Mr "Compromise" tried to appease everyone but ended up infuriating more than a few Democrats/Independents and of course all the Republicans. Hence the disastrous polling numbers we now see with the popularity of the ACA.
This couldn't be any more ironic if Republicans were complaining about US soldiers still fighting in Afghanistan.
We enacted the Bob Dole/Mitt Romney/Heritage Foundation plan for health care reform and you act like the sky is falling.
So what is your solution? Repeal the ACA? Deny health care to everyone but rich people? Maybe get rid of all the doctors in ERs and replace them with guys with shotguns, so whenever sick people come in the door you put a 12 gauge slug in their heads?
We enacted the most right wing form of health care reform humanly possible without requiring hospital patients to pay their medical bills by giving BBBJ's to the executives at Humana. What, pray tell, do you have to bitch about?
That, and the news it has tanked AGAIN in popularity in last 30 days or so tells me this law just wont last.
And when dyed in the wool, true believer LIBERALS like Frank start saying Barry lied, well...
Any ideas why he would wait until now to say this?
Is this the beginning of liberals seeing the handwriting on the wall, politically, and they will start to run from this law en masse over the next 6-12 month or are they too invested in "healthcare for all" and too attached at the hip to Barry to leave him on this ?
Thoughts?
Here's what Barney said,
"He should have said, 'Look, in some cases the health care plans that you've got are really inadequate, and in your own interests, we're going to change them,'" Frank said. "But that's not what he said."
This is the shit I despise about the Democrats. It's their arrogance. It's their we know what's better for you, and you are unable to make the right decisions.
At what point will Democrats understand that the consumer is better equipped to make the right decisions on products and services. A lot of people were happy with their individual policies, including those that opted for a catastrophic plan.
And when dyed in the wool, true believer LIBERALS like Frank start saying Barry lied, well...
Any ideas why he would wait until now to say this?
Is this the beginning of liberals seeing the handwriting on the wall, politically, and they will start to run from this law en masse over the next 6-12 month or are they too invested in "healthcare for all" and too attached at the hip to Barry to leave him on this ?
Thoughts?
Well, St Croix, your complaint is against the very concept of consumer protection, not the Democrats.
“We know better than you” is not arrogance but is a fact when applied to federal and state government consumer protection policy decisions. Take a look at your Consumer Protection Act in California; now look at the ones in Republican states. Pretty similar, aren’t they? Now look at federal legislation designed to protect consumers, whether in the form of motor vehicle safety standards or the warranty disclaimers on your Beemer. Just as many were passed in Republican administrations as Democratic.
In short, the consumer does need to be protected by the wiser policy makes that we elect. You may choose to go to a pay day lender to pay off your gambling debts every time UCLA loses. But the arrogant consumer protection laws limit that interest rate whether you are happy yo pay ir or not. And just bc a consumer likes his health plan and likes his doctor doesn’t mean that either is any good.
"The consumer is better equipped to make the right choices on products and services." Are you kidding me? You are just wrong about that. It would be true only as to the educated consumer, a fraction of the group protected by tis legislation.
Consumer protection good
My point was not about various consumer protection programs, or various taxes to encourage, modify, or punish behavior, or the myriad of regulations at all levels of govt. I am talking about a general pervasive attitude of liberals, and it manifested itself in Obamacare, from the legislation to the mandated coverage within both exchange and non-exchange plans. Just one small example mari is the elimination of catastrophic plans for those over age 30, because they are viewed as substandard, irrespective of the idea that those with financial assets are more than able to handle minor or moderate medical expenses. But in the government's world, they don't want the consumer to take that chance.
Now with respect to your last paragraph that consumers are somehow not equipped to make the right choices. I believe you are talking about complex products and services, i.e. financial (mortgages and credit cards) that 99% of the people are incapable of making an informed decision. You're right mari, they need to be carefully managed (lol). But we'll let them make choices for laundry detergent and beer.
“We know better than you” is not arrogance but is a fact when applied to federal and state government consumer protection policy decisions. Take a look at your Consumer Protection Act in California; now look at the ones in Republican states. Pretty similar, aren’t they? Now look at federal legislation designed to protect consumers, whether in the form of motor vehicle safety standards or the warranty disclaimers on your Beemer. Just as many were passed in Republican administrations as Democratic.
