sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
Seb... that's called lobbying.

I just explained this. It is lobbying when you form a policy and then going from legislator to legislator, and use persuasive argument and favours trading to get support. It is not lobbying when your policy positions directly mirror one of the major parties, and the work you do is almost entirely focused on arguing the case for those policies to the outside world. That is being an arm of a major party.

meh... I'm skeptical of that. There will be a "new shiny bauble" by then.

No shiny bauble can distract people when they're being hit in the pocket book.

So... in other words, they weren't entirely truthful. Imagine that.

I'd posit that if they truly championed this cause, it'd never pass.

What? Where did you get truthful from? Championing the cause doesn't mean telling the truth. It means that it is how you're spending all your political capital, and what you are looking to argue for at every possible opportunity. Whether you are telling the truth or lies, it is championing the cause when you book interviews on a wide range of media, aimed purely at selling that one policy. When you do a speaking tour. Obama, Reid, Pelosi nor anyone else did that.

 Seaward wrote:

“The Departments’ mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small employer plans and 45 percent of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013,” wrote the administration on page 34,552 of the Register. All in all, more than half of employer-sponsored plans will lose their “grandfather status” and become illegal. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 156 million Americans—more than half the population—was covered by employer-sponsored insurance in 2013.

The Department referred to is Health and Human Services. The administration referred to is President Obama's.

This is the reason the employer mandate was pushed until after the midterms. A few hundred thousand cancellation letters is one thing; tens of millions is another entirely.

 easysauce wrote:
she must have been one of those people either too stupid or too lazy to understand that when the government says "you can keep your plan" what they really mean is, you can keep your plan, until we pass OB care.

 dogma wrote:

Obviously it is connected to the ACA, but a comment made about the ACA regarding state action presumes that the ACA exists and therefore does not pertain to the passage of that law.

Honestly, anyone who believed, after the whole "public option" debacle, that the federal government would be able to force insurance companies to continue certain forms of coverage (a de facto public option) is either inattentive or not very bright.
.

Every one of the major promises Obama made to the American people regarding Obamacare has now been proven to be shamefully deceitful.

Do you remember, “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.” All we have heard about as Obamacare has gone into effect is millions of Americans losing their health insurance.

Consider: Florida Blue announces termination of 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. California’s Kaiser Permanente reports cancellation of 160,000 policies, about half of its individual policies in the state. Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia drops 45% of its individual policies. CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield axes 76,000 policies in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, DC, over 40 percent of its individual policies in those states. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh cancels 20% of its individual policies.

The Weekly Standard published an expert estimate last month that altogether 16 million individual policies will be terminated nationwide, more than 80% of the total 19 million individual policies in the entire country. Who took these policies away from the people who chose them?

Section 1251 of the Obamacare legislation was supposed to embody Obama’s pledge to the American people with a “grandfather” provision supposedly allowing people to keep their current health plan if they like it. But within a few months of the passage of Obamacare, Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a regulation interpreting the legislation so narrowly that all of the millions of individual health plans discussed above were made illegal under the Act.[/b][/i][/u]

Obamacare has mowed down as well employer health plans that many millions more liked and wanted to keep. Obama’s HHS published a notice in the Federal Register on June 17, 2010 estimating that 66 percent of small employer plans and 45 percent of large employer plans, accounting for 51 percent of all employer provided health insurance, would have to be terminated under Obamacare’s requirements by the end of 2013. Counting the required individual cancellations, that adds up to terminated health insurance under Obamacare for 93 million Americans, as Avik Roy recently calculated.

Obama and his media apologists now deride the health insurance terminated under Obamacare for close to 100 million Americans as “substandard” because they do not meet the Obamacare regulatory requirements. What they are saying is that they have now revised Obama’s pledge to the American people as, if Obama likes your health plan you can keep it. But what the 2010 HHS Federal Register notice reveals is Obama knew that his original pledge, which he has continued to repeat since 2010, was false from the beginning. That was confirmed in a front page Wall Street Journal story this past weekend reporting internal White House deliberations over Obama’s pledge which essentially concluded that the pledge successfully served its purpose of calculated deception of the American people to win Congressional passage of Obamacare.

Universal Health Coverage

The essential promise of Obamacare, which produced its appeal to the so-called “Progressive” Left, was that it would provide universal health coverage for all. But even the Washington establishment Congressional Budget Office scored Obamacare as leaving 30 million uninsured 10 years after implementation! That is still more than half the uninsured before Obamacare. We couldn’t do better than that with a trillion dollar program?

But the harsh reality of Obamacare has been far worse than that. Because the results cited above show that the effect of Obamacare so far has been to increase the number of uninsured, rather than reduce it. Indeed, close to 100 million Americans losing their health insurance already makes Obamacare the greatest failure of all government programs in American history!

