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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby saxitoxin on Tue Oct 29, 2013 7:22 pm

Today's Obamacare Scandals -

#1 - in the unlikely event you can access healthcare.gov, all your confidential information will be seized by Nigerian hackers

The glitch was discovered last week by Ben Simo, a software tester in Arizona. Simo found that gaining access to people's accounts was frighteningly simple. It wouldn't have even taken a skilled hacker. Anyone with bad intentions -- and a minimal understanding of how to read a website's code -- could have figured it out.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/29/technol ... ?hpt=hp_t2


# 2 - leaked info shows Obama knew in advance healthcare.gov would implode and collapse

... he says the insurers he dealt with had contentious meetings with people form HHS and other health care officials who were in charge of this. Contentious meetings in the months before this rollout, warning them, this isn't working. It's not going to be smooth. Don't do it right then. He says those warnings were ignored, they went full speed ahead, and said we'll work these problems out.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/ ... nings.html
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viewtopic.php?f=8&t=241668&start=200#p5349880
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby Phatscotty on Tue Oct 29, 2013 7:30 pm

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Re: ObamaCare

Postby PLAYER57832 on Wed Oct 30, 2013 10:05 am

Night Strike wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:per the "dumped" bit.. again, some are in the first category -- the policies these people had were not decent policies and insurers cannot offer them any longer. Others are in the category that has been getting bigger every year anyway.. employers who just decide they don't want the extra expense of insurance. The difference is that now, the people who were "dumped" can actually GET affordable insurance even without going through their employers.


What power do YOU have to determine what other people consider to be good policies for them?
Well I AM paying for it. You keep trying to sidestep that, but we ALL wind up paying for those who, like you, think you can "do without" insurance.. up until you face catastrophe (oh, I forgot.. you got those super immune powers that mean you won't get seriously sick, get in a care accident or otherwise need more than minimal emergency healthcare coverage :roll: ).

Beyond that, its called "data". You know -- science and facts.


Night Strike wrote:And what's affordable about paying several hundred dollars a month in premiums with thousands of dollars in deductibles for coverage that then only pays 60% of expenses?
Oh, you mean what existed before for most people, those lucky enough to have insurance?

The insurance companies have always been about making money. BUT.. you are among the most vocal opposing viable alternatives such as a true socialized system.

Your only other "option" is to let people pretend they don't need insurance. Sorry.. I prefer forcing people to accept the reality that this means making other people pay for THEIR insurance. (and yes, I do mean you!).

Night Strike wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:First explain how you can claim 260,000,000 people are being harmed?

Night Strike wrote:Don't forget, more than 80% of country already had health insurance before this law was passed. And now many of those same people are having their insurance prices skyrocket or their plans dumped altogether. If that's a solution, it's an extremely perverse one.
Again, show your data.


It's simple math. Although your Keynesian beliefs probably preclude knowing that. You progressives constantly cited 45 million people as not having health insurance. There are approximately 305 million people in the US, meaning 260 million people had health insurance prior to this law. That comes out to more than 80% of the country having health insurance.
Nope, you specifically said "harm". Your figures don't show that harm.

Night Strike wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:And, how can you claim that all these people are seeing their prices skyrocket when the enrollment for the exchanges only began a couple of weeks ago and most people have not even checked the prices out yet?


Because we HAVE heard stories already.
hmm... a few "stories". Yes, like that idiot who closed his company (or did he? I have not followed up on it) when Obama was elected. Just because people make claims, doesn't make them real. In fact, some people have seen premiums rise . (hard pressed to call it "skyrocketing", though since that is an utterly undefined rhetorical term.... ) OTHERS, a number of others have seen them do down.

BUT.. MY point, which you ignored is that prices rising does not mean that Obamacare caused them to rise. Let me repeat that... simply saying prices are more this year than last year (or five years, 8 years ago) does not mean that the Affordable Care Act made the prices rise! Prices have risen every year in my memory, long before Obamacare was in anyone's vocabulary. I asked you to show a direct causal link, not just anecdote. You have not done so.


Night Strike wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:Simply saying that insurance went up this year just doesn't do it. I have yet to live through a year when my insurance rates did NOT rise and benefits were NOT reduced... and that goes back a long way before anyone outside of Illinois even knew who Obama was!


How many years did they go up by 50%? 75%? 100%? 150%?

Like I thought.. you don't have a real answer. (and don't even try to claim 260,000,000 people's rates are going up by those amounts!!!)

First, to answer YOUR question -- Yes. We saw our insurance costs double (happened to all company employees)AND our families' medical costs increased by 1000-fold because my son needed serious care shortly after birth. It was bad enough that my husband quit his job at a company where he had worked for over 20 years and took a job that paid less and was far less secure, but at least offered decent insurance -- until he got laid off, anyway. Now he makes about what he did (not adjusted for inflation, but neither are the jobs at the old factory), but likes his work better and we have much better insurance (both of us, actually).

Contrary to your claims, our rates actually went DOWN last year, for basically the same coverage (a slightly reduced network). We were NOT forced, we chose that change and this is the first year I have seen a reduction in 15 years!

