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Topic: The Politics of Health Care (Read 448121 times)
Power User
Posts: 42558
SNL skit; Ross Douthat-- what if Ocare works?
Reply #1150 on:
October 27, 2013, 02:43:16 PM »
But What if Obamacare Works?
By ROSS DOUTHAT
Published: October 26, 2013 670 Comments
IN last weeks column, I wrote about what might happen if the new health care laws Web site remained a festering technological sore for months to come. (The answer: Nothing good.) But its still more likely that HealthCare.gov will be fixed by Thanksgiving and millions of Americans will (finally) be able to get a real look at what Obamacare is selling them.
What will they find? One way to understand what is being offered is to think in terms of three mores. Insurance à la Obamacare will be more expensive, more subsidized and more comprehensive than what was previously available on the individual market.
This may not be obvious if youre struggling to log on to HealthCare.gov. But some of the state-level exchange Web sites are working well enough to enable illuminating window shopping.
Take the exchange in my native state, Connecticut. There the more expensive part of the new regime is readily apparent. If you look at Connecticut insurance prices for 2013 that is, pre-Obamacare on the online clearinghouse eHealthInsurance, monthly premiums for a 30-year-old in good health can start below $100, and under $300 for a healthy 60-year-old.
On the states new Obamacare-compliant health care exchange, by contrast, nothing is that cheap. The lowest priced (bronze) plan for a 30-year-old Connecticut resident has premiums starting at $224 a month; for a 60-year-old, the cheapest plan starts at $537.
These premium increases, however, dont tell the whole story, because there are subsidies, which the Connecticut exchange helpfully calculates as well. If our hypothetical 30-year-old makes $30,000 a year, for instance, he or she would be eligible for credits that lower the actual cost of the cheapest plan to $115 a month. A hypothetical 60-year-old making $30,000 would see the cost of the cheapest bronze plan fall to zero. Over all, the premium increases only really bite as subsidies phase out at incomes above $45,000, or about $62,000 for a family of four.
They bite, in part, because insurance companies now have to take customers with pre-existing conditions, which drives everyones rates up. But they also bite because buyers are getting more insurance than the older systems cheapest plans offered.
Take those low-cost 2013 plans I mentioned above. A typical one teased at $269 a month for a nonsmoking 60-year-old Connecticut man comes with a $5,000 deductible, an annual out-of-pocket limit of $12,500, and all kinds of copays and coverage restrictions.
With some grandfathered exceptions, Obamacare makes those kinds of plans illegal. The out-of-pocket limit for individuals is capped at $6,500 a year, preventive services are fully covered, and various essential benefits as well.
If we ever get beyond the follies of HealthCare.gov, the politics of the rollout will probably be defined by how (and how vocally) middle-class Americans just above the subsidy threshold react to this pay more, get more, subsidize other people deal.
Some of them will be buying for the first time, spurred by the mandates penalties; many others will be shopping for a new plan because their previous ones no longer meet Obamacares requirements. Will they be grateful for more comprehensive coverage, even though its being forced on them and has higher premiums attached? Or will they feel they were misled by the presidents if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it rhetoric, and drive a further backlash against the law in 2014 and beyond?
Where the underlying policy debate is concerned, meanwhile, what you think about the three mores basically determines whether you belong on the left or on the right. To liberals, more is simply better, and the disappearing low-cost plans deserve to vanish, because they left purchasers potentially exposed to way too much financial risk. (Even the new bronze plans are really too stingy in this view which is probably why, if you qualify for subsidies, the Connecticut Web site deliberately nudges you toward the pricier silver plans.)
Conservatives agree that these cheaper plans create more risk. But they also create a sensitivity to price and with it, a curb on cost growth thats rare in a system where third-party payment has made prices opaque, arbitrary and inflated. And for a society that pretty clearly spends far too much on health care, sticking with catastrophic coverage frees up money thousands for individuals and families, billions for the government to spend on something other than the insurance-medical complex.
Yes, for some that money would ultimately get eaten up, and then some, by unexpected bills. But for others it might be money saved for retirement, money that pays for child care, money used to hire a contractor or buy a house. And for the public sector, it would be money for all the priorities liberal as well as conservative that are being undercut by rising health care costs.
This is why the laws critics believe Obamacare might be a long-term failure even if it survives its launch troubles and works on its own terms for a while. Its not about the good things the reform delivers: those are real enough. Its about whether there are too many other goods, for too many people, that the laws three mores end up crowding out.
Last Edit: October 27, 2013, 04:12:38 PM by Crafty_Dog
Power User
Posts: 7843
Michelle, my favortie hotty
Reply #1151 on:
October 27, 2013, 09:40:02 PM »
No not Obama. Malkin!
Why aren't the dirtballs from these IVY league schools ever held accountable? Like I said, they happily take the government contracts making promises and then have the nerve to point fingers when everything crashes. I notice David Blumenthal, Syd's brother is safely back at Harvard. If he would just damn stay there and stop telling the world what to do.
Now the rest of the US can understand the shit we doctors have had to put up with. Any wonder at my disgust at the Ivy leaguers? They all get their money and benefits all the while there political cronies force their regulatory crap down our throats.
****What happened to all of Obamas technology czars?
By Michelle Malkin October 25, 2013 10:04 AM
Copyright 2013
Why does the White House need a private-sector tech surge to repair its wretched Obamacare website failures? Werent all of the presidents myriad IT czars and their underlings supposed to ensure that taxpayers got the most effective, innovative, cutting-edge and secure technology for their money?
Now is the perfect time for an update on Obamas top government titans of information technology. As usual, screw up, move up is standard bureaucratic operating procedure.
Lets start with the federal chief information officer. In 2009, Obama named then 34-year-old whiz kid Vivek Kundra to the post overseeing $80 billion in government IT spending. At 21, Kundra was convicted of misdemeanor theft. He stole a handful of mens shirts from a J.C. Penneys department store and ran from police in a failed attempt to evade arrest. Whitewashing the petty thiefs crimes, Obama instead effused about his technology czars depth of experience in the technology arena.
Just as he was preparing to take the federal job, an FBI search warrant was issued at Kundras workplace. He was serving as the chief technology officer of the District of Columbia. Two of Kundras underlings, Yusuf Acar and Sushil Bansal, were charged in an alleged scheme of bribery, kickbacks, ghost employees and forged timesheets. Kundra went on leave for five days and was then reinstated after the feds informed him that he was neither a subject nor a target of the investigation.
As I noted in my 2009 book, Culture of Corruption, city and federal watchdogs had identified a systemic lack of controls in Kundras office. Veteran D.C. newspaper columnist Jonetta Rose Barras reported that Acar was consistently promoted by his boss, Vivek Kundra, receiving with each move increasing authority over sensitive information and operating with little supervision. Yet, Team Obama emphasized that Kundra had no idea what was going on in his workplace, which employed about 300 workers.
A mere 29 months after taking the White House job, Kundra left for a cushy fellowship at Harvard University. In January 2012, he snagged an executive position at Salesforce.com, which touted his demonstrated track record of driving innovation.
In 2011, Obama appointed former Microsoft executive and FCC managing director Steven VanRoekel to succeed Kundra. At the time, he promised to make sure that the pace of innovation in the private sector can be applied to the model that is government. Mission not accomplished.
Next up: Obamas U.S. chief technology officer. In May 2009, the president appointed Aneesh Chopra to promote technological innovation to help the country meet its goals such as job creation, reducing health care costs and protecting the homeland. Together with Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra, their jobs are to make the government more effective, efficient and transparent.
Chopras biggest accomplishment? A humiliating cameo in December 2009 on The Daily Show with liberal comedian Jon Stewart, who mocked the administrations pie-in-the-sky Open Government Initiative. Chopra resigned three years later, ran unsuccessfully for Virginia lieutenant governor and now works as a senior fellow at the far-left Center for American Progress, which is run by former Clinton administration hit man turned Obama helpmate John Podesta.
Obama replaced Chopra with Todd Park, the former chief technology officer of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The White House described him as a change agent and entrepreneur-in-residence, helping HHS harness the power of data, technology and innovation to improve the health of the nation. Park oversees the Presidential Innovation Fellows program and is also a senior fellow in health IT and health reform policy at Podestas Center for American Progress. CAP has tirelessly defended Obamacare and its global joke of an IT infrastructure.
In 2010, when President Obama first rolled out a dog-and-pony demonstration of Healthcare.gov, Park basked in the glow of positive media coverage. He bragged to TechCrunch.com about working 24/7 in a very, very nimble hyper consumer focused way all fused in this kind of maelstrom of pizza, Mountain Dew and all-nighters, and you know, idealism.
It was, as you all now know, all hype and glory. So who has Obama called in to oversee the HealthCare.gov rescue mission? None other than the administrations change agent and entrepreneur-in-residence, CTO Todd Park, who helped build the broken system in the first place!
Obamacare also created the Bureau of Health Information and a new assistant secretary of health information, who coordinates with a separate national coordinator for health information technology overseeing the equally disastrous electronic medical records mandate. Harvard Universitys David Blumenthal held the post from 2009 to 2011 before returning to his Ivy League home.
Screen shot 2013-10-25 at 10.21.18 AM
Then came Farzad Mostashari, who was at the forefront of the administrations health IT efforts and is a resource to the entire health system to support the adoption of health information technology and the promotion of nationwide health information exchange to improve health care. In August 2013, Mostashari announced his resignation, and earlier this month, he became a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institutions Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform.
Those who can, do. Those who cant, waste our money screwing things up and then run back to academia to train the next generation of incompetent technocrats.****
Last Edit: October 27, 2013, 09:43:07 PM by ccp
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1152 on:
October 28, 2013, 10:09:10 AM »
Easy Prediction: The Dems are going to use this clustermess to call for what has been the plan all along-- SINGLE PAYER.
Politically speaking, few spoke well of the pre-Ocare system.
So what are the Reps offering?!? This is an essential moment for us to put our ideas forward, but all the Reps are doing is carping (with good reason of course, but it is but carping nonetheless).
I remember that when the Ocare bill was being fought over that we here noted how many things there were that it included that we Rep ideas or that Reps supported. What were they?
Power User
Posts: 15536
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1153 on:
October 28, 2013, 10:34:47 AM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on October 28, 2013, 10:09:10 AM
Easy Prediction: The Dems are going to use this clustermess to call for what has been the plan all along-- SINGLE PAYER.
Politically speaking, few spoke well of the pre-Ocare system.
So what are the Reps offering?!? This is an essential moment for us to put our ideas forward, but all the Reps are doing is carping (with good reason of course, but it is but carping nonetheless).
I remember that when the Ocare bill was being fought over that we here noted how many things there were that it included that we Rep ideas or that Reps supported. What were they?