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said we would have to pass Obamacare to find out what is in it. A recent retort from the medical community was that the exact same can be said about a stool sample. During the just four years that Nancy Pelosi served as Speaker, government spending soared from $2.7 trillion to $3.6 trillion, an increase of 33%. The federal deficit increased from $160 billion to $1.3 trillion, an increase of more than 700%, or more than 8 times. All in just four years.

During her stewardship, Congress passed Obamacare to provide for universal health coverage, spending a trillion dollars that served only to increase rather than reduce the uninsured. America suffered the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Congress passed a nearly $1 trillion supposed stimulus bill, yet the economy still has not recovered five years later, even though the American historical record is the worse the recession, the stronger the recovery. Maybe that is because Pelosi professed that she thought the best means for promoting economic recovery is through increased federal spending on unemployment benefits and welfare. Her “stimulus” bill failed to stimulate anything except federal spending, deficits and debt.

Proposition: Nancy Pelosi was the worst Speaker of the House in American history. I am certain Sarah Palin would have done far better.

The Unaffordable Care Act

President Obama promised repeatedly for many years in campaigning for Obamacare that it would reduce the cost of health insurance for families on average by $2,500 per year. But as with all of the other Obama Obamacare promises, reality has turned out the opposite of the promise.

Avik Roy of Forbes was the first to examine the market data carefully and estimate that the new Obamacare policies being offered on the Exchanges involved increased insurance premiums of 99 percent for men, and 62 percent for women. But that was more recently succeeded by a new study by economists for the American Action Forum concluding that the Obamacare premium increases for individual policies on average amount to 193 percent for women and 260 percent for men.

Obama apologists argue that Obamacare includes health insurance subsidies for purchasers that would offset these premium increases to some degree. But that assertion is fallacious, because these subsidies are not free either, but involve real costs to taxpayers, who collectively are the same people as the health insurance purchasers. Moreover, many people, singles making over $46,000 and families making only somewhat more, close to half the country at least, will not be eligible for these health insurance subsidies at all. Even those just above poverty will not see all of the increases offset by federal subsidies.

Thinking people knew from the beginning that the effect of Obamacare would be to sharply increase rather than sharply reduce health insurance costs. All of the supposedly “free” mandated health benefits of Obamacare could mean nothing else other than increased costs for health insurance.

The same is true of the Obamacare regulatory requirements of “guaranteed issue” and “community rating.” Those requirements mean that no matter how sick and costly a new applicant for health insurance is when he or she first show up, the health insurance company must issue a new policy to them covering everything at standard rates. That would be like in fire insurance requiring the insurers to issue new homeowner policies to those who first call up when their houses are already on fire. The insurer must cover them and could charge no more than the standard rates that apply to everyone else. Of course, those standard rates must soar to ensure that the insurance company will have enough money to pay for an insurance pool covering all burnt down houses, because as the standard rates explode, no one is going to buy fire insurance until their house catches fire.

The official title of the Obamacare legislation was The Affordable Care Act. That means the Obamacare lies and deception started in the very title of the Act.

If You Like Your Doctor

Still another Obama promise regarding Obamacare was that “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period.” But even at the above skyrocketing premiums for Obamacare health insurance, the networks of doctors and hospitals covered by that insurance are sharply limited.

The problem is perfectly well illustrated in a Wall Street Journal commentary on Monday by California resident Edie Littlefield Sundby. She personally suffers from stage 4 gall bladder cancer. That was discovered 7 years ago, and she has fought and battled to survive to this day, despite a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis for her cancer.

She has been kept alive “by doctors and health teams in California and Texas: at the medical center of the University of California, San Diego, and its Moores Cancer Center; Stanford University’s Cancer Institute; and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.” That health care has been paid for by “a United Healthcare PPO (preferred provider organization) health-insurance policy.”

Edie testifies,

“Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive, and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers.”

But the problem, Edie explains, is that under Obamacare, “My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31,” because United Health Care is terminating its entire individual health insurance business in the now heavily, oppresively, overregulated California market.

United Health Care recommended that Edie search for new coverage on the California Obamacare Exchange, Covered California. Edie explains the results,

“You would think it would be simple to find a health-exchange plan that allows me, living in San Diego, to continue to see my primary oncologist at Stanford University and my primary care doctors at the University of California, San Diego. Not so. UCSD has agreed to accept only one Covered California plan—a very restrictive Anthem EPO Plan. EPO stands for exclusive provider organization, which means the plan has a small network of doctors and facilities and no out-of-network coverage (as in a preferred-provider organization plan) except for emergencies. Stanford accepts an Anthem PPO plan but it is not available for purchase in San Diego (only Anthem HMO and EPO plans are available in San Diego). So if I go with a health-exchange plan, I must choose between Stanford and UCSD. Stanford has kept me alive—but UCSD has provided emergency and local treatment support during wretched periods of this disease, and it is where my primary-care doctors are.”