Regaring MY question, which you keep bypassing --- I can give you a few clues, because I HAVE looked into this. Employer coverage is largely going unchanged, in that Obamacare is not really, despite claims to the contrary, changing that UNLESS the coverage the employer offered failed to meet some basic minimum standards. As I have said all along, simply because someone puts down money for something labeled "insurance" does not mean they really and truly have the coverage they need. Yes, getting something real, getting real coverage does cost more than getting what was really a bandaid or even fake policy.

The biggest group having trouble are poorer individuals, particularly younger singles, who are not eligible for employer coverage and who don't make much. They were supposed to be able to get expanded Medicaid coverage, but governors catering to Tea Partiers and Repubs have stomped their feet and refused. Is that really the fault of Obamacare or is it the fault of some Republicans throwing tantrums? Even so, the penalties and costs are not as much as many keep trying to claim.

The other group seeing their policies cancelled are individuals in the private market.. the most expensive market previously, who don't have policies that are meeting the minimum standards. Again, they had "policies" that were not effective enough. What the hype fails to mention, though, is that many of these people will actually see their insurance rates go DOWN, not up!

A lot of people ARE finding insurance cheaper than they could get before. Many people already have insurance who did not. Both points you try to dismiss, but they are very, very real.

So again, how do you justify the claim that only 15 Million benefit and 260 million are harmed?

Night Strike wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:You have yet to show why. All you put forward are a bunch of unverified opinions and unreasoned position statements.


Because the government controls what you do with your private money. How many hours do I have to work a week that go directly to the government? Why do you deserve more of my money than me?
[/quote]
Nothing to do with any point I have made OR what Obamacare requires.

See, the point is that if you do not, right now, have decent insurance, then you ARE a liability to every other American in the country. You have the right to gamble you won't get sick with your money, perhaps, but NOT with MY money or that of the rest of America.
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby PLAYER57832 on Wed Oct 30, 2013 10:24 am

BigBallinStalin wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:I wonder if it will be enough to disabuse people of the illusion of government capability--at such a macro level.

The question is if the alternatives are better. Evidence shows "not".

See, its not enough to simply find problems.. you have to have a viable and real better solution. Corporations as governance is a nightmare, not a dream.


At the State-level? Sure, it's better. More localized knowledge reduces the costs of central planning (thus increasing its efficiency). It also allows for a greater variety of public policies, thus enabling greater scope of trial-and-error while accommodating for more local differences (culture, geography, blah blah blah).

LOL.. you defeat yourself. On the one hand, you like to claim that large companies are efficient, that bigger is better.. now, when its government, you claim the opposite.

Also "greater variety of public policies" is good only if you happen to live in a state where you LIKE the policies. Since most people don't really get to choose where they live.. its really not a point in favor of state control.

BigBallinStalin wrote:Then there's mutual aid societies which have been crowded out by federal and state spending on 'welfare'. Same benefits accrue from mutual aid societies in respect to local knowledge, innovation, and efficiency--yet even better, it requires an objective measure of performance: profit and loss, so it's not going to be as blind as political planning nor as distorted (campaign contributions).
Nice try, but no details.

See, you can claim anything without details. I am sure you can dig up a few mutual aid societies that you can say have been crowded out by welfare, but have you actually asked anyone IN those societies? Again, the real truth is that local food help, local welfare assistance is notoriously inefficient and very unequal. That is WHY we have a univeral welfare system in this country and in most civilized nations.

BigBallinStalin wrote:The legacy of trade and its benefits are also another point about how people have become better--not just by coerced transfers of wealth but instead by the creation of wealth through production and trade. Redistribution and central planning are more inefficient or have been complete failures--but they certainly make many people feel better, which is important regardless of how naive it is.
Utterly irrelevant to healthcare, because healthcare is never operating in a truly free market, nor are people well enough informed to truly make free choices about medical care. There is a reason it takes 12+ years to become a doctor and more to be a surgeon.



BigBallinStalin wrote:To reject all of this is to reject history--or to show very little knowledge of it.
Then again, you might be trying to claim a history that really doesn't exist, or just a very, very narrow portion that is utterly irrelevant to the affordable healthcare act or implementation of universal insurance of any type.

Despite your claims, the most prosperous times in the US were when we have a high minimum wage, good education and decent roads. Since then a FEW people have been getting very, very wealthy and everyone else has been largely doing downhill. That's not real prosperity, that's another form of top heavy imperialism.
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby _sabotage_ on Wed Oct 30, 2013 10:57 am

Player,

Do you feel that receiving the 38th best healthcare while paying the most money for it is reasonable?

I had my son in China. We had a private room in a private hospital without insurance. He ended up spending two weeks in ICU a couple days after his birth. Total cost, under US$2k.

I am for socialized medicine to the extent that it covers those who can't get coverage. On the other hand, do you think there is something which can be done about the exorbitant cost of healthcare in the US? I have often heard that by paying the doctors so much we attract the best doctors. Is this true? Who are our competitors for all the best doctors and how much are they paying them and how many do they need? According to wikipedia, the only countries with similar GDPs and even remotely similar populations are Japan and Germany. But combined, they only have 2/3s of the US's population. So where are these doctors going to go? In a quick search, German doctors get an average of 155k a year and Japanese, 96k a year. Doesn't seem like the market is too large elsewhere even discounting language barriers.

