Is Obamacare the panacea it was promised to be? Obamacare proves hard to defend!

James Cessna

Please don't get me wrong. The health care system in our country has to change.

But ObamaCare has proven to be the least productive and the most costly way to do it.

To solve our national health care problem, all we have to do is allow people to buy insurance across state lines and set up a special pool for people who are unable to buy insurance like the rest of us. This policy will clearly drive policy costs down by providing more companies and thus more competition for the policy holders to chose form.

After all, we purchase life insurance across state lines. Why can't we also buy health insurance across state lines?

Buy requiring EVERYONE to have insurance and then using taxpayer money to pay for MOST of the cost of their policies is not the way to go. But this is exactly what Obamacare does. This policy only breeds dependency, and it drives up costs to the taxpayers by at least 30 percent!

Also, by requiring very low or, in many cases, no co-pays we are encouraging people to overuse and abuse the health care system. When people do this, as they will, there will not be enough doctors or hospital beds or physicians' assistants available for the people who really need the care.

Also, with more and more people now entering the health care system, our problems with access to care will now be magnified many times over in many more cities.

These problems will only get worse with ObamaCare is nor repealed, not better.

RichieC

a lot of the act doesn't even come into effect until 2014.

James Cessna

RichieC wrote: »

A lot of the act doesn't even come into effect until 2014.

You are correct, Richie.

You think Obamacare is expensive now!... Just wait until 2014!

"What exactly will Obamacare do for you? The CBO says our health insurance premiums would rise by 10 to 13 percent in the individual market, in relation to current law. The Medicare Chief Actuary says that the percentage of the gross domestic product spent on health care would also rise in relation to current law, increasing from 17 percent today to 21 percent in 2019. And, as the CBO reports in its latest scoring, as of 2019 there would still be 23 million people in America lacking health insurance. How would we pay for all of this? According to the CBO, by diverting $1.1 trillion away from already barely-solvent Medicare and spending it on Obamacare, and by increasing taxes on the American people by over $1 trillion."



The Democrats’ takeover of health care creates a byzantine network of 159 new federal programs and bureaucracies to make decisions that should be between just the patient and their doctor. It should concern everyone that at the center of this regulatory web is the new CMS chief, Donald Berwick, who has championed rationing and European socialized medicine. Americans were rightly outraged that this big government bill was rushed through Congress before anyone read or fully understood the bill’s consequences. Republicans and libertarians will fight to repeal this reckless takeover and to ensure health care freedom to American families.”

Source: http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/cbo-obamacare-cost-176-trillion-over-10-yrs/425831

mikemac1

I took one look at the diagram and :eek:

It's like a monster

tvc15

mikemac1 wrote: »

I took one look at the diagram and :eek:

It's like a monster

That's the idea, it starts with the president, it's not for people to understand it's intention is to scare people

RichieC

tvc15 wrote: »

That's the idea, it starts with the president, it's not for people to understand it's intention is to scare people

The idea is propaganda, because that's all the chart is.

tvc15

RichieC wrote: »

The idea is propaganda, because that's all the chart is.

yep, i think thats what i said

Overheal

mikemac1 wrote: »

I took one look at the diagram and :eek:

It's like a monster

Pfft. You should see the class diagrams for a computer program. That's tame as hell.

James Cessna wrote: »

But ObamaCare has proven to be the least productive and the most costly way to do it.

How has it proven that, exactly? If it's proven, I would like to see the proof. Not a fan of the payer mandate myself or anything, but when someone says proven, I expect them to be able to display some.

MadsL

James Cessna wrote: »

scary diagram]

Here's the current state of heathcare. Your move.

Amerika

Hmmm... Lets say the Supreme Court rules in favor of the constitutionality of ObamaCare... But come January 2013, President Romney decides to follow President Obama’s lead when his administration decided it will no longer defend the constitutionality of a federal law banning recognition of same-sex marriage – the Defense of Marriage Act.

I wonder what will be the consensus from our friends on the left if Romney does the same thing to ObamaCare as Obama did to DOMA, making it's enforceability essentially a toothless tiger. Will it be Romney the evil one? Oh well, I guess what goes around comes around? Or, hey... history starts today?

MadsL

There's a logical flow in there somewhere, can't quite spot it. Ahhh! there it is...

come January 2013, President Romney

As for the rest of your post, if in 2013 if America still has a problem with same-sex marriage then I don't know how to help it.

Overheal

Actually from what I understand the SC has to first determine if they can even rule on OC measures that have yet to enter affect. Or so I hear from Radio news. Meaning, it could be until the Payer Mandate comes into effect, before a SC Hearing can even commence.

