Obamacare
 

I think this will be a Double Martini Friday for Barrack.. Bad Week.

Naw. It's all just designed to get it to the Supremes asap. The "constitutional" rulings still outnumber the "not", but it needs to go to the Supreme court.

Obamacare is supposed to save billions (medicare) yet costs billions up front?

D.O.A.!

Give the seniors their money and get out of their wallets. They're owed before anyone to the tune of $3.6 TRILLION!

Then we can talk of Obama/Hillary care. ;) or maybe not! :D

i think the judges ruling is correct, ulterior motives notwithstanding. how is it constitutional to demand that all citizens purchase something, and fine them when they don't? it's the one thing i've always questioned. everyone who is covered knows that the price per person would be lowered if everyone buys, but how do you force it?

The judges that have already ruled it constitutional have said it is so under the Commerce Clause.

I guess I've only said this 20 or so times ... the "fines" in the ACA are uncollectable, as it deliberately has a separate specific provision preventing the IRS from collecting them.

Thus, the end result is ... nobody will be fined.

Yes, they wrote it that way deliberately. They want the system up and running, they want the kinks out, they want a few years of shake out, and then they will worry in the future if fines need to be instituted in reality or not.

lol

just like was said on the bloomberg show the other day, half-laws. and people wonder why there is hesitation on the parts of so many! what absurdity. using us and the economy as a guinea pig while they play around with this garbage.

at any rate, i'd guess the first judges got it wrong, and these ones got it right. commerce clause my tail, the constitution gives no right to force a purchase. it happens sometimes you know, that's why they have appeals, as many times lower courts get overridden. because they get it wrong.

and you've also said, ad nauseum, that social security has traditionally been a success. doesn't make the future any different; as future expense becomes untenable. but you know that. oh, that's right. just a itty bitty tweak needed...if you consider adjusting incoming and/or outgoing a tweak. of course you also have to consider just how big that little tweak becomes the further they kick that can down the road. then there's where you talk about the payouts being why the need a tweak, while ignoring the cbo report about what happens by 2080 to the fed budget, because of ss/medicare.

What is the cost of this 'healthcare' law in terms of legal fees, so far?

Once again the taxpayer gets stuck with the bill on both sides, but I suppose the cost of legally defeating this bill will be minor in the big scheme of things and the constitution will be preserved.

I don't believe this. You diss the law repeatedly, then when you finally realize that what you've been dissing it for doesn't exist, you trash the law because it doesn't exist.

Seriously? Just stop making any pretense that your opinion about the law is remotely based upon any fact or objective observation regarding it's content.

Guess that's why it's going to the Supreme Court, as has been the intention from day one. The lower court decisions already made say "constitutional" outnumbers "not", but maybe the minority opinion will prevail in the high court as you guess.

You can either examine the math and predictions over decades from the government and from watchdog groups and believe it, or show where it's wrong. So show where it's wrong. Oh, wait! No, let's just dismiss it out of hand because we don't like what the answer is!

Social Security has been a success because we've run up against financial shortfall projections many, many times before, and we do tweek and fix them. The proof is there. Our success is there. We have never missed a Social Security payment. It is one of the most successful social programs ever created. We know the population, the amount of taxes taken in, changes over time, that why it's looked at regularly. This is just another one of those times, but we're not even really there yet - we have years.

Geeshus cripes, 'Zig, do you not realize that we've done this 'tweek' multiple times in the past? That over 40 times, the conservative wing of government has threatened and screamed falsely about the imminent financial demise of Social Security? That projections have changed since it's inception, it's regularly reviewed, and yes, multiple "tweeks" are routinely done to Social Security all the time to keep it solvent?

The facts remain, the "outgoing current" with zero tweeks is 100% okay until 1937, then will continue to deliver 78% of current benefits for decades after that at current projections.

.

This sentence makes it clear you haven't looked even superficially at the long-term Social Security financing projections, based upon adjustments now and planned adjustments in the future, because the problem is due primarily to the baby boomer bubble (and was accurately predicted about 20 years ago), and the increasing population smooths out after that.

There is no "can kicked down the road". We have always made the best adjustments we have to the next 50 years or so, based upon projected populations. The fact that determining something now based upon future projections doesn't last for 100 years doesn't indicate any flaw in the system at all. It indicates responsibility and planning for the future, that we do these very projections! That's why we look at this repeatedly over the past, and have adjusted it repeatedly over the past!

Yeah - that's exactly why we should change things now. You want to completely eliminate the program? Fine. But I, and plenty of other Americans, don't care to see us become just another second-world country.

And again, Social Security is strong, Medicare is not. Medicare is a problem (actually Medicaid more so), not Social Security. That's just the right's continuing battle cry to try and privatize it.

