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Supreme Court Upholds Obama Health Care Subsidies[W:700]

No, it doesn't. The burden of paying for insurance still exists when starting your own business, in fact, it's more expensive now. Before Obamacare new business owners had a great field of group plans to choose from, including some very low cost plans that aren't allowed under Obamacare. Sure they weren't ideal, but they were affordable for the new business owner and beat not having any.

Bottom line is group insurance is like all the rest of insurance. Healthy, young workforce = decent options. Sick or old = crap and VERY expensive options. Anyone is too sick = NO options.

And I don't know about Oregon, but small businesses in Tennessee just don't have a "great field of group plans" to choose from. There are very limited options for what anyone can actually call "insurance" versus mini me prepaid healthcare plans that cap out with any serious illness or accident.
 
Why do I think your definition of 'progressive machine' is anything you don't agree with?

I don't know. Perhaps that is what you have been trained to believe?

The Annenberg Public Policy Center is most certainly a Progressive operation, as is PolitiFact, and most of the others. Given their direct connection to Progressive groups, they are deservedly part of what I refer to as the Progressive Machine.

Facts are what they are Threegoofs.
 
There is no support for any of that. If you've got polling internals that illustrate your point, please cite it.

At no point in the history of the PPACA has RealClearPolitics aggregate polling data showed the majority of Americans approving of the law.

I would have provided the data but I just assumed nobody was in that much denial.

And healthcare for poor people will always be tough to afford. If you have a better plan, that increases coverage and is cheaper for those who need subsidies or are on the edge, then propose it. If you make the whole picture (premiums plus copays) cheaper, it just increases the cost to taxpayers, and you guys would complain about that. If we make it cheaper for taxpayers, it means fewer get coverage and/or their premiums and copays go up, and you whine about that. That's the problem with actually governing - it's easy for people to sit on the sidelines and throw bricks at people actually making these tough trade-offs, and then pretend that with your "to be named later" plan it will be sooo much better, better insurance, everyone covered, cheaper, we all get ponies! without any need to come up with a better alternative.

Ah, the old "Find something better or shut up!" Argument. The health care industry of 2008 was better than today. Today some more people have insurance but that doesn't mean that they can afford to go to the doctor. The PPACA solution to health care is like trying to solve world hunger by handing out dinner plates.
 
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Yeah, and the LeftWad can never get it back.....ever.




California (lack of affordability, 'tepid' enrollment): "After using most of $1 billion in federal start-up money, California's Obamacare exchange is preparing to go on a diet. That financial reality is reflected in Covered California's proposed budget, released Wednesday, as well as a reduced forecast calling for 2016 enrollment of fewer than 1.5 million people. The recalibration comes after tepid enrollment growth for California during the second year of the Affordable Care Act. The state ended open enrollment in February with 1.4 million people signed up, far short of its goal of 1.7 million. A number of factors contributed to the shortfall, but health policy experts said that some uninsured folks still find health insurance unaffordable despite the health law's premium subsidies."

Hawaii (abject failure): "Despite over $205 million in federal taxpayer funding, Hawaii’s Obamacare exchange website will soon shut down...According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser the Hawaii Health Connector will stop taking new enrollees on Friday and plans to begin migrating to the federally run Healthcare.gov. Outreach services will end by May 31, all technology will be transferred to the state by September 30, and its workforce will be eliminated by February 28. While the exchange has struggled since its creation, it is not for lack of funding. Since 2011 Hawaii has received a total of $205,342,270 in federal grant money from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In total, HHS provided nearly $4.5 billion to Hawaii and other state exchanges, with little federal oversight and virtually no strings attached. Despite this generous funding, the exchange has underperformed from day one. In its first year, Hawaii enrolled only 8,592 individuals…" Hawaii joints Maryland, Massachusetts and Oregon among the states that wasted hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars on utterly failed exchanges. A reminder from Phil Kerpen:

Phil Kerpen ✔ ‎@kerpen Hawaii flushing $205M on failed Obamacare exchange does not dethrone the reigning champs: Oregon, $305M for a site that never even launched. 10:53 PM - 11 May 2015....snip~


Obamacare Updates: Tale of Fail from Coast to Coast - Guy Benson

To crib from Jon Stewart, saying Obamacare is bad because of a broken website is like saying ice cream is bad because you can't find a spoon.
 
correction: we continue to have the worst health care in the industrialized world

but it is better now than before Obamacare

it was the well intended but ill advised effort to compromise with a republican approach that cost us single-payer healthcare

As usual you are too kind.