In short, the consumer does need to be protected by the wiser policy makes that we elect. You may choose to go to a pay day lender to pay off your gambling debts every time UCLA loses. But the arrogant consumer protection laws limit that interest rate whether you are happy yo pay ir or not. And just bc a consumer likes his health plan and likes his doctor doesn’t mean that either is any good.
"The consumer is better equipped to make the right choices on products and services." Are you kidding me? You are just wrong about that. It would be true only as to the educated consumer, a fraction of the group protected by tis legislation.
Consumer protection good.
To say "consumre protection is good" is meaningless and a red herring. No one in any position of power wants to abolish that idea or ban it.
It is like when Obama says things like, "There are folks that just don't want to do anything. No. Some people don't like that particular idea or want to do something different. But to make it simplistic obviates the need for serious debate.
THere is a conflict between many good in different laws. In this case "consumer protection" is in conflict with liberty and freedom because you can't buy what you want.
Those of us who dislike the ACA don't want to abandon all consumer protection. In fact, pre-Obama, insurance has always been heavily regulated. It is these regulations that we don't like.
At some point people should be able to say, "I don't want insurance for small routine matters. I want insurance for expensive, non-routine." I have had that for 30 years and am "protected."
By making all insurance policies cover small routine matters, consumer prottection conflicts with liberty and freedom.
as a famous judge once said.
All consumer protection and all government regulation interferes with your freedom and liberty to some extent. You can’t buy the insurance policy you want? You can’t legally buy lead paint either. You can’t legally buy sex from women.
So that is the flaw in your argument. Obamacare does indeed does indeed conflict with your freedom and liberty – but so does virtually every other federal or state regulation.
Now when government regulation interferes with a fundamental right, or impacts a suspect class, then your “liberty and freedom” argument starts to gain traction. But you have no fundamental right to go “bare” for small routine matters and that requirement is applied to everyone.
Remember when that bee stung you and you went to the emergency room? You did not need insurance to get treatment for this routine matter – fed law required the ER to screen and stabilize you. But the taxpayers had to pay for it. Obamacare now makes you pay for routine matters like this thru the purchase of insurance. Your “freedom” to make us pay for your provoking that bee has now been squashed and rightly so.
As to my post’s conclusion that “consumer protection is good,” that is word play designed specifically for St. Croix, not analysis
All consumer protection and all government regulation interferes with your freedom and liberty to some extent. You can’t buy the insurance policy you want? You can’t legally buy lead paint either. You can’t legally buy sex from women.
So that is the flaw in your argument. Obamacare does indeed does indeed conflict with your freedom and liberty – but so does virtually every other federal or state regulation.
Now when government regulation interferes with a fundamental right, or impacts a suspect class, then your “liberty and freedom” argument starts to gain traction. But you have no fundamental right to go “bare” for small routine matters and that requirement is applied to everyone.
Remember when that bee stung you and you went to the emergency room? You did not need insurance to get treatment for this routine matter – fed law required the ER to screen and stabilize you. But the taxpayers had to pay for it. Obamacare now makes you pay for routine matters like this thru the purchase of insurance. Your “freedom” to make us pay for your provoking that bee has now been squashed and rightly so.
As to my post’s conclusion that “consumer protection is good,” that is word play designed specifically for St. Croix, not analysis.
Small routine matters may prevent you from getting to "expensive, non-routine” matters and dying. So, consumer protection policy is good especially in this case.
Assisted suicide is illegal in this country , why? In most cases people on life support systems will never recover
for next year.
Wonder what the average annual increase of premiums for individual health plans was BEFORE Obamacare?
Well, what do you know – it was about “more than 10%” according to a recent study.
I’m really confused, Jack, bc you told me Obamacare was making things MORE expensive.
Could it be – and this is just a theory Jack – that the Affordable Care Act is actually making health care more affordable in states where the Act is implemented properly?
Of course, Covered California is kind of a poster child for Obamacre. The percentage of Californians without health insurance has been cut in half in one year. Pretty incredible, right Jack? And CC has apparently done a better job than other states in signing up the young and healthy which is why premium rises are so modest. The states with higher increases, I predict, will almost uniformly be states like Texas that did nothing to sign up young insureds bc the governor hates Obamacare or bc the ACA was otherwise not properly implemented.. Or in other words, when the ACA operates as designed, it actually works.
