It was a slip of the tongue. He clarified it to $3000 dollars.
Also, you were freeloading off our healthcare system. If your motorbike crashes and you can’t afford your healthcare, it’s me and the rest of the country that will have to pay for all the kings horses and men to put you back together again.
Unlike all the people receiving ACA subsidies, since that money was found in the back of a drawer somewhere in the Capitol building and won’t cost the rest of us a dime.
They are contributing a portion of it, if they’re only getting a subsidy.
Those that can afford to pay, pay. Those that need government assistance to afford it, are assisted. It’s a simple concept.
DJ wanted to take his chances on catastrophic care when he could in fact pay for insurance. I wouldn’t consider a person who can’t afford it a freeloader. I’d consider them a person in need of help.
Also, the ACA lowers the deficit considerably. So much so that Paul Ryan uses the savings while eliminating the benefits in his budgets.
The problem, of course, is that better is in the eye of the beholder.
If you are healthy and rarely use your coverage, then your idea of better might be a plan with the lowest possible premium and a high deductible to pair with a health savings account.
For a young family with kids perhaps better is a plan with low co-pays and deductibles to minimize the shock of a high upfront out-of-pocket expense and provide for a more regularly predictable monthly budget.
For others with chronic conditions and high medical expenses then better might simply mean they can get coverage at any price, much less a price lower than their expected medical costs.
That Democrats decided what they think is better for all was a bad move, IMHO. The limits places on coverage for PPACA compliant plans are too stringent with too few choices of deductible and co-pays.
He was paying his way out of debt. How does that squarely land him in the “he can afford this” camp? By that logic, there is an extremely low number of people who can’t afford it, so long as they have salary enough to cover health care. Other expenses just take the hit.
Because the savings are largely disconnected from the meat of the law, which was presumably intended to get more people insurance coverage. One could realize these savings without the coverage provisions of the ACA, and the coverage provisions, per the CBO, add to the debt. The “lowering the debt / budget neutral” jive is tiresome. You don’t insure previously uninsured people with enormous subsidies, expansions of Medicaid, etc., and save money. The only way to obscure this fact is to bundle the coverage with unrelated cost cuts (e.g., Medicare), cost cuts we could have realized without any ACA insurance coverage.
It’s like saying you’re in enormous debt, but you’re going to buy a huge flat-screen TV. “You can’t afford that,” we might counsel.
“I can’t afford not to,” you counter. “Because you’ll see that my ‘Affordable Flat-screen Super Goodness Money Saving’ Plan includes the fact that I will decrease my monthly grocery and entertainment expenditures by 50%. Check the math, within 10 years, I will have reduced my overall expenditures.”
“Why not just do the expense reduction part? You’re in enormous debt, you know.”
“Because it’s a package! Granted, I’m the guy that created this bundle of activity. But we’d all agree, I’m sure, that it’s fiscal insanity not to pursue a package that simultaneously increases our general well-being while reducing our debt.”
If you don’t like the analogy because televisions pale in comparison to providing health care, fine. Then say it’s worth the expense for the social benefit, even if it costs a lot of money. Enough with the “how can we afford not to have ACA” nonsense.
ACA thus far largely insures people who were already insured, at great expense, an expense that’s offset by reductions that we could have pursued without the additional ACA expense. It’s an enormously disruptive piece of legislation. But at least we showed those deadbeats they don’t have us taxpayers to take advantage of any more!
Yup. If the Medicare cuts were easy and would have no effect on care, why not do them 10 years ago?
Then maybe he shouldn’t have accrued all that debt?
If his lifestyle is such that he can’t afford healthcare, he needs to modify it. Again, if he spills his bike without health insurance, you and I are the ones that will pay to stitch him back together.
Yes. It pays for itself. What Ryan is suggesting is keeping the pay mechanisms and getting nothing for it.
That doesn’t strike you as dishonest?
It’s absurd that you think the ACA should not have been paid for. :dubious:
The cuts that were made to serve the ACA could theoretically exist in a vacuum, sure. But they probably wouldn’t have passed. So I have no trouble suggesting that it’s the package, the ACA plus cuts, is a net negative to our costs.
Give or take 12 million. Cite.
Those cuts wouldn’t have passed by themselves, so they only exist as a result of the ACA.
You really have no idea what you’re talking about. I understand you dislike the law for ideological reasons, but millions of Americans having access to healthcare is a good thing. Other nations do it better than us for half the cost. It’s absurd that the rallying cry of the American Conservative™ is, “Let’s keep being terrible at this, spending twice the money for 37th place!”
I’d rather we have single payer, but since the conservatives in this country want us to waste money on a for-profit layer between people and doctors, we need to have this, for now. And DJ can afford to pay his own way, so he probably should, or just pay the penalty.
It only pays for itself if it actually cuts Medicare in ways that are hard. If it does it in ways that are easy, it should have been done a long time ago.
Otherwise, Democrats just tolerate waste because they can use it to pay for new programs down the road.
Why? More tax cuts for the rich?
No, reducing the cost of government. Believe it or not, waste should be cut from the budget, not held onto year after year until Democrats have a new program they want that they can use waste to pay for.
ACA-Paid for by years of Medicare waste.
Aren’t all of the GOP against cutting this?
So where do you think, exactly the political will for the cuts would have come years before?
Political will is unnecessary to cut pure waste. However, if you’re admitting that the Medicare cuts do indeed cut benefits, then yes, it takes political will.
I’m curious Adaher - as the ACA starts to gain ground, the numbers enrolling keep going up and up, the numbers on how much it will save from the deficit keep getting better and better, at what point will it be considered “good law”?
As quoted up thread - the numbers that have come out of the Whitehouse are quite startling - and to note that more than 5 million aren’t getting coverage because of, what comes down to, Republican obstinancy (refusal to expand Medicaid) is also a sad indictment.
I now note you’re trying to attack on the front of “they didn’t make savings early enough” - as if it matters! The point is, savings are being made NOW - so are you suggesting we shouldn’t be making savings now? Just so that we can be consistent? Or that it’s wrong to fund insurance by realising savings in within the system? Just what is your position there?
I was just reinforcing what stratocaster said, that the law isn’t really paid for if you consider the Medicare savings to be just waste.
My own view is that the Medicare cuts are quite real, and justified, and do in fact pay for the law. It’s good policy, except the Democrats felt the need to lie to the public about it and haven’t given up on the lie.
And that’s what makes the law so hard to judge. How do you judge a law when there are such shifting reasons for its existence? Is the law meant to cover the uninsured while leaving those with insurance unharmed? Judging by the criteria the Democrats used to sell the law, the law has already failed.
Your nonsense is getting desperate. Judging the law now is only useful if you want to condemn it, as you clearly do.
What’s absurd is that you came to this conclusion. I had forgotten how you debated, thanks for the reminder.
So you’re for the ACA being paid for, just not these particular cuts?
What cuts would you rather have paid for it? Were they politically feasible?
Are you just against the concept of Dems saying it’s paid for? How do you expect them to pay for costly legislation without cutting something or raising taxes?
People lost their insurance and their doctors. That’s a failure.
If Bush had promised that not a single soldier would die in Iraq, then by his own selling of the war, it would have been a failure within the first hour.
He did promise that the war would pay for itself, which meant it failed by the standards he set for it pretty quickly.
How many?
This right here, is goofy.
Well, sure, but he promised that when the war was over, Saddam would not be a threat to America. Damn sure right on that one!
One hundred thousand innocent men, women and children, adaher. At least! that many. And the sternest words you have for it are about the price? May the blessed Baby Jesus shut your mouth and open your heart.