Actually no, it is ultimately the fault of our broken political system run by morons and extremists, willing to lie to keep people sick and poor, and supported by a gaggle of idiots that will believe the GOP if they tell them water isn’t wet, the sky isn’t blue, and apples fall up
Here’s the other scenario, in which Obama “tells the truth”. I could imagine him saying this:
“Because of the ACA, some of you will lose your insurance. That’s ok, because your insurance is crap anyways and it’ll get replaced by better ones. And some of you will have your insurance taken away by your insurance companies, or lied to by Republicans, because they want you to suffer so that you’ll turn against the ACA. Don’t believe them, don’t trust them, and know that even if you’re paying a little more, you’re getting better insurance. I’m sorry if you think you like your current insurance, but the ACA sets standards and I will not allow a subpar insurance plan to continue to exist.”
That’s the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Could it be spun by the dumbest GOP operative as Obama taking your insurance, attacking insurance companies, or killing Americans by eliminating their insurance? Easily! And the result may be that less people support the ACA leading to higher deficits and higher insurance costs and tens of millions less covered. All for what? So that the American people can hear something they don’t want to hear and the GOP can have talking points for years?
Fuck that.
If you think that Obama lied, then I’ve got news for you: I’m GLAD he did. In this case, the ends completely justifies the means. Tens of millions more insurance, bad plans canceled, lower health care costs, lower deficits and all he had to do was omit part of the whole truth. That’s something I’m glad Obama had the smarts and the guts to do. If I had any control over him doing it over again, I’d tell him to say the exact same thing. Its worth it, its better for all Americans (except those traitors who would keep Americans poor and sick) and better for everyone. Its the equivalent of your mom telling you to eat your vegetables or Santa won’t give you presents: yeah its a lie, but its good for you and ultimately the lie is harmless, so suck it up because you’re too young or dumb to understand if she explains it
Gotta love this statement from the White House Blog (your second link):
I think they meant to say “… in reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth.” But indeed one reality - Obama’s promise that “If you like your health plan you can keep it. Period.” - was quite far from the truth.
When did it become the Federal Government’s role to tell people they can’t make bad decisions? If these insurance plans were what they wanted, what they could afford, and they were happy with them, in the free market, then that’s what they should have.
Now we have the over-reaching Federal bureaucracy placing regulations in place where those plans can no longer be offered and instead the consumers have to purchase a plan than is beyond their ability to pay for.
End result - they’ll skip the whole damn thing and pay the fine for not having any insurance and get treated for free at the emergency room. How is that an improvement over what we have had in the past?
Again, this is an unfair characterization. If I am a male or an infertile female who wants to purchase a policy without maternity coverage or contraception benefits, or if I am a healthy person and the policy has a pre-existing benefit exclusion that doesn’t affect me, then the plan is not “bares-bones, shitty, good-for-nothing” but the Obama hacks are in the media attempting to define it as such.
I have no problem with minimum standards. That’s basic in most consumer protection laws. But these aren’t minimum standards; they are cost shifting devices so that one group of the population pays for the health care of another group of the population that may not even need the help.
My premium for maternity care subsidizes Bill Gates’ daughter’s premium for maternity care.
I have no problem applying a “reasonable person” standard to this situation. If there are some substantial number of cases (let’s say 15%) where people are compelled to switch to a health plan that would not be, to a reasonable person, a better deal for them, then I will give a shit about this “lie.”
Otherwise, if the fact is that most everyone will either keep the plan they have (primarily because it is provided by their employer or because they are an individual purchaser of a plan that is not inherently deceptive) or will end up with a better plan, then I could really give a fuck that Obama left off a caveat when he talked about the plan in speeches.
People seem to forget the true horror stories, all of those too-often stories that involved people finding out what their plans did or did not cover only after the shit-fan interaction.
Its always been the Federal Government’s role to prevent people from making some bad decisions. Its ALWAYS happened. From seat belts to helmet laws or regulations on food safety to fucking slavery, the Federal Government has the right and the role to tell you to knock off your stupid shit if and when they can. Some things people willingly accept, some things they don’t, and some things we have to fight a war over but make no mistake, it has ALWAYS been their role
What you call overreaching I call a proper regulation of out of control free markets. There happens to be much more people who agree with me than you, ergo, you have to do what the government says or go to jail. Don’t like it? Go to Somalia, no regulations there
If you want to argue, do so not by misrepresenting actual laws or feigning outrage on a settled issue. I get that you want to pretend that the world works in the way you do and argue as if that’s the reality, but its really tiresome when people like me have to spend paragraphs pulling you into reality first before we can have a debate.
Next time, start your post with:
“The Federal Government has always had the right and the role to tell people they can’t make some bad decisions but THIS law goes too far because yadayadayada”. Save me some time and yourself some embarrassment
I didn’t forget that. My point was that a guaranteed 20% profit margin is a little whack, especially when you start taking into account the amount of money these plans will bring in if the targeted number of people sign up.
30 million people was the number stated by Obama. Let’s just use that. The average silver plan is $450 dollars (behind whatever subsidized rate you get). That’s 13.5 billion in revenue. They are guaranteed 2.7 billion in profits. Yes, the percentage went down, but the actual dollars they reap make up for it.