Ok, so then we need to pay more for the best equipment right? Why then are we ranked 38th if we have the best doctors and best equipment? Is it because of the people who can't get access to healthcare? Maybe. On the other hand, would you prefer a doctor who was more interested in helping you or more interested in the money they make?

I am all for healthcare reform in the US, but mandating compliance, raising the already high cost and limiting choice doesn't seem to be the solution. Wouldn't it be wise to try to be like Singapore? 6th best in healthcare and 38th in spending? Or are we too exceptional or greedy to look to other systems?
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Wed Oct 30, 2013 11:38 am

PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:I wonder if it will be enough to disabuse people of the illusion of government capability--at such a macro level.

The question is if the alternatives are better. Evidence shows "not".

See, its not enough to simply find problems.. you have to have a viable and real better solution. Corporations as governance is a nightmare, not a dream.


At the State-level? Sure, it's better. More localized knowledge reduces the costs of central planning (thus increasing its efficiency). It also allows for a greater variety of public policies, thus enabling greater scope of trial-and-error while accommodating for more local differences (culture, geography, blah blah blah).

LOL.. you defeat yourself. On the one hand, you like to claim that large companies are efficient, that bigger is better.. now, when its government, you claim the opposite.

Also "greater variety of public policies" is good only if you happen to live in a state where you LIKE the policies. Since most people don't really get to choose where they live.. its really not a point in favor of state control.


Haha, seriously? I've said no such thing. I'm talking about relative sizes. Clearly, there's a difference between federal government and State government in scope, right?

Haha, wow, I'm constantly surprised by how you draw your conclusions.

PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:Then there's mutual aid societies which have been crowded out by federal and state spending on 'welfare'. Same benefits accrue from mutual aid societies in respect to local knowledge, innovation, and efficiency--yet even better, it requires an objective measure of performance: profit and loss, so it's not going to be as blind as political planning nor as distorted (campaign contributions).
Nice try, but no details.

See, you can claim anything without details. I am sure you can dig up a few mutual aid societies that you can say have been crowded out by welfare, but have you actually asked anyone IN those societies? Again, the real truth is that local food help, local welfare assistance is notoriously inefficient and very unequal. That is WHY we have a univeral welfare system in this country and in most civilized nations.

BigBallinStalin wrote:The legacy of trade and its benefits are also another point about how people have become better--not just by coerced transfers of wealth but instead by the creation of wealth through production and trade. Redistribution and central planning are more inefficient or have been complete failures--but they certainly make many people feel better, which is important regardless of how naive it is.
Utterly irrelevant to healthcare, because healthcare is never operating in a truly free market, nor are people well enough informed to truly make free choices about medical care. There is a reason it takes 12+ years to become a doctor and more to be a surgeon.



BigBallinStalin wrote:To reject all of this is to reject history--or to show very little knowledge of it.
Then again, you might be trying to claim a history that really doesn't exist, or just a very, very narrow portion that is utterly irrelevant to the affordable healthcare act or implementation of universal insurance of any type.

Despite your claims, the most prosperous times in the US were when we have a high minimum wage, good education and decent roads. Since then a FEW people have been getting very, very wealthy and everyone else has been largely doing downhill. That's not real prosperity, that's another form of top heavy imperialism.


Also, the rest is nonsense, and I don't have time for your diatribe. Go educate yourself on these matters. It's all very relevant to central planning (hurr durr), and I could give you a reading list if you cared to learn.
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby PLAYER57832 on Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:29 pm

_sabotage_ wrote:Player,

Do you feel that receiving the 38th best healthcare while paying the most money for it is reasonable?

Of course not..
and if you think I do, go back to some of the first pages of this thread. You will see that several of us pointed out, early on, many, many options. Also, I never said that the Healthcare Reform act was fantastic. I have always been disappointed in it. What I have said is that it is a bit better than what WE had... that is the only real question congress debated.


_sabotage_ wrote:I had my son in China. We had a private room in a private hospital without insurance. He ended up spending two weeks in ICU a couple days after his birth. Total cost, under US$2k.
You were lucky, and American with a good job. Many Chinese could not afford that. Also, you have to pre-pay in China, even in an emergency. People die or go past the point of easy repair/cure while family are rounding up money to pay. I think our system is far from the best, but is still much better than that in China.

_sabotage_ wrote:I am for socialized medicine to the extent that it covers those who can't get coverage. On the other hand, do you think there is something which can be done about the exorbitant cost of healthcare in the US? I have often heard that by paying the doctors so much we attract the best doctors. Is this true? Who are our competitors for all the best doctors and how much are they paying them and how many do they need? According to wikipedia, the only countries with similar GDPs and even remotely similar populations are Japan and Germany. But combined, they only have 2/3s of the US's population. So where are these doctors going to go? In a quick search, German doctors get an average of 155k a year and Japanese, 96k a year. Doesn't seem like the market is too large elsewhere even discounting language barriers.
We got into this earlier in the thread.

Healthcare is not something that can be ruled by the free market fully, because it lacks key elements. People in emergencies rarely have the option to just go choose another doctor or facility. Even when people have time to investigate, don't really have the ability to make fully their own medical decisions. (despite the internet hype to the contrary!) We must rely on doctors. Because of this, we must rely on a system that ensures good quality. Because people cannot really make free choices, the market is not free.