There is this thing called a free market....
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1154 on:
October 28, 2013, 10:46:10 AM »
Of course I get that, but if you just simply say "free market" people are going to think of people being left to die for lack of money. How to answer this?
Power User
Posts: 15536
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1155 on:
October 28, 2013, 10:50:38 AM »
Because being left to die after being rejected for treatment by a gov't board is better? Everything the federal gov't sticks it's mitts into it fcuks up, and this latest O-care ClusterFarkNado is a perfect example. Would you want the gov't to provide you "food insurance"?
At least that would fix America's obesity problem....
Power User
Posts: 2268
How Jon Stewart became President Obamas biggest problem
Reply #1156 on:
October 28, 2013, 11:19:07 AM »
Power User
Posts: 9484
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1157 on:
October 28, 2013, 11:43:56 AM »
" if you just simply say "free market" people are going to think of people being left to die for lack of money. How to answer this?"
The poor and the elderly already had unlimited free health care and the uninsured were not being turned away from any emergency room. Obamacare was not aimed at anything like that.
Republicans in my view favor reform of the safety net in order to save the safety net.
Healthcare was already more than 50% government-based which was the reason costs were running wild. But above the safety net level, the more that the health care system can be 'free market', the more likelihood there is for innovation and cost containment.
Obamacare is wrongly called the 'Affordable Care Act'. Cost containment is what is lost with central planning and trying to making all policies the same.
Imagine a dynamic system that moves the deductible up to what each person can reasonably afford, encourages personal and family savings for health and involves people mostly spending their own money, as much as practical, for their own choice of services and care, with the government still playing a large role under that system.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1158 on:
October 28, 2013, 11:54:32 AM »
Anything of interest in this?
Anyway, what I'm looking for right now is for us to develop the sound bites to win and implement something much better than what we have now.
Power User
Posts: 9484
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1159 on:
October 28, 2013, 01:39:56 PM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on October 28, 2013, 11:54:32 AM
Anything of interest in this?
Anyway, what I'm looking for right now is for us to develop the sound bites to win and implement something much better than what we have now.
Of course that plan no longer has Dem support with Obamacare in place and the Republican co-author Bennett was the Senator Mike Lee took down in Utah. That said, the bill is far better than ACA. I think the main Republican alternative standing when Obamacare passed (or deemed) was the Ryan plan: The Patients' Choice Act.
Pelosi-Reid-Obama arrogant Dems should have compromised with one or both of these plans in exchange for a few R votes. Perhaps they could have kept the House and won the support of the center of the country with the new program.
A Republican alternative now cannot look like it has the complexity of Obamacare.
Power User
Posts: 15536
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1160 on:
October 28, 2013, 03:18:12 PM »
Howabout the federal gov't should be working on the duties it's actually mandated to perform and gets away from healthcare altogether ?
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1161 on:
October 28, 2013, 04:53:09 PM »
A fair point GM, but one that leaves the field to the FUD tactics of the demagogues.
Continuing with our exploration of options out there, here is this:
Power User
Posts: 9484
The (latest) court case against Obamacare
Reply #1162 on:
October 29, 2013, 11:23:02 AM »
Good analysis here I think. If the judge reads the law strictly and accurately, only citizens in the states that set up exchanges will get subsidies. If so ruled, the lack of nationwide applicants could bring down the program. Or proponents could use that as leverage to force the other states to set up their exchanges.
How the Court Case Against Obamacare Subsidies Stacks Up
By Sean Trende - October 29, 2013 real Clear Politics
Read more:
Power User
Posts: 42558
An interesting legal challenge
Reply #1163 on:
October 29, 2013, 10:20:46 PM »
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1164 on:
October 31, 2013, 07:23:38 AM »
More Wealth Spreading
Our friend Gary Bauer offered this observation about how O'Care is redistributing wealth: "The millions of Americans who are losing their current policies are offset by millions of previously uninsured Americans, who are essentially getting 'free' insurance through the massive expansion of Medicaid or with help from generous taxpayer subsidies. In other words, Obamacare is another massive redistribution of wealth scheme. You don't need to take my word for it. In March 2010, the New York Times described Obamacare as 'the federal government's biggest attack on economic inequality' in decades."
Privately Insured Are Outlaws!
Attempting to excuse the fact that some 16-19 million Americans, who have taken the responsibility of purchasing their own individual insurance policies, but who will soon be getting cancelation notices because their insurers can't afford to comply with O'Care mandates, Obama is trying to deflect accountability for his lies about "keeping your policy." The administration is now suggesting those policies were not actually legitimate insurance policies. Obama spokesman Jay Carney asserted, "So what we're talking about here is the 5 percent in the country who currently purchase insurance on the individual market. And that market has been like the Wild West. It has been under regulated." In other words, if your policy is unregulated (which is also a lie), then your an outlaw and your policy should be canceled?
Insurance Companies Pressured
CNN's Drew Griffin reports that the Obama administration is pressuring insurance companies to be quiet about all the problems caused by ObamaCare. Griffin said, "[W]hat's going on is a behind the scenes attempt by the White House to at least keep insurers from publicly criticizing what is happening on this Affordable Care Act rollout. Basically, if you speak out, if you are quoted, you're going to get a call from the White House, pressure to be quiet." Why would these companies bow to such pressure? Money. Government-backed insurance policies already account for 48% of all policies sold, and that number will only grow exponentially as Obama's designs take effect and private insurers become virtual government utilities.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Big POTH article on profiting from Obamacare
Reply #1165 on:
November 04, 2013, 07:21:22 AM »
Power User
Posts: 42558
Obamacare kills
Reply #1166 on:
November 04, 2013, 08:15:54 AM »
second post of the morning
You Also Can't Keep Your Doctor
I had great cancer doctors and health insurance.My plan was cancelled. Now I worry how long I'll live.
Nov. 3, 2013 6:37 p.m. ET
Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers.
My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.
My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits.
Countless hours searching for non-exchange plans have uncovered nothing that compares well with my existing coverage. But the greatest source of frustration is Covered California, the state'sAffordable Care Act health-insurance exchange and, by some reports, one of the best such exchanges in the country. After four weeks of researching plans on the website, talking directly to government exchange counselors, insurance companies and medical providers, my insurance broker and I are as confused as ever. Time is running out and we still don't have a clue how to best proceed.
Two things have been essential in my fight to survive stage-4 cancer. The first are 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.
The second element essential to my fight is a United Healthcare PPO (preferred provider organization) health-insurance policy.
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 in January, United Healthcare sent me a letter announcing that they were pulling out of the individual California market. The company suggested I look to Covered California starting in October.
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 plana 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 alivebut UCSD has provided emergency and local treatment support during wretched periods of this disease, and it is where my primary-care doctors are.
Before the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.
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.
Ms. Sundby lives in California.
Power User
Posts: 42558
An important morality question
Reply #1167 on:
November 04, 2013, 11:00:27 AM »
Second post of the morning (do pay attention to the first one!)
From time to time I get sidebars from lurkers here. Recently I received one with a question that vexes me. I'd be glad of our group's analysis:
It was from a person, like me, is of Tea Party orientation. He is self-employed. Like many Americans, he is hurting economically. His income is low enough that he is eligible for considerable subsidies. Indeed, his health insurance under Obamacare may become free or virtually free instead of the considerable about he, a family man, now pays (about 25% of his income!). However, he struggles with the morality of signing up for something he believes to be wrong and believes will be bad for America. On the other hand, why should he compete in life with a self-imposed handicap?
The article below gives and idea of the subsidies available:
By REED ABELSON and KATIE THOMAS
Published: November 3, 2013 300 Comments
Millions of people could qualify for federal subsidies that will pay the entire monthly cost of some health care plans being offered in the online marketplaces set up under President Obamas health care law, a surprising figure that has not garnered much attention, in part because the zero-premium plans come with serious trade-offs.
Three independent estimates by Wall Street analysts and a consulting firm say up to seven million people could qualify for the plans, but federal officials and insurers are reluctant to push them too hard because they are concerned about encouraging people to sign up for something that might ultimately not fit their needs.
The bulk of these plans are so-called bronze policies, the least expensive available. They require people to pay the most in out-of-pocket costs, for doctor visits and other benefits like hospital stays.
Supporters of the Affordable Care Act say that the availability of free-premium plans as well as inexpensive policies that cover more shows that it is achieving its goal of making health insurance widely available. A large number of those who qualify have incomes that fall just above the threshold for Medicaid, the government program for the poor, according to an analysis by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company.
The latest analysis was conducted by McKinseys Center for U.S. Health System Reform, whose independent research has been cited by the federal government and others.
The whole point of the law was not only to cover the uninsured, but so people didnt have to make choices between food or drugs, or going to the doctor or dentist, said Karen Davis, a health policy expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Its what it is designed to do.
Many insurers tried to price their least expensive plans so they would become free or nearly free with the addition of subsidies that are set based on a persons income and the cost of a midlevel, or silver, plan.
Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia has four plans that are free to some customers. But the company, along with other insurers, has been careful not to publicize its free coverage for fear of alienating customers who will need to pay more.
Were not advertising zero dollar, said Brian Lobley, a senior vice president at Independence Blue Cross. But the company is promoting monthly premiums in the $20 to $30 range, he said.
The Obama administration has also stressed affordability over coverage with no monthly charge, frequently saying that the cost of coverage will be less than a monthly cellphone bill for many consumers. Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services would not comment on the McKinsey analysis, saying in a statement that the goal of the health law was to provide a range of options for people with differing needs and budgets.
The analysis found that five million to six million people who are uninsured will qualify for subsidies that will be greater than the cost of the cheapest bronze or silver plan. A million more people with individual insurance could also be eligible, according to McKinsey, although estimates of the size of the market for private individual insurance vary widely. None of the people in the analysis qualify for Medicaid.
The availability of zero-premium plans may make the deal especially enticing to the healthy young people the marketplace needs to succeed, said Mark V. Pauly, a professor of health care management at the University of Pennsylvanias Wharton School. This is such a good deal that youd have to believe you were immortal not to really pick it up, he said.
Although they vary in their design, bronze plans generally cover about 60 percent of a persons medical costs. All plans, including bronze, must cover standard benefits like prescription drugs, maternity care and mental health treatment.
The availability of the zero-premium plans varies across the country. McKinsey found that about 40 percent of the uninsured in Missouri will be able to select a no-cost bronze plan, for example, compared with 2 percent of the uninsured in New Jersey.
Its estimate, based on an analysis of premiums for plans offered in the marketplaces in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, is in line with two other estimates, by Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley.
Under Health Care Act, Millions Eligible for Free Policies
Published: November 3, 2013 300 Comments
(Page 2 of 2)
The McKinsey researchers also found that about half of the people eligible for zero-premium plans were under 39 and uninsured. The Obama administration has been emphasizing the affordability of its plans for young people, a critical group because their participation in the marketplaces will help keep overall premiums low.
