blackascoal
The Force is With Me
I agree with you. Flawed is the only thing it could be given that the health insurance industry wrote it.
Healthcare Decision Thursday: Prediction Thread
- Thread starter Bonestorm
- Start date
I agree with you. Flawed is the only thing it could be given that the health insurance industry wrote it.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Obamacare does little to nothing about cost control. There is your first flaw right there.
GAO Confirms Skepticism About ObamaCare’s Health Care Cost Controls
http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/03/gao-confirms-skepticism-about-obamacares
Why would you expect a bill written by the health insurance industry to control costs?
Obama slid into the backroom and made deals with Big Pharma .. big campaign contributer .. that protected and exempted them and their profits from any legislative policy.
The biggest beneficiaries of Obamacare is the health insurance industry, not the American people. Another huge flaw.
No single-payer, no public option .. HUGE flaw.
When Obama had the House and Senate he could have passed legislation that could have granted some of the better provisions of the bill without all the flawed baggage.
It is a terribly flawed bill and remains quite unpopular even among his base. It is such a terrible bill that democrats didn't want to talk about it during the midterms and it led to the crushing the democrats suffered .. this just two years after all the music and the singing and the praise for "hope and change."
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
:0) We agree.
Cancel 2016.2
The Almighty
Only through the use of accounting gimics does the CBO score it as reducing debt. Back in reality, the ACA will increase the deficits.
Wrong, I focus on lowering the costs to make it more affordable for everyone and don't believe in the cookie cutter approach to health insurance. You believe we should all have the exact same plan... which is one of the reasons costs stay high.
Cancel 2016.11
Darla
Even if Obama wins reelection, how do you suppose he'll get a public option through the Republican house? Republicans will probably lose a few seats here and there, but there's no way in hell the Democrats are taking it back.
Edit: oh wait...let me guess...executive order?
If the Supreme Court overturns AHA, Obama should go balls to the wall and make this campaign about a Medicare buy in.
Take it to the people. Let the people who have lost health insurance at points in their lives, have been bankrupted, live one medical emergency away from ruin, skip doctor appointments, hang desperately onto jobs they don't really like because they don't know where else they will get health care, decide. Let them vote on it.
let the Repukes run against it.
Let's give the American people a choice. An actual choice.
Repukes dread this because the truth is - "socialism" would win.
And Dems are whores who are too bought to put the choice up for a vote. Only pure desperation could move the Dems to something so bold, so right, so sensible.
I think AHA being overturned could go either way (it could be a disaster), but one thing it won't be is boring. If it were me, I'd be all Bring it On, but repukes are sociopaths and dems are corporate stooges dancing on long strings of big money. And even with all that...something is going to have to give.
One thing I do insist on is if any part of AHA is overturned it all gets scrapped. No whining white suburbanites decrying socialism while loving keeping their spoiled waste kids on their health insurance until their 26. Send Brad out to get a job and STFU. It's not just about what benefits you. That is the cost of living in a goddamned society.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
:0( I hate to disagree with you .. I really do. However, are you aware of how many military conflicts and wars we are involved in with Obama at the helm? Are you aware that he is droning the planet .. attacking even famine-stricken Somalia?
Are you aware of what he did in Libya? Do you know what Libya looks like today?
Are you aware that we had better relations with Pakistan when Bush was in office? Do you know how many innocent people Obama has killed there?
What is your position on the killing of American citizens without trial?
What did the killing of Osama gain? He was never charged with 9/11 .. never confessed to it?
Iraq and George Bush ended the war in Iraq. Obama simply followed the Status of Forces Agreement to the letter.
Why are we still in Afghanistan?
Why are we at war with Yemen and attacking Africa? .. Answer: Because the Chinese are making great gains there through soft power and including the people in decision-making.
Have you seen his environmental record?
He puts the world at ease? Are you aware of this ..
Global Opinion of Obama Slips, International Policies Faulted
With respect, about all one can say about Obama is that he's somehow a lesser evil.
The idea that single-payer or a public option could have passed is just stupid and a denial of reality. I wish it were different and that either could have passed, but it wasn't going to happen.
Also, too, the main goal of the bill is not to reduce costs, though there are some measures designed to do so. The main goal of the bill is to ensure affordable access to healthcare for that don't presently have it. And it does very well on that score.
Moreover, the bill isn't really that unpopular when you ask people about the actual provisions of the bill. Hell, even Republicans like most of it. Look it up. There was an IPSOS poll done not too long ago confirming this.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
APPLAUSE APPLAUSE
And you don't see the bolded as a flaw?
You realize the country is basically bankrupt, right?
The individual in the admin who headed up the writing of this bill emailed a big pharma lobbyist, assuring them that they would keep restrictions on imports so that drug costs would stay high, because big pharma had done so much "to help."
