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

So at the risk of thread derailment.....

My brother, hard core workin man, drives truck, does masonry, plumbing, framing and just about any other tough job that can be done with your hands. hasn't had insurance since he left the Marine Core 25 years ago. Under Obama he get's catastrophic insurance, it costs him like $110 a month and his deductibles are really, crazy high, but if he ever gets mouth cancer from chewing tobacco all these years, the $50,000-$100,000 dollars it would have cost him to have it treated is now paid for. He doesn't have to sell a lifetimes worth of tools (his livelihood) to pay for treatment....His out of pocket, $10K? I don't see how this isn't a steal?

I dont see the point. Thats how insurance has always worked.
 
And yet you can't refute my claims.

>>there were 142 million working Americans when Obama took office and there are 148 million now

Employment fell to 138 million by the end of 2009, while the effects of the Great Recession, which resulted from tax cuts for the wealthy and an irresponsible deregulation of the financial sector, played through the labor market.

Over the past five years, private-sector employment has increased by 12.6 million to 122 million, while public-sector jobs have decreased by about two million.

>>there are 6.5 million part time employees now included in the employment number

There are 27.5 million part-time workers. The 6.5 million figure is working part-time for economic reasons. There were more than eight million of those when Bush43 left office.

Total part-time employment, which includes those who choose to work part-time, has been basically flat since a spike caused by the Great Recession. Other than that, it's pretty much followed the growth in the labor force for the past few decades, other than a spike in 1994. Dunno what that was about.

View attachment 67186235

Full-time employment under Obama has grown from 110.6 in Dec 2009 to 121.4 last month, up by 10.8 million.

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>>Stop making Gruber look brilliant

You make a clump of dirt look brilliant.

Yes, unemployment fell to 138 million in spite of the Obama stimulus that was for shovel ready jobs that wasn't supposed to let unemployment fall. You want to blame Bush for the Obama stimulus that didn't work? Now you want to give Obama credit for losing jobs for two years after the stimulus was passed and then creating jobs that only got us back to the level he inherited. That is liberal logic. Is it fact or opinion that Obama inherited 142 million working Americans?

Please learn how to research BLS. if you are going to give Obama credit for the low unemployment rate then use the same chart used to report those numbers. It really is sad that people like you continue to buy rhetoric and support an incompetent. You are the one make a clump of dirt look brilliant

What is it about liberalism that creates people like you who buy what they are told by the left and buy those opinions as fact?
 
The legislature is the check on SCOTUS. They can change the law and impeach judges. This of course assumes that SCOTUS uses the law to make rulings, and doesnt just make stuff up.

evidently now they just make stuff up and it doesn't matter words don't matter anymore.
 
I did just that. I support the Act and I felt it was my patriotic duty to join in the effort.



They all came back alive.

>>25 million people were losing their coverage

Part of that was what's called churn, a regular pattern. And, as was pointed out by another poster, the ACA cleaned out a lot of sham policies.

>>See how that works?

You should now.



Indeed there is. They are pay-as-you-go. In that sense, it's foolish to even say they have unfunded liabilities.

>>When will you hold your politicians accountable for spending the funds you contributed to SS?

Money has been borrowed from the Trust Fund. It's paid back with interest.

Wow, the indoctrination is quite extensive. Is it fact or opinion that SS and Medicare were put on budget and thus used for operating expenses of the United States? Where does the payback of SS and Medicare come from? Do you know what an unfunded liability is?

When you put your money into SS and Medicare and it is spent on something else where does the money come from to return to you when you retire?
 
no I don't owe you anything. you are responsible for yourself. I don't work to pay for you I work to provide for my family. no people don't join socieities to take care of each other.
no you are free to live in a place where everyone pays for everything for you. I hear cuba, china, north korea are nice this time of year.
the government will take care of you at other peoples expense.

Everyone is a self reliant maverick until something happens to them or their loved ones, then they take advantage of the benefits of living in a society.

you need to read the article. obamacare and what is being proposed here is not the same. what they propse is actual competition in the market place obamacare is not competition in the market place. what the article proposes is allowing for people to buy insurance across state lines which is something republicans have proposed for years.

