Obamacare to increase premiums by 304 percent???

[Stoked]

Thriller, by your logic any fantasy is going sound better than yesterday's poop.

What we had was the power of choices affecting our own finances, health and life. What we have under Obamacare is the fantasy that someone else will make all the best decisions for us. Might sound good to people who are willing to shuffle off to the gas chamber believing they're going to the showers.

When I was working in industry, we had technology that was brought here from Germany after WWII. Couldn't have just been "brought here" on paper. . . . it was the kind of experience and knowledge only experts could have brought. Fact is, WWII happened because of the US legislation that was called the "Anti-Trust Act". . .. which meant our "Trust-Busters" ran our cartels offshore in the 1920s and 1930s. . . . to Germany, which under fascist government just loved the big business cartels. Some of our big money folks. . .. Oil, Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, Steel. . . .. were majority stakeholders in the German industrialization leading up to WWII.

The same people who today are still majority stakeholders in our corporate cartels such as Big Pharma. And. . . . Yep. . . . no congressmen or senators knew what to put into the Obamacare package, but these cartel folks did, and our congressmen and Senators let them write the legislation that would give them the levers to work to make big money off government-managed healthcare. Nobody is talking about how much money these folks are going to make off our increased premiums and taxes under Obamacare, or about how the system functionally will result in decreased capacity to give healthcare. .. . meaning a net decrease in service to citizens even while paying a higher price, a greater share of our net income. . . .

And those facts will be your future as well as everyone else's.

Not mention I just linked a story where 10 dem senators are jumping on the delay bandwagon.

 

[Harambe]

No because that's not what I asked. I'm not going after blame so save the rhetoric.

Well I'm not sure what your goal here is then. So I guess I'll actually take it at face value... which I'm not sure exists.. but ok.

Yes, the president's approval rating will go down, but only slightly. He's still capable of leading, and the situation has not been written off yet.

 

[Harambe]

I've sorta followed your contributions on this subject, and I know you're taking a very positive view. A lot of people want this to be an answer. I've seen people bankrupted by medical care, I've seen people who just decided not to go get treatment and die. When I was 25 I got sick and the company I worked for "downsized" me out of a claim to job benefits, and had to go to Legal Aid to try to make them own up to their touted benefit package.

I actually read hundreds of the pages of the ACA when it was passed. . .. a few days after, because no one actually had the final draft on their desk until a few hours before it was passed. Yah yah. . . . there were some of the movers and shakers who knew what it was going to be, months ahead of the "debate" in our legislature. . . . but what we were told in the media definitely was not either accurate nor complete in scope. You say it regulates insurance companies and not the people? You have to be ignoring a whole boatload of facts to feel that way.

Yes, we get to choose from offerings put forth by insurance companies, who get to offer those choices at prices which they hope will be profitable. Which means we pay for what we get, theoretically. In fact, without increased taxes as well, it won't fly. . . .. we will have to pay for all the administrative costs, all the regulatory costs, and our actual choices in the process of receiving care will be narrowed, often meaning we will actually not get the care we need, and we will die. Or live with impediments that put us on the welfare rolls. . . .

to get briefly to your question about the sentence you bolded from my remarks above, the best example I can give is the situation my wife faced a little over a year ago, under the present system, which isn't very good as it is. She was denied in her and her doctor's request for a new diagnostic procedure by her insurance carrier. Months later, during surgery, her actual situation was revealed. . .. to be something that the new diagnostic tool would have disclosed, which would have changed the whole program of treatment over more than six months. It was a critical and life-threatening situation, that had---- for the lack of information deemed too experimental and expensive by bureaucrats---not been addressed. This meant hundreds of thousands of dollars of ineffective care had been given, and in some statistical analyses means she lost some years of her life expectancy.

Obamacare will give more bureaucrats more power to make such decisions in your health care. You will not have choices you will otherwise at least have a chance to make. . . .