Wake up. Smell coffee.
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
If Obama had gone to battle for the American people with a genuine healthcare plan .. as he was elected to do .,. and the republicans stood against it, he could have made that the focus of the midterm elections, gathered the surge of American DEMAND for affordable healthcare, and beat the hell out of republicans during the midterms. As it was, NOBODY was excited about the corporate-written crap he produced .. AND, he proved himself to be a monumental failure to the surge that swept him into office.
Additonally, Medicare for All was always the best and the most efficient plan. Infrastrusture already in place and it is one of the most popular programs in American history. No mandate required. He could have made republicans attack Medicare openly and garnered the support of MILLIONS of Americans who might otherwise oppose him in the process. Mediacre and Social Security are the only things keeping millions of America seniors alive.
To suggest that dropping his pants and bending over for the health insurance industry was the only option that Obama had is seriously incorrect.
What excuse do you have for him sliding into the backroom and making deals with Big Pharma that keeps drug costs high?
Do I need to repeat what Obama said about a mandate in 2008?
Start from here .. Obama is a corporatist. How much "change" can you expect from a corporatist?
apple0154
MEOW
^ you deserve a "groan for that one, he did go "shooting of his mouth" about bin Laden,,even made a TV special (surprise - NBC) about it.
Do you know what happened to the Dr. that was a CIA agent that gave us the INTEL?? He's in Pakistani prison.
Getting the troops out of the ME? only when al_sadr, and al _Malaki threatened to put ANY remaing US trops under Iraqi law.
He's done more then enough saber rattleing, in fact he's droning the damn planet.
I could go on, but you're too nice to excoriate.
Awww, you're a sweety.
As for the TV special that was after he got Osama. That's the whole point. Do the job and then talk about it all one wants. Saber-rattling is shooting off ones mouth before anything is done. Don't you recall Bush telling us how Osama was the main man, the leader, the evil one....? It was all about Osama until Bush blew the chance to capture him and continued to fail and in the end he said Osama wasn't all that important.
As for the doctor in prison isn't he a Pakistani national? He was working against his own country. Remember the young guy who leaked papers to that Australian fella? He's in prison here. When one turns their back on their country or screws around in a time of war it's frowned upon.
Regarding the troops leaving I'm sure Obama could have insisted on Pakistan backing down. If Bush was around I have no doubt there would be war with Pakistan, as well. At least Obama had the sense to agree and get out considering the Afghan and Iraqi fiascos.
Did you see the video I posted by Jon Stewart regarding Repub prognostications? He succinctly sums it up by stating in closing something along the line of, "We've been pounding away and the whole area has become inflamed and the best thing to do is pull out."
blackascoal
The Force is With Me
Awww, you're a sweety.
As for the TV special that was after he got Osama. That's the whole point. Do the job and then talk about it all one wants. Saber-rattling is shooting off ones mouth before anything is done. Don't you recall Bush telling us how Osama was the main man, the leader, the evil one....? It was all about Osama until Bush blew the chance to capture him and continued to fail and in the end he said Osama wasn't all that important.
As for the doctor in prison isn't he a Pakistani national? He was working against his own country. Remember the young guy who leaked papers to that Australian fella? He's in prison here. When one turns their back on their country or screws around in a time of war it's frowned upon.
Regarding the troops leaving I'm sure Obama could have insisted on Pakistan backing down. If Bush was around I have no doubt there would be war with Pakistan, as well. At least Obama had the sense to agree and get out considering the Afghan and Iraqi fiascos.
Did you see the video I posted by Jon Stewart regarding Repub prognostications? He succinctly sums it up by stating in closing something along the line of, "We've been pounding away and the whole area has become inflamed and the best thing to do is pull out."
Bush and Cheney say they never said any such thing about Osama .. and he has never been charged with 9/11.
Bush said the Bin Laden was "unimportant."
I don't watch "newz" ( Jon Stewart), or any of those parody guys -it's fun -but distortive.Awww, you're a sweety.
As for the TV special that was after he got Osama. That's the whole point. Do the job and then talk about it all one wants. Saber-rattling is shooting off ones mouth before anything is done. Don't you recall Bush telling us how Osama was the main man, the leader, the evil one....? It was all about Osama until Bush blew the chance to capture him and continued to fail and in the end he said Osama wasn't all that important.
As for the doctor in prison isn't he a Pakistani national? He was working against his own country. Remember the young guy who leaked papers to that Australian fella? He's in prison here. When one turns their back on their country or screws around in a time of war it's frowned upon.
Regarding the troops leaving I'm sure Obama could have insisted on Pakistan backing down. If Bush was around I have no doubt there would be war with Pakistan, as well. At least Obama had the sense to agree and get out considering the Afghan and Iraqi fiascos.
