ObamaCare - exchanges ,report your states options!

[saxitoxin]

Anyway, The Economist had an interesting article today examining how or if Obamacare might be repealed after November and the likelihood Romney might be scared away from repeal or why Democrats, once they fall to opposition in the Senate, would avoid trying to filibuster it -

The mechanics should be familiar by now. If Mr Romney wins, he'll certainly have the power to repeal those parts of Obamacare that involve taxing and spending, using the budget reconciliation process to bypass the filibuster. With a Republican House and, in all likelihood, 51-plus votes in the Senate, he could eliminate the insurance exchanges, the subsidies for poor people, the taxes that support those subsidies, the restraints on Medicare cost growth, and so forth. He most likely won't have the 60 votes he would need to overcome a filibuster against repealing the non-budgetary portions of Obamacare, such as the individual mandate and guaranteed issue. But if you repeal the subsidies and exchanges while leaving the mandate and other rules in place, you're left with what Mr Lizza calls "a health-care Frankenstein": people will be required to buy insurance but won't get the subsidies they need to afford it, and so forth.

Mr Lizza thinks the prospect of such a Frankenstein will scare Mr Romney away from repeal, but Mr Klein points out it wouldn't be Mr Romney creating the Frankenstein: it would be the Senate Democrats filibustering to keep those regulations in place. For this reason, Kevin Drum thinks there would likely be ten to 12 Democrats in the Senate unwilling to filibuster to protect the non-budgetary parts of the law.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democrac ... are-repeal

[aad0906]

Pharmaceutical company GSK has to pay an outrageous $3 billion to the government. I say we get rid of these excessive government regulations so companies like GSK can continue to create jobs and reduce healthcare cost!Romney 2012!

[spurgistan]

Pharmaceutical company GSK has to pay an outrageous $3 billion to the government. I say we get rid of these excessive government regulations so companies like GSK can continue to create jobs and reduce healthcare cost!Romney 2012!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18673220

Letting companies know that health care fraud is illegal and will actually be punished and stuff (except for when we let you be Governor of Florida) might actually lead to less health care fraud. Which, you know, would lead to better, cheaper health care.

[john9blue]

i'm starting to wonder whether roberts made his ruling as some sort of devious master plan in order to enrage people further against obama

it's not like roberts' position is in jeopardy...

pretty far-fetched, but it would be ironic if this ruling and the subsequent fallout caused obama to lose in november

[saxitoxin]

i'm starting to wonder whether roberts made his ruling as some sort of devious master plan in order to enrage people further against obama

it's not like roberts' position is in jeopardy...

pretty far-fetched, but it would be ironic if this ruling and the subsequent fallout caused obama to lose in november

That's an interesting hypothetical, J9B, and maybe not far from the truth.

Nearly a third of Republican voters say they’re more likely to vote in November as a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling, while just 18 percent of Democrats say the same, according to a poll released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The poll, taken after the court announced its decision Thursday, provides more evidence that Republicans are more likely to be fired up by the ruling than Democrats — and could vote in stronger numbers in November.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/07 ... z1zUwBmLrG

[AndyDufresne]

Guess we'll have to wait for his biography!


--Andy

[Night Strike]

Anyway, The Economist had an interesting article today examining how or if Obamacare might be repealed after November and the likelihood Romney might be scared away from repeal or why Democrats, once they fall to opposition in the Senate, would avoid trying to filibuster it -

The mechanics should be familiar by now. If Mr Romney wins, he'll certainly have the power to repeal those parts of Obamacare that involve taxing and spending, using the budget reconciliation process to bypass the filibuster. With a Republican House and, in all likelihood, 51-plus votes in the Senate, he could eliminate the insurance exchanges, the subsidies for poor people, the taxes that support those subsidies, the restraints on Medicare cost growth, and so forth. He most likely won't have the 60 votes he would need to overcome a filibuster against repealing the non-budgetary portions of Obamacare, such as the individual mandate and guaranteed issue. But if you repeal the subsidies and exchanges while leaving the mandate and other rules in place, you're left with what Mr Lizza calls "a health-care Frankenstein": people will be required to buy insurance but won't get the subsidies they need to afford it, and so forth.