Glad it wasn't privatized by Wall Street since 2008, or on Friday, where would have lost huge percentages of it's value like private 401K's and other retirement plans did. Instead, our Social Security funds have weathered that storm.

i didn't say antying about eliminating anything. as for obamacare, the claim of medicare savings is more than lost by medicaid increases. again, it's not correct to believe in all or nothing-it's not that simple.

The "structural language" for the fine system is built into the bill already, but the "IRS cannot collect" language was deliberately added so the fines are not collectable immediately.

Yes, they may remove that restriction in the future, if it is needed. They have to have the insurance exchanges up and running, first. Then they will revisit it if necessary.

I'm glad you support our social programs. Yes, Medicaid is a big problem, then Medicare, because the states are responsible for so much financial contribution to Medicaid, and they are broke and unable to contribute their share.

Obama does deserve kudos because the adjustments to eliminating the duplicate waste made in Medicare ($500 billion over several years) in the Affordable Care Act does indeed stretch out Medicare solvency for another 10 years or so (it could be 7, could be 15, I admit I would have to look that up for absolute accuracy)

The other good thing is that millions of older Americans have already benefited this year by noticeably decreased drug costs (thousands in a year) due to the donut hole elimination in the Affordable Care Act.

It's hard to continue doing things at a "current level" (Medicare) when your income streams have dropped from the recession, but majorly dropped due to tax cuts over the past 10 years. Our income, as a country, is down by over 3 trillion in just 10 years just due to the Bush tax cuts (and yes, Obama was wrong to extend them)

The government, if allowed to bargain for drug costs like the private section, could save literally billions a year for Medicare/Medicaid programs.

when you trumpet the 500 billion in savings, you conveniently leave out the corresponding 627 billion in medicaid increases. now, i don't know about you, but where i went to school that's a bad trade.
the cbo report i referenced extensively was done in 09, with two separate sets of figures made, two different sets of assumptions. one problem is that they did their figuring with the tax cut expiring in '10, which of course didn't happen. so now their figures would be that much worse. and we still are currently paying less into our ss than we're supposed to-one of the supposed economic fixes they passed. problem is, the few dollars in our pockets doesn't do much, but the widening gap between income and outlays regarding the federal govt is hampering our economy far more than any temporary increases in our take home pay can fix.
both parties must be willing to give a little on their favorite part of their party. there must be changes to the poorly named entitlements, and there must be tax reform, and an expiration of the bush/obama tax cuts.

What are you specifically referring to? The increased cost of picking up more people into the plan under the ACA? That's financed elsewhere in the plan. The CBO did score the ACA a "zero increased cost" bill (meaning it's costs are paid for by savings within the plan)

Yes.

I agree. But that payrolls savings a temporary fix that does keep a bit of cash in our and our employers pockets during a recession, which is needed.

Again, long-term vs short-term debt in a recession. The stimulus was, in retrospect, only about half of what was needed. We need to get our spending down, but our income has to go back up, too.

I was massively disappointed to see every GOP presidential candidate would refuse even a 10-1 spending cuts vs tax increase offer. That's economic suicide for this country (as Standard and Poor's clearly said in their downgrade). I cannot vote for any one of them, including Perry, due to that.

It was a start with the "big deal" $4 trillion Boehner-Obama deal, but the Tea Party nixed it.

Obama will give back some defense money in the "Cat Food Commission Two" for exchange of expiration of tax cuts for the wealthy (leaving tax cuts in place for what used to be the middle class and the poverty classes) Which is really no "exhange" at all, in my book, as the tax cuts will expire in entirety on their own if we just ignore them.

Do you support the idea of the infrastructure bank? It think that's great idea (google it)

Should this really be a concern? How many actual 'families' are still in existence? ;)

We can still save ourselves from the catastrophe that is Obamacare and as a by-product produce jobs! Another no brainer!


http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinio...-cost-estimate

http://www.derbytrail.com/forums/sho...t=43315&page=2

that's a start. cbo says that while medicare does decrease, medicaid increases by 127 billion more than medicare decreases. 500 billion vs 627 billion. the fed is trying to trumpet medicare savings, while hoping no one notices the increases the states would face in return.

If the tax rate was 100% across the board OBAMACARE would still bankrupt the Nation.

