In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
on a separate topic anyone hear about the recent changes to california's voting rules?
California tested two electoral innovations in the recent June primary. First, the state used congressional and state legislative districts drawn by an independent commission rather than the state legislature. Second, it employed an open "top two” primary that allowed voters to cast a ballot for any candidate for each office, regardless of party, with the two candidates receiving the most votes, again regardless of party, advancing to the fall election. This replaced a "semi-closed” system that required registered Democrats and Republicans to vote for candidates of their own party, and only sometimes gave independents the option to vote in partisan races. Only the presidential nomination continues to use this old system, while all other state and federal contests now employ the top two.1
Supporters of reform wanted to enliven California democracy by offering more choices and making officeholders more accountable to voters through competitive elections. Many also hoped these changes would help reduce political gridlock by increasing the number of representatives who either appeal to the center of the political spectrum or take a more problem-solving approach to governing.
It is still too early to evaluate most of these hoped-for effects. Instead, this report offers some preliminary analysis to gauge how successful the reforms have been at changing the electoral process. How competitive were the primary elections, and how engaged were voters? How much money did candidates raise? Did the reforms change the election outcomes from what we might have expected under the previous primary system?2
Any thoughts? I personally think its a good way to slow down the pandering to the extremes in either party but a few more election cycles could prove me wrong.
On November 22 2013 00:42 ticklishmusic wrote: The website has problems because the company that was contracted to build it is incompetent. Whoever hired them should have checked their track record, but so it goes. Obama was also overly optimistic when he promised everyone they could keep their plans, but didn't realize that a lot of people had absolute junk insurance plans.
Also, the state-run exchanges are doing pretty well. Source
I'm fairly confident that after a few months everything will be running smoothly, and since collective memory is short and the Tea Party/ someone else will shoot themselves in the foot that this is far from the end of the world.
You realize that this "talking point" (and I'm being charitable) hasn't held up at all, right?
Time magazine has been trending downward in quality for some time now. :D But seriously, their journalism is the worst sort of tawdry excitism these days, too lukewarm to hold hands with either side of the aisle nor objective journalism but perfectly happy to play the part of slighted print. Just check out some of their Internet articles and you'll see what I mean.
So yes, sir xDaunt, I still want to defend Obamacare. But you already knew that methinks
Regardless of whether Obamacare is good policy, do you think that it would have ever passed had democrats and Obama been honest with people about what it would do? That's the real problem here. People know that they were lied to and they don't really want what was sold to them under false pretenses.
Time magazine has been trending downward in quality for some time now. :D But seriously, their journalism is the worst sort of tawdry excitism these days, too lukewarm to hold hands with either side of the aisle nor objective journalism but perfectly happy to play the part of slighted print. Just check out some of their Internet articles and you'll see what I mean.
So yes, sir xDaunt, I still want to defend Obamacare. But you already knew that methinks
Regardless of whether Obamacare is good policy, do you think that it would have ever passed had democrats and Obama been honest with people about what it would do? That's the real problem here. People know that they were lied to and they don't really want what was sold to them under false pretenses.
Yes because American politics are known for there honesty... give me a break.
Time magazine has been trending downward in quality for some time now. :D But seriously, their journalism is the worst sort of tawdry excitism these days, too lukewarm to hold hands with either side of the aisle nor objective journalism but perfectly happy to play the part of slighted print. Just check out some of their Internet articles and you'll see what I mean.
So yes, sir xDaunt, I still want to defend Obamacare. But you already knew that methinks
Regardless of whether Obamacare is good policy, do you think that it would have ever passed had democrats and Obama been honest with people about what it would do? That's the real problem here. People know that they were lied to and they don't really want what was sold to them under false pretenses.
Yes because American politics are known for there honesty... give me a break.
"Hey everybody. We think that it's a bad idea that so many of you either have no coverage at all or coverage that we think is insufficient. We're going to pass this brand new law that forces everyone to buy health insurance, Oh, and to make it work financially, a whole bunch of you guys are going to lose your current health insurance plans and be forced onto more expensive ones that meet arbitrary standards set by us."
You really think that this pitch would fly?
EDIT: Lest anyone forget, one of main reasons why Hillarycare got torpedoed is because the public caught wind that they'd lose their current health insurance plans. Only a lunatic would think that Obamacare would have passed had Obama not lied to everyone on this point.
