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Obamacare upheld
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Unposter



Joined: 04 Jun 2006

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My understanding is that the idea of health care as a "right" goes back to at least the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

As for it being a "natural" right, I don't think a philosophical argument can made.

As for it being a politically created "right," well, anything is possible.

But, whether it is a right or not, to me, is a moot point. People have a right to pass legislation that people think is in their best interests, such as social security and medicare.

And, I still don't really understand the logic of taxes being theft UNLESS you are an anarchist. Government has to be supported -and whether you want to call it taxes, fees or "bumble bees," it does not matter, once you have government, you have a re-distribution of resources toward a social focus - whatever that social focus may be. If people want to use government resources toward subsidizing health care or education or building roads or whatever, that is what government is for.

I think someone's Canadian friend makes a good point. Americans are fairly nice people but (our) focus on military and war is out of alignment with (our) character. And, (our) lack of focus on health care is also out of alignment with (our) character.
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Titus



Joined: 19 May 2012

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

northway wrote:
Two things:

First, if health care isn't a right, doesn't it necessarily follow that you would turn sick people away from hospitals if they don't have the means to pay? Are you really willing to do that?

Second, Democrats wanted a public option in addition to the private market solution that we ended up with. Had this occurred, there would have at least been the possibility that you wouldn't be forced to buy a plan from a for-profit insurance company. As it is, that didn't fly, and we're left with a system where we have to pay private insurers (subsidizing private industry, if you will).


Obama is a bad negotiator. He started with the concession. He should have started with Medicare (or Medicaid? don't know the diff) for all and settled for a public option. He started with the PO and settled for a gift to the insurance industry. When you have the upper hand in a negotiation you start BIG and dig in your heels and beat the weaker party around and walk away and manipulate them and then concede a few points to the weaker party.


I'd rather the feds set goalposts and let the states experiment. The Canada Health Act is a guide to the provinces that uses transfer payments to bribe their compliance.

I don't know if healthcare is a right or what a right is or where they come from but it doesn't make sense for this country to have millions of people using emergency rooms for colds and cuts. I watched a program on Current TV a while back that followed firemen around in LA. These firemen were the primary healthcare providers for several million people. Firemen!

I don't think Obamacare is much of an improvement. As I understand it, many firms are cutting back hours to avoid the full-time requirements etc on employees.

The whole thing is a mess.
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Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Titus wrote:

I don't think Obamacare is much of an improvement. As I understand it, many firms are cutting back hours to avoid the full-time requirements etc on employees.

The whole thing is a mess.


Obama, public option or no, needed to decouple healthcare costs from employers. Here in the United States, the government spends $197 billion a year in a tax expenditure for an employer-provided healthcare plan deduction. Thus, employers are saddled with the burden of providing healthcare. Proper healthcare reform would have engaged this, liberated employers, and placed the burden of healthcare on some combination of the government and the individual.

Mandating individuals to purchase healthcare is a corporate hand-out to insurance companies. Mandating larger employers to purchase healthcare is just messed up.

Remember that free-riding is still a viable option. The penalty of the mandate is reasonable when you balance it against all Medicaid gives you. Whatever isn't covered you can negotiate with the healthcare provider. Sometimes you can pay 30% on the dollar if you have the cash ready to pay.
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Titus



Joined: 19 May 2012

PostPosted: Thu Nov 08, 2012 7:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I work for a firm in the USA. I pay out the ass for my healthcare benefits. My employer pays half, but that's just a deduction on my wages. I agree the employers should not have this responsibility (though it's fine to offer top-up benefits). Isn't this a legacy of WW2? Another thing we can blame that war for.

My buddy had cancer when he was 18 and is self-employed. He has not had health insurance for 14 years. He is upper middle class by any measure but wasn't able to afford insurance. He had his buddy put him as a ghost employee and then included him on the corp plan and had him pay cash under the table for his insurance. He's delighted at the Affordable Care Act but I guess anything is an improvement over the present mess.
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Kuros



Joined: 27 Apr 2004

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 7:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fox wrote:
In a rational world filled with state-governments who actually cared first and foremost about their people's welfare, this would definitely be correct; the terms of what you call the "carrot" are simply too beneficial to be rationally turned down if such is your goal. In the real world, however, team-sport politics evidently turn such "easy choices" into tough ones:

Quote:

Fifteen governors reject or leaning against expanded Medicaid program

At least 15 governors have indicated they will not participate in the expansion of Medicaid under the healthcare law, striking a blow to President Obama�s promise of broader insurance coverage.

