The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." --Nancy Pelosi

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...begin-in-2014/

[Rover]

"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." --Nancy Pelosi

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...begin-in-2014/

ZOMG!!!! A temporary fee of $5.25 per month!!! CALLING ALL KNUCKLEDRAGGERS, WE'VE GOT A CODE RED HERE!

Why is it that when the gubmint passes an unfunded mandate, you righties are fine with it as long as its a Republican advocating it (prescription drug benefit, Iraq war, etc), but when the gubmint pays for the bill its implementing you go berserk?

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

ZOMG!!!! A temporary fee of $5.25 per month!!! CALLING ALL KNUCKLEDRAGGERS, WE'VE GOT A CODE RED HERE!

Why is it that when the gubmint passes an unfunded mandate, you righties are fine with it as long as its a Republican advocating it (prescription drug benefit, Iraq war, etc), but when the gubmint pays for the bill its implementing you go berserk?

Good question. I guess unfunded mandates don't actually get taxed and paid for somehow.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

ZOMG!!!! A temporary fee of $5.25 per month!!! CALLING ALL KNUCKLEDRAGGERS, WE'VE GOT A CODE RED HERE!

Why is it that when the gubmint passes an unfunded mandate, you righties are fine with it as long as its a Republican advocating it (prescription drug benefit, Iraq war, etc), but when the gubmint pays for the bill its implementing you go berserk?

We know the money isn't going to that. As prior evidence, I present Social Security.

Also, please show evidence where these were unfunded (evidence: deficit by year adjusted for inflation in 2002 and 2007, remember they started in 2003)?

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

We know the money isn't going to that. As prior evidence, I present Social Security.

Also, please show evidence where these were unfunded (evidence: deficit by year adjusted for inflation in 2002 and 2007, remember they started in 2003)?

LOL. Holy Republican Talking Points Batman!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who do you work for? Hannity or O'Reilly?

[joecct]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

The NCAA grappling with PPACA. http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/...college+sports

If it gets too bad, can Mark Emmert put the Federal Government on probation, fine them, and suspend them from the UN or G-8 for a period of time?

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

LOL. Holy Republican Talking Points Batman!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Who do you work for? Hannity or O'Reilly?

Van Susteren.

[Rover]

We know the money isn't going to that. As prior evidence, I present Social Security.

Also, please show evidence where these were unfunded (evidence: deficit by year adjusted for inflation in 2002 and 2007, remember they started in 2003)?

You know Flaggy, people like Hannity, Dick Morris, and Karl Rove are getting compensated to humiliate themselves every night, in some cases pretty well so at the end of the day becoming a laughingstock is a paying job. What exactly are you getting out of it?

[FreshFish]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

One really big, serious problem one has when one constantly views things from a partisan perspective is that you can totally miss out on well-intentioned warnings from people who themselves are not partisan at all. They might disagree with you in a way that indicates you should pay attention to them just in case you overlooked something really important! But if you view every disagreement as an attack, you will lose out on that opportunity, and then later on come to regret it!

I had really hoped that health care reform would have been a bona fide objective; unfortunately the only objective appears to have been to pass something so that the perpetrators could then brag about their "legacy" no matter how flawed or tarnished it might be or how damaging the effects would be on real people in real life.

Unions are now finding out the hard way that their concerns really didn't matter, only their support did. Whether the bill might actually ever benefit them or not seems never to have occurred to them.

...at least, until now....

Union leaders [now] say many of the law's requirements will drive up the costs for their health-care plans and make unionized workers less competitive. Among other things, the law eliminates the caps on medical benefits and prescription drugs used as cost-containment measures in many health-care plans. It also allows children to stay on their parents' plans until they turn 26.

To offset that, the nation's largest labor groups want their lower-paid members to be able to get federal insurance subsidies while remaining on their plans. In the law, these subsidies were designed only for low-income workers without employer coverage as a way to help them buy private insurance.

