Obamacare or I should say Obamadoesn'tcare
Posted by Dobrien 8 years, 11 months ago to Government
What a freaking disaster
- Hot
- New
- Categories...
- Producer's Lounge
- Producer's Vault
- The Gulch: Live! (New)
- Ask the Gulch!
- Going Galt
- Books
- Business
- Classifieds
- Culture
- Economics
- Education
- Entertainment
- Government
- History
- Humor
- Legislation
- Movies
- News
- Philosophy
- Pics
- Politics
- Science
- Technology
- Video
- The Gulch: Best of
- The Gulch: Bugs
- The Gulch: Feature Requests
- The Gulch: Featured Producers
- The Gulch: General
- The Gulch: Introductions
- The Gulch: Local
- The Gulch: Promotions
- Marketplace
- Members
- Store
- More...
My 2 bits.
I unfortunately disagree that it was entirely orchestrated by the DNC. The weak effort by the RINO's to defeat Obmer and defend the individual's right
Was and continues to be pathetic. Sadly this two-step dance is well choreographed.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote...
It was more of a two step to the potty.
AJ:
And you can add my two bits as well.
There's more than one way to Go Galt.
I can see this becoming a reality for those with enough $$ to pay the toll.
I guess the problem would be getting doctors and nurses to go along. It might be kind of yucky duty to live on the ship a week or month at a time.
One thought about the doctors is they wouldn't be influenced by the ins co.s and they could negotiate compensation for their inconvenience.
To practice health with out the bureaucracy and pull from drug co.s and the malpractice fears.
It would be great to see this play out!
If you search on Blueseed or "Googleplex of the Sea" you'll get somewhat fantastical version of what it could be like. Blueseed failed, but I think some form of it will come true. They can make life on ship nice. It's not just about avoiding FDA and AMA, but also immigration and other regulations. I think it's coming eventually.
100 years ago women could not vote. That must have been hard because the people making the decisions, the old decrepit leadership of its time, didn't have to answer to female voters. The old decrepit leadership gave in. That, along with all the other amazing changes I've seen by age 41, makes me thing real change can happen. Gov't can be cut in half or less in my lifetime by something that sneaks up on us, something we can hardly conceive of now but our grandchildren will see as the flow of history.
I would so love government cut in half in our lifetimes, but there is no evidence of reductions in government spending, powers or increase in personal freedoms in your, mine our fathers or our grandfathers times.
In recent times, after WWII, gov't spending and interference in the economy decreased. Of course, it increased shortly after. The same thing happened to a much smaller extent after the Cold War.
But the trend is increased gov't. That's why we're talking about this. We're not talking about the problem of the big three TV networks' monopoly on video media b/c that problem went away. If your claim is this problem, unlikely the other problems I mention, cannot be solved peacefully, what is the solution? Do we simply need a little rebellion now and then?
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/s...
The trend of increasing government is chronologically local and global, and it covers all countries unless I am missing an example.
I would love to believe as you suggest, that the electorate will drive a reduction in government, but I do not.
As Sean Connery said in the Hunt for Red October, "A little revolution is healthy now and then, eh Ryan?"
Why are you bringing up media? I recognize their influence and bias, but what does this have to do with reduced government?
I'm just saying we're talking about this problem (increasing cost and intrusiveness of gov't) because this is the problem at hand, not a sign that problems are increasing in general.
Do you think democratic republics won't work b/c they inevitably find a way around their constitutional limitations and causing the gov'ts to collapse under their own weight? Will we trend toward something like the Roman Empire, which also over-extends and collapses, but in a more slow fashion? Or will people find ways to work around the gov't until it turns into an armed conflict?
In my lifetime, in a couple decades, I've watched problems that seemed like basic unfortunate facts of human existence just disappear. So I want to see a solution to this too.
What problems went away in your lifetime, and how,does government intrusion account for the solutions?
It's acting, the arrogance is needed to pretend they know what the f they are doing. Who writes the legislation that no one knows what's in it until after the vote?
