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Snowe: President thought opposition to health law would eventually fade away

Some how I got a feeling that you do, you're just ignoring it. Yes in previous years some of what is in Obamacare was suggested by Repbulicans. But those ideas were shot down, not just by other Senators and such but also by the People who disapproved of those ideas...and still do. When those ideas were brought up again, by the Democrats, the Republicans this time sided with the People because the People opposed those ideas just as they did when Republicans suggested them years before. IE The Republicans sided with the majority of the People. The Democrats went against the majority of the People.

So your point that they were at one time Republican ideas holds no water anymore because the Republicans dropped those ideas when they first got shot down. The Democrats picked them up again for Obamacare and despite what the majority of the People said and wanted voted for those ideas...making them Democrat ideas. Not Republican, because again, Republicans dropped the idea.

Not sure that is entirely true considering Romneycare. But it doesn't really matter. The original ideas put in the table were better, but derailed by republicans and the woefully misinformed tea party. What came next largely came from republican ideas. My hat is he only point.
 
Not sure that is entirely true considering Romneycare. But it doesn't really matter. The original ideas put in the table were better, but derailed by republicans and the woefully misinformed tea party. What came next largely came from republican ideas. My hat is he only point.

How could the Republican's derail anything? Despite 100% opposition from Republicans in the Senate the bill still passed. The bill was constructed behind closed doors and without any republican input. Obamacare is purely in the Democrats court.
 
How could the Republican's derail anything? Despite 100% opposition from Republicans in the Senate the bill still passed. The bill was constructed behind closed doors and without any republican input. Obamacare is purely in the Democrats court.

Because there was first an effort to work with republicans. You would right if they just went and left them to begin with, and there wasn't that tea party silliness.
 
I guess I just don't see how we're "denying" them care. In both examples, the men said they could "not afford" insurance. If that were indeed true, they would have qualified for Medicaid.

So, it's not so much that we're denying healthcare to a class of citizens, it's that we have a class of citizens that essentially gamble on whether or not they'll need the care. Is it really "immoral" not to provide free care for people who can afford it but choose not to? Conversely, is it "moral" to force these people to pay for coverage they might not want? I can see arguments for why and why not, I just don't think it's fair to call the status quo immoral.
 
I guess I just don't see how we're "denying" them care. In both examples, the men said they could "not afford" insurance. If that were indeed true, they would have qualified for Medicaid.

So, it's not so much that we're denying healthcare to a class of citizens, it's that we have a class of citizens that essentially gamble on whether or not they'll need the care. Is it really "immoral" not to provide free care for people who can afford it but choose not to? Conversely, is it "moral" to force these people to pay for coverage they might not want? I can see arguments for why and why not, I just don't think it's fair to call the status quo immoral.

That's not true. The working poor are the most under represented group in American. Many work and thus don't qualify for government programs and can't afford either insurance or to pay for he care themselves. Much has been written in this.

We make people do things they don't want all the time from car insurance to taxes to attending school. Nothing immoral about it.
 
Flexible spending accounts don't impress me much, but I don't believe they are outlawed in any way. And yes, the young do have to pay, and they will be old one day. However, too many young over estimate their invulnerability and end up passing costs on to everyone else.

As for moral hazard, allowing any segment of the population to not be able to receive necessary healthcare is not only immoral, but a public health issue.

On average, the young use FAR less health care then the old do. Their costs should proportionally be as such. Not only was it not proportionally less before this law, but this law made reduced that proportionality even further. The costs are being passed on to them, not the other way around.

Given this piece of information, it is quite obvious the purpose of the mandate is to force individuals to force people who do not consume a lot of health care to pay for those who do consume a lot of healthcare. Moral hazard.

FSA may not impress you, but limiting them is just a ploy to force more people into the system. Nothing more, nothing less. And you're right, young people will eventually be old. FSA are a way for people to save for their OWN healthcare. The government can subsidize this.

