New, Improved Obamacare Program Released On 35 Floppy Disks

I live in Quebec, Canada and here we have a sort of program that allows us to have healthcare provided for free. We for it collectively in taxes. I think it's a great way to live as a community. Though we have to wait at least 3 hours in hospitals before we receive care.

 

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We have to wait too. And then we get a bill.

 

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I Speak as an outsider that has been completely astounded as to why anyone would think we/you/me/they are not entitled to health care.

What you are saying in effect is that anyone who happens to be unemployed, down on his luck, or just good old plain family circumstances, that happens to fall seriously ill, or have an accident, should be left in the gutter to die.

Thank f%#@ I live in a country where that attitude is nearly non-existent, even among our conservatives.
Having a Universal health care system since 1972 though, has made sure that everyone has observed the benefits of such a scheme.

Even more obvious, [although off subject] it truly amazes me as to the gun culture that exists in your country, with those supporting it shouting the 2nd ammendment. [or something like that]
By the way, when was the 2nd Ammendment signed into law.....the early 1700s?????
Unbelievable actually!!!

 

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At least you are covered......as we are in Australia.
Waiting times also occur here, but if you are seriously injured/sick, you will be taken in as soon as possible.
No system is perfect, but any system is 100% up on the absence of such a system.

 

You haven't been to American hospitals. Three hours is not a bad wait time for US hospitals many wait for much longer. Our hospitals are congested all the time because that is the only place those without health insurance can get medical care. We have had people die waiting in hospital waiting rooms.

 

We are not entitled. The idea is entitled. Where does it say anywhere that we are entitled to anything. Can you, Joe, iceaura and all the others that say we are entitled provide the document that says in nature that we are entitled. Not a government document or some kind radical leftist list of rights, anything that in the state of nature says that we are entitled. In the vain that you mean it.

We are entitled nothing. We have to act to survive. We have to produce to succeed, but there is nothing that say we are entitled to anything. That is purely a radical progressive thought and ideology.

 

That my dear friend, is a whole lot of philosophical clap trap.
We are part of a modern day society that should idealistically and morally care for his fellow human being.

Thank Christ your lot is in the minority, everywhere.


I sincerely hope our USA friends can make this small step for health care for all work, and then improve on it.

 

LOL, are you on drugs dude or are you just stupid? Most people in this country, including professionals, get their primary and secondary education in public schools. Colleges, especially public colleges are subsidized by the tax payer. College students don’t pay for all of the cost of their education. Government funded loans were and are subsidized by the government. How many private lenders do you know who are going to give students interest free loans for 4, 5 or six years or more? In the case of physicians, their internships are funded by the US government through the Medicare program.

You would be better served if you spent a little more time doing your homework and a little less time playing along.

Ok, its ignorance. Yeah they get their money from selling their drugs. But their technology is developed in government research labs and licensed to them by the government. Primary research is mostly funded by government. The technology is subsequently licensed to firms to take the drugs through phase I, II and III testing.

Drug companies are beneficiaries of regulation, not the victims. Regulations keep out the competition. That is why companies spend so much time protecting and extending their patents. That is why the Republican initiated and passed Medicare Part D has codified into law restrictions that prevent consumers crossing the borders and buying the same drugs in Canada for less money and law that prevents the government from negotiation prices for Medicare prescription drugs.

http://slu.edu/Documents/law/SLUJHP/Field_Article.pdf

Few would dispute the value of government-funded research as the
foundation of drug discovery. Even the most ardent admirers of private
industry innovation concede the importance of the government in promoting
the underlying science on which it rests.11 Debates may rage over the
relative amount of credit that each side deserves, but not over the necessity
of both sectors to the advancement of pharmaceutical science. – Saint Louis University School of Law, ROBERT I. FIELD

As for your fascism and “kick-back” machinations, it is just more idiotic right wing conspiracy fantasy.

