US Politics Mega-thread - Page 859

On February 07 2014 18:41 Danglars wrote:
**That comes as small comfort when the available alternatives are more expensive. Oh, and you don't qualify for the subsidies that would make others have it for less. I wonder why Obama advertised long and hard for keeping your health plan if you like it? He's no rube, he saw he needed to fight the boogeyman that new government-approved health insurance would be the only stuff around. It happened, and guys are left with nothing but empty words--new health plans that are "probabably" better!

An administration not passing job-killing legislation and regulation might have a better case for natural trends. This one has made a recession into some permanent "new normal" job participation and employment. Not that the recession had some magical coincidence with a sudden change in jobs moving overseas.

On February 07 2014 18:09 Danglars wrote:
If we're talking about representative government, that's a frightening assumption that the populace will not care that much who their representatives are and what they're doing. I'm remembering one of the only exciting parts of the 2012 runup, which was Clint Eastwood's speech at convention. We own this country. Politicians are employees of ours. And, so, they're just going to come around and beg for votes every few years. And when somebody does not do the job, we got to let 'em go.

It's hard to blame the Democrats for seizing power for themselves in the federal government. Citizens like being told Washington is hard at work spreading the compassion we've outsourced to them. Who cares how we're going to pay for it all, how fast it's expanding ... you might get a subsidy and you deserve it! They're that shining army of social justice, and if they say they're going to fix problems, they mean it! Hope, change, and a chicken dinner.

With low participation, it is only those extremely visible circumstances, like widespread unemployment and millions losing their health insurance, that starts a small surge in activity. You might even say when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism ... that's when citizens get back interested in what government's doing.

On February 07 2014 18:41 Danglars wrote:
**That comes as small comfort when the available alternatives are more expensive. Oh, and you don't qualify for the subsidies that would make others have it for less. I wonder why Obama advertised long and hard for keeping your health plan if you like it? He's no rube, he saw he needed to fight the boogeyman that new government-approved health insurance would be the only stuff around. It happened, and guys are left with nothing but empty words--new health plans that are "probabably" better!

An administration not passing job-killing legislation and regulation might have a better case for natural trends. This one has made a recession into some permanent "new normal" job participation and employment. Not that the recession had some magical coincidence with a sudden change in jobs moving overseas.

On February 07 2014 18:50 Sub40APM wrote:

according to the CBO the jobs that people will choose not to engage in are mostly on the low economic scale so the difference in terms of economic impact is minimal. I know as a conservative youd like to see the poor as brutalized as possible so they finally bootstrap themselves into the upper middle class but the impact of free trade with countries where annual income is 1/10th of the American worker and automation from new software probably killed many more jobs than Obamacare.

On February 07 2014 19:03 Doublemint wrote:


That's a very scary, totalitarian concept called "solidarity". And the new plans should be more expensive if they cover more ~ That's what minimal requirements will do. Time will tell if people like it or not - you know, once it actually kicks into gear.

A bit more pragmatism and less fatalism when talking about politics should be rather helpful. And might be good for your heart too which can save you additional health care costs!

On February 07 2014 19:20 Danglars wrote:
The demagoguery is humorous. The left would see the poor stay poor, particularly if the rich simultaneously become less rich. Then you have a political constituency AND reduced inequality. It's win-win.

I don't know ... that website had 3 years to kick into gear and at deployment ... well those three years of preparation did not pay off. Maybe in 2020 we'll see how great Obamacare was.

Let's just raise minimum requirements to include three square meals for kids and eliminate malnutrition, raise minimum requirements to two-story 3-bedroom homes and give everybody great housing! You already have your answer: people don't like the added costs of the new "essential benefits" and mandatory 50% AV. They liked health plans that made sense for their budget and needs. Denying choice in the name of compassion truly is the legacy of leftist policies.

On February 07 2014 22:34 sc2holar wrote:
When the masses look the other way and lets the US government run rampart across the globe, Monsters like Henry Kissinger stage hundreds of bombings of innocent civilians in third world countrys (Cambodia) and installs terror regimes such as the one led by PinoC. in Chile. The American people needs to be more vocal and more involved, not the opposite.

On February 07 2014 19:20 Danglars wrote:
I don't know ... that website had 3 years to kick into gear and at deployment ... well those three years of preparation did not pay off. Maybe in 2020 we'll see how great Obamacare was.