Edie asks,

“What happened to the president’s promise, “You can keep your health plan”? Or to the promise that “You can keep your doctor”? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician. For a cancer patient, medical coverage is a matter of life and death. Take away people’s ability to control their medical-coverage choices and they may die. I guess that’s a highly effective way to control medical costs. Perhaps that’s the point.”

Conclusion: Obama lied, people died.

If only Barack Obama and Harry Reid had listened to Ted Cruz, and delayed Obamacare, so obviously not ready for prime time, for a year, Edie would have been spared this ordeal, at least for now. But having achieved Obamacare by Calculated Deception, they fear that they could lose political control, and the whole, wretched program, if they agree to any delay.

We Can Do Better

John Goodman, President of the National Center for Policy Analysis, has proposed free market health care reforms to replace Obamacare, that would actually deliver on all of Obama’s broken promises regarding Obamacare.

Goodman proposes a universal refundable health insurance tax credit for everyone of $2,500 per person, $8,000 per family, for purchase of private health insurance of their choice. That would extend the current tax preference for employer provided health insurance to everyone, in place of the current tax exclusion for employer provided health insurance. (The current tax preference for employer health insurance does not pay for all of the insurance for everyone, and this tax credit is not intended to do so either).

For those who do not use the credit to buy health insurance, the credit funds are sent to local indigent care facilities in their area. But everyone is free to use the credit to buy into Medicaid if they desire.

Goodman’s proposal would also greatly improve Medicaid by proposing to block grant Medicaid back to states following the model of the enormously successful, 1996 welfare reform block grants. States would then each be free to reform Medicaid for the poor in their respective states. The states could then use the block grant funds to finance health insurance vouchers that the poor in their state can use to purchase private health insurance of their choice, in addition to the refundable, universal, health insurance tax credit. States could also use part of these Medicaid block grant funds to finance state High Risk Pools, covering the uninsured who had contracted highly costly illnesses while uninsured, for which they can no longer get health insurance in the market.

Goodman’s plan would consequently repeal and replace Obamacare, delivering on the original Obamacare promise of universal health care for all. Yet, it would do so with no individual mandate, and no employer mandate, while cutting taxes by $1 trillion, and spending by $2 trillion, over the first 10 years alone, and provide for a massive reduction in unnecessary, counterproductive regulation (mandates, guaranteed issue, community rating).

Under this proposal, everyone chooses the health plan they each prefer, so, of course, if you like your health plan, you can keep it. No new requirements and burdens are placed on health insurers, so there would be no terminations or cancellations of existing plans. Current law would continue to prohibit cancelling anyone covered after they get sick, as it has under the common law for hundreds of years, and as it currently does under federal law. Since your current plan finances your current doctor, of course you can keep your doctor as well. Edie Sundby would be free to continue to survive, and even recover, from her cancer.

Workers who do not like their current employer plan can use the universal health insurance tax credit to buy the plan they prefer, including a Health Savings Account (HSA). The poor on Medicaid could use the vouchers and universal tax credit to choose HSAs as well.

HSAs were enacted into law in December, 2003. A slowdown in rising health costs first showed up meaningfully in the data in mid-2005, when Barack Obama was still in the Illinois state legislature. Participation in HSAs has been growing at double digits every year since then.

National health spending growth slowed to 3.9% each year from 2009 to 2011, the slowest rate of increase since the 1960s (which was the last time the government role in health care exploded). But all that Obamacare, passed in 2010 (and not going fully into effect until next year), did during that time was contribute to increased health costs.

HSAs are designed to greatly reduce the cost of health insurance by offering coverage with a high deductible, in the range of $2,000 to $6,000 a year or more. The savings achieved from the lower premium expense due to that deductible then funds the HSA, which pays for health care costs below the deductible. Catastrophic insurance pays for health costs above the deductible each year. The patient keeps any leftover HSA funds each year for future health care expenses, or to spend on anything in retirement. This framework creates full market incentives to control costs for all noncatastrophic health care expenses, because the patient is effectively using his or her own money to pay for them. Since the patient is now concerned about costs, doctors and hospitals will compete to control costs.

This is why a Rand Corporation study last year found that those covered by HSAs spend 21% less on average on health care in the first year after switching from more traditional coverage. Rand estimated that national health costs would fall by $57 billion if half of all workers were covered by HSAs.

HSAs are consequently a proven means of markedly reducing health costs. Combining interstate sale of health insurance with tort reform would further reduce costs, delivering on this Obamacare promise as well, again unlike Obamacare.

Republicans can rightly be faulted for failing to even try to repeal and replace Obamacare with this free market health care reform.