I have no delusions about who will pay for Obamacare, or any other collective care program. I know we will pay for it. We always have, and always will. Socialism creates some illusions about transferring expenses to corporates somehow, but they will pass their costs down to consumers, and government will pass it's costs down to taxpayers. . . . we will always be the ones paying for what we get.

I just think we ought to still make the decisions that affect our life, our health, and our finances.

Feel free to call me dumb, but I'm still not seeing the link between "Hey guys, if we all get on insurance it'll cost less for everyone" and "Someone please tell me what to do".

 

[Stoked]

Well I'm not sure what your goal here is then. So I guess I'll actually take it at face value... which I'm not sure exists.. but ok.

Yes, the president's approval rating will go down, but only slightly. He's still capable of leading, and the situation has not been written off yet.

If you think the multiple negative news reports associated with the ACA will affect the Presidents popularity/approval rating. Why or why not?

Not an overly complicated question.

 

[franklin]

let's be clear - in most states, nurses, PA's etc can open their own practices - - the question is what those practices are allowed to do without supervision by a licensed medical doctor.

This is where it gets so tricky. Everyone wants to have cheaper care and not see the Dr...until something goes wrong. Then they want to sue the Dr for everything he has. You can't have it both ways.

The meat of it right here, it's tricky. How about we make a law that decides the trickery?

 

[babe]

The meat of it right here, it's tricky. How about we make a law that decides the trickery?

There is no law than can end human stupidity, or greed.

Our tort sort of law. . . . calling Kicky from the ether. . . . is a maze of precedents and principles that no simple human could possibly master in a lifetime of practicing law, so good lawyers resort to tactics that are generally effective in removing the actual law or case facts from the discussion. . . . rhetorical displays of villifying the other side and achieving personal influence with the judge. Judges like this because it makes them important and sometimes a mercedes with the keys in the ignition and a title in the glove box in his/her name mysteriously appears on his/her driveway overnight.

In some towns, it really is a matter of who you know. Towns like Las Vegas where Harry Reid knows who to know, so to speak. . . . and Chicago where a community organizer named Obama found out who to know, exactly. That's the "tricky" about our whole mess of public affairs.

We have a broken constitutional republic that has gone rotten with corrupt and stupid public officials in every department.

And like I've sorta said a hundred times before, you have to assert the alpha role if you want the dogs to mind. If you let the "public servants" become "masters" it's not gonna turn out good for you.

One way to achieve control of the government for the ordinary citizen is to reduce it's scope and power and money. Another is to assert moral authority. I'd say the best way to reduce medical costs is to unwind the AMA gordian knot around medical practice, open up medical schools and let doctors from India come here in large numbers. . . . well, from anywhere. . . .Increase supply. The next best way would be to eliminate the mandate hospitals face in being required to give care to anyone in their emergency room. Reduce some of the frivolous "demand" coming from people who know they won't pay a dime themselves for showing up in the emergency rooms. . . . a lot of similar types of abuse could be added to this list. A further way would be to eliminate a bunch of other regulations. . .. "mandates" or rules handed down by government authority without funding to compensate for the cost. . .of caregivers.

On the legal end of it, we need a new breed of judge in our tort courts who are not fundamentally pissed off at caregivers, and citizen jurors who actually understand that the sums the doctors have to pay out will come from other patients. . . .bankrupting many of them. . . . .

In sum, our fundamental illness concerning Medical Care is "Establishmentarianism". . . . . the habit of the professional classes of lawyers, judges, legislators, corporates, doctors, insurance racketeers, and media hoods... . .. of always making sure they live well while meddling in our personal affairs. . . . not just medical care.

The cure is cutting out the "Establishment".

 

[Harambe]

The meat of it right here, it's tricky. How about we make a law that decides the trickery?

Because it would take another 30 years to get anything done.

 

[Harambe]

If you think the multiple negative news reports associated with the ACA will affect the Presidents popularity/approval rating. Why or why not?

Not an overly complicated question.

You sure don't grasp subtlety very well, so I guess I'll come out and be the bad guy here.