An "asinine and insulting backward step" is how we see it here.

The change to UHC does not come easily, it didn't happen here overnight. But we learned there is no middle, no in between, it is an all or nothing venture. In my severest criticisms of Obama, this is the most severe. He had an opportunity to change opinion, by unifying, and deliberately squandered it.

In Canada we voted some years ago for who was our best Canadian. It wasn't Gretski, not Pierre Trudeau, not Les Voyaguers who opened all of North America, but one guy, a leader of a third ranked party who had implemented UHC in his province when he was premier. Tommy Douglas was never prime minister, in fact never even made her majesty's loyal opposition, the theoretical government in waiting. He was the leader of the third ranked party who convinced a nation of the value of universal health care. In fact, he wasn't even part leader when UHC came into being.

Obama had that opportunity, but rather than 'sell' a proven idea, convince America of the economic benefits [30-40% less lost time at work to start] and to bring the country together.

Instead he chose not to work with even the most moderate Republicans, and called them "enemies", and then proceeded to ram through the most complex piece of legislation in the history of the United States [that document and its attachments are more than the entire Canada Health Act and its attchments dating back to 1966].

So now, we have a deeper divide, those who may have supported UHC before lost their plans when no one was supposed to, it he and his posse alienated intelligent lawmakers who may have come on board and helped sell the idea.

My first post after the passing of Obamacare was something like this "the possibility of an affordable and sustainable universal health care plan has been set back at least two decades." I now say five decades.

And you now stand alone in the world among industrialized countries with the single worst idea on the planet.
 
Amen brother! That's really the one thing that I never did get about the ACA opposition. The ACA removes a HUGE burden and obstacle to getting out from under some corporate yoke and starting your own business. I just couldn't understand why 'free market' types almost never mentioned it as a potential upside for the small business person. I at least expected it as, "sure, this is potentially a great deal for entrepreneurs, but...not worth the cost" or whatever. but I never saw the first part...
I agree.

And the Dems really didn't sell that facet (or the ACA in general, as time went on) well.

Universal healthcare, especially single-payer (with private provider), means more freedom in a lot of practical personal ways, even though it introduces more government control, too.

I really think the GOP are better at unified messaging than the Dems.
 
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That bolded part is not compatible with the truth.

"I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year." June 23, 2007​

Standard advertising technique. He was saying that during the campaign. The legislation hadn't even been drafted. Maybe if he'd gotten what he wanted …

A statement you prove untrue as you employ yet another liar's tactic with this post - move those goalposts. If you read the sources you agree with that premiums are not rising as quickly as they were, you'd know they were using rises during certain quarters of President Bush's time as a contrast to determine that.

????

What do years like 2008 have to do with what I posted? My sources referred to ACA rates in 2013-16.
 
If we're honest, whether the dissent or the majority was "right" is probably about 90% correlated with our view on our support or opposition to the law.

That is issue avoidance. It is not the job of the Supreme Court to change legislation based on their own political view of the Act in question, nor are they to poll the public, nor are they to ask me or you or anyone else. They are to interpret in concert with the Constitution, not change up the wording of the legislation at their discretion.

It is the same basic problem, the courts today agreed with an argument made by the government that is not supported by the language of the actual ACA text. That is clear cut judicial activism.

But the bottom line is the dissent and you are arguing that Congress intended a result, on one of the biggest provisions in the bill, that received no debate in Congress - not one second - and that no one, including the states when they decided whether or not to establish exchanges, even knew about.

We are talking about a 800+ page legislative effort here and it is bold of you to suggest tax credits and subsidies was the biggest provision of the bill.

Moreover, the real impact here is passing a legislative effort so large in scope that it has inherent mistakes. That is on Congress to repair, not the Supreme Court to change up to satisfy a government request to ignore the original text.

So Scalia is arguing Congress intended to write the language in such a way so as to not even put the states on notice that their decision to establish or not an exchange determined whether or not their residents got credits. I don't know how anyone can believe that.

