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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.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. |
Lol taking out the individual mandate as the only change to Obamacare is about as dumb as it gets. But I guess this is what Republicans want.
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On December 16 2017 11:44 biology]major wrote:
holiday spending check
trump economic optimism check
tax cut check
low interest rates check
my prediction: economy about to go into hyperdrive (for who knows how long) before having a spectacular collapse
At least Republicans know how to help out the S&P 500. I can't say I haven't benefited.
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On December 16 2017 12:04 Doodsmack wrote:
Lol taking out the individual mandate as the only change to Obamacare is about as dumb as it gets. But I guess this is what Republicans want.
I thought it would be catastrophic at first too, but it appears that the mandate was too weak to be effective anyway. A lot of the people it should affect would have already been exempt.
With Congress seemingly on the brink of repealing the Affordable Care Act’s centerpiece requirement that most people get insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats are warning such a move would be disastrous, and Republicans are anticipating a sweeping symbolic victory.
Senate Republicans included a measure to repeal the mandate in their recently passed tax overhaul; the House didn’t, leaving GOP leaders to hammer out a final agreement for the compromise bill they hope to pass by year’s end. President Donald Trump on Friday night threw his weight behind the push to strike the mandate, promising a crowd in Pensacola, Fla., that it would soon be gone.
“We’re getting rid of the individual mandate,” Mr. Trump said. “That individual mandate where you pay a lot of money for the privilege of not having to have insurance or health care. So you pay for the privilege of not getting taken care of. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? And we’re going to repeal it.”
But some experts say the impact of undoing the so-called individual mandate might not be as devastating to the ACA as was thought a few years ago. Rising premiums mean more people are exempt from the insurance requirement, and exceptions or exemptions granted during the Obama administration have also reduced the number of people obligated to get coverage.
Others say the penalty was never big enough to persuade a critical mass of people to buy insurance, so repealing it might not cripple the individual health-insurance market.
ADVERTISEMENT
Related
Hospital Giants in Talks to Merge
“It will still be really healthy,” said Avik Roy, a health-policy expert who advised Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) during his presidential campaign. “It’s a weak mandate that has all sorts of loopholes.”
Not everyone is persuaded. Many Democrats say repealing the mandate would shred the ACA as younger, healthier people decline to get coverage, raising costs for older and sicker individuals. That, they warn, would plunge the individual insurance market into a fresh round of premium spikes and insurer withdrawals.
“Any Republican who backs this tax plan is backing a health-care repeal,” said Brad Woodhouse, director of the Protect Our Care campaign, which backs the ACA. “If they insist on repealing health care to pay for tax breaks for the well-to-do, and then using it as a precursor to ravage American health care even further, they can expect to be held accountable.”
The landscape was different as recently as 2012. During a Supreme Court battle over the constitutionality of the insurance requirement that year, liberals and conservatives agreed it was essential to the working of the ACA.
But now, more experts are concluding that rising premiums next year would exempt many more people from the mandate. The exemption applies if the least-expensive health insurance available costs more than 8.13% of an individual’s income.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a think tank whose research typically supports liberal assessments of the ACA, found in a recent study that in the 15 most-expensive states, premiums would exceed the affordability threshold for a person with an income of $50,000.
Doug Badger, a conservative health-policy analyst, wrote recently, “Premiums for Obamacare policies next year will be so high that millions will be exempt from the tax penalty whether Congress repeals it or not.”
Republicans say health-insurance markets have struggled for years under the ACA because not enough healthy people signed up for coverage even with the mandate. As a result, they say, the ACA already suffers from the problems liberals are warning about.
“That was the theory. The challenge was human behavior decided otherwise,” Alex Azar, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, said at a congressional hearing in late November. He continued, “Twenty-eight million people are not in that pool, and it eroded the risk pool.”
The Congressional Budget Office has projected that about 29 million Americans are uninsured. Of them, about 6.7 million people paid a penalty for not having coverage of $695 in 2016, or 2.5% of their income.
The rest are exempt from the requirement or the penalty because either their incomes are below the threshold at which they must obtain coverage, they are ineligible because of their immigration status, or insurance would cost them more than the proportion of their income specified by law.
Democrats, however, cite a CBO analysis that shows the mandate has influenced millions of people to obtain health insurance, either buying it privately or enrolling for no-premium coverage through Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income Americans.
Without the incentive of the mandate, the CBO has said, 13 million fewer people will have insurance by 2027. But the CBO has faced criticism for its assumptions and has said it would review its methodology.