There has NEVER been any restriction against selling insurance across state lines. First of all, any insurer could enter any state and sell state-compliant products. Furthermore, any state, and lots of them are GOP controlled, could always have disbanded its insurance commission and said, "Any insurance product legal in any of the 50 states can be sold here" and voila, republicans get their wish.

Georgia did it, and no one came, no one inquired, and the problem is BCBS can't have a product X in Wisconsin, and then just offer that product X in Georgia and the rest of the states. The whole thing with health insurance is negotiating rates with the many local providers, and so in every state in which they sell product X they have to go into each local market and negotiate a slew of individual contracts with local providers, then they can set premiums, and start marketing. And they can do all that now and have always been able to do that. But the insurers who get the best rates from providers are BIG players - they can credibly threaten to withhold customers if providers don't come down on costs. Little players have no negotiating power - if they say, "we will withhold our 300 customers" providers say, great, don't let the door hit you on the ass on your way out... ! So if anyone wonders why almost every market has just ONE or just a few insurers competing, that's it, not that the law prevents lots of competitors coming in.

I could keep going but the main attraction to "selling insurance across state lines" is it acts as a GOP talking point that they need because they have no other ideas, but it isn't at all clear that effectively neutering every state's insurance regulators would have much of an impact.
 
Its works for the people in charge.

OK, but you're not in charge, or I don't think you are.

So, go ahead, don't file or pay your taxes, etc. You should be fine...
 
You may feel that interstate highways are irrelevant. Many would disagree.
"Many" think aliens will beam them into their spaceships and take them away. :shrug:

No, that's the level at which you are being subsidised. It's what you owe, not what you are owed.
I pay what I owe, I don't get a cent from what you owe.


History leads to the present.
And if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump it's ass hopping. Still irrelevant.


It would be much more expensive or even impossible for you to maintain yer car if the industry had gone under.
How much more expensive exactly? Tell me all about the hypothetical increase that never happened ... fact is you don't know what would happen nor would anyone else. For all we know the costs would have stayed the same or gone down or new car companies would have taken their place and we'd be better off. Therefore, another irrelevant and non-fact based opinion. :yawn:


And a great argument point. Well done!


Going to jail (prison, more likely) is a choice, but again the legal requirement to pay taxes is irrelevant in this context.
Is it a reasonable choice?


The sky isn't always blue, not all dogs bark, and I don't think of ice as being wet. But these concluding observations of yers are pretty much consistent with one aspect of the rest of yer comments — seemingly pointless.

That you don't think, as you said, is the main issue.
 
1. force small business to provide health insurance at $17K/yr. or a $2,000 fine - they will pay the fine and save $15,000
2. force then to pay $15/hr min wage - insuring they will never opt for insuring employees.
There is a ban moon on the rise.
 
How do you think Obamacare is going to paid for? Only a liberal believes govt. programs don't cost any money and won't add to the debt. Guess we just woke up and 18.2 trillion dollars appeared on the books, larger than the U.S. economy.

Only conservatives appear to think that the economics of mandated large-scale insurance risk pools somehow magically change when proposed by the Heritage foundation but get implemented by Democrats.
 
1. force small business to provide health insurance at $17K/yr. or a $2,000 fine - they will pay the fine and save $15,000
2. force then to pay $15/hr min wage - insuring they will never opt for insuring employees.
There is a ban moon on the rise.

Why were small businesses providing insurance to begin with, when there was no fine?
 
This is really disappointing.. I mean, I can read, and at worst I was suspecting that the SC would send it back to congress to fix, NOT interpret intent.. To me, that is not the role of the SCOTUS, and never has been. Sending it back for revision was the right call, unfortunately the robes got this one very wrong.

Tim-

Seems to me The Supreme Court decided intent ( belief ) in the Hobby Lobby case. Even if a pill or BC device does not cause an abortion...if the closely held company's belief ( intent ) is does cause one than the closely held company is exempt from covering it in their insurance for their employees.
 
ludin said:
no I don't owe you anything. you are responsible for yourself. I don't work to pay for you I work to provide for my family. no people don't join socieities to take care of each other.

That is simply false. But, for the fun of it, tell me: why do you think people join societies?

ludin said:
no you are free to live in a place where everyone pays for everything for you. I hear cuba, china, north korea are nice this time of year.

