US Politics Mega-thread - Page 708

On December 12 2013 13:13 jellyjello wrote:


A few minor tweaks to tax brackets? LOL. I'm pretty sure that will stop the government from taking money out of SS.

Sorry to hear that plans offered under the ACA do not represent an improvement over your old policy.
Do recognize, though, that before Obamacare, insurers sometimes found ways not to pay claims when a person got really sick (combing through their medical records to discover some irrelevant pre-existing condition) or to force sick people off insurance by jacking up their premiums so high that they couldn't possibly pay them.
I will never forget sitting in my breast cancer support group 25 years ago as we tried to comfort one of our members who sobbed as she told us how her insurance company jacked her premium up to a higher level than her total income after she submitted claims for her cancer treatment.
We 12 cancer patients were all relatively young--thirties. and early forties--when we got our cancer diagnoses. No smokers. No hard drinkers. Not a one of us was obese. We all thought we were healthy when we suddenly found out we had a scary life-threatening condition requiring extensive and expensive treatment.
This woman and her husband made a middle-class income from the small business they owned, and they had been duly paying the expensive premiums for their individual policy for years. But their insurer effectively deserted them when a health catastrophe hit.
Obamacare fixes that.
So, your Obamacare policy would cost you $100/month more, but it just might be worth it.

WASHINGTON — The number of people selecting health insurance plans in the federal and state marketplaces increased last month at a brisk pace, bringing the overall figure to nearly 365,000, the Obama administration said on Wednesday. The November number was more than double the one for October, but still well below the administration’s goal.

On December 12 2013 12:05 Introvert wrote:


It's easier to bring about "fundamental transformation" when you teach people to hate your country the way it is and the principles it was founded on. It's perfectly logical for the left's intellectual leaders, I'll bet.

On December 12 2013 15:34 IgnE wrote:


What are you even talking about? Fundamental transformation to what? Do you think Obama is leading some kind of socialist plot or something? New flash: there is no conspiracy to change anything. Everything is working mostly as intended. The liberal humanist agenda on the left that you seem to think is such a threat is a priestly cult more worried about gay marriage, abortion rights, and racism than they are about class consciousness and solidarity. They are individualizing and privatizing everything just as you want it to be. Even guilt gets privatized and heaped on as charity is elevated into some kind of sin-negating indulgence. It's ok if you actively participate and condone the system as long as you give back. Maybe work at a private NGO or non-profit. Don't confuse my repudiations with guilt. I just call things what they are. Profanity is profanity.

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) assailed conservative groups Thursday for opposing the latest budget deal, saying they had crossed a line and lost their credibility.

"This budget agreement takes giant steps in the right direction," Boehner said. "But when groups come out and criticize something they've never seen, you begin to wonder just how credible those actions are."

Boehner has been reticent in the past to criticize conservative outside groups, such as Heritage Action and Club for Growth. Some of the groups have had a considerable influence on the tea party faction among House Republicans, and were the rallying force behind the effort to either defund Obamacare or shut down the federal government.

For the first time, Boehner acknowledged that these groups pushed Republicans into an unsuccessful strategy that he didn't favor. He expressed particular outrage that one of the groups later said it knew the shutdown strategy wasn't going to work.

"Are you kidding me?" Boehner shouted.

"Frankly I think they're misleading their followers. I think they're pushing our members in places they don't want to be," he added. "And frankly I just think they've lost all credibility."

On December 12 2013 16:48 Introvert wrote:
Which begs the question- if Obama is so American (in values) then why on earth try to change something "fundamentally?"

On December 13 2013 05:05 TheFish7 wrote:
Looks like the CIA accidentally hooked up the drone controls to the playstation network again...



https://twitter.com/AP/status/411202870529519616

There are some reports that suspected militants may have been traveling with the group.

(Reuters) - Fifteen people on their way to a wedding in Yemen were killed in an air strike after their party was mistaken for an al Qaeda convoy, local security officials said on Thursday.

The officials did not identify the plane in the strike in central al-Bayda province, but tribal and local media sources said that it was a drone.

"An air strike missed its target and hit a wedding car convoy, ten people were killed immediately and another five who were injured died after being admitted to the hospital," one security official said.

Five more people were injured, the officials said.

The United States has stepped up drone strikes as part of a campaign against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), regarded by Washington as the most active wing of the militant network.

Yemen, AQAP's main stronghold, is among a handful of countries where the United States acknowledges using drones, although it does not comment on the practice.

On December 13 2013 03:35 Nyxisto wrote:


I don't get what's so wrong about changing a country fundamentally in the long run(through a reformist approach)?
I think the fact that America was(is?) such a dynamic country and that America lacked that "European conservatism" is what makes America quite special. I think there are few things that are worse today than this "Stick up the ass" traditionalism that is getting popular again over here.

I think to pinpoint Americas success only on the capitalist market is a huge mistake. Americas dynamic nature as a whole and their openness seems way more important. Public healthcare systems and social security are mainly "technical countermeasures" to the rising inequality and have, in my opinion, little to do with the "core American values".

