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


Bottom line is group insurance is like all the rest of insurance. Healthy, young workforce = decent options. Sick or old = crap and VERY expensive options. Anyone is too sick = NO options.

And I don't know about Oregon, but small businesses in Tennessee just don't have a "great field of group plans" to choose from. There are very limited options for what anyone can actually call "insurance" versus mini me prepaid healthcare plans that cap out with any serious illness or accident.
 
Threegoofs said:
Why do I think your definition of 'progressive machine' is anything you don't agree with?
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I don't know. Perhaps that is what you have been trained to believe?

The Annenberg Public Policy Center is most certainly a Progressive operation, as is PolitiFact, and most of the others. Given their direct connection to Progressive groups, they are deservedly part of what I refer to as the Progressive Machine.

Facts are what they are Threegoofs.
 
JasperL said:
There is no support for any of that. If you've got polling internals that illustrate your point, please cite it.
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At no point in the history of the PPACA has RealClearPolitics aggregate polling data showed the majority of Americans approving of the law.

I would have provided the data but I just assumed nobody was in that much denial.


Ah, the old "Find something better or shut up!" Argument. The health care industry of 2008 was better than today. Today some more people have insurance but that doesn't mean that they can afford to go to the doctor. The PPACA solution to health care is like trying to solve world hunger by handing out dinner plates.
 
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To crib from Jon Stewart, saying Obamacare is bad because of a broken website is like saying ice cream is bad because you can't find a spoon.
 

As usual you are too kind.

An "asinine and insulting backward step" is how we see it here.

The change to UHC does not come easily, it didn't happen here overnight. But we learned there is no middle, no in between, it is an all or nothing venture. In my severest criticisms of Obama, this is the most severe. He had an opportunity to change opinion, by unifying, and deliberately squandered it.

In Canada we voted some years ago for who was our best Canadian. It wasn't Gretski, not Pierre Trudeau, not Les Voyaguers who opened all of North America, but one guy, a leader of a third ranked party who had implemented UHC in his province when he was premier. Tommy Douglas was never prime minister, in fact never even made her majesty's loyal opposition, the theoretical government in waiting. He was the leader of the third ranked party who convinced a nation of the value of universal health care. In fact, he wasn't even part leader when UHC came into being.

Obama had that opportunity, but rather than 'sell' a proven idea, convince America of the economic benefits [30-40% less lost time at work to start] and to bring the country together.

Instead he chose not to work with even the most moderate Republicans, and called them "enemies", and then proceeded to ram through the most complex piece of legislation in the history of the United States [that document and its attachments are more than the entire Canada Health Act and its attchments dating back to 1966].

So now, we have a deeper divide, those who may have supported UHC before lost their plans when no one was supposed to, it he and his posse alienated intelligent lawmakers who may have come on board and helped sell the idea.

My first post after the passing of Obamacare was something like this "the possibility of an affordable and sustainable universal health care plan has been set back at least two decades." I now say five decades.

And you now stand alone in the world among industrialized countries with the single worst idea on the planet.
 
I agree.

And the Dems really didn't sell that facet (or the ACA in general, as time went on) well.

Universal healthcare, especially single-payer (with private provider), means more freedom in a lot of practical personal ways, even though it introduces more government control, too.

I really think the GOP are better at unified messaging than the Dems.
 
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clownboy said:
That bolded part is not compatible with the truth.
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"I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year." June 23, 2007​

Standard advertising technique. He was saying that during the campaign. The legislation hadn't even been drafted. Maybe if he'd gotten what he wanted …


????

What do years like 2008 have to do with what I posted? My sources referred to ACA rates in 2013-16.
 
JasperL said:
If we're honest, whether the dissent or the majority was "right" is probably about 90% correlated with our view on our support or opposition to the law.
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That is issue avoidance. It is not the job of the Supreme Court to change legislation based on their own political view of the Act in question, nor are they to poll the public, nor are they to ask me or you or anyone else. They are to interpret in concert with the Constitution, not change up the wording of the legislation at their discretion.

It is the same basic problem, the courts today agreed with an argument made by the government that is not supported by the language of the actual ACA text. That is clear cut judicial activism.


We are talking about a 800+ page legislative effort here and it is bold of you to suggest tax credits and subsidies was the biggest provision of the bill.

Moreover, the real impact here is passing a legislative effort so large in scope that it has inherent mistakes. That is on Congress to repair, not the Supreme Court to change up to satisfy a government request to ignore the original text.


That is the merit of Scalia's argument. "The Court holds that when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act says “Exchange established by the State” it means “Exchange established by the State or the Federal Government. That is of course quite absurd, and the Court’s 21 pages of explanation make it no less so." ACA had language in it to deal with States that did not set up an exchange, so you would think it would have been natural for ACA to account for that in dealing with Tax Credits and Subsidies. But some 7 times in the document it explicitly says "Exchange established by the State."

No matter if it was legislative mistake or an afterthought argument to account for something not going to plan, the remedy is the same. On the merit of the case the government should have lost, forcing Congress to handle the mistake. But, the courts decided to go along with an argument that specifically goes against the wording of ACA. You cannot avoid that.

You would have a point (perhaps) if we were talking about once sentence in the document, some false explanation for ACA, exchanges and the States. But ACA clearly did account for States that could not or would not establish an exchange, and then they failed to account for that in the 7 places in the document that says nothing about tax credits and subsidies set up by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

No matter what was said on the floor of Congress, no matter what Obama said at the mic ACA legislation had a mistake. It is on Congress to remedy, not the courts to do so in their place.
 