I don't believe you're genuinely interested in what anyone else thinks about the multiple negative news reports associated with the ACA and how they will or will not affect the popularity/approval rating of the president.

I do believe you're genuinely interested in taking every chance you can to jump on the "I hate Obamacare" wagon, and get others to not only jump on board, but buy a ticket.

Hence the wording "I'm not sure what your goal here is then. So I guess I'll actually take it at face value" instead of "I don't understand what you're saying", like I have with Babe's posts.

 

[Stoked]

You sure don't grasp subtlety very well, so I guess I'll come out and be the bad guy here.

I don't believe you're genuinely interested in what anyone else thinks about the multiple negative news reports associated with the ACA and how they will or will not affect the popularity/approval rating of the president.

I do believe you're genuinely interested in taking every chance you can to jump on the "I hate Obamacare" wagon, and get others to not only jump on board, but buy a ticket.

Hence the wording "I'm not sure what your goal here is then. So I guess I'll actually take it at face value" instead of "I don't understand what you're saying", like I have with Babe's posts.

Well youre wrong. So much for assumptions. For those you are a bad guy.

If I asked you take it at face value. Some parts of the ACA suck, some are good and some don't go far enough.

My goal is for you, and anyone else, to lay out why they do or do not think this will hurt the President politically.

Not to attack any party, right or left.

Edit: one example of each

Bad- penalties for no insurance
Good - no more pre-existing conditions denial of coverage.
Not far enough - ability to cover kids up to 26. If I wanted to cover anyone, say you for example, and I am willing to pay the premium then why shouldn't I be able to?

 

[franklin]

Pretty sure I'd vote Roachsniffer for president.

 

[babe]

Feel free to call me dumb, but I'm still not seeing the link between "Hey guys, if we all get on insurance it'll cost less for everyone" and "Someone please tell me what to do".

"Dumb" or "Not Dumb" is in my lexicon a transitory state of mind that is defined by the idea, not the person. . . .

I understand that your positive vibes about hope and change are hinged on some set of ideas which, if everything is just as you're seeing it, could be "progress" and a better way. In the specific case of "Hey guys, if we all get on insurance it'll cost less for everyone" reflects some market ideals about efficiency gains derived from scale. . . . If a car costs, oh ten bucks, and ten of us guys can all get to work in that one car, we can each pitch in a buck and take turns driving and buying the gas. . . .
.
You're reading me right if you see my chief objection as being my right to make, and pay for, my own decisions in regards to caring for my health, and a lot of other aspects of my life. The old saw of Ben Franklin saying democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch. . . . .. I don't think ten of you guys get to tell me how to live, OK. Or get medical care. Or where to work and who to work for. . .. and if I have some good ideas on how to help people with their illnesses, you ten guys shouldn't make me get a license and do it your way. And anyone who wants to try my way should be free to give it a whirl. . . . and tell everybody who'll listen what they think about it. . . .

Once upon a time we had hustlers in little wagons peddling snake oil cure-alls all up and down the backroads of America. We found in that context that people who took the trouble to go to college and study medicine, and companies that would do some research on their proposed remedies, were a whole lot more reliable. . . . so we did stuff like contribute to and support research by professionals, formed professional societies like the AMA (American Medical Association), and we passed laws requiring specific training, and licensure, to practice medicine. We place our confidence in these people. . . . . and didn't notice, maybe didn't understand the facts. . . . . how these institutions began to follow the principles of monopolies. . . cartel action. . . . that began to become very profitable to the folks who had the inside track in the medical professions. . . . in the pharmaceutical industry, in the hospital industry.

So, sure there used to be an argument for professionalism, and still is. You can still find snake oil salemen making wild claims on the internet. . . . but you can easily compare claims. . . . and you can select more reputable outfits who are actually giving you some factual resources. . . . sure few of us are really competent to make sound judgments without some investment of time and study. . . . but most of us can manage better than just having a bureaucrat decide it all for us. . . .

