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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Metsfanmax on Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:31 pm

patches70 wrote:The CBO is notorious for how badly they project costs of various policies and yet if those sure to be wrong projections make those policies seem better than they will be/are in reality then people happily cite the CBO. When the CBO inevitably is proven completely wrong do people rethink their position? Confirmation bias tends to not let people do that.

CBO is great for altering the perception of reality I guess. God pity anyone who would rely on their projections to make informed decisions.


So if we shouldn't trust the CBO for projections, who should we trust?
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby patches70 on Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:41 pm

Trust whomever you want, Mets.

If you trust someone or something and that someone or something turns out to be consistently wrong, what's stopping you from seeking out alternate sources?

If you trusted your neighbor to the left, and your neighbor to the right tells you that's a mistake and it turns out that the neighbor on the left was indeed untrustworthy, wouldn't it be prudent to ask the neighbor on the right how they knew?

You could start with those who said right from the get go that the CBO was wrong and go from there.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Metsfanmax on Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:43 pm

patches70 wrote:Trust whomever you want, Mets.

If you trust someone or something and that someone or something turns out to be consistently wrong, what's stopping you from seeking out alternate sources?

If you trusted your neighbor to the left, and your neighbor to the right tells you that's a mistake and it turns out that the neighbor on the left was indeed untrustworthy, wouldn't it be prudent to ask the neighbor on the right how they knew?

You could start with those who said right from the get go that the CBO was wrong and go from there.


I'm literally doing that right now. So will you provide me with some sources of projections that you think are generally accurate?
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby thegreekdog on Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:53 pm

Metsfanmax wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:- The fact that more people will be relying on government is lost


... we're talking about the Affordable Care Act. Do you think anyone really missed that more people will be relying on government?


Consdering the number the CBO estimated originally is a third of their new estimate... yeah, I do.


As you pointed out, that's more likely to be due to the difficulty of making such projections than anything else.

Sigh... there already appears to be a growing trend of people not saving money and now we have "hey, I'll work less because government." The end result is higher debt, higher taxes, or both.


Yeah, but presumably we get better healthcare as a result. That's something, right?


It is difficult to make such projections. If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say there were some shenanigans associated with that first projection, but I'm not. Suffice it to say, I suspect it will get worse.

As far as getting better healthcare, it appears that some people will have better health insurance than they used to have. I'm not confident anyone will receive better healthcare and it certainly does not appear to be cost effective. I said it before and I'll say it again. Apart from not liking the law simply because "I hate guvmint," I will continue to take a wait and see approach before I make any effectiveness or ineffectiveness arguments; that being said, I remain unconvinced that this is an effective law for managing healthcare costs.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby BigBallinStalin on Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:04 pm

thegreekdog wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
thegreekdog wrote:- The fact that more people will be relying on government is lost


... we're talking about the Affordable Care Act. Do you think anyone really missed that more people will be relying on government?


Consdering the number the CBO estimated originally is a third of their new estimate... yeah, I do.


As you pointed out, that's more likely to be due to the difficulty of making such projections than anything else.

Sigh... there already appears to be a growing trend of people not saving money and now we have "hey, I'll work less because government." The end result is higher debt, higher taxes, or both.


Yeah, but presumably we get better healthcare as a result. That's something, right?


It is difficult to make such projections. If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say there were some shenanigans associated with that first projection, but I'm not. Suffice it to say, I suspect it will get worse.

As far as getting better healthcare, it appears that some people will have better health insurance than they used to have. I'm not confident anyone will receive better healthcare and it certainly does not appear to be cost effective. I said it before and I'll say it again. Apart from not liking the law simply because "I hate guvmint," I will continue to take a wait and see approach before I make any effectiveness or ineffectiveness arguments; that being said, I remain unconvinced that this is an effective law for managing healthcare costs.


It's not conspiratorial to suggest that the CBO tends to paint rosy pictures for government spending.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Metsfanmax on Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:06 pm

BigBallinStalin wrote:It's not conspiratorial to suggest that the CBO tends to paint rosy pictures for government spending.


But this particular projection (and this is not the only one) suggest that government spending is going to contract the economy, so it's pretty hard to call this "rosy."
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby BigBallinStalin on Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:13 pm

Metsfanmax wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:It's not conspiratorial to suggest that the CBO tends to paint rosy pictures for government spending.


But this particular projection (and this is not the only one) suggest that government spending is going to contract the economy, so it's pretty hard to call this "rosy."


They'll tend to downplay the effects that the legislation has on unemployment, thus remaining rosy.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Metsfanmax on Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:27 pm

BigBallinStalin wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:It's not conspiratorial to suggest that the CBO tends to paint rosy pictures for government spending.


But this particular projection (and this is not the only one) suggest that government spending is going to contract the economy, so it's pretty hard to call this "rosy."