I don't want to live in a society where everything is socialized. Nor do I think pure communism is an ideal economic or governmental model--and I have never said otherwise. However, some socialization is good, and socialized health care would be a good, in my view.

That said, you're simply dodging the point, which was about why societies exist--to wit, taking care of all the individual members, who would do far worse living on their own. We survive better and have longer and more enjoyable lives living as part of a collective, with certain things guaranteed by society as a whole. It's not an argument against the notion that X is good to say that too much of X is bad. For instance: two aspirin when you have a headache is good. Two whole bottles of aspirin is bad. Similarly, some socialization is good. Too much is bad.

ludin said:
Liberals squashed it as well. so yes it was a lie.

For this to be true, it would be necessary for a semi-large contingent of liberals to have argued against, and taken active steps to shut down, the single-payer option. Can you point to some such coalition or group that is both certifiably liberal and who argued thusly?

Just to be clear: I imagine your definition of liberal and mine are fairly different. Obama is not "far left," for example, and neither are Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, or the like. Find someone like Bernie Sanders, Barbara Boxer, Noam Chomsky, or etc. who took steps to kill the single-payer option.

ludin said:
what they propse is actual competition in the market place obamacare is not competition in the market place. what the article proposes is allowing for people to buy insurance across state lines which is something republicans have proposed for years.

Yes, the article does propose that.

ludin said:
that is true market competition. obamacare doesn't allow you to buy insurance across state lines.

I disagree. Section 1333 allows states to enter into compacts which allow insurance sales across state lines. I bought my insurance on the market place from BCBS of Texas--I don't live in Texas.

The arrangement is similar to any other mass marketing of a necessary commodity. I can cross state lines and buy a candy bar without the two states in question having any formal agreement. But (for good reason) I cannot simply plop down a huge factory farm in, say, Iowa and ship all my produce to California without abiding by some regulations, some of which are drawn by the Federal government, others of which are decided by inter-state compact.

ludin said:
if the article only said what you thought it said but it didn't.

Didn't it? The question was whether conservatives think that opening exchanges would reduce prices of health care or not. You said, in post 345, something to the effect that this was a lie which almost every republican knew.

ludin said:
obamacare is not true competition that is why almost all insurance companies are seeking 1-30 and in some cases 70% increases in their premium rates for next year.
it is why in the first year insurance premiums soared 40% on average across the nation. it is why the 2nd year we saw 20-40% increases.

I agree with this, but not for the same reasons. We simply cannot have competition in health care coverage. I don't mean that we ought not to have--i.e. that there's some moral imperative about it (although I do think such imperative exists). Rather, I think the simple fact is that big businesses, and insurance in particular, will always be subject to some level of collusion. It's to insurers' advantage to drive up prices, and if all of them do it, offering slightly different bells and whistles, they'll all make more money.

ludin said:
It doesn't matter how it is done. you can't demand insurance companies provide X services and then think it is going to lower costs.
it isn't.

Don't mistake cost for price. The cost is disconnected from the price in the case of health insurance and health care.
 
What a law actually says no longer matters - what is important is only what those supporting it really meant it to say. ;)
 
One interesting point that seems to float around this thread is whether the justices overstepped their bounds by attempting to understand the intent behind the law, rather than give it a purely literal reading.

I'm a little surprised this point has legs. One of the pillars of statutory construction in jurisprudence for roughly the last three centuries has been to figure out the intent of the legislature. This, for a simple reason: language is not perfect, and people who use language even less so. However carefully something is worded, it will never perfectly express the intent of the person doing the wording. Questions of interpretation will arise, and it would be simply foolish to ignore intent.

That said, words and phrases do not have fixed meanings. If we're at a party and I say "well, all the beer is gone," people don't suddenly fall on their knees and cry to the skies "why, O Lord, why!?!" I don't mean all the beer in the world is gone. I just mean, all the beer in our supply is gone. But if I instead say "all the dinosaurs are gone," people don't leave the party expecting to run into dinosaurs. The meaning of "all" changes from one sentence to the next. Similarly, if I say the price of a Ferrari is higher than the price of a Toyota, no one goes to the Ferrari dealer looking up to the sky to find the prices. Words change meaning in context, and part of context is the intent of the speaker (or, in this case, writers).
 
