Trump's War on Americans Having Health Insurance Coverage

joG said:

You did, yes. Badly so.

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Wow...lame. Lame, lame, lame. I actually feel embarrassed for you. Now, I suppose you'll come back with something like another "nyah, nyah" retort like that.

digitusmedius said:

And I've said I want a universal single payer health care system for this country: Medicare for All. Why isn't that sinking in with you?


I'll have to struggle with that when the time comes. What will you do, just keep shouting at clouds?


How's it working for you? Look, I'm not telling you what to do so maybe you can do me the same courtesy.

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can't support the status quo if you're looking for the status quo to change. You're not going to call any Republocrat out by voting for the Republocrats...you're rewarding them in fact.

You might want single-payer, Hillary won't bring it to you. I'm not telling you what to do, I didn't say don't vote for her. I'm just telling you the reality, and by continuing to support them, you'll never "call them out". That's all there is to it. As I said, have fun pretending you're doing anything at all to "call them on it". I'm sure Hillary is really going to take note, lol.

coldjoint said:

And both had a Democratic majority.

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Yes. That's what's called "representative democracy." It's fundamental to our republican system of government. Perhaps you'd rather live in Putin's Russia.

And the Senate had to change the rules to do it.

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That's pure BS. But I know that's the BS the rightwing pukefunnel pumped out in massive quantities at the time and still seems to be in the case.

You do not have an argument. What I said stands.

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LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Ikari said:

can't support the status quo if you're looking for the status quo to change. You're not going to call any Republocrat out by voting for the Republocrats...you're rewarding them in fact.

You might want single-payer, Hillary won't bring it to you. I'm not telling you what to do, I didn't say don't vote for her. I'm just telling you the reality, and by continuing to support them, you'll never "call them out". That's all there is to it. As I said, have fun pretending you're doing anything at all to "call them on it". I'm sure Hillary is really going to take note, lol.

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You're not going to either by voting for Johnson or Stein. As with all elections, we have to make our choice and then see what happens. I'll go my way, you go yours. I'm betting my way will get us to where we both want to be sooner than yours.* Good luck to both of us, then.

* Know what's kind of paradoxical: it's that the very incrementalism that you're sure will never work is what republicans most fear will. They're not at all worried about ever having to deal with Green or Libertarian president or Congress.

digitusmedius said:

Yes. That's what's called "representative democracy." It's fundamental to our republican system of government. Perhaps you'd rather live in Putin's Russia.



That's pure BS. But I know that's the BS the rightwing pukefunnel pumped out in massive quantities at the time and still seems to be in the case.



LOLOLOLOLOLOL

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It is also called the tyranny of the majority. Google it.

digitusmedius said:

You're not going to either by voting for Johnson or Stein.

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Not where votes are currently aggregated, no. But it's the only way to do so. The only way to make the Republocrats take note, the only way to "call them on it" is to threaten their power base. The only way to do that is to vote third party. Third party doesn't even need to win, they just need to take enough votes from one side of the Republocrats to force that side to change to recapture votes before they lose too much power.

But voting for the status quo isn't going to change the status quo, that's for damned sure.

digitusmedius said:

As with all elections, we have to make our choice and then see what happens. I'll go my way, you go yours. I'm betting my way will get us to where we both want to be sooner than yours.* Good luck to both of us, then.

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No, not at all. Your way tracks in the wrong direction. Bigger government, bigger brother, bigger war, bigger deficit, increased wealth disparity, increased corporate welfare, increased entanglement and creation of the Corporate State. Hillary will take us there the same as any other standard Corporate Republocrat.

digitusmedius said:

* Know what's kind of paradoxical: it's that the very incrementalism that you're sure will never work is what republicans most fear will. They're not at all worried about ever having to deal with Green or Libertarian president or Congress.

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They're not worried about the "incrementalism" either. That's just a talking point to make it seem like there is a difference. Bush gave us Medicade Part D which was a handout to Pharmaceuticals, Obama gave us Obamacare which is a handout to corporate Insurance. Hillary will play to some corporate interests as well. Each side will yell about the other side, but in the end they're going to do the same thing. Nothing big is going to change. Hillary supported things like the Patriot Act, our wars, etc.

The status quo will not change if we support the status quo. It's just that simple. If you want a change, you have to make the major party worried about losing its power.

digitusmedius said:

The SCOTUS thinks differently. The big difference there is that it's only what it thnks, not you, that counts.