It is impossible to know who will actually sign up, and whether they will choose a zero-premium plan.
For many people, paying slightly more for a silver plan may be a much better option, experts said. Ninety percent of those who will have the option of buying the no-cost plans make less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $28,725 for an individual, and $58,875 for a family of four. People earning below those thresholds are eligible for the most generous assistance, but only if they choose a silver plan.
About a million of those who will qualify for free coverage will be able to buy a silver plan for no monthly cost. McKinsey, which is releasing a report about the new insurance marketplaces, estimates that the cost of silver plans for the people who qualify for a zero-premium bronze plan will range from $40 to $50 a month.
They may be getting zero premiums, but theyre also leaving a lot of money on the table if they dont enroll in a silver-level plan, said Sabrina Corlette, a professor at Georgetown Universitys Health Policy Institute.
All plans, including bronze policies, limit annual out-of-pocket costs to $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for families. But insurers and advocates said out-of-pocket costs even those under that limit can be daunting to people with low incomes.
For Mark and Elisabeth Horst, both artists in Albuquerque, the risks of signing up for a bronze plan were outweighed by the prospect of getting it free. The Horsts, who make $24,000 a year between them, qualified for $612 in monthly subsidies, but the cost of a bronze plan was $581 a month.
Were in good health, Mr. Horst said.
Besides, he said, they can always switch to a better plan next year. At this point, its a little bit of a gamble.
Not everyone selects the cheapest option. Dante Olivia Smith, a lighting designer from Manhattan, learned that federal subsidies would allow her to buy a bronze plan for $24 a month.
It was astounding, she said. I almost started crying, and called my mom.
In the end, however, she went with a silver plan for $91 a month that included dental and vision coverage. Ms. Smith, who is 30, said she opted for the more comprehensive plan because of her work, which requires her to climb ladders and use power tools.
If I had a different job, for 24 dollars a month I would have been like Woo-hoo!' she said. But the reality is, I know what my risks are in my life.
Last Edit: November 04, 2013, 11:35:35 AM by Crafty_Dog
Power User
Posts: 42558
Where are our alternatives?
Reply #1168 on:
November 05, 2013, 10:35:38 AM »
As best as I can tell, this moment is an ideal moment for us to change the political landscape for freedom, the free market, and the good of the country. However the Stupid Party is silent on this and instead only carps and complains snarkily. It is all good fun I suppose, but where is the vision for where we want to go?
What occurs to me:
1) A proper function of government is for prices to be knowable and at present there are not. How can market forces work if people cannot price compare? EVERYONE has experienced frustration with this--surely calling for prices to be knowable will make for good soundbites and good law , , ,
2) What about having one national market, instead of 50 markets? Good sound bite? Good law? Seems so to me , , ,
3) I have read good things about HSAs. What are the facts? How can the law be changed to make them even better? What are the sound bites for HSAs?
4) During the debates leading up to Obamacare's passage, we noted here that there were several elements with which our side agreed. What were they? As things sit now, the Reps are identified as against Obamacare-- both the good and the bad. Can we not identify the good with which the Dems agreed with us and promise its continuance in that with which we seek to replace Obamacare?
Power User
Posts: 9484
Re: Where are our alternatives?
Reply #1169 on:
November 05, 2013, 11:33:57 AM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on November 05, 2013, 10:35:38 AM
As best as I can tell, this moment is an ideal moment for us to change the political landscape for freedom, the free market, and the good of the country. However the Stupid Party is silent on this and instead only carps and complains snarkily. It is all good fun I suppose, but where is the vision for where we want to go?
What occurs to me:
1) A proper function of government is for prices to be knowable and at present there are not. How can market forces work if people cannot price compare? EVERYONE has experienced frustration with this--surely calling for prices to be knowable will make for good soundbites and good law , , ,
2) What about having one national market, instead of 50 markets? Good sound bite? Good law? Seems so to me , , ,
3) I have read good things about HSAs. What are the facts? How can the law be changed to make them even better? What are the sound bites for HSAs?
4) During the debates leading up to Obamacare's passage, we noted here that there were several elements with which our side agreed. What were they? As things sit now, the Reps are identified as against Obamacare-- both the good and the bad. Can we not identify the good with which the Dems agreed with us and promise its continuance in that with which we seek to replace Obamacare?
All good points, and politically necessary to spell out the alternative, not just say no. As Obama found out, it is easier to be a critic than to have a plan and govern.
1) Knowing costs - YES! Why is it so hard to know costs? The billing department knows the costs. Amazon knows that customers who bought this also bought this and this. Why not know before you walk in?
2) YES! The Republican plan allowed people to buy policies across state lines, forcing insurers to compete. Obamcare instead has a different rate for every county in the country. Because of this, some will have to move to buy mandated coverage.
3) HSA's - YES! Health savings account means save your money, spend it on your healthcare. Incorporate HSA's with catastrophic coverage for the unexpected above what you can afford, and incorporate both of those with a legitimate safety net for what people trying their best really can't afford.
4) The popular elements of Obamacare were already in the Republican plan. Some method to deal with pre-existing conditions is the big one. Also opening the market to cross state lines and malpractice/medical liability reform. "Can we not identify the good with which the Dems agreed with us and promise its continuance in that with which we seek to replace Obamacare?" - YES!
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Posts: 42558
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1170 on:
November 05, 2013, 04:38:34 PM »
Let's keep this going , , ,
Power User
Posts: 15536
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1171 on:
November 06, 2013, 11:11:44 AM »
RE: sidebar
As the dems pointed out, ocare is the law of the land. (Funny how selective their interest in the rule of law is.)
He should use it to his advantage and prepare for the coming crash. His patriotism shouldn't require him to be victimized by the Cloward-Piven operation currently in progress.
Last Edit: November 06, 2013, 11:41:19 AM by Crafty_Dog
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Posts: 42558
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1172 on:
November 12, 2013, 09:16:13 AM »
The Denny family has been getting its health insurance through Dog Brothers Inc.
Our health insurance agent tells us that we will be losing it however because apparently as of July 2014 husband-wife owned corporations such as ours no longer are allowed.
Power User
Posts: 9484
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1173 on:
November 12, 2013, 09:59:19 AM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on November 12, 2013, 09:16:13 AM
The Denny family has been getting its health insurance through Dog Brothers Inc.
Our health insurance agent tells us that we will be losing it however because apparently as of July 2014 husband-wife owned corporations such as ours no longer are allowed.
To that news, one could retort something clever about marriage penalty or that if this was a gay marriage the California courts would never allow that. But this is real, and cancellations like what you (and I) received, and things like a doubling of costs for new policies are being received by all kinds of Obama voters and swing voters who swung Democratic over the last 6-8 years.
Note that a website glitch isn't the central problem. If your healthcare costs double or go up by thousands of dollars, how does that affect your outlook for other purchases, and multiply that decrease by 300 million people and guess the macroeconomic effect. People buy less and businesses fail. Incomes go down and more healthcare (and other) subsidies are required. Lower revenues to the government, more spending, more debt and it all just spirals downward. Welcome to Obamanomics, unencumbered by the need to ever again face reelection.
If we chose to pay more to get more, that is different. But this was sold to a bare majority on the basis of, a) no one knows what is in the bill/law, b) it will bring DOWN costs by 2500 per year - code name 'Affordable', and c) if you like your plan you can keep it, so what's the harm in trying. Even if the promises were true (what a joke), it was tyranny of a bare majority to force its way on all the rest. Un-American, one might say.
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Posts: 42558
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1174 on:
November 12, 2013, 10:20:00 AM »
Worth noting is that the "bare majority" was in the Congress; a strong majority (60+% to 40-% of the American people opposed at time of passage).
The news this morning reports that Bill Clinton is calling for Obama to keep his promise about people being able to keep their insurance and their doctors. Of course, this would be/is another huge body blow to the "logic" of the fantasy numbers upon which Obamacare is based.
Another thing to keep in mind is that with the illegal deferral of the application of Obamacare to businesses coming to an end next year, is that what we are seeing now in the individual sector is going to be repeated in the business sector.
Last Edit: November 12, 2013, 10:22:25 AM by Crafty_Dog
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Posts: 9484
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1175 on:
November 12, 2013, 10:35:35 AM »
A keep-your-plan bill should include a clause to legalize other plans for other people as well. 'Grandfathering' in a few plans is unequal treatment and no way to treat the previously and currently uninsured who might like to buy lesser coverage than the O-care requirement too.
If Obamacare is a tax of a legal choice, and not a mandate, why aren't catastrophic plans allowed and available for those who chose to pay the penalty instead of buy the policy? What happened to the goal of getting more people insured? Isn't partial insurance better no insurance?. Maybe we can offer a partial penalty, something a little easier to repeal.
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Posts: 42558
Too bad so sad
Reply #1176 on:
November 12, 2013, 11:25:03 AM »
The Real Healthcare.gov?
Fraudulent ObamaCare websites (other than Healthcare.gov, of course) are popping up everywhere, and the The Wall Street Journal has a helpful tip for those trying to enroll through the exchange: "
cam-artist pages ... are now pretending to be Healthcare.gov and are tricking people into divulging sensitive information or buying fake products. Important consumer warning: If an insurance shopping website is usable, it's not the federal government's."
$26.7 Million Per Enrollee
The ObamaCare statistics keep getting uglier and uglier. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) reveal that a grand total of five Washington, D.C. residents have successfully enrolled through Healthcare.gov. But based on numbers from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the District received $133,573,928 in grants. As Breitbart's Warner points out, "This means that the cost to the American taxpayers per enrollee in D.C. has been $26,714,785.60 each."
Exchange Built in 3 Weeks
After three years and hundreds of millions of dollars, HHS still hasn't managed to build a functional exchange. Yet three San Francisco programmers managed to create a workable website similar to Healthcare.gov in just weeks. CBS reports, "With a few late nights, Ning Liang, George Kalogeropoulos and Michael Wasser built 'thehealthsherpa.com,' a two-week-old website that solves one of the biggest problems with the government's site. ... Using information buried in the government's own website built by high-priced government contractors, they found a simpler way to present it to users." As we've said repeatedly, the failure of the rollout is but a metaphor for the reality that no government bureaucracy is ever going to successfully manage 18% of the U.S. economy, much less a basic commerce website for insurance comparisons.
