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Originally Posted by Riot
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.
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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.