Each of those countries to which you referred has a very different system. One country often mentioned early in this thread is France. They have a system I remember liking, though I cannot remember all the details of why right now. Yet... if you listen to Phattscotty and Nightstrike, the examples THEY kept bringing up were just errors in the UK and Canada, and not the successes, just he biggest problems. They never, ever, compared those problems honestly and equally to those in our system. There is no such thing as one type of "socialized medicine". There is no real definition of "socialized medicine", it is more of a political term people use to debate whatever side they wish. So, anyway, saying that ou "like socialized medicine" for people who cannot afford it.... that just means nothing.

if you want to look at why our healthcare system is expensive, you have to consider a lot of complex problems. The first and primary point is that medicine offers a lot, LOT more than it did even 20 years ago. Our insurance system was set up at a time when appendectomies and tonsillectomies were major surgeries. Of course its more expensive to cure cancer and to rebuild people "broken" in car accidents than it was to cure the measles and lance ears.

Beyond that, folks talk about lawsuits. That is very, very true. The cost of malpractice insurance is a HUGE expense. But, its not as simple as blaming "greedy lawyers". One reason people wind up suing is that all too often its the only way they can get the money to obtain the care they need. With better, more universal coverage, the need to sue goes way down. That kind of cost relationship is being ignored too often in this debate.

The basic idea of insurance is important and fundamentally good. I have fire insurance on my house, hope I never have to use it, but still pay that monthly permium. Why? Because if I did not have it and my house were to burn, my kids and I would have nowhere to go, nothing to fall back upon. I don't consider myself a "loser" because my house failed to burn! I don't begrudge the fact that my premiums went, in part to the family across town that lost their house. (hmm... I might begrudge that guy downtown... lol, no seriously, not really). I am very happy that my house did not burn!!!

That is no different than with medical insurance. The primary difference is that while most people's houses never burn, most people do get sick, eventually. If you are very lucky, it won't happen until you are old .. and covered by Medicare, which was instituted by-the-way because insurance companies at the time did not want to cover all those naturally more ill seniors. So, those bills must be paid. By combining, pooling the costs, the individual cost of that insurance is brought down, just like the individual cost of my fire policy is nowhere near as great as rebuilding my house.

I DO have problems with the way our system was instituted. I don't want employers in my medical business, so I don't like that it is employers who offer insurance, BUT.. for all that business complains about that now, it was set up that way because it benefited the businesses, not individuals! But, the main problem is that in the past, insurers were able to charge premiums, collect billions of dollars (combined) from largely healthy people and then they could turn around and just dump a lot of policyholders when they got truly sick. THAT is the major "fix" this law makes. The law also limits the amount of profit insurance companies can now collect, so even though they are still allowed to get profits, at least its not unlimited as it was before.

Ultimately, to truly keep costs down, we need to do several things.
First, we have to look more seriously at limits to coverage. You are correct when you say that not everything can or should be covered. To pick an example I see, maybe giving a 90 year old dementia patient aggressive chemotherapy is not a good choice. I mean, the poor person doesn't even understand what is happening, just sees that they feel bad when they go see a particular doctor and doesn't really understand why its required! Why put them through it? On the other hand, I have seen doctors spend hours on the phone trying to track down the best treatment for a toddler with a major issue.

One real problem is that because our doctors are so highly trained and oriented to "save lives", they often spend too much time, effort and medicine on dying patients, particularly elderly patients. "Letting go" is hard. For a doctor, letting a patient die can seem a lot like failure. Yet.. death is very much a part of life. I am not talking about euthanasia here. I am talking about things like deciding not to put a frail 94 year old dementia patient on aggressive chemotherapy with nasty side effects. Or, allowing a patient who can no longer swallow, who has to drink things the consistency of honey and who can only eat mashed food and who still tends to choke, even with help... maybe if that patient stops breathing, maybe the nurse should try some basic measures to help, but not go so far as to hook up tubes, start CPR. Maybe that person has lived their life and is ready to "move on".

_sabotage_ wrote:Ok, so then we need to pay more for the best equipment right? Why then are we ranked 38th if we have the best doctors and best equipment? Is it because of the people who can't get access to healthcare? Maybe. On the other hand, would you prefer a doctor who was more interested in helping you or more interested in the money they make?

I am all for healthcare reform in the US, but mandating compliance, raising the already high cost and limiting choice doesn't seem to be the solution. Wouldn't it be wise to try to be like Singapore? 6th best in healthcare and 38th in spending? Or are we too exceptional or greedy to look to other systems?

I would say you are just misjudging the system, the problems, Obamacare, and my opinion about the solutions.

We have great equipment for 2 reasons. Part of it is that companies stand to gain big profits. BUT - - the fact is that a lot of research is actually done by the government, not private entities. Research is a hard thing to quantify, because its not as simple as saying "this scientist did all this research, did not find the solution and therefore failed/that scientist got the solution and succeeded". Finding that something won't work is just as important, is just as much real science and credible science as finding the thing that does work. And, it takes a lot of false starts to get to success. Also, many times even if the original answer was not found, side questions might result. We all benefit in many ways from the research that lead to man walking on the moon.