Obamacare is pretty much a straight up Heritage Foundation plan word for word back from the 90s. It's a straight conservative health care plan as health insurance "mandates" was a straight up republican idea. It's brutal because it is a conservative plan and a straight out giveaway to insurance companies. Every single first world nation has some form of "socialized" or non-profit insurance plan or some type of combo. Obamacare ain't that. It ain't even remotely close to that and it never will be. It has a few nice points to it, but it economically is horrendous as any plan that doesn't vaporize healt insurance companies will be. We're a great country, but some countries actually do stuff better than us...especially much cheaper health care. It doesn't mean we're not a great country if we try to model something another country actually does better. We can get into all the talking points by political groups about the evils of minor socialization of stuff.

In the end my only points on this politcally side is Obama is so far and away the most conservative president in this country we have every had it's not even funny or debatable. He's the brutal continuation of the Goldwater/Reagan neo-liberal Chicago school economics which will never end. We're bought people. Nothing can change anything at this point.

In essence everything done is backwards and common knowledge on any specific topic is 100 percent wrong. The deficit fetish is so outlandish it's insane. Every single person in America knows the worst thing to do right now is slash government spending. People aren't spending, business' aren't spending, the very last thing you need right now is drastic spending cuts by the government, yet that's what we do. At some point you address the deficit...mainly when the economy is good, (like in the aughts!!), but I believe dick cheney's direct quote was "deficitis don't matter". Somehow in 2009 deficits suddenly became the only game in town at exactly the opposite time it should be. The stimulus by Obama and company was so inadequate and meager it did nothing especially when 33 percent plus was just tax cuts...more of them. History has told us time and time again that tax cuts do not create jobs, have never created jobs and will not in the future creat jobs, and 100 eprcent of Americans know this, yet we do the exact opposite. Massive tax cuts coinciding with empire building did not create many jobs, yet that is what we do. And our bought masters will continue with this myth for infinity. Trickle down is a disaster and everyone knows it. The original author David Stockman has stated it as 100 percent fact, yet we continue it. His initial attempt with Reagan was a joke and he stated it as fact as having zero percent basis in reality.

We have one political party in this country. We're dead and we can't fix it. The class warfare is over and has been already been won hands down by the rich. We are completely owned. Obama, Bachman, Perry, Bush. If anyone thinks there is one iota difference between any of them you are crazy. They're completely owned. Inverted totalitarinaism is here completely.

Except those that don't realize they are insane.

I read something about Obama's current advisor inner circle. You might notice things have changed a bit since Rahm left. He was definitely a strong attenuating political force in there. They recommend to him that he compromise down to get anything passed (considered a success), rather than take the strong necessary stand that will be met with complete opposition. Thus we get weak tea, like patent reform, rather than an aggressive jobs program.

Stockman has since repudiated it completely as the nonsense it is.

I'd characterize it as a plutocracy.

Yet whenever that's been mentioned in the past, the current right screams out, "socialism, socialism!" as they've been taught to think. Clueless.

Baby....leave your home planet out of this,please.

Now here's an idea that will cost nothing, will actually save taxpayer money and put people to work at the same time. Don't agree with him all the time but bravo Sen. Hatch.

Why is it everything that Big Business wants they basically lead us to believe that when they get it the jobs crisis will be solved. When they actually get it Execs further enrich themselves and the job crisis still exists. They are playing us.

You do realize your IRA or 401K, if typical, is primarily invested in ‘big business’? And small businesses especially those in service and manufacturing are also reliant on 'big business' as a client?

I'm far more inclined to believe the government is playing me rather than 'big business'. Specifically I believe my XOM stock is a safer, more conservative and potentially a far more profitable investment than the amount the fed is deducting from EVERY paycheck, I've EVER received with a current zero balance but a promise THEY will begin paying returns at an age and amount THEY will decide and change in the future. :zz:

Of course if I don't make it to THEIR movable finish line my investment is zero.

I didn't think it needed to be said that the government is playing us. It is a Given but it is NOT a Democrat or Republican Issue. You are getting it from both ends.

Joey, the only thing you know about the Affordable Care Act are the false right-wing talking points you've been taught to repeat. The cartoon you posted is full of false shiat talking points from 2009, and has nothing to do with what was actually passed and what is in effect now.

There are no tax raises. There are no "death panels". There is no "delayed treatment".

Name three good - no, great - life-saving things that directly have affected and help people, that the act has already done. If you have any ability to have objective thought at all, you'll be able to do this.

It's nonsense. The first lie is that it will save people money to cancel the ACA. And I suggest you read that "survey" he's quoting and see it's objectivity - or not.

Geeshus, you Obama-haters are gullible.

If it's such a saver why all the up-front money needed? Why the need for exemptions?

What do you suppose a policy for an unhealthy 40 year old, obese, smoker with high blood pressure, previous heart problems and a family history of strokes and heart attacks costs a year?

And why should a healthy, 40 year-old, jogger, who never smoked and has a family to support be forced to chip in for his policy?

