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You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > Political/War Lounge > Obama exempts another group from healthcare, when's enough enough?

Obama exempts another group from healthcare, when's enough enough?
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Snow-i
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Dec 20, 2013, 01:31 AM
 
Administration announces new ObamaCare exemption | Fox News

CNN didn't even run this, or not anywhere close to the front page. Their front page is dominated by the duck dynasty dude saying something mildly offensive.

How many groups are going to be exempted before someone over there with half a brain understands that this law is failing?

Did anyone even check to see what impact this would have on solvency?
( Last edited by Snow-i; Dec 20, 2013 at 01:46 AM. )
     
turtle777
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Dec 20, 2013, 01:51 AM
 
What a gigantic FAIL ObamaCare is.

That's Hope straight from a dream nightmare.

-t
     
ghporter
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Dec 20, 2013, 08:11 AM
 
Isn't this just a mechanism to "let people keep plans they like," at least for the short term?

When the insurance companies started canceling policies that didn't meet ACA minimums, it caused a huge backlash because Obama said "if you like your current plan, you can keep it" (which was essentially true except for plans that didn't meet minimum ACA requirements. There were apparently a lot more people with less-than-minimum plans out there. Now there's a hue and cry over something that sort of fixes that. I'm getting motion sickness over this back and forth angst.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
BadKosh
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Dec 20, 2013, 08:13 AM
 
They are just making stuff up at this point. No order. Why aren't the dbaggers even following their own laws? Anything but admit it was poorly conceived by a bunch of mean spirited, shallow libs and nobody read the whole thing before voting for it. Incompetence all around.
     
ebuddy
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Dec 20, 2013, 08:21 AM
 
Allowing canceled plans (totaling now some 5+ million) to purchase catastrophic-only care is only going to affect "500,000 people"???

Welcome to the Banana Republic of the United States of America. The Insurance monoliths have done everything they could to cover for this sham to gain a few more policies and it's going to cost them many more into the next year. Little did they know they were supporting their own demise by not pooling their immense resources to combat this legislative folly in the public arena and now they want to issue a couple of complaints?

The only thing that will regain their trust in this Administration is something they must've known from their closed-door meeting with the President --->>

Watch as massive bail-outs will be paid to the nation's largest insurers to compensate them for the losses inherent in such a distorted marketplace. They were the evil ones, the greedy ones, the ones that needed to be reformed, and now we're going to be shelling money out to them for helping this President dupe an entire nation.
ebuddy
     
ebuddy
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Dec 20, 2013, 08:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
Isn't this just a mechanism to "let people keep plans they like," at least for the short term?

When the insurance companies started canceling policies that didn't meet ACA minimums, it caused a huge backlash because Obama said "if you like your current plan, you can keep it" (which was essentially true except for plans that didn't meet minimum ACA requirements. There were apparently a lot more people with less-than-minimum plans out there. Now there's a hue and cry over something that sort of fixes that. I'm getting motion sickness over this back and forth angst.
Right Glenn because of course our nation's leadership could not have possibly seen this coming. The solvency of the program relied on the following;
  • younger, healthier people not using health care, but paying for it to subsidize those who do use care. Problem is, they don't support the program and aren't enrolling in near the numbers they needed to. The Administration knew this.
  • the minimum requirements are such to justify the new, higher costs of coverage as another means of providing coverages that will not be utilized to fund coverages that will. By merely eliminating this factor, you've now wholesale skewed the only means of funding the measure... which is exactly what the insurers are saying.

It doesn't "sort of fix" anything other than attempting to put Obama's words back in his mouth in political cover at the expense of the entire Insurance industry and the solvency of Obamacare. The motion sickness you're feeling is likely the product of trying to follow all the legislating out of the Executive branch of government. After all, it's been nearly impossible for most Americans to keep up with, let alone the business community and Insurance companies. We've all got motion sickness.
ebuddy
     
Chongo
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Dec 20, 2013, 04:27 PM
 
O word (the new N word per MSNBC) was designed to a colossal failure from the get go. "We need single payer to fix this mess" will soon be spewing from the minions in the "press'
     
ghporter
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Dec 21, 2013, 10:29 AM
 
While I question the intelligence of those who put the program together in not predicting things like "what, just $100 fine for not spending $2000 for insurance?" and the insurance companies deciding that the way to fix substandard (per ACA) policies is just to cancel them, I also question the media and pundits everywhere going nuts by griping about first the issue (granted, those were pretty obvious) and then griping about at least some action being taken to do something about it. It's all too "feeding frenzyish" for the talking heads. And unfortunately, far too many supposedly regular people just listen to the yacking and don't look any deeper to see what's going on behind those words.

Yes, it was a couple of major goofs that should have stood out in neon colors, but how about considering the whole problem instead of just a couple of the more obvious symptoms.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
turtle777
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Dec 21, 2013, 10:38 AM
 
The WHOLE problem ?

That would be the idiot in chief.

-t
     
Snow-i  (op)
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Dec 21, 2013, 12:09 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post

Yes, it was a couple of major goofs that should have stood out in neon colors, but how about considering the whole problem instead of just a couple of the more obvious symptoms.
Glenn, at this point which aspects of the law would you deem successful or on their way to being successful?

-Costs are going up
-People are losing coverages
-Insurance is becoming inaccessible to lower income familes because of the first two
-this "law" keeps being changed without congress and in violation of everything this country stands for.
-the individual mandate is a horrid offense to the American principle, especially given that the costs are going up and its becoming harder to find appropriate coverage.
-It's not working. Not even close. Not by a long shot.


I don't see how repealing this mess in full isn't the only viable option at this point. You cannot easily reform a collapsed or extremely volatile market without some dire consequences in the short term.
     