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That's not how Medicaid works anymore. Medicaid--which was expanded by the ACA--is largely in the hands of risk-bearing private insurance companies. Bush and Rubio both played a role in privatizing Florida's Medicaid program, for instance.

At the states level, that might have been most beneficial to the state's taxpayers if the federal government wasn't sufficiently funding it. That same action takes place here in Canada where Provinces allow private services where the federal healthcare system doesn't fund a service while all other private services are illegal under the Canada Health Act. I don't have sufficient information to make an informed comment about why Florida went the way it did. I suspect it was related to the government services administrative costs of the program rather than the program itself.
 
You made a specific claim: "Being insured and being able to afford treatment are two separate things. That is why disapproval remains high."

You showed me a poll about disapproval, but nothing to shed light on why. That's why I asked for the internals, that would go deeper than the top line number.

So you don't think rising health care costs and bigger higher oit of pocket costs are a reasons to not like the AFFORDABLE Care Act? :roll:

It must be the typeface on the website...

If it was better then, the the GOP plan should be "Repeal." Period.

Nope. Just because the current plan is crap doesn't mean that the old way, though better, doesn't need improvement.

Not even the GOPers think that works with the public, which is why they added the "replace" to their slogan, with a plan that is continually

Right, because they believe the old system could be improved on, but the PPACA wasn't an improvement.


As to the 'have insurance but can't afford treatment' claim - what is your evidence? The ACA caps total out of pocket, including premiums. So I'm not really sure why someone insured (who wasn't before) is less able to afford insurance than they were when uninsured. Is the percentage of income cap too high? And if the cost to insureds is lowered, how is that paid for, by taxpayers though higher healthcare related taxes or by less covered care? One of the two...

I've helped several previously uninsured through the ACA process. A typical one is a lady who works for us occasionally. She's reasonably healthy, makes about $15,000, and her total premiums plus out of pocket was capped at about $60 per month for a silver plan. It's not great insurance, it's the cheapest silver plan, but she is FAR better off, and she'd tell you that. I'm sure others are worse off, but that's going to be true of any change to the system.

You use a person in poverty as your example. Nobody is arguing that those in poverty don't get heavily subsidized in the new program. It is the people above the subsidy line, who have been tasked with funding all those subsidies, that are getting screwed.

[progressivefauxoutrage]Also, why aren't you heartless jerks where you work paying for her insurance?1! And why are people who work for you living in poverty?! You monster. [/progressivefauxoutrage]
 
You gave numbers that you said were "through 2014," implying the period from the program's inception through the end of 2014. If you meant otherwise, you should have said so.

Hah, so do you think the private insurance numbers recovered after open enrollment? :roll:

And it gets worse. The point of the exchanges has always been to pool risk and to have higher wage earners (read: middle class) fund the subsidies of those who people who can't afford them. The trouble is, by HHS's own numbers, as of last month, 87% of all exchange users qualified for a subsidy leaving only 13% of Exchange plan members to fund the other 87%.

The ACA subsidies to insurers for losses derived from Exchange plans will end in 2017. Do you think things will get better after that?
 
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Yea, the " side " that said we could keep our Dr's and Insurance.

The side that said premiums would fall by 2500 dollars.

...

The $2500 savings for a family of 4 was only if a public option was offered.
Senator Obama described his plan on his Senator website before he was elected President.

Every American has the right to affordable, comprehensive and portable health coverage. My plan will ensure that all Americans have health care coverage through their employers, private health plans, the federal government, or the states. My plan builds on and improves our current insurance system, which most Americans continue to rely upon, and creates a new public health plan for those currently without coverage. Under my plan, Americans will be able to choose to maintain their current coverage if they choose to. For those without health insurance I will establish a new public insurance program, and provide subsides to afford care for those who need them. My plan includes a mandate that all children have health care coverage and I will expand eligibility for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs to help ensure we cover all kids. My plan requires all employers to contribute towards health coverage for their employees or towards the cost of the public plan. Under my plan a typical family will save $2,500 each year. We will realize tremendous savings within the health care system from improving efficiency and quality and reducing wasted expenditures system-wide. Specifically, these savings will result from investments in health information technology, improvements in prevention and management of chronic conditions, increased insurance industry competition and reduced industry overhead, the provision of federal reinsurance for catastrophic coverage, and reduced spending on uncompensated care.
 