(CNN) - A stack of daily updates written by Obamacare contractors shows the October rollout hit more walls than previously known: In the first days, half of the calls to the phone center had problems, paper applications could not be processed and up to 40,000 people at a time were sitting in the waiting room of http://www.HealthCare.gov.

The 175 pages of internal updates during the sign-up chronicle the growing ailments and efforts to heal the system during October. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Republican Darrell Issa, obtained the documents from contractors involved and released them Wednesday.

"50% of the call center calls have issues," reads an entry on day three of the sign-up. "Anecdotal evidence supports a widerspread problem (with the call centers)," the October 3 document says.

Phone trouble continued into the next week. "Our call center reps can't see their screens," wrote an unnamed consultant on October 7. "So we need to train them ... with this issue." The following day, another note: "Call Center – Working with them to help them triage their issues."

At the same time, the paper applications starting to arrive were in limbo. "Serco still cannot process online the 500+ applications they have," reads one line from October 8 war room notes. Serco is the company paid to handle all the paperwork involved with the Affordable Care Acts sign-ups. Website problems meant that Serco, like individual consumers themselves, could not file applications online.

This was the first week of deployment, and the Health and Human Services Department has maintained that problems at the call center and paper applications were fixed. HHS did not respond to CNN's request for an on-record comment for this story, and CNN could not verify if the agency agreed with the contractors' assessments.

The updates indicate that contractors waited for HHS before directing people to the paper applications. An October 3 entry reads that navigators needed "approval from leadership" before directing people to the paper option That approval seemed to come by October 21, when another entry indicates navigators should use the paper forms.

The contractor documents are an up-close look at the asteroid field of issues with the Obamacare launch.

According to the war room notes: On day one, October 1, the system mistakenly rejected 90% of Medicaid applicants. The next day, estimates counted 40,000 people in the HealthCare.gov waiting room, while just 100 people had enrolled. By day three, it was clear that insurers were not getting the data for people who had signed up for their plans.

Systemwide issues were compounded by more isolated problems. On day six, Utah asked to shut down its exchange because the main insurance provider in the state had not been able to set up its template in the system. A few days later, on October 9, contractor notes say that the entire system has skipped some questions or information for 30% of all applicants.

A few days later, and another specific problem: insurers in Oklahoma were confused over whether they had to provide coverage for bariatric weight loss surgery (they didn't, sparking the need for changes to some plans).

Issues continued, but after the first week, the trend turned more positive.

On October 9, the war room update for the morning says, "About 60% of applicants are getting into HealthCare.gov without sitting in the waiting room." That left 40% who still had to wait. But the number was a vast improvement from the 90% to 95% percent the week before.

Washington (CNN) - The controversy over President Barack Obama's dialing back of his famous healthcare pledge is playing out immediately in real time on the campaign trail.

American Crossroads, a leading pro-GOP super PAC that was co-founded and is steered by Karl Rove, announced Tuesday that it's going up with paid web ads that target three Democratic Senators who face tough re-election bids next year. The spots tie the lawmakers to the President's claim that Americans could keep current health insurance under the Affordable Care Act if they preferred it.

At the same time, a super PAC supporting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is using the health care controversy to attack McConnell's Democratic challenger in the 2014 midterms.

The minute-plus Crossroads videos highlight numerous old clips of the President pledging that Americans can keep their health care plan if they like it, along with new news reports declaring that the claim is incorrect and suggesting that the White House knew that insurance companies could cancel some plans.

The internet ads are targeting Democratic Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. The videos include clips of those Senators repeating the President's claim that Americans can keep their insurance plans under Obamacare. The spots end with the tagline: "Obama lied, Begich (or Hagan or Landrieu) lied, your healthcare died."

Meanwhile, Kentuckians for Strong Leadership, a super PAC backing McConnell as the top Senate Republican runs for a sixth term in office, announced that they're spending $340,000 to run an ad statewide that links Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes with the President and his health care claim.

"Grimes and Obama. When liberals don't tell the truth, Kentucky gets burned," says the announcer in the TV commercial.

"Mitch McConnell is a walking, talking caricature of everything that is wrong with Washington. This incredibly weak ad will do nothing to dissuade Kentuckians that after 28 years it is time for a change," Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Deputy Executive Director Matt Canter told CNN, in response to the ad.

Weeks after denying labor’s request to give union members access to health-law subsidies, the Obama administration is signaling it intends to exempt some union plans from one of the law’s substantial taxes.

Buried in rules issued last week is the disclosure that the administration will propose exempting “certain self-insured, self-administered plans” from the law’s temporary reinsurance fee in 2015 and 2016.

That’s a description that applies to many Taft-Hartley union plans acting as their own insurance company and claims processor, said Edward Fensholt, a senior vice president at Lockton Cos., a large insurance broker.