Snow-i  (op)
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Dec 21, 2013, 12:24 PM
 
Another blow to this beast.

Federal judge deals another blow to ObamaCare contraceptive mandate | Fox News

We risk taking the entire market with it. When's enough enough?
     
ebuddy
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Dec 21, 2013, 02:24 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
While I question the intelligence of those who put the program together in not predicting things like "what, just $100 fine for not spending $2000 for insurance?" and the insurance companies deciding that the way to fix substandard (per ACA) policies is just to cancel them...
Wait a sec on this... you understand how insurance works right? You can't just arbitrarily change someone's policy. They weren't "substandard" plans until this Administration deemed them so. You have to rewrite the policy. To rewrite the policy, you cancel the original policy. The only thing the Insurance companies are guilty of here (other than covering this debacle the best they can) is complying with law.

I also question the media and pundits everywhere going nuts by griping about first the issue (granted, those were pretty obvious) and then griping about at least some action being taken to do something about it. It's all too "feeding frenzyish" for the talking heads. And unfortunately, far too many supposedly regular people just listen to the yacking and don't look any deeper to see what's going on behind those words.
I'm afraid the overwhelming majority of those failing to look any deeper were its advocates and those trusting of them. It's really no clearer than that and it will cost them all in one way or another.

Yes, it was a couple of major goofs that should have stood out in neon colors, but how about considering the whole problem instead of just a couple of the more obvious symptoms.
The problem was an ant making away with a crumb of bread and the solution was to bomb the picnic and everyone at it.
ebuddy
     
ghporter
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Dec 21, 2013, 04:44 PM
 
Yes, I understand insurance. If state law required my auto policy to have more coverage than it did, my insurance company would inform me of that and offer a change to the policy, not just cancel it. So just saying "oh, your policy is cancelled" and not offering a specific fix to make the policy ACA compliant is a short cut the health insurance companies have decided to take, rather than working on the problem itself.

While there are people who are losing coverage (because their policies didn't meet ACA criteria), there are also a lot of people being covered because now they can't be denied coverage due to prior conditions. Costs are going up for some people, but not for everyone. The promise of more transparency (or at least more visibility) in policy coverages and costs should, over time, actually reduce costs to all, including both customers and insurers.

It's obvious that whomever it was that built the ACA had little idea of how the insurance business works, and I fault the administration for that, but I also fault the bipartisan group that voted for it in Congress for not even looking into it properly (this is why congresscritters have staffers in the first place). But since it's what we have, rather than whining about it, I'd like to see constructive discussions at all levels, with some thought to what is working poorly, what is working well, and what doesn't work at all, rather than just a "this stinks" versus "this is manna from heaven" argument.

I'm not starry eyed about this. But as a health care professional, I know that more people getting health insurance will mean fewer people with preventable chronic illnesses, fewer people having to resort to going to the county hospital for ER treatments (which I have been paying for as a taxpayer for a long time already), and fewer situations where kids and hard working young adults wind up losing out on life because preventive and maintenance health care was too difficult to find or afford. And all of that equates to more people able to productively participate in the economy, which should improve the overall economy, reduce the tax burden on everyone, and improve everyone's standard of living. Not overnight, but that's the direction that an improvement in how people can get and use health care should go, no matter how it happens.

Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
     
Snow-i  (op)
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Dec 21, 2013, 06:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
The promise of more transparency...
A dog bites you once...
     
Snow-i  (op)
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Dec 21, 2013, 06:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by ghporter View Post
Yes, I understand insurance. If state law required my auto policy to have more coverage than it did, my insurance company would inform me of that and offer a change to the policy, not just cancel it. So just saying "oh, your policy is cancelled" and not offering a specific fix to make the policy ACA compliant is a short cut the health insurance companies have decided to take, rather than working on the problem itself.

While there are people who are losing coverage (because their policies didn't meet ACA criteria), there are also a lot of people being covered because now they can't be denied coverage due to prior conditions. Costs are going up for some people, but not for everyone. The promise of more transparency (or at least more visibility) in policy coverages and costs should, over time, actually reduce costs to all, including both customers and insurers.

It's obvious that whomever it was that built the ACA had little idea of how the insurance business works, and I fault the administration for that, but I also fault the bipartisan group that voted for it in Congress for not even looking into it properly (this is why congresscritters have staffers in the first place). But since it's what we have, rather than whining about it, I'd like to see constructive discussions at all levels, with some thought to what is working poorly, what is working well, and what doesn't work at all, rather than just a "this stinks" versus "this is manna from heaven" argument.

I'm not starry eyed about this. But as a health care professional, I know that more people getting health insurance will mean fewer people with preventable chronic illnesses, fewer people having to resort to going to the county hospital for ER treatments (which I have been paying for as a taxpayer for a long time already), and fewer situations where kids and hard working young adults wind up losing out on life because preventive and maintenance health care was too difficult to find or afford. And all of that equates to more people able to productively participate in the economy, which should improve the overall economy, reduce the tax burden on everyone, and improve everyone's standard of living. Not overnight, but that's the direction that an improvement in how people can get and use health care should go, no matter how it happens.
You cannot regulate people to sign up for a product or service they do not want. You can try, but as is unfolding before our eyes you will fail. In order for Obamacare to "work" (if you can call it that) the individual mandate must stay in place. Since this is obviously not an option, in order for us to have this discussion we must repeal it in its entirety and start over with the system that to date, has provided the US with the best care in our nations history.

Unfortunately, this will separate the dems with some of their power and even more of their cronies with some of the money they stand to make from this. Any productive debate on the matter will have to come after this failed program is removed, or after this administration is removed. Either way, you will not convince me that we can make progress on healthcare until you've removed the incompetence and abuse that is directly responsible for its decline.
     
   
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