On November 21 2013 08:38 CannonsNCarriers wrote:You can't have that freedom and prevent pre-existing condition discrimination. If you allow people to have high deductible, low premium plans, then they will just use high deductible, low premium plans until they get expensively sick, and then use the no-pre-existing-conditions-ban to enroll in a high premium, low deductible plan. For example:
Person X buys catastrophic insurance for 30 years, paying low premiums. Person X gets ass cancer at age 50. Person X pays out the ass for 1 year. Person X uses the no-pre-existing-conditions-ban to buy a gold plan on the exchange at age 51.
This results in Person X being able to skate by, not contributing to the insurance pool for 30 years until he gets ass cancer, and then getting huge payouts on a gold plan at age 51. If you want to get rid of pre-existing condition bans, then you absolutely must require people to buy real insurance.
I wrote specifically in my last two large posts to go over the primary causes of pre-existing conditions and how my proposed reforms address them. Since you only quoted in part, I would suggest a re-read. If you fully gathered how that's accounted for in a freer system, and still are unconvinced, I must assume you take a priori that no system exists besides a heavily socialized one that ends what you would call the discrimination.
If I may be permitted to go all sam!dzat on this and look past the concrete, maybe others also found revolting you can't have that freedom and if you allow people to [buy] high deductible, low premium plans. The spirit of this is that the State only allows freedoms to the masses because it knows best what health plan you want. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting, as Tocqueville might say. Now endowed by their State with certain alienable rights, should they not exercise these rights as the State deems proper ... That to secure these Men, Governments institute amongst them rights.
Excuse me but your solution involves massive market interventions and a substantial taking of freedom away from some parties and granting it to others. Here is your brief statement of your solution:
"I doubt you read my previous posts, but the solution discussed there was allowing individuals to keep their health insurance across employers. Insurance companies can correctly adjust for risks across lengths of time. Getting sick and losing your job is no longer suddenly a pre-existing condition for the next policy ... you're still on the same policy. It's a form of income and should be taxed as such. The market inefficiency must be corrected (and not by adding on more inefficiencies). Decreeing prosperity by mandate is idiotic."
Do you understand that insurance is a two way contract? The insurer has to agree to insure you. Furthermore, it has to actually offer a plan you agree to. For your plan to work, the government would have to force (i.e. take freedom away) insurance companies to continuously offer the same plan they offered you when you started working at 24. This would give you the right (i.e. give freedom to) you so that you can keep that same plan that you happened to choose at 24. What happens if you ever want to switch insurance? Are you going to force the insurance companies to take the switcher? WHat happens when a person has an insurance lapse, they are just left our forever? Your plan would need massive market interventions to work. Your "same insurance for life" plan is just as a dramatic intervention in the marketplace as Obamacare's "minimum requirements" interventions are.
Furthermore, government laws taking freedom from some and giving it to others is absolutely justified and has been done throughout history. You used to have the freedom to own slaves, and have slave laws enforce that contract on the slaves. Then the government took that freedom away, but gave freedom to the slaves. You used to be able to discriminate on race in business dealings, but the government took that freedom away, but gave us all the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of race in our business dealings (i.e. civil rights act). Obamacare takes the freedom to skate by on insufficient insurance (a fairly measly freedom, we are talking about $200 a month here), but gives us all the freedom from discrimination on the basis of previous health conditions when purchasing insurance.
On November 22 2013 00:42 ticklishmusic wrote: The website has problems because the company that was contracted to build it is incompetent. Whoever hired them should have checked their track record, but so it goes. Obama was also overly optimistic when he promised everyone they could keep their plans, but didn't realize that a lot of people had absolute junk insurance plans.
Also, the state-run exchanges are doing pretty well. Source
I'm fairly confident that after a few months everything will be running smoothly, and since collective memory is short and the Tea Party/ someone else will shoot themselves in the foot that this is far from the end of the world.
You realize that this "talking point" (and I'm being charitable) hasn't held up at all, right?
I don't really understand the problem here. Obamacare established minimum standards of care/ catastrophic buffering, which are largely reasonable (I concede you can modify them based on characteristics like age or sex). There are some crap insurance plans out there that don't meet these requirements, and those have to be dumped.
Some people are willing to take super cheap insurance with high deductibles, but that's gambling. Maybe they won't get injured badly and need to pay a huge amount of their pocket, but statistically they will end up in the hospital once or twice because of unforeseen circumstances.
Gambling is bad, and most people lose. Maybe you can pick up the 20K, but most likely you don't. You go bankrupt, and there's a bill out there in the medical system that someone has to pay for, which gets passed on to other people and inflates costs anyways.