Also, your last point is a myth. The National Center for Policy Institute estimates that each uninsured American receives approximately $1,500 worth of free healthcare per year.. Anyone can receive treatment, what we are talking about is coverage.
 
On average, the young use FAR less health care then the old do. Their costs should proportionally be as such. Not only was it not proportionally less before this law, but this law made reduced that proportionality even further. The costs are being passed on to them, not the other way around.

Given this piece of information, it is quite obvious the purpose of the mandate is to force individuals to force people who do not consume a lot of health care to pay for those who do consume a lot of healthcare. Moral hazard.

FSA may not impress you, but limiting them is just a ploy to force more people into the system. Nothing more, nothing less. And you're right, young people will eventually be old. FSA are a way for people to save for their OWN healthcare. The government can subsidize this.

Also, your last point is a myth. The National Center for Policy Institute estimates that each uninsured American receives approximately $1,500 worth of free healthcare per year.. Anyone can receive treatment, what we are talking about is coverage.

Yes, they do. And barring death, they will one day be old.

And no, yelling ploy is not equal to actual evidence. They are not outlawed, and largely are more gimmick than solution.

And, no, not a myth. Nothing is free. We all pay for it. 1,500 is not a lot of money, so it doesn't begin to solve the problem.
 
Not a bad thought from the President. It was one of the common talking points against the bill, was that once it starts it won't stop. Those in support of the bill thought that the good would dramatically outweigh whatever problems would surface, and opposition to the bill would gradually diminish.

It won't diminish as long as republicans keep trying to repeal it. 37 times and millions of dollars later it is still the law of the land.
 
Yes, they do. And barring death, they will one day be old.

And no, yelling ploy is not equal to actual evidence. They are not outlawed, and largely are more gimmick than solution.

And, no, not a myth. Nothing is free. We all pay for it. 1,500 is not a lot of money, so it doesn't begin to solve the problem.

So why can't I save for my own old age healthcare instead of paying for a 500 pound obese smoker's old age healthcare? That is a moral hazard.

Where did I say they were outlawed? It would be wise of you to read my actual points instead of making ones up for me.

I'm saying, it is a myth that they don't receive any healthcare. They do. And again, price fixing isn't the solution to any problem.
 
It won't diminish as long as republicans keep trying to repeal it. 37 times and millions of dollars later it is still the law of the land.

Until the next election, possibly.

Republicans know this is just a gimmick. They are setting themselves up for midterms and the 2016 race in the aftermath of this trainwreck to be able to say "we told you so! 37 times!"
 
So why can't I save for my own old age healthcare instead of paying for a 500 pound obese smoker's old age healthcare? That is a moral hazard.

Where did I say they were outlawed? It would be wise of you to read my actual points instead of making ones up for me.

I'm saying, it is a myth that they don't receive any healthcare. They do. And again, price fixing isn't the solution to any problem.

You can, but most don't. And working poor largely can't. Not realistically. And you can refuse care to the 500 lb smoker. Sure. Let em die is an option, but I wouldn't call it a moral one. Instead we've been straddling that line very in effectively. Much more moral and cost effective to plan to have care for all.

I have paid attention. And my point stands. You've given a vague limiting. Outside of outlawing, there really is no valid compliant you've listed yet.

You're cutting he point too fine. They don't receive adequate care. Many go without vital care. Try not to deal in absolutes.
 
Until the next election, possibly.

Republicans know this is just a gimmick. They are setting themselves up for midterms and the 2016 race in the aftermath of this trainwreck to be able to say "we told you so! 37 times!"

I'm not so sure that is how this will go down. I think to most people except for congress know it is a done deal.
 
Until the next election, possibly.

Republicans know this is just a gimmick. They are setting themselves up for midterms and the 2016 race in the aftermath of this trainwreck to be able to say "we told you so! 37 times!"