Mr Lizza thinks the prospect of such a Frankenstein will scare Mr Romney away from repeal, but Mr Klein points out it wouldn't be Mr Romney creating the Frankenstein: it would be the Senate Democrats filibustering to keep those regulations in place. For this reason, Kevin Drum thinks there would likely be ten to 12 Democrats in the Senate unwilling to filibuster to protect the non-budgetary parts of the law.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democrac ... are-repeal

They can probably repeal the law in its entirety via reconciliation considering it was passed under the same system, but there is a good chance that the Republicans can get a filibuster-proof majority to make that point moot. Also, even if they can't remove the actual text of the mandate, they could remove the TAX on not complying with the mandate which would render it toothless.

[Phatscotty]

[Juan_Bottom]

[Juan_Bottom]

http://finder.healthcare.gov/

It's like 10 seconds to get insurance. YAY-BAMA

[john9blue]

let's use our words, juan. not pictures.

[Juan_Bottom]

let's use our words, juan. not pictures.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

-Jesus

[john9blue]

let's use our words, juan. not pictures.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

-Jesus

[Lootifer]

f*ck YEAH!

[saxitoxin]

http://finder.healthcare.gov/

It's like 10 seconds to get insurance. YAY-BAMA

OMG, this is hilarious! Great find, JB!

This is the exact same web interface as the 6 year old ehealthinsurance.com ... a site jointly funded by a trade group representing the mega insurance companies Aetna, Regence, Lifewise Inc., and Assurant Health. Seriously - click through for an individual plan on healthcare.gov - you get the exact same corporate product purchase options -- the websites with the four-user drop-down menus / click & compare, etc. - even look identical! It's the insurance industry's marketing website ported over to a .GOV extension!

Ladies and gentlemen - welcome to Obama, Inc.! The final step in the merger of the government and corporations. This has seriously gotta be the funniest thing I've seen all month.

[BigBallinStalin]

Huh? How are they similar?

[saxitoxin]

They're not similar - it's the same site!

They have the exact same interface and they pull up the same list of private company policies when you click-through. Basically, the multi-billion dollar insurance industry is mirroring their old consumer marketing site through a .Gov domain now. I can hardly wait until WhiteHouse.Gov has a Wal-Mart store locator on their homepage.

[BigBallinStalin]

I'm almost willing to agree with you, but it could be the case that the government hired the same people who also design the esurance website, and that's it. The assumption that "based on this similarity of website designs, there's further collusion between the two groups" remains somewhat shaky... however, given a public choice perspective, this is not at all surprising, and would lend some support for the collusion argument.

However, a larger comparison should be conducted. A better way to make your point would be to examine more insurance websites and see if there's a variance (thus confirming your conclusion) or a very general similarity (thus diminishing support for your conclusion). I expect a 10 page paper by Thursday, sax.

[saxitoxin]

I'm almost willing to agree with you, but it could be the case that the government hired the same people who also design the esurance website, and that's it. The assumption that "based on this similarity of website designs, there's further collusion between the two groups" remains somewhat shaky... however, given a public choice perspective, this is not at all surprising, and would lend some support for the collusion argument.

While true, that's kind of beside the point.

The point is that this was a "service" that existed for the better part of a decade without any state intervention. The exact same service still exists, it's just now the U.S. people are paying for it. What makes it doubly maddening is that it's not a service at all, but an advertising initiative for extremely wealthy companies to promote their products. What makes it triply maddening is that, as JB demonstrated, the U.S. public actually doltishly think this is part of some swath of new benefits to which they're just now receiving access to ... not the exact same thing that's existed for the last 6 years but with addition of a dead eagle slapped on the header!

If this isn't a perfect example of the crony capitalist circle, there is none -->

politician uses police power to seize money from workers ("tax"), politician uses seized money to buy advertising for a giant corporation's products, giant corporation sells more of its products, giant corporation gives a cut of its profits to the politician (in Obama's case it's the $1 million donation check from UnitedHealth)

the U.S. government is, at this moment in time, probably the most tottering, corrupt, institution in the world's history ... there is, based on the precedence of this website, nothing to stop Obama from having a sponsored step & repeat wall behind his next press conference ... Americans should literally just give up; it's too far gone to fix - L'Idiocracy, C'est Moi

[saxitoxin]

AND DON'T get me started on fucking Anderson Cooper.

"I'm gay!"

HUH!? This is like Russell Simmons coming out.

I dunno, maybe it's the Tanqueray 10 talking and I'm just in a fighting mood now.

Oh, and then CNN says they have exclusive charcoal drawings of "Syrian torture centers"?