Democrats say it is clear the mandate is crucial to the smooth functioning of the ACA. “Making the risk pool stable is a vital part” of keeping individual insurance premiums in line with the overall cost to cover a person insured through a larger group or employer, said Andy Slavitt, a top health official in the Obama administration. “Eliminate the individual mandate and that will no longer be the case, particularly in smaller states and rural areas.”
Source
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One of the lawyers for the Bush administration. It appear they might have accepted a bunch of Russians oligarch money.
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On December 16 2017 12:00 TheYango wrote: "In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or “evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered." What the actual fuck? It's not entirely clear to me what this is even supposed to accomplish other than being a pain in the ass for whoever gets to write these documents. Good luck getting the phrase "evidence-based medicine" out of modern clinical research.
Its political correctness for science.
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On December 16 2017 12:16 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2017 12:04 Doodsmack wrote:
Lol taking out the individual mandate as the only change to Obamacare is about as dumb as it gets. But I guess this is what Republicans want. I thought it would be catastrophic at first too, but it appears that the mandate was too weak to be effective anyway. A lot of the people it should affect would have already been exempt. Show nested quote +With Congress seemingly on the brink of repealing the Affordable Care Act’s centerpiece requirement that most people get insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats are warning such a move would be disastrous, and Republicans are anticipating a sweeping symbolic victory.
Senate Republicans included a measure to repeal the mandate in their recently passed tax overhaul; the House didn’t, leaving GOP leaders to hammer out a final agreement for the compromise bill they hope to pass by year’s end. President Donald Trump on Friday night threw his weight behind the push to strike the mandate, promising a crowd in Pensacola, Fla., that it would soon be gone.
“We’re getting rid of the individual mandate,” Mr. Trump said. “That individual mandate where you pay a lot of money for the privilege of not having to have insurance or health care. So you pay for the privilege of not getting taken care of. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? And we’re going to repeal it.”
But some experts say the impact of undoing the so-called individual mandate might not be as devastating to the ACA as was thought a few years ago. Rising premiums mean more people are exempt from the insurance requirement, and exceptions or exemptions granted during the Obama administration have also reduced the number of people obligated to get coverage.
Others say the penalty was never big enough to persuade a critical mass of people to buy insurance, so repealing it might not cripple the individual health-insurance market.
ADVERTISEMENT
Related
Hospital Giants in Talks to Merge
“It will still be really healthy,” said Avik Roy, a health-policy expert who advised Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) during his presidential campaign. “It’s a weak mandate that has all sorts of loopholes.”
Not everyone is persuaded. Many Democrats say repealing the mandate would shred the ACA as younger, healthier people decline to get coverage, raising costs for older and sicker individuals. That, they warn, would plunge the individual insurance market into a fresh round of premium spikes and insurer withdrawals.
“Any Republican who backs this tax plan is backing a health-care repeal,” said Brad Woodhouse, director of the Protect Our Care campaign, which backs the ACA. “If they insist on repealing health care to pay for tax breaks for the well-to-do, and then using it as a precursor to ravage American health care even further, they can expect to be held accountable.”
The landscape was different as recently as 2012. During a Supreme Court battle over the constitutionality of the insurance requirement that year, liberals and conservatives agreed it was essential to the working of the ACA.
But now, more experts are concluding that rising premiums next year would exempt many more people from the mandate. The exemption applies if the least-expensive health insurance available costs more than 8.13% of an individual’s income.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a think tank whose research typically supports liberal assessments of the ACA, found in a recent study that in the 15 most-expensive states, premiums would exceed the affordability threshold for a person with an income of $50,000.
Doug Badger, a conservative health-policy analyst, wrote recently, “Premiums for Obamacare policies next year will be so high that millions will be exempt from the tax penalty whether Congress repeals it or not.”
Republicans say health-insurance markets have struggled for years under the ACA because not enough healthy people signed up for coverage even with the mandate. As a result, they say, the ACA already suffers from the problems liberals are warning about.
“That was the theory. The challenge was human behavior decided otherwise,” Alex Azar, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, said at a congressional hearing in late November. He continued, “Twenty-eight million people are not in that pool, and it eroded the risk pool.”
The Congressional Budget Office has projected that about 29 million Americans are uninsured. Of them, about 6.7 million people paid a penalty for not having coverage of $695 in 2016, or 2.5% of their income.
The rest are exempt from the requirement or the penalty because either their incomes are below the threshold at which they must obtain coverage, they are ineligible because of their immigration status, or insurance would cost them more than the proportion of their income specified by law.