Where the government gets its money isn’t relevant to this discussion. Your raising the issue is either ignorance and an inability to reason or an attempt to obfuscate. The government spends 12k per year per person. If you and your family are not paying 12k per year in federal income taxes, you are not paying your share. You are on the dole. And people like me are paying your share for you. What is frankly amazing is you don’t know you are a taker. Somebody is picking up your slack.

NO it’s simple math.

 

It’s not about “entitlement”. It never has been. It is about what works and what doesn’t work. One of the problems I have with people on the right is they have a very simplistic and avaricious view of entitlements. They like their entitlements; they don’t like the other guy’s entitlements.

 

Yep, it's a real f#@$ you, I'm alright Jack attitude.

 

Philosophical clap trap huh. I wonder how the 94 & 28 million killed under communism and fascism feel about such clap trap!!

Nice.

I did not think your ilk believed in Christ. I also doubt I am in the minority as well. Maybe the Times and the amount of people here on this website are not of my mentality. But then again, look at what happens to those who are.


http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/13/communism-killed-94m-in-20th-century

 

??????

 

LOL, are you on drugs dude or are you just stupid? Most people in this country, including professionals, get their primary and secondary education in public schools.


Though I do not know why you included the drug comment, I thought we were having an adult conversation where the meanings of statements were presumed. Then I get this statement, you know kind of a "nana nana boo boo you can't get me". I do realize that if you attend the public school indoctrination system that it is publicly funded. But I have yet to know of any doctors, which what we were talking about, who came straight from primary to practicing medicine. Therefore, when I responded I had presumed you were speaking of college and the years one would attend to become a doctor. But yes, you are correct when a child attends primary through high school it is paid for by the public, even if that person does not have a child in school. Didn't mention that did ya!!!

In the case of physicians, there internships are funded by the US government through the Medicare program.

Your point? My greater point, not that you truly care because you are a sycophant, shill for government and its programs, is that the more g is involved the more control they have. This includes your lovely affair with regulations and other stuff. Not that some regulations might not be needed, but not to the extent that people like you say they are needed or else the pharmaceutical companies would kill the "masses" with all their corruption; and desire to make capital.

How many private lenders do you know who are going to give students interest free loans for 4, 5 or six years or more?

Can't say that it is my business nor that I care what a person gets for their student loans.

Ok, its ignorance. Yeah they get their money from selling their drugs. But their technology is developed in government research labs and licensed to them by the government. Primary research is mostly funded by government. The technology is subsequently licensed to firms to take the drugs through phase I, II and III testing.

First, I said that not all research is privately funded that there were going to be government funds. Of course thats ignorance, and I will grant that it is an nice way of saying that I do not know what I am talking about. But the fact is I am a little up to speed on it. Most of the funding is through grants (http://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/who_pays), and it is a function of congress to promote the progress of science A1, S8 (Constitution). So I am inclined to believe that something less sinister is going on with the colloration.

However, it still does not take away the fact that without all the regulation the costs would not be so high. And yes there should be competition in this field, first the benefits of better products; second the benefits of lower costs. This is basic economics Goober something you fancy yourself to be an expert on.

As for your fascism and “kick-back” machinations, it is just more idiotic right wing conspiracy fantasy.


Kinda surprise by this comment because it has nothing to with conspiracies and everything to do with cronyism. Of course, I understand now that there is a true blue card carrying communist in the Oval Office cronyism is now accepted.

I also caught condescending tone of your post as well. So yeah I gave some of it back to you. I understand that you are an elitist and that I am the underbrush that needs cleaned up from your lovely fascist garden. So have at it.

 

Ah yeah, because he didn't lie.

Let me see, he did not lie but he is apologizing for something he didn't do??

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...06818e-4803-11e3-a196-3544a03c2351_story.html

All those noncompliant Obamacare insurance contracts were grandfathered into Obamacare. If insurance companies change those so called insurance policies and they do not meet the new requirements, then they lose their noncompliance exemption. You should be blaming the insurance companies and not Obama or the Democrats.