The $2500 savings for a family of 4 was only if a public option was offered.
Senator Obama described his plan on his Senator website before he was elected President.

His description of "public insurance program" is what the exchanges are. Stop trying to pull a Roberts and change the meaning of words.

By 2019, the only options everyone will have will be high deductible, HSA-eligible plans available via the exchange.
 
So you don't think rising health care costs and bigger higher oit of pocket costs are a reasons to not like the AFFORDABLE Care Act? :

It must be the typeface on the website...

No you've made another claim - "higher out of pocket costs." For whom? In what circumstances. The people I've helped went from unlimited potential out of pocket costs to a defined percentage of their income, premiums plus out of pocket for covered services. How is a defined percentage of their income higher than what could easily be 50 or 100 times their income for a serious illness?

Nope. Just because the current plan is crap doesn't mean that the old way, though better, doesn't need improvement.

Great, we're all anxiously awaiting the GOP 'improvements.'

Right, because they believe the old system could be improved on, but the PPACA wasn't an improvement.

Improvements to be named later. Got it.

You use a person in poverty as your example. Nobody is arguing that those in poverty don't get heavily subsidized in the new program. It is the people above the subsidy line, who have been tasked with funding all those subsidies, that are getting screwed.

It depends. Lots of folks above the subsidy line couldn't get insurance because of pre-existing conditions, and now they can. And opponents of the ACA kept running stories about those getting "screwed" and many times those getting screwed actually weren't. The people who ARE paying higher premiums are those who are very healthy on very limited plans that were ended with ACA, but they're only good with those plans if they don't get actually sick and need real insurance, and instead just need a prepaid health plan. And if you're in an employer plan and are healthy, you're also getting screwed because your premiums cover the old and sick in that company, and the women having babies, etc. When you get old and get employer insurance, the youngsters subsidize your old saggy rear end.

So you're making these broad statements that just aren't rooted in the facts. Yes, there are winners and losers. Whatever "to be named later" plan the GOP comes up with will also have lots of losers. That's life when we're dealing with healthcare.

Also, why aren't you heartless jerks where you work paying for her insurance?1! And why are people who work for you living in poverty?! You monster.

Sarcasm noted, but she does landscaping, and works hard in her own little company, for us about 8 days/year. And she has COPD. I'm happy part of my taxes fund her healthcare. Same with the woman who cleans our house every two weeks.
 
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Hah, so do you think the private insurance numbers recovered after open enrollment? :roll:

And it gets worse. The point of the exchanges has always been to pool risk and to have higher wage earners (read: middle class) fund the subsidies of those who people who can't afford them. The trouble is, by HHS's own numbers, as of last month, 87% of all exchange users qualified for a subsidy leaving only 13% of Exchange plan members to fund the other 87%.

The ACA subsidies to insurers for losses derived from Exchange plans will end in 2017. Do you think things will get better after that?

It's not how it works. The subsidies are funded by taxes not the other insureds. The issue with the exchanges is the low number of young healthy people signing up - they do subsidize the old and sick just like in every employer plan, and unless they join up, the rates will be higher to reflect the actual cost of insuring older, sicker people.
 
Only conservatives appear to think that the economics of mandated large-scale insurance risk pools somehow magically change when proposed by the Heritage foundation but get implemented by Democrats.

For some reason and over time personal responsibility is a lost cause for far too many. It doesn't seem to matter that the Federal Govt. has created an 18.2 trillion debt, more than our entire economy and people like you have no problem giving them more money to waste. Brilliant!!
 

LOL, absolutely amazing how opinions from sources you want to believe somehow are fact in your world when the reality is Obamacare hasn't even been fully implemented but it has done one great thing for people like you, created part time jobs rather than full time ones. Brilliant. What is it about liberalism that creates this kind of loyalty?
 
The $2500 savings for a family of 4 was only if a public option was offered.
Senator Obama described his plan on his Senator website before he was elected President.

Public option ?

You mean single payer ? I didn't realize there were premiums paid in Countries that had Nationalized healthcare.

And no way would a Family of four save 2500 dollars if we had single payer. Its not free Healthcare.

Tax rates would have to be jacked up through the roof to pay for it. On Consumers and on Corporations ( same thing )
 
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