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Lots of Americans think its unconstitutional. Roberts rejected the Obama argument btw.

digitusmedius said:

I'll just focus on that very last sentence as it illustrates how out-of-the-fact-loop you continue to operate despite the fact that she has addressed the very problems Bill spoke about in her health care section of her agenda. This is something you claimed to have read but apparently didn't absorb. And yes, it's "all just words" now. Everything is just words now since she isn't in office yet. But here's her public comment when asked about Bill's comment:

Where in that quote is your evidence that she isn't aware of the problems with our health care access?

BTW, I ran into an interesting Politifact assessment of Bill's comments and, big surprise, the way the press characterized this as just an "attack" on ObamaCare was, wait for it, just a bit of a lie:

No one, particularly not I, who supports the ACA has ever pretended this was anything like an ideal solution (I blame Max Baucus who clearly had the private insurance cartel's interest foremost in his mind during the Senate's handling of the House bill) to the country's health insurance woes. But your attempt to make a mountain out of a molehill definitely undercuts your attempt to seem non-partisan much less fair-minded when it comes to HRC's positions. You seem to be going well beyond any concern for the issue to smear and attack Clinton on this. You aren't as clever as you must think at disguising yourself.

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This entire post is garbage, and you would know better if you had clicked the link to the thread I provided in my previous post and read the robust discussion that took place there, instead of deleting and ignoring that part before responding to me. You would know where I stand on this law, what has to be fixed, and you would see that Hillary has not addressed those elements in any of her so-called "plan," and you would know that my proposals would strengthen this law, not weaken it, and would move the country closer to a model of health insurance whose cost to individuals is more proportionate to income than it currently is.

digitusmedius said:

And I've said I want a universal single payer health care system for this country: Medicare for All. Why isn't that sinking in with you?

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First of all, Medicare is horribly funded, in fact it's the worst-funded major federal program in existence, in terms of total liabilities to projected revenues, so Medicare in its current form doesn't provide a framework for any national health care reform. Second, ironically the existing legislation could theoretically provide a pathway to single payer health care before too long, if a few nonsensical elements of it were fixed. Do you have any idea what these elements are?

digitusmedius said:

And I've said I want a universal single payer health care system for this country: Medicare for All. Why isn't that sinking in with you?

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Here's the deal.

1) There is a subsidy cut-off at 400% of the federal poverty level that is extremely unfair to middle class people in high cost states. This cliff needs to be eliminated altogether or at least drastically smoothed out. They could even add another bracket or two to make higher earners subject to a higher percentage of their income payable to an insurance company for premiums.

2) There is a family glitch whereby if even one worker in the family is offered affordable insurance for himself or herself, but the rest of the family isn't offered the same affordability for their premiums, the rest of the family also is not eligible for subsidies. This is extremely arbitrary and unfair and in the past even Bill Clinton has said this particular thing (dubbed "the family glitch") is, quote, "bad policy."

3) The "Cadillac Tax" is baseless and punitive against the people who it makes the least sense to hit with an extra excise tax on top of their already high insurance costs, and this because the Cadillac Tax is not based on the generosity of the insurance coverage, just the cost of the premiums. High-cost states have high costs, not super-cushy luxury plans. They are the same plans as everywhere else (law requires it), so the only thing making it "Cadillac" is the price people in high cost places have to pay. So why layer an excise tax on top of these people? They don't have a choice. I understand this provision hasn't been put into effect yet and has been delayed, but it just needs to be axed as there is no rational basis or justification for it. You want to go after people who enjoy "Cadillac" coverage? If you absolutely feel it necessary to attack those with overly generous insurance benefits, start reforming the benefit structures of public pensioners. They have some of the most unreasonably generous health provisions grandfathered into their pensions of any group of people in the country. Even though public pensions are often very badly funded. Obvious problem, no solutions offered by either party.

4) The networking issue needs to be more tightly regulated, because it is extremely unfair to consumers that they don't have easy access to knowing where their coverage applies. It would be like buying car insurance but having surreptitious byzantine networks of roads and streets where the insurance either does apply or doesn't apply. Who would buy that? It also isn't necessarily conducive to people seeking and getting the optimal types of treatment for their actual medical conditions, as it funnels them toward particular facilities and providers based on unknown things other than their actual medical needs. The discussion and implications of more tightly regulating the networking schemes is more complicated than probably any of us are ready to tackle, but we're all potential consumers of health care and we're all mandated to have insurance now, so this aspect should be seen as a consumer right to have it addressed.

Out-of-pocket costs under an insurance plan are the opposite of what we need to be concerned with right now. The focus on forcing out-of-pocket costs to be lower just results in premiums being higher, and for reasons I just explained above, we first need to address the premium costs that are being unequally and unfairly applied across the country. In some places, premiums are so high that we should all be begging for deductibles to be higher. People up here spend over $20,000 a year in premiums only to complain about having a $6,350 deductible. That is insane. They have to spend the $20,000 no matter what happens. Right off the bat they're out $20,000. The $6,350 only happens if they actually need that much health care. No, sorry, Hillary, out-of-pocket costs are not the problem. You need to drop that talking point and correctly identify the problems.