And the democrats will argue " 2010 was about jobs, you ran on a platform of job creation, so where are the jobs?"

The economy is still the central issue, and voting to repal somthing 37 times sounds more like obsesive compulsive disorder then a plan to fix the economy.
 
Until the next election, possibly.

Republicans know this is just a gimmick. They are setting themselves up for midterms and the 2016 race in the aftermath of this trainwreck to be able to say "we told you so! 37 times!"

It likely would not have been repealed had Romney won. The noise would just fade.
 
That's not true. The working poor are the most under represented group in American. Many work and thus don't qualify for government programs and can't afford either insurance or to pay for he care themselves. Much has been written in this.
Many (or all) of the working poor (depending on how you define it) are below poverty and eligible for Medicaid. If you don't have kids, you won't qualify with a minimum wage job. At $15,000 per year, you can afford coverage, but yes, will probably feel it. On the other hand, few people make minimum wage, and most of those are very young. The vast majority move up considerably within the first year. Not trying to say it's easy for these people to afford care, I just think it's a bit of a stretch to say that they're denied care.
 
Many (or all) of the working poor (depending on how you define it) are below poverty and eligible for Medicaid. If you don't have kids, you won't qualify with a minimum wage job. At $15,000 per year, you can afford coverage, but yes, will probably feel it. On the other hand, few people make minimum wage, and most of those are very young. The vast majority move up considerably within the first year. Not trying to say it's easy for these people to afford care, I just think it's a bit of a stretch to say that they're denied care.

Again, not true. The poverty line is artificial and does not reflect what it costs to live in America. And no, you cannot afford coverage at 15 k a year. Not realistically.

And, no, it's not stretch. Yes, they can use the ER. And sometimes there are free clinic opportunities. But they can't keep up with the need.
 
Again, not true. The poverty line is artificial and does not reflect what it costs to live in America. And no, you cannot afford coverage at 15 k a year. Not realistically.
I did for several years - actually my income rose to around 17k eventually. I didn't have a car, but led a fairly normal life otherwise.
 
I'm not so sure that is how this will go down. I think to most people except for congress know it is a done deal.

The law itself may be a done deal, in the sense that it won't be repealed wholesale. But that doesn't mean parts of it cannot be scrapped or changed over time.

The point is, Republicans are setting themselves up to capitalize on the next two elections when premiums begin to skyrocket.
 
Once again, worn out diversion topic. Why don't liberals ever want to debate the merits of the bill?

Why don't Rastafarians smoke begonias?

You applied a label to me and then accused me of failing to do something that was not relevant to the assertion I was responding to.

I would be happy to debate the merits of the bill.

I am disappointed with the bill because the central component of the bill is a giveaway to the health insurance industry (the old Republican idea of free market universal healthcare) and the only component that would have mitigated the risks associated with that aspect was killed in negotiations, the public option.

Sadly, I honestly believe that if Republicans honestly engaged, we could have come up with a bill that was much better than the one we got. Instead, Republicans forced Democrats to get agreement from every single Democrat, making some aspects of the bill a bit dodgy.

People act as if our health insurance system (or lack of a system) was anything but a total disaster before Obamacare. We did not get to the point of needing to address this issue because our system was running smoothly.

Republicans had 16 years to address the healthcare disaster in our country and did NOTHING, not a single bill introduced, no tort reform bills, no bills to take allow selling insurance across state lines, no bills to permanently address the Doc Gap, or the Donut hole. In fact, the only significant bill was the unfunded Medicare part D bill at a cost of over $40 billion per year with no offsets whatsoever.

On the merits, I would say that this is the best bill they could get passed, and it is has its shortcomings, which could be tweaked over time if the House would spend a moment realizing that they are not going to repeal this bill, but they could be a part of fixing it, instead they have wasted our time and money voting to repeal the same bill 37 times. Every big program in America had to be tweaked and fixed after passage, this one is no different, except that Republicans are not interested in making it better, they want it gone or they want to have as many flaws as it can have.

