nonniey

OK is there anyone that posts here who formally supported Obamacare now in opposition? Just curious I think we have become so partisan in our support (both sides) that even failure will be reinforced because it is what one previously supported, or it is from the side one supports. 

Bottom-line  Obamacare is a disaster that is not quite yet a catastrophe, but that is coming unless those who supported this policy turn around. The individual insurance piece has failed which covered 5-8% of the population. Next year the employer piece covers over 70% of the population and that is where the catastrophe lies. The President's delay of this part for a year does present the opportunity to reverse course. Can it happen or is he so tied to it he'll go down with the ship and take us all in him for a longshot hope that somehow, someway the policy will work? 

well they have a cure for that Chipwhich

http://washingtonexaminer.com/examiner-editorial-obamacare-will-end-up-forcing-doctors-to-take-patients/article/2540341

 

 

down to a week for me to choose between a new out of marketplace or Obamacare

 

any word on keeping your old plan?....none from my provider aside from the new and improved(and higher) ACA compliant BS

 

If I said what I think I would be on even more watchlists.

 

I think the quote about hunting them with dogs in 14 sounds about right though.

Don't forget your other two choices.

#3) Not get Insurance and pay the fine.

or

#4)Not pay the insurance and not pay the fine (Many don't realize the latter is a viable option - just make sure you don't overpay your taxes and then there is nothing the IRS can get from you).

And many people have claimed, in this thread, that that's all the lower priced plans on the exchanges ARE. 

They're not of course there are all kinds of added mandatory procedures to even the Bronze plans.

Sorry, I may have missed a post or nine...was just going on what I read. If you answer the questions I ask, I don't feel the need to respond, as it tires the mods...I think we've lost Jumbo, or maybe the season did. Anyhoo...I know you don't want to politically joust when it's not being said your way. But it really was a Heritage Foundation idea. Governor Mitt Romney successfully executed said idea.  What I think is wrong is that it's not YOUR DUDE doing it.  If it were President Romney, there wouldn't be any cryin'.  Wouldn't be any from me, promise you that.  If Massachusetts was country-wide, I'd be all for it.  *kinda like I already am*...

Let's see how it works.  Still only have BS write-ups.  Nothing works yet.  Bumbled, yes. 

That the ACA was a Heritage foundation idea is a myth. A mandate was their idea but what was mandated is where the ACA differs significantly (and significantly is an major understatement) from what Heritage proposed. Heritage wanted to mandate only catastrophic coverage.   

..........  Now the website fiasco will clear up fairly soon, you might say the overreaction to that is unfair. 

The Website fiasco clearing up soon is an assumption, and given previous federal government experience, more likely than not a bad assumption.  The FBI for example spent half a $billion on a system both hardware and software about 10-15 years ago and then spent 4-5 years trying to get it to work adequately. They ended up scrapping the entire system and starting over. There are other examples and some where more successful than others but overall the majority of software and hardware fieldings were partial to full failures that took significantly more time than 6 months to become functional.

Anyone with a script can walk to the nearest Target, CVS, Walgreens, Wal Mart, Rite Aid or other local pharmacy and get some form of birth control very cheap by paying cash. Obama's mandate simply makes plans cover some form of birth control for free. So, for people with insurance, some form of birth control went from very cheap to free. Now 30 year old law students going to prestigious universities don't have to pay for very cheap birth control.

The funny thing is oh yes they will pay for them. I'd bet that this particular mandatory addition will be added to premiums at a higher rate than individuals can aquire presently by paying for it themselves.

 

To which, the simple response is:  If these plans offer more coverage for less money, then why aren't you just keeping them? 

 

Let me guess.  "Obama made the company cancel them". 

 

Only problem is, Obamacare doesn't mandate any insurance policy cancellations.  It mandates policy coverage. 

 

I can only see a few reasons for plans being cancelled. 

 

1)  Obamacare mandates that plans must cover things which this plan doesn't cover.  And the insurance company would rather cancel the policy than cover those things. 

 

2)  Obamacare mandates some other factor, which makes things more expensive for some people.  (There was an article on here, a day or two ago, saying that Obamacare mandates that men and women must be charge the same prices.  (Which, I have to say, sounds less like mandating medical coverage and more like political pandering, to me.)  This supposedly means that men (who typically use less health care) will pay more, subsidizing women.) 

 

3)  Somebody is making a corporate decision for one reason or another, to cancel a policy, using Obamacare as cover for their decision. 

 

----------

 

 

 My money would be on #1 (Birth Control? Maternity leave etc.).

....

Now embarrassed by his oft-repeated and false promise that “if you like your health plan you can keep it,” Obama has retreated to a new line of defense: Your old health plan had to be canceled because it was “junk.”

There are two problems with this new argument. The first is admittedly anecdotal: Where are the cancellation victims who now stand to pay less for more insurance – or even just the same amount for a better plan?

Yet there is no shortage of people who are finding they will now pay more for less coverage under Obamacare – higher deductibles, smaller provider networks, significantly higher premiums – and end up with little more than free birth control to show for it.

