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  • Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

    Originally posted by FreshFish View Post
    A word of friendly advice to people who currently are enrolled in a good health insurance plan with elective access to specialists: if you have any chronic or lingering health issues, make sure to see the specialist this year. No matter what the spin doctors or PPACA-apologists might try to tell you, there is a good chance it won't be available next year.
    I'm going through that right now. I first saw the orthopedic surgeon about my shoulder in January, and it wasn't until the end of March that he had the earliest available date to actually perform my surgery because of the various people involved to get the final diagnosis were too busy with people rushing to get things taken care of before the service is more difficult to come by within their various health insurance plans.
    "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." George Orwell, 1984

    "One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume." Boromir

    "Good news! We have a delivery." Professor Farnsworth

    Comment


    • Originally posted by FreshFish View Post
      A word of friendly advice to people who currently are enrolled in a good health insurance plan with elective access to specialists: if you have any chronic or lingering health issues, make sure to see the specialist this year. No matter what the spin doctors or PPACA-apologists might try to tell you, there is a good chance it won't be available next year.

      Buried in most stories you read about the exchanges are how they are trying to control costs by limiting access in their provider networks. Many of the exchange-based plans have fewer providers than currently-available plans. On top of that, many providers in those networks may not be accepting new patients.

      A friend recently moved to Boston and she had a very difficult time finding a provider in her network that was accepting new patients, and even then she had a several-month wait before she could get her first checkup. Expect this divergence between theory and reality to become far more pronounced as we enter 2014.
      I haven't heard of too many insurers that allow you to go to out of network specialists without either a referral or having you pay more of the costs. In fact, this assault on your freedoms that you speak of happens whenever you (or your employer) switch insurance providers.

      In other news, if you like sunshine, you'd better enjoy the rest of the sunny days this year, because next year most likely there will be a good deal of rainy and overcast days, no doubt caused by people having to use exchanges...
      Legally drunk???? If its "legal", what's the ------- problem?!? - George Carlin

      Ever notice how everybody who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everybody who drives faster is a maniac? - George Carlin

      "I've never seen so much reason and bullsh*t contained in ONE MAN."

      Comment


      • Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

        Some parts of PPACA are too onerous even for the New York State legislature, the bluest building east of the Mississipi.

        everyone from businesses to unions is scrambling to find a survival strategy before the law’s implementation come January.

        That scramble, at least, is forcing some of the law’s most ardent backers to acknowledge its unintended consequences. In New York, for instance, the nonprofit Freelancers Union says the new federal law’s onerous regulations and taxes will burden its innovative health-insurance model for the self-employed with enormous added costs.

        Riding to the rescue is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has joined with Sen. Kemp Hannon (R-Garden City), the chairman of the state Senate’s Health Committee, to co-sponsor a bill to let Freelancers self-insure (like a large corporation or labor union), exempting it from the ObamaCare regime.

        The single biggest problem in the health insurance market, which nearly everyone has already acknowledged, is that people who are self-employed are treated differently than people who work for an employer who provides health insurance. PPACA did nothing whatsoever to address that problem and it appears that it is probably exacerbating that problem instead.

        If even the NY State legislature can figure that out....
        Last edited by FreshFish; 06-13-2013, 09:30 AM.
        "Hope is a good thing; maybe the best of things."

        "Beer is a sign that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin

        "Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy." -- W. B. Yeats

        "People generally are most impatient with those flaws in others about which they are most ashamed of in themselves." - folk wisdom

        Comment


        • Originally posted by FreshFish View Post
          .


          The single biggest problem in the health insurance market, which nearly everyone has already acknowledged, is that people who are self-employed are treated differently than people who work for an employer who provides health insurance. PPACA did nothing whatsoever to address that problem and it appears that it is probably exacerbating that problem instead.
          Fishy gets a hat trick here for three falsehoods in one post.

          1) I wouldn't call this issue the single biggest problem but that's a matter of opinion. The problem for self employed people is that they don't get the benefit of economies of scale that a large employer would on health insurance. So....

          2) The exchanges seek to minimize this problem by having individuals pool their insurance policies. So, yeah, in fact the PPACA does quite a bit to address this. Its in fact a key part of it.