Do you have idea how ridiculous it sounds to say that insurance companies, who give people the insurances they want, are to blame for not meeting the governments mandated requirements? Of course not because for you the important thing is that everyone will now be under the same insurance. And everyone will pay for insurances that they do not want, because the intrusive government says they must.

You do realize this is the definition of forceful tyranny?? Please do not use the excuse that "well the 'masses' do not know what policies they should have", so the government has to step in and make they do. That is tyranny. It is not philosophical clap trap, or right wing conspiracy, it is tyranny.

So no I do not blame the insurance companies, I blame the leviathan created by our government.

On one hand Republicans like yourself rant about Obama taking over healthcare and acting like a tyrant and then on the other complain because Obama isn't preventing insurance companies from changing their health insurance policies and raising premiums.

I am sorry to say this, but statement is so stupid it does not merit a response. Instead I implore to actually read it and understand what it says. Because there is no other hand in the statement, re read it and you will figure it out. It smacks to the real problem, but you, instead of fighting its overreaching tentacles, endorse it.

I love the irony of wondering why he isn't forcing the insurance companies to raise the premiums. I thought this was all about affordability? Why should they raise their premiums if it is about affordability? Here comes the "uh you and your ilk just restate your talking points, this is way over your head". Or you will claim that it actually isn't about affordability, its about everyone having coverage (even those who do not want coverage). "It just, uh, takes a lot of cashflow to, uh, to, uh, get this going so, uh, yeah, uh, we have to have high premiums at first, because, uh yeah, uh ......". You get the picture more excuses, why this is not actually about Obamacare it is about how everyone just does not understand what we are trying to do here, right?

Why do they need to raise their premiums? So that it would be more expensive than the governments? Or so that it would match what the government wants, so that then they, the government, can blame the insurances for the high cost?

And understand it is not about the insurance companies, it is about freedom of choice? What government program can offer that?? It is about redistributing wealth and you fucking know it!!!!

Lets just say that everything was the same regarding this whole, um, cough, "Affordable Care Act"? I mean everything was the same. But Bush was the president, how would you respond to it? Really any Republican?

I see you now endorse the patriot act, because your buddy has whole heartedly embraced it.

I see you now are okay with Gitmo, because your buddy has embraced it.

How about the war on terror? Your buddy decided that we cannot use the word terror anymore, but we are still killin, and getting killed, in the Afghan and the ME, but it's all good.

You are nothing more than a sycophant.

Yeah, thats what I thought.

"Ah yeah, because he didn't lie" Really?

 

Ghostwriter

He did not lie, the insurance companies cancelled the policies(as they have been doing in the "Junk insurance" market for years). The cancelled policies did not meet the minimum standards that any health care policy must meet under the ACA. He was apologizing for the problems, not for any lies he did not tell. You conservative a holes need to pull your head out. Or, as John Stewart put it "The President may have been less than honest, but the other side has been lyin' their F____ asses off!" People on the individual market have been having their policies cancelled at rates of over 30% per year for more than a decade, but all of a sudden it's Obama's fault.

Cars-seat belts. You can't sell a car with no seat belts, though if you already own one you can keep it. If you are renting it year to year and your rental company gets rid of all it's cars that have no seat belts, you need a different car. That's just reality.

Non-sense. Who wants a policy that gets cancelled if you get sick? Or one that doesn't cover hospital costs? Or one that won't cover next year what you are discovered to be suffering from this year(it becomes a pre-existing condition)? Answer: No one, but the people who bought those plans HAD NO CHOICE AT ALL. Even the people trotted out by Fox were lying(or ignorant)about the facts and actually got a better policy for less money from the ACA. Those people are being protected from the crap the insurance companies have been pulling all along, they no longer have to buy a defective product but can get real insurance for less. We are only talking about a few people in the individual market who are complaining(a small fraction of the 3% or so affected), and they are complaining through ignorance or ideology, egged on by the outright lies from the right. Most coming out of that market and getting real health insurance are thrilled(including some who appeared on Hanity's show). Many more who have had no insurance will not be having to use the Emergency room as their primary doctor any more, a savings of BILLIONS over the next decade all by itself.

