Obamacare is crashing...

[Kulindahr]

Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds.

You're saying people should quit their jobs so that the government can give them free healthcare.

Why stop at 2 million people?

If they quit their jobs, they don't get healthcare. That's one of the truly weird things about the ACA: if you don't make enough, you don't get any help at all.


p.s. -- you're the only one talking about people quitting their jobs

 

[opinterph]

That's one of the truly weird things about the ACA: if you don't make enough, you don't get any help at all.

Are you sure about that?

 

[Kulindahr]

Are you sure about that?

When I accidentally entered a wrong digit when I was checking it out, reducing my income figure by several thousand, I got told I didn't make enough to qualify -- freaked me out.

I think it partly depends on the state you're in; in Texas and other red states they're shutting out millions of people because everything changes when they refuse to expand Medicare/Medicaid (and as a result they're raising the cost for everyone else by an average of over $1k per policy).


Looking back, it's plain to me that the Republicans should have fought for the version Milton Friedman backed, a system that worked essentially like a negative income tax that guaranteed everyone enough for a basic policy -- it would have been much simpler. But the GOP was a total idiot clown crew on this whole thing.

And we still need market-based reforms; the ACA is all too much just a reshuffling of the cards in the same game, when it's the game that needs to change.

 

[Kulindahr]

Here's just one example:

JEFFERSON CITY -- Cathy Hattey, 59, a former factory worker from Warsaw, Mo., isn’t pinning her hopes for affordable health insurance on the online marketplace that opens Oct. 1.

Though the insurance exchange is supposed to bring down costs for people without job-sponsored coverage, it won’t help Hattey and an estimated 226,525 other uninsured Missourians. They make too little to qualify for government subsidies.

Yes, too little.

In a twist that wasn’t intended by the authors of the federal Affordable Care Act, most of Missouri’s poorest, working-age residents — those under age 65 and below the poverty line of $11,490 for an individual and $15,510 for a couple — aren’t eligible for government help.

They can’t get free or low-cost health coverage through Medicaid. Nor can they get federal tax credits to help pay for private insurance.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/sto...nsurance-coverage-gap-medicaid-obamacare.aspx

 

[Ninja108]

ANd what are the Republican alternatives?
The problem is there isn't that don't include screwing over the poor and middle class.

 

[frankfrank]

Man-o-man, I'm glad I'm older than 65.

This may be the only country in the world where I would say that.

 

[LuvFindsAndyHardy]

Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds.

What's crazy about it? If I have a 40 hour a week job that I'm keeping so that I have healthcare but can get by, for whatever reason, on 20, that leaves 20 hours that someone else who didn't have any work or had to get BY on 20 hours but couldn't can fill. There exists a myriad of reason why someone would reduce their working hours.

You're saying people should quit their jobs so that the government can give them free healthcare.

No, that's what you're HEARING because, as usual, you've started with a pre-conceived conclusion and are filtering all the incoming information so that it fits your predetermined theory.

Why stop at 2 million people?

You tell me.

 

[Jack Springer]

ANd what are the Republican alternatives?
The problem is there isn't that don't include screwing over the poor and middle class.

The the post above yours. People are getting screwed who make too little. Explain to the world how compassionate democrats are again.

 

[chrisrobin]

The the post above yours. People are getting screwed who make too little. Explain to the world how compassionate democrats are again.

Considering that most Western European countries already have single-payer, plus Poland, Cuba and Japan to name a few, the good old US of A might appear to be slightly behind the times. When are Princess Sarah's death panels going to be ready? I'll betcha she's got old the old farts in her cross-hairs.

 

[Jack Springer]

Considering that most Western European countries already have single-payer, plus Poland, Cuba and Japan to name a few, the good old US of A might appear to be slightly behind the times. When are Princess Sarah's death panels going to be ready? I'll betcha she's got old the old farts in her cross-hairs.

Without the research and education that the USA provides Poland, Japan, and other countries with good doctors and medicine those counties couldn't afford the health insurance they have today.

When you get sick in the future and experience the death panels yourself, I sincerely hope you regret supporting them now.

Only the rich and privileged will get to enjoy good health care in the future -- thank you democrats.

