Obamacare is working

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

When why are you - and more specifically the Washington Post writer - ridiculously attacking the CBO which gave out the original numbers Obama used when the law was passed?

There have been two years of outstanding CBO estimates on the benefits of this law for the country, the massive decrease in health care costs, and that has not changed with the current estimate.

The CBO rehashes the budget and it's influence every single year. Things change according to current reality (other laws passed, the economy, our income as a country via taxes, etc).

Saying the original CBO numbers were false - let alone the allegation that Obama lied - is beyond ridiculous and a deliberate misrepresentation (again, going to the newspaper commentary).

Of course the cost has gone up - there are more poor people due to the economy, and the coverage of the poor has been expanded so they get health care. Guess what? The income will go up, too, and the cost of healthcare for everyone will go down. Can't ignore all facets of the law's effects simply for political expediency.

And PS, yes, Obamacare certainly costs less than doing no health care reform, leaving our health care to the whims of private companies we individually hire, companies looking to profit by not paying for our health care. It has already reduced health care costs.

I am sick of the lies about Obamacare. It's the law. It was passed by a majority of our elected representatives in Congress. And it's a long-term Republican-created and supported, "self-responsibility insure yourself" "support the private insurance companies" law, at that.

And it's a law that has been put into effect, and has been outstandingly effective, in Mass. - it's been a law already proven to work to decrease health care costs.

It's been the law for nearly two years now. It's working. It's not going anywhere. Millions are insured now, or have their health care costs decline now, or are covered for more health care now, than they were before the law. It's a good law.

What it needs, is expansion to a single payer health care system. That will start in 2014, with allowing non-profits to compete (yes, capitalistically compete in the free market) on the insurance exchanges.

The article doesn't say who came out with the original numbers. The bottom line is that the original numbers were way off. The cost is almost double what they originally said. The whole thing is probably going to get overturned any way.

I'm on the fence about whether the government should be able to mandate people having insurance. In California it is mandatory for drivers to have car insurance. If that is not unconstitutional, then I don't really see where mandatory health insurance is unconstitutional.

[Danzig]

again, huge difference between mandating car insurance vs health... you have to buy it to protect 'the other guy', not yourself.
the liability portions are for those who suffer damages due to your causing an accident.
comp and collision are required by the lienholder to protect their financial interest while you owe money on the vehicle. once it's paid for, you can drop those coverages.

and of course you don't pay a penalty unless you get caught driving without it. and as many as 1 in 4 ark drivers chooses to do just that.
you can always decide not to buy a car if you don't want to buy car insurance, whereas obamacare doesn't let you opt out.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Danzig

again, huge difference between mandating car insurance vs health... you have to buy it to protect 'the other guy', not yourself.
the liability portions are for those who suffer damages due to your causing an accident.
comp and collision are required by the lienholder to protect their financial interest while you owe money on the vehicle. once it's paid for, you can drop those coverages.

and of course you don't pay a penalty unless you get caught driving without it. and as many as 1 in 4 ark drivers chooses to do just that.
you can always decide not to buy a car if you don't want to buy car insurance, whereas obamacare doesn't let you opt out.

Of course you can opt out. If you choose not to purchase health insurance, you will pay an annual fee, I think the maximum is $600, which will come out of your tax refund, should you have a refund. If you don't have a refund, the gov't is not going to come after you for the money.

That money is going to be used to defray the costs of the people who choose not to purchase health insurance and yet still end up needing health care. Currently, we all pay for them- estimates of over $1000 a year from each of us, via higher health care premiums (remember, your job doesn't GIVE you health insurance- it provides it in lieu of a higher salary. It's about 20 percent of your compensation, give or take. So you're paying for people who don't have health insurance). This is just shifting the burden a little more directly onto the shoulders of those choosing not to get insurance.

If you don't have $600, you're likely poor enough to be covered under the expansion of Medicaid so it won't be an issue. Previously, depending on the state, you had to be more than just poor to qualify; you had to be pregnant or elderly or disabled.

Requiring health insurance IS protecting the "other guy" because fact is, we all pay for all of the Americans who aren't insured who end up in hospitals.

It's not an ideal solution, because "insurance" is a stupid way to deal with health, as, while it's possible to go through life never having a car accident or a house catching on fire, it's not possible to go through life never getting sick. National health care would be better, and cheaper. Unfortunately, that's not an option here. So, this is an attempt to improve our current situation, which is not sustainable, though very profitable for insurance corporations.