I found the following sentence particularly ironic:

A handful of unions say they already have examined whether it makes sense to shift workers off their current plans and onto private coverage subsidized by the government. But dropping insurance altogether would undermine a central point of joining a union, labor leaders say. [emphasis added]

When unions, not employers, are thinking of dropping health coverage because the law's mandates makes it too expensive to maintain without subsidies, you know there is something seriously flawed in the law.

I really wish it were otherwise.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

One really big, serious problem one has when one constantly views things from a partisan perspective is that you can totally miss out on well-intentioned warnings from people who themselves are not partisan at all. They might disagree with you in a way that indicates you should pay attention to them just in case you overlooked something really important! But if you view every disagreement as an attack, you will lose out on that opportunity, and then later on come to regret it!

I had really hoped that health care reform would have been a bona fide objective; unfortunately the only objective appears to have been to pass something so that the perpetrators could then brag about their "legacy" no matter how flawed or tarnished it might be or how damaging the effects would be on real people in real life.

Unions are now finding out the hard way that their concerns really didn't matter, only their support did. Whether the bill might actually ever benefit them or not seems never to have occurred to them.

...at least, until now....



I found the following sentence particularly ironic:



When unions, not employers, are thinking of dropping health coverage because the law's mandates makes it too expensive to maintain without subsidies, you know there is something seriously flawed in the law.

I really wish it were otherwise.

It all goes back to something I said back around 2006 when the left was complaining about our Middle Eastern actions: Sure they were protesting it, but I knew they weren't going to dump it, because they wanted to wait out until they were in control, and then finish the job, and claim all the credit. The same is true with this. They're attention whores. This is an issue that many western societies have with this whole celebrity status, where everyone must know your name, and your descendants must speak of you.

[FreshFish]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

I was thinking about the cost of "end of life" care, and had a great idea (or at least it seemed so at the time!). Too much of the debate is about compulsion and requirements and mandates and the like.

I may take this idea to some health insurance executives I know, and so if you hear about it in a year or two, great.


Suppose my health insurance plan covers cancer treatment or a debilitating illness. I can get really expensive treatment, and extend my life a few months. The progressive answer is to "encourage" me to accept large daily doses of morphine so that the money can be used for "more worthy" causes.

The market answer is much better for our civil liberties: the insurance company can say to me, "if you forego these expensive treatments that would cost us $350,000; we'll give your family $250,000." Then I can decide. Some people will say, "give me the treatment anyway" and others will say "give my family the money."


The single biggest problem by far in health care is that the person who pays the bills is not the person who receives the services. The PPACA fails to address this root cause, and actually makes it even worse. This idea goes directly toward that cause, and provides an option, not a "Procrustes' bed" solution.

[FreshFish]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

Why am I not surprised?

Executives at Medicaid- funded not-for-profits in New York are hauling in massive salaries, with one raking in $2.8 million and 14 others topping a half-million, an explosive congressional report has found.

And more than 100 other executives from Medicaid-funded agencies in New York are pulling in more than $200,000, according to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

The report, titled Billions of Federal Tax Dollars Wasted Annually by New York’s Medicaid Program, called for a sweeping independent audit of the state’s bloated $54 billion in Medicaid spending, the nation’s highest.

It said the high-flying executive salaries it turned up are just the tip of the iceberg — and not “a comprehensive or exhaustive search of compensation packages.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/n...EsdyQlaDcbRVSM

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

Why am I not surprised?



http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/n...EsdyQlaDcbRVSM

And it all comes from 54 counties being forced to pay for the other 8.

[Rover]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

Hey, is this a good place to mention that hard core righty Ohio governor John Kasich as accepted the Medicare expansion in his state? You cons were going to mention that, right?

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The PPACA - Implementation Phase I

Hey, is this a good place to mention that hard core righty Ohio governor John Kasich as accepted the Medicare expansion in his state? You cons were going to mention that, right?

Would you also like to add in Arizona, Nevada, and North Dakota? There's one other state as well, but I can't remember which one...

Contrary to popular belief, I don't spend all day on here.