Insurance companies and self-insured employers that hire outside claims administrators would still be liable for the fee, which starts at $63 per insurance plan member next year and is projected to raise $25 billion over three years.

Unions, a key Obama ally, have increasingly criticized the Affordable Care Act as threatening the generous medical plans held by many members.

Eliminating the reinsurance fee was one of several resolutions adopted at the AFL-CIO’s September convention, along with giving union plans access to ACA tax credits for lower-income members.

In September the White House said the law disallowed health-law tax credits for union members on top of their company insurance. Now the administration seems to be moving toward part — but not all — of what labor wants on the reinsurance fee.

While it intends to waive the fee for 2015 and 2016, unions also wanted it scrapped for 2014, when it will be greatest. Taft-Hartley plans are collectively bargained and run jointly by unions and employers to allow workers to move from job to job without losing coverage.

The AFL-CIO did not respond to a request for comment.

Although it’s too early to tell whether the Department of Health and Human Services will give union plans all of what they want on the fee, last week’s language “is how HHS often breaks controversial regulatory news,” benefits lawyer R. Pepper Crutcher, Jr. wrote last week. It's not known when the administration will put out a new regulation on reinsurance.

The reinsurance fee made a cameo appearance in the October debt-ceiling negotiations when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reportedly proposed delaying it for everybody until 2015. Republicans objected and the delay was not in the final deal.

The fee, scheduled to kick in next year, would shrink to $42 in 2015 and $26 in 2016, disappearing afterwards. It would help insurers absorb the cost of care for people with pre-existing illness enrolling in plans offered through subsidized marketplaces.

Both unions and business have criticized it as penalizing employer-sponsored health insurance to support plans bought directly from insurers.

The fee “takes money from the pockets of each laborer covered by a health and welfare fund and gives it to for-profit insurance companies,” Terry O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers International Union of North America, wrote in a letter to President Barack Obama last summer.

A LIUNA spokesman declined to comment. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

 whembly wrote:
I think you're giving them too much clout in that party... the do have influences don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't go as far as "an arm of a major party".

Okay... you've lost me here buddy.

I understand the whole political capital speil there, but "Championing the cause doesn't mean telling the truth"??? o.O

I beg to differ, they had all of these media "compaign" stating the virtues of PPACA and how it won't impact current plans.

Again, I'll restate what I've said before... had Obama/Reid/Pelosi/etc... were even remotely honest about what the PPACA will do, it'd never pass.

No... you may not be doing this... but the popular refrain that the PPACA is a "Republican Plan" is specifically designed to lay blame towards the Rs.

Seb... not every Republicans are classic conservative. Just as not every Democrats are liberal/leftist. It's why we constantly hear labels such as RINOs and DINOs.

Okay... let's go with that... it's a political response (I get the sense that you think this is bad for some reason). But, there were practical reason as well... the issues that we're see NOW, were forcasted by the Republicans.

Okay... we'll just see, eh?

 sebster wrote:
Again, think back to Bush's invasion of Iraq, think about everyone in that administration getting out there, every night on all kinds of media sources, making the case. That's selling a policy. Then compare that to ACA. Notice the difference.

 sebster wrote:

 whembly wrote:
I think you're giving them too much clout in that party... the do have influences don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't go as far as "an arm of a major party".

No it isn't that the Heritage Foundation has influence... it's that they are one and the same. People move freely from Heritage to staff positions in the Republican party and vice versa. Why do you think Jim DeMint gave up a safe federal seat to become president of the Heritage Foundation?

Okay... you've lost me here buddy.

I understand the whole political capital speil there, but "Championing the cause doesn't mean telling the truth"??? o.O

I beg to differ, they had all of these media "compaign" stating the virtues of PPACA and how it won't impact current plans.

Again, I'll restate what I've said before... had Obama/Reid/Pelosi/etc... were even remotely honest about what the PPACA will do, it'd never pass.

I'll start again - championing means getting out on the road, selling the deal as much as possible as often as possible. It doesn't mean answering complaints when made, and it doesn't mean an ad campaign. It means getting out there and selling the damn thing - telling people what's awesome about it. No-one has done that in any meaningful way.

The thing about truth just doesn't relate to that point, I really don't know why you brought that up. You can sell things truthfully, or you can sell them with lies (or something in between those two). Certainly the former is moral and the latter immoral, but I'm just not talking about the morality of the issue - just about the failure of the Democrats to actually get out and really try to tell people what's good about ACA. You might agree or disagree with the points, that's a whole other argument, but what I am trying to point out is that no-one among the Democrats ever really tried to sell the ACA in the way you'd expect a major policy reform to be sold.