EXCLUSIVE CHARCOAL DRAWINGS?! HUUUUGHHHH?

CNN was able to sneak a canvas, easel and sketch artist into a "Syrian torture center"? You know the public has dropped to new depths of stupidity when they don't even have to photoshop pics anymore, they just draw them with a pencil on the back of Anderson coopers splooge rag.

OMG, I hope the Mayans were right. Sweet Jesus.

[DJPatrick]

Join the first world, guys...Universal health care for ALL citizens should be birthright not a political football....sure you pay towards good health for those around you and you have an identical safety net...Publicly funded healthcare...If your country doesn't have it, it's SICK!!!

[saxitoxin]

Join the first world, guys...Universal health care for ALL citizens should be birthright not a political football....sure you pay towards good health for those around you and you have an identical safety net...Publicly funded healthcare...

Obamacare is neither universal, nor publicly funded.

see: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=93718&hilit=obamacare+saxitoxin+npr&start=3465#p3795400

I swear, you'd hafta watch a George Romero film to see so many perfectly functioning bodies with non-working brains. Credit Obama's press agency, though, for putting together a marketing campaign so effective the vast swath of the unwashed public incredibly seems to thinks they just got universal, publicly funded healthcare or anything even remotely resembling it ..................................................

[PLAYER57832]

I'm almost willing to agree with you, but it could be the case that the government hired the same people who also design the esurance website, and that's it. The assumption that "based on this similarity of website designs, there's further collusion between the two groups" remains somewhat shaky... however, given a public choice perspective, this is not at all surprising, and would lend some support for the collusion argument.

However, a larger comparison should be conducted. A better way to make your point would be to examine more insurance websites and see if there's a variance (thus confirming your conclusion) or a very general similarity (thus diminishing support for your conclusion). I expect a 10 page paper by Thursday, sax.

Insurance prices are set based on medical costs, which in turn are set based at least in part on what insurance companies are willing to pay.

So, the collusion has been happening for some time.

And... meanwhile, the funding for real medical research keeps getting cut and/or switched more and more to just tweaking things for companies that basically already exist or that are very close to existing already.

[PLAYER57832]

Pharmaceutical company GSK has to pay an outrageous $3 billion to the government. I say we get rid of these excessive government regulations so companies like GSK can continue to create jobs and reduce healthcare cost!Romney 2012!

Yeah, never mind that it was the government, not private companies who came up with treatments for malaria, for polio, that leads the research into cancer treatment now.

Nope, just let the companies take credit. After all, they get the patents.. they "must" have done the research!

[BigBallinStalin]

AND DON'T get me started on fucking Anderson Cooper.

"I'm gay!"

HUH!? This is like Russell Simmons coming out.

I dunno, maybe it's the Tanqueray 10 talking and I'm just in a fighting mood now.

Oh, and then CNN says they have exclusive charcoal drawings of "Syrian torture centers"?

EXCLUSIVE CHARCOAL DRAWINGS?! HUUUUGHHHH?

CNN was able to sneak a canvas, easel and sketch artist into a "Syrian torture center"? You know the public has dropped to new depths of stupidity when they don't even have to photoshop pics anymore, they just draw them with a pencil on the back of Anderson coopers splooge rag.

OMG, I hope the Mayans were right. Sweet Jesus.

Hey, how about the mainstream media blunder on reporting that Obamacare was deemed unconstitutional?

How does such a mistake not ruin these guys' reputations? If the guise of remaining trustworthy is a strong incentive for inducing viewership, then I'd expect their viewer ratings to drop... but to my knowledge, this doesn't happen. Either the viewers forgive such blunders and continue watching, or they don't value accuracy as much as I thought, so they continue watching. Either way, it seems to confirm that the viewers tend not to place a high value on truth, and rather seek entertainment or opinions which conform to their worldviews. So, it isn't "news"; it's theater.

It reminds me when I was watching the news coverage on Hurricane Katrina and the events which allegedly unfolded in New Orleans. Their coverage was terrible. They leap from rumor to rumor and reported them as true. After that, I reached a turning point. To me, mainstream media significantly lost its credibility in covering news during any catastrophe, or emergency situation (wars, natural disasters, etc.).


inb4 "old man dies of a heart attack while participating in an internet forum. In other news, Internet forums are a threat to the health of US citizens; therefore, they should be regulated for the sake of promoting the common good."