On the pre existing conditions fucking you over if you change jobs issue, how exactly is that an issue? If you pay your premiums then get an incurable chronic condition surely that is a liability for your current insurance who were covering you in case that happened, not a future insurer. Even if your policy ended the next day it ought not to chage anything. If I crash my car into a dude and cripple him for life my insurance is paying for his lifetime care, not just for the care until my policy with them expires.
On November 19 2013 06:25 packrat386 wrote: Where is Sam!zdat. I feel like he would have some choice words about the longevity of global capital atm.
i haven't been following the thread
i think right now we are just waiting for the chinese banking sector to collapse...? i mean, i don't know what we are going to do when the next shock comes. more QE?? it's painfully obvious that there's no monetary policy solution to unemployment, but if the Fed throws in the towel then what? we are not going to get any action on the fiscal side of things especially not with a prez with no political capital and a legislature in open revolt... we are back in greenspan put territory with another big asset bubble forming, only this time we are not even recovered from the last crash... idk man I am trying not to think about it, I am thinking about atom bombs and ancient chinese medicine instead
my relaxation reading for what little time and energy I have outside working on my papers is rajan's Fault Lines (pathetic relaxation reading, I know) - it's a good read
i'm afraid it might be game over. i'm thinking about offing my parents and using the inheritance to start a monastery in a nuclear silo to preserve a remnant of civilization through the coming dark ages. you guys are all invited if you want
There are solutions imo. It's still interesting to see people like Larry Summers or Paul Krugman, smart economists certainly, but orthodoxes "neokeynesians" with a rather traditionnal view on capitalism and free market, saying that the solution might be in old theories like "secular stagnation" or in Minsky's work (like Krugman said some years ago) especially if you consider how much Marx's work influenced both secular stagnation theory and Minsky.
Things are changing, for the worst or for the best, who knows, but from an intellectual standpoint it is refreshing.
yes I wish they would all just go back and read their marx... Everyone is tiptoeing around his grave but the man won't stay dead like they want him to. a specter is haunting neoclassical economics.. I am almost done with the lectures on vol2, harvey has some really interesting things to say about Marx's relation to the physiocrats vs the classical economics and the neoclassical - there was a metaphor about the difference between Galen's theory of circulation as production and consumption and William Harvey's discovery of the circulatory system - marx and the physiocrats have a harveyian conception of the circulation of value while the classical and neoclassical economists are stuck in a Galenic productionist paradigm... i dunno if that makes any sense lol
haha "refreshing" is one way to put it, i guess... a crisis is an opportunity but that doesn't make it less stressful
California tested two electoral innovations in the recent June primary. First, the state used congressional and state legislative districts drawn by an independent commission rather than the state legislature. Second, it employed an open "top two” primary that allowed voters to cast a ballot for any candidate for each office, regardless of party, with the two candidates receiving the most votes, again regardless of party, advancing to the fall election. This replaced a "semi-closed” system that required registered Democrats and Republicans to vote for candidates of their own party, and only sometimes gave independents the option to vote in partisan races. Only the presidential nomination continues to use this old system, while all other state and federal contests now employ the top two.1
Supporters of reform wanted to enliven California democracy by offering more choices and making officeholders more accountable to voters through competitive elections. Many also hoped these changes would help reduce political gridlock by increasing the number of representatives who either appeal to the center of the political spectrum or take a more problem-solving approach to governing.
It is still too early to evaluate most of these hoped-for effects. Instead, this report offers some preliminary analysis to gauge how successful the reforms have been at changing the electoral process. How competitive were the primary elections, and how engaged were voters? How much money did candidates raise? Did the reforms change the election outcomes from what we might have expected under the previous primary system?2
Any thoughts? I personally think its a good way to slow down the pandering to the extremes in either party but a few more election cycles could prove me wrong.
The problem with the primary change (for the state) is that it was just, as usual, a power grab by the democrats. With the electorate so heavily liberal they are trying to price out as many republicans as possible. There will be no third party option unless it comes in a form similar to Sarvis in Virginia, who was basically a democrat. We'll see.
As to the filibuster change...I despise politicians. For 6 years during Bush the democrats whined, moaned, and cried about "Rights of the minority!" and "don't change the filibuster!" all while they were blocking Bush appointees. Now that te shoe is on the other foot? Screw the rules! We need to pack the courts before the 2014 elections!
So in a way I guess it's a display of desperation, but still despicable.