Again, think back to Bush's invasion of Iraq, think about everyone in that administration getting out there, every night on all kinds of media sources, making the case. That's selling a policy. Then compare that to ACA. Notice the difference.

No... you may not be doing this... but the popular refrain that the PPACA is a "Republican Plan" is specifically designed to lay blame towards the Rs.

Yes, and when that happens the appropriate answer is to say 'this was not written by or voted for by Republicans, they don't own this'. I've got no problem with that. My problem was with the effort made to try and pretend the Heritage plan was meaningfully different, because it isn't and that fact matters in understanding the politics underlying the whole ACA hullabaloo.

Seb... not every Republicans are classic conservative. Just as not every Democrats are liberal/leftist. It's why we constantly hear labels such as RINOs and DINOs.

Not everyone is anything. But we still get to talk in broad terms about overall movements, because the alternative is madness.

Okay... let's go with that... it's a political response (I get the sense that you think this is bad for some reason). But, there were practical reason as well... the issues that we're see NOW, were forcasted by the Republicans.

A political response is bad depending on its exact nature. It isn't bad, for instance, to make a lot of noise about the deficit and pretend it's worse than it really is, in order to build acceptance for cuts and tax hikes that might otherwise be politically unacceptable. But it wouldn't be okay, to say, lie completely and claim the country is about to default on its debt. It's the difference between drawing attention and scaremongering.

I'm guessing we both probably think the Republicans are on different points on that scale, but you get my point yeah?

Okay... we'll just see, eh?

Yep

 whembly wrote:
Well... I'm just objecting the whole Heritage Foundation = Republican. I just don't see any think tank organizations as a functional arm of their favored party.

o.O Dude... buddy... what do you mean be "selling the deal as much as possible, as often as possible"?

You see... I remember that. I'd argue that the PPACA and the Iraq war was very similar in terms of the back-and-forth debate between the parties.

O.o All I was emphasizing was that it's just not that simple. But, in this discussion, let's go with it.

So... given what we're seeing right now... don't you think that the Republicans were at least, itsy-bitsy right?

Loyal Obama Supporters, Canceled by Obamacare. Essentially, people who had good coverage -- comprehensive coverage with no loopholes -- are having their insurance cancelled and are being re-offered basically the same insurance, but with double the rates and higher other out-of-pocket costs.

I guess one could make a case, that in order to help the poor and sick... that the Middle Class with have to endure greatly increased premiums (a government mandated hidden tax) to support this program.

But Obama and crew did not make that case. That case would have been toxic had they told the truth of their plans, so the decision to sell this was to simply lie to the public about what PPACA was.

 whembly wrote:
Obama and Democrats campaigned for this. Here's Obama's:

Legislation is brewing that could be a another nail in the political coffin of Obamacare. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) have introduced legislation in their respective chambers that would “make Obamacare live up to the promises of the politicians who sold the plan to the American public.” Upton’s bill, the Keep Your Health Plan Act, is, in his words, “a voluntary escape hatch” for Americans who want to keep their health-insurance plans. In an op-ed in USA Today, Upton said, “I hope we can find common ground on keeping the promises the president made. Passing the Keep Your Health Plan Act with bipartisan support would do just that.” His office described the bill as allowing “health care plans available today on the individual market to continue to be offered so Americans have the option to keep what they have if they like it.”

I’m told this is not a cosmetic gesture or a headline-grabbing tactic. The bill already has more than 100 co-sponsors and Upton, who is smarter and more able than most, is committed to seeing this through. A vote on this bill would force Democrats to renew their support for Obamacare, which was unpopular when passed and has only gotten uglier for the president and his allies.

The law was approved in 2009 through a deceptive parliamentary slight of hand and has now grown up to become the “big lie” in American politics. To deal with the fallout, the administration is doubling down on the deceit and lying about the lies. As former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour says, “It offends me that a politician would lie to me when he knew that I knew he was lying, because it makes me think that he thinks I’m a fool.” Well, that’s where President Obama is now with the American people.

I’m sure the Obama strategy was to stick to the lie, keep repeating it and hope everyone would move on. The Upton bill puts a roadblock in the way of that escape. Now it’s possible that Democratic members of Congress are going to have to reveal whether or not they are part of “the big lie.”

If the bill passes the House, it will be interesting to see if the Senate can avoid a vote. We can assume that all 45 Republicans senators will vote for the bill; add in the 14 Democratic senators who are up for re-election in 2014 and the number of Democratic senators who can’t stomach the lies, and you might get to 60 votes.

 d-usa wrote:
Are the Republicans also going to introduce bills that will somehow punish them for non-stop stream of lies and bs that they spewed ever since the ACA was first introduced?

 sebster wrote:

The idea that people will get coverage for illness where they would otherwise have been left without long term treatment is not a difficult thing to sell. I wish someone had really made that case, and explained it in terms of why that means a mandate is necessary.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

 sebster wrote:

But ultimately I'm a lot more sceptical than you about the reports of higher insurance and how many people that affects. Just like no-one reporting about a dog biting a man, you won't see reports of people who's insurance ended up more or less like it was before.