Democrats, however, cite a CBO analysis that shows the mandate has influenced millions of people to obtain health insurance, either buying it privately or enrolling for no-premium coverage through Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income Americans.
Without the incentive of the mandate, the CBO has said, 13 million fewer people will have insurance by 2027. But the CBO has faced criticism for its assumptions and has said it would review its methodology.
Democrats say it is clear the mandate is crucial to the smooth functioning of the ACA. “Making the risk pool stable is a vital part” of keeping individual insurance premiums in line with the overall cost to cover a person insured through a larger group or employer, said Andy Slavitt, a top health official in the Obama administration. “Eliminate the individual mandate and that will no longer be the case, particularly in smaller states and rural areas.” Source
Question is how many people who bought insurance would not have done so if there were no mandate. We're still talking millions and millions and millions who are not exempt from the mandate.
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On December 16 2017 13:12 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2017 12:16 mozoku wrote:On December 16 2017 12:04 Doodsmack wrote:
Lol taking out the individual mandate as the only change to Obamacare is about as dumb as it gets. But I guess this is what Republicans want. I thought it would be catastrophic at first too, but it appears that the mandate was too weak to be effective anyway. A lot of the people it should affect would have already been exempt. With Congress seemingly on the brink of repealing the Affordable Care Act’s centerpiece requirement that most people get insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats are warning such a move would be disastrous, and Republicans are anticipating a sweeping symbolic victory.
Senate Republicans included a measure to repeal the mandate in their recently passed tax overhaul; the House didn’t, leaving GOP leaders to hammer out a final agreement for the compromise bill they hope to pass by year’s end. President Donald Trump on Friday night threw his weight behind the push to strike the mandate, promising a crowd in Pensacola, Fla., that it would soon be gone.
“We’re getting rid of the individual mandate,” Mr. Trump said. “That individual mandate where you pay a lot of money for the privilege of not having to have insurance or health care. So you pay for the privilege of not getting taken care of. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? And we’re going to repeal it.”
But some experts say the impact of undoing the so-called individual mandate might not be as devastating to the ACA as was thought a few years ago. Rising premiums mean more people are exempt from the insurance requirement, and exceptions or exemptions granted during the Obama administration have also reduced the number of people obligated to get coverage.
Others say the penalty was never big enough to persuade a critical mass of people to buy insurance, so repealing it might not cripple the individual health-insurance market.
ADVERTISEMENT
Related
Hospital Giants in Talks to Merge
“It will still be really healthy,” said Avik Roy, a health-policy expert who advised Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) during his presidential campaign. “It’s a weak mandate that has all sorts of loopholes.”
Not everyone is persuaded. Many Democrats say repealing the mandate would shred the ACA as younger, healthier people decline to get coverage, raising costs for older and sicker individuals. That, they warn, would plunge the individual insurance market into a fresh round of premium spikes and insurer withdrawals.
“Any Republican who backs this tax plan is backing a health-care repeal,” said Brad Woodhouse, director of the Protect Our Care campaign, which backs the ACA. “If they insist on repealing health care to pay for tax breaks for the well-to-do, and then using it as a precursor to ravage American health care even further, they can expect to be held accountable.”
The landscape was different as recently as 2012. During a Supreme Court battle over the constitutionality of the insurance requirement that year, liberals and conservatives agreed it was essential to the working of the ACA.
But now, more experts are concluding that rising premiums next year would exempt many more people from the mandate. The exemption applies if the least-expensive health insurance available costs more than 8.13% of an individual’s income.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a think tank whose research typically supports liberal assessments of the ACA, found in a recent study that in the 15 most-expensive states, premiums would exceed the affordability threshold for a person with an income of $50,000.
Doug Badger, a conservative health-policy analyst, wrote recently, “Premiums for Obamacare policies next year will be so high that millions will be exempt from the tax penalty whether Congress repeals it or not.”
Republicans say health-insurance markets have struggled for years under the ACA because not enough healthy people signed up for coverage even with the mandate. As a result, they say, the ACA already suffers from the problems liberals are warning about.
“That was the theory. The challenge was human behavior decided otherwise,” Alex Azar, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, said at a congressional hearing in late November. He continued, “Twenty-eight million people are not in that pool, and it eroded the risk pool.”
The Congressional Budget Office has projected that about 29 million Americans are uninsured. Of them, about 6.7 million people paid a penalty for not having coverage of $695 in 2016, or 2.5% of their income.
The rest are exempt from the requirement or the penalty because either their incomes are below the threshold at which they must obtain coverage, they are ineligible because of their immigration status, or insurance would cost them more than the proportion of their income specified by law.
