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Meat Recital posted:Who is Daniel Webster and why did he get so many votes? He doesn't even have a Webster For Speaker website like Louie does. A much better politician than Louie Gohmert.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:04
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Post 9-11 User posted:I get that voting districts are jerrymandered to hell so that universally reviled and ineffective leaders like Mitch McConnell retain their seat no matter the circumstances, but how does this work in Senate votes? People hate Congress, but like their Senator/Rep. Also people largely vote for the party not the person so whoever the political machine puts on the ticket (or lately the rabid primary voters) gets elected. Hence Ted Cruz.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:04
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Kristov posted:Actually, to your last point, after the aca rollout my job's insurance company implemented new cost transparency web tools and taught people how to use them. United healthcare has a function online where you could shop around for hip replacements, for example, and employees are strongly encouraged to use them so the group rates dont go up for everyone. So since the insurance companies cant just lean on customers now, they're applying pressure to providers to cut costs. That's wonderful for your company, but for mine and many others they're simply raising the costs and saying "It's due to Obamacare". No added transparency, no additional resources for alternatives, just "Here's what we offer and it costs more, deal with it."
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Jan 6, 2015 20:07
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Meat Recital posted:Who is Daniel Webster and why did he get so many votes? He doesn't even have a Webster For Speaker website like Louie does. He's an incredibly odd duck from Florida who'd probably be a real power player if he were less stubborn about his weird fixations. In the Florida legislature he was most famous for said stubbornness and for his quixotic crusade to end no-fault divorce.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:10
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Amergin posted:So, first of all, if you listen to the full interview Brill mentions specifically the website rollout was essentially a failure of White House staff and leadership because of yes-men. So instead of reading the "highlights" which is what the article is, listen to the interview. So your point is that Brill claims that the ACA website rollout was hurt by Obama's culture of yes men and corruption but you think it resulted in the entire law. Got it. quote:Second, Obamacare didn't "play" doctors, drug companies or device manufacturers at all. It was a boon for all of those lobbying groups. What Obamacare did "target" were the insurance companies who, while being a mixture of corrupt and inept, are not really at fault for high costs. They're the middle men and they're only made to appear like bogeymen by people who don't understand who the real crooks of healthcare in the US are. Their profit margins are relatively small and, in fact, by pushing more customers and costs onto them, you're effectively raising insurance prices for many (not all, but many) other people who already had insurance. The reason that costs go up for people who already had insurance was their costs were kept artificially low (relative to the system's high overall costs) by the ability of the insurance industry to exclude the highest risk health care consumers. Agreed that the insurance industry was not a principle driver of high costs, but they were targeted first because step 1 in fixing health care system is making sure everybody can at least use the old broken system we have, and the insurance industry pre-ACA was a lovely gatekeeper. Initial public understanding of US health care industry problems was they hated the middle man, so the middle man gets the first regulation. quote:Third, in what way does this break forever the link between insurance and employment? The vast majority of people still get their insurance from their employer and their employers are passing down the increased costs of insurance plans to the employees. There doesn't NEED to be the link there anymore, but the inertia is still with the employer-insurance link and unless you legislatively break that link (as in, prevent employers from offering insurance, period), you can't just give people alternative options and expect them to switch. You can't even play that in a long-term scenario because although over time people may switch away from employer-provided insurance, since you didn't do a drat thing to curb costs the system can't handle. Costs are irrelevant to the long-term separation of health insurance from employment. In the long run employer and market insurance products are roughly equivalent, so employee mobility is enhanced. Why do you think the quit rate is shooting up on the JOLTS survey? Bottom line is that irrespective of all the other broken parts of the health care industry, the insurance industry needed reform and the ACA got a lot of that right. quote:Fourth, the assumption that "well more people will be in the system which will inflate costs more so we'll have to do something" is assuming that the political capital is there, cooler heads prevail, and that the two groups can come together with an agreement on how to fix the system. The last time the two groups attempted to fix the system, we got... Obamacare. DUN DUN.... DUNNNNNNN!!!!! OMG it turns out the ACA was actually OBAMACARE all along! You say we got Obamacare like it was a bad thing or something. The fact is, we got Obamacare, which I consider the strongest piece of evidence that more reform is possible. quote:Furthermore, the idea that people will realize how inflated the costs are and therefore spur further change doesn't make any sense. We already have high costs, our costs are already higher than most other developed nations, and the only people who clamor for change are a small group of liberals who want single-payer healthcare which will never pass because conservatives will never allow it. The new people you give insurance to won't do a drat thing because they have insurance - they don't care about the high costs, the insurance company pays it all! Brill even said in the interview that once he got through his $12k deductible he didn't feel any of the rest of the costs. If you want people to realize costs are too high and the system needs to be changed, you need to take insurance away from them and make them actually feel the drat inflation. Obamacare does the opposite of this, so the idea that it will somehow shift focus on fixing costs because there's nothing else is laughable, and the idea that Congress would then seriously take the sources of the costs to task is even more laughable. Um, if every American has health insurance they will notice health care costs either through paying premiums or deductibles or both. ACA limits insurance profits but it doesn't prevent them from using their actuaries to make sure that health care users pay for the services. Obamacare and the economics of deductibles rightly protect Americans from being ruined by high medical bills. Rich Americans like Brill may not feel the pain of a $12k deductible but I assure you many other people will. In general, the catastrophic costs are not where most of the money goes. It goes into high drug costs and overhead for procedures, not to mention end of life care. This last one in particular has a lot of political heat behind it and I expect it will figure big in the races of the next 2-10 years. amanasleep fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 20:15