Did you see the video I posted by Jon Stewart regarding Repub prognostications? He succinctly sums it up by stating in closing something along the line of, "We've been pounding away and the whole area has become inflamed and the best thing to do is pull out."
There is much wrong with your post: Paki was not happy we used a CIA Op to find bin Laden, Obama turns it into a campaign moment.
He caused the event to be highlited, and Paki ( which has many Islamic fundamnetalists) was under intense pressure to protect their sovereignity.
The point - do your warring, and don't inflame the local populace.
Further aggrevating Paki, but the deal kiler was when we shelled their troops. That led to the closure of the suply lines -they're still closed.
get out? He's the one whom escalated AfPak -he's the guy who droned so many houses, he drove Paki into the SCO - completely out of the western sphere.
Tell me what was accomplished by escalating in AfPak? * and recall we're promising a support role for another 10 years.*
I won't getinto the droning - listen to Gary Johnson -the guy I'm voting for, he uses the term "perpetual war" which we are now engaged in.
Or simply Crusades 3.0
I never suggested the bill was not flawed. I asked you what you felt were the flaws in the bill. It does reduce costs, but not tremendously so. The only real way to reduce costs is to go single-payer or implement price controls, but good luck with that.
Also, I frankly don't see the fact that the main goal of the bill was not reduce costs as a major flaw. In this country we have an expensive healthcare system that works pretty well for people who have insurance and this have the means to pay for care. That's great. But for the people who have no insurance and cannot access that healthcare system it sucks and has deadly consequences. It's immoral. Thus, expanding access to healthcare and health insurance is, I think, more important than making healthcare less expensive.
If Obama had gone to battle . . .
Get your head out of your ass, BAC. Obama would magically turn Blue Dogs into singly-payer proponents by sheer strength of oratory? Same foe Joe Lieberman, BIll Nelson, Max Baucus, Susan Collins, Snowe and the rest of the so-called moderates in the Senate.
Medicare for all never would have passed. Ever. Hell, Joe Lieberman said he'd support a Medicare buy-in for people 55 and over and then crawfished on ever that incrementalist approach.
You need to get real.
I can't disagree on the sentiment regarding expanding access. However, to me, that goes hand in hand with reducing costs. If no meaningful effort is going to be made to reduce costs in conjunction with a bill this massive, it will ultimately be self-defeating. The country simply can't afford it. Them's just the facts. There are those who realize what kind of financial shape we are in, and what that bodes for the future - and those who seem not to. We're one reckless program like this away from a sequel to the '30's.
BAC is right - the healthcare/pharma industry wrote this bill, just like they wrote the prescription drug bill a decade ago. Not only does the bill not seek meaningful cost reduction - it actively seeks to keep prices high in some cases.
No one disputes that the biggest problem with health coverage is that it costs too much; it's one of the main reasons we have so many uninsured in the 1st place, and why companies have been dropping coverage for working Americans for years. What kind of gov't do we have when the biggest piece of health legislation in years does not really address the #1 problem with healthcare, and rewards those who are responsible for that?
Liberty
Libertarian Minded
How does the healthcare bill reduce cost?
Did the bill allow me to buy ins from across state lines?
I'm all for a meaningful effort to reduce costs, but, like I said, good luck with that. The ACA reduces costs, particularly to the government. So what's the problem? What's the flaw? That it doesn't do enough? OK. Well, what do you want to do to reduce costs. What's stopping it from being implemented? The ACA isn't getting in the way of a "meaningful effort to reduce costs."
The healthcare industry obviously had a lot of input in the bill. I'm sorry to have to tell you this so late in your life, but that's the way the world works. There is simply no way in hell that any bill passes without the support of the industry. It just isn't going to happen.
As for "actively seeks to seeks to keep high prices," what specifically are you talking about?
The law squarely addressed the #1 problem with healthcare in this country. You just seem confused about what the #1 problem is.
The #1 problem is spiraling healthcare costs. No one really disputes that.
As for actively seeking to keep costs high, the admin admitted that when they emailed a pharma lobbyist telling them they'd keep restricting imports on drugs, so prices could stay high - to reward pharma for all of their help on the bill.
As for "that's how the world works," it won't work too much longer if industry keeps writing bills that continue to bankrupt the country. Like I said - there are those who understand the current economic situation, and those who don't. If those who don't win the day, they'll understand soon enough.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
I have no idea where SCOTUS will land on this. It would be ironic though if they reject the Universal Mandate (A republican idea) as unconstitutional and that would end up painting legislature into a corner where they would have to offer a public option. Which to me is preferable to the universal mandate. I don't think the financial industry should be profiting off of peoples health in the first place.