Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 5, 2017 13:50:05 GMT -5
By the way? I don't think Congress should be able to pass something this huge, something affecting this much of our economy and so many of our citizens, without a CBO analysis and some hearings to discuss the effects of the legislation.
|
|
|
Post by ben on May 5, 2017 18:46:48 GMT -5
I'm so tempted to make a meme of how many thousands are dying per day thanks to the Republicans.
Never mind the Senate or the Prez's signature, peeps think it's been repealed already.
|
|
|
Post by Amadan on May 6, 2017 16:49:33 GMT -5
I'm just noting that all the "oh my God, Trump praised the Aussie healthcare system" stuff is--like most every thing Trump--being way over done. Trump is not the "Universal HealthCare is TEH EVIL" guy, here. Well, yeah, it's no secret (except to a lot of his supporters, apparently) that he actually holds (or in the past, claimed to hold) a lot of "liberal" positions. But he hitched his horse to the GOP platform, which has been all about "Universal HealthCare is TEH EVIL," among other things. So even an off-hand remark indicates (a) he's running a trial balloon for a courageous campaign to shift the direction of the GOP and national healthcare policy; (b) he doesn't know wtf he's saying or endorsing from one moment to the next and like most of the shit he says, it means nothing except that his "position" on everything is an inconsistent mess. Obviously, I am going to go with answer (b). I think you're giving him too much of a pass here, though. The fact that he can keep uttering statements like this indicates he just doesn't know or doesn't care what words mean. He's a liberal New Yorker with pro-choice views who's endorsed single-payer who's now President under the pro-life anti-universal health care party. He's endorsed "Obama is a secret Kenyan" and other ripe tripe that even the rest of the GOP distances itself from. I don't think he's worth the effort you go to with your half-hearted "Yeah, but he's not really being inconsistent..." He's nothing but inconsistencies. You can't even talk about him as if he is any type of "guy" in the sense of being a "guy who holds coherent views."
|
|
|
Post by nighttimer on May 6, 2017 23:13:19 GMT -5
What's the old saying about Republicans? They're people too. Stupid, mean, selfish people.
Here's proof.
Un-fucking-believable. Only it's not.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2017 9:47:34 GMT -5
A tiny handful of Republican Congress critters voted against the AHCA for the right reasons (i.e., that it would hurt people), and a couple of them are in heavy Trump-supporting districts, where such a vote might not favor them politically. I give them some coveted Cass Points for moxie and integrity.
The rest -- yeah, they can fuck themselves. I understand some dissatisfaction with the ACA. But I really have trouble seeing how anyone could think the ACHA is an improvement, or fail to see how disastrous it would be for a shit-ton of people. And I fail to see how anyone can support not bothering to wait for CBO numbers. I am looking into donating to campaigns that might help turn over the House in 2018. (My mere vote is meaningless, given where I live. We'll surely go blue, regardless.) And while I often indulge myself in protest votes, I won't be doing so while Trump is in office. We need a check on the fucker somewhere.
One nice thing in New York I didn't realize until recently -- since the 90s, insurance companies here cannot charge you more based on your age or health status. Hopefully, that law stays in place for us even if the AHCA passes the senate. Of course, that won't help older/sicker people in other states.
|
|
|
Post by robeiae on May 7, 2017 11:13:37 GMT -5
The ACA has created a situation where many people aren't buying insurance, at all. The government has rules about calling things by their right names--when sold to the public--but apparently "insurance" is a free-for-all term, since it's apparent that the people who have made or are making decisions in this regard don't know what the word means, at all.
And sadly--imo--a huge chunk of otherwise intelligent people are following this lead, accepting that something is a thing, simply because it has been labeled that thing.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2017 11:24:40 GMT -5
The AHCA will also result in millions of people having no insurance at all. And if they do buy it, their pre-existing conditions won't be covered.
The wee penalty for not having insurance under the ACA is a drop in the bucket to the 30% penalty you'd have to pay under the AHCA if you let your insurance lapse -- especially if you are older or ill, and have to pay much higher premiums under the AHCA, and on top of it don't get the condition covered that drove you to finally get the coverage you really cannot afford.
And you won't get the subsidies that might enable you to get coverage and may no longer be able to get medicaid. The high risk pools, according to experts, won't be nearly financed enough (just as they never were).
Again, the ACA has big problems. I don't dispute it. But the AHCA doesn't fix them. It makes things worse.
ETA:
And I'll add this: even if it were an improvement (which IMO it isn't, obviously), they should have gotten CBO numbers, aired them, and discussed this.