Manic Moran

Although that is true, the consensus from Day 1 of the SCOTUS ACA hearings was that the Justices to a man(woman) weren't buying the argument that they weren't allowed to rule on the issue, and that they would do so.

Here's the current state of heathcare. Your move

Without having checked into the accuracy of either flow chart, there does seem to be a difference between them. A larger version of the first one is here: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bBlNFyLU7Ik/TFlY_PphIjI/AAAAAAAABAw/Nd0-uYlghOI/s1600/obamacare_chart_LG.jpg.jpg

Pretty much all those boxes and circles seem to be fairly objective titles, like "CMS Actuary" or "Ambulatory Surgical Centers."

The second flowchart seems to be far more subjective, with big boxes like "Conflicts of Interest" or "Make mistakes that kill 100,000 a year." Assuming that both are generally accurate within their biases, and that both have had "maximum complexity for political gain" built into them, the first diagram posted seems substantially more complex than the second and with greater viability.

Of course, powerpoint flow charts can always be made ludicrously complex. A famous one in Afghanistan was described by McChrystal that "If we can understand that flowchart, then we've won the war". (That was http://www.comw.org/wordpress/dsr/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/afghanistan-1300.jpg)

Interestingly, I had developed a flow chart for agency interactions in our part of Afghanistan (Not knowing anything about the COIN Dynamics chart above), and it was also ludicrously complex: Not all such flowcharts are as god-awful complex as they look just to make a point, sometimes they are 100% accurate just by the nature of bureaucracy and politics.

NTM

RichieC

since we're playing the funny graphs game

Amerika

Yeah Bush certainly wasn’t a conservative and didn’t find his veto pen until right after Democrats took control of Congress and spending. But last I heard he wasn’t running for office, even though the Dems haven't gotten the memo yet. .

Memnoch

Amerika wrote: »

Yeah Bush certainly wasn’t a conservative and didn’t find his veto pen until right after Democrats took control of Congress and spending. But last I heard he wasn’t running for office, even though the Dems haven't gotten the memo yet. .

And I'm sure if Romney get's elected we'll be hearing the same nonsense again about how he wasn't really a true conservative (he doesn't seem to be true anything except a true panderer.)

The GOP never change, they destroyed the country with eight years of power and their has been no substantive change to their policies or even really their rhethoric running up to next election.

RichieC

Amerika wrote: »

Yeah Bush certainly wasn’t a conservative and didn’t find his veto pen until right after Democrats took control of Congress and spending. But last I heard he wasn’t running for office, even though the Dems haven't gotten the memo yet. .

The graphs illustrates the ridiculousness of the conservative backlash against the communist kenyan CiC, though.

Bush's conservative credentials werent called into question until after he was out of office. Before that it was bloody high treason to speak ill of the lord commander.

matthew8

Memnoch wrote: »

And I'm sure if Romney get's elected we'll be hearing the same nonsense again about how he wasn't really a true conservative (he doesn't seem to be true anything except a true panderer.)

The GOP never change, they destroyed the country with eight years of power and their has been no substantive change to their policies or even really their rhethoric running up to next election.

Destroyed the country? That's stretching the truth. A lot.

Overheal

matthew8 wrote: »

Destroyed the country? That's stretching the truth. A lot.

Destroyed the economy, and our Image in the international community, and turned two other countries - that aren't this one - upside down.

matthew8

Overheal wrote: »

Destroyed the economy, and our Image in the international community, and turned two other countries - that aren't this one - upside down.

But did he destroy the economy? He can't be proud of his record there but America is still the world's leading economy and the dollar is still the world's main currency.

Overheal

matthew8 wrote: »

But did he destroy the economy? He can't be proud of his record there but America is still the world's leading economy and the dollar is still the world's main currency.

Leading in what metric? And why are we making it all relative now? Let's keep it relative to our understanding. Our economy. I'm sure it's a much better economy than Greece's or Kenya's. That doesn't mean that before he took office gas wasn't around $1.50.

So yes, he did destroy the economy. You've just asked me if he toasted the bread, if our neighbors bread is burned to a black crisp and ours is brown. Doesn't change the fact that we started off with a piece of bread, and got left with toast.

timesnap

Overheal wrote: »

Leading in what metric? And why are we making it all relative now? Let's keep it relative to our understanding. Our economy. I'm sure it's a much better economy than Greece's or Kenya's. That doesn't mean that before he took office gas wasn't around $1.50.

So yes, he did destroy the economy. You've just asked me if he toasted the bread, if our neighbors bread is burned to a black crisp and ours is brown. Doesn't change the fact that we started off with a piece of bread, and got left with toast.