Before Thursday�s Supreme Court ruling, states had the option of either increasing their Medicaid rolls or being penalized by the federal government. The high court struck down that offer as unconstitutional.


Governors still have a financial incentive to participate in the expansion of coverage for low-income people, since the government will foot most of the bill through 2016. But the decision is also loaded with politics, particularly for Republican governors who are adamantly opposed to �ObamaCare.�

�You can make the political call real quick, but the actual decision is a complicated one,� said Matt Salo of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. �Governors are going to be looking at the numbers and asking: Does this make sense for us?�

Seven states with Republican governors have given a flat �no� to the Medicaid expansion since the Supreme Court ruling, according to reports and press statements (see list below).

States that will decline to participate include Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott (R) turned his opposition to the law into a political career, and Louisiana, where Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) has vowed to help elect Mitt Romney as president in order to repeal it.

In eight other states � seven with GOP governors � the Medicaid expansion seems unlikely, given comments from governors and their offices.

...


And the states most vehemently against it are often the ones who are most desparately in need of it. In an era where state governments are literally willing to see their people go without health care rather than give the Obama Administration the perceived victory of paying for health care for them, what should be an easy choice evidently becomes a quite difficult one for certain parties!


Kuros wrote:
With just the stick, every State also had an easy choice: accept the Medicaid expansion.



Again, in a world of rational, compassionate governance, this would definitely be correct, and in such a world the "stick" wouldn't even be needed, because it would be the rawest of raw stupidity to turn down the "carrot." But once again, back in the real world, where denying the Obama Administration any sort of perceived victory is an end in itself for certain parties, it becomes a tougher choice. Plenty of governors have outright said they'll turn down the Medicaid expansion for their citizens in service of their ideological interests, and although I think even they would balk at throwing away 100% of Medicaid funding in their little political game, I suspect there would be quite a bit of agonizing over it, since for these people the choice in a certain sense becomes a question of which is more important: remaining in office, or telling Obama to go to Hell.


Okay, so I have some updates for Fox. Several Republican Governors have moved towards Obamacare already.

Christie removes another excuse against the Medicaid expansion

Florida's Scott concludes deal with Sebelius on Medicaid

Bob Laszewski wrote:
A million Floridians will now be eligible for Medicaid��the Obama administration is happy about that.

Republican Rick Scott gets to do it his way��in an almost entirely private market.

This from today's Tampa Bay Times:

Quote:
[Scott's] endorsement of the expansion came hours after the federal government agreed to grant Florida a conditional waiver to privatize Medicaid statewide for the state's more than 3 million current recipients, more than half of which are children or people under age 21.
Scott has agreed to only a three year trial expansion and the legislature must vote in favor of it��not a certainty. And, the Obama administration is taking some big risks��a five county trial of Scott's privatization program has had lots of problems.


In prior posts I have said that Republican governors, so adamantly opposed to "Obamacare," ought to go to Washington and negotiate a deal on Medicaid expansion. If they believe they can manage Medicaid better than the traditional federal route, which is what they claim every time they demand block grants, then they should put a deal on the table. Ultimately, the feds will pay 90% of costs and the state will pay 10% of the cost of the expansion. The Republican governors don't believe they can save 10% if given more flexibility?

Scott did that.


Here's a helpful map for Medicaid Expansion by state. I have to imagine that some of this opposition will topple Republican governors, especially those not in the South.
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rollo



Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: China

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 7:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Government provided healthcare is just putting more power in the hand of governments, and taking away some freedom. No way around that.

but at the same tme i understand that in a large diverse society the government is going to have to play a large part. For one thing government control will lower cost, probably also lower quality. But cost is the big issue.

I personally do not like a central government to have too much power!

i really do not understand health care as an inalienable right. How so?

How about economic sucess is an inalienable right.
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Fox



Joined: 04 Mar 2009

PostPosted: Sun Mar 17, 2013 3:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not surprised to see Christie go for the expansion. He strikes me as less wildly partisan than many of his peers; obviously ideologically conservative, but still open to pragmatism. He probably planned on "caving" all along.