Spoiler:

Time will tell. The media storm will be sustained if there really is a problem impacting a large number of people, but I suspect it will die down as the anecdotes of higher prices just don't ring true for a lot of people.

 d-usa wrote:
Are the Republicans also going to introduce bills that will somehow punish them for non-stop stream of lies and bs that they spewed ever since the ACA was first introduced?

 whembly wrote:

 sebster wrote:

The idea that people will get coverage for illness where they would otherwise have been left without long term treatment is not a difficult thing to sell. I wish someone had really made that case, and explained it in terms of why that means a mandate is necessary.

And that, imo, is one of the biggest reason why the PPACA isn't doing so well PR-wise.

 Easy E wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 sebster wrote:

The idea that people will get coverage for illness where they would otherwise have been left without long term treatment is not a difficult thing to sell. I wish someone had really made that case, and explained it in terms of why that means a mandate is necessary.

And that, imo, is one of the biggest reason why the PPACA isn't doing so well PR-wise.

I haven't looked at the polls recently. I think the last one I saw was during the "Shutdown" debate. I believe a majority of people still supported the ACA?

If you like your plan you can keep it and you don’t have to change a thing due to the health care law.

 d-usa wrote:
Are the Republicans also going to introduce bills that will somehow punish them for non-stop stream of lies and bs that they spewed ever since the ACA was first introduced?

 Easy E wrote:
The "latest" plan to kill Obamacare.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2013/11/05/the-insiders-the-upton-bill-is-the-biggest-threat-to-obamacare-so-far/

Spoiler:

Legislation is brewing that could be a another nail in the political coffin of Obamacare. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) have introduced legislation in their respective chambers that would “make Obamacare live up to the promises of the politicians who sold the plan to the American public.” Upton’s bill, the Keep Your Health Plan Act, is, in his words, “a voluntary escape hatch” for Americans who want to keep their health-insurance plans. In an op-ed in USA Today, Upton said, “I hope we can find common ground on keeping the promises the president made. Passing the Keep Your Health Plan Act with bipartisan support would do just that.” His office described the bill as allowing “health care plans available today on the individual market to continue to be offered so Americans have the option to keep what they have if they like it.”

I’m told this is not a cosmetic gesture or a headline-grabbing tactic. The bill already has more than 100 co-sponsors and Upton, who is smarter and more able than most, is committed to seeing this through. A vote on this bill would force Democrats to renew their support for Obamacare, which was unpopular when passed and has only gotten uglier for the president and his allies.

The law was approved in 2009 through a deceptive parliamentary slight of hand and has now grown up to become the “big lie” in American politics. To deal with the fallout, the administration is doubling down on the deceit and lying about the lies. As former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour says, “It offends me that a politician would lie to me when he knew that I knew he was lying, because it makes me think that he thinks I’m a fool.” Well, that’s where President Obama is now with the American people.

I’m sure the Obama strategy was to stick to the lie, keep repeating it and hope everyone would move on. The Upton bill puts a roadblock in the way of that escape. Now it’s possible that Democratic members of Congress are going to have to reveal whether or not they are part of “the big lie.”

If the bill passes the House, it will be interesting to see if the Senate can avoid a vote. We can assume that all 45 Republicans senators will vote for the bill; add in the 14 Democratic senators who are up for re-election in 2014 and the number of Democratic senators who can’t stomach the lies, and you might get to 60 votes.

Wake me when its all over.

If Upton’s bill winds up on the president’s desk for his signature or veto, it will be the ultimate example of what goes around comes around. That said, this is becoming untenable for the White House. Look for them to make a move to avoid the scenario I just described. They can’t sit still and let the Upton bill come to life. It could severely cripple the Obama presidency.

 Frazzled wrote:
"If you like your plan, you can keep it."

"If this bill comes before me that mandates if you like your plan you can keep it, I will veto it."

Awesome.

 djones520 wrote:
Found this funny. Directly from the Whitehouse.gov website.

If you like your plan you can keep it and you don’t have to change a thing due to the health care law.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform/healthcare-overview

For Americans with insurance coverage who like what they have, they can keep it. Nothing in this act or anywhere in the bill forces anyone to change the insurance they have, period.

 djones520 wrote:
Period.

Tony Trenkle, the Obamacare official in charge of HealthCare.gov security efforts announced his resignation Wednesday, effective next week.

CBS News has learned that Trenkle, the Chief Information Officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), was originally supposed to sign off on security for the glitch-ridden website before its Oct. 1 launch, but didn't. Instead, the authorization on September 27 was given by Trenkle's boss, CMS administrator Marilyn Tavenner.