O'Care Fraud
Among the provisions deep inside O'Care? An open invitation to fraud. According to Reason's Tori Richards: "Tucked inside nearly 11,000 pages of the Affordable Care Act is a little-known provision that doles out three months of free health care to individuals who choose to default on their premiums. People who receive the federal subsidy to be part of Obamacare will be allowed to incur a three-month 'grace period' if they can't pay their premiums and then simply cancel their policies, stiffing the doctors and hospitals. Their only repercussion is that they have to wait until the following year's open enrollment if they want coverage on the exchange. ... Under Section 156.270 of the Affordable Care Act, the insured needs to pay a premium for just one month before qualifying for the three-month grace period. The insurance company must pay the claims during the first month of the grace period; during the second and third month doctors and hospitals are left to collect unpaid bills."
Last Edit: November 12, 2013, 11:40:49 AM by Crafty_Dog
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A Conservative Alternative to ObamaCare
Reply #1177 on:
November 14, 2013, 09:53:42 AM »
This is a plan we should seriously consider. Don't 'fix' Obamacare. Fix what was wrong with health care in the U.S. before Obamacare. - Doug
A Conservative Alternative to ObamaCare
To avoid a lurch to the left if the current law fails, the time is right to present sensible, market-oriented reforms.
By Ramesh Ponnuru And Yuval Levin
WSJ Nov. 14, 2013
As ObamaCare's failures and victims mount by the day, Republicans have so far mostly been watching in amazement. They expected the law to fail, but even among its most ardent opponents few imagined the scale and speed of the fiasco.
Seeing the pileup, Republicans might be tempted to step aside and let ObamaCare continue to disappoint and infuriate Americans. After all, the GOP doesn't have the power to repeal the law, or even to make meaningful changes to undo its worst effects. So why not just watch the Democrats pay the price for their folly?
But such passivity would actually protect the Democrats from paying that price. What Republicans can and should do is offer the public something better. Now is the time to advance a conservative reform that can solve the serious, discrete problems of the health-care system in place before ObamaCare, but without needlessly upending people's arrangements or threatening what works in American medicine. That the Democrats are now making things worse doesn't mean the public wants to keep that prior system, or that Republicans should.
The biggest Republican misconception about health care is that the system before ObamaCare was a free-market paradise. On the contrary: It has consisted chiefly of massive and inefficient entitlements that threaten to bankrupt the nation; the lopsided tax treatment of employer-provided coverage that creates incentives for waste and overspending; and an underdeveloped individual market struggling to fill the gaps.
Exploding health-care costs and millions left needlessly uninsured are a result of misguided federal policies. Solutions require targeted reforms to those policies.
The outlines of such reforms have been apparent for years. The key is to enable all Americans to purchase coverage and to approach health care as consumers: with an interest in quality and an eye on cost.
The first step of a plan to replace ObamaCare should be a flat and universal tax benefit for coverage. Today's tax exclusion for employer-provided health coverage should be capped so that people would not get a bigger tax break by buying more extensive and expensive insurance. The result would be to make employees more cost-conscious; and competition for their favor would make insurance cheaper.
That tax break would also be availableideally as a refundable credit sufficient at least for the purchase of catastrophic coverageto people who do not have access to employer coverage. This would enable people who now choose not to buy insurance to get catastrophic coverage with no premium costs. It also would give those who want more-comprehensive coverage in the individual market the same advantage that people with employer plans get.
Medicaid could be converted into a means-based addition to that credit, allowing the poor to buy into the same insurance market as more affluent peopleand so give them access to better health care than they can get now.
All those with continuous coverage, which everyone could afford thanks to the new tax treatment, would be protected from price spikes or plan cancellations if they got sick. This guarantee would provide a strong incentive to buy coverage, without the coercion of the individual mandate. People who have pre-existing conditions when the new rules take effect would be able to buy coverage through subsidized, high-risk pools.
By making at least catastrophic coverage available to all, and by giving people such incentives to obtain it, this approach could cover more people than ObamaCare was ever projected to reach, and at a significantly lower cost.
The new alternative would not require the mandates, taxes and heavy-handed regulations of ObamaCare. It would turn more people into shoppers for health care instead of passive recipients of itand encourage the kind of insurance design, consumer behavior and intense competition that could help keep health costs down. Redesigned and directed this way, the flow of federal dollars and tax subsidies would do much less to distort health markets than it has for the last several decades, while getting far more people insured.
Conservative policy experts have long proposed such approaches, but congressional Republicans, with a few honorable exceptions, have not taken them up in recent years. In 2009, for instance, House Republicans offered an alternative to ObamaCare that did nothing about today's market-distorting tax policy and thus did not do much to help the people whom that policyby inflating premiumshas locked out of the insurance market.
Some Republicans think that political success requires nothing more than watching ObamaCare fail. But if the new system quickly implodes, that would be all the more reason to have an alternative on handother than another leftward move toward single payer. And it might not implode so quickly.
Other Republicans fear that any alternative would amount to ObamaCare Lite, just another big government health-care program. But a real market-oriented conservative reform would take us toward an actual functioning consumer market in coverageand so to the right not only of ObamaCare but of the system that preceded it.
There has also been a fear among some Republicans that proposing an alternative would give Democrats a target and distract the public from the expected and now real failures of ObamaCare. But the absence of a credible alternative has been the GOP's greatest weakness in the fight against ObamaCare, and it is probably why polls show that even many people who are skeptical and concerned about ObamaCare do not support full repeal.
Defenders of ObamaCare are using the absence of a Republican alternative to suggest that their law is the only answer to the grave problems of American health care and that without it millions of Americans would continue to lack access to coverage. That argument is their final trump card. It is time for Republicans to take it away.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1178 on:
November 14, 2013, 10:40:08 AM »
A friend writes:
then Ocare was designed to ultimately fail. Just not by the website. Here is what was probably designed to happen.
1. Limit choices for people going onto the plan to a limited number.
At first, this would only harm a "small portion", but would get them used to it.
2. As more people lost their plans and went onto Ocare, then there would be more complaints, but by the new people only, and who would get over it in time. The "old timers" would now be used to it. Costs would increase for everyone else.
3. The next round of new people would collapse the system, and would require a change.................Single Payer.
And there you have it.
Patriot Post:
Obama wants you to cling to government, but Americans are clinging to their guns instead. According to statistics from the FBI, there were 1,687,599 firearms background checks processed through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) during the month of October. Compare this to the 106,185 individuals who are rumored to have enrolled through O'Care's federal exchange. That's a 15:1 ratio. Indeed, the Second Amendment is the best insurance policy!
Last Edit: November 14, 2013, 11:34:59 AM by Crafty_Dog
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Ted Cruz on "The Kelly File"
Reply #1179 on:
November 14, 2013, 12:37:13 PM »
Defund Now!
Power User
Posts: 2268
from an email...
Reply #1180 on:
November 14, 2013, 01:37:23 PM »
Affordable Boat Act
The U.S. government has just passed a new law called: "The affordable boat
act" declaring that every citizen MUST purchase a new boat, by April 2014.
These "affordable" boats will cost an average of $54,000-$155,000 each.
This does not include taxes, trailers, towing fees, licensing and registration
fees, fuel, docking and storage fees, maintenance or repair costs.
This law has been passed, because until now, typically only wealthy and
financially responsible people have been able to purchase boats. This new
laws ensures that every American can now have a "affordable" boat of their
own, because everyone is "entitled" to a new boat. If you purchase your
boat before the end of the year, you will receive 4 "free" life jackets; not
including monthly usage fees.
In order to make sure everyone purchases an affordable boat, the costs of
owning a boat will increase on average of 250-400% per year. This way,
wealthy people will pay more for something that other people do not want or
can not afford to maintain. But to be fair, people who can not afford to maintain
their boat will be regularly fined and children (under the age of 26) can
use their parents boats to party on until they turn 27; then must purchase
their own boat.
If you already have a boat, you can keep yours (just kidding; no you
can not). If you do not want or do not need a boat, you are required to buy one
anyhow. If you refuse to buy one or can not afford one, you will be regularly fined
$800 until you purchase one or face imprisonment.
Failure to use the boat will also result in fines. People living in the
desert; ghettos; inner cities or areas with no access to lakes are not
exempt. Age, motion sickness, experience, knowledge nor lack of desire are
acceptable excuses for not using your boat.
A government review board (that does not know the difference between the
port, starboard or stern of a boat) will decide everything, including; when,
where, how often and for what purposes you can use your boat along with
how many people can ride your boat and determine if one is too old or healthy
enough to be able to use their boat. They will also decide if your boat
has out lived its usefulness or if you must purchase specific accessories, (like
a $500 compass) or a newer and more expensive boat.
Those that can afford yachts will be required to do so...it is only fair.
The government will also decide the name for each boat. Failure to comply with
these rules will result in fines and possible imprisonment.
Government officials are exempt from this new law. If they want a boat,
they and their families can obtain boats free, at the expense of tax payers.
Unions, bankers and mega companies with large political affiliations ($$$)
are also exempt.
If the government can force you to buy health care, they can force you to buy a boat....or ANYTHING else..
Yea...it is that stupid...
Power User
Posts: 42558
Patriot Post: % of plans being banned
Reply #1181 on:
November 15, 2013, 10:00:16 AM »
ACA Eliminates 98% of Plans
Michael Tanner over at National Review brings us this ObamaCare tidbit: "According to HealthPocket, a health-insurance consulting firm, fewer than 2 percent of individual plans on offer today meet all ACA requirements." But this destruction isn't limited to the individual market. Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute says that 51% of employer-sponsored plans will get cancelled, as well. As we have said all along, ObamaCare is about remaking the "market," not preserving it.
Power User
Posts: 9484
Re: Patriot Post: % of plans being banned, Federal Register 2010 shows they knew
Reply #1182 on:
November 15, 2013, 11:25:06 PM »
Quote from: Crafty_Dog on November 15, 2013, 10:00:16 AM
ACA Eliminates 98% of Plans
Michael Tanner over at National Review brings us this ObamaCare tidbit: "According to HealthPocket, a health-insurance consulting firm, fewer than 2 percent of individual plans on offer today meet all ACA requirements." But this destruction isn't limited to the individual market. Avik Roy of the Manhattan Institute says that 51% of employer-sponsored plans will get cancelled, as well. As we have said all along, ObamaCare is about remaking the "market," not preserving it.
Power User
Posts: 9484
Politics of Health Care: 17 Lies? When his lips move, he is lying?
Reply #1183 on:
November 15, 2013, 11:35:13 PM »
Seventeen lies and counting...
1. what were doing to implement and improve the law..
Actually he has blocked any attempt to improve the law, and has insisted on making administrative changes that is, ignoring the law and imposing what he chooses without approval by Congress. For example, the delay in the employer mandate the House passed that but Obama instructed Reid not to take it up, and instead he made that change unilaterally, in violation of the ACA which he signed.
So no, he hasnt worked to improve the law, he has fought efforts to do that.