 

[xbuzzerx]

Without the research and education that the USA provides Poland, Japan, and other countries with good doctors and medicine those counties couldn't afford the health insurance they have today.

Seriously Jack are you kidding?

Japan comes to consult us about education? Are you serious? lmao.

 

[chrisrobin]

You don't know jack shit about Japan. Cease and desist immediately.

 

[Benvolio]

You don't know jack shit about Japan. Cease and desist immediately.

Japan and the rest of the world have benefited enormously from the huge amounts of research Americans have done. One of the tragedys of Obamacare is the reduction in research and development which will result.

 

[Jack Springer]

Please tell me ... what great advances in medicine has Japan produced during the last 30 years?

 

[Kulindahr]

The the post above yours. People are getting screwed who make too little. Explain to the world how compassionate democrats are again.

He asked what the Republican alternatives are. It's an important question, because the ACA is built on Republican ideas (one might expect they'd be better at seeing how to fix it).

The GOP has been reduced to saying that it would be better if we helped no one than that we help many while some get screwed. So what alternatives have been offered?

 

[Kulindahr]

The the post above yours. People are getting screwed who make too little. Explain to the world how compassionate democrats are again.

Oh, BTW: most of those people who are getting screwed because they make too little are being screwed by GOP governors in red states. Your last line should be asking about Republican compassion, because they're the ones deliberately acting to keep people from being helped -- and making everyone else pay over a thousand dollars more for their medical insurance.

 

[Kulindahr]

Without the research and education that the USA provides Poland, Japan, and other countries with good doctors and medicine those counties couldn't afford the health insurance they have today.

When you get sick in the future and experience the death panels yourself, I sincerely hope you regret supporting them now.

Only the rich and privileged will get to enjoy good health care in the future -- thank you democrats.

We already have "death panels" -- they're called insurance companies. The ACA didn't add anything to that.

At least the Democratic Party is trying to get health care for everyone -- your blaming them for the GOP position is just vile.

 

[Kulindahr]

Seriously Jack are you kidding?

Japan comes to consult us about education? Are you serious? lmao.

No kidding. The status quo the GOP fights to maintain means the US imports doctors from other countries, because the AMA won't let us educate enough.

If the GOP believed in a free market, they'd have been submitting bills to bust up the AMA monopoly on the production of doctors, bills to help states and other not-for-profit institutions build new medical schools, bills to fast-track citizenship for doctors and other medical people, bills providing incentives to establish fraternal health-care organizations, bills to help establish immediate-care and urgent-care facilities . . . all those would open up competition and reduce medical costs.

 

[Kulindahr]

Please tell me ... what great advances in medicine has Japan produced during the last 30 years?

You mean besides the substantial work in cancer and stem cell research?

 

[frankfrank]

When you get sick in the future and experience the death panels yourself, I sincerely hope you regret supporting them now.

Only the rich and privileged will get to enjoy good health care in the future -- thank you democrats.

If we had a President with more spine to fight for the original plans of Single Payer, nearly everybody would get good health care. But, the 'Pubs love to put things into healthcare systems such as making huge buyers (such as the VA) PROHIBITED from negotiating for lower pharma prices.

I quoted one of my overseas customers in the winter thread; I'll mention what another told me. He was in hospital for MONTHS after suffering a torn aorta and total heart failure and being very near death, and he's about 70 years old - they fixed him up (with an aorta from...a cow!), followed by months of healing and rehab...AND HE WILL NEVER SEE A BILL.

What would that cost in the United States: perhaps $1.3 million or something? That would guarantee a person losing their home, which is not a good thing for somebody who is trying to mend. And...what death panels? This guy is old. The BRITISH GOVERNMENT didn't just go ahead and exterminate him via neglect, but did their best to put him back on his feet. Pre-Obamacre, insurance companies were free to say "Sorry to see that you had heart and aorta failure, and you ran up more than one million dollars in bills, Mr. Jones - but WE'RE DROPPING YOUR ASS and we're not gonna pay. Go ahead and sue our huge phalanx of attorneys."

THAT IS NOW ILLEGAL. Companies were previously free to commit breach of contract at will.

It's Republican policies which are assuring that the poor don't qualify for any health care whatsoever. If these policies kill all of the poor, the high-fives and champagne corks popping in the state capitals (of red states) will be incredible.