That's the second and more convincing reason to disbelieve the White House's new defense. If these millions of cancelled plans are “junk,” then why are so many of the Obamacare substitutes so vastly inferior and more expensive?

Obamacare is making Robert Laszewski, a respected health insurance expert, lose his top-notch insurance plan, with which he “can access every provider in the national Blue Cross network ... without higher deductibles and co-pays ... Wellness benefits are without a deductible. It covers mental health, drugs, maternity, anything I can think of.”

Obamacare offers Laszewski a plan that costs 66 percent more each month, severely restricts his doctor network, and carries a deductible $500 higher than his old plan. So tell me – which plan is “junk?”

Such stories abound. At the Daily Beast, David Frum describes in greater detail what he had earlier summed up in one tweet.

“I already had a high-deductible plan,” he wrote. “Now I can buy a plan with double the deductible for only $200 a month more.” (My own experience shopping the D.C. exchange produced results similar to Frum's.)......

Washingtonian contributing editor Art Levine, an Obamacare supporter, wrote at the Huffington Post that he's losing his relatively expensive ($530 per month premium) but comprehensive plan.    A comparable Obamacare plan will cost him twice as much. “The spin being offered now is that the plans being canceled by and large don't cover mental health or reasonably-priced medications or maternity care,” he writes. “ But that's simply not true, as my plan's benefits indicate.”

...

WSJ

".......

We have a huge piece of U.S. economic and social change that debuted a month ago as a program. ...... It was hugely controversial from day one. It took all the political oxygen from the room. It failed to garner even one vote from the opposition when it was passed. It gave rise to a significant opposition movement, the town hall uprisings, which later produced the tea party. It caused unrest. In fact, it seemed not to answer a problem but cause it. I called ObamaCare, at the time of its passage, a catastrophic victory—one won at too great cost, with too much political bloodshed, and at the end what would you get? Barren terrain. A thing not worth fighting for.

So the program debuts and it’s a resounding, famous, fantastical flop. The first weeks of the news coverage are about how the websites don’t work, can you believe we paid for this, do you believe they had more than three years and produced this public joke of a program, this embarrassment?

But now it’s much more serious. No one’s thinking about the websites. They wish you were thinking about the websites! I bet America hopes the websites never work so they never have to enroll.

The problem now is not the delivery system of the program, it’s the program itself. Not the computer screen but what’s inside the program. This is something you can’t get the IT guy in to fix.

They said if you liked your insurance you could keep your insurance—but that’s not true. It was never true! They said if you liked your doctor you could keep your doctor—but that’s not true. It was never true! They said they would cover everyone who needed it, and instead people who had coverage are losing it—millions of them! They said they would make insurance less expensive—but it’s more expensive! Premium shock, deductible shock. They said don’t worry, your health information will be secure, but instead the whole setup looks like a hacker’s holiday. Bad guys are apparently already going for your private information

And now there are reports the insurance companies are taking advantage of the chaos of the program, and its many dislocations, to hike premiums. Meaning the law was written in such a way that insurance companies profit on it.

And—I am limiting things to just today’s news – the New York Times reports that while millions may qualify for enough federal subsidies to pay the entire monthly cost of some health-insurance plans, the zero premiums come with some “serious trade-offs.” What serious trade-offs? Most of these plans, called the bronze policies, “require people to pay the most in out-of-pocket costs, for doctor visit and other benefits like hospital stays.” Huh? I thought the purpose of the law was to help with the cost of doctor visits and hospital stays!...........

ObamaCare is a practical, policy and political disaster, a parlay of poisonous P’s.

And it is unbelievable – simply unbelievable – that the administration is so proud, so childish, so ideological, so ignorant and so uncaring about the bill’s victims that they refuse to stop, delay, go back, redraw and ease the trauma....."

http://blogs.wsj.com/peggynoonan/2013/11/04/obamas-catastrophic-victory/

I would love to see a link describing this, as I am unaware.  It makes it even more laughable if true.

That said, most poor/middle class plan their taxes so they get a refund so the tax may be applied.

Googled this link there are others that provide more detail.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/does-the-obamacare-penalty-actually-have-teeth--144740030.html

I guess it depends on what you need it for.

 

If you need surgery but it's not urgent, or you have a longterm disease, then I think yes you could put it off until after you sign up for insurance and be fine.

 

If you're hit by a car or have a heart attack and need surgery today, then no.  That's the hole in the "wait until you get sick to sign up" strategy, is that it doesn't account for emergencies.

Actually the majority of accidents would be covered by other types of insurance (ie auto insurance). Now your heart attack example is valid.

Well what good is a mandate if you aren't forced to follow it.

 

I mean I can pay a fine and not buy insurance.  What if everyone did that?

 

Now what I don't know is what happens to a person who simply pays the fine for not getting healthcare, if they realize they need coverage can they suddenly sign up?