2. In the first month, more than 100,000 Americans successfully enrolled .
Not true. Based on published reports, about 106,000 have put a plan into their online shopping carts, but far fewer have actually bought the policies. And there is no way to know whether the others ever will.
If a CEO stated, We sold more than 100,000 widgets last month. when in fact far fewer had been sold, he could be charged with fraud.
3. more than 500,000 Americans could know the security of health care by January 1, many of them for the first time in their lives
No, these are not people who have never known the security of health care, they are people who either dont have insurance, or who think they can get better or cheaper insurance through Obamacare. Health care is already available more or less to all of them.
4. The other problem that has received a lot of attention concerns the Americans who have received letters from their insurers that they may be losing the plans that they bought
No, these letters (and I received one) dont say we may be losing our plans. They say we are losing our plans, effective the end of the year. Implying that it is iffy is dishonest.
5. Ive said from the beginning, Im willing to work with Democrats and Republicans to fix problems as they arise. This is an example of what Im talking about.
But its not.
He is not working with Democrats and Republicans to fix this. He is unilaterally stating how it will be, in violation of the ACA, which he signed into law. There are no Republicans involved in this, in any way. Saying this is an example of working with Democrats and Republicans to fix this is not true.
6. [In the Obamacare exchange], [t]here is a good chance they will be able to buy better plans at lower cost.
Not really. Prices there are very high. If your income is low, the cost may be borne partly by others, but its still high. Subsidies dont lower cost, they just pass it on to somebody else.
7. Im not going to walk away from 40 million people who have the chance to have health care for the first time
Actually two lies in one phrase here.
First, hes again using health care to mean health insurance. Almost all these people have had health care, just not insurance. Its dishonest to imply that if you dont have insurance you dont get health care that is almost 100 percent false.
Second, he is stating that these people have not had access to insurance, but most or all of them have had access to insurance, the same as they have had access to food, shelter, and everything else you buy with money. They may not have been able to afford it, or they may have chosen not to buy it, because they wanted to spend their money on something else. (I wonder how many of them smoke or drink ?)
8. Were at the opening weeks of a project to build a better health-care system for everybody.
Again, at least two blatant lies here.
First, the ACA was passed in early 2010, and it presumably had a little thought before it was passed. So its been at least 3 1/2 years, not weeks.
Second, the bill is constructed to make insurance cheaper for some those who have low income or pre-existing conditions at the expense of others. It cannot possibly be claimed to be better for those who pay more to subsidize those who get the subsidies.
9. Its important that were honest and straightforward when we come up with a problem with these reforms and these laws that we address them.
Not a lie exactly, but what would you call it if a worm said, Its important that we have arms and legs!?
10. [His promise If you like your plan you can keep it] ended up not being accurate.
No, it was false when he said it, and he knew that.
He lied, dozens of times.
11. premiums would go up an average of 15 percent a year.
This one would take some research, but he offers no evidence to support this, and I dont think its true. My insurance has been pretty flat for several years, til the ACA was imposed.
12. my expectation was that for 98 percent of the American people, either it genuinely wouldnt change at all, or they would be pleasantly surprised that proved not to be the case.
Published reports show that he knew the reality he was informed years ago and he went ahead saying If you like your policy you can keep it anyway.
13. The Affordable Care Act is not going to be the factor in what happens with folks in the individual market.
Of course it is. If he thinks that insurance companies having put a bunch of effort into re-designing their plans to comply with the ACA, that because he holds a press conference, and says that those parts of the law which he did not specify that are causing the problem, are somehow void but only for 2014 and that insurance companies will all turn on a dime, without any regard for what might come next what the rules will be in 14 months he is absolutely nuts. He cant be that stupid, so he must be lying.
14. the status quo before the ACA was not working at all.
I guess it all depends what working means, but any definition you could apply, if you apply that same definition to any other industry, you would find that nothing in America is working, because nothing is perfect. Which may be how Obama views things.
Of course it was working to some degree. Most of us were relatively satisfied with our insurance and it was affordable. (I always found that insurance companies customer service was horrible, but the products and prices were OK.)
Does he really claim that if everything in an industry isnt perfect, then something like the ACA is justified? The implications are staggering.
15. When I see people on Capitol Hill who want to repeal it
Essentially he is claiming that if you favor repeal of the ACA, then you favor the status quo before it was imposed, which is not true at all.
He is pretending not to know that the House has already passed a number of reforms that would reduce cost and increase coverage. He cant be that poorly-informed, so he must by lying.
16. and it certainly wasnt working for the 41 million people who didnt have health insurance.
Of course it was working, for many of them. Some couldnt afford insurance, but many of those 41 million simply chose not to buy it, because they believed probably correctly that it wasnt worth the money. The President can disagree with them, but only if he looks at an individuals situation and concludes that person would be better off with insurance. But even then, what counts is each individuals values and choices thats what better is in a free society. So those who could afford it and chose not to buy it for them, the system was working fine.
17. Somebody sooner or later had to do it.
He doesnt say exactly what it is, but he was talking about the ACA, so presumably he means Somebody had to impose something like the ACA. and thats obviously not true. The status quo was a viable option, or there were other reform options, like those passed by the House. Nobody had to do something like the ACA.
I notice he lies less when he answers questions than when he makes prepared remarks. When he answers questions, he rambles and repeats himself, but he seems to avoid direct lies.
Which suggests that he and his team must sit around, before he speaks in public, and write the lies; they are carefully prepared, not extemporaneous.
Pretty disturbing.
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Posts: 42558
Newt gets ascerbic :-)
Reply #1184 on:
November 16, 2013, 11:03:43 AM »
President Obamas press conference yesterday was a fascinating opportunity to observe the mindset of the person who is trying to forcibly reorganize a fifth of the nations economy. Four quotes stuck out as particularly revealing.
1. What we're also discovering is that, you know, insurance is complicated to buy.
At 52 years of age, the President is finally learning what every adult American already knows. Health insurance is complicated to buy, with hundreds of factors affecting the price and availability of plans.
It is alarming that the President is only now coming to grips with the complexity of the insurance industry that he made it his signature initiative to rearrange--operating on wildly naive assumptions about his ability to do that successfully and to predict the consequences, as should now be clear to everyone on both sides of the aisle.
2. Another mistake that we made, I think, was underestimating the difficulties of people purchasing insurance online and shopping for a lot of options, with a lot of costs and a lot of different benefits and plans.
As anyone who has ever bought insurance knows, insurance companies want to know a lot of personal information before agreeing to cover your medical expenses, and buying a policy is not something Americans look forward to. Thats a big part of the reason millions of people are so frustrated that their plans have been cancelled due to the health care law. Many have a hard enough time understanding the details of their policies even once they have one.
Yet apparently the President and the architects of the health care law believed the experience of shopping for insurance would be the same way youd shop for a plane ticket on Kayak or a TV on Amazon, as President Obama put it on October 1.
3. I don't think I'm stupid enough to go around saying this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity, a week before the website opens if I thought that it wasn't going to work.
Taking the President at his word that he didnt know about the tech failures raises a number of other serious questions. We know that senior officials were warned the website wasnt ready, so why wasnt the President informed? Who didnt tell him? And why hasnt he fired them?
More importantly, if he wasnt informed about the centerpiece of his signature policy initiative, what else isnt he informed about? What doesnt he know on Iran? Or Syria? Or North Korea?
It is baffling that senior aides could keep such information from the President and still keep their jobs.
4. I said that I would do everything we can to fix this problem [of policy cancellations], and today I'm offering an idea that will help do it.
To the millions of Americans whove had their insurance plans cancelled despite President Obamas promises, yesterday the President offered an idea. Not a policy change. Not a proposed piece of legislation. Not language to change the rules. An idea--essentially a promise to insurers that the federal government would ignore the law and allow plans that Obamacare made illegal to continue to operate.
Of course, he came up with this idea after the insurance companies had already cancelled hundreds of thousands of policies to comply with the law. As the Louisiana Insurance Commissioner--who serves as president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners--said in his response, It is unclear how, as a practical matter, the changes proposed today by the President can be put into effect. In many states, cancellation notices have already gone out to policyholders and rates and plans have already been approved for 2014. Changing the rules through administrative action at this late date creates uncertainty and may not address the underlying issues.
At least one state insurance commissioner who is a Democrat, Mike Kreidler from Washington, has already said he wont comply--which suggests that the Presidents idea to keep his promise wont get past the drawing board in most states, and he probably knows it--or maybe aides didnt tell him that either.
That was the stunning takeaway from yesterdays press conference: he wasnt informed, he didnt fire anyone over it, he doesnt understand how impossible a task it is to reorganize a whole industry, and he hasnt learned much from the experience.
Your Friend,
And here's one more
Last Edit: November 16, 2013, 11:55:14 AM by Crafty_Dog
Power User
Posts: 42558
VDH: Ocare is dead! Long live Ocare! McCarthy: It's a trap!
Reply #1185 on:
November 17, 2013, 09:28:04 AM »
Obamacare Is Dead. Long Live Obamacare!
By Victor Davis Hanson
November 13, 2013 1:00 PM
In the next 90 days, the Obama administration will have to declare victory and then abandon most of Obamacare.
The legislation defies the laws of physicsmore and broader coverage for more people at less costas well as logic: Young people, on average as a cohort with higher debt and less employment, will pay more for coverage they do not use much to subsidize others, often better off, to pay less for coverage they use a lot. It will be interesting how the administration pulls it off, given its past record of often being successful at this sort of dissimulation.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Actdespite the euphemistic name, the legislation has caused millions to lose their coverage and upped the costs for millions moreis a stone around the necks of Democratic congressional candidates, and something political will have to be done within the next year to address it. The Obama administrations first impulse will probably be haphazard and periodic non-compliance with the law in the manner of its treatment of the employer mandate, and, for that matter, all sorts of other settled legislation that, for political reasons, it simply chose not to enforce, from pre-election border enforcement and the Defense of Marriage Act to the contractual order of the Chrysler creditors. In that regard, the administration might table the individual mandate or administratively change the wording of required insurance protocols to let people keep their old plans that were recently dismissed as bad apples or junk. Maybe they could call all that pro-choice, or good apples.
A second and previously popular Obama strategycf. the war on terror rebranded with workplace violence, largely secular, man-caused disasters, and overseas contingency operationswould be just to scrap most of the law and keep a tiny sliver like the front-ended goodies (such as not losing your insurance for preexisting conditions or keeping children on parental plans until 26) and restamping that tiny change as the old Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, while quietly dismantling the program piecemeal.
Each time Obama has had to square the circlee.g., keeping or expanding the hated Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism protocols while still demagoguing themhe has resorted to philology and simply changed the meanings of things. He will probably tell us the naked health-care emperor is fully dressed in the way that the tenfold expansion of the drone program was a legacy of Bush, or the willingness to exceed the U.N. in Libya, ignore it in Syria, and undermine it with Iran is working with the UN.