Washington (CNN) – The Democratic-controlled Senate on Thursday voted to invoke the so-called nuclear option out of frustration over Republicans who have been blocking President Barack Obama's nominees.
The controversial move is a rules change that could make a partisan environment even more divisive because it takes away a sacrosanct right for any party in the Senate minority–the right to filibuster.
Explainer: What's the nuclear option?
Under the old rules it took 60 votes to break a filibuster. The change now allows most filibusters of Obama nominees to be stopped with 51 votes–a simple Senate majority.
The rules change only applies to executive and judicial nominees, not Supreme Court nominees.
Typically 67 votes are required to change Senate rules, but under the nuclear option, Democrats - who control the chamber with a 55-45 majority - changed those rules with a simple majority vote.
I'm suddenly a little unsure of exactly why people are so enthusiastic about this president. These changes he's propagating now seem a little dangerous.
Washington (CNN) – The Democratic-controlled Senate on Thursday voted to invoke the so-called nuclear option out of frustration over Republicans who have been blocking President Barack Obama's nominees.
The controversial move is a rules change that could make a partisan environment even more divisive because it takes away a sacrosanct right for any party in the Senate minority–the right to filibuster.
Explainer: What's the nuclear option?
Under the old rules it took 60 votes to break a filibuster. The change now allows most filibusters of Obama nominees to be stopped with 51 votes–a simple Senate majority.
The rules change only applies to executive and judicial nominees, not Supreme Court nominees.
Typically 67 votes are required to change Senate rules, but under the nuclear option, Democrats - who control the chamber with a 55-45 majority - changed those rules with a simple majority vote.
I'm suddenly a little unsure of exactly why people are so enthusiastic about this president. These changes he's propagating now seem a little dangerous.
I dont blame the President for changing retarded rules that should never have existed in the first place. Aka Fillibusters. And yes the ability to change important rules with a simple majority vote is just as retarded.
Washington (CNN) – The Democratic-controlled Senate on Thursday voted to invoke the so-called nuclear option out of frustration over Republicans who have been blocking President Barack Obama's nominees.
The controversial move is a rules change that could make a partisan environment even more divisive because it takes away a sacrosanct right for any party in the Senate minority–the right to filibuster.
Explainer: What's the nuclear option?
Under the old rules it took 60 votes to break a filibuster. The change now allows most filibusters of Obama nominees to be stopped with 51 votes–a simple Senate majority.
The rules change only applies to executive and judicial nominees, not Supreme Court nominees.
Typically 67 votes are required to change Senate rules, but under the nuclear option, Democrats - who control the chamber with a 55-45 majority - changed those rules with a simple majority vote.
I'm suddenly a little unsure of exactly why people are so enthusiastic about this president. These changes he's propagating now seem a little dangerous.
Edit: I know the president didn't do this per se, but you think Reid would have done it if Obama objected? To be clear, I'm not for the changing the Filibuster at all. Not with R's in power, nor with D's.
Because they like them. On their view (generally speaking, exceptions apply): A) people are too stupid to know what's good for them
B) that government can "do it better"
C) The ends justify the means.
Now, they may not admit to the last one, but that is the way they operate and what they advocate. You'll see some of them in here soon enough defending this maneuver, the same one they would have (and did) denounce 10 years ago. And if this happens under a Republican senate, they'll go back to whining about it again.
On November 22 2013 00:42 ticklishmusic wrote: The website has problems because the company that was contracted to build it is incompetent. Whoever hired them should have checked their track record, but so it goes. Obama was also overly optimistic when he promised everyone they could keep their plans, but didn't realize that a lot of people had absolute junk insurance plans.
Also, the state-run exchanges are doing pretty well. Source
I'm fairly confident that after a few months everything will be running smoothly, and since collective memory is short and the Tea Party/ someone else will shoot themselves in the foot that this is far from the end of the world.
You realize that this "talking point" (and I'm being charitable) hasn't held up at all, right?
I don't really understand the problem here. Obamacare established minimum standards of care/ catastrophic buffering, which are largely reasonable (I concede you can modify them based on characteristics like age or sex). There are some crap insurance plans out there that don't meet these requirements, and those have to be dumped.
Some people are willing to take super cheap insurance with high deductibles, but that's gambling. Maybe they won't get injured badly and need to pay a huge amount of their pocket, but statistically they will end up in the hospital once or twice because of unforeseen circumstances.
Gambling is bad, and most people lose. Maybe you can pick up the 20K, but most likely you don't. You go bankrupt, and there's a bill out there in the medical system that someone has to pay for, which gets passed on to other people and inflates costs anyways.