No, it isn't even close.

No, it is about us paying almost twice what insurance costs in every other industrialized country and not covering everyone, excluding pre-existing conditions(like being a female of child bearing age), about cancelling insurance if you get sick, it's about donut holes for seniors, it's about getting insurance for the first time for about 32 million people(saving us billions in Emergency care bills, which our taxes pays for in the end). It's about the obscene profits health insurance companies make without providing any health care whatsoever, they are leeches on the health care system. It's about getting other people's suffering out of the for-profit market. It's the first step toward a single payer basic health care system like England has had since 1948. It about morals as a society. Those with no insurance have no freedom of choice(oh, I suppose they choose to die from lack of health care).

Grumpy

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Just one small problem here, we are not talking about communism, totalitarianism, or religion here. We are talking about affordable and accessible healthcare for all. So your conflating the two is absurd, but certainly not uncommon for those of your ilk.

 

I suggest you read what Obama said, this time more closely. An expression of empathy is not an apology. Unfortunately for you and those of your ilk, President Obama has nothing to apologize for. He didn’t create the substandard policies. He didn’t price the substandard policies and he didn’t sell the substandard insurance policies. And President Obama didn’t cancel the substandard health insurance policies. The health insurance companies did all of that.

“I am sorry that they, you know, are finding themselves in this situation, based on assurances they got from me,” Obama said in an interview with NBC News. “We’ve got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and that we’re going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this.” – President Obama

LOL, do you understand how ridiculous it is for you to blame everything on President Obama and ignore the actions and culpability of health insurance companies. Two, insurance regulation is not new. Governments have been regulating insurance for almost a century. In the case of auto insurance, each state mandates minimum levels of auto insurance. They also require insurance companies to be financially stable and audit them to make sure they are and remain able to pay their liabilities and have adequate reserves.

Additionally, and as you have been told before, everyone will not be the same under Obamacare. Everyone will not have the same health insurance. Obamacare sets minimum coverage standards for health insurance companies, so that people don’t have to go bankrupt if they become ill. That doesn’t mean every insurance policy is required to be the same. Every auto on the road is required to meet a minimum level of safety standards, that doesn’t mean all the cars on the road today are all the same. You don’t have to look far to see the diversity of cars on any given roadway on any given day. The bottom line here is you are just mindlessly repeating another in a long series of bizarre and nonsensical right wing talking points.

What you and your Republican compatriots are arguing for is the “right” of individuals to be irresponsible. To become a liability to me and those like me who do have health insurance and do pay their bills and are fiscally responsible. When the uninsured need healthcare they get it at the only place where they can get it, the hospitals. And hospitals pass those costs onto taxpayers and those who do have healthcare insurance. That is one of the reasons the US healthcare system is more than twice as expensive as that of any other wealthy industrial country.

So you think everyone has the right to be fiscally irresponsible? We have centuries of law which says that ain’t so. Responsible citizenry is not tyranny, except in that wild and ridiculous world of Republican/Tea Party conservatism.

Well of course not. You don’t blame private industry for anything and you blame government for everything. Evidence and facts are not relevant to you and your fellow Republican/conservatives. You know the party line and that really in the end is all you need. Just keep repeating the mantra,” government always bad, private industry always good” like good little automatons.

LOL, unfortunately it isn’t stupid. The bottom line here is you cannot explain your hypocrisy or the hypocrisy of those like you. This really isn’t that difficult.

You have a lot of gibberish, disconnected thinking, going on there. Obama isn’t forcing insurance companies to raise premiums because he has no power to do so. You apparently are laboring under a lot of misinformation which has probably been picked up in the right wing entertainment industry. If you had stuck your head outside the right wing entertainment industry you would know that individuals receive government tax credits to offset their premium costs. It’s called a subsidy and varies from individual to individual. The maximum anyone would pay for health insurance premiums under Obamacare is 9.5% of income. Let me keep it simple for you, premiums are offset by government tax credits which limit the premium cost to no more than 9.5% of income.