And now I will leave you, Jack, with another thought – the Affordable Care Act says NOTHING about keeping your own doctor; the Affordable Care Act says NOTHING about keeping your own health plan; the Affordable Care Act says NOTHING about the web site being in turn key condition on October 1. If these are important to you, Jack, your complaint is with President Obama, not the Affordable Care Act.
Let's try not to confuse the two in the future
The premium increase is really irrelevant when you are getting most of the premium subsidized by ME. Everybody else, i.e. individual premium, non-subsidy, saw upwards of a 50% premium increase.
Since you attached a CNBC link, I guess I need to do the same. Healthcare is NOT affordable. The premium is only one component, subsidized or not. Delivery and cost mari, delivery and cost. Just like any product or service, if you leave the consumer out of the equation, prices will go up.
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000297065
Wonder what the average annual increase of premiums for individual health plans was BEFORE Obamacare?
Well, what do you know – it was about “more than 10%” according to a recent study.
I’m really confused, Jack, bc you told me Obamacare was making things MORE expensive.
Could it be – and this is just a theory Jack – that the Affordable Care Act is actually making health care more affordable in states where the Act is implemented properly?
Of course, Covered California is kind of a poster child for Obamacre. The percentage of Californians without health insurance has been cut in half in one year. Pretty incredible, right Jack? And CC has apparently done a better job than other states in signing up the young and healthy which is why premium rises are so modest. The states with higher increases, I predict, will almost uniformly be states like Texas that did nothing to sign up young insureds bc the governor hates Obamacare or bc the ACA was otherwise not properly implemented.. Or in other words, when the ACA operates as designed, it actually works.
And now I will leave you, Jack, with another thought – the Affordable Care Act says NOTHING about keeping your own doctor; the Affordable Care Act says NOTHING about keeping your own health plan; the Affordable Care Act says NOTHING about the web site being in turn key condition on October 1. If these are important to you, Jack, your complaint is with President Obama, not the Affordable Care Act.
Let's try not to confuse the two in the future.
plays any role in the rate increase filings made by Covered California insurers, or other insurers for that matter.
Whether the insured pays all or part of the premium is irrelevant to whether the premium meets actuarial standards to cover the insurer’s costs. The ACA does have three risk mitigation programs to protect insurers if they calculate premiums incorrectly, or fail to sign up a diversified risk pool, but the decision as to premium increases in the first instance is based on predicting claims, the cost of health care, and risk pool demographics, not who ultimately who pays the premium.
I don't know where you are getting the 50% premium increase for non subsidy insureds either. That would be the lead story on Fox news if that was true. Look again at your source
Thats a start and a step in the right direction for you. But why cherry pick ONE spot in the country to tell me HC will ONLY rise 4%?
The cross country average increase will come in somewhere between 8-12%. But remember Mari, the "salesman" in chief said the cost would go DOWN, not go UP more slowly. Oh I forgot, "never mind that salesman behind the curtain!" is now your new rallying cry. lol
Your argument about the state to state differences may turn out to be valid but that is exactly why we should have used the states as 50 different laboratories to experiment and see which ones may came up with the best solution rather than a one size fits all mangled mash of inexplicable sausage making from the know nothings in Washington, DC.
That would have been the intelligent thing to do. Barry was never interested in doing what was best, but what was best for him and his legacy, which ironically will be trashed due to O'care.
And you do have a penchant for forgetting that CBO says there will still be 31 million uninsured by 2024 AND the #1 reason the uninsured give for not purchasing Ocare is "its NOT affordable." Oh the irony part deux!
Btw, isnt consumer protectionism suppose to protect us from unscrupulous salesman just like Obama? Barney Frank obviously agrees with that.
And one of these days I will get you to address the continued tanking poll numbers for the ACA since it started affecting peoples actual lives. One day, Mari, one day. lol
Look again at that 31 million CBO uninsured number, Jack.
See the footnote about how this number includes “unauthorized immigrants?” Undocs are not covered by Obamacare. How many undocs are there in the US, Jack? About 12 million, not counting the flood of children currently overwhelming our border patrol.