You're not thinking about this right at all. You have to put yourself in the shoes of Joe Blow. He doesn't give a shit that he now has better coverage that he may never use. What he cares about is the fact that the economy sucks, money is still tight, and now he has to spend anywhere from $1,000 - $5,000 per year more (and sometimes even significantly more depending upon his and his family's circumstances) on a product that he doesn't really want and can't really afford. Setting aside concerns of national policy, this is the ground level reality of Obamacare. This is why people hate it.
On November 22 2013 00:42 ticklishmusic wrote: The website has problems because the company that was contracted to build it is incompetent. Whoever hired them should have checked their track record, but so it goes. Obama was also overly optimistic when he promised everyone they could keep their plans, but didn't realize that a lot of people had absolute junk insurance plans.
Also, the state-run exchanges are doing pretty well. Source
I'm fairly confident that after a few months everything will be running smoothly, and since collective memory is short and the Tea Party/ someone else will shoot themselves in the foot that this is far from the end of the world.
You realize that this "talking point" (and I'm being charitable) hasn't held up at all, right?
I don't really understand the problem here. Obamacare established minimum standards of care/ catastrophic buffering, which are largely reasonable (I concede you can modify them based on characteristics like age or sex). There are some crap insurance plans out there that don't meet these requirements, and those have to be dumped.
Some people are willing to take super cheap insurance with high deductibles, but that's gambling. Maybe they won't get injured badly and need to pay a huge amount of their pocket, but statistically they will end up in the hospital once or twice because of unforeseen circumstances.
Gambling is bad, and most people lose. Maybe you can pick up the 20K, but most likely you don't. You go bankrupt, and there's a bill out there in the medical system that someone has to pay for, which gets passed on to other people and inflates costs anyways.
You're not thinking about this right at all. You have to put yourself in the shoes of Joe Blow. He doesn't give a shit that he now has better coverage that he may never use. What he cares about is the fact that the economy sucks, money is still tight, and now he has to spend anywhere from $1,000 - $5,000 per year more (and sometimes even significantly more depending upon his and his family's circumstances) on a product that he doesn't really want and can't really afford. Setting aside concerns of national policy, this is the ground level reality of Obamacare. This is why people hate it.
Except hes not paying that much since there are subsidies for those who cant afford it. And you dont get a form of universal healthcare without everyone paying. Joe Blow has to suck it for the greater good.
On November 22 2013 00:42 ticklishmusic wrote: The website has problems because the company that was contracted to build it is incompetent. Whoever hired them should have checked their track record, but so it goes. Obama was also overly optimistic when he promised everyone they could keep their plans, but didn't realize that a lot of people had absolute junk insurance plans.
Also, the state-run exchanges are doing pretty well. Source
I'm fairly confident that after a few months everything will be running smoothly, and since collective memory is short and the Tea Party/ someone else will shoot themselves in the foot that this is far from the end of the world.
You realize that this "talking point" (and I'm being charitable) hasn't held up at all, right?
I don't really understand the problem here. Obamacare established minimum standards of care/ catastrophic buffering, which are largely reasonable (I concede you can modify them based on characteristics like age or sex). There are some crap insurance plans out there that don't meet these requirements, and those have to be dumped.
Some people are willing to take super cheap insurance with high deductibles, but that's gambling. Maybe they won't get injured badly and need to pay a huge amount of their pocket, but statistically they will end up in the hospital once or twice because of unforeseen circumstances.
Gambling is bad, and most people lose. Maybe you can pick up the 20K, but most likely you don't. You go bankrupt, and there's a bill out there in the medical system that someone has to pay for, which gets passed on to other people and inflates costs anyways.
You're not thinking about this right at all. You have to put yourself in the shoes of Joe Blow. He doesn't give a shit that he now has better coverage that he may never use. What he cares about is the fact that the economy sucks, money is still tight, and now he has to spend anywhere from $1,000 - $5,000 per year more (and sometimes even significantly more depending upon his and his family's circumstances) on a product that he doesn't really want and can't really afford. Setting aside concerns of national policy, this is the ground level reality of Obamacare. This is why people hate it.
Except hes not paying that much since there are subsidies for those who cant afford it. And you dont get a form of universal healthcare without everyone paying. Joe Blow has to suck it for the greater good.
On November 22 2013 00:42 ticklishmusic wrote: The website has problems because the company that was contracted to build it is incompetent. Whoever hired them should have checked their track record, but so it goes. Obama was also overly optimistic when he promised everyone they could keep their plans, but didn't realize that a lot of people had absolute junk insurance plans.