Except that people won’t because they can’t afford the “affordable health plan”. Even with the full subsidy above medicaid-level poverty (150% poverty rate) you are paying around $150 a month. So, at the low end of the spectrum, you have two possibilities: You have people who pay the premiums and can’t afford the deductible using the ER only when they get really sick, which makes them overall poorer because they have to shoe-horn in at least $147 a month in spending. Or, you have people who don’t pay the premium and pay the 2.5% penalty and continue using the ER.
The huge costs of the ER people are so hot about fixing aren’t going away. The same people, in the exact same situation they are in now, are going to be causing the same exact result with only a little variation in how they get to that result.
Don’t you need more actuarial information to be able to assert this as fact?
While a plan covering maternity care would indeed have to pay more claims than an identical plan without that coverage, such a plan may also have a smaller risk pool as a consequence, which could outweigh the difference in coverage. Such plans might have existed in a high-turnover individual market in which individual women (like 90% of Americans) don’t read the full policy terms before signing on for 6 months between jobs, but then their existence would essentially be a result of market failure rather than an actual competitive market.
Not saying that’s true, but just saying it seems like you need more information before reaching the conclusion that your premium is higher as a consequence of maternity coverage (as distinct from a consequence of ending the insurance company’s arbitrage of imperfect information in a previously under-regulated high-turnover market).
Um, kinda since always. For those types of bad decisions where others, or society at large, pay the price for that person’s bad decisions.
Its a bad decision to drive drunk, and there are laws forbidding that bad decision. You can still make that decision, but you’ll have to face the consequences. The Government tells you that you cannot make that bad decision without paying the price for it. Drunk driving was not always illegal, so at some point the government decided that maybe it would be a good idea to outlaw this particular bad decision. Do you agree that this was appropriate use of government power, or do you advocate for repealing drunk driving laws because the government shouldn’t “tell people they can’t make bad decisions?”
Its also a bad decision to not have health insurance, or to have a plan so cheap and crappy that it doesn’t actually cover anything or offer you any protection should you actually get sick or injured. The ACA made those types of plans illegal, because the rest of society pays the price when this bad decision bites them in the ass and they need expensive medical treatment that their crappy plan conveniently doesn’t cover.
People should be able to make all of the bad decisions that they want, when the result of those decisions falls only on the decision maker themselves, and not on the rest of society. If your bad decision harms others, or society at large, then no you should not be allowed to make that bad decision without some consequences.
We’ll agree to disagree on whether or not it’s an overreach by the Feds to prevent these consumers from purchasing a bare-bones insurance policy.
However, I have yet to hear a solution to the resulting actions. Those consumers that are unable to afford plans that meet the ACA’s specifications will simply decline to participate and pay the meager fine for not doing so then seek treatment at the nearest emergency room when needed.
How is that an improvement over what we have had in the past?
With insurance everyone has already paid with their premiums, so the insurance company covers the charges from that pool.
Without insurance, the hospital eats the charges, and then jacks up the prices on all of their services to make up the difference so that they can still offer this ‘free’ care to those that don’t have insurance or that have crappy insurance that doesn’t cover them.
We pay way more than we need to for medical services because of these people. If you are ok with having your fees jacked up to cover those that can’t or won’t get insurance, then fine, but own that and say that you’re ok paying for those that can’t or won’t pay for themselves.
As to those question how a ‘meager’ fine will stop anyone from just opting to not have insurance and pay the fine, I would suggest that you look into this fine, and how it grows year by year. Its only ‘meager’ initially, it becomes much less so over time.
I guess no one has ever had a desire to have a tax refund then, and be able to keep it.
No one could ever see that as an incentive, right? Lets see, give up my tax refund every year in perpetuity, and get completely financially screwed should I get sick or hurt, or, get (possibly) subsidized insurance and keep my tax refunds every year. Hmm, yeah I see your point. No one will ever choose option 2 will they? Yep, no incentive there at all.
OTOH it should also be noted that it’s not a true profit/non-care margin altogether.
A profit margin for an ordinary business refers to the return on the company’s money. In this case, the margin refers to the percentage of the policyholder’s money which is withheld. You would not expect the latter number to be as high as the former.
Not that your point is not also valid. Basically, you can’t campare this number to a profit margin, either way.
I’m fine with paying for those that can’t or won’t pay for themselves. Whether this payment comes from my increased insurance premiums or my taxes, I care not one whit.
Well, since you seem confused, a tax refund is money you get back from withholding too much estimated tax throughout the year on your paychecks. Some folks like to treat this as a sort of yearly savings account that will come through at tax time.
Did you really not know that?
Where are you every year during tax time? Is this a new concept to you?
If what you’re really asking with your insulting ‘question’ is whether I understand that people can adjust their withholdings so that they won’t have a refund, then yes of course I do understand that. That’s why I said:
“I guess no one has ever had a desire to have a tax refund then, and be able to keep it.”
Are you saying that no one views setting themselves up to get a tax refund as desirable? The claim is that its unenforceable for anyone who isn’t getting a tax refund. The implication being that it is not a deterrent and there is no incentive created by this penalty. I’m saying there is. We can debate the effectiveness of the incentive, but scoffing at the very idea is pretty ridiculous. As is your ‘question’.