One glaringly obvious mistake in Obamacare was the 1099 reporting provision, Republicans refused to vote to amend this element for a year after it was recognized as a big problem, but finally acted after their own base begged for this fix.

What provisions of the bill would you like to debate on the merits?

There are some provisions that I would like to see gone, some changed, some added.
 
You can, but most don't. And working poor largely can't. Not realistically. And you can refuse care to the 500 lb smoker. Sure. Let em die is an option, but I wouldn't call it a moral one. Instead we've been straddling that line very in effectively. Much more moral and cost effective to plan to have care for all.

I have paid attention. And my point stands. You've given a vague limiting. Outside of outlawing, there really is no valid compliant you've listed yet.

You're cutting he point too fine. They don't receive adequate care. Many go without vital care. Try not to deal in absolutes.

That's why you can have a government program that contributes to the savings accounts. The government can subsidize the system.

And its more moral to steal from me to pay for him/her? Forbidding medical underwriting raises costs on the system overall. No one is talking about letting the obese smoker die. My entire point is expect me to subsidize someone else's risk is a moral hazard. By definition. And you have yet to refute that (or even attempt to do so).

What on earth are you talking about? My point was they are limiting FSA contributions to force people onto traditional healthcare plans. I don't see you discuss that anywhere in your post.

You're the one who said that they weren't able to receive care. I just showed they are able to do so. Sometimes they may choose not to, but the ability is there for them even if they don't have coverage.

Illegal immigrants seem to have gotten the memo, they receive free coverage at our hospitals all the time.
 
And the democrats will argue " 2010 was about jobs, you ran on a platform of job creation, so where are the jobs?"

The economy is still the central issue, and voting to repal somthing 37 times sounds more like obsesive compulsive disorder then a plan to fix the economy.

Typical Democrat. If the economy recovers by 2016 it will be because of how "pro-jobs" the Democrats are. If the economy is still sluggish, (which there is absolutely no way it will be, in my opinion) they will say its because "Republicans stood against the jobs bill." Either way, the jobs bill didn't get passed like the Democrats wanted, and either way the Democrats will still claim credit for success and divert blame for failure.


But the economy can recover and healthcare premiums can still skyrocket. And we are talking about healthcare.
 
It likely would not have been repealed had Romney won. The noise would just fade.

You're right, but I would certainly hope the worst parts of it would be curtailed under a Romney administration. I see the APA as having a lot of good ideas that are laced with cyanide. Detoxify the bill, and the overall impact will be overwhelmingly positive.
 
How could the Republican's derail anything? Despite 100% opposition from Republicans in the Senate the bill still passed. The bill was constructed behind closed doors and without any republican input. Obamacare is purely in the Democrats court.

Republicans were begged to participate, the only caveat the democrats made was that there would need to be some Republican votes for the bigger changes Republicans would have wanted, the Democrats simply did not have the votes if they conceded elements to Republicans and Republicans still didn't vote for it. This was party over country and politics over nation. But the bill did include 161 amendments put forward by Republicans with many of them substantive.

One of two things will happen because the GOP will not address any of the shortcomings of the bill, they will either benefit politically or be blamed for not doing their job. In one case, Democrats will win the House and make the needed changes, or alternatively, the GOP will win the Senate, and they may have the power to repeal the bill in total and enjoy the backlash of reinstating pre-existing condition exclusions, allowing insurance companies to throw dependents off at 21, repeal tax credits to small business for buying health insurance, reopen the Medicare "doughnut hole", and these benefits will be up an running so will have to be taken away from Americans. And if and when they do this, besides all of the people who will be angry at losing the benefits of this bill, if insurance rates don't fall, they will then own THAT.
 
Why don't Rastafarians smoke begonias?

You applied a label to me and then accused me of failing to do something that was not relevant to the assertion I was responding to.

I would be happy to debate the merits of the bill.