          3) Not sure how this makes anything worse as having your own insurance is pretty pricey unless you're still of the mindset that people with a wife and a couple of kids should roll the dice on their kids well being and go without insurance.
          Legally drunk???? If its "legal", what's the ------- problem?!? - George Carlin

          Ever notice how everybody who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everybody who drives faster is a maniac? - George Carlin

          "I've never seen so much reason and bullsh*t contained in ONE MAN."

          Comment


          • Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

            Another PPACA fiasco. The sort of thing that happens when you pass a bill before reading it, let alone before debating what it says.

            John Kerry slipped a seemingly-innocuous provision into the law at the last minute that has the practical effect of siphoning a disproportionate amount of money away from 40 states other into Massachusetts and 9 other states to which the provision also applies. Now that the rest of the country is finding out about it, there is a broad-based bipartisan push to correct this imbalance.

            A bipartisan backlash is growing against another section of President Obama's health-care law....At issue are the dollars that Medicare pays to hospitals for the wages of doctors and staff. Before the new health law, states were each allocated a pot of money to divvy among their hospitals. The states are required to follow rules in handing out the funds, in particular a requirement that state urban hospitals must be reimbursed for wages at least at the levels of state rural hospitals.

            Enter Mr. Kerry, who slipped an opaque provision into the Obama health law to require that Medicare wage reimbursements now come from a national pool of money, rather than state allocations. The Kerry kickback didn't get much notice, since it was cloaked in technicality and never specifically mentioned Massachusetts. But the senator knew exactly what he was doing.

            You see, "rural" hospitals in Massachusetts are a class all their own. The Bay State has only one, a tiny facility on the tony playground of the superrich—Nantucket. Nantucket College Hospital's relatively high wages set the floor for what all 81 of the state's urban hospitals must also be paid. And since these dramatically inflated Massachusetts wages are now getting sucked out of a national pool, there's little left for the rest of America.

            The change has allowed Massachusetts to raise its Medicare payout by $257 million, forcing cuts to hospitals in 40 other states. The National Rural Health Association and 20 state hospital associations in January sent a panicked letter to President Obama, noting that the Massachusetts manipulation of the program would hand that state $3.5 billion over the next 10 years at the expense of Medicare beneficiaries everywhere. They quoted Mr. Obama's former head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Donald Berwick, admitting that "What Massachusetts gets comes from everybody else."
            "Hope is a good thing; maybe the best of things."

            "Beer is a sign that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin

            "Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy." -- W. B. Yeats

            "People generally are most impatient with those flaws in others about which they are most ashamed of in themselves." - folk wisdom

            Comment


            • Originally posted by FreshFish View Post
              Another PPACA fiasco. The sort of thing that happens when you pass a bill before reading it, let alone before debating what it says.

              John Kerry slipped a seemingly-innocuous provision into the law at the last minute that has the practical effect of siphoning a disproportionate amount of money away from 40 states other into Massachusetts and 9 other states to which the provision also applies. Now that the rest of the country is finding out about it, there is a broad-based bipartisan push to correct this imbalance.
              As a Mass resident I like it! Getting sick of sending more federal dollars than we get back to prop up sh !t conservative states. I think the 10 or so states that are net donors should get the extra cash, while the states who are both leeches and who refused to participate get hosed. What about that isn't fair?
              Legally drunk???? If its "legal", what's the ------- problem?!? - George Carlin

              Ever notice how everybody who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everybody who drives faster is a maniac? - George Carlin

              "I've never seen so much reason and bullsh*t contained in ONE MAN."