Mandating compliance? that's about integrity. If you mean requiring certain certifications and the like, well.. its like I said earlier. We all don't have time to go out and learn how to do appendectomies on our kids. We have to trust that if we take them to an emergency room and let a stranger in scrubs operate on them, they will know what they are doing. Requiring certification is not a perfect guarantee, but it works pretty well.

If you mean requiring certain levels of coverage... it makes no sense to allow insurance companies to take profits by offering something that gives no real protection. What the limits and requirements should actually be is certainly debatable, but that limits need to be applied is not.

Per other systems... Americans have been brainwashed to think anything containing the words "socialism" or "socialized" are bad.
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby PLAYER57832 on Wed Oct 30, 2013 12:35 pm

BigBallinStalin wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:I wonder if it will be enough to disabuse people of the illusion of government capability--at such a macro level.

The question is if the alternatives are better. Evidence shows "not".

See, its not enough to simply find problems.. you have to have a viable and real better solution. Corporations as governance is a nightmare, not a dream.


At the State-level? Sure, it's better. More localized knowledge reduces the costs of central planning (thus increasing its efficiency). It also allows for a greater variety of public policies, thus enabling greater scope of trial-and-error while accommodating for more local differences (culture, geography, blah blah blah).

LOL.. you defeat yourself. On the one hand, you like to claim that large companies are efficient, that bigger is better.. now, when its government, you claim the opposite.

Also "greater variety of public policies" is good only if you happen to live in a state where you LIKE the policies. Since most people don't really get to choose where they live.. its really not a point in favor of state control.


Haha, seriously? I've said no such thing. I'm talking about relative sizes. Clearly, there's a difference between federal government and State government in scope, right?

Haha, wow, I'm constantly surprised by how you draw your conclusions.

Yeah, surprised that I actually remember your saying that Walmart is more efficient than small moms and pops because its bigger.


BigBallinStalin wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:Then there's mutual aid societies which have been crowded out by federal and state spending on 'welfare'. Same benefits accrue from mutual aid societies in respect to local knowledge, innovation, and efficiency--yet even better, it requires an objective measure of performance: profit and loss, so it's not going to be as blind as political planning nor as distorted (campaign contributions).
Nice try, but no details.

See, you can claim anything without details. I am sure you can dig up a few mutual aid societies that you can say have been crowded out by welfare, but have you actually asked anyone IN those societies? Again, the real truth is that local food help, local welfare assistance is notoriously inefficient and very unequal. That is WHY we have a univeral welfare system in this country and in most civilized nations.

BigBallinStalin wrote:The legacy of trade and its benefits are also another point about how people have become better--not just by coerced transfers of wealth but instead by the creation of wealth through production and trade. Redistribution and central planning are more inefficient or have been complete failures--but they certainly make many people feel better, which is important regardless of how naive it is.
Utterly irrelevant to healthcare, because healthcare is never operating in a truly free market, nor are people well enough informed to truly make free choices about medical care. There is a reason it takes 12+ years to become a doctor and more to be a surgeon.



BigBallinStalin wrote:To reject all of this is to reject history--or to show very little knowledge of it.
Then again, you might be trying to claim a history that really doesn't exist, or just a very, very narrow portion that is utterly irrelevant to the affordable healthcare act or implementation of universal insurance of any type.

Despite your claims, the most prosperous times in the US were when we have a high minimum wage, good education and decent roads. Since then a FEW people have been getting very, very wealthy and everyone else has been largely doing downhill. That's not real prosperity, that's another form of top heavy imperialism.


Also, the rest is nonsense, and I don't have time for your diatribe. Go educate yourself on these matters. It's all very relevant to central planning (hurr durr), and I could give you a reading list if you cared to learn.


LOL.. typical BBS. Anyone who seriously disagrees with you "knows nothing".
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby _sabotage_ on Wed Oct 30, 2013 1:06 pm

Player,

Obamacare has done nothing to decrease the cost of the system. By mandating it, he is increasing the cost. America's system relies on credit China's on debit. In the US, we treat you just well enough so that you can live to pay off the bill. I did not have a good job in China, I had my own company with employees. I paid for their health insurance, about $200 a year. For the Chinese staff, this was about 1.5% of their salary. And they don't pay tax. I provided food, housing, internet, etc. Most employers are required to, or pay more if they don't include housing, because its an employees market. A Chinese persons salary goes towards shopping and savings. As such, they can pre-pay the less than $1 cost to see the doctor if they don't have insurance at a public or private hospital. My wife quit her job to have my son, not because she had to (Chinese employers cannot fire a pregnant employee, until they have been convicted of a criminal act against the employer) and we chose to pay for the delivery ourselves. Sure, we had no reason to expect he would have to go to the ICU, but due to the cost of health care, it's not even something I would have to worry about. For people of low incomes, their insurance is $20 a year. If they choose not to pay it, they can spend the dollar to see a doctor and then go straight to the specialist because the specialist isn't making enough money in an hour to never be around.

If you support Obamacare, you are supporting the increased and enforced healthcare costs in the US as a total, with less healthcare being provided. That's an up on the highest costs in the world, and a down on the quality as compared to our neighbours. Perhaps in this thread you have looked at other systems, did he? If the result is higher healthcare and less coverage, what leads you to think that was not his intention? Was it the Obamacare hotline number?
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Wed Oct 30, 2013 1:27 pm

PLAYER57832 wrote:
_sabotage_ wrote:Player,

Do you feel that receiving the 38th best healthcare while paying the most money for it is reasonable?