That is the merit of Scalia's argument. "The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says “Exchange established by the State” it means “Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government. That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so." ACA had language in it to deal with States that did not set up an exchange, so you would think it would have been natural for ACA to account for that in dealing with Tax Credits and Subsidies. But some 7 times in the document it explicitly says "Exchange established by the State."

No matter if it was legislative mistake or an afterthought argument to account for something not going to plan, the remedy is the same. On the merit of the case the government should have lost, forcing Congress to handle the mistake. But, the courts decided to go along with an argument that specifically goes against the wording of ACA. You cannot avoid that.

You would have a point (perhaps) if we were talking about once sentence in the document, some false explanation for ACA, exchanges and the States. But ACA clearly did account for States that could not or would not establish an exchange, and then they failed to account for that in the 7 places in the document that says nothing about tax credits and subsidies set up by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

No matter what was said on the floor of Congress, no matter what Obama said at the mic ACA legislation had a mistake. It is on Congress to remedy, not the courts to do so in their place.
 
That's okay around here, there are like 12 to your every one.....that didn't. Did you want to stick up for them? Tell more to not to work....don't worry can still get BO care.

Well, I don't know about your number, but we are going to pay for them one way or another. If they don't have insurance they will use the emergency room and the expense will be even more. With insurance there is preventive care that should cut down on both health problems and thus trips to the emergency rooms.

BTW, I highly doubt your number of lazy people who won't work. My neighborhood is over 90% Hispanic. In the morning and during the day it is a ghost town here. All the men are working and many of the women are also. The other women are taking care of the children.

Maybe it's like what you describe where you live but not here.
 
Otherwise, I'm not sure why you think Republicans should abandon their beliefs and become liberals and support Obama. Why don't the Democrats just join the Republicans instead, and get rid of the bill? What's wrong with them? Why won't they work with Republicans? They seem to be very hostile to Republicans on this law.

I don't suppose that would have something to do with removing affordable health insurance from millions of people? Or reinstituting pre-existing conditions?
 
Unsubstantiated. More Fentonian bull****, I expect.



Same thing. Just story-telling. Zero evidence.



Sounds good. Maybe we can get a beer hall putsch going.



One of yer more convincing arguments.



Hey, it goes back to 2008. When do you think "unemployment started rising"?



After six years of conflict and divisiveness based on irresponsible, right-wing temper tantrums, …

>>you now have, according to that, slightly less than 45 million people without coverage.

According to what?

New federal data released Tuesday reveal that 36 million people in the United States were uninsured in 2014. That number marks a significant drop from the 48.6 million Americans without insurance in 2010, the year the Affordable Care Act was signed into law.

The new data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) are based on interviews with 111,682 people. The findings show that the number of uninsured Americans of all ages dropped to 36 million in 2014 from 44.8 million in 2013. "That's pretty sharp," says study author Robin A. Cohen, a statistician at the NCHS.

"This is another set of data tracking what I think has become a pretty broad consensus that the Affordable Care Act is having a significant impact on reducing uninsurance," says Sabrina Corlette, a senior research fellow and project director at the Center for Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University (who was not involved with the research.) — "The Number of Uninsured Americans Continues to Drop," Time, June 23, 2015​


Here's a report on another survey: "America's Uninsured Rate Is Down To 10% - And Falling," Forbes, June 16, 2015



Wow, trolling post of the year there!

:lamo
 
Yeah, and the LeftWad can never get it back.....ever.




California (lack of affordability, 'tepid' enrollment): "After using most of $1 billion in federal start-up money, California's Obamacare exchange is preparing to go on a diet. That financial reality is reflected in Covered California's proposed budget, released Wednesday, as well as a reduced forecast calling for 2016 enrollment of fewer than 1.5 million people. The recalibration comes after tepid enrollment growth for California during the second year of the Affordable Care Act. The state ended open enrollment in February with 1.4 million people signed up, far short of its goal of 1.7 million. A number of factors contributed to the shortfall, but health policy experts said that some uninsured folks still find health insurance unaffordable despite the health law's premium subsidies."