So if we subtract that 12 million, the CBO actually is projecting 19 million uninsured by 2024. But let’s go deeper – the CBO starts with 57 million as the current number of non elderly uninsured. So basically the CBO is projecting that that Obama care will reduce the number of uninsured by 26 million by 2024, even if we count the undocs.
26 million. That is pretty impressive, Jack. The number of uninsured goes down to 19 million if we factor out the undocs- even more so. And by the way the Affordable Care Act says NOTHING about providing health care to 100% of the population.
When we look at your CBO numbers in context, I’d say you have made a pretty good argument in favor of Obamacare, Jack.
Ironic, no
We enacted into law the Heritage Foundation's vision for health care reform. Do I need to remind you that the Heritage Foundation is a CONSERVATIVE THINK TANK?
This couldn't be any more ironic if Republicans were complaining about US soldiers still fighting in Afghanistan.
We enacted the Bob Dole/Mitt Romney/Heritage Foundation plan for health care reform and you act like the sky is falling.
So what is your solution? Repeal the ACA? Deny health care to everyone but rich people? Maybe get rid of all the doctors in ERs and replace them with guys with shotguns, so whenever sick people come in the door you put a 12 gauge slug in their heads?
We enacted the most right wing form of health care reform humanly possible without requiring hospital patients to pay their medical bills by giving BBBJ's to the executives at Humana. What, pray tell, do you have to bitch about?
Maybe you can answer my question since Mari cant. Why has the law tanked in the polls after it went into effect Willy?
Dems told us time and time again how popular it would be but its in the 35-38% approval range. You're honestly going to tell me you're happy with that?
There is an inescapable fact that you, Mari and other libs cant/wont grasp. The more people that come into contact with this dreadful law the more the polls drop. Nothing to do with negative ads anymore, if that was ever the case. PR spin is now meaningless. Its the law and its hurting more people than its helping.
Its affecting peoples lives now Willy, and the American people are now 2-1 against it.
Why?
It's because the Republican party has done nothing but piss and moan about the ACA even before it was passed. Remember the "death panels"?
Yet, when you poll people and ask them if they like what the ACA actually does, they're in favor of it.
What does that tell you about Obama?
And Willy, please be intellectually honest. You cant ONLY list the positives w/o listing the negatives. People have considered both the good and the bad in Ocare and they have decided they dont like it when they consider the totality of the law.
I know that is an inconvenient truth for Obamacare sycophants but it is the truth nonetheless.
And nobody is talking about death panels today and havent for years. You can put that straw man away for another day. lol
Mr "Compromise" tried to appease everyone but ended up infuriating more than a few Democrats/Independents and of course all the Republicans. Hence the disastrous polling numbers we now see with the popularity of the ACA.
This couldn't be any more ironic if Republicans were complaining about US soldiers still fighting in Afghanistan.
We enacted the Bob Dole/Mitt Romney/Heritage Foundation plan for health care reform and you act like the sky is falling.
So what is your solution? Repeal the ACA? Deny health care to everyone but rich people? Maybe get rid of all the doctors in ERs and replace them with guys with shotguns, so whenever sick people come in the door you put a 12 gauge slug in their heads?
We enacted the most right wing form of health care reform humanly possible without requiring hospital patients to pay their medical bills by giving BBBJ's to the executives at Humana. What, pray tell, do you have to bitch about?
The ACA barely made it through the House and in fact had no room to spare in the Senate gathering exactly the minimum 60 votes it needed.
Single payer wouldn't have passed either body of congress. Last tally I remember was 45 votes for it max in the Senate.
His biggest blunder was not giving in on tort reform and buying across state lines which would have given him several Republican votes in the Senate and some much needed political cover.
All other game changing legislation in the past 80 years was passed with enough compromises to garner a significant number of minority party votes. This was true of the original SS Act of 1935, Civil Rights Act, Medicare Act, and SS Act Reform. They all passed with a super majority.
If just 5 or 6 Republican Senators and 20 or 30 Republican House Members had been coaxed into support, the ACA implementation would have been done in an environment where Republicans would have felt vested in it at least not seeing it fail.
No other piece of legislation of such importance was ever passed with zero opposition support, with such a go it alone attitude.