All of these things if addressed would constitute tremendous progress to help increase enrollment under Obamacare without arbitrarily penalizing some people because of random reasons like what their zip code is, or the fact that they earn a penny too much income and thus are booted out altogether, or the fact that they have one family member who works and is offered insurance, and so forth. These things are idiotic aspects of the law, but they can be fixed. And these things are in line with your pro-Democrats ideology. The only problem is Democrats by and large are not pushing for these simple policy amendments whatsoever.

I think Barack Obama and the Democrats created the ultimate war on health insurance with Obamacare.

TurtleDude said:

Lots of Americans think its unconstitutional. Roberts rejected the Obama argument btw.

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I think the very fact that the President (a supposedly former Constitutional lawyer who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard) and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court came to fundamentally different conclusions about how this law could pass Constitutional muster is the very reason why so many people think the law is actually unconstitutional.

If John and Barack were having a private Constitutional debate about the law, this is how it would have gone:

B: "John, you can't call it a tax. If you call it a tax, what kind of tax could it be but a direct tax? They can't levy a direct tax like this, so you can't call it a tax."
J: "Barack, I have to call it a tax because Congress has no other conceivable authority to do this in the first place."
B: "No other authority? WTF? Commerce Clause? Helloooo? What about that?"
J: "Nope. If the Commerce Clause meant Congress could compel and order commerce to occur, most of the Constitution would be rendered irrelevant."
B: "So?"
J: (sigh) "Barack, we're going to call it a tax, we'll just say the direct tax thing doesn't apply in this case, because we say so, and you get to keep your law. What more do you want from us?"
B: (long pause) "Well, okay, John. Thanks a bundle."

joG said:

Sure. If you have other priorities and spend your money on other things..... Health care insurance costs between 14 and is going to go to 20 Percent of wages in lower into middle income groups with 22 Percent which government say will go to 25 going of pensions. That a normal social democracy like Germany and is before tax. So, what we are talking of is a substantial amount, when you aren't on welfare. A lot of Americans seem to have chosen to take the risk.
As to the poor and elderly in Medicaid and Medicare, the government spends more on them per beneficiary than do social democratic systems in Europe.

The problem with the American system has probably been more that it spends too much of GDP, than that it has not been available.

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wow jog, doubling down on specifics. And with numbers even. But you made up for the specifics and numbers by being incoherent. Can you translate this for me

"Health care insurance costs between 14 and is going to go to 20 Percent of wages in lower into middle income groups with 22 Percent which government say will go to 25 going of pensions."

anyhoo, I was so mesmerized I almost didn't realize you happily ignored the millions who weren't allowed to buy insurance. Not to dismiss the numbers you made up and the ones that made no sense. My point still stands

"some poor people could get coverage. some couldn't. some still cant (thanks to red states). But to say "the rest could buy it" is just a lie. Besides the millions who couldn't afford it, there were millions who were denied coverage. And to ignore the 20 million newly covered thanks to Obamacare when you say " the rest could buy it" makes it a ridiculous lie."

Vern said:

wow jog, doubling down on specifics. And with numbers even. But you made up for the specifics and numbers by being incoherent. Can you translate this for me

"Health care insurance costs between 14 and is going to go to 20 Percent of wages in lower into middle income groups with 22 Percent which government say will go to 25 going of pensions."

anyhoo, I was so mesmerized I almost didn't realize you happily ignored the millions who weren't allowed to buy insurance. Not to dismiss the numbers you made up and the ones that made no sense. My point still stands

"some poor people could get coverage. some couldn't. some still cant (thanks to red states). But to say "the rest could buy it" is just a lie. Besides the millions who couldn't afford it, there were millions who were denied coverage. And to ignore the 20 million newly covered thanks to Obamacare when you say " the rest could buy it" makes it a ridiculous lie."

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I guess you just aren't very interested. Otherwise your comments would be more to the point than worried about the difficulties of writing on mobile devices.

joG said:

I guess you just aren't very interested. Otherwise your comments would be more to the point than worried about the difficulties of writing on mobile devices.

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well your comments about Germany were "not to the point". As was your inexplicable comment about mobile devices. Millions couldn't afford health insurance despite your made up numbers and millions weren't even allowed to buy it. that was the point. You attempted to address one part of the point but continue to ignore the other.