[jms62]

Originally Posted by Danzig

again, huge difference between mandating car insurance vs health... you have to buy it to protect 'the other guy', not yourself.
the liability portions are for those who suffer damages due to your causing an accident.
comp and collision are required by the lienholder to protect their financial interest while you owe money on the vehicle. once it's paid for, you can drop those coverages.

and of course you don't pay a penalty unless you get caught driving without it. and as many as 1 in 4 ark drivers chooses to do just that.
you can always decide not to buy a car if you don't want to buy car insurance, whereas obamacare doesn't let you opt out.

Those not having Health insurance are hurting the other guy which is you and I. Hospitals still are required to treat uninsured and cannot release those that are sickest unless there is a plan in place for their longer term care. This is breaking hospitals who are forced to raise their rates on all of us that do have health insurance which forces insurance companies to raise our rates. So those without insurance are hurting us more than themselves that is why I am for mandatory health insurance.

[Danzig]

the other guy, us, is hurting regardless of the law. those within 400% of federal poverty levels are going to be getting subsidies, both to pay premiums and their stop losses will also be subsidized. that money will be coming from where? us. premiums increasing-i read that some expect them to rise 30%. we're paying for that.
and i'm also wondering about copays and deductibles for those getting subsidies...who will pay those?

obamacare is a rotten law.

single payer!! that is the only way to actually fix all this mess.

and when do fed. budgets ever come in correctly? cbo is already jacking up the price. states and medicaid already going break, how will they pay for the increases, with some states already cutting their medicaid budgets?


we can either bite the bullet and do what needs doing, or just do like we do with so many other things-kick it down the road for our kids and grandkids to worry about.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by jms62

Those not having Health insurance are hurting the other guy which is you and I. Hospitals still are required to treat uninsured and cannot release those that are sickest unless there is a plan in place for their longer term care. This is breaking hospitals who are forced to raise their rates on all of us that do have health insurance which forces insurance companies to raise our rates. So those without insurance are hurting us more than themselves that is why I am for mandatory health insurance.

Purchasing your own health insurance, removing you from the role of public support (everyone supporting your health care) to self-support, with you paying for your own health care, is exactly why the individual mandate was created and pushed by the Republican party when they created "Obamacare" in the 1990's.

And that's exactly what it does. So strange the Republicans have turned the facts around to get people against self-responsibility (paying for your own health care) and removal of dependent but paying-capable people from support programs? They sure are good at messaging.

If the Republicans had been able to get Obamacare passed in the Gingrich/Clinton congress, as they wanted, we'd be alot better off as a country at this point in time. We wouldn't have 46 million children uninsured, with no health care. Romney went ahead and passed it in Mass, and it's vastly improved health care there, while lowering costs for everybody. It's a program proven to work.

Which is a reason why Obama adopted it - along with it being a Republican-created and long-supported program for starting to revamp private health care, without single payer.

Who would have thought that Republican hate and deliberate obstruction of this president would extend to screwing the American public, as the GOP denies support for their own health care reform in order to screw this president?

We should be ashamed, as a country, that 1/5 of our children live in poverty in America, get no health care and little food, and we have one of the highest neonatal death rates in the world.

Sad that Romney feels like he has to distance himself from his greatest achievement, Romneycare, in order to appease the Republicants on his right (i.e., the entire party). Kind of like the mantra heard during the Vietnam War, "we had to destroy the village in order to save it."

[bigrun]

Originally Posted by Ocala Mike

Sad that Romney feels like he has to distance himself from his greatest achievement, Romneycare, in order to appease the Republicants on his right (i.e., the entire party). Kind of like the mantra heard during the Vietnam War, "we had to destroy the village in order to save it."

Romneycare is an achievement?

Just how much reality tv do you watch? Be honest, glue eater.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

The article doesn't say who came out with the original numbers.

No, but we know what the CBO said, it was all over the news when the law was passed. The vote was delayed a few days while the CBO scored the last plan.

The bottom line is that the original numbers were way off. The cost is almost double what they originally said. The whole thing is probably going to get overturned any way.

Yes, and the original income supporting the program is off now, too - it's higher, and it attenuates those figures of "higher cost estimates" being throw about by opponents of the law.

As two lower court highly-conservative, well-respected judges wrote strong opinions supporting Obamacare as clearly constitutional, I doubt it will be overturned. We'll know in about 6 weeks.