The problem that does link the two ideas in your reply is a fact of human nature. If we let government or even private cartels. . . insurance giants or hospital chains. . . . take responsibility for our decisions and control our financial options, they will assume the absolute power to do so.

humans don't do well with power or money when it comes to doing what is best for others. We do better when we take care of ourselves.

The specific link is the law that specifies bureaucratic decision-makers charged with cutting costs and allocating resources, which in effect means if we let government run our car pool, they will tell us what car to buy and how to drive it. But even worse, they will look for the car manufacturer that will wine them and dine them until the bureaucrats give them the contract to make all the pool cars for the whole country, at a higher price for the manufacturer, and that manufacturer won't need to keep quality up to make the sales, and will then cut his costs and give us cars we can't drive, little cheap piles of crap that will stall out every day, freeze us in the winter and cook us in the summer, and break our backs on the commute.

But count on it, the press will keep on telling us how good it is to have a government that is charged with solving our problems. . . . . they will know how to get their bread buttered by the people who somehow acquire meaningful power over every decision in our lives.

 

[babe]

Not mention I just linked a story where 10 dem senators are jumping on the delay bandwagon.

Count on some politicians to pretend to be concerned, at least when 70% of their voters are generating many sacks of mail, and thousands of emails and phone calls each day to register their alarm at clearly incompetent bureaucrats charged with taking care of a major element of their lives. . . even of their very life. . . .

I can see where some traditional dems could see the unfairness of Obama giving waivers to businesses while still sticking it to the little guys. I am afraid of where this will take us. . . . to a single-payer system. The insurance carriers sat at the table and helped write Obamacare, and gave themselves a huge piece of the pie. The question, however, will soon become apparent . . . "Why do we need these guys?" All their policies come out of the same legal mumbo-jumbo generator, and they all push the limits to squeeze us down to choices we hate and can't live with. . . .

I say Obamacare was meant to fail, but meant to teach us to be more willing to let let government solve our problems. All our rage will we directed at the mean evil Insurance Claim Deniers and we're supposed to believe some Hope and Change charismatic teleprompter spokesperson for Socialism is going to make the government more humane. . . . baloney.

The only way we ever get treated good is by having the power to walk out of one business and into another.

And the only way that will make any difference is in a climate of competition, not so tightly regulated the supposed "different" companies are all doing business the same way.

 

[Stoked]

Babe, I count on all politicians, regardless of race, party or creed, to pretend to be concerned about us. All that changes Is who is attempting to control us. Or in many cases how they try to rebrand the same control.

 

[♪alt13]

You know if we "got rid of" everyone over 65 we wouldn't have this healthcare problem.





p.s. By "got rid of" I mean "they wouldn't be around any more" if you catch my drift





P.s.s. By "they wouldn't be around any more" I mean "Extermination" if you get where I'm going with this.




P.s.s.s. BY "extermination" I mean .... oh hi grandma. Oh you know just doing some important work on my devil box as you so adorably refer to it.

 

[Revolution 9]

Companies are dropping insurance, reducing hours and taking other actions as a result of the ACA. Such as Home Depot, Sea World, Walmart, Regal Entertainment (larget movie theater chain in America) and UPS.

But the president said:

""They said this would be a disaster in terms of jobs. There's no widespread evidence that the Affordable Care Act is hurting jobs"

Got to love it.

Got to love Walmart cutting benefits, and hours? WTF? There have been people bragging to me over the years about how fair, and good Wallmart treats it's employees. Sad to see them fold so quickly. This kind of company action would be laughed at in Germany.

BTW I disagree with the President when he said it won't affect jobs. This will certainly require some adjustment, and years to even get this
nation on the right track.

My last thought of the day is why are you hearing people complain and moan about people getting something for free. I read it everyday.
Now we are required to step up and get insured and not one conservative is saying anything about that. Mind blowing.

 

[Stoked]

Got to love Walmart cutting benefits, and hours? WTF? There have been people bragging to me over the years about how fair, and good Wallmart treats it's employees. Sad to see them fold so quickly. This kind of company action would be laughed at in Germany.