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Amergin posted:That's wonderful for your company, but for mine and many others they're simply raising the costs and saying "It's due to Obamacare". No added transparency, no additional resources for alternatives, just "Here's what we offer and it costs more, deal with it." Insurance rates have been rapidly rising for as long as I've had to worry about it. Now companies have a convenient excuse.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:16
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Amergin what's your opinion on girls asking for it?
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Jan 6, 2015 20:25
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Amergin posted:That's wonderful for your company, but for mine and many others they're simply raising the costs and saying "It's due to Obamacare". No added transparency, no additional resources for alternatives, just "Here's what we offer and it costs more, deal with it." poo poo, dude. You have my sympathies, thats crappy. A lot of times people just use 'obamacare' as an excuse to raise prices, although not always necessarily. Im a young healthy white male, and the way the law is written means that I am going to take a hit for that. It's kind of lovely if I only take it at face value, but if you flip the perspective that means that I was getting cheaper insurance before because everyone else's rates were inflated. But hey, now my parents can afford (or poo poo, even still have) insurance after my dad had a heart attack. It means my friend didnt have to drop out of college halfway after he got appendicitis and be indebted for the rest of his life. It means my girlfriend can finally go to the dentist to have her painful wisdom teeth removed and have affordable health insurance as an 'independent contractor'. Other poorer friends of mine dont have to live in fear of getting sick. If all that means I have to pay a little more each month then yeah, ill take the hit. It sounds like your company does a poo poo job at negotiating rates. If your state has a decent population, you should check out the exchange. Here in nc they have some pretty good rates. Never get the high deductible plans though, they're stupid loving traps.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:27
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DemeaninDemon posted:Amergin what's your opinion on girls asking for it? It's pretty swell.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:29
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Also, it should be noted that my work insurance plan costs a total of like 500 bucks a month. A comparable (slightly worse) plan on the exchange costs 250 bucks a month. Big-rear end statte wide risk pools, woop!
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Jan 6, 2015 20:29
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Man I completely forgot about John Boehner being sworn in as Speaker of the 114th today. Great OP. Guess it's time to take up drinking until 2017, maybe popping my head out to see if Hillary wins in 2016.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:34
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Biden just spoke to Cory Gardner's grandmother on the phone. Can we please just have him be VP forever?
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Jan 6, 2015 20:35
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Amergin is poo poo but so is Obamacare and acting like it was some clever move that was the Best Possible Thing and not a huge cave to a large and lucrative sector of the economy by people who never gave much of a poo poo about real reform is like the defining hilarity of modern Democrats. Why yes it was better than what we had. Why yes it has helped people. Why yes single payer was probably never going to happen. Basically any reform fits that description. There's no reason to defend the ACA other to try and talk yourself out of a depressing state of mind. It's OK to admit that you have no viable voting options besides the Dems and admit that ACA could have been better.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:37
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Oh, Joe. "How old are you? 18?" "I heard that you like selfies" "Well, yeah." My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 20:42
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Zeitgueist posted:Amergin is poo poo but so is Obamacare and acting like it was some clever move that was the Best Possible Thing and not a huge cave to a large and lucrative sector of the economy by people who never gave much of a poo poo about real reform is like the defining hilarity of modern Democrats. I think the ACA is one of the best large legislative reforms passed in the last two decades, at least. It has helped millions of Americans and is something worth being proud about if you helped it pass. I know it wasn't "better" but that's always the complaint. That things should have been "better." Of course, that complaint never comes with specifics about what should have changed or how those changes could have occurred. Remember, Republicans had the filibuster. People like to forget that little fact.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:43
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I think single payer will happen eventually but not before The Great Collapse.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:46
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Kristov posted:Also, it should be noted that my work insurance plan costs a total of like 500 bucks a month. A comparable (slightly worse) plan on the exchange costs 250 bucks a month. Big-rear end statte wide risk pools, woop! So, you're buying yours through the exchange, right?