Hi Overheal, the price of Gas/Petrol has jumped up worldwide,not just in America.
Yes superman Obama destroyed the economy without the help of all the other forces that are in play at the moment.(not)

If America had taxed the price of petrol much more before its own natural resources reached the point of less under its own land than it had already squandered it would have been much cheaper in the long run than the cost of propping up dictators who lived in Oil rich Countries or going to (undeclared as you rightly pointed out in other threads) wars to ensure its future supply of gas.

Any president who even thought of taxing petrol at a higher rate knew he would be signing his political death warrant.

The American people need to take some responsibility for their 'My car is bigger than your car' mentality.

Overheal

timesnap wrote: »

Hi Overheal, the price of Gas/Petrol has jumped up worldwide,not just in America.

Of course, but as oil is largely traded in dollars and the American Economy is still considered one of several leading economies, it's relevant to point out, as it reflects back directly on everything else.

And I was referring back to Bush, not Obama.

Memnoch

Maybe I'm being utterly clueless here, so someone please educate me if that is the case.

But isn't all oil sold on the global market regardless of where it is produced? If there is more drilling in the US, that's not going to lower prices is it? Unless the drilling is of a quantity that reduces overall global demand?

Wouldn't it make more strategic sense for the U.S. to conserve its oil reserves for a rainy day rather than squander them now?

I've read in a couple of places that drilling in the US would make negligible difference to the price at the pump.

Overheal

Im sure some people would like to push the belief that it wouldn't. There is some truth however in that conserving the oil reserves we have is a strategically wonderful idea, if a long term forecast. Look at Dubai, the country is doing very well, but it's oil reserves will run out in the next 20 years if predictions are true. They have responded in the meanwhile by building up their economy as a tourist destination, pouring billions into crazy projects like palm-tree islands and 6 star hotels and such. After the reserves run out? It becomes a little bit different for them.

Oil is traded globally but the key is what currency it's traded in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar

timesnap

Overheal wrote: »

And I was referring back to Bush,

Ah well that is ok so!;)

@memnoch, other than to say America reached peak oil sometime in the 1970's even though it was blessed with hugh reserves it took for granted,I will leave it to others with a better knowledge of the global economy than me to answer you(ya will be glad to hear:))

Suryavarman

So the result is expected sometime today. What way does everybody think the decision is going to go?

Suryavarman

The law has been ruled constitutional.

Edit: Apparently the mandate has been ruled unconstitutional but the rest of the law is constitutional.

Suryavarman

It's actually all constitutional. According to ABC:

The so-called individual mandate to buy health insurance, the key part of President Obama's signature health care law, has survived, the Supreme Court ruled this morning.

The court ruled that the mandate is unconstitutional, but it can stay as part of Congress's power under a taxing clause. The court said that the government will be allowed to tax people for not having health insurance.

"The Affordable care act's requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably characterized as a tax. Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness," the court said in the ruling.

InTheTrees

Phew.

Honestly the deluge of lies coming from the Right wing conservatives had everyone's heads spinning in confusion.

SO I was expected the Supreme court to throw the whole thing out.

But for once they've seen sense. There may be a lot more fighting over this to come but at least its a start.

poeticseraphim

OK I am a total outsider here.

But ....

State healthcare systems or services of anykind actually take decades of investment to build up.

Contracting private services results in chaos and extra expense.

To be honest any state investment is a longterm plan.

With the poloarity in America can it survive the time it needs to grow enough to be run efficiently?

Put in what can be afforded now and grow the programme slowly.

And funding policies to afford private health care is possibly the most expensive way to do it.

America spends so much more on health ...yet gets so little compared to other countries.

Adding a middleman (the insuror) is just costing more and ripping you off.....

Is the idea of a State health service really that impossible over there

Like the German or British Service?

Pool resources into hospitals??

Would it really be unacceptable over there to do it like the Germans do it or the British?? or even the Irish?? (i think we may be trying to do it the british way more in future though not certain)

Well whatever way it's done it needs consistancy from administration to aministration for decades of investment to build up infrastructure.

Overheal

Suryavarman wrote: »

The law has been ruled constitutional.

Edit: Apparently the mandate has been ruled unconstitutional but the rest of the law is constitutional.

Suryavarman wrote: »

It's actually all constitutional. According to ABC:

Thus did the Daily Show devote half of it's 30 minute program to the 11 minutes in which CNN continued to report the wrong SC result just to be a whole 4 seconds faster than FOX at reporting the news.

James Cessna

Overheal wrote: »

Thus did the Daily Show devote half of it's 30 minute program to the 11 minutes in which CNN continued to report the wrong SC result just to be a whole 4 seconds faster than FOX at reporting the news.

Obamacare is going to be very costly to the U.S. taxpayers.