Of course not..
and if you think I do, go back to some of the first pages of this thread. You will see that several of us pointed out, early on, many, many options. Also, I never said that the Healthcare Reform act was fantastic. I have always been disappointed in it. What I have said is that it is a bit better than what WE had... that is the only real question congress debated.


It's better than what you had. If you ask the millions who have been kicked out of their insurance plans--due to consequences of the ACA, and if you ask the millions who remain uninsured--or will get mediocre ACA-induced coverage, then obviously, it's not "a bit better than what we had."

You'll get your coverage for you and your family, but at the cost of many people paying higher prices, getting a reduction in quality, and/or being/remaining uninsured. How do you reconcile your selfish goals with the costs incurred by hundreds of millions?
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Wed Oct 30, 2013 1:30 pm

PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:I wonder if it will be enough to disabuse people of the illusion of government capability--at such a macro level.

The question is if the alternatives are better. Evidence shows "not".

See, its not enough to simply find problems.. you have to have a viable and real better solution. Corporations as governance is a nightmare, not a dream.


At the State-level? Sure, it's better. More localized knowledge reduces the costs of central planning (thus increasing its efficiency). It also allows for a greater variety of public policies, thus enabling greater scope of trial-and-error while accommodating for more local differences (culture, geography, blah blah blah).

LOL.. you defeat yourself. On the one hand, you like to claim that large companies are efficient, that bigger is better.. now, when its government, you claim the opposite.

Also "greater variety of public policies" is good only if you happen to live in a state where you LIKE the policies. Since most people don't really get to choose where they live.. its really not a point in favor of state control.


Haha, seriously? I've said no such thing. I'm talking about relative sizes. Clearly, there's a difference between federal government and State government in scope, right?

Haha, wow, I'm constantly surprised by how you draw your conclusions.

Yeah, surprised that I actually remember your saying that Walmart is more efficient than small moms and pops because its bigger.


BigBallinStalin wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:Then there's mutual aid societies which have been crowded out by federal and state spending on 'welfare'. Same benefits accrue from mutual aid societies in respect to local knowledge, innovation, and efficiency--yet even better, it requires an objective measure of performance: profit and loss, so it's not going to be as blind as political planning nor as distorted (campaign contributions).
Nice try, but no details.

See, you can claim anything without details. I am sure you can dig up a few mutual aid societies that you can say have been crowded out by welfare, but have you actually asked anyone IN those societies? Again, the real truth is that local food help, local welfare assistance is notoriously inefficient and very unequal. That is WHY we have a univeral welfare system in this country and in most civilized nations.

BigBallinStalin wrote:The legacy of trade and its benefits are also another point about how people have become better--not just by coerced transfers of wealth but instead by the creation of wealth through production and trade. Redistribution and central planning are more inefficient or have been complete failures--but they certainly make many people feel better, which is important regardless of how naive it is.
Utterly irrelevant to healthcare, because healthcare is never operating in a truly free market, nor are people well enough informed to truly make free choices about medical care. There is a reason it takes 12+ years to become a doctor and more to be a surgeon.



BigBallinStalin wrote:To reject all of this is to reject history--or to show very little knowledge of it.
Then again, you might be trying to claim a history that really doesn't exist, or just a very, very narrow portion that is utterly irrelevant to the affordable healthcare act or implementation of universal insurance of any type.

Despite your claims, the most prosperous times in the US were when we have a high minimum wage, good education and decent roads. Since then a FEW people have been getting very, very wealthy and everyone else has been largely doing downhill. That's not real prosperity, that's another form of top heavy imperialism.


Also, the rest is nonsense, and I don't have time for your diatribe. Go educate yourself on these matters. It's all very relevant to central planning (hurr durr), and I could give you a reading list if you cared to learn.


LOL.. typical BBS. Anyone who seriously disagrees with you "knows nothing".


Obviously, you don't wish to learn anything beyond your worldview, so it's no surprise you won't offer to read anything beyond your self-constrained scope.

Why argue with willfully ignorant people?

(I noticed how your first response fits the expected format: change definition/change position, then declare 'victory'. Maybe that process prevents you from learning).
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby saxitoxin on Wed Oct 30, 2013 4:44 pm

Obama - If You're One of the 15 Million Americans Who Just Had Their Healthcare Cancelled ... You're On Your Own

Obama said at the Boston rally that people who have their policies discontinued should "just shop around" for better plans.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/politics/ ... ?hpt=hp_t1


Meanwhile, the data hub was back up for 24 hours before it crashed again ...

Another day of online Obamacare enrollment was lost Wednesday to technical difficulties that forced HealthCare.gov offline — even as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified before a House committee on efforts to patch the malfunctioning site.