Yeah I got that, for you and your fellow Republicans it is about your right to be fiscally irresponsible and to have people like me pay all of your healthcare costs when you become ill or injured and need medical care. It’s about It’s about your right to my pocketbook.

What is “redistributing wealth” exactly? It is another mindless Republican/Tea Party/Conservative talking point. It really means nothing. Government is collective expense. It is not a “redistribution of wealth”. Is it redistribution of wealth when I pay my share of federal expenditures and more, and you do not?

Well Bush Junior didn’t reform healthcare. He didn’t pass the Affordable Care Act. But if he had, I would still be supportive of the legislation. Gingridge was supportive of the legislation as recently as 2006. The Affordable Care Act was developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation as an alternative to Hillarycare. It wasn’t until Democrats adopted it that the legislation suddenly became tyranny to Republicans.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...d-romney-health-care-plan-in-2006-newsletter/

Well again you need to get your facts straight. I have never endorsed the Patriot Act. I have supported the NSA practices with the additional oversight my buddy Obama has put into place. So the Patriot Act of today is not George Junior’s Patriot Act.

Two, Obama has not “embraced” Gitmo. He has tried to terminate it several times. However, Republicans in Congress have thwarted Obama’s attempts to close the facility. And my position on Gitmo has not changed. It should be closed. Keeping prisoners in Gitmo is expensive and really serves no good purpose.

Well the war on terror like the other wars, the war on drugs, the war on illegal immigration, etc. are all over done. But I don’t recall hearing my buddy decide not to use the word anymore. Nor do I see how it is particularly relevant to the Affordable Care Act.

Yeah we are still killing terrorists, and you think that is a bad thing…really? And as for sycophants, you had better pull the log out of your eye before you go looking at others and calling others names. I suggest you start with getting your facts straight and work on your reasoning and logic.

 

There Must Be an Answer, Let it Fail, Let it Fail ....

One of the funny things about the Sciforums version of this right-wing con is that even when I do feed people an opportunity, they simply won't take it. No, really. What it tells me is that they want us to believe they're idiots. (Notice none of them ever answered my inquiry about the letter from my insurance provider. The problem there is that in discussing that letter, they might admit how much of this bawling on behalf of junk plans and fraud is complete excrement.)

You'll notice that our neighbor's arguments are as discorporeal as his name.

But I wold note on the kickback point, the right wing is really, really furious at McConnell for finding a way to get some necessary infrastructure work earmarked against the American Naysayers. It's part of the ongoing insurgency tearing Congressional Republicans to pieces.

Apparently "earmark" is no longer so toxic a word; the TPers are escalating to accusing the Senate Minority Leader of a crime.

The idiotic hyperbole aside, simply laughing at this ridiculous behavior will only alienate them more; soon enough they'll be accusing crimes against Republican senators just for showing up to work in the morning. But, yes, we're obliged to extraordinary civility, since anything short of giving this wailing chorus everything it wants is apparently some sort of crime. Whatever else, don't underestimate hardliner anger toward the Minority Leader for salvaging something necessary and important from the shipwreck otherwise known as the shutdown.

Slimdown.

Tortilla Coast Junta.

Whatever.

 

52 Million to lose insurance Plans due to Obamacare

That's rich. Millions of people are seeing there healthcare costs go thru the roof* under the healthcare law imposed upon the nation by President Obama and his henchmen in the Democratic Party.

Why? Because Obama lied to their faces repeatedly and told them that they could keep the healthcare plans they had " no matter what". Instead, up to 52 Million Americans are facing cancelation of their insurance coverage.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/07/207909/analysis-tens-of-millions-could.html

*including me. My insurance cost is increasing 50%. As a bonus, that doesn't even include insurance for my disabled son who was kicked off his plan thanks to Obamacare!