I dont see as viable the third, and no doubt favored, solution: a stealth attempt by fiat to implement a single-payer system. Assuring the people that the problem with Obamacare was not enough government rather than too much does not seem like a winner. Somehow the Obama administration took public distrust of insurance companies and transmogrified that suspicion into greater distrust of government. And when they talk of drafting techies to the rescue of the website, they seem not to be talking about more GS somethings, but hip Silicon Valleyites from the correct part of the private sector. For now there can be no more presidential sweeping statements about not losing this or not paying more for that, but probably silence, as administration lawyers administratively chart non-compliance strategies and the usual politicos find ways to call that a smashing success.
It Is a Trap
By Andrew C. McCarthy
November 14, 2013 10:53 AM
Count me in the Erick Erickson camp when it comes to the Upton gimmickry because, at best, thats all it is. Republicans would make a big mistake backing it.
The GOP should not be working to fix Obamacare. That would just further tar Republicans as part owners of Obamacare. They should be working to scrap Obamacare now, while the political momentum is swinging to their side. Democrats are rightly starting to panic, so Republicans should be driving a hard bargain push for repeal, settle for nothing less than delay. The last thing they should be doing is throwing endangered Democrats a lifeline to reelection in 2014.
Even if Obamacare were fixable and the GOP had an interest in helping fix it and neither is the case Representative Fred Uptons Keep Your Plan Act nonsense does not come close to being a fix. The Wall Street Journals editors acknowledge this morning that the bill is essentially pointless even though they weirdly give Upton a tepid thumbs-up. Insurance companies have already done the years of planning that competent compliance with the Affordable Care Act called for, meaning they have shut down the plans and made new arrangements based on Obamacares extensive mandates. That process was and remains complicated and it cannot be undone on the dime. The health-insurance plans that have been lost are gone. You wont be able to Keep Your Plan if the plan no longer exists . . . unless, of course, you believe our Constitution allows Leviathan to order insurance companies to create and issue plans that were dropped precisely because of Obamacare and well get to that (i.e., Senator Mary Landrieus plan) in a second.
In countering Erick Erickson at the Corner, Jeffrey Anderson ends up conceding most of Ericks case:
Erickson is certainly right that Obamacare is not fixable, that Republican
shouldnt be trying to fix it in any event, and that the only real solution to [Obamacare] is to repeal it. . . . Hes also right that the Upton bill wont bring back to life all of the plans that Obamacare has already killed off with its coercive mandates.
Yet, Mr. Anderson says Republicans should press ahead with the Upton bill anyway, even though it cannot do what it pretends to do and thats not gonna enrage people at all when they figure that out, right? His scattershot reasoning is a good example of why the GOP always gets rolled in these skirmishes.
Even though the insurance plans in question are gone, Anderson urges that if, after Upton has passed, insurers declined to restore them, the GOP would then be free to criticize those insurers, who stand to reap a trillion taxpayer dollars. Of course, that is precisely the fraudulent narrative Democrats are desperately trying to sell: Its not Obama and congressional Democrats who are responsible for the unfolding catastrophe its the bad insurance companies. Anderson would have Republicans unwittingly join Democrats in selling this snake-oil.
That, naturally, would ease the way to passage of Landrieus alternative (actually, more a companion than an alternative to Upton). As Anderson observes, Landrieus bill is more of the heavy-handed, coercive model of government that gave us Obamacare to begin with. It purports to force insurance companies to reoffer plans that no longer make business sense due to the very conditions created by Democrats.
Anderson nevertheless sees no tension between supporting Upton and opposing Landrieu because, even as they join Democrats in clubbing the insurers, those ever-deft Republicans will easily be able to mount a simultaneous constitutional argument that Landrieus bill violates the Commerce Clause. And yes, that would be the same constitutional argument that failed to stop passage of Obamacare, that took three years for the Supreme Court to resolve, and despite which Chief Justice Roberts contrived a way to uphold Obamacare anyway.
Im sure the American people will find this GOP constitutional razzmatazz very clear and compelling. By the way, did I mention that Upton, Mr. Ban the Light Bulb himself, has already signaled his support for Landrieus coercive bill? Yup, he proclaims it even a bigger and perhaps better step than what we have in the House. He sure has mastered those Commerce Clause talking-points, no?
Anderson also contends that the Upton bill would badly undermine Obamacares exchanges, which would then be drained of millions of . . . people whom Obama wanted to compel to buy exchange-based plans. (Emphasis in original.) What millions of people? As Patrick Brennan recounted here yesterday, even by inflating the numbers to include people who havent actually purchased plans, the Obamacare exchanges have barely been able to recruit a hundred thousand people they are nowhere close to millions of applicants. People do not need the Upton bill to grasp that Obamacare is a bad deal and that theyd prefer the plans they were falsely promised they could keep. They got that.
The Upton bill would do nothing to relieve Americans who have lost their plans due to Obamacare, but it would help Democrats (a) demagogue the insurance companies, (b) pass more unconstitutional and coercive legislation, and (c) get reelected. In Louisiana, Republicans would be helping Senator Landrieu campaign as the crusader who fought to save peoples health plans that would be the same Mary Landrieu who extorted a $300 million kickback (the infamous Louisiana Purchase) in exchange for voting to impose Obamacare on the country, and then helped defeat the GOP resolution that would have prevented the millions of insurance-plan cancellations Americans are suffering today.
I confess to being a bit puzzled. Wasnt it just a couple of weeks ago that Republican leaders were saying that the only way to repeal Obamacare is to win elections?
Last Edit: November 17, 2013, 09:35:42 AM by Crafty_Dog
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Politics of Health Care: Flashback, Sebelius, Keep your plan
Reply #1186 on:
November 17, 2013, 09:58:01 AM »
Keeping the Plan You Like
By Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
Posted June 14, 2010
Throughout the health reform debate, the President has been clear that we should build on the insurance system we have, keeping the parts that work and gradually fixing the parts that dont.
The Affordable Care Act is designed to let Americans keep their health insurance if they like it while adding important consumer benefits to give businesses, families and individuals higher quality care at lower prices and more control over their own care.
Later today, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and I will announce the latest step were taking to implement the Affordable Care Act with the announcement of a new regulation that is a key part of this approach.
The new regulation will expand new consumer protections to all Americans with health insurance, moving us toward the competitive, patient-centered market of the future. This rule reflects the Presidents policy that Americans should be able to keep their health plan and doctor if they want.
Heres how the new rule will work:
Starting with health plan or policy years beginning on or after September 23, Americans with private health insurance plans will get some new consumer protections. For example, insurance companies will be prohibited from putting lifetime limits on your coverage. And theyll no longer be able to cancel your insurance when you get sick just by finding an error in your paperwork.
Health coverage that was in effect when the Affordable Care Act was enacted will be exempt from some provisions in the Act if they remain grandfathered under a provision in the law. Under the rule issued today, employers or issuers offering such coverage will have the flexibility of making reasonable changes without losing their grandfathered status. For example, employers will be able to make some changes to the benefits their plans offer, raise premiums or change employee cost-sharing to keep pace with health costs within some limits, and continue to enroll new employees and their families.
However, if health plans significantly raise co-payments or deductibles, or if they significantly reduce benefits for example, if they stop covering treatment for a disease like HIV/AIDS or cystic fibrosis theyll lose their grandfathered status and their customers will get the same full set of consumer protections as new plans.
The bottom line is that under the Affordable Care Act, if you like your doctor and plan, you can keep them. But if you arent satisfied with your insurance options today, the Affordable Care Act provides for better, more affordable health care choices through new consumer protections. And beginning in 2014, it creates health insurance exchanges that will offer individuals and small businesses better, more affordable choices.
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4 years of lying? when did they know they were lying? June 2009
Reply #1187 on:
November 17, 2013, 10:47:19 AM »
A prescient June 2009 exchange between Georgia Rep. Tom Price and Obama CEA Chair Christina Romer. The exchange took place in a House Education and Labor Committee hearing on a draft of Obamacare. Price pressed Romer to cite a basis for the presidents ["if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan"] promise, and in the process predicted much of what would happen more than four years later, in late 2013. Obamas promise fell apart right there in the hearing room. Here is the exchange:
REP. PRICE: You also mentioned, as other folks have, that the presidents goal and its reiterated over and over and over that if you like your current plan or if you like your current doctor, you can keep them. Do you know where that is in the bill?
MS. ROMER: Absolutely. And things like the employer mandate is part of making sure that large employers that today the vast majority of them do provide health insurance. One of the things thats
REP. PRICE: Im asking about if an individual likes their current plan and maybe they dont get it through their employer and maybe in fact their plan doesnt comply with every parameter of the current draft bill, how are they going to be able to keep that?
MS. ROMER: So the president is fundamentally talking about maintaining whats good about the system that we have. And
REP. PRICE: Thats not my question.
MS. ROMER: One of the things that he has been saying is, for example, you may like your plan and one of the things we may do is slow the growth rate of the cost of your plan, right? So thats something that is not only
REP. PRICE: The question is whether or not patients are going to be able to keep their plan if they like it. What if, for example, theres an employer out there and youve said that if the employers that already provide health insurance, health coverage for their employees, that theyll be just fine, right? What if the policy that those employees and that employer like and provide for their employees doesnt comply with the specifics of the bill? Will they be able to keep that one?
MS. ROMER: So certainly my understanding and I wont pretend to be an expert in the bill but certainly I think whats being planned is, for example, for plans in the exchange to have a minimum level of benefits.
REP. PRICE: So if I were to tell you that in the bill it says that if a plan doesnt comply with the specifics that are outlined in the bill that that employers going to have to move to the to a different plan within five years would you would that be unusual, or would that seem outrageous to you?
MS. ROMER: I think the crucial thing is, what kind of changes are we talking about? The president was saying he wanted the American people to know that fundamentally if you like what you have it will still be there.
REP. PRICE: What if you like what you have, Dr. Romer, though, and it doesnt fit with the definition in the bill? My reading of the bill is that you cant keep that.
MS. ROMER: I think the crucial thing the bill is talking about setting a minimum standard of what can count
REP. PRICE: So its possible that you may like what you have, but you may not be able to keep it? Right?
MS. ROMER: Wed have Id have to look at the specifics.
Credit: Byron York, Washington Examiner
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Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1188 on:
November 17, 2013, 10:53:25 AM »
Wasn't it about a month ago when dems were insisting that obamacare was the law of the land and any attempt to refund or alter it was an act of sedition?
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Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1189 on:
November 17, 2013, 11:59:21 AM »
Doug: Nice find!