Enjoy your weekend!
I usually can deal with them reasonably. The thing is their front-line people and even their business offices just mindlessly follow rules.
Our pediatrician's clinic stopped taking our insurance a few years back. We didn't care b/c we never hit the deductible. The business office told us we couldn't use the clinic anymore b/c they didn't "take our insurance". We explained we have two kids, happily make referrals to them, and just wanted a similar pricing to what we'd been getting. They were baffled. The doctor happened to come by. She stifled the urge to say, "they want to pay in cash and send us referrals, and you're telling them to go away!?"
We also had another experience where a specialist told us there were some approaches not covered by insurance, but we could look at XYZ. We asked about the other approaches; I can't remember, but it was something like a low-allergen blanket or something, but it was $100. We kind of had to politely tell him to forget about insurance, think medically, and then we'll evaluate pricing. Apparently so many people just turn off their brains in this area and let a company handle it.
Have a nice weekend!
Single payer to Medicare.
Promoting this as a good thing ....idiots
It's funny that people working in a difficult industry and getting paid for it is a problem requiring a solution in some people's minds.
I'm glad touch screens interfaces and "Internet of Things" wireless are not on their radar.
A client who's 33 year old daughter had a major surgery and she required a plastic surgeon as well as the internist. Insurance would not pay for the plastic surgeon she had a bill of $14950 from him.
My client wanted to help her pay and wanted to take money from his retirement acct. I strongly suggested she create a budget and set up a meeting with the business office telling them that she can pay them over the next dozen years based on her families budget or that they could pay in full a discounted payment . Much like an auto transaction they went back and forth and settled on $7000.00.
Have a great holiday mia767ca!!!
and my own wallet the first payer.
I agree with this one part, but I don't see it as sinister at all. Health insurance was usually tied to employment. That was a vestige from WWII price controls, where companies could offer increased benefits more easily the higher wages. Now it makes it hard for people to change jobs if they have a medical condition. The very notion of insurance was getting harder as medical technology got better at predicting the peril. It was less like a freak accident and more a function of our genes and behavior. The underwriting process to dig into this was onerous. We had the problem of insurance companies digging into underwriting details only when a customer made a large claim. We had people just not buying insurance, knowing they'd get emergency care even if they couldn't pay for it; and hospitals would shift the cost somebody. The somebody was usually someone who could not get insurance b/c they had a pre-existing condition. Following the insurance model, of course companies would not insure against a peril that's already happened.
So these people like President Obama and his supporters who see gov't as an answer thought up a solution. Reasonable people, they thought, would buy insurance before they got any illnesses, even before their genes were formed, if such a thing were possible. That would make premiums higher, but we wouldn't have to deal with all the problems I mentioned above, the problems of treated illness as a random peril to be insured against. So let's just make everyone buy insurance, they thought. Then we we can stop doing that onerous and expensive process of underwriting. We'll save costs we thought. Oh, but how are people going to pay the higher premiums, the wondered. Okay, let's have a subsidy for people who struggle to pay.
I don't agree with all that, but I completely see the logic. I lobbied my Rep, Tammy Baldwin, who was peripherally involved in crafting PPACA, to keep HSAs and to allow some kind of term health insurance similar to term-life insurance. I talked to her about it in person. HSA's were going to go, but they ended up staying with only very minor changes. My term-insurance idea was too far out there, and frankly Baldwin looked confused when I talked about it. She completely got my argument about HSAs: "why do we give workers a tax break for giving money to companies but not for spending on their families' healthcare?"
My point in all this is this is the people who crafted PPACA had their heart in the right place. Baldwin grew up a mile east of me, and I feel like I related to her. (Although I haven't talked to her sense she became our senator)
I really wish I could have gotten through to some staffer or someone with my idea of allowing term insurance with underwriting. I don't have all the answers. I think PPACA is a mixed bag, not a stepping stone in an evil plot to increase gov't power.