Hawaii (abject failure): "Despite over $205 million in federal taxpayer funding, Hawaii’s Obamacare exchange website will soon shut down...According to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser the Hawaii Health Connector will stop taking new enrollees on Friday and plans to begin migrating to the federally run Healthcare.gov. Outreach services will end by May 31, all technology will be transferred to the state by September 30, and its workforce will be eliminated by February 28. While the exchange has struggled since its creation, it is not for lack of funding. Since 2011 Hawaii has received a total of $205,342,270 in federal grant money from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In total, HHS provided nearly $4.5 billion to Hawaii and other state exchanges, with little federal oversight and virtually no strings attached. Despite this generous funding, the exchange has underperformed from day one. In its first year, Hawaii enrolled only 8,592 individuals…" Hawaii joints Maryland, Massachusetts and Oregon among the states that wasted hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars on utterly failed exchanges. A reminder from Phil Kerpen:

Phil Kerpen [emoji818] ‎@kerpen Hawaii flushing $205M on failed Obamacare exchange does not dethrone the reigning champs: Oregon, $305M for a site that never even launched. 10:53 PM - 11 May 2015....snip~


Obamacare Updates: Tale of Fail from Coast to Coast - Guy Benson

So what you are trying to say is that states may not be competent enough to run their own exchanges.

You must be ecstatic about the new SCOTUS ruling then..an opposite ruling would have required states to set up exchanges.
 
No, it doesn't. The burden of paying for insurance still exists when starting your own business, in fact, it's more expensive now. Before Obamacare new business owners had a great field of group plans to choose from, including some very low cost plans that aren't allowed under Obamacare. Sure they weren't ideal, but they were affordable for the new business owner and beat not having any.

Bottom line is group insurance is like all the rest of insurance. Healthy, young workforce = decent options. Sick or old = crap and VERY expensive options. Anyone is too sick = NO options.

And I don't know about Oregon, but small businesses in Tennessee just don't have a "great field of group plans" to choose from. There are very limited options for what anyone can actually call "insurance" versus mini me prepaid healthcare plans that cap out with any serious illness or accident.
Boy, doesn't this conversation tie-in directly to our prior discussion!

That's why I'm for a universal singer-payer/private provider system.
 
I'm with you, justabubba -

An employment based healthcare system is asinine!

As I commented before: "In severe recession (like 2009), the rest of the civilized world suffers an economic crisis - but we suffer an economic crisis AND a healthcare crisis"!

Why?

And in other terms: Why would we want to stifle entrepreneurship by having employees unable to risk new ventures due to putting their families in jeopardy by lacking healthcare?

It's nonsense.



Starting a business takes a lot of resources and balls.

With UHC, yours and your employees health aren't even a part of the equation.
 
Bull****. Discounts Obama's closed door meetings with insurance execs and promising the act would not include single payer well BEFORE any congressional debate.

I don't know that's true, but I've read it reported by many liberals who followed the debate and were keyed into leadership. But it doesn't matter - there was zero, none, zilch chance there were 60 votes in the Senate for single payer. There probably weren't 50 legitimate votes if 50 would have done the job.

Same thing basically with a public option - that didn't have 60 votes. Liberals whined that Obama gave that away, but there were enough democrats loyal to the big insurers that 60 for that was never a realistic option according to those who actually counted the votes.
 
To crib from Jon Stewart, saying Obamacare is bad because of a broken website is like saying ice cream is bad because you can't find a spoon.

How was California and Hawaii's websites broken again? Tell Jon Stewart.....I'll let him know when its time to come out of the playpen.

Oh and if you thinks its just those states.....its not.


Like last year, others will argue that these rate increases still have to be approved in some of the states. But unlike last year, the carriers now have hard data to show the insurance regulators. Some states will bring political pressure to bear on these increases. But a 35% increase is not suddenly going to become a 5% increase. There is obviously an overall claim cost problem here and regulation can sometimes push it off but it can’t make it go away.

Others will point out that people only have to switch plans to keep their costs in line since there are some carriers asking for a lot less. That’s right. But the fact that it is the big market share players that are often asking for the big increases says something important about where these cheaper plans will be next year. The big guys know something.

You just can’t look at this data and come away with a conclusion other than the big cost increases driven by too few people signing up has started. And it has started a year earlier than most of us expected......snip~

Why Are The 2016 Obamacare Rate Increases So Large? - Forbes
 
Common sense tells you that people without health insurance sometimes die prematurely. They also drive up healthcare costs and therefore insurance premiums. And isn't one unnecessary death too many? How do you feel about thousands? Like 20-50 thousand a year?