GM: Details, details , , ,
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Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1190 on:
November 17, 2013, 05:41:10 PM »
The part annoying to me is AHA was not a problem with any of these people who thought it would others who would have to pick up the tab. You know. Soak the "rich". No problem taking money from some to give to them. Now that they are going to have to pay more, and only now, it is a problem. It is not the lying. It is now they are adversely affected:
****Breitbart Logo
17 Nov 2013, 10:07 AM PDT 39 post a comment
Campus Reform: Students at Bowie State University assailed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on Thursday after administrators cancelled a low cost school-wide health care plan due to new regulations in the law. Many students told Campus Reform that the now cancelled plans, which provided coverage for just $50 per semester, were the only insurance they could afford.
"I can't afford anything right now," one said. "I can't even afford my loans."
"We don't have that money," said another. "We can barely afford books."
Several students said that they felt they had been let down.
"It's stupid and it's Obama's fault," one said. "You haven't done anything, Obama, and I'm disappointed in you."
"What it was hyped up to be, was that it was supposed to solve a lot of problems and help a lot of people, and its not really doing that," said another.
Many students had no idea the plans had been canceled, which was announced only in an email to their school addresses.
In a statement to Campus Reform, Bowie State said it was confident that Obamacare would fill the void left by the canceled plans.
"Most students are now able to be covered under their parents health plans up to age 26 at no additional cost and new affordable coverage is becoming available through the Maryland State Insurance Exchange System," it read.
Campus Reform conducted the interviews with student Eugene Craig III, who first wrote about canceled plans in an article in the school's alternative newspaper, The Bulldog Collegian. ****
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Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1191 on:
November 19, 2013, 09:21:52 AM »
I was trying to post an article from Journal Of American Medical Association but I cannot do it since I am not technically a member. I get their journal sent to me for free because I am on some sort of list.
It is Donald Berwick the lead politburo guy who was the lead shover of this monstrosity down all out throats complaining about the politics involved (how dare the phrase "death panels"). There are other articles as well from politburo. Not as bitter and obnoxious as well. Emanuel with another one suggesting we need a leader who announces something akin to JFKs we will be on the moon in 10 yrs. or perhaps Nixon's war on cancer etc. but suggesting we apply the same unified goal of fixing health care. I am not adverse to this in theory but I don't want it being a gigantic politburo led government take over of 1/6 of our economy.
I wish their articles in the med journals were posted to public forums.
They are mostly (not all) Columbia types. All the professor elites who are smarter wiser nicer more humane then the rest of humanity.
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Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1192 on:
November 19, 2013, 05:38:16 PM »
This isn't Watergate?
Woodward: The Presidents motive here, even though there deep problems with the implementation, he wants to do something good for 30 million people and get them health insurance. So this isnt Watergate. This isnt Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
Obamacare is designed to punish the 30 million that we want to help but won't sign up voluntarily.
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Re: The Politics of Health Care, Holman Jenkins, WSJ
Reply #1193 on:
November 20, 2013, 09:33:27 AM »
The simple fix is to legalize the plans that people actually want.
How the GOP Should Fix ObamaCare
Along the way Republicans can create real choice, real competition and real savings while protecting those who need help.
What can be done is Congress creating a new option in the form of a national health insurance charter under which insurers could design new low-cost policies free of mandated benefits imposed by ObamaCare and the 50 states that many of those losing their individual policies today surely would find attractive.
(Read it all!)
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Obamacare driving doctors to refuse insurance.
Reply #1194 on:
November 20, 2013, 10:51:44 AM »
Excellent article Doug!-- with several pithy, penetrating insights e.g.
"The government-run systems you so admire in other countries mostly came about long ago. They came about to expand access to medical care at a time when medical care couldn't do all that much for people. We live in a different age. America, let's face it, would be embarking on a single-payer system not to expand accessthough that slogan would be usedbut to deny and limit care in order to control runaway spending. Liberals, you think you want to go there but you don't."
Tea Party Patriots
Real Health Care Reform: Share Your Ideas
As we continue to watch the disastrous roll out of Obamacare, it would be easy for us to say that we have been warning about this for the last 4 years. It would be easy for us to say that we had a major impact in the fight for Congress to stop implementation of the law by not wasting any taxpayer money on what was clearly shaping up to be a train wreck - with fierce opposition from both political parties. We could say that we did all of this with the intent to protect the America from the disasters of Obamacare. And it would all be true.
However, right now is not the time for pointing fingers and "we told you so." Right now is time to go back to the drawing board and undo this mess before it continues to do harm to the American people. That's why we are laying out our guidelines for real health care reform.
The first step is full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Then any new attempt at health care reform needs to include principles that promote health care freedom for all.
Real Health Care Reform would meet the following criteria:
CONSTITUTIONAL: Real health care reform will be constitutional and protect all Americans' rights.
COMPREHENSIBLE: Real health care reform will be comprehensible, clear, and simple for everyone to understand.
DEBT-FREE: Real health care reform will not add to the national debt.
RELATIONSHIPS: Real health care reform will enhance the doctor-patient relationship.
FREE MARKET: Real health care reform will draw on the strengths of the free market by encouraging innovation and competition.
PRIVACY: Real health care reform will minimize the role of the federal government in the health care sector.
CHARITY: Real health care reform will incorporate opportunities for the private sector to provide charitable solutions.
CHOICE: Real health care reform will increase consumer choice.
TRANSPARENCY: Real health care reform will increase transparency.
Congress isn't leading the way on this, so it is time for the American people to step up and guide us to health care freedom. Join in on the conversation by letting us know what Real Health Care Reform looks like to you.
Click for more details on Real Health Care Reform.
Last Edit: November 20, 2013, 02:43:50 PM by Crafty_Dog
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Re: The Politics of Health Care
Reply #1195 on:
November 21, 2013, 08:51:29 AM »
Pelosi: I Never Met Anybody Who Liked His or Her Plan
Posted By Larry Elder On November 21, 2013 @ frontpagemag.com
Asked whether she needed to apologize to the formerly insured who have lost their health insurance plans, former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, Did I ever tell my constituents that if they liked their plan they could keep it? I would have if Id ever met anybody who liked his or her plan. But that was not my experience.
Pelosi, whose net worth combined with her husbands is estimated between $35 and $180 million, never met anybody who liked his or her plan? Her out-of-touch comment reminds one of then-New Yorker film critic, liberal Pauline Kael. In 1972, after Republican Richard Nixon crushed Democrat George McGovern, 49 states to one, a shell-shocked Kael said, Nobody I know voted for Nixon.
Pelosis world is that of rich people and government workers whose health care plans are better than those of their counterparts in the private sector. How would she know that, according to a pre-Obamacare ABC News-Kaiser Family Foundation-USA Today survey, 88 percent of the insured rate their coverage as excellent or good and 89 percent are satisfied with the quality of care they receive?
Ms. Pelosi, meet Kristen Powers, Fox News analyst and a Democratic strategist. After her policy was canceled and her premiums doubled, Powers said: My blood pressure goes up every time they say that theyre protecting us from substandard health insurance plans, because there is nothing to support what theyre saying. I am losing my health insurance. If I want to keep the same health insurance, its going to cost twice as much. Theres nothing substandard about my plan.
All of the things they say that are not in my plan are in my plan, all of the things they have listed. Theres no explanation for the doubling of my premiums other than the fact that its subsidizing other people. They need to be honest about that, that thats the reason they dont want to change it.
Its because theyre basically taking the people who are responsible enough to get health insurance in the individual market and asking them to subsidize other people. So theyre taking young healthy people and asking them to subsidize other people. Well, shared sacrifice thats the whole point behind Obamacare, isnt it?
Democrats flat-out despise insurance companies. Theyve been called immoral villains (Pelosi), deceptive and dishonest (President Barack Obama), fly-by-night (former Gov. and DNC chair Howard Dean), rapacious (Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va.) and greedy (Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.).
Are health insurance companies any greedier than any other for-profit sector of the economy? In 2009, before Obamacare, profit margins for the network and communications equipment industry averaged 20.4 percent; Internet services and retailing was 19.4 percent; pharmaceuticals averaged 19.3 percent; railroads 12.6 percent; gas and electric utilities 8.7 percent; and food consumer products 6.7 percent. Health insurance and managed care companies? They averaged 2.2 percent.
Follow the money.
Of the political contributions by the, say, communications/electronic industry in 2012, $94.6 million went to Democrats, and $55.7 million to Republicans. But from 1990 to the current 2014 cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org, insurance companies gave 63 percent of their political donations to Republicans versus 37 percent to Democrats.
Obamacare is now more unpopular than ever, in large part because of broken promises. At the televised health care summit in February 2010, just before passage of Obamacare, then-Minority Whip Eric Cantor predicted millions would lose their coverage. He had the following exchange with the President:
Cantor: I dont think you can answer the question in the positive to say that people will be able to maintain their coverage, people will be able to see the doctors they want, in the kind of bill that you are proposing.
Obama: The 8 to 9 million people that you refer to, that might have to change their coverage would find the deal in the exchange better. Yet Obama still publicly assured people that no one would take away their policy, if they liked it.
Finally, Obama still gets a pass on a tale he repeatedly told to sell Obamacare. How many times did we hear that Obamas mom, dying of cancer, had to fight with her carriers to pay her medical and hospital bills? The story, crucial to humanizing the fight, turns out to be bogus. According to a book by an ex-New York Times reporter, the sole dispute was between Obamas mother and an insurance company over a disability policy his mother had taken out. The insurance company said shed had a pre-existing condition when she applied for that policy. But her medical bills and this is what Obama insisted they fought over were in fact paid by her health care insurer, directly and without dispute.
Yes, our health care system suffers. But it suffers from a lack of free markets. The antidote is more competition reducing barriers to entry, health savings accounts, giving individuals the same health care tax breaks as given to business, competition across state lines, and for tough cases, charity.
"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.
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Wrong sports analogy, Mr. President, it is Strike Three on Obamcare
Reply #1196 on:
November 21, 2013, 10:00:22 AM »
The President chose the sports analogy of fumbles instead of strikes on Obamacare because no one can say exactly how many fumbles you can have before you are out.
We fumbled the rollout on this health-care law, he admitted at Thursday afternoons news conference. I am very frustrated, but Im also somebody who, if I fumbled the ball, you know, Im going to wait until I get the next play, and then Im going to try to run as hard as I can and do right by the team. Four times he mentioned fumbling both the HealthCare.gov Web site and his promise that people could keep their health plans if they liked them. These are two fumbles on something that on a big game, which but the games not over, he said.
Let's count strikes in the order that the media and the public finally discovered them:
Strike One: The website failed. A called strike. Government incompetence while the President rested his bat on his shoulder.
