Which statement that Klinkhamer made do you believe to be a “complete lie”?
The idea is that the law should be followed. If it says that only those who go through State exchanges can receive subsidies, that’s what should happen. Convenient and probably a partisan rationale for coming up with this novel idea, you know, following the law, but that’s what is being put forth. It’d be nice to see some consistency but that seems unlikely.
As is clear from the context and syntax, the observation about people being willing to lie was a general and not a specific observation. At any rate, the crux of the biscuit is the statement “…her initial claim was nonsense…”. Speculating about her motivation is unimportant, she may be simply ill informed, she may be hoping to be spotlighted on Sean Hannity’s show, it hardly matters.
Indeed, why does her particular case matter at all? By now, there are many thousands of people who have made similar inquiries as she alleges. If your criticisms and accusations held water, wouldn’t you be chock-a-block with examples to flaunt? Why should you need to defend this one so adamantly if you have such an abundance to draw upon?
Unless, of course, you don’t.
The part where she said that her choices were a plan at $322 with a $6,000 deductible or a plan at $647 with “similar” benefits. You went on the website and found a plan with similar benefits, from her company, much cheaper than $647, without even having a personal stake in the matter.
Feel free to come up with a convoluted explanation of how her statement was not “technically” a lie. The fact that anyone could beat the $647 price with 5 minutes of effort is irrelevant to her complaint that her premium was going up $356/mo.
I’ve already heard multiple people complaining about their skyrocketing premiums, on national TV and paraded around the internet where a miniscule effort in researching actual healthcare premiums would change the entire discussion. It’s cherrypicking the worst possible choice and acting like it’s the only possible choice.
Well, OK, guess you were intending to call her a liar. My mistake.
Uh, no. I believe you’re quite confused.
Before the ACA, Klinkhamer had a plan from Blue Cross for $291 per month. Because of the ACA, that was eliminated, and Blue Cross told her that unless she took action, she’d be automatically enrolled in a plan with similar benefits at $647 per month. This is what Blue Cross itself chose to do.
I looked at the exchange and found a plan at $471 per month with a $3,000 deductible. I did not say that plan had “similar benefits”, nor did anyone else. I don’t know how its benefits compare to what Klinkhamer had before, but a reasonable guess would be that the $471 plan has less benefits compared to the $647 plan. I don’t know any specifics about what Klinkhamer had before, but I’d bet that she knows a lot more about her insurance options than any of the Democrats who are going on the attack against her.
Further, she’s a former worker for a Democratic Congressman and she spent years promoting Obamacare; the claim that she’s making up lies to smear Obamacare seems far-fetched. It seems more likely that Democrats are attacking anyone who reports the rising premiums because there’s not much else that they can do.
What should happen is that the GOP stop acting the sore loser and allow technical amendments to fix inconsistencies in the law, whether due to a mistake in the original drafting, or due to the income too low for any subsidy problem unintentionally created by the Supreme Court’s surprise ruling in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.
But since that won’t happen anytime soon, every reasonable effort should be made to interpret the law in the spirit of the equal protection clause.
No, I was entirely accurate. The letter of the law specifically says it goes to the state exchanges. If you have a specific reference in the text of the law saying otherwise, please provide it.
I think the administration’s argument that it should also apply to the federal exchange is a pretty reasonable one, and likely to prevail. But it has not yet been ruled so.
Ham sandwiches are pretty tasty; I like mine on wheat, with Muenster and brown mustard, though good ol’ American is okay. Not as much a fan of Swiss, though.