Sorry for the block of text. :)
Your comments are exactly how I see it. Unfortunately many middle-class people think they could never save up $100k for these expenses, but they could pay into a system that provides the $100k. When someone realizes they're the grown-up, and they can mange building the wealth to cover these expenses better than someone else, it's really powerful. That's what I dislike most about PPACA (which overall I view as a mixed bag) -- it feeds into the notion that you can turn over life-and-death matters to someone else.
It works a little b/c we can't predict unlikely disease striking at a young age very well yet, and there are still accidents.
PPACA admits the notion of real "insurance" was falling apart by doing away with underwriting. This is why I lobbied unsuccessfully for allowing term-health insurance with generous HSAs. So you could still buy insurance at a young age against unlikely illness and save tax-sheltered for likely illness in old age. This is exactly what people do with term-life.
The counter-argument for my idea is what will we do with people who don't save and don't have family? We will probably find some way to tax other people's money to pay for their care, so let's just admit that and allow insurance without underwriting so it's effectively socializing the costs of healthcare, which was sort-of happening before anyway with people who couldn't pay. I don't agree with their argument b/c I think we could have done more keep the gov't out of it and keep customers in charge of their purchases.
This is government creating a problem for everyone and using it to transfer earnings from individuals to those who provide funds for their campaigns. The only thing these government programs create is corruption and serfdom.
I don't think "forced to safe" was ever true. The plan of the program was not for people to save but rather mostly transfer and spend it. So in this case the gov't didn't steal anything. They administered the program as planned, a plan which has its problems.
"I have to pay for the previous generation's health costs"
Yes, and Social Security retirement too.
"This doesn't inspire confidence at all."
It sets up a constant conflict of interest between people working and people receiving promised benefits. On top of that, when demographically there are many people in their top earning years, it creates a false sense that tax revenue is plentiful. When they retire and it's time to pay those obligations, it creates a the reverse problem.
" I get a bill for $1000 lab tests, which are discounted by $900 IF I have insurance."
You have to get past the front-line people but administrators are sometimes willing to give a reasonable price (one somewhat close to the price they charge insured customers) to customers who negotiate. You have to be willing to walk. Sometimes you have to walk if they won't deal. If you're not willing or able to walk, say in the case of an unexpected emergency, you will pay an absurd price unless you have insurance or some pre-arranged deal.
On two separate occasions doctors have recommended I get expensive tests, but when I dug deeper I found they weren't needed. They were almost certainly conditions that would respond quickly to a safe and inexpensive medicine, but they have to recommend the test because customers might be mad (and might sue) if it turned out to be something serious. But an easy check was to try the medicine for two days and come back for further tests if it didn't work. Of course if insurance is paying for it, money's no object.
I thought this problem of clinics and hospitals assuming customers have turned off their business brains was primarily an issue here in Midwest where HMOs started. I'm now thinking it's everywhere. People who would send all day analyzing a $1000 TV purchase think of nothing of running up thousands of dollars of medical test without checking pricing, if it's the best test, etc..
Therefore I would dispute your statement below:
I don't think "forced to safe" was ever true. The plan of the program was not for people to save but rather mostly transfer and spend it. So in this case the gov't didn't steal anything. They administered the program as planned, a plan which has its problems.
My understanding is the program was designed as I said, with the only the excess due to demographic fluctuations being saved and most of the money simply transferred to recipients. The gov't doesn't invest this small fund containing the demographic excess in stocks and bonds b/c gov't outright owning private business would create problems. So they invest in US Treasuries, which are the most secure investment in the world and therefore provide a very low rate of return. Since Treasuries are a form of the gov't borrowing, this means the SS system lends that small bit of excess that it saves to the gov't by investing in Treasuries. Some people describe this as "the gov't raiding the SS trust fund for spending projects." I consider that an incorrect characterization; I have other problems with the how it's structured though:
1) It doesn't save the money up but rather relies on transferring someone else's earnings.
