the "massive premium hikes" on less than 10% of the population that would actually get their care through the exchanges, and which is also a hike that doesn't take into account that subsidies will be available that will be at least partially offsetting these higher premiums?
Indeed, the massive premium hikes on the individual market, which is where the uninsured will be getting their insurance. And subsidies will not be offsetting higher premiums for an awful lot of people, because not everyone qualifies for a subsidy.
d-usa wrote: You mean the "massive premium hikes" on less than 10% of the population that would actually get their care through the exchanges, and which is also a hike that doesn't take into account that subsidies will be available that will be at least partially offsetting these higher premiums?
Indeed, the massive premium hikes on the individual market, which is where the uninsured will be getting their insurance.
Which is not "everybody who's not already half-dead". It's a pretty small group of people.
And subsidies will not be offsetting higher premiums for an awful lot of people, because not everyone qualifies for a subsidy.
It will offset higher premiums for a good number of people. Which will pull your "everybody" claim down even further below 10%.
d-usa wrote: Because getting rid of all the positives of the ACA because of a crappy website with crappy code is the sensible thing to do...
Oh, dear. Please tell me you don't honestly believe that's the only bad aspect of it right now. The massive premium hikes on everybody who's not already half-dead, the fact that taxpayer "investment" into the system is going to fething skyrocket beyond even the imagining of the revised (tripled) CBO estimate...c'mon, man.
The CBO says that repealing Obamacare would increase the deficit, so I guess that's not an option for you too.
As for an apples to apples comparison of rates, it hasn't been done yet. The Heritage foundation one, much loved by conservatives (who, strangely, hate their proposed health care system ) was severely flawed, not apples to apples, and didn't take into account subsidies at all.
Looking for a club in Brisbane, Australia? Come and enjoy a game and a beer at Pubhammer, our friendly club in a pub at the Junction pub in Annerley (opposite Ace Comics), Sunday nights from 6:30. All brisbanites welcome, don't wait, check out our Club Page on Facebook group for details or to organize a game. We play all sorts of board and war games, so hit us up if you're interested.
Pubhammer is Moving! Starting from the 25th of May we'll be gaming at The Junction pub (AKA The Muddy Farmer), opposite Ace Comics & Games in Annerley! Still Sunday nights from 6:30 in the Function room Come along and play Warmachine, 40k, boardgames or anything else!
d-usa wrote: Which is not "everybody who's not already half-dead". It's a pretty small group of people.
My fault, I should have made it clear I was talking about the individual market.
It will offset higher premiums for a good number of people. Which will pull your "everybody" claim down even further below 10%.
It may. Even if it does, it's an offset targeted squarely at the poor while the middle class will see little to no benefit from it. The entire market is predicated on the middle class and the young paying a lot more to support the older, the sick, and the poor. Moreover, it belies the whole "rates will go down for everyone," and, "if you like your current plan, you can keep it!" lies that were told to the individual market.
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d-usa wrote: It's not like health care premiums have not risen 10% a year during the last decade.
Have you simply not read any of the posted links in this thread, or what?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/10/29 08:20:48
d-usa wrote: Which is not "everybody who's not already half-dead". It's a pretty small group of people.
My fault, I should have made it clear I was talking about the individual market.
It will offset higher premiums for a good number of people. Which will pull your "everybody" claim down even further below 10%.
It may. Even if it does, it's an offset targeted squarely at the poor while the middle class will see little to no benefit from it. The entire market is predicated on the middle class and the young paying a lot more to support the older, the sick, and the poor.
Subsidies end at $92,000 for a family of four. Is that squarely poor? Where does middle class begin?
Moreover, it belies the whole "rates will go down for everyone,"
That was a stupid claim, and people are stupid for making it.
and, "if you like your current plan, you can keep it!" lies that were told to the individual market.
People can keep their plan, as long as it is a legal plan. And that claim was not just targeted at the individual market.
Maddermax wrote: The CBO says that repealing Obamacare would increase the deficit, so I guess that's not an option for you too.
Au contraire. I'll happily take a deficit hit now to kill yet another entitlement before it learns to walk.
As for an apples to apples comparison of rates, it hasn't been done yet. The Heritage foundation one, much loved by conservatives (who, strangely, hate their proposed health care system ) was severely flawed, not apples to apples, and didn't take into account subsidies at all.
'Tis almost as though the government's been keeping that information under very tight wraps, non? I mean, they went so far as to remove the "window shopping" ability of the (non-functioning) website specifically to prevent people from being able to get price information without registering.
The apples to apples comparisons we have come from consumers who've actually managed to shop around in the current mire, who had individual plans before, and there hasn't been one report yet of a decrease in premium, so, take it for what it's worth.
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d-usa wrote: Subsidies end at $92,000 for a family of four. Is that squarely poor? Where does middle class begin?
Depends. Where do you live?
And subsidies end at $92,000, but, much like progressive tax rates, not everyone's getting the same subsidy.
People can keep their plan, as long as it is a legal plan. And that claim was not just targeted at the individual market.
No, but it's the individual market where people are figuring out it's bs. (People who didn't know the second they heard that oft-repeated lie, I mean.)
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/10/29 08:28:50
Come along and play Warmachine, 40k, boardgames or anything else! 
) was severely flawed, not apples to apples, and didn't take into account subsidies at all.