They'll tend to downplay the effects that the legislation has on unemployment, thus remaining rosy.


You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby patches70 on Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:28 pm

Metsfanmax wrote:
I'm literally doing that right now. So will you provide me with some sources of projections that you think are generally accurate?


It is well known that macroeconomic forecasts are very rarely ever correct. You should look into exactly how Obama came up with the "every family making under $250,000 a year will see a decrease of $2,500 in premiums" and why that turned out to be so wrong.
That's some funny stuff there.

But you can always look to Forbes, Cato institute and plenty of other places to look.

Even common sense should help you a bit. How can you pass a law saying no pre existing conditions can be turned down, (guaranteed issue) and that sick people can't be charged more than healthy people (community rating) <ha!> and other increased regulation but expect that there won't be a dramatic increase in premiums?

But even that would be all ok if only the law and the lawmakers had been honest from the get go, which they were not in the slightest. The ACA was sold on lies, half truths and projections that can't be considered accurate or even trustworthy just due to the complexity of the issues.

There is nothing wrong with saying "look, we are trying to work out ways to make it more efficient and less costly but it's complex model and such estimates are difficult to project with accuracy". Then it's best to be presented with best case- worst case. Instead the ACA was sold with all the promises that are hoped for but the costs are either ignored, hidden or outright lied about.

Everyone wants healthcare to be cheaper, better and all the other things we'd all like to see. But using deception, bait and switch and maybe even outright lying is not the way to do it. I'd hope no one would dispute the shady way the ACA was conducted and passed and then changed over and over and over. By proven liars no less. (Basically politicians are liars, they kinda gotta be as a job requirement).

That's why there are people like PS and NS who scoff outright outright at Obama and the ACA (with good reason I'd add) to people like TGD who scratch their head and know that there is something shady going on and are taking everything with a grain of salt (with good reason I'd add).
Then there are the true believers who were unfortunate enough to take Obama at his word and it keeps coming to light time and time again that he was either mistaken, misinformed or possibly even lying about a lot of the ACA.
There is plenty of such going on from all sides to be sure, but one thing is for certain, if the government puts out a report saying the sky is blue there is no reason to fault anyone for actually going outside to see if it really is blue.

That's how far the credibility of the government is shot with a lot of people. And all with good reason.

But I suppose it all really comes down to who is getting their mule skinned. If one is getting a better deal than they had before they are happy, no matter who it is that ends up paying. Those getting the raw end of the stick (and there are people who are) they aren't so happy.
One can say the premise of the ACA is good, and it may well be. But the execution, no, that dog don't fly at all, best intentions be damned. The Devil's in the details and the details ain't looking good at all. Time will tell one way or another. I'd certainly like to see improvement, but from my point of view the true problems are not even addressed in the slightest so the chances of anything good are extremely slim, IMO.
You can't address the costs of something if the something used to measure those costs (currency) is forever being devalued day after day. That's the absolute foundation upon which all the costs are based on, the vehicle upon which those costs are measured. If that vehicle has dire issues in and of itself those issues transfer into everything denominated by that vehicle.

It's all about the money and foundations built on sand. Fix that first then we might actually have a chance to fix other things, but that issue is never ever looked at because, frankly, it's too scary to contemplate.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Metsfanmax on Wed Feb 05, 2014 12:11 am

patches70 wrote:Everyone wants healthcare to be cheaper, better and all the other things we'd all like to see. But using deception, bait and switch and maybe even outright lying is not the way to do it. I'd hope no one would dispute the shady way the ACA was conducted and passed and then changed over and over and over. By proven liars no less. (Basically politicians are liars, they kinda gotta be as a job requirement).


I don't particularly care whether something is "shady." I just care if 1) it's constitutional and 2) whether it's a net good thing for the country. Whether or not the President lied about the law in 2010 is immaterial to whether it will succeed in its implementation now.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Phatscotty on Wed Feb 05, 2014 12:41 am

oh puh-LEASE!
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Phatscotty on Wed Feb 05, 2014 12:44 am

Metsfanmax wrote:
Night Strike wrote:The CBO states that 2.3 million full time jobs will be lost over the next 10 years due to Obamacare. I guess all those "Republican talking points" were actually the truth all along.


No it doesn't. It says that the economy will be able to support 2.3 million fewer full-time workers in 10 years, compared to what would have happened without the law.


so are you trying to say it's a gain then?
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Dualta on Wed Feb 05, 2014 12:47 am

Single payer. It's coming to a USA near you ;)
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Metsfanmax on Wed Feb 05, 2014 12:54 am

Phatscotty wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
Night Strike wrote:The CBO states that 2.3 million full time jobs will be lost over the next 10 years due to Obamacare. I guess all those "Republican talking points" were actually the truth all along.


No it doesn't. It says that the economy will be able to support 2.3 million fewer full-time workers in 10 years, compared to what would have happened without the law.


so are you trying to say it's a gain then?