Rid the program of 'subsidies' and I'm onboard. Of course the program is all about the subsidy right?

Patients need rights but they don't need to be forced to pay for other patients. In terms of cost, uninsured ER visits and treatment will never come close to this monstrosity.

Why? Because it was dreamt up by the socialists in office at the time, that's why.

Get ready: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbHh86HkBhk

How is this remotely a serious question? Are you completely ignorant of how business works? Because when people work to set up systems, we pay them. We don't demand they work for free.

Because of Republican fear that, god forbid, one American pay one penny they don't want to for another American's well-being.

Did you pay zero attention during the healthcare debates? It sure seems like it.

I don't know. Why don't you ask the private insurance companies that are going to continue to write those policies on the exchanges?

I assume you already know that won't have anything at all to do with you, as you are already insured.

Because that's what happens now with your insurance, and the ACA doesn't change that. Maybe you don't understand the concept of "groups" and "spread risk"?

So you' rather have people who are uninsured now, remain uninsured, than to pay for a portion of their health insurance? That's stupid. I want them to pay what they can, and stop costing me an arm and a leg by being uninsured, and having me cover 100% of their cost to go to the ER now. I'm paying for them now, and they can start paying a fair share. You are against that? Ridiculous.

Really? Prove it. Quote actual figures. Because every other financial organization that has looked at it has scored your contention as false.

Stop pretending to know anything about health care and the ACA and have "reasons" to dislike the ACA. It's clear you do not. You never mention anything factual. Just say you hate Obama, and everything he is associated with. That would be at least be respectable due to honesty.

Stop sticking your head in the sand. Partially funding the 40 year old fat smoker is just part of the bill. How about the full funding of the 40-year-old fat smoker who lives by a pole? Why should the 40-year-old healthy nonsmoker, trying to do the best for his family and educate his children, with a shrinking home value and retirement account be asked for more?

You want free birth control pills included in your policy? Write it that way! No co-pays with certain drugs? Pay for it!

Just as no one needs to be involved in someone’s' bedroom they need to stay out of someone’s purse and wallet!

How about Buffett & Co. put up the up-front money and prove the conservatives wrong?

Best political move, if it works, evaahhhhhhh. :D

I agree with everything Riot says. Even though I have to wake up at 5am every morning to go to work and usually don't get home before 7pm I think the most important thing to me is to support everyone that doesn't feel like working. Now I'm not talking about the people that have worked hard all their lives and are having hard times with the Obama economy, I'm talking anout the scum that drags down this country. Those are the people I work my ass off for. Screw my 2 sons. Why should I help them out with their college bills when I can spend my hard earned money on some lazy bum that Riot obviously doesn't want to help out as long as he can have someone else take care of them, I don't know him but he's probably a typical Liberal that has no black friends, gives no money to charity and has never donated an hour of his life to public service. I'm surrounded by those people in NY

:tro: Excellent, succinct description of modern day socialism and the beliefs of its high priests in the Democratic party.

all well and good...except for this part:


overall, obamacare will cause a 127 billion dollar increase in spending by 2020. where will that money come from? that's the difference between the savings in medicare, but the corresponding increased cost of medicaid. obamacare isn't a foolproof plan at all, and certainly isn't the savings that was trumpeted at the time it was passed. all they talked about was the savings to medicare-and that's true. the increase in medicaid isn't mentioned much, is it?
and i also read that obama and his admin are wanting the supreme court to hold off on any obamacare case until after the next election. that if the portion of the law that requires you to purchase insurance is struck down, it takes the whole law down as it will then have to be reworked. that they might try to get the appeals court to re-hear the case as one way to slow it from reaching the supreme court as quickly.

I hope Chief Justice Roberts gives Obama a nice two word message (not "Happy Birthday") on waiting to hear the case.

Nothing we can do about the appeals re-hearing if that in fact requires a delay in the Supreme Court.

Funny how it's always about that next election, isn't it? I mean, both sides play that game, but in this case it doesn't matter how unconstitutional or ineffective toward improving health the law will be, as long as it's after the next election.:rolleyes:

asking the appellate court to reconsider the case is one delaying tactic. of course the hope would be that they change their decision, which would be a slim chance at best.

all i know regarding politics is that the adage of 'how great the sin when someone else commits is' really fits pols well. they both engage in the same tactics, and they both reproach the other for doing so.

You agree with not what I actually say, but with the imaginary talking points in your head. Nice try.

C'mon - this simply isn't factually true. Go learn the definition of Socialism, for starters - then come back and point out where it exists - and go see how Obama doesn't act in the beliefs of the Democratic party a good amount of the time.