Federal health officials said the site, which handles enrollment for 36 states, was taken down Tuesday night after a ā€œpartial outageā€ at Verizon Terremark’s data center. The center experienced a similar outage over the weekend that forced the site offline Sunday.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/k ... z2jFCLGxxG


http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/k ... 99091.html
Pack Rat wrote:if it quacks like a duck and walk like a duck, it's still fascism

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=241668&start=200#p5349880
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby saxitoxin on Wed Oct 30, 2013 4:53 pm

PLAYER57832 wrote:prices rising does not mean that Obamacare caused them to rise


this is a crazy superstition/myth on par with climate change denial that giant insurance corporations are actively pushing on people like Player

it is not a fact based statement or one that syncs with the universal, unanimous, scientific consensus that has been presented by expert testimony through hundreds or thousands of mainstream media reports in the last month; many of these have been posted in this thread, like this one -

middle-income consumers face an estimated 30% rate increase, on average, in California due to several factors tied to the healthcare law

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-h ... z2jFDVYJne
Pack Rat wrote:if it quacks like a duck and walk like a duck, it's still fascism

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=241668&start=200#p5349880
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Wed Oct 30, 2013 5:13 pm

It's disappointing to see how the political process has twisted people like player.

I hope the next round of voters won't be so delusional, but who knows. Maybe they'll again drop their pants with Obama 2.0 (some black/white, female--charismatic, posturing as caring and all that theatre).
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby saxitoxin on Wed Oct 30, 2013 5:22 pm

Today's Obamacare Scandal - Servants of America's Rulers are Exempted from Having to Slum-It with Obamacare Aspirin & Bandaid Plans ... Will Get to Keep Taxpayer-Subsidized Rolls Royce Healthcare

Obamacare is, once again, turning Capitol Hill upside down. In what members of both parties said was a surprise, guidance on Tuesday from the chief administrative officer of the House said lawmakers could privately designate personal office aides as not ā€œofficial,ā€ meaning they do not have to go on the exchange and could keep their current plan. ā€œIt seems too cute,ā€ said Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) of the news. Denham is putting all his staff on the exchanges.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/c ... z2jFL9FUMr


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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby _sabotage_ on Wed Oct 30, 2013 5:43 pm

BigBallinStalin wrote:It's disappointing to see how the political process has twisted people like player.

I hope the next round of voters won't be so delusional, but who knows. Maybe they'll again drop their pants with Obama 2.0 (some black/white, female--charismatic, posturing as caring and all that theatre).


Won't be delusional and vote for McCain? Was he even a contender; I always assumed that the Reps just let Obama win to keep their hands out of the mess. I figured he would do some of what he most blatantly said, such as end the wars and close Gitmo. I figured his budgets would be more reflective of the Clinton days than the Reagan, Bush, Bush days.

And even though he is a compulsive liar, did you see who came out in support of the attack on Syria? McCain, Kerry, Ms Clinton, all top candidates in our recent elections. What makes you think that there was any real choice?
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Wed Oct 30, 2013 6:02 pm

_sabotage_ wrote:
BigBallinStalin wrote:It's disappointing to see how the political process has twisted people like player.

I hope the next round of voters won't be so delusional, but who knows. Maybe they'll again drop their pants with Obama 2.0 (some black/white, female--charismatic, posturing as caring and all that theatre).


Won't be delusional and vote for McCain? Was he even a contender; I always assumed that the Reps just let Obama win to keep their hands out of the mess. I figured he would do some of what he most blatantly said, such as end the wars and close Gitmo. I figured his budgets would be more reflective of the Clinton days than the Reagan, Bush, Bush days.

And even though he is a compulsive liar, did you see who came out in support of the attack on Syria? McCain, Kerry, Ms Clinton, all top candidates in our recent elections. What makes you think that there was any real choice?


That outcome--the current choice--is due to those very voters demanding the very politicians they deserve. They create that choice/outcome, so there is a 'real' choice; it just depends on when voters will stop being so stupid (to put it bluntly).

I'd be pessimistic, but ideas can change people's worldviews, thus changing their expectations of political promises which would change the variety of politicians and/or make politicians at higher levels more irrelevant, as they should be. (This all goes back to their degree of understanding political capitalism, the market process, and the limits and dangers of democracy).
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby _sabotage_ on Wed Oct 30, 2013 6:44 pm

i don't know...

I think humans are too easy to manipulate, and in this I include the one who is president as well. A conspiracy of one. By this I mean, we have the same pitfalls which an orthodox system feeds off. Those at the top have no incentive to change it and will always have enough hangers-on to ensure it. Without an assured great prospect, we will follow the consensus which is easily generated through propaganda from those in control. It's coupled with the threat of punishment ranging from being an outcast to actual murder. The source of the great prospect is also too easy to bribe, obfuscate, dismiss, befuddle, derail, isolate, harm or disappear.

Worldviews may change but out inherent carrot/stick mechanisms remain. Obama is an actor, he got better at his stage presence with what I suspect was a concentrated effort after his first failed campaign. You can see the look in Kerry's eyes when he first goes to see Obama speak. "One helluva salesman" is etched into Kerry's reaction. Because that's all any of them are. It's the culmination of free markets, some can both afford to buy the president and can't afford not to. Some can afford the best rep in town, and elections are their candidate vetting process. This rep is receiving better customer feedback.

And their product is something we don't need at all, and is something that we are told we need through elections and occasional reminders, such as the homeless, prisons or a bomb going off, sometimes at home. It's no different from kids breaking your windows and asking for the protection money against it. Obama just has a higher success rate on the scam than McCain.