MMC said:
That's okay around here, there are like 12 to your every one.....that didn't. Did you want to stick up for them? Tell more to not to work....don't worry can still get BO care.
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Well, I don't know about your number, but we are going to pay for them one way or another. If they don't have insurance they will use the emergency room and the expense will be even more. With insurance there is preventive care that should cut down on both health problems and thus trips to the emergency rooms.

BTW, I highly doubt your number of lazy people who won't work. My neighborhood is over 90% Hispanic. In the morning and during the day it is a ghost town here. All the men are working and many of the women are also. The other women are taking care of the children.

Maybe it's like what you describe where you live but not here.
 

I don't suppose that would have something to do with removing affordable health insurance from millions of people? Or reinstituting pre-existing conditions?
 



Wow, trolling post of the year there!

:lamo
 

So what you are trying to say is that states may not be competent enough to run their own exchanges.

You must be ecstatic about the new SCOTUS ruling then..an opposite ruling would have required states to set up exchanges.
 

Boy, doesn't this conversation tie-in directly to our prior discussion!

That's why I'm for a universal singer-payer/private provider system.
 



Starting a business takes a lot of resources and balls.

With UHC, yours and your employees health aren't even a part of the equation.
 
clownboy said:
Bull****. Discounts Obama's closed door meetings with insurance execs and promising the act would not include single payer well BEFORE any congressional debate.
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I don't know that's true, but I've read it reported by many liberals who followed the debate and were keyed into leadership. But it doesn't matter - there was zero, none, zilch chance there were 60 votes in the Senate for single payer. There probably weren't 50 legitimate votes if 50 would have done the job.

Same thing basically with a public option - that didn't have 60 votes. Liberals whined that Obama gave that away, but there were enough democrats loyal to the big insurers that 60 for that was never a realistic option according to those who actually counted the votes.
 
Deuce said:
To crib from Jon Stewart, saying Obamacare is bad because of a broken website is like saying ice cream is bad because you can't find a spoon.
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How was California and Hawaii's websites broken again? Tell Jon Stewart.....I'll let him know when its time to come out of the playpen.

Oh and if you thinks its just those states.....its not.


Like last year, others will argue that these rate increases still have to be approved in some of the states. But unlike last year, the carriers now have hard data to show the insurance regulators. Some states will bring political pressure to bear on these increases. But a 35% increase is not suddenly going to become a 5% increase. There is obviously an overall claim cost problem here and regulation can sometimes push it off but it can’t make it go away.

Others will point out that people only have to switch plans to keep their costs in line since there are some carriers asking for a lot less. That’s right. But the fact that it is the big market share players that are often asking for the big increases says something important about where these cheaper plans will be next year. The big guys know something.

You just can’t look at this data and come away with a conclusion other than the big cost increases driven by too few people signing up has started. And it has started a year earlier than most of us expected......snip~

Why Are The 2016 Obamacare Rate Increases So Large? - Forbes
 

Prior to the ACA, there were reportedly about 45 million Americans without any health insurance. Following the inception of the ACA, as reported last September, that number had dropped to about 41 million.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/u...health-insurance-falls-survey-shows.html?_r=0

So, let's see. Even if we were to grant that all of the just under 4 million who are now insured are recipients of federal subsidies in states that don't provide an exchange - which is false since the majority of those 4 million are actually eligible now for Medicaid - you would have the difference between 41 million and 4 million. So your claim is that upwards of 50,000 of this 4 million are going to die because they lose the federal subsidies. Using your logic, about 500,000 are going to die with the federal subsidies because they still don't have insurance.

So, once again, the claim that removal of the federal subsidies would kill many many people is just utter nonsense.
 
Fearandloathing said:
Starting a business takes a lot of resources and balls.

With UHC, yours and your employees health aren't even a part of the equation.
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I assume you think that's a good thing. If you don't, I do.
 
clownboy said:
That bolded part is not compatible with the truth.
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Show us then.

And please don't use things like lowering premiums for specific groups, or subsidizing premiums. Show us where people said that premiums (not growth) would be lower overall with the ACA.

I think we will see you are wrong.
Your lack of comprehension is not a failure of the program.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Prior to the ACA, there were reportedly about 45 million Americans without any health insurance. Following the inception of the ACA, as reported last September, that number had dropped to about 41 million.
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Woohoo!!! Obamacare WIN right there! :2dancing:



Look on the bright side, ER visits are UP after Obamacare too! Glad we straightened all that out and gave people who couldn't afford insurance, a premium they still cannot afford or if they could afford the premium, gave them a deductible they cannot pay. PROBLEM SOLVED!!

Spring 2014 - ER visits skyrocket under ObamaCare | New York Post
Spring 2015 - Contrary to goals, ER visits rise under Obamacare
 
PerfectStorm said:
Republicans are off the hook.
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Absolutely. This was political all the way. If the scouts shot this down repubsall over there'd states would have their seats threatened in the next election as folks wondered where their insurance went.
 
Fearandloathing said:
Starting a business takes a lot of resources and balls.

With UHC, yours and your employees health aren't even a part of the equation.
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Exactly!

It takes a lot of balls, capital expenditure, capital flow (soon hopefully), and the need to develop positive cash flow ASAP. All of which are facilitated by taking healthcare expenditures off the table!

This seems so otherwise obvious, that I'm at a loss to see how it's not touted more ...
 


It might be off a bit but then you can look at Chicago's numbers for yourself. You can check out those that haven't had a job for years. Check out black unemployment too.

If they don't have a job and no insurance. What do you think they are going to do anyways?
 

So, no one ever said the program would lower premium rates according to you, right?

mmi said:
[????

What do years like 2008 have to do with what I posted? My sources referred to ACA rates in 2013-16.
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Because the links and discussion that premium rates were rising AS QUICKLY were based upon a link comparing them to the rises in one quarter of President Bush's term. The discussion was before and after Obamacare.
 
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