2) Even if it did save up significant money, it can't (and absolutely should not) invest in private business
Yeah, I know nothing about how it was sold. Most people when they have the chance to opt out (by being a minister opposed to it on religious grounds or by S-Corp election or other business structure) they do it.
Texas or Lone Star Republic an independent nation joins the USA with the righ tto secede or split.
Texas secedes exercising that right Feb 2, 1861
Texas joins the CSA March 2nd 1861
CSA loses the war.
All are brought back into the Union by force of arms June 19th 1865
In between Military Governors
Readmitted to Congress March 30 1870
Secession rights were not restored.
I very much appreciate your historical knowledge
I don't know why your comments are being hidden.
Hillary on averag though is around three Plus and listed as declining. Trump as gaining . Johnson as Stagnant, Klein and the four way has been dropped by some major polling groups as statistically insignificant.
There are currently about one million Gringos living down here from six months or so to full time.
It is succeeding, not in providing affordable healthcare, but by giving the government increased control over our lives.
That is well enough but also think of the victims of
Hillandbill , plane crashes, suicides, murders.IRS,
Media smears and cover ups no law for the law makers.
Murderers? Possibly. Will they get theirs? Probably not.
Reminds me of an old joke. Hitler survives and manages to escape to Argentina.After a while, some followers who escaped with him tried to convince him to make a comeback. After a while he gave in. He said, "All right, I'll do it, but this time, no more Mr. Nice Guy."
Trump = A gamble with better odds all the time.
Klein and Johnson? Ever bet double zero on a roulette wheel?
We passed 8 burka clad women with
I voted sticker on their black shrouds who, effectively canceled our votes x4. My vote has never counted for a win.
Dominance and control . Let's see they have the
Media..... The education system.....the state dept......the fed reserve.......irs....the EPA........the welfare class......the immigrants......the ignorant ostriches.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL1Xt...
Have a great weekend Allosaur.
We're number one! Nyah to all the other college football teams!
One of my brothers calls Alabama winning and Auburn losing a perfect weekend.
Perfect weekend football included.
May you have a great perfect weekend yourself.
I hate thugs. Our team used to have a disciplined coach Bud Grant who did not put up with bad behavior.
If they didn't stand at attention for the national anthem or follow a dress code or they did break the law they were history.
Since then the players like to beat their wives and girlfriends
Or both plus many other disgusting behaviors. Like the folks you used to guard only these guys are adored and paid $millions.
Watched Auburn make a valiant effort at the end of the last quarter but Clemson won 19-13.
Some previous thuggery by an Auburn player, shoving a Clemson player away by the face mask may have well cost the game.
Bama got their offense act together big time and won 52 - 6.
Saw an interesting statistic during the game.
Bear Bryant has 6 national championships and Saban now has 5 won in way shorter time.
So I anticipate that Saban shall become "THE legendary coach for the Tide": when his career is done.
With each insurance company that leaves the exchanges we are brought either closer to single payer, or a collapse of O'care. I imagine it depends on who is in charge at the time.
Respectfully,
O.A.
It will eventually end up single payer...the politicians are more interested in their careers than scrubbing the plate clean to prepare for the next meal. Who's in charge no longer matters.
Many would say it was the plan all along... Difficult to argue the contrary.
Good to hear from you. Happy labor day!
O.A.
Regards,
Dobrien
With regards,
Dobrien
This is a primary truth that has been covered up and ignored.
Obama should be injected with 200 vaccines, and anonymously put in a Chicago VA hospital.
Hasn't been that long since there was no health insurance at all for anyone, but the health care industry (including pharma) is the biggest problem, the insurance industry the second, and government as their tool is third. It's an unholy alliance that can only be defeated by herding the sheep to accept a different delivery system that centers on personal responsibility. Individual health insurance should not be mandatory for anyone.
Well put , mandatory is the opposite of choice.
Solution. Brain washed useful idiots.