Also, the state-run exchanges are doing pretty well. Source
I'm fairly confident that after a few months everything will be running smoothly, and since collective memory is short and the Tea Party/ someone else will shoot themselves in the foot that this is far from the end of the world.
You realize that this "talking point" (and I'm being charitable) hasn't held up at all, right?
I don't really understand the problem here. Obamacare established minimum standards of care/ catastrophic buffering, which are largely reasonable (I concede you can modify them based on characteristics like age or sex). There are some crap insurance plans out there that don't meet these requirements, and those have to be dumped.
Some people are willing to take super cheap insurance with high deductibles, but that's gambling. Maybe they won't get injured badly and need to pay a huge amount of their pocket, but statistically they will end up in the hospital once or twice because of unforeseen circumstances.
Gambling is bad, and most people lose. Maybe you can pick up the 20K, but most likely you don't. You go bankrupt, and there's a bill out there in the medical system that someone has to pay for, which gets passed on to other people and inflates costs anyways.
You're not thinking about this right at all. You have to put yourself in the shoes of Joe Blow. He doesn't give a shit that he now has better coverage that he may never use. What he cares about is the fact that the economy sucks, money is still tight, and now he has to spend anywhere from $1,000 - $5,000 per year more (and sometimes even significantly more depending upon his and his family's circumstances) on a product that he doesn't really want and can't really afford. Setting aside concerns of national policy, this is the ground level reality of Obamacare. This is why people hate it.
Except hes not paying that much since there are subsidies for those who cant afford it. And you dont get a form of universal healthcare without everyone paying. Joe Blow has to suck it for the greater good.
I hate to break it to you, but the subsidies aren't that great. Neither are the coverages for what Joe Blow is paying.
On November 22 2013 00:42 ticklishmusic wrote: The website has problems because the company that was contracted to build it is incompetent. Whoever hired them should have checked their track record, but so it goes. Obama was also overly optimistic when he promised everyone they could keep their plans, but didn't realize that a lot of people had absolute junk insurance plans.
Also, the state-run exchanges are doing pretty well. Source
I'm fairly confident that after a few months everything will be running smoothly, and since collective memory is short and the Tea Party/ someone else will shoot themselves in the foot that this is far from the end of the world.
You realize that this "talking point" (and I'm being charitable) hasn't held up at all, right?
I don't really understand the problem here. Obamacare established minimum standards of care/ catastrophic buffering, which are largely reasonable (I concede you can modify them based on characteristics like age or sex). There are some crap insurance plans out there that don't meet these requirements, and those have to be dumped.
Some people are willing to take super cheap insurance with high deductibles, but that's gambling. Maybe they won't get injured badly and need to pay a huge amount of their pocket, but statistically they will end up in the hospital once or twice because of unforeseen circumstances.
Gambling is bad, and most people lose. Maybe you can pick up the 20K, but most likely you don't. You go bankrupt, and there's a bill out there in the medical system that someone has to pay for, which gets passed on to other people and inflates costs anyways.
You're not thinking about this right at all. You have to put yourself in the shoes of Joe Blow. He doesn't give a shit that he now has better coverage that he may never use. What he cares about is the fact that the economy sucks, money is still tight, and now he has to spend anywhere from $1,000 - $5,000 per year more (and sometimes even significantly more depending upon his and his family's circumstances) on a product that he doesn't really want and can't really afford. Setting aside concerns of national policy, this is the ground level reality of Obamacare. This is why people hate it.
Except hes not paying that much since there are subsidies for those who cant afford it. And you dont get a form of universal healthcare without everyone paying. Joe Blow has to suck it for the greater good.
See, that's not American. That's European.
Bingo.
Last I checked, telling Joe Blow it to "suck it for the greater good" isn't a great campaign slogan.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2013/1311/360_cover_1202.jpg)
Everyone is tiptoeing around his grave but the man won't stay dead like they want him to. a specter is haunting neoclassical economics.. I am almost done with the lectures on vol2, harvey has some really interesting things to say about Marx's relation to the physiocrats vs the classical economics and the neoclassical - there was a metaphor about the difference between Galen's theory of circulation as production and consumption and William Harvey's discovery of the circulatory system - marx and the physiocrats have a harveyian conception of the circulation of value while the classical and neoclassical economists are stuck in a Galenic productionist paradigm... i dunno if that makes any sense lol