Democrats, however, cite a CBO analysis that shows the mandate has influenced millions of people to obtain health insurance, either buying it privately or enrolling for no-premium coverage through Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income Americans.
Without the incentive of the mandate, the CBO has said, 13 million fewer people will have insurance by 2027. But the CBO has faced criticism for its assumptions and has said it would review its methodology.
Democrats say it is clear the mandate is crucial to the smooth functioning of the ACA. “Making the risk pool stable is a vital part” of keeping individual insurance premiums in line with the overall cost to cover a person insured through a larger group or employer, said Andy Slavitt, a top health official in the Obama administration. “Eliminate the individual mandate and that will no longer be the case, particularly in smaller states and rural areas.” Source Question is how many people who bought insurance would not have done so if there were no mandate. We're still talking millions and millions and millions who are not exempt from the mandate.
You're missing the point. Most people who make $50k+ choose to purchase insurance through their employer anyway.
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Apparently my yearly taxes would go down $18 with the GOP bill.
Well, MAGA I guess.
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On December 16 2017 16:16 Mohdoo wrote:
Apparently my yearly taxes would go down $18 with the GOP bill.
Well, MAGA I guess.
In the mean time, how much are Trump's taxes going down, one wonders...
A lot of members of Congress are saving a lot from this bill, too.
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On December 16 2017 13:38 mozoku wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2017 13:12 Doodsmack wrote:On December 16 2017 12:16 mozoku wrote:On December 16 2017 12:04 Doodsmack wrote:
Lol taking out the individual mandate as the only change to Obamacare is about as dumb as it gets. But I guess this is what Republicans want. I thought it would be catastrophic at first too, but it appears that the mandate was too weak to be effective anyway. A lot of the people it should affect would have already been exempt. With Congress seemingly on the brink of repealing the Affordable Care Act’s centerpiece requirement that most people get insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats are warning such a move would be disastrous, and Republicans are anticipating a sweeping symbolic victory.
Senate Republicans included a measure to repeal the mandate in their recently passed tax overhaul; the House didn’t, leaving GOP leaders to hammer out a final agreement for the compromise bill they hope to pass by year’s end. President Donald Trump on Friday night threw his weight behind the push to strike the mandate, promising a crowd in Pensacola, Fla., that it would soon be gone.
“We’re getting rid of the individual mandate,” Mr. Trump said. “That individual mandate where you pay a lot of money for the privilege of not having to have insurance or health care. So you pay for the privilege of not getting taken care of. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? And we’re going to repeal it.”
But some experts say the impact of undoing the so-called individual mandate might not be as devastating to the ACA as was thought a few years ago. Rising premiums mean more people are exempt from the insurance requirement, and exceptions or exemptions granted during the Obama administration have also reduced the number of people obligated to get coverage.
Others say the penalty was never big enough to persuade a critical mass of people to buy insurance, so repealing it might not cripple the individual health-insurance market.
ADVERTISEMENT
Related
Hospital Giants in Talks to Merge
“It will still be really healthy,” said Avik Roy, a health-policy expert who advised Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) during his presidential campaign. “It’s a weak mandate that has all sorts of loopholes.”
Not everyone is persuaded. Many Democrats say repealing the mandate would shred the ACA as younger, healthier people decline to get coverage, raising costs for older and sicker individuals. That, they warn, would plunge the individual insurance market into a fresh round of premium spikes and insurer withdrawals.
“Any Republican who backs this tax plan is backing a health-care repeal,” said Brad Woodhouse, director of the Protect Our Care campaign, which backs the ACA. “If they insist on repealing health care to pay for tax breaks for the well-to-do, and then using it as a precursor to ravage American health care even further, they can expect to be held accountable.”
The landscape was different as recently as 2012. During a Supreme Court battle over the constitutionality of the insurance requirement that year, liberals and conservatives agreed it was essential to the working of the ACA.
But now, more experts are concluding that rising premiums next year would exempt many more people from the mandate. The exemption applies if the least-expensive health insurance available costs more than 8.13% of an individual’s income.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a think tank whose research typically supports liberal assessments of the ACA, found in a recent study that in the 15 most-expensive states, premiums would exceed the affordability threshold for a person with an income of $50,000.
Doug Badger, a conservative health-policy analyst, wrote recently, “Premiums for Obamacare policies next year will be so high that millions will be exempt from the tax penalty whether Congress repeals it or not.”
Republicans say health-insurance markets have struggled for years under the ACA because not enough healthy people signed up for coverage even with the mandate. As a result, they say, the ACA already suffers from the problems liberals are warning about.