No, I just don't like it when people post blatantly false things. I don't have a strong opinion on whether the ACA is a net-good thing for our country because it seems like all of these projections have a high amount of uncertainty.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Phatscotty on Wed Feb 05, 2014 2:08 am

You said the same thing that was originally said, just in a different way. Whether it's 2.3 million full time jobs lost, or the economy will provide 2.3 less full time million jobs, it's a negative 2.3 million full time jobs. Maybe somehow you think that's could be a positive. Like the accompanying trillion dollars the ACA is projected to add onto our deficit, also a negative.

Democrats had it wrong from the start, and one needn't be a health care expert to see that there was no way in thee blue hell the Democrat's would be able to keep their promises or make the ACA perform to the standards that were foolishly guaranteed by Obama, Reid, and Pelosi, and the Democrats literally shattered the legislative process and nuked our Democratic process while doing so. The ACA remains the only major piece of legislation in our history to be passed on partisan lines. The Democrats own this.

For the rest of us, the bullshit fantasies were pretty easy to whiff right up front.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Metsfanmax on Wed Feb 05, 2014 2:14 am

Phatscotty wrote:The ACA remains the only major piece of legislation in our history to be passed on partisan lines. The Democrats own this.


You can't think of a single other piece of major legislation passed along partisan lines? How about the 13th Amendment?
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Phatscotty on Wed Feb 05, 2014 2:34 am

Dualta wrote:Single payer. It's coming to a USA near you ;)


I have been promised by numerous ACA supporters that will not happen.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Phatscotty on Wed Feb 05, 2014 2:37 am

Metsfanmax wrote:
Phatscotty wrote:The ACA remains the only major piece of legislation in our history to be passed on partisan lines. The Democrats own this.


You can't think of a single other piece of major legislation passed along partisan lines? How about the 13th Amendment?


Not every Democrat voted for slavery...
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Night Strike on Wed Feb 05, 2014 7:58 am

Metsfanmax wrote:
patches70 wrote:Everyone wants healthcare to be cheaper, better and all the other things we'd all like to see. But using deception, bait and switch and maybe even outright lying is not the way to do it. I'd hope no one would dispute the shady way the ACA was conducted and passed and then changed over and over and over. By proven liars no less. (Basically politicians are liars, they kinda gotta be as a job requirement).


I don't particularly care whether something is "shady." I just care if 1) it's constitutional and 2) whether it's a net good thing for the country. Whether or not the President lied about the law in 2010 is immaterial to whether it will succeed in its implementation now.


If a law requires lying to the people to get it passed, can it really be a good thing for the country?


Metsfanmax wrote:
Night Strike wrote:The CBO states that 2.3 million full time jobs will be lost over the next 10 years due to Obamacare. I guess all those "Republican talking points" were actually the truth all along.


No it doesn't. It says that the economy will be able to support 2.3 million fewer full-time workers in 10 years, compared to what would have happened without the law.


I thought all of you progressives were against using government to subsidize the income of workers. Or maybe that's just player.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby thegreekdog on Wed Feb 05, 2014 8:17 am

Metsfanmax wrote:
Phatscotty wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
Night Strike wrote:The CBO states that 2.3 million full time jobs will be lost over the next 10 years due to Obamacare. I guess all those "Republican talking points" were actually the truth all along.


No it doesn't. It says that the economy will be able to support 2.3 million fewer full-time workers in 10 years, compared to what would have happened without the law.


so are you trying to say it's a gain then?


No, I just don't like it when people post blatantly false things. I don't have a strong opinion on whether the ACA is a net-good thing for our country because it seems like all of these projections have a high amount of uncertainty.


Sorry, I have to jump back in again (sort of to support Mets). The problem is precisely that conservatives are making false claims based on the CBO report. And not because they are making false claims; rather, their false claims result in a completely irrelevant discussion now. It is irrelevant to have this discussion about whethre the ACA will cost jobs because it won't; and the conservatives are now ineffectively using their time AND making themselves lose another issue. Instead, the conservatives should have focused on the fact that more people will be relying on government AND working less which will result in even MORE reliance on government.

We should be having a debate about how the ACA is making more people reliant upon the government; instead we're having a fake debate about the ACA costing jobs.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby thegreekdog on Wed Feb 05, 2014 8:20 am

Metsfanmax wrote:
patches70 wrote:Everyone wants healthcare to be cheaper, better and all the other things we'd all like to see. But using deception, bait and switch and maybe even outright lying is not the way to do it. I'd hope no one would dispute the shady way the ACA was conducted and passed and then changed over and over and over. By proven liars no less. (Basically politicians are liars, they kinda gotta be as a job requirement).