As far as Scott, he didn't cave, he set a trap. Not even a cunning or secretive trap, and the Obama Administration simply didn't care. Anything for a few days of good headlines in the news I guess.

Quote:
What didn�t get reported as much is that Scott�s announcement coincided with the go-ahead from the Administration for Florida to fully privatize their Medicaid system. The move into managed care represents an enormous cash cow for private corporate interests, including Scott�s former colleagues � he ran a health care company (notable for his racking up the largest Medicare fraud fine in history). A pilot project was seen as disastrous for almost everyone involved, save perhaps the insurers. Providers and patients alike are uneasy about full privatization.


But even that's not enough for the Florida Legislature it would seem!

Quote:
So what was up with the Legislature�s rejection? Tea Party politics? Some unlikely show of principle against crony capitalism and corporate welfare?

No. They just want a different kind of privatization.

Arkansas� privatization, in particular � which would just completely liquidate the public Medicaid program and have the state, in the immediate term, pay for premiums for everyone up to 138% of the poverty line to purchase private health insurance. There would be no more public disposition of Medicaid for the poor. It folds Medicaid into the as-yet-untested insurance exchanges.


What should be an easy decision -- an almost entirely federally-funded expansion of Medicaid -- evidently becomes quite a tough one when your primary priority becomes, "How can our fat-cat donors maximize their slice of the handout?"
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Plain Meaning



Joined: 18 Oct 2014

PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 3:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tennessee Governor Moves To Expand Medicaid Coverage

Quote:
Tennessee's Gov. Bill Haslam is moving to expand Medicaid in his state, using federal funds from the Affordable Care Act. Haslam announced the plan Monday morning; it'll be debated by the legislature next month.
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sirius black



Joined: 04 Jun 2010

PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The anti Obamacare thing is not about ideology. Both Obama and Hillary had pretty much the same plan during the campaign. Not a peep out of Republicans, McCain down, about how'evil' it is. They didn't challenge it on its merits much at all, only the feasibility.
The rest of the industrialized world has propsered while having it.
Healthcare in America could be cheaper were it not for a lack of competition that the health care industry keeps that way to maintain high wages (AMA) and profits (big pharma, etc.).

If there was true competition we could have a much better system. Infinitely better. You can't even call it a system before. It was severely broken for the average person. Over 60 percent of personal bankrupticies due to medical bills. It was a crisis and the Republicans rather than solve it just took the lobby money from health care and f*cked the rest of us since they get a great health benefits package themselves.

The huge opposition was founded on lies and it wasn't about Obamacare it was about igniting a base. The GOP lost big in 2008 and found a way to get the base going and it worked with the 2010 elections. The other reason is their strategy from day one is to give Obama no wins. Obsruct EVERYTHING even if its good for the country. If they vote for it, say they forced him to. The Dems are not much better. Cowards mostly. At least we can respect the GOP for actually acting on thier insanity with zealotry. The last reason it was fought so hard was because they knew it would work and the last thing they wanted was some sort of legacy that Obama can have for the history books.

Obama has governed as a centrist. Kept a lot of Bush appointees initially. He's been bought and paid for by a few groups. So, this is not about supporting him because I believe in him. Its about the truth.

We had the fortune of seeing how all the other countries planned their healthcare and learn from their mistakes. We have the biggest advantage. Economy of scale that should make health care cheaper than anywhere else.

But we are a nation where our government, federal, state and to some extent local in many places are simply a tool for the corporations and special interests.

The GOP especially but some Dems are lemmings. They ( some voters) beleve the lie and a lot of the voting is based on a dream that they can be of the 1% and the selling of their status in America to be forever a class above socially, ecnonomically than certain groups (Blacks, Latinos, poor whites). And the poor whites only means of self worth is to feel they are better than poor people of color even when knowngly voting against their own self interest....as long as it maintains that illusoin they are better than the other groups.

The fact that the GOP can't/won't offer anything in place of it shows you that they are paid off.
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guavashake



Joined: 09 Nov 2013

PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 2:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Obamacare Architect Admits Democrats Lied to ‘Stupid Americans’ to Pass Obamacare

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/11/obamacare-architect-admits-democrats-lied-to-stupid-americans-to-pass-obamacare-video/

At an October 2013 conference Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber bragged about deceiving the American people, who he thinks are stupid.
Gruber’s comments will blow your mind.