CBO: Obamacare Would Cost Over $2 Trillion

We’d also pay for this through increased deficits. Under strict instructions from the Democrats, the CBO gave Obamacare credit for over $400 billion (from 2014 to 2023) in phony “savings” that would allegedly result from cutting doctor’s payments under Medicare by over 20 percent and never raising them back up. As the CBO notes, one of two things could happen: Congress could either follow through on these severe pay cuts — in which case doctors would view all Medicare patients as if they have the plague — or, Congress could eliminate these pay cuts — as everyone in Washington expects to have happen under the so-called “doc fix” — in which case the CBO projects that this bill would raise deficits by over $100 billion from 2017 to 2019 alone.

So, after racking up higher deficit spending in two years than President Bush (or any other president) did in two terms, President Obama would leave his successor a 12-figure deficit related to Obamacare alone — for the period from 2017 to 2019 alone. That’s according to the CBO.

And what would we get for all of this? The CBO says that health insurance premiums would rise by 10 to 13 percent in the individual market, in relation to current law. The Medicare Chief Actuary says that the percentage of the gross domestic product spent on health care would also rise in relation to current law, increasing from 17 percent today to 21 percent in 2019. And, as the CBO reports in its latest scoring, as of 2019 there would still be 23 million people in America lacking health insurance.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbo-obamacare-would-cost-over-2-trillion?page=2

Overheal

Was helping a business owner buy a scanner today and he got into it with me about how this affects employment: Obamacare means for him, hiring more people to do less work. Obamacare's employer mandate will require employers to give healthcare plans to anybody who works more than 30 hours/wk.

And while I really wasn't paying attention to that aspect of the plan over single payer mandate it's true: while my company already offers full timers the option of health benefits the regularity with which they hire full time staff has taken a steep nose dive. I've seen our staff chart - we have about an 8:1 PT:FT employee ratio.

The specifics of what the guy was telling me is probably debatable, but from the way the bill is structured I can definitely see how its a disincentive on people to hire, or promote people.

Reindeer

Societies and governments grow more taxes and more socialist by the day. It rarely steps backwards towards fascism unless something catastrophic occurs. Eventually America will step in line with the rest of the developed western world and treat more of it's citizens humanely instead of granting things such as health care only to those that can afford it's high costs.

Reindeer

Reindeer wrote: »

Societies and governments grow more taxes and more socialist by the day. It rarely steps backwards towards fascism unless something catastrophic occurs. Eventually America will step in line with the rest of the developed western world and treat more of it's citizens humanely instead of granting things such as health care only to those that can afford it's high costs.

The govt would do well to let them buy across state lines instead of forcing a ton of regulations which drives up the costs
leave them alone and more citizens could probably afford it

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/05/11/will-buying-health-insurance-across-state-lines-reduce-costs/

joseph brand

Reindeer wrote: »

Societies and governments grow more taxes and more socialist by the day. It rarely steps backwards towards fascism unless something catastrophic occurs. Eventually America will step in line with the rest of the developed western world and treat more of it's citizens humanely instead of granting things such as health care only to those that can afford it's high costs.

"The U.S. stands almost entirely alone among developed nations that lack universal health care."

What's astonishing is how cleanly the green and grey separate the developed nations from the developing, almost categorically. Nearly the entire developed world is colored, from Europe to the Asian powerhouses to South America's southern cone to the Anglophone states of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The only developed outliers are a few still-troubled Balkan states, the Soviet-style autocracy of Belarus, and the U.S. of A., the richest nation in the world.

A couple of points made by Clinton in his DNC speech:

HEALTH CARE: Obama's health care overhaul has generated more than $1 billion in insurance premium refunds for individuals and businesses because the law requires the bulk of the premiums to be spent on health care, and not profits or promotion, Clinton said. People between 19 and 25 can be insured on their parent's policies because of the law, he said, and seniors are receiving preventive care.

MEDICARE: Clinton warned that Medicare "will go broke" by 2016 if Romney is elected president and follows through on his plans to repeal the billions of dollars in Medicare savings that Obama built into the health care overhaul. "So President Obama and the Democrats didn't weaken Medicare, they strengthened it," Clinton said.

Profits and Healthcare are, or at least should be, like oil and water.

Overheal

bluewolf wrote: »

The govt would do well to let them buy across state lines instead of forcing a ton of regulations which drives up the costs
leave them alone and more citizens could probably afford it

http://www.forbes.com/sites/aroy/2012/05/11/will-buying-health-insurance-across-state-lines-reduce-costs/

Technically I'm covered now, but the policy is in Florida. Dental surgery will work the same out of network, but if I collapse in SC and need an ambulance, I'm fcuked and entirely out of pocket.