Neomalthusian said:

1) There is a subsidy cut-off at 400% of the federal poverty level that is extremely unfair to middle class people in high cost states. This cliff needs to be eliminated altogether or at least drastically smoothed out. They could even add another bracket or two to make higher earners subject to a higher percentage of their income payable to an insurance company for premiums.

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This is almost exclusively an issue of affordability for older adults. The concept of any appreciable subsidy cliff really happens only for people in their '50s and early '60s, even in high-cost markets (and no, I'm not talking about Alaska, which is an extreme outlier in every respect).

So if the question is how to make coverage more affordable for older people, you could monkey around and try to make the subsidy structure more complex and try to find additional money to pay for it. Or you could offer a Medicare buy-in option for adults in their '50s, as Hillary has suggested. There are options here. But implying nobody is talking about it is false.

2) There is a family glitch ...

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And Hillary has called for ending it ("Hillary Clinton reveals her plan to revise--not repeal or replace--Obamacare").

3) The "Cadillac Tax" is baseless and punitive against the people who it makes the least sense to hit with an extra excise tax on top of their already high insurance costs, and this because the Cadillac Tax is not based on the generosity of the insurance coverage, just the cost of the premiums.

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Out-of-pocket costs under an insurance plan are the opposite of what we need to be concerned with right now. The focus on forcing out-of-pocket costs to be lower just results in premiums being higher, and for reasons I just explained above, we first need to address the premium costs that are being unequally and unfairly applied across the country. In some places, premiums are so high that we should all be begging for deductibles to be higher.

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These are contrary impulses. Cadillac plans are by definition very high actuarial value plans--they load their costs into premiums and have little to no cost-sharing. The impact of the Cadillac tax is to encourage the opposite when it comes to designing benefits (the "begging for deductibles to be higher" you mention).

4) The networking issue needs to be more tightly regulated, because it is extremely unfair to consumers that they don't have easy access to knowing where their coverage applies.

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Lots of regulatory attention has been directed at the accuracy of provider directories, and the federal exchange introduced a provider locator tool for use when consumers are shopping for plans.

All of these things if addressed would constitute tremendous progress to help increase enrollment under Obamacare

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Not really, other than your first point about increasing the amount of money we're putting into premium subsidies. Fixing the family glitch is more likely to get folks access to affordable employer-based options than it is subsidized exchange coverage. The Cadillac tax pertains to employer-sponsored coverage; keeping or getting rid of it isn't going to impact exchange enrollment. And making sure people understand their networks is important, but it hardly has a material impact on exchange enrollment.

Greenbeard said:

This is almost exclusively an issue of affordability for older adults. The concept of any appreciable subsidy cliff really happens only for people in their '50s and early '60s, even in high-cost markets (and no, I'm not talking about Alaska, which is an extreme outlier in every respect).

So if the question is how to make coverage more affordable for older people, you could monkey around and try to make the subsidy structure more complex and try to find additional money to pay for it. Or you could offer a Medicare buy-in option for adults in their '50s, as Hillary has suggested. There are options here. But implying nobody is talking about it is false.

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Well Alaska is one of our states, so is Wyoming and New Hampshire and Vermont and Minnesota, so I don't think you get to laser them out of the discussion. And no, the 400% cliff is not almost exclusively an issue of affordability for older adults, it also impacts families who, for example, might have 4 or more monthly premiums to pay.

And Hillary has called for ending it ("Hillary Clinton reveals her plan to revise--not repeal or replace--Obamacare").

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I had heard she pointed out, so good at least there's that.

These are contrary impulses. Cadillac plans are by definition very high actuarial value plans--they load their costs into premiums and have little to no cost-sharing. The impact of the Cadillac tax is to encourage the opposite when it comes to designing benefits (the "begging for deductibles to be higher" you mention).

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I know you don't like to talk about Alaska, but our "silver" level plans (for example, $3k deductible, $5k OOP max, $9k family deducible, $10k OOP max) are already at Cadillac tax price thresholds. If the law wants to discourage platinum plans with insanely costly premiums, just tell insurers they can't offer them, so that the "outliers" like us aren't getting a 40% excise tax on top of our Cadillac-priced silver plans.

Lots of regulatory attention has been directed at the accuracy of provider directories, and the federal exchange introduced a provider locator tool for use when consumers are shopping for plans.

Not really, other than your first point about increasing the amount of money we're putting into premium subsidies. Fixing the family glitch is more likely to get folks access to affordable employer-based options than it is subsidized exchange coverage. The Cadillac tax pertains to employer-sponsored coverage; keeping or getting rid of it isn't going to impact exchange enrollment. And making sure people understand their networks is important, but it hardly has a material impact on exchange enrollment.

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Are you against significantly increasing exchange enrollment?