I won’t thank you, but I will congratulate you on your good fortune in not having any health issues or accidents that resulted in large claims on your insurance.
And I’ll be looking for yours for the schools I subsidized for your kids. It’s the way civilized societies work. We all pay in for shared services, even when we personally don’t use them.
I have benefitted greatly. I pay in (a lot, because of my age) and don’t qualify for assistance. I am self-employed and have pre-existing conditions, so without the ACA, I would have had to shut down my business and get a job with benefits. It’s not the perfect solution, but it is a huge step in the right direction, IMHO.
That’s because Republicans don’t want to go lo-cal and gluten-free.
Tort reform just means that if your doctor screws up, it’s your problem, not his. No, thank you. If my doctor commits malpractice, I want the courts to be able to force him to make it right, because he’s not going to do it on his own.
You beat me to it. My response was going to be along the same lines of the schools.
I’ve heard people say, “I don’t have kids, why should I pay taxes for schools?” That, to me, is among the most naive arguments you can possibly have.
I haven’t called the police, fire department, or any other emergency service for years. Why am I paying for services I don’t use?
I haven’t submitted a claim on my homeowners or car insurance for years, yet my premiums go up. Why is that?
It’s not fair, dammit!
That’s called living in a civilized society. We share the expense and the benefits. Obviously, not equally, but if it were equal, that would be utopia, and we all know that’s not going to exist. So we deal with it the best we can, and help each other out.
In this case, those who can help subsidize those who can’t. That, to me, is an important part of civilization.
the thank you goes to the people who got fucked over because of the subsidy program.
Living in a civilized society doesn’t mean lying to people about costs going down and then crippling them with higher rates.
If their claims exceed their premiums, they should thank all those whose did not. Because insurance is all about winners and losers.
I started a thread on tort reform awhile ago and most of the responses indicated the savings would be minimal.
I never did get an answer as to what the average pain and suffering award would be in the US, compared to the cap in p&s in Canada (roughly $300.000).
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=18849369
Not what I was referring to. This program was an extension of welfare but the tax went to people paying insurance. Welfare is not insurance. Those actually paying for their insurance got screwed.
AGAIN, Obama repeatedlysaid insurance rates would go down. There is absolutely no way to spin what he said. It wasn’t a slip of the tongue. He said it over and over again.
Then we’ve never lived in a civilized society, because private companies have done that for years. Example of food product labeling, when the size of the product goes down, but the price stays the same, and the label touts that the manufacturer didn’t raise the price.
But in fact, they did, because we’re getting less product for the same price.
Look, no one said Obamacare’s perfect. Even Obama admits that. But it sure as hell has advantages that the previous version of healthcare in the US didn’t. I named two (and I’m sure there are others): my daughter was able to benefit until she turned 26, and you can’t be turned down for pre-existing conditions.
That right there makes it worth it as far as I’m concerned.
No, we’re not saying it’s perfect. We’re saying it’s a bullshit lie that hurt more people than it helped. Everything that happened was predicted ahead of time.
If a corporation committed this fraud they would have been prosecuted.
No, it wouldn’t. But, as yet, there have been no criminal convictions of high-level corporate officials directly linked to the practice.
Derivatives were a Congressionally approved financial instrument. They were told by whistle blowers that it was a house of cards and did nothing about it.
I said this upthread, but I’ll say it again since it’s a common misconception. Health Insurance policies have started low and go up exponentially every year long before the ACA came into being. Be disappointed that the ACA didn’t fix that, but don’t blame the ACA for causing it. It’s been that way for a long, long time.
Amen. Mine has been going up 10-30% every year for the 20+ years I’ve been paying for health insurance.
Do you mean “derivatives” or do you mean “mortgage-backed securities”? In either case, do you have a cite that these were “Congressionally approved”?
But anyway, it wasn’t the mere writing of financial instruments, however inappropriate, that should have led to imprisonment. It was criminal misrepresentations, of which there were many, that should have led to imprisonments.
Obama repeatedly repeatedly promised it would go down. All the extra people paying into it would reduce expensive emergency room visits. Taxes on health equipment would kick in…etc.
My insurance went up at a higher rate after it was passed. So your premise is wrong. And before anyone says theirs went down that doesn’t include the subsidy you got. That is not a decrease in premium. That’s a hand out.
ACA subsidizes demand. It does nothing for supply. Any freshman-level economics textbook can tell you, that raises prices.
ACA plays 3-card Monte with the bills, trying to shift the burden away from some classes of people, and onto other classes of people. That works, in the short run. However, big-picture, long-term, ACA exerts upward pressure on prices.
You know what? Your life insurance, if you have any, has never paid you any benefits back either. Insurance is supposed to cost you a constant small amount to cover you when you have very large expenses like cancer. If you’re very lucky, you’ll never get back what you pay for health insurance. Tell you what, I’ll make your payments if you take my cancer.