I don't particularly care whether something is "shady." I just care if 1) it's constitutional and 2) whether it's a net good thing for the country. Whether or not the President lied about the law in 2010 is immaterial to whether it will succeed in its implementation now.


I usually also don't care if something is done shadily (since everything in Washington is done shadily, in my opinion). However, the ACA bothers me to no end. The entire political process surrounding it, the beliefs that people have about the law and its effectivness, that most people voting for the law didn't read the law. It's a prime example of the ineffectiveness of government while being touted as an effective law, which further reinforces the government's overall position that it regularly passes effective laws.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Metsfanmax on Wed Feb 05, 2014 8:47 am

Night Strike wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
patches70 wrote:Everyone wants healthcare to be cheaper, better and all the other things we'd all like to see. But using deception, bait and switch and maybe even outright lying is not the way to do it. I'd hope no one would dispute the shady way the ACA was conducted and passed and then changed over and over and over. By proven liars no less. (Basically politicians are liars, they kinda gotta be as a job requirement).


I don't particularly care whether something is "shady." I just care if 1) it's constitutional and 2) whether it's a net good thing for the country. Whether or not the President lied about the law in 2010 is immaterial to whether it will succeed in its implementation now.


If a law requires lying to the people to get it passed, can it really be a good thing for the country?


Yes. Without wanting to get into this too much, the voting public is generally uneducated on many issues (relating to science, legislative policy, etc.) and so it is easy to envision scenarios in which lying or misrepresenting something could actually be used to achieve a good end result; sometimes the truth is too complicated to explain in a sound bite.

Note: I know I am going to regret posting this at some point. For the record, even though it should be obvious, I'm not condoning the use of lying as a rhetorical technique. I'm simply saying that you can't a priori judge the effectiveness of the law on whether it was misrepresented so that it could be passed. I mean, that's an obvious statement. You judge the law based on what's in the text of the law.

Metsfanmax wrote:
Night Strike wrote:The CBO states that 2.3 million full time jobs will be lost over the next 10 years due to Obamacare. I guess all those "Republican talking points" were actually the truth all along.


No it doesn't. It says that the economy will be able to support 2.3 million fewer full-time workers in 10 years, compared to what would have happened without the law.


I thought all of you progressives were against using government to subsidize the income of workers. Or maybe that's just player.


Again, I'm not saying I'm happy about the situation, just that I prefer the facts to be characterized correctly before we have a discussion.

My principled response to this is simply that I'd likely find that to be a worthwhile sacrifice if the net healthcare of Americans was substantially improved as a result of the law. Even if it wasn't, I still might find it to be a worthwhile sacrifice if the healthcare of the poorest Americans was very substantially improved. If neither of those things are true, then I wouldn't have a reason to support the law.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby BigBallinStalin on Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:02 am

Metsfanmax wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:
Metsfanmax wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:It's not conspiratorial to suggest that the CBO tends to paint rosy pictures for government spending.


But this particular projection (and this is not the only one) suggest that government spending is going to contract the economy, so it's pretty hard to call this "rosy."


They'll tend to downplay the effects that the legislation has on unemployment, thus remaining rosy.


You keep using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.


If they tend to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits for a given public policy, then that's rosy.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby thegreekdog on Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:25 am

Metsfanmax wrote:My principled response to this is simply that I'd likely find that to be a worthwhile sacrifice if the net healthcare of Americans was substantially improved as a result of the law. Even if it wasn't, I still might find it to be a worthwhile sacrifice if the healthcare of the poorest Americans was very substantially improved. If neither of those things are true, then I wouldn't have a reason to support the law.


Ignoring that I believe the government cannot do anything better than the private sector, I give you +500 saxbucks. This is basically my position as well. I did see something somewhere when the law was passed (I cannot find it) that most people that did not have health insurance before the ACA was passed will still not have health insurance. I don't know if that's still true or not.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby BigBallinStalin on Wed Feb 05, 2014 11:32 am

Metsfanmax wrote:My principled response to this is simply that I'd likely find that to be a worthwhile sacrifice if the net healthcare of Americans was substantially improved as a result of the law. Even if it wasn't, I still might find it to be a worthwhile sacrifice if the healthcare of the poorest Americans was very substantially improved. If neither of those things are true, then I wouldn't have a reason to support the law.


(1) How do you compare the improvement of "the poorest" to some reduction in wealth for all the non-poorest categories?
Rawl's criterion about focusing on the poorest seems satisfying, but I've never found that position to be useful--nor considerate--toward others.

Also, (2) even if the poorest aren't faring as well as imagined, why not consider that individuals move across categories? By implication, focusing on the poorest category can be less fruitful since more and more subsidies would go to those who remain the longest in the poorest category.

(Let's ignore the veil of ignorance reasoning since it's impractical and misleading).
Last edited by BigBallinStalin on Wed Feb 05, 2014 11:43 am, edited 3 times in total.
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