Strike Two: The lies and fraud were exposed. You can't keep your plan, your doctor and maybe not even your job or your hours because of Obamacare. It wouldn't have passed without the misrepresentations. The promoters knew that. Swing and a miss.
Strike Three: It isn't "affordable" and that was the name of it. It isn't getting 30 million more people insured and that was the purpose of it. Obamacare is actually resulting in fewer people insured When we recognize this monumental failure, it is strike three and the batter is out.
We gave up freedom, choice and privacy in order to lower the cost of healthcare and get everyone insured. It's doing the opposite. Let's end it now and get back a little bit of our lost individual freedom and privacy.
Last Edit: November 21, 2013, 10:43:44 AM by DougMacG
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first term
Reply #1197 on:
November 25, 2013, 05:09:38 AM »
Despite all the lamentations about Barack Obama having second-term blues and bad luck, and the talk about how a painful second term is not atypical, its what happened during the first term that matters most. With the exception of possible exogenous events, a presidents first term defines his second one. The enormous difficulties that Obama is having with his signature issue, the health care law, are the shining example of how that can work. Almost everything that has gone wrong with the program was set in motion in the early years of his presidency.
The first term is when the president makes fateful decisions about what kind of people he wants in his White House, how he wants them organized, the nature and role of his cabinet members (are they essentially staff, as most tend to be in the Obama administration?), which initiatives he selects as his most important, whether he builds a strong cadre of outside allies, how he deals with the Congress and how hard he is willing to fight for what he wants.
Not unlike some other presidents, Obama essentially surrounded himself in the White House with his campaign staff, or others he knew well, rather than finding people experienced in governing. Newly elected presidents pay a heavy price if they are themselves inexperienced in governing and select top staff who lack a broad sense of what it means to run a federal government.
The shock of adjusting to the presidencythe myriad amounts of information and decisions to be made thrown at themhits most newcomers. Where to begin? Which decisions to tell your staff are presidential-level ones and which ones are they to work out on their own? How much authority to give to the cabineta set of relationships that is almost always fraught. Only if a newly elected president has served as vice president or in a tiny number of other high offices can he have been given a prior sense of the vast chasm between running for president and being president. There is a lot of talk these days that former governors are the only ones who are truly prepared to occupy the oval office. But thats hogwash. To my knowledge none have a Pentagon to run, or a raft of foreign policy decisions coming at them every day, or fifty sub-states and a potentially obdurate Congress to deal with. There is no training for the presidency.
Barack Obama had an unfathomable inability, beginning in his early years in office, to grasp the difference between campaigning and governingand for that hes been paying a fearful price in his second term. Campaigning and governing call for different kinds of rhetoric. For some reason, Obama never got control of the health care argument. He cited its attractive provisions many times, but he just didnt get through.
As for his promise that if people liked their health insurance policy they could keep it, former aides say that they were uneasily aware that it was misleading, or oversimplified. But they figured that it represented a small slice of the probably large group who would eagerly sign up for the new plan. They also figured that if the federal website was working the way it should, most people would be aware they had access to better options. They didnt come clean that some people were going to lose out under the new plan. The president, now on the defensive, and almost groveling, remained unable to get across the enormous benefits of providing some 30 million uninsured people with coverage.
Fateful decisions made in the first term reflected Obamas lack of understanding of what it meant to govern. Early on, I received a startling insight into how the Obama White House approached working with Congress. I asked a senior presidential aide why the White House hadnt sent up its own health care legislation, so that there would be something coherent to start with and more leverage. His reply: Because any time we lost a provision that would be seen as a loss. This was a most unusual way to deal with Congresstying ones own hands at the outset.
As the health care legislation moved through Congress, Obama and his top aides became swallowed up in the details. Rahm Emanuel, Obamas first chief of staff, had much to recommend him: hed served in the Clinton White House and been a member of Congress. But he was an inside man, buried in the maw of the legislationand apparently unable to see the big picture. Moreover, its virtually impossible for Congress to write a coherent complex piece of legislation. In this case, particularly large interests are at play: the insurance companies (who would still play the major role as insurers), manufacturers of medical equipment, hospitals, drug companies, religious organizationsand without its own bill the administration had limited leverage over numerous strong-minded legislators. Five hundred and thirty five people are unlikely to produce a fine Swiss watch.
But Obama and his staffs failures at governing led to the disastrous roll-out of the exchanges. Simply put: they went about it all wrong. Such a major part of the presidents signature initiative should never have been assigned to the multilayered bureaucracy, however honorable and well-intended its people are. Obama needed to put in charge a single strong figure who could go straight to him and was known to have his backingand, obviously, knew enough about the complexities of such a large high tech program. The president needed to be kept very informed as to where matters stood. (The White House put about after the calamity became clear to the public that the president had occasionally asked how things were going; this wasnt reassuring.) Short of appointing a strong outside person, the president could have relied on a figure such as Joe Califano, Lyndon Johnsons chief domestic policy adviser, to be on top of the implementation and raise hell if the people charged with building the exchanges werent doing the job.
It remains unclear to this day who in the Obama White House was responsible for seeing to it that the program was on schedule and working as it shouldor if anyone was. Theres no sign that the presidents serial chiefs of staffafter Emanuel, who left in October, 2010, and then Bill Daley, Jack Lew, and now Dennis McDonoughwere engaged in any meaningful way.
Another misfire was the brobdingnagian nature of the Obama plan, like that of the Clintons plan before it: wonks were in charge and there seems to have been little checking to see if real people could handle it. While the Affordable Care Act was moving through Congress, White House aides explained that it would all be very simple: the consumer would go online and pick out a health plan from among choicesjust as, they said, people do with Expedia. Quite apart from the federal web sites own flaws, the Obama plan suffered from an overestimation of computer literacy among the public at large.
Finally, the presidents offhanded way of dealing with Congress in the first term has weakened his hand with members of his own party in the second term, at precisely the point when he needs them most. The very self-contained Obama, less needy than many of his predecessors, and his impatience with some of the folderol of politicsalbeit its his chosen line of workleft him with few senators or House members, or even outside groups, who would go to the barricades for him when he needed them in the second term. One can understand and even sympathize with Obamas view of listening to tedious people who lecture him on how things should be done (they might actually know more than he, but he doesnt care to be told), but its been very costly for him.
The health care law is a delicate instrument, built on sets of assumptions which may not pan out, or which could be undermined if out of panic the president or Congress fiddles with the law. The anecdotes about people losing their policies have frequently been over-simplified, but make for more dramatic news stories than the advances already achieved under the law; theres been little attention to the already slowing rate of growth in the cost of health careone of the laws major goals.
Obamas governing style in his first term lit the fuse for his second term. Politically-driven decisions on the health care law along with a failure to understand some of the rudiments of governing have resulted in his current difficulties. Its far from over of course, but should his proudest achievement fail to workits outcome not at all certain at this pointthe rest of what he does in his second term may not matter much.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Herman Cain: My lib friends, are you ready to ditch the excuses yet?
Reply #1198 on:
November 25, 2013, 08:50:17 AM »
This sort of message needs to be made:
Letter to my liberal friends: Are you ready to ditch the excuses yet?
Published by: Herman Cain
It's not about political power. It's about people, and they're hurting.
Dear liberal friends,
Get a grip!
You have been lied to, deceived and asked to stay supportive even as your health insurance costs have increased, or are getting ready to increase. It's not a matter of whether they will increase. It's when.
You are now going to pay more and you can't keep your plan. You can't keep your doctor. And you may not be able to go to the hospital nearest your home. You may have to drive past the one closest to you to get to a hospital in network, and those specialty hospitals for illnesses like cancer will be at your own cost.
One of the reasons for these limitations is that insurance companies thought they were going to remain profitable because of all the people who would be signing up for ObamaCare, and happily sharing the cost of covering everybody for everything.
Well, people are not signing up in droves and they are not happy, because of problems with the healthcare.gov website, security issues and premium sticker shock.
Even worse! Some people are being caught in the ObamaCare "gap" between insurance they had and insurance they can't yet get! So they are vulnerable until they can find a plan more expensive than what they had, or until they can find one on the ObamaCare exchanges, which will also cost more because of mandated features they may not want or need.
Shortly after President Obama was elected for his first term, he reminded the Republicans that "I'm the president." This was during a photo-op pretending to listen to the other side of the aisle on the national debt and other issues, and the critical need to stop the spending. He didn't listen.
On another occasion, President Obama reminded the Republicans in Congress and the rest of us that he won re-election. He did win by a narrow popular vote margin. But he and his administration thought that was a mandate to push through his tax-and-spend, anti-economic growth and regulatory tyranny agenda on the nation without being noticed or challenged.
Well Mr. President, the 48 percent of us that did not vote for you noticed! And we are not being quiet about it. It's our constitutional right!
Some of my liberal friends are waking up! They include Democrat voters, independents who voted for Obama, young people under the age of 35, and conservatives who thought he might be another JFK-like leader. He's no JFK and he's no leader.
Just like the mainstream media and congressional Democrats, many of my liberal friends have constantly made excuses for Obama and his administration's failures and lingering scandals. But the failure of ObamaCare, the deception, and the parade of scams we are finding out about cannot be excused.
Outrage by conservatives is not new. But many liberals and Obama supporters have openly expressed disappointment and betrayal. They are waking up!
Many of you still do not regret how you voted in the last two presidential elections. That was your choice. But you can now choose to stop drinking the Kool-Aid of excuses for the ObamaCare train wreck, which is only going to get worse.
I'm not suggesting that those of you who are now awakened from the slick and elusive presidential rhetoric blindly vote Republican or declare yourselves conservative. No, because Republicans and constitutionally minded conservatives need to earn your vote. And yes, they have and have had an alternative to ObamaCare all along, but the Democrats and the mainstream media didn't want you to know about it.
But for now, join the chorus of voices that are screaming, "Stop the train wreck. Start over!" It's not about political party, and it should not be about political power.
It's about the people, and the nation is hurting.
Power User
Posts: 42558
Lucy & Charlie Brown and the football 2.0
Reply #1199 on:
November 25, 2013, 10:08:04 AM »
second post
2nd-Year Enrollment Punted Past Midterms
In another sign the Obama administration is getting mighty nervous about the 2014 midterms, the Department of Health and Human Services has conveniently decided to delay the second-year ObamaCare enrollment period until after the November elections. Bloomberg reports: "President Barack Obama plans to push back the second-year start of enrollment in Affordable Care Act health plans, a move that would let insurers adjust to growing pains in the overhaul and potentially stave off premium increases before the 2014 congressional elections. The enrollment period, previously scheduled to begin Oct. 15, 2014, will now start Nov. 15, said an official with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services who asked not to be identified because the decision isn't public." In other words, they're hoping to dupe the American people ... again.
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