Even if it didn't do actual harm by its own terms (and I think it does, obviously), the chaos, uncertainty and upheaval will do harm. I have no fucking idea now what my healthcare will look like next year or how much it will cost. Thank heaven, I have no serious health concerns. I'll be OK. But not everyone will be, and the uncertainty for those with major health costs and/or living on the margins of being able to afford healthcare, and/or older or, otherwise facing premiums that may abruptly skyrocket, it must be horrible. This was not a bill to be pushed forward in haste.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2017 17:28:36 GMT -5
To answer my own question on "why the huge hurry" according to Peter Suderman, features editor of Reason magazine (in a NY Times opinion article), it's not about health care at all. It's about taxes. It won't let me cut and paste. But IMO Suderman is likely correct. Which given how important health care is, makes it all the more despicable.
|
|
|
Post by Christine on May 7, 2017 18:41:29 GMT -5
Yep. The AHCA includes the repeal of the 3.8% tax on investment income for earnings over $250k for married filing joint taxpayers. The NIIT was instituted under the ACA to help pay for the subsidies. I thought I posted about that here but maybe I'm misremembering.
The employer mandate repeal, also in the bill, would be a huge savings for big businesses with 50+ employees. A lot of businesses do offer health plans for employees. But remember that whole fiasco of companies like Wal-Mart knocking employees down to part time so they wouldn't have to pay their premiums.
To be completely honest, I'm not against the repeal of the individual mandate. I pay the penalty for not having insurance on myself because it's less than what actual insurance would be. I mean, it's less than what any meaningful coverage would get me. Maybe it's just me being stubborn, but paying for coverage that won't do diddly squat for me unless I get cancer or something, while insurance companies are making profits, is fucked up ridiculous and it galls me. We need single payer; we are beyond a "free market solution" on this and we have been for quite some time, imo. In the meantime, I'm making economic decisions to spend my money on college for my kid, and college savings for my other kid, and savings in general for unexpected emergencies, health or otherwise.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 7, 2017 19:02:50 GMT -5
The trouble is, for Obamacare to work (to the extent it does) you need a stick to convince healthy people to get insurance. Otherwise (since you can't be refuse coverage for pre-existing conditions), it would only make sense to wait until something goes wrong to buy insurance. The mandate is essential to Obamacare.
Single payer is another thing, of course. I think Obama would have liked that, but didn't think he could get it through Congress (likely correct). That's why the ACA is a mess of compromises -- but still better, IMO, than the AHCA. Perhaps after people see the consequences of that, they'll be more receptive to looking at Australia, Scotland, Canada, etc., and re-consider single-payer.
|
|
|
Post by Christine on May 7, 2017 19:30:02 GMT -5
Single payer makes the most sense to me. It removes the profit aspect. (Although, it adds the bureaucratic aspect, which is troubling from a cost standpoint. FedGov has got to get more efficient. At like, everything.)
The ACA mandates and the benefits they provide are right now on par for me with how college tax credits provide tax benefits: they're great for those who qualify for them. Thing is... I don't qualify for any of them. Married couples making 2x my income get education credits that I don't, because I'm single. They double the income threshold for a married couple in assessing the credit. I'm a single mother paying for the same kid those married couples are. (That is fucked up. Yes, I am whining.) But I can swing it. Just not while paying $1000/month for health insurance. I'm not rending my garments over the penalty. If it were to stay, I can handle it. I've been looking at it as me "contributing," in a small way at least. But it's not to my benefit. I'd like to have health insurance that was affordable, where I could pay a copay and see a doctor for ordinary things. I pay out of pocket and it's still cheaper, with the penalty, than what insurance would be.