“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scores the mandate as taxes the bill dies. So it’s written to do that… If you get a law that says healthy people are going to pay and sick people would get money, it would not have passed.

Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And, basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really very very critical to get the thing to pass. And, you know, it’s the second best argument. I wish Mark was right we could make this transparent but I would rather have this law than not.”

And, that is exactly what Democrats did.
They lied to the American people in order to pass Obamacare. And, now they even admit it.
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sirius black



Joined: 04 Jun 2010

PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 1:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Of courst some of the Dems lied. But thats a deflection. Would it have passed otherwise? Maybe not. DOes it matter. Yes, the system should be free and open.

However, its a deflection of the issue of healthcare generally and some of the architects lying about it does NOT mean it is not needed. Johnson lied about parts of the Civil Rights Act. He threatned, bribed, berated congressmen for the votes. If you look at any socaetal changing act like the woman's right to vote, or gay marriage or whatever, I wouldn't be surprised to see that someone lied about something to get it passed.

Lets talk about the need. The need is there and the FACT is that the opposition to it is or at least the funding, is based totally on the health care industry's greed. In every society I can thnk of doctor's live at least n upper middleclass life in their country.

Europe's doctor's are wealthy. Europe has successful pharmaceutical companies. Guess what? They also have national health care. Its more than doable and with our size it would be cheaper than what the european countries citizens pay.

So, stop using deflection as a reason why it shouldn't happen. Talk about why it should or shouldn't on its own merits.
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guavashake



Joined: 09 Nov 2013

PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 4:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

sirius black wrote:
Of courst some of the Dems lied. But thats a deflection. Would it have passed otherwise? Maybe not. DOes it matter. Yes, the system should be free and open.

However, its a deflection of the issue of healthcare generally and some of the architects lying about it does NOT mean it is not needed. Johnson lied about parts of the Civil Rights Act. He threatned, bribed, berated congressmen for the votes. If you look at any socaetal changing act like the woman's right to vote, or gay marriage or whatever, I wouldn't be surprised to see that someone lied about something to get it passed.

Lets talk about the need. The need is there and the FACT is that the opposition to it is or at least the funding, is based totally on the health care industry's greed. In every society I can thnk of doctor's live at least n upper middleclass life in their country.

Europe's doctor's are wealthy. Europe has successful pharmaceutical companies. Guess what? They also have national health care. Its more than doable and with our size it would be cheaper than what the european countries citizens pay.

So, stop using deflection as a reason why it shouldn't happen. Talk about why it should or shouldn't on its own merits.


I see, this is your justification for you lying about Michael Brown, or anything else for that matter.

Try actually reading the 25 volumes of the grand jury transcript. I read it.

Especially the transcript of the accomplice named Johnson who was with Brown when they stole the cigarillos and encountered the police.

You claim that it was not Michael Brown in the store. You didn't read the transcript. The whole "Hands up don't shoot" narrative is a false urban legend.

You want to further the lies and the urban legend. You want to create a myth to further your agenda.

You are not interested in the truth. Liar. Oh, excuse me, deflector.
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sirius black



Joined: 04 Jun 2010

PostPosted: Tue Dec 16, 2014 5:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You're on an Obamacare thread talking about Ferguson? LOL...says it all.
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guavashake



Joined: 09 Nov 2013

PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 12:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

sirius black wrote:
You're on an Obamacare thread talking about Ferguson? LOL...says it all.


I'm talking about you... and your attempt to justify lies and fairy tales. On this thread and any thread... You seem to have a chronic problem.
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sirius black



Joined: 04 Jun 2010

PostPosted: Wed Dec 17, 2014 6:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

guavashake wrote:
sirius black wrote:
You're on an Obamacare thread talking about Ferguson? LOL...says it all.


I'm talking about you... and your attempt to justify lies and fairy tales. On this thread and any thread... You seem to have a chronic problem.


So, you have a problem with me specifically? ooooh is that so. Hmm...so the f*ck what. Add that to the list of things I could give a flying eff about.

Probably upset because I tell the truth and as Jack Nicholson said "You can't handle the truth".

Address the points I made about Obamacare and this thread and comment about other things on that thread and respect the people reading this thread who want to discuss Obamacare.
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