              Comment


              • Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

                Originally posted by Rover View Post
                As a Mass resident I like it! Getting sick of sending more federal dollars than we get back to prop up sh !t conservative states. I think the 10 or so states that are net donors should get the extra cash, while the states who are both leeches and who refused to participate get hosed. What about that isn't fair?
                And that, ladies and gentlemen, tells us all we need to know about the problems with an expansive Federal/national government. You're robbing from me here, so I'm going to rob from you there. Neener-neener
                "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." George Orwell, 1984

                "One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume." Boromir

                "Good news! We have a delivery." Professor Farnsworth

                Comment


                • Originally posted by St. Clown View Post
                  And that, ladies and gentlemen, tells us all we need to know about the problems with an expansive Federal/national government. You're robbing from me here, so I'm going to rob from you there. Neener-neener
                  If you'd like to defend the fairness of a dozen states continually propping up the rest of them, be my guest. For the record this includes places like Texas and Florida, hardly bastions of liberalism but also part of the few who support the many.
                  Legally drunk???? If its "legal", what's the ------- problem?!? - George Carlin

                  Ever notice how everybody who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everybody who drives faster is a maniac? - George Carlin

                  "I've never seen so much reason and bullsh*t contained in ONE MAN."

                  Comment


                  • Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

                    Originally posted by Rover View Post
                    If you'd like to defend the fairness of a dozen states continually propping up the rest of them, be my guest. For the record this includes places like Texas and Florida, hardly bastions of liberalism but also part of the few who support the many.
                    I'm not saying that Texas and Florida are in the right. I'm saying both sides are in the wrong.
                    "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." George Orwell, 1984

                    "One does not simply walk into Mordor. Its Black Gates are guarded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great Eye is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with fire and ash and dust, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume." Boromir

                    "Good news! We have a delivery." Professor Farnsworth

                    Comment


                    • Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

                      When it comes to certain posters that whine about certain states "contributing their fair share", I wonder if these people are ironically federalists.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by FlagDUDE08 View Post
                        When it comes to certain posters that whine about certain states "contributing their fair share", I wonder if these people are ironically federalists.
                        Call us the anti-hypocrite party! We're dedicated to calling out people who whine about govt spending but are raking in that same largesse hand over fist. As I always say, if you don't like the govt, stop taking the money. Not sure what's so hard to understand about that.
                        Legally drunk???? If its "legal", what's the ------- problem?!? - George Carlin

                        Ever notice how everybody who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everybody who drives faster is a maniac? - George Carlin

                        "I've never seen so much reason and bullsh*t contained in ONE MAN."

                        Comment


                        • Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

                          Originally posted by Rover View Post
                          Call us the anti-hypocrite party! We're dedicated to calling out people who whine about govt spending but are raking in that same largesse hand over fist. As I always say, if you don't like the govt, stop taking the money. Not sure what's so hard to understand about that.
                          Maybe it's just me, but if you want to make sure that states are paying their fair share, why would you want to have any form of a federal "bailout" system? Just have 50 separate entities (or according to Obummer, 57). It is quite ironic that a federalist would even consider states as having any sort of form of sovereignty whatsoever.

                          You will not be dodging this on my watch if you wish to get involved.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by FlagDUDE08 View Post
                            Maybe it's just me, but if you want to make sure that states are paying their fair share, why would you want to have any form of a federal "bailout" system? Just have 50 separate entities (or according to Obummer, 57). It is quite ironic that a federalist would even consider states as having any sort of form of sovereignty whatsoever.

                            You will not be dodging this on my watch if you wish to get involved.
                            Simply put you would divide the states between those who do believe in a "we're all in this together" philosophy vs those who don't.

                            The stimulus was a great example. If your state politicians want to rail against federal spending, no problem. Each state had to vote to accept the funds. Know how many turned down the funds? Zero.

                            I'd put this little litmus test to every major piece of legislation. Take the recently demised farm bill. A lot of states make out well in that bill. A lot of these states and their pols view themselves as fiscal conservatives. I've got an idea: have all states affected vote to receive the funds. If they don't, no money then. This way you figure out the hypocrites from the people willing to do what they say. As an added bonus, the feds would save money from the states who refuse to accept money as my law would require that be reduced from the total bill and not reallocated. Again, what's not to like?
                            Legally drunk???? If its "legal", what's the ------- problem?!? - George Carlin

                            Ever notice how everybody who drives slower than you is an idiot, and everybody who drives faster is a maniac? - George Carlin

                            "I've never seen so much reason and bullsh*t contained in ONE MAN."

                            Comment


                            • Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

                              I hate being right... http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130622/DA72R2LO1.html

                              Comment


                              • Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

                                You get the feeling that the US Government is getting a little desperate? http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.s...rt_flyout_news

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