The Audacity of Dopes

jackstar7

Lifer
Jun 26, 2009
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articl...the-audacity-of-gop-dopes-on-health-care.html

From Daily Beast's Michael Tomasky

The idea is to preserve the language that requires insurers to cover people with preexisting conditions, because everyone likes that; to continue to permit young people up to age 26 to stay on their parents’ insurance, because that’s helpful, especially in a rocky economy; and to press forward with eliminating the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole,” whereby seniors have to pay 100 percent of medication costs within a certain price range.

The last two are fine. But that first one is the gobsmacker. You cannot just make insurance companies cover really sick people. Sick people are expensive people, and insurers’ costs will shoot to the heavens, and those costs of course will be passed along to everyone else. Is there a solution to this problem? Yes. The solution is to get more people in the insurance pool—especially more healthy people, who don’t cost a lot to cover. Then, insurers have more money to use paying for the care of the sick people. But since you can’t just wish for more healthy people to buy insurance, you have to figure out some way to get them to do so. And hence ... the individual mandate. It broadens the pool and brings premiums down. It’s how you manage to pay for all those people who need radiation and chemo and dialysis.

Down with Obamaca--wait, not all of it. We love some of it!

Don't touch it! It's ours now!


How is it that Republicans are going to justify a backpedaling of a strategy that's been so obnoxious for so long and expect people not to notice?

:rolleyes:
 
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CPA

Elite Member
Nov 19, 2001
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Who's Michael Tomasky and why do you think he speaks for all Republicans?

As for pre-existing conditions, Repubs have always supported that. Why do you believe they haven't?
 

Ldir

Platinum Member
Jul 23, 2003
2,184
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Who's Michael Tomasky and why do you think he speaks for all Republicans?

As for pre-existing conditions, Repubs have always supported that. Why do you believe they haven't?

Because they never say anything positive about Obamacare.
 

Anarchist420

Diamond Member
Feb 13, 2010
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As for pre-existing conditions, Repubs have always supported that. Why do you believe they haven't?
Pretty much this. The Republican leadership does not want to repeal it as Mitt Romney makes evident when he says he wants to replace it. It will just be replaced with something more bureacratic and the Republicans will agree to it at the least and initiate it at the most.
 

Infohawk

Lifer
Jan 12, 2002
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There's a good chance this could be effectively be a tax on the working poor and middle-classes. If you are poorer but young and healthy and don't need health insurance, you are basically paying for other people's health care. That's my concern with Obama care.

We either need to go with public health care (where the rich would bear most of the burden) or go with a more free market approach where there will be less humane outcomes but on the whole health care will be more affordable in the long run. The combination of the two has not been working.
 

jackstar7

Lifer
Jun 26, 2009
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I'm not saying he speaks for all Republicans. I don't believe he says that either...
 
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Atreus21

Lifer
Aug 21, 2007
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One step in the right direction would be to get government out of subsidizing employer-based health insurance.
 

Anarchist420

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We either need to go with public health care (where the rich would bear most of the burden) or go with a more free market approach where there will be less humane outcomes but on the whole health care will be more affordable in the long run. The combination of the two has not been working.
I agree with you on most of that except that the rich will not bear most of the burden for public health care, as the poor would then have to pay taxes to fund it... the U.S. has the most progressive tax system compared to those with public health care... if we added public health care to our budget, then payroll taxes will have to go up, new consumption taxes will have to be legislated, and there will be fewer deductions on income tax that the poor/middle class are able to use. It's unlikely there would be federal progressive real estate tax... that's really the only way to extract more money from the wealthy, because the limit has been hit with the income tax as it is. I should note that I'm not for any property taxes, rather I'm pointing out that liberals need to face reality.
 
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Ninjahedge

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2005
4,149
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PEC's are a scam.

While it can be argues that you cannot just go out and get insurance when you get sick, for people like myself who had a (mis) diagnosis of cancer when I was 25, having to KEEP INSURANCE EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE for fear of having even a minor lapse in coverage (between jobs) make it legal for the insurance companies to withhold coverage on me on something that would financially break my entire family if we had to pay out-of-pocket. (I mentioned this in another thread. US Healthcare paid approximately $75K for three surgeries and extended hospital stays on what was a VERY delicate matter. WE would have had to pay, easily, over $250K. That would have been a financial killer to myself and my parents, nevermind "student loans")

If they want to re-introduce PEC, what they need to do is find a way to guarantee that they are not simply getting people coming in because they were diagnosed and did not declare it, or because they are getting old and need the help.

For the former, having insurance for a month or two before diagnosis is one way (with special exceptions) and the latter, simply increasing the first X years charge on people who start later in life.

If we continue to treat insurance as a business, then we need to charge our old and sick people more.


Nice, eh?
 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
There's a good chance this could be effectively be a tax on the working poor and middle-classes.
This is correct. If you had government care like Canada or France, the bulk of it would be paid by rich people. By making no clear distinction between rich and poor, the people who have the least money are hit the hardest by obamacare. That's not an accident. Libs thought Obama cared about the working class and they were wrong wrong wrong.
 