As CBS News reported Monday, security assessments fell behind and the website never had the required top-to-bottom tests.

Trenkle and two other CMS officials, including Chief Operating Officer Michelle Snyder, signed an unusual "risk acknowledgement" saying that the agency's mitigation plan for rigorous monitoring and ongoing tests did "not reduce the (security) risk to the ... system itself going into operation on October 1, 2013."

HealthCare.gov exchanges data through a massive hub that includes the IRS, the Social Security Administration, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, the Defense Department, the Office of Personnel Management and the Peace Corps.

Both Democrats and Republicans have raised security concerns in two days of Senate hearings. Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress she did not know about the special security waiver that her agency head, Tavenner, granted the website.

"I was not aware of this and I did not have these discussions with the White House because I wasn't aware of them," Sebelius testified.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., asked, "Did the White House know there had been no end-to-end testing of the security aspects of the exchange?"

"I think the White House was aware of operational issues involving end-to-end testing and I - I don't know of the specifics of - again, I did not have the discussions about this authority to operate issue with the White House," said Sebelius.

"This is a paramount concern," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, at a hearing Tuesday. "Consumers have to be absolutely certain that when they go on and they fill out that application ... no one can hack into that and steal their Social Security numbers or identity."

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, asked Tavenner Tuesday about the website's unusual security authorization without the required testing.

"Are you the official at CMS responsible for making...the security authorization decisions?" Roberts asked.

Tavenner replied, "So I think in the case, because of the visibility of the exchange, the Chief Information Officer wanted to make me aware of it and I agreed to sign it with their recommendation to proceed."

Wednesday, an HHS spokesman said that the reason Tavenner, not Trenkle, signed the security authorization is because HealthCare.gov is "a high-profile project and CMS felt it warranted having the administrator sign the authority to operate memo." HHS also says there is an aggressive risk mitigation plan in effect, "the privacy and security of consumers personal information is a top priority for us" and personal information is "protected by stringent security standards."

Georgetown Law professor Lawrence Gostin is a strong supporter of the Affordable Care Act and helped Congress write the law to meet constitutional standards. But he's critical of the launch without proper security.

"They should've really had this fully tested from top to bottom before the rollout," Gostin told CBS News. "It would've made so much more sense politically, policy-wise and from a security and privacy perspective."

 Frazzled wrote:
The funny thing is, I wonder what the polling would have been if it had just been a clean bill ala the Canadian system (I guess copy their bill and do spell check for "re" instead of "er" and "our" instead of "or.")

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
The funny thing is, I wonder what the polling would have been if it had just been a clean bill ala the Canadian system (I guess copy their bill and do spell check for "re" instead of "er" and "our" instead of "or.")

What kind of Texan are you Frazzled? Don't you know socialism is evil? You seem to be a big fan of Canada why not just move to Alberta? It's like Texas but with snow and more "U"s. We'd be happy to have you.

-Shrike- wrote:
To be fair... the bill forces the insurance providers to change the coverage, so you aren't directly forced to change it by the bill.

Does that even make sense? I felt I should play devil's advocate for once.

 whembly wrote:

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
The funny thing is, I wonder what the polling would have been if it had just been a clean bill ala the Canadian system (I guess copy their bill and do spell check for "re" instead of "er" and "our" instead of "or.")

What kind of Texan are you Frazzled? Don't you know socialism is evil? You seem to be a big fan of Canada why not just move to Alberta? It's like Texas but with snow and more "U"s. We'd be happy to have you.

Naw... Texas would just annex Canada.

Except... maybe Quebec. o.O

 djones520 wrote:

-Shrike- wrote:
To be fair... the bill forces the insurance providers to change the coverage, so you aren't directly forced to change it by the bill.

Does that even make sense? I felt I should play devil's advocate for once.

The bill forces the coverage to change, often times not even exist anymore (see link I posted a couple pages back), there by forcing you to change. It's another one of those lies that aren't lies.

 Frazzled wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:
The funny thing is, I wonder what the polling would have been if it had just been a clean bill ala the Canadian system (I guess copy their bill and do spell check for "re" instead of "er" and "our" instead of "or.")

What kind of Texan are you Frazzled? Don't you know socialism is evil? You seem to be a big fan of Canada why not just move to Alberta? It's like Texas but with snow and more "U"s. We'd be happy to have you.

Naw... Texas would just annex Canada.

Except... maybe Quebec. o.O

Whembly has the way of it. Pro-tip, if the Toronto Center is ever holding a girl scouts of Texas convention, go ahead and start running...
THOSE AREN"T GIRL SCOUTS! THOSE ARE WEINER DOGS IN DRESSES! RUN!!!!!!