America and its "values" has changed "fundamentally" several times since it's creation. What's wrong with that?

The "fundamental" values the majority held back in 1787 would have many differences from the values in the post-Civil War era and the post-WW2 era and the present day.

Also, conservatives have had trouble dealing with the word "fundamentalism" since it's inception as a religious misnomer; it's probably best to just excuse Introvert's fright. The base must be kept sacred!

On December 13 2013 04:50 farvacola wrote:
Rand Paul and Danglars against it? It must be good stuff then

Also, conservatives have had trouble dealing with the word "fundamentalism" since it's inception as a religious misnomer; it's probably best to just excuse Introvert's fright. The base must be kept sacred!

As many as 135,000 individuals enrolled in federally funded programs for people with pre-existing conditions will be given a few more weeks to find replacement coverage for next year through Obamacare's health insurance exchanges, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Thursday.

The Affordable Care Act established the $5 billion Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP) in 2010 as a bridge to the exchanges, and the program was set to expire at the end of this year. But given the ongoing difficulties in using HealthCare.gov and several state-run health insurance marketplaces, concerns have grown that these sickest beneficiaries could find themselves uninsured next month, which could disrupt their medical care and expose them to extraordinarily high costs.

Under the policy announced Thursday, PCIP beneficiaries in 40 states and the District of Columbia, where the federal government operates the program, would have until the end of January to enroll in new coverage via the health insurance exchanges. Ten states run the program for their residents on behalf of the federal government and would have to sign off on the extension, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

These so-called high-risk pools are supposed to become obsolete because Obamacare prohibits health insurance companies from rejecting anyone on the basis of pre-existing conditions or charging such people higher rates than healthy individuals.

But the troubled rollout of the centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act has jeopardized insurance coverage for as many as several million people, including those whose current policies can't be renewed because they don't meet the law's benefit standards and those enrolled in the PCIP and similar state-run programs, many of which also are shutting down in the coming months.

The $5 billion program was intended as bridge health coverage to sick patients waiting for full implementation of ObamaCare. The administration says about 135,000 Americans have benefited from the insurance coverage.

But the program initially failed to enroll as many people as expected and was plagued by high costs. In February, the Health and Human Services Department stopped accepting new applicants into the program to ensure it would have enough money to cover the people already enrolled.

"Running out of money before the end of the year is something we're trying to avoid," said Gary Cohen, director of the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, in congressional testimony.

On December 13 2013 06:49 Danglars wrote:

The real story about Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan:
source

I gather everybody running interference for Obama is quick to gloss over how few people actually enrolled and how they ran out of money anyways! It's like the party least competent to help insure people with pre-existing conditions are the ones putting it together.

On December 13 2013 05:15 Introvert wrote:



Because I don't think it needs a "fundamental" change? When I say fundamental I am referring to something a little more than just a bad law, or fixing a problem. I mean a degradation of the actual system, like that (liberal) law professor that I posted clips from a page or two back was talking about. I guess I tend to think more long term. 100 years ago it was the income tax, in the 40s it was Social Security, in the 60s it was Medicare, etc.

I didn't pin all of America's success on capitalism. It is a major part of it though.



It has in several areas, good ones at that. Treatment of blacks and women springs to mind. If you have any other examples let me know. But think you are somewhat right, they are changing, and in some cases I'm not happy about it.
Just because it's "changing" doesn't mean it's improving.



I never used the word "fundamentalism." I was originally making a play off of an Obama clip. If it was just a campaign clip, I would not be surprised- but if it was what he actually meant, then I think I have actual reason to be concerned, yes?
Next time figure out what I'm trying to say before latching on to a single word.

I think throughout the thread I've proven that I don't just have a "knee-jerk" reaction, I just think government fails the vast majority of the time when it tries to intervene. And that failure always comes with taking just a little bit more power. Which Obama is doing a fine job of grabbing.

Edit: you prove that it's actually the Left that has a problem with the word "fundamentalism." it's been their new catchphrase for their opponents. I wonder how long until that card fails. Hopefully it doesn't last as long as the racist card has.


Edit again: here is that video I was talking about

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/12/03/liberal-law-prof-obamas-unconstitutional-power-grabs-are-creating-a-very-dangerous-and-unstable-system/

On December 13 2013 08:24 mcc wrote:

I notice that you talk about things getting worse. But when you give examples of what got worse it is all ideological. Do you have anything real that got worse over long stretches of time. There are few things that I can see, but they are relatively minor (they might get worse in the future). In any measurable way it seems things are getting more or less better over time and why should we care about the rest. I am using "measurable" in wider sense as basically anything we can at least somewhat objectively grade, not in precise scientific/engineering sense.

On December 13 2013 07:06 Gorsameth wrote:

Thats a stopgap measure for the ACA. I fail to see how it proves anything.

And even disregarding that and seeing it as a somewhat failed program my question is still "and?"
The ACA is better then what you have right now (which is a pile of shit) so yes i still support it even if it is put together by incompetent people.
If the Republicans came with a different idea then 'nothing' I might support it.