Until we recognize the unrelenting pitfalls of man and deal with them in recognition that they won't go away, we will have more of the same.

The country was founded on a design to arrest the pitfalls of mankind, but the swine found their way in through our negligence.
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Re: ObamaCare

Postby Night Strike on Wed Oct 30, 2013 8:12 pm

PLAYER57832 wrote:
Night Strike wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:per the "dumped" bit.. again, some are in the first category -- the policies these people had were not decent policies and insurers cannot offer them any longer. Others are in the category that has been getting bigger every year anyway.. employers who just decide they don't want the extra expense of insurance. The difference is that now, the people who were "dumped" can actually GET affordable insurance even without going through their employers.


What power do YOU have to determine what other people consider to be good policies for them?
Well I AM paying for it. You keep trying to sidestep that, but we ALL wind up paying for those who, like you, think you can "do without" insurance.. up until you face catastrophe (oh, I forgot.. you got those super immune powers that mean you won't get seriously sick, get in a care accident or otherwise need more than minimal emergency healthcare coverage :roll: ).


I have employer provided health insurance. Except for that pesky email I received saying that my current plan will no longer be offered because it's not good enough for Obamacare's arbitrary coverage. I'm currently waiting for details of my new plan. But I guess I should just bow down and worship Obama like you progressives do for him providing my with super-expensive "better" coverage. Since it's the government's job to provide everything to us and all.
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby Phatscotty on Wed Oct 30, 2013 8:24 pm

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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Wed Oct 30, 2013 8:45 pm

_sabotage_ wrote:i don't know...

I think humans are too easy to manipulate, and in this I include the one who is president as well. A conspiracy of one. By this I mean, we have the same pitfalls which an orthodox system feeds off. Those at the top have no incentive to change it and will always have enough hangers-on to ensure it. Without an assured great prospect, we will follow the consensus which is easily generated through propaganda from those in control. It's coupled with the threat of punishment ranging from being an outcast to actual murder. The source of the great prospect is also too easy to bribe, obfuscate, dismiss, befuddle, derail, isolate, harm or disappear.

Worldviews may change but out inherent carrot/stick mechanisms remain. Obama is an actor, he got better at his stage presence with what I suspect was a concentrated effort after his first failed campaign. You can see the look in Kerry's eyes when he first goes to see Obama speak. "One helluva salesman" is etched into Kerry's reaction. Because that's all any of them are. It's the culmination of free markets, some can both afford to buy the president and can't afford not to. Some can afford the best rep in town, and elections are their candidate vetting process. This rep is receiving better customer feedback.

And their product is something we don't need at all, and is something that we are told we need through elections and occasional reminders, such as the homeless, prisons or a bomb going off, sometimes at home. It's no different from kids breaking your windows and asking for the protection money against it. Obama just has a higher success rate on the scam than McCain.

Until we recognize the unrelenting pitfalls of man and deal with them in recognition that they won't go away, we will have more of the same.

The country was founded on a design to arrest the pitfalls of mankind, but the swine found their way in through our negligence.


The culmination of free markets? You use that word, but I don't think you what it means.

Other than that, yeah, those are problems, but there's been marginal shifts.

You've got the rise of the public choice school,
you've had barriers to international trade falling worldwide,
you've had relatively less taxation than 80 years ago (for developed countries)--after what seemed an inevitable trend toward greater taxation
(of course, it's being financed by deficit spending, so it'll come to an ugly close)

--which may be the turning point: default. We've seem a minor case in Greece, but most--if not all--democratic countries are hurtling toward that model of governance.

My concern is that this would definitely disturb the status quo (whenever this comes), but in a crisis it could go either way: toward more faith in government, thus government, or it could lead to disillusion with government, thus more shifts to alternatives (or alternative forms of governance--ranging from authoritarian (which wouldn't fly but could happen anyway) and more markets/less government types).
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby _sabotage_ on Thu Oct 31, 2013 6:28 am

If the markets can be manipulated, how can they be free? If one person has the ability to purchase something and others don't, how is this free?
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby BigBallinStalin on Thu Oct 31, 2013 7:31 am

Sure, there's problems with the word 'free', but "Free markets" refers to unhampered markets, in that you can trade in anything without the government intervening (by tariffs, taxes, and its regulations).

If one person has the ability to purchase something and others don't, how is this free?

There's a difference between a budget constraint (i.e. only have $100 per week to spend) and being prevented from purchasing something (e.g. by government decree). Freedom depends on the latter, not the former. Budget constraints don't act; they can't 'imprison'.
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Re: ObamaCare - Delayed Anyways?

Postby Metsfanmax on Thu Oct 31, 2013 8:17 am

BigBallinStalin wrote:Sure, there's problems with the word 'free', but "Free markets" refers to unhampered markets, in that you can trade in anything without the government intervening (by tariffs, taxes, and its regulations).

If one person has the ability to purchase something and others don't, how is this free?

There's a difference between a budget constraint (i.e. only have $100 per week to spend) and being prevented from purchasing something (e.g. by government decree). Freedom depends on the latter, not the former. Budget constraints don't act; they can't 'imprison'.


But functionally speaking, being denied for a plan because of a pre-existing condition is very similar to a government decree. Yes, in principle if you just had more money you could buy the better plan, but in practice many people are excluded from the market this way.
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