I am disappointed with the bill because the central component of the bill is a giveaway to the health insurance industry (the old Republican idea of free market universal healthcare) and the only component that would have mitigated the risks associated with that aspect was killed in negotiations, the public option.

Sadly, I honestly believe that if Republicans honestly engaged, we could have come up with a bill that was much better than the one we got. Instead, Republicans forced Democrats to get agreement from every single Democrat, making some aspects of the bill a bit dodgy.

People act as if our health insurance system (or lack of a system) was anything but a total disaster before Obamacare. We did not get to the point of needing to address this issue because our system was running smoothly.

Republicans had 16 years to address the healthcare disaster in our country and did NOTHING, not a single bill introduced, no tort reform bills, no bills to take allow selling insurance across state lines, no bills to permanently address the Doc Gap, or the Donut hole. In fact, the only significant bill was the unfunded Medicare part D bill at a cost of over $40 billion per year with no offsets whatsoever.

On the merits, I would say that this is the best bill they could get passed, and it is has its shortcomings, which could be tweaked over time if the House would spend a moment realizing that they are not going to repeal this bill, but they could be a part of fixing it, instead they have wasted our time and money voting to repeal the same bill 37 times. Every big program in America had to be tweaked and fixed after passage, this one is no different, except that Republicans are not interested in making it better, they want it gone or they want to have as many flaws as it can have.

One glaringly obvious mistake in Obamacare was the 1099 reporting provision, Republicans refused to vote to amend this element for a year after it was recognized as a big problem, but finally acted after their own base begged for this fix.

What provisions of the bill would you like to debate on the merits?

There are some provisions that I would like to see gone, some changed, some added.

I really just get tired of hearing that talking point. Democrats acting as if the only reason anyone opposes the APA is because they hate Obama is the highest form of snobbery.

You're right, Republicans did not pass a major reform of healthcare. To Obama's credit, in 20 years from now, not a single provision of the APA may still be in effect, but healthcare will still never be the same as it was before it. Why? Because no matter how bad the bill is, the fact is the bill forces the issue for future reforms to take place. Republicans are now on the clock to respond, and a failure to do so would largely expose the current leadership's ineptitude. People think because I'm a libertarian, I'm against any sort of government involvement at all. I'm not, I believe the government has a duty to make reforms as they are necessary, but I firmly believe that we will be more successful as a country if those reforms have a libertarian flavor to them.

As for the merits of the bill I'll redirect you to a post I made earlier that outlined the majority of my opposition to the bill.

Defensive medicine + tort costs only around $100B. Of course the savings wouldn't be absolutely enormous, but its an easy cost to reduce right off the bat. Patient noncompliance costs around $200B a year. That's over $300B of pure waste that can be chopped down right from the get go. Mind you If we were to reduce even have of these costs, that would lead more savings in health care costs than every doctor in America working for free for a year.

Please tell me exactly which Republicans were pushing limits on flexible spending accounts, throwing another 30 million people on Medicaid, hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes, fixing premium costs to a % of income (rent control and price setting has NEVER worked in any sector, and it damn sure won't work in healthcare) and further restricting medical underwriting (the fact that I will be paying only 1/3rd in what someone who is old, obese, and has diabetes despite using less then 1/20th the amount of healthcare they use is complete bull****, through and through)?

Yeah, Republicans had the idea of an individual mandate as well as health care exchanges to shop for insurance. By itself, these may have been good ideas. But when you combine an individual mandate with restricting underwriting? That is a radical shifting of costs onto the relatively healthy for the benefit of the extremely unhealthy. When you combine these two policies together, it turns the individual mandate into a completely different animal. So saying it was a "Republican idea" is downright dishonest when you know for a fact that no Republican would support the healthcare law in its present form. Some of healthcare is about life choices, and I am staunchly against any program that attempts to punish those who make all the right choices for the benefit of those who do not.
 
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