 

This and That

The two giveaways that the above paragraph is completely dishonest are the hyperbole (imposed, henchmen, &c.) and the refusal to address the underlying point.

• • •​

Well, did you notice a pattern? We keep hearing our own version of Obamacare horror stories, but apparently, since they know what happens when the detail is explored, they're trying to get away without the detail.

There's a reason I want people to answer my inquiry about the letter from my insurance provider, and it's quite clear there's a reason why our conservative neighbors won't. Like I told Tach, demonstrate the fault of Obamacare, since that's what everyone is after and what he was refusing to explain. And the best he could do was post hoc ergo propter hoc.

Meanwhile, one wonders why our neighbor Madanthonywayne wants us to read the McClatchy article:

Yet advisers did say in 2010 that there were large caveats and that anyone whose insurance plan changed would lose the promised protection of being able to keep existing plans. And a report in 2010 said that as many as 69 percent of certain employer-based insurance plans would lose that protection, meaning as many as 41 million people could lose their plans even if they wanted to keep them and would be forced into other plans. Another 11 million who bought their own insurance also could lose their plans. Combined, as many as 52 million Americans could lose or have lost old insurance plans.

Some or much of that loss of favored insurance is driven by normal year-to-year changes such as employers changing plans to save money. And many people could end up with better plans. But it is not what the president pledged ....

.... But a closer examination finds that the number of people who have plans changing, or have already changed, could be between 34 million to 52 million. That’s because many employer-provided insurance plans also could change, not just individually purchased insurance plans

Administration officials decline to say how many employer-sponsored plans could change. But those numbers could be between 23 million to 41 million, based on a McClatchy analysis of estimates offered by the Department of Health and Human Services in June 2010.

Obama aides did acknowledge around the time the law was enacted in 2010 that some people could lose their coverage if their plans changed after the law was passed. Those people would in turn receive what the administration described as superior coverage. But in the years since the law’s passage, HHS officials have downplayed that consequence of the hard-fought law.

“If health plans significantly raise co-payments or deductibles or significantly reduce (them) . . . they’ll lose their grandfather status and their customers will get the same full set of consumer protections as new plans,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a June 15, 2010, news conference.

(Hall and Kumar)​

If you look at how this argument goes, it is easy enough to see that there really isn't anything of decent substance about it; that is, the argument is pure political vapor, a toxic fume.

In politics, there is WYWA, when you skip the question you are asked and answer, instead, the question you Wish You Were Asked. It is almost as if our conservative neighbors are trying to replace the entire political discourse with the Discussion They Wished They Were Having, and that doesn't make a cute, flowing acronym, so maybe nobody will point it out, you know?

Throughout, I remind myself, "This is why I never liked the mandate from the outset," but as our conservative neighbors desperately try to deny history and divorce Republicans from their own advocacy stretching over three decades, we have to remember that our neighbors have been hacking away at straw men from the outset.

Remember, you're trying to argue with bigots, here. It doesn't matter what facts you put in front of them, you are a lesser being because you disagree with them, and therefore nothing you have to say that they disagree with has any value.

You keep waiting for them to put some facts down, but facts aren't their business. Generally speaking, facts are bad for Republican talking points these days, and particularly speaking, they're absolutely dangerous to the faery tales our conservative neighbors are pushing in this thread.

Remember, they don't actually care what you're saying. As long as you disagree with them, you are nothing more than the straw man they've built out of how many other fallacies.

They're not actually paying attention to anything other than the fact that another asshole with nothing to say is saying something; then they just recite more faery tales as if they're actually responding, and that's all the courtesy you're worth—oh, right, and be thankful they're even putting that much effort into disrespecting you.

Remember who you're having this dispute with.
____________________

Notes:

Kumar, Anita and Kevin G. Hall. "Analysis: Tens of millions could be forced out of health insurance they had". McClatchy DC. November 7, 2013. NcClatchyDC.com. November 7, 2013. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/11/07/207909/analysis-tens-of-millions-could.html