On February 07 2014 19:20 Danglars wrote:
Let's just raise minimum requirements to include three square meals for kids and eliminate malnutrition, raise minimum requirements to two-story 3-bedroom homes and give everybody great housing!

You already have your answer: people don't like the added costs of the new "essential benefits" and mandatory 50% AV. They liked health plans that made sense for their budget and needs. Denying choice in the name of compassion truly is the legacy of leftist policies.

Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, along with other top congressional GOPers, have urged a federal court to block Obamacare subsidies for people who signed up for coverage through HealthCare.gov.

The group of eight -- which includes Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn, Sens. Orrin Hatch (UT), Mike Lee (UT) and Rob Portman (OH) along with Reps. Dave Camp (MI) and Darrell Issa (CA) -- filed an amicus brief Thursday on behalf of businesses and individuals who sued to stop the subsidies from flowing through the federal website, the Washington Times reported.

The case, being heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit next month, centers on whether people can receive tax subsidies through the federal website, HealthCare.gov. More than 30 states rely on HealthCare.gov, while 14 plus Washington, D.C., set up their own websites.

The plaintiffs argue that the Affordable Care Act, if held to its exact wording, allows the federal government to provide subsidies to people only if they sign up through a state-run website. The Obama administration says that Congress clearly intended for people to receive subsidies no matter whether they enrolled through a federal or state website.

Cruz and company side with the plaintiffs.

On February 08 2014 01:34 Nyxisto wrote:

Yes, because every political policy by "the left" is obviously going to be a slippery slope into communism. You sound like some fox news anchor.

Do I need to remember you that 50 million people in the US don't have any health coverage at all? This isn't a middle class problem. Someone working two jobs with three kids needs insurance immediately, and not 5 options of which they can't afford one anyway.

17-18% of the American population don't have health insurance, aren't you aware how ridiculous that fact is for a first - world country?

On February 08 2014 05:09 Danglars wrote:
Stop trying to change the subject. When Seb40 says, "getting a new, most probably better healthcare plan under the ACA," do you even bat an eye? Or when Doublemint says, "And the new plans should be more expensive if they cover more ~ That's what minimal requirements will do." We made the previous one illegal, but don't worry, government experts know best what you want! Take off the horse blinders and read what I responded to again.

It's just that sticky situation where saying everything is better and great runs into real people that remember what health insurance was before. Obamacare's great as long as you refer to it as a set of well-intentioned ideas, and not a law in the context of the people it affects.

I like it when we get back to those millions uninsured. Those people wrecked by current bad government regulation, that would have insurance if government allowed sales across state lines, if they allowed people to have continuation of coverage across different employers. Young people on budgets with better stuff to buy, what the Democrats paint as "young invincibles," doing what's right for them and their families ... now doing so and reaping tax-penalties. Thank you government. You even lump the rich or upper middle class in that group. They sometimes pay for their own healthcare out of pocket, and saying they are hurt by living life uninsured is hilarious. Get at the real roots of the problem before getting behind solutions that exacerbate the problem and create worse ones along the way.

On February 08 2014 05:48 Nyxisto wrote:

I don't live in the US so I don't have any day to day experience on how Obama-care is working in practice, so I can't comment on that. But I doubt that it's the horror conservatives are claiming it is, as it has barely even started. So I think we all need to wait a bit and see on how it's working out.

But I can't here this deregulation stuff anymore. Where exactly is this working(besides Singapore?) Forcing healthy young people to buy insurance is the way to go. That's the whole principle of an insurance. The ones that don't use it pay for the people who do. If only sick people buy insurance the prices will stay high forever.

I for example, pay 150 bucks and am fully covered. I think my insurance even pays for homeopathy, which doesn't even do anything. And our healthcare and insurance sector still makes profit, and we don't have a debt problem and our country is still functioning. So please imagine you are me and try to convince me why the exact opposite of our system is the way to go.

On February 08 2014 05:51 KwarK wrote:

Forcing people who don't need insurance to get insurance is not how insurance works. The point of insurance is you pay a little more than your statistical liability to be covered in the event of the unlikely accident. Forcing people with low statistical liability to pay more than they are likely to cost in order to allow people with high statistical liability to pay less is simply redistribution.