Askin' ain't gettin'. And you offer no evidence. Again? Let's see it from last year. Or the year before. Or …

Prior to the ACA, there were reportedly about 45 million Americans without any health insurance. Following the inception of the ACA, as reported last September, that number had dropped to about 41 million.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/u...health-insurance-falls-survey-shows.html?_r=0

So, let's see. Even if we were to grant that all of the just under 4 million who are now insured are recipients of federal subsidies in states that don't provide an exchange - which is false since the majority of those 4 million are actually eligible now for Medicaid - you would have the difference between 41 million and 4 million. So your claim is that upwards of 50,000 of this 4 million are going to die because they lose the federal subsidies. Using your logic, about 500,000 are going to die with the federal subsidies because they still don't have insurance.

So, once again, the claim that removal of the federal subsidies would kill many many people is just utter nonsense.
 
Starting a business takes a lot of resources and balls.

With UHC, yours and your employees health aren't even a part of the equation.

I assume you think that's a good thing. If you don't, I do.
 
That bolded part is not compatible with the truth.

Show us then.

And please don't use things like lowering premiums for specific groups, or subsidizing premiums. Show us where people said that premiums (not growth) would be lower overall with the ACA.

I think we will see you are wrong.
Your lack of comprehension is not a failure of the program.
 
Prior to the ACA, there were reportedly about 45 million Americans without any health insurance. Following the inception of the ACA, as reported last September, that number had dropped to about 41 million.
Woohoo!!! Obamacare WIN right there! :2dancing:


So, let's see. Even if we were to grant that all of the just under 4 million who are now insured are recipients of federal subsidies in states that don't provide an exchange - which is false since the majority of those 4 million are actually eligible now for Medicaid - you would have the difference between 41 million and 4 million. So your claim is that upwards of 50,000 of this 4 million are going to die because they lose the federal subsidies. Using your logic, about 500,000 are going to die with the federal subsidies because they still don't have insurance.

So, once again, the claim that removal of the federal subsidies would kill many many people is just utter nonsense.

Look on the bright side, ER visits are UP after Obamacare too! Glad we straightened all that out and gave people who couldn't afford insurance, a premium they still cannot afford or if they could afford the premium, gave them a deductible they cannot pay. PROBLEM SOLVED!!

Spring 2014 - ER visits skyrocket under ObamaCare | New York Post
Spring 2015 - Contrary to goals, ER visits rise under Obamacare
 
Republicans are off the hook.

Absolutely. This was political all the way. If the scouts shot this down repubsall over there'd states would have their seats threatened in the next election as folks wondered where their insurance went.
 
Starting a business takes a lot of resources and balls.

With UHC, yours and your employees health aren't even a part of the equation.
Exactly!

It takes a lot of balls, capital expenditure, capital flow (soon hopefully), and the need to develop positive cash flow ASAP. All of which are facilitated by taking healthcare expenditures off the table!

This seems so otherwise obvious, that I'm at a loss to see how it's not touted more ...
 
Well, I don't know about your number, but we are going to pay for them one way or another. If they don't have insurance they will use the emergency room and the expense will be even more. With insurance there is preventive care that should cut down on both health problems and thus trips to the emergency rooms.

BTW, I highly doubt your number of lazy people who won't work. My neighborhood is over 90% Hispanic. In the morning and during the day it is a ghost town here. All the men are working and many of the women are also. The other women are taking care of the children.

Maybe it's like what you describe where you live but not here.


It might be off a bit but then you can look at Chicago's numbers for yourself. You can check out those that haven't had a job for years. Check out black unemployment too.

If they don't have a job and no insurance. What do you think they are going to do anyways?
 
"I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year." June 23, 2007​

Standard advertising technique. He was saying that during the campaign. The legislation hadn't even been drafted. Maybe if he'd gotten what he wanted …

So, no one ever said the program would lower premium rates according to you, right?

[????

What do years like 2008 have to do with what I posted? My sources referred to ACA rates in 2013-16.

Because the links and discussion that premium rates were rising AS QUICKLY were based upon a link comparing them to the rises in one quarter of President Bush's term. The discussion was before and after Obamacare.
 
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