|
|
|
Post by Don on May 8, 2017 5:26:27 GMT -5
Single payer makes the most sense to me. It removes the profit aspect. (Although, it adds the bureaucratic aspect, which is troubling from a cost standpoint. FedGov has got to get more efficient. At like, everything.) How does one get more efficient at allocating limited resources to satisfy unlimited needs, without some sort of system that can compare millions of options for treating millions of cases and arrive at the optimal allocation of those resources? Be specific. I've never, ever seen that question answered logically and honestly. There are only two ways, AFAIK; allow individuals closest to the situation to make those decisions based on their own personal situation and preferences, or to have them made by a bureaucratic body that has the power to determine who may have what treatment, backed up by the power of the gun. The latter option, by restricting choice and raising barriers to innovation and competition, is guaranteed to return a net subjective value lower than the former. Not to mention the whole "do it our way or else" component. This is why planned economies fail, and this is why the most tightly-planned economies see the most suffering among the people. The examples are legion. Workers in bureaucracies have different incentives than workers in companies that risk loss, and as we all know, incentives matter. And can we please, please, stop with the "single-payer is the bomb, and the US free-market system sucks?" As the following article shows, single-payer is actually very rare and has it's own serious problems with resource allocation. Many of the countries people think of as single-payer are not. And referring to the US system as "free-market" is just as ridiculous. The closest thing we have to a free market in healthcare can be found in non-insured treatments, such as Lasik eye surgery and cosmetic surgery. Those costs have been trending downward, contra the overall healthcare market. Competition lowers costs and improves services. Again, examples are legion, from package delivery to communications tech to even grocery stores, FFS. You really want a solution to the healthcare crisis? Look at what happened to the quality of poor people's diets when government-supplied staples were replaced with the ability for those same people to choose their food from the choices provided by millions of suppliers competing for those dollars. Food stamps beat government-provided food when it comes to helping the poor while allowing the economy to function relatively unimpeded. The result has been ever-increasing choices available, while prices in real terms (time worked for product) have declined over time. Not to mention the explosion of new choices, from health food boutiques to craft beer, that would never have surfaced in an economy controlled by bureaucratic incentives. Health stamps could have the same impact on healthcare, just as "education stamps" are proving effective, and have long proven effective in many of the same countries that are praised for their supposed "single-payer" healthcare systems that aren't really single-pater. Government does not have to control every aspect of any industry to provide assistance to those who are economically disadvantaged. In areas where government tries to enforce that claim (healthcare and education, to name two) quality and choice suffers compared to other industries, and price increases regularly outstrip those in the general economy. Oh, and here's the article I mentioned above. No, the Rest of the World Doesn't Use Single PayerAnd for a bonus read, there's this: What If Grocery Stores Were Run Like Healthcare?
|
|
|
Post by robeiae on May 8, 2017 8:06:31 GMT -5
The trouble is, for Obamacare to work (to the extent it does) you need a stick to convince healthy people to get insurance. Otherwise (since you can't be refuse coverage for pre-existing conditions), it would only make sense to wait until something goes wrong to buy insurance. The mandate is essential to Obamacare. Absolutely. And if you're using a stick on the one hand and offering what amounts to a discount program on the other (for people with pre-existing conditions), what you're "selling" is not actually insurance in either case. And if the supposed goal is to provide good health care (not health insurance) for as many people as possible for as little as possible, this is a ridiculously stupid plan, imo. Yet, it was trumpeted as a "great thing," as an actual solution to a supposed crisis (that has functionally existed since HMOs came into existence, if not before). How is Obamacare anything other than a huge disaster? Which I guess is my problem with all of this: the people criticizing the House bill are acting like there weren't any problems with Obamacare, that how it was structured made perfect sense and was a working solution to the problem. Imo, neither "side" is anywhere close to being right in what they're saying (apart from those who insist on single-payer and those who insist on pulling the government and insurance companies out of the equation as much as possible; there's a legitimate argument there, still).
|
|
|
Post by nighttimer on May 8, 2017 12:02:22 GMT -5
How is Obamacare anything other than a huge disaster? Because in your myopic view anything that is not an unqualified success must be a massive failure. The Affordable Care Act was never meant to be the end-all/be-all for all of America's healthcare ills. But it's a damn good start and what the ACA or Obamacare needs is the same thing Social Security needed when FDR introduced it: repairing, not gutting and replacing with a GOP tax cut. Obamacare has not been "a huge disaster." For many Americans, it's literally been the difference between life and death. No bull. Single-payer would have been better, but it wasn't politically feasible. Obamacare is a compromise and compromises means nobody is going to be completely happy with the finished product. But you don't kill it because you dislike something that's providing healthcare coverage for 24 million people because you wanted a "win" and then paraded around like fucking drunken frat boys guzzling beer, thumping their chests and acting like as if they just ran a gang-bang on the homecoming queen.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 8, 2017 12:10:24 GMT -5
I'm with Ohio.
I would have been open to hearing about carefully considered amendments to or replacement of the ACA that was actually an improvement. But that's not what they're giving us.
ETA --
By the way, y'all didn't know me then, but I was quite critical of the ACA when it was passed. I still have plenty of criticisms (it is a flawed compromise, no doubt), I still think it needs work, I still think there are better ways (single payer, for example). But over time, my criticisms have toned down because, here in New York, I think it's made things better and cheaper overall for those, in particular for those who did not get insurance through an employer.
One big problem I have with employment and health insurance being connected -- those who get it through their employer have very little clue that those who pay for their own insurance get very different rates. That should not be, in my opinion. Were we all looking at the same plans at the same rates (Congress critters, too), the health care discussion would look different, IMO.
|
|