BTW I disagree with the President when he said it won't affect jobs. This will certainly require some adjustment, and years to even get this
nation on the right track.

My last thought of the day is why are you hearing people complain and moan about people getting something for free. I read it everyday.
Now we are required to step up and get insured and not one conservative is saying anything about that. Mind blowing.

Unfortunately this goes way beyond Walmart.

Nice to see that no one has any interest in this thread for anything but the blame game. So I'm done with it. Carry on.

 

[candrew]

Nice to see that no one has any interest in this thread for anything but the blame game. So I'm done with it. Carry on.

It's all your fault.

 

[Harambe]

Unfortunately this goes way beyond Walmart.

Nice to see that no one has any interest in this thread for anything but the blame game. So I'm done with it. Carry on.

I could have told you that the second you resurrected the thread.

 

[Harambe]

The problem that does link the two ideas in your reply is a fact of human nature. If we let government or even private cartels. . . insurance giants or hospital chains. . . . take responsibility for our decisions and control our financial options, they will assume the absolute power to do so.

humans don't do well with power or money when it comes to doing what is best for others. We do better when we take care of ourselves.

The specific link is the law that specifies bureaucratic decision-makers charged with cutting costs and allocating resources, which in effect means if we let government run our car pool, they will tell us what car to buy and how to drive it. But even worse, they will look for the car manufacturer that will wine them and dine them until the bureaucrats give them the contract to make all the pool cars for the whole country, at a higher price for the manufacturer, and that manufacturer won't need to keep quality up to make the sales, and will then cut his costs and give us cars we can't drive, little cheap piles of crap that will stall out every day, freeze us in the winter and cook us in the summer, and break our backs on the commute.
.

I guess this is about as close as I'm going to get to an answer. I believe your argument negatively characterizing the ACA starts with the concept of healthcare, and whose hands are in the pie. Going way, way, way before the ACA was even thought of. And to that point, you're right.

But if we go back in time to before there was health insurance, supply/demand ended up killing millions of Americans because they couldn't afford it. Which turned the beloved free market into a killing force much more deadly than communism and Nazi's.

The government didn't do anything about it, as fighting the free market is socialism.. F*** that. That's political suicide.

And so in came your snake oil salesmen, insurance companies. They offered protection from the predator that was the healthcare "free market". They decided who would get what, and how much money they pocketed. For a "low" monthly cost, you could live in a house made of brick instead of twigs or straw.

But now, it's the insurance companies that are controlling care. They were the ones who were deciding what care you were getting, what doctors you could see, what procedures you could get, and when.

More and more health insurance companies were popping up all over the place. And so, a new market was created that coincided with the healthcare market - the health insurance market.

Americans embraced the idea of health insurance. I don't like it, as it's just a bandaid on the real problem - the absurd price of health care. But because America has embraced health insurance in the first place, I have to ground my argument and line of thinking there. And that's where the ACA starts; long after we've embraced insurance as a part of our lives. We are stuck with insurance companies until we as a country accept health insurance as a duct tape, and not fixed pipe.

The ACA regulates insurance companies. Regulating those insurance companies, too, is just another piece of duct tape, another band-aid, another strip of bailing wire. And at that level someone's gotta own the company that produces that duct tape, those bandaids, those strips of bailing wire, and will make money off of it.

But until we can adequately address the cost of healthcare and do something about it, it's all we've got.

 

[Gameface]

Good article. While I'm not in favor of the ACA I am in favor of intellectual honesty.

https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/29/opinion/kohn-affordable-care-act/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

Also, with a few exceptions, no one is really noting that this point isn't quite news. In 2010, the fact that certain insurance plans would not be grandfathered into Obamacare because of their inadequate coverage was widely covered by the press. It was a given, after all that, if standards for health insurance were going to be raised in America -- a good thing -- then some plans that don't meet the bar would no longer be available. One could blame this on the Affordable Care Act, or alternatively, one could blame this on insurance companies for providing such substandard care in the first place.