“That was the theory. The challenge was human behavior decided otherwise,” Alex Azar, President Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, said at a congressional hearing in late November. He continued, “Twenty-eight million people are not in that pool, and it eroded the risk pool.”
The Congressional Budget Office has projected that about 29 million Americans are uninsured. Of them, about 6.7 million people paid a penalty for not having coverage of $695 in 2016, or 2.5% of their income.
The rest are exempt from the requirement or the penalty because either their incomes are below the threshold at which they must obtain coverage, they are ineligible because of their immigration status, or insurance would cost them more than the proportion of their income specified by law.
Democrats, however, cite a CBO analysis that shows the mandate has influenced millions of people to obtain health insurance, either buying it privately or enrolling for no-premium coverage through Medicaid, the federal-state program for low-income Americans.
Without the incentive of the mandate, the CBO has said, 13 million fewer people will have insurance by 2027. But the CBO has faced criticism for its assumptions and has said it would review its methodology.
Democrats say it is clear the mandate is crucial to the smooth functioning of the ACA. “Making the risk pool stable is a vital part” of keeping individual insurance premiums in line with the overall cost to cover a person insured through a larger group or employer, said Andy Slavitt, a top health official in the Obama administration. “Eliminate the individual mandate and that will no longer be the case, particularly in smaller states and rural areas.” Source Question is how many people who bought insurance would not have done so if there were no mandate. We're still talking millions and millions and millions who are not exempt from the mandate. You're missing the point. Most people who make $50k+ choose to purchase insurance through their employer anyway.
No actually I'm directly refuting the argument that the mandate is weak because a lot of people are exempt from it, so I am directly on point. You've now identified another group that is not likely to be persuaded by the mandate, but there's still the question of how large the group that IS persuaded by the mandate is. And the answer to that question is necessary to determine whether the mandate is effective.
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At least in the the 15 most expensive states, that's literally the group (>$50k income) I just referenced though. If you're under $50k, you're exempt. If not, you aren't (barring immigrants and special cases). So again, the question is how many >$50k income individuals would choose to skip health insurance. I'm guessing most of them probably won't as most people in that income group can probably obtain it through their employers.
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On December 16 2017 16:40 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2017 16:16 Mohdoo wrote:
Apparently my yearly taxes would go down $18 with the GOP bill.
Well, MAGA I guess. In the mean time, how much are Trump's taxes going down, one wonders... A lot of members of Congress are saving a lot from this bill, too.
What’s crucial is how much republican big donors are saving. It’s astronomical. Jeopardize the country future by exploding the debt, cut into programs that keep millions and millions of people and children’s heads over water in order to pay back the dudes that funded you and got you elected. That’s one of the greatest heists of all times.
Not so surprising. Getting dummies to vote for them by exploiting pettiness and resentment in order to massively redistribute wealth to their donors is all the GOP has been for 30 years.
I don’t think someone like Ryan gives a flying fuck about those so called family values or even the racial bs his party exploits all day. It’s all about that reverse Robin Hood stuff.
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Isn't this an actual example of transgressing the freedom of speech, because the government (the State) is forbidding some words? Or is it exempt because it only affects government employees through CDC?
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On December 16 2017 20:12 plated.rawr wrote:Isn't this an actual example of transgressing the freedom of speech, because the government (the State) is forbidding some words? Or is it exempt because it only affects government employees through CDC?
I don't think its transgressing freedom of law because there's probably no legal force behind it except that people could get fired.
Other than that, though, its an interesting list of stuff this government wants to avoid promoting.
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On December 16 2017 20:12 plated.rawr wrote:Isn't this an actual example of transgressing the freedom of speech, because the government (the State) is forbidding some words? Or is it exempt because it only affects government employees through CDC?
It's blatant authoritarian bullshit, whatever it actually legally is.
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Beyond blatant authoritarian bullshit, it's just shamefully stupid to ban the term "evidence-based".
That should alarm anyone even pretending to be remotely sensible.
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At this point, the practitioners of golden mean apologism are too far gone; I expect they'll find a way to avoid this issue like all the others.
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On December 16 2017 20:12 plated.rawr wrote:Isn't this an actual example of transgressing the freedom of speech, because the government (the State) is forbidding some words? Or is it exempt because it only affects government employees through CDC?
while i'm not sure; i'd say probably the latter; since it only affects gov't employees (and only for the stuff they do officially as agents of the state).
examining the potential contrary: if the gov't couldn't control the messaging of its employees, that'd probably cause a lot of problems, especially in areas like foreign diplomacy where clear messaging is important.
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EPT