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,204
28,223
136
There's a good chance this could be effectively be a tax on the working poor and middle-classes. If you are poorer but young and healthy and don't need health insurance, you are basically paying for other people's health care. That's my concern with Obama care.

We either need to go with public health care (where the rich would bear most of the burden) or go with a more free market approach where there will be less humane outcomes but on the whole health care will be more affordable in the long run. The combination of the two has not been working.
This is correct. If you had government care like Canada or France, the bulk of it would be paid by rich people. By making no clear distinction between rich and poor, the people who have the least money are hit the hardest by obamacare. That's not an accident. Libs thought Obama cared about the working class and they were wrong wrong wrong.
Pretty sure there are subsidies for the poor...
 

ShawnD1

Lifer
May 24, 2003
15,987
2
81
Pretty sure there are subsidies for the poor...
Subsidies if you're a heroin addict. People who make an honest $40,000/year are told to eat shit and die.

The middle class is almost always left behind. They're too rich to get free government money, but they're not rich enough to have the benefits of being rich. Example: poor people get medicaid and rich people can afford whatever. What about that middle 80%? They don't have enough money to cover the treatment, but they're too rich to qualify for medicaid. wtf? Another example: food stamps. Rich people don't need food stamps, poor people get free food, and the middle class is left to pay for their own food. If you have any kids in their teens, you know how expensive food can be. Another example: welfare. Rich people don't need welfare, poor people get free shit, and the other 80% are left to cut into their food budget to pay for critically important services like electricity and porn. Another example: my gf doesn't get many scholarships because she's not broken enough. Rich people don't need scholarships, poor people get bursaries, and she gets fuck all because she was born the wrong color and she can hold a job while going to school.

Financial aid for obamacare should apply to EVERYBODY. This bullshit of giving free stuff to heroin addicts and punishing people because they're not heroin addicts needs to stop.
 

DucatiMonster696

Diamond Member
Aug 13, 2009
4,269
1
71
PEC's are a scam.

While it can be argues that you cannot just go out and get insurance when you get sick, for people like myself who had a (mis) diagnosis of cancer when I was 25, having to KEEP INSURANCE EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE for fear of having even a minor lapse in coverage (between jobs) make it legal for the insurance companies to withhold coverage on me on something that would financially break my entire family if we had to pay out-of-pocket. (I mentioned this in another thread. US Healthcare paid approximately $75K for three surgeries and extended hospital stays on what was a VERY delicate matter. WE would have had to pay, easily, over $250K. That would have been a financial killer to myself and my parents, nevermind "student loans")

If they want to re-introduce PEC, what they need to do is find a way to guarantee that they are not simply getting people coming in because they were diagnosed and did not declare it, or because they are getting old and need the help.

For the former, having insurance for a month or two before diagnosis is one way (with special exceptions) and the latter, simply increasing the first X years charge on people who start later in life.

If we continue to treat insurance as a business, then we need to charge our old and sick people more.


Nice, eh?

Interesting statement. What happens to the costs if you stop treating health insurance as a business?

Do the costs involved in health insurances magically go away because the money fairy comes and wishes those costs away?
 
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monovillage

Diamond Member
Jul 3, 2008
8,444
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I'm pretty sure if you title your thread "The Audacity of Dopes" you're going to get the type of responses you were trolling for.
 

dank69

Lifer
Oct 6, 2009
35,204
28,223
136
Subsidies if you're a heroin addict. People who make an honest $40,000/year are told to eat shit and die.

The middle class is almost always left behind. They're too rich to get free government money, but they're not rich enough to have the benefits of being rich. Example: poor people get medicaid and rich people can afford whatever. What about that middle 80%? They don't have enough money to cover the treatment, but they're too rich to qualify for medicaid. wtf? Another example: food stamps. Rich people don't need food stamps, poor people get free food, and the middle class is left to pay for their own food. If you have any kids in their teens, you know how expensive food can be. Another example: welfare. Rich people don't need welfare, poor people get free shit, and the other 80% are left to cut into their food budget to pay for critically important services like electricity and porn. Another example: my gf doesn't get many scholarships because she's not broken enough. Rich people don't need scholarships, poor people get bursaries, and she gets fuck all because she was born the wrong color and she can hold a job while going to school.

Financial aid for obamacare should apply to EVERYBODY. This bullshit of giving free stuff to heroin addicts and punishing people because they're not heroin addicts needs to stop.
How many jobs pay $40k/yr with no bennies?
 

jackstar7

Lifer
Jun 26, 2009
11,679
1,944
126
You mean the title of the article on the site you didn't fucking link to ? :rolleyes:

Oh geez, I'm so sorry.

Would you like me to google it for you? I only gave you the site and the author and the title... I can see how someone could get tripped up.

You know what? I'll add it to the OP right now, buddy.