The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Um, no it doesn't "save" anything it merely shifts the cost from the students to whomever is paying the premiums on the parents' plan.

Most of the time, that's the same source of income.

[Kepler]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

I ripped some knuckledragger to shreds at work over something like this. Our insurance has always been extremely disappointing, but this guy tried to chalk this year's policy up to the ACA. Methinks Drudge or Rush is telling all you guys to start blaming any change in your coverage on the law.

This is their obvious play going forward on health care. Everybody is always PO'ed about their insurance. Now the Echo Chamber can take all that frustration and refocus it on the government. This is another reason why they should just as well have gone to single payer rather than this corporate privateer model -- the government will now take all the blame for what is still a free enterprise system (c.f., energy policy).

Like abortion, this will become another hobby horse for the GOP to tub-thump against in perpetuity.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

This is their obvious play going forward on health care. Everybody is always PO'ed about their insurance. Now the Echo Chamber can take all that frustration and refocus it on the government. This is another reason why they should just as well have gone to single payer rather than this corporate privateer model -- the government will now take all the blame for what is still a free enterprise system (c.f., energy policy).

Like abortion, this will become another hobby horse for the GOP to tub-thump against in perpetuity.

The last thing we need is a single point of failure. This is what has been society's downfall in history.

[FreshFish]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

If I had a teenager who ran up a credit card debt on the emergency credit card, I'd cut up the credit card in front of him and tell him he's on his own until he pays me back.

Do you recognize the irony here? You recognize the danger for people to borrow more money to pay interest on money they've already borrowed on an individual level yet you are in favor of the Federal government borrowing money to pay interest on the national debt?

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Do you recognize the irony here? You recognize the danger for people to borrow more money to pay interest on money they've already borrowed on an individual level yet you are in favor of the Federal government borrowing money to pay interest on the national debt?

I AM ABOVE THE LAW! *combover falls*
*takes out hair gel to replace combover*

[unofan]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Do you recognize the irony here? You recognize the danger for people to borrow more money to pay interest on money they've already borrowed on an individual level yet you are in favor of the Federal government borrowing money to pay interest on the national debt?

Ignoring, again, the fact that comparing the Federal government to an individual, a household, a business, or even a local government is like comparing apples to zebras, (and also ignoring the fact that you're taking my use of your analogy for health care purposes, and spinning it into an indictment of the federal budget)...

I am in favor of the Federal Gov't paying its bills. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need to keep increasing the debt to do so. Of course, in a perfect world, we also wouldn't be in a recession, either.

Where I disagree is the analogy that because the debt is a big scary number, we've somehow maxed out our credit card or otherwise are in danger of somehow not being economically capable of paying our bills. Again, when the interest on our debts is as low as it is, you either have to admit that our creditors feel absolutely safe they'll get paid back, or you believe the credit market is wrong.

[unofan]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Um, no it doesn't "save" anything it merely shifts the cost from the students to whomever is paying the premiums on the parents' plan.

That doesn't save money, it just passes the beneficiary of revenue to someone else.

Clearly, neither of you have ever looked at the cost difference of a family plan versus multiple individual plans.

And you've never seen just how big of a ripoff student health plans are. They're probably better than an individual plan on the open market, but it was inferior to every plan I've ever seen through an employer.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Clearly, neither of you have ever looked at the cost difference of a family plan versus multiple individual plans.

And you've never seen just how big of a ripoff student health plans are. They're probably better than an individual plan on the open market, but it was inferior to every plan I've ever seen through an employer.

Clearly, you're trying to make a case out of something that occurred even before any of this act began debate. Also, I love how you're calling someone who is barely four years removed from college to be ignorant about student plans. You've just proved that you cannot add any substance to a debate, so you get to enjoy my ignore list.

[Bill]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Where I disagree is the analogy that because the debt is a big scary number, we've somehow maxed out our credit card or otherwise are in danger of somehow not being economically capable of paying our bills. Again, when the interest on our debts is as low as it is, you either have to admit that our creditors feel absolutely safe they'll get paid back, or you believe the credit market is wrong.

How can you say we are economically capable of paying our bills? Total household net worth figures for the U.S. generally run in the mid 60s trillions of dollars. If you combine the current debt of 16 trillion with even conservative unfunded liability figures (45-50 trillion) you're right up in the ballpark of total household net worth. Surely you don't want the government to confiscate everyone's money to try and pay our bills. (And there are unfunded liability figures that go as high as 200 trillion). Now if you're not worried about the ethics of paying our bills, certainly the government has the capability of continuing to create more and more money, and paying off our creditors with increasingly worthless dollars that way, but the resulting inflationary prices for everything would be extremely painful for almost all Americans, especially the poor and middle class. Potentially we could even have hyperinflation going that route.

[unofan]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

How can you say we are economically capable of paying our bills?

My household net worth, thanks to student loans, is probably around, oh, 75,000 in the red. We even 'waste' thousands a year on interest for things like a mortgage and those blasted student loans again. Yet my wife and I are perfectly capable of more than meeting our monthly expenses. But using your logic I should be running around like chicken little.