What many of you are over looking is that you don't even need to pay the fine/tax. That particular tax can only be collected on through excess in tax payments and the law bars any other penalties. If one always under pays their taxes all they need to do is pay each year minus the healthcare fine what they owe the IRS.

And yes they can suddenly sign up if they need the health care for many circumstances but would take a couple of weeks (That said other types of insurance can cover accidents).

We haven't seen the worst of it.  I've already been warned of next years rates for my company.

 

If I were young and healthy, I would just pay the fine.  We shall see how it pans out.

If I was in the individual market, I'd accept the fine, and never pay it and wait to get sick no matter the age.

I'm sure there is plenty of blame to go around. My understanding is that CGI was initially awarded a contract for $94million, competing with 30 other companies.

 

The question is when anyone gave them a requirements definition they could use given all the political shenanigans, both Federal and State, about what was to be actually supported by the system, when work was authorized given the presidential election and the SC challenge etc.

 

It was known by anyone closely associated with the technical side of the project in the weeks before October 1 that the capacity simply wasn't adequate. 

 

But whomever is on the government side of project management and said it was OK for the healthcare.gov site to go live on October 1 shouldn't have a job. 

I think that is almost certainly the President. You giving up on him?

A Headline fronm The Hill today.

"ObamaCare enrollees to join president in Rose Garden"

I immediately thought - All of them?

 

You gotta think though no matter how prepared the US and S Korea are, N. Korea has missles right on the border and surely could launch a couple 100 off causing massive damage in S. Korea no matter how prepared we are. Def don't agree with the war games, but i don't think there is much the US could to do prevent major casualties if N. Korea struck first.

---------- Post added April-5th-2013 at 06:18 PM ----------

Beat me to it.

I'm not disputing they would cause casualties, in the event of war they would probably cause several thousand civilian casualties in northern Seoul and the communities south of the DMZ and more if they use WMDs. I was just pointing out they're not 10 feet tall (5'1 actually). Too many think the nK Army would roll over the Americans and annihilate South Korea forgetting that South Korea has an army too. The destruction of 8th Army or 2ID in six hours is just not going to happen.

A joke to us, yes. South Korea and surrounding countries will be decimated. The North Koreans have had DECADES to prepare for an offensive. Stockpiles of indirect ammunition. They have every square inch of South Korea pre-plotted with artillery. I do not think they can win a prolonged war, don't mistake what I am saying, but they will win in their own eyes - regardless of the annhilation they take in the process - because they will have inflicted casualties against those who stand in the way of communism's spread)

Every inch plotted??? Tube artillery does have range limitations and most of theirs range less than 25kms Bottomline, nK is just blustering but in the event they aren't they would be stopped before they could get through the defensive lines north of Seoul. (BTW I haven't read any news reports that they have moved their offensive forces into place to conduct a cross border invasion but I have read one that they haven't done this).

---------- Post added April-5th-2013 at 10:04 PM ----------

War games in the early 2000's involving the Korean peninsula basically conceded that the entire US Military contingent would be wiped out in less than 6 hours. That military contingent is a "show" of force ..........

Where did you read this?? I have first hand knowledge and this most definately is not true.

Transmission Link Broken

How common is that? Mechanic wants to charge $230.

oh goodie a link to the national review.

Well it does link to an actual PDF copy of the GAO report so are you saying the GAO is not a reliable source?

By the Way here is are a couple of quotes from that report.

"... the fenderal budget remains on an unsustainable path. .......... Under these assumptions, the long term outlook worsened slightly compared the pre PPACA January 2010 simulation"

What they're saying is we have unsustainable spending problems and as bad as medical spending was prior to Obamacare, Obamacare has made it worse.

Actually it's not what I would call unpopular anymore. The country is split it on. An equal number of people support and oppose the law. But keep in mind about 10% of those who oppose the law do so on liberal grounds, wanting the bill to have gone further. In addition, there is a clear majority of Americans who are tired of this debate and would like to Congress to move on. That said, there are obviously some Congressional districts where the law actually is unpopular, and where there is a Dem representatives. The vote for repeal was made especially for those members.

---------- Post added July-12th-2012 at 04:00 AM ----------

The plan, other than a few important, but smaller provisions, isn't even in place yet, so how could healthcare costs exceed a plan not yet in existence?

Look up the word projected in the dictionary. (Is that logical enough for your Asbury?)

I agree it's pure politics... But is it really an unpopular vote? It was 2 years ago, it was 1 year ago.. But I'm not so sure now. After the supreme court folks are starting to warm up to the Affordable care act. This is most likely because the opposition groups aren't spending tens of millions to bash it anylonger.

Yeah it is still an unpopular program actually I believe it has gotten even more unpopular once the projected healthcare costs exceeded what the US citizens had been paying under no plan.

The Thing.

Prequel to the 1982 "The Thing." Pretty much stayed true to that story and it was ok but I guess the premise wasn't as fresh as the 1982 version. Just not enough tension, although I did like how they discovered a new way of proving if someone was human but not who wasn't (ie the Thing). Did leave an unanswered question.