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Jan 6, 2015 20:46
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Joementum posted:Colin Powell: 1
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Jan 6, 2015 20:47
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amanasleep posted:So your point is that Brill claims that the ACA website rollout was hurt by Obama's culture of yes men and corruption but you think it resulted in the entire law. Got it. That's not at all what I said. I said that the website rollout was a victim of Obama's lack of leadership for his flagship piece of legislation, and one could look at the lack of attempts at actual changes to cost structures as either him being in bed with lobbyists, him being surrounded by yes men, or the Dems in Congress being in bed with lobbyists. I pick all three. amanasleep posted:The reason that costs go up for people who already had insurance was their costs were kept artificially low (relative to the system's high overall costs) by the ability of the insurance industry to exclude the highest risk health care consumers. Agreed that the insurance industry was not a principle driver of high costs, but they were targeted first because step 1 in fixing health care system is making sure everybody can at least use the old broken system we have, and the insurance industry pre-ACA was a lovely gatekeeper. Initial public understanding of US health care industry problems was they hated the middle man, so the middle man gets the first regulation. That's part of it, the other part is costs were kept low for emergency plans for those who wanted high deductibles and didn't care about covering certain things for themselves (I don't need to have mammograms covered). Now that the minimum requirements were raised, those folks' costs just went up even if to cover things they don't need. Obamacare took out options in terms of coverage to promote equality in healthcare coverage but... not everyone's healthcare requirements are equal. amanasleep posted:Costs are irrelevant to the long-term separation of health insurance from employment. In the long run employer and market insurance products are roughly equivalent, so employee mobility is enhanced. Why do you think the quit rate is shooting up on the JOLTS survey? The insurance industry needed one thing changed, and that was preventing them from refusing to cover you due to pre-existing conditions (the "parents' coverage until 26" is debatable). Obamacare is pages upon pages more than that. That's not "getting a lot of that right," that's adding a bunch of extra fluff and regulation that doesn't do anything to get at the problem and you pick one small piece of it and call it a success. amanasleep posted:DUN DUN.... DUNNNNNNN!!!!! OMG it turns out the ACA was actually OBAMACARE all along! We got a plan that is more conservative than Nixon's plan which was opposite of Ted Kennedy's much more liberal plan... that was, what, almost half a century ago now? You call that progress? amanasleep posted:Um, if every American has health insurance they will notice health care costs either through paying premiums or deductibles or both. ACA limits insurance profits but it doesn't prevent them from using their actuaries to make sure that health care users pay for the services. Why the hell do you think Americans were not noticing health care costs beforehand? Do you think they just got their healthcare for free? First, the number of Americans who just didn't get healthcare because they had no insurance was low. Second, the number of Americans who had no insurance but went to the doctor/ER anyway experienced the costs first-hand - hospitals don't give that poo poo away for free, they hire lawyers to hunt you down and sue you if you don't have insurance and can't pay the hospital bill. And AGAIN, insurance companies profit margins was not high compared to the ACTUAL SOURCES OF HIGH COSTS to begin with! Limiting insurance profits doesn't do a drat thing to limit healthcare costs and it doesn't change the system at all. If you think that forcing a small percentage of Americans to have insurance (which they can avoid by paying a fine that is cheaper than the cost of insurance) will all-of-a-sudden enlighten the people to where the costs come from and get Congress working together for "better reform" you are not paying attention to politics. amanasleep posted:Obamacare and the economics of deductibles rightly protect Americans from being ruined by high medical bills. Rich Americans like Brill may not feel the pain of a $12k deductible but I assure you many other people will. In general, the catastrophic costs are not where most of the money goes. It goes into high drug costs and overhead for procedures, not to mention end of life care. This last one in particular has a lot of political heat behind it and I expect it will figure big in the races of the next 2-10 years. You're making my point here - protecting Americans from being ruined by high medical bills is exactly why Americans won't feel the need for healthcare cost reforms (most Americans probably wouldn't go for a $12k deductible plan in the first place). Why is it that you think adding 10 million new Americans to insurance (which is a laughable number because the site/system doesn't even loving track that - see my post with the C-SPAN Afghanistan reconstruction interview if you want more evidence of government agencies not having a loving clue about tracking anything except out communication) will suddenly send the fire of God to Congress to act, in a bipartisan way, against all of the loving lobbyists, to cap healthcare costs? DemeaninDemon posted:Amergin what's your opinion on girls asking for it? I like short skirts. Kristov posted:poo poo, dude. You have my sympathies, thats crappy. A lot of times people just use 'obamacare' as an excuse to raise prices, although not always necessarily. Im a young healthy white male, and the way the law is written means that I am going to take a hit for that. It's kind of lovely if I only take it at face value, but if you flip the perspective that means that I was getting cheaper insurance before because everyone else's rates were inflated. And I agree with you here for the most part - my costs going up slightly (less than 10%) to cover other people getting sick is fine, but there are many people whose costs increased significantly or whose options for local doctors decreased. A quick and dirty response is often "shop around, there's probably something cheaper" but that's not necessarily true, or it may come with the caveat of "it's cheaper (and you'll have one doctor who takes it and he is half the state away).