Point being, at this point in time there's no reason to be going all apocolyptic about things like hyperinflation, bankruptcy, cutting social security, reverting to the gold standard, adding a national sales tax, or anything else extreme, unless you actively want one of those extremes. The federal debt is an issue, but not the most immediate one. And certainly some of the fixes being proposed are not as immediately necessary as the people pushing them are trying to sell them.

Could they potentially happen in the future? Sure, just as the sun could go nova tomorrow and we'd all be dead anyway. Is it even reasonably likely in the forseeable future? Not really, unless people actively strive to push us there.

[Bill]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

My household net worth, thanks to student loans, is probably around, oh, 75,000 in the red. We even 'waste' thousands a year on interest for things like a mortgage and those blasted student loans again. Yet my wife and I are perfectly capable of more than meeting our monthly expenses. But using your logic I should be running around like chicken little.

Point being, at this point in time there's no reason to be going all apocolyptic about things like hyperinflation, bankruptcy, cutting social security, reverting to the gold standard, adding a national sales tax, or anything else extreme, unless you actively want one of those extremes. The federal debt is an issue, but not the most immediate one. And certainly some of the fixes being proposed are not as immediately necessary as the people pushing them are trying to sell them.

Could they potentially happen in the future? Sure, just as the sun could go nova tomorrow and we'd all be dead anyway. Is it even reasonably likely in the forseeable future? Not really, unless people actively strive to push us there.

So do you think we can pay our bills or don't you? If yes , how do you think Washington is going to be able to do that? And I'm talking about paying the total debt, including unfunded liabilities.

[LynahFan]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

So do you think we can pay our bills or don't you? And I'm talking about paying the total debt, including unfunded liabilities.

That's not really the right question to ask. If you have a Black Card and are adding thousands to the balance every month but are making the minimum payment, then you are technically "paying your bills." The US hasn't defaulted on any debt yet, so we ARE paying our bills. The question is whether we'd ever be able to pay the balance down to zero. The answer is, "probably not," at which point the only remaining question is "how much, if at all, does that matter?" Reasonable people can definitely disagree about that one.

[unofan]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

So do you think we can pay our bills or don't you? If yes , how do you think Washington is going to be able to do that? And I'm talking about paying the total debt, including unfunded liabilities.

Yes, and we'll do it with a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. We almost had a good start on that last year til the Tea Party scuttled it. I'm sure we'll get a crack or 200 at it again, and hopefully people will be more willing to comprimise in at least some of those times.

[FreshFish]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

That's not really the right question to ask. If you have a Black Card and are adding thousands to the balance every month but are making the minimum payment, then you are technically "paying your bills." The US hasn't defaulted on any debt yet, so we ARE paying our bills. The question is whether we'd ever be able to pay the balance down to zero. The answer is, "probably not," at which point the only remaining question is "how much, if at all, does that matter?" Reasonable people can definitely disagree about that one.

Actually, it seems to me that the essential question to ask is "what does the national balance sheet look like?"

We only see part of the picture.

I have no clue what kind of valuations there are on the "asset" side of the ledger. I know we have national parks, federal timberland, grazing rights, oil and gas royalties, broadband spectrum rights, plenty of assets, but what is their valuation? Are we living in a house whose mortgage exceeds its market value? or is our mortgage a comfortable fraction of the value of the house? who knows?

Second, on the "liability" side of the ledger, we have the national debt, plus the net present value of future liabilities, not only under Social Security and Medicare, but also under things like government guarantees for SIPC, the pension guarantee fund, deposit insurance, things like that.

As long as the economy is growing faster than the national debt, we should be okay; however the growth of the economy is being deliberately restrained in the name of some other higher cause. that is so myopic! There is so much ingenuity waiting to be tapped, to use innovation to addresss those other higher causes in a productive, growth-oriented way. this president has no clue on how to rally the private sector to promote public welfare. to him nothing happens unless there is a command first. I wonder what happens when one of his daughters says "daddy i want to do it myself!" You think he says "okay"? I do. why is it so hard for him to do the same thing with the rest of us???

[FreshFish]

Re: The Sad Case of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Last week, in another thread, UNOFan exposed how the math behind PPACA cannot work.

He posted an article from an employer who said that he currently is paying $7,000 for employee health insurance, but in 2014 he can pay a $2,000 "tax" and thereby save $5,000. He asked, "why not drop the health insurance now and save $7,000 instead of $5,000?"

Because if he drops the insurance now, he leaves his employees uninsured; while if he drops the insurance in 2014, he merely shifts his employees from one health plan to another health plan.

Of course, merely shifting the employees from one health plan to another does nothing to change the underlying economics; however, if the "tax" is $5,000 less than the cost, then where will the rest of the money come from? The employees are promised subsidies to help pay for their new coverage, after all.

the math just doesn't work, and to fix the math, now the feds will have to increase taxes substantially. that's the problem with "free" stuff, it is always very expensive!