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Jan 6, 2015 20:47
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Biden to Cory Gardner: "We got something in common: sisters who are better looking and smarter than you."
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Jan 6, 2015 20:48
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Zeitgueist posted:Amergin is poo poo but so is Obamacare and acting like it was some clever move that was the Best Possible Thing and not a huge cave to a large and lucrative sector of the economy by people who never gave much of a poo poo about real reform is like the defining hilarity of modern Democrats. Sure, agreed on all points, Obamacare is a giant lovely patch on a giant lovely system, but most attacks on the ACA are context-free concern trolls clutching their pearls about all the stuff that the ACA didn't do as if any of that was in the offing at the time of the debate. At the time, there was a very real chance that nothing passes. Make no mistake that the politics that come out of the ACA, whether intentional or not, are unmistakably pushing the whole debate towards cost controls. Republicans aren't just trying to fight it to deny Obummer a win. It's because destroying the law delays the day of reckoning for all the true drivers of high costs, in particular drug and medical device companies, and they know it's coming.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:49
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Someone please give Biden a cameraman and a reality show where he just walks around different places talking to people.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:49
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zoux posted:I think single payer will happen eventually but not before The Great Collapse. Will we finally get stylish shoulder pads? You can look at the aca this way: it's poo poo but at least you've finally progressed from torrents of poo poo-blood to just poo poo. Keep the fluids high and don't give up! Islam is the Lite Rock FM fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 20:50
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DemeaninDemon posted:Will we finally get stylish shoulder pads? I'm hoping for sick shoulder capes. More future fashion needs shoulder capes. "Sir, are you a priest?" "No, I'm from the future.  "
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Jan 6, 2015 20:51
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Aerox posted:Someone please give Biden a cameraman and a reality show where he just walks around different places talking to people. Its called President, and I'm pretty certain he wants that show, too.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:51
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TheOneAndOnlyT posted:Wait, what? Is this a joke or did someone actually vote for him? Technically the speaker doesn't have to be a member of Congress.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:51
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In other news, former VA governor Bob McDonnell was just sentenced to 2 years in prison for corruption. Better than nothing, but not the 10-12 the prosecutors were asking for. edit: link
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Jan 6, 2015 20:51
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Trabisnikof posted:I think the ACA is one of the best large legislative reforms passed in the last two decades, at least. It has helped millions of Americans and is something worth being proud about if you helped it pass. Listen to the interview I posted earlier about this topic. Republicans actually voiced support for the ACA in some instances in order to rile up lobbyists against certain provisions that would have actually done something to fix our healthcare system. This is crazy, folks. You're all looking at a huge piece of legislation that doesn't do much and kicks 90% of the problems underlying our healthcare system down the road, and you're calling that one of the best legislative reforms passed in the last two decades?! You're putting this in the league of Y'all are either entirely too depressed or entirely too drunk. EDIT: amanasleep posted:Sure, agreed on all points, Obamacare is a giant lovely patch on a giant lovely system, but most attacks on the ACA are context-free concern trolls clutching their pearls about all the stuff that the ACA didn't do as if any of that was in the offing at the time of the debate. The ACA was enacted when the Dems had control of both houses of Congress. Please keep telling me how it was the best the Dems could do in the face of terrifying lobbyists from big pharma, hospitals and medical device manufacturers. Obviously to pass anything of substance, you need a backbone, and none of the loving Dems at the time had one, but they and MSNBC and HuffPo and Mother Jones tell you it was the best they could do and you just accept that like a loving pat on the head of a good dog. This apologetic liberalism is sickening. Amergin fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 20:52
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Florida Betty posted:In other news, former VA governor Bob McDonnell was just sentenced to 2 years in prison for corruption. Better than nothing, but not the 10-12 the prosecutors were asking for. I heard they were going to try and get a mistrial declared because of some juror saying he was going to vote guilty regardless of what he saw in the trial. Is that happening?
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Jan 6, 2015 20:53
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Trabisnikof posted:I think the ACA is one of the best large legislative reforms passed in the last two decades, at least. It has helped millions of Americans and is something worth being proud about if you helped it pass. There's nothing that could be better, Trabs, nothing. I can't think of a single improvement.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:56
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Joni Ernst and her husband took a full minute to figure out holding the Bible and raising her right hand for the oath. Amazing.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:56
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skaboomizzy posted:Joni Ernst and her husband took a full minute to figure out holding the Bible and raising her right hand for the oath. Amazing. She was trying to find the balls.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:58
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Amergin posted:This is crazy, folks. You're all looking at a huge piece of legislation that doesn't do much and kicks 90% of the problems underlying our healthcare system down the road, and you're calling that one of the best legislative reforms passed in the last two decades?! You're putting this in the league of Glass-Steagall, the removal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, and - hell, I tell you what, go down this list of just what Clinton did and tell me the ACA is on par with half of those pieces of legislation. You mean the repeal of Glass-Steagall, right? Because Glass-Steagall was passed in the 30s. And of course repealing Glass-Steagall helped usher in the 2008 crash. So impactful and huge, but not exactly "good." DADT is a great piece of legislation, just like Lilly Ledbetter, but isn't anywhere near the scale of the ACA. Zeitgueist posted:There's nothing that could be better, Trabs, nothing. I can't think of a single improvement. There are lots of improvements possible, but we're still far better off with it than without it. Accelerationists need not apply. I'm curious, what's the last better large scale reform legislation before ACA? Clear Air Act of 1990? I'm honestly kinda stumped (please don't mention Welfare reform).
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Jan 6, 2015 20:58
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Amergin posted:That's part of it, the other part is costs were kept low for emergency plans for those who wanted high deductibles and didn't care about covering certain things for themselves (I don't need to have mammograms covered). The minimum requirements are what I consider the biggest flaw of the ACA. Very high deductible catastrophic plans should still be offered. But saying you're paying for mammograms is completely disingenuous. For a population X there will be Y mammograms. Y will be less than X/2. So at best, you're paying for half a mammogram. But the same thing happens in reverse for prostate screenings or to a lesser degree heart disease. Don't include pregnancy/birth related costs and it mostly works out even. And if you ask me, women/men should share the pregnancy cost.
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Jan 6, 2015 20:58
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Radish posted:I heard they were going to try and get a mistrial declared because of some juror saying he was going to vote guilty regardless of what he saw in the trial. Is that happening? Apparently not successfully. He's supposed to report to prison next month.
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Jan 6, 2015 21:00
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Florida Betty posted:Apparently not successfully. He's supposed to report to prison next month. Yay!
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Jan 6, 2015 21:00
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Gounads posted:The minimum requirements are what I consider the biggest flaw of the ACA. Very high deductible catastrophic plans should still be offered. "I'm not getting laid so why should I pay for BC?" Or "Bitch I buy the condoms."
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Jan 6, 2015 21:03
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Florida Betty posted:In other news, former VA governor Bob McDonnell was just sentenced to 2 years in prison for corruption. Better than nothing, but not the 10-12 the prosecutors were asking for.
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Jan 6, 2015 21:05
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Florida Betty posted:In other news, former VA governor Bob McDonnell was just sentenced to 2 years in prison for corruption. Better than nothing, but not the 10-12 the prosecutors were asking for. "U.S. District Judge James R. Spencer said he was moved by the outpouring of support for McDonnell, though he could not ignore the jury’s verdict." gently caress that judge. Glad to see that he at least took the time to give a half-assed excuse as to why he's giving such a light sentence to such high level corruption. It's a better excuse than the judge who let the rich kid off for vehicular manslaughter.
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Jan 6, 2015 21:05
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Amergin posted:This apologetic liberalism is sickening. But but the leftists can't be right when they say the democrats suck  I must find a way to explain their shittyness away!
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Jan 6, 2015 21:06
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