806 replies to this topic

[PERM BANNED]

y 

[freedom78]

I wonder what witty retort you'll have when people are kicked off their insurance and start to die.  But hey, at least the deficit will go down!

[PERM BANNED]

y

[Zimbochick]

Feel better?

[PERM BANNED]

y 

[freedom78]

What witty retort do you have for all the people who lost their "plan" or "doctor".  Or the millions who had to change their insurance to something more costly and less coverage? 

 

Nothing witty...just a note that the ACA wasn't perfect and that there's a lot to improve upon.  But it did expand coverage by many million, end the pre-existing condition excuse, and help cover younger folks on their parents plans, so I'd consider it a net positive.  I do not, on the other hand, consider it a net positive for millions to lose their coverage in the name of saving a buck or an extremely limited understanding of freedom.

 

The CBO said the majority of people who will lose their coverage in the immediate future will be people who choose to no longer have insurance due to the lack of the individual mandate.

 

So?  I'm sure many of them are young adults, too.  I've always loved the Republican insistence that it's somehow logical for people in their 20s to not have health insurance.  As if we should take the least experienced and immature segment of the adult population and hold up their choices as emblematic of sound decision making.  There's a reason the ACA let's parents cover their children up to age 26...it's because people in their 20s are both poorer than they eventually will be and are also dumber than they eventually will be.  There are both diseases more likely to strike the young, though we don't' talk about them much due to the Breast Cancer Industrial Complex, and the young are more likely to engage in risky behaviors (including having no insurance).  The idea that having no insurance is a good, cost saving choice is GOP mythology and nothing more. 

 

I know you firmly believe you know what's best for everyone and people like Hillary should be dictating the best way to live, but a lot of people take offense to that.

 

You love to make these grandiose claims about what I believe, don't you?  I always enjoy them.  But, yes, in the case of insurance I do believe it's in everyone's best interests to have it.  Show me the person who has never been ill and I'll show you the person who doesn't need healthcare.  Of course, even that person will eventually die. 

 

But I don't claim to know what's best for everyone nor do I claim that government should be the provider of all things to all people.  In this instance, healthcare, we have an issue that affects all people and to which the market provides no suitable remedy.  If the market could provide universal coverage (not this universal access bullshit they're trying to sell...nice bait and switch with the words), then I would be in favor of a market solution.  But it cannot.  The market long ago decided on its own that it's better to let people die than to cover the sick.  It decided that it's better to make a profit than to lower costs and try to cover all people.  In the area of healthcare coverage, the market is an epic failure. 

 

Take offense if you wish.  My children also take offense when I make assertions about what's necessary.  Given the hissy fit your party has thrown for eight years, that seems an apt analogy.

 

 

Medicaid expansion is obviously a problem, but since you guys love to continue the falsehood that the ACA was a Republican idea (Romeny did it in MA!!), why not actually follow Romney care and let states fund medicaid expansion if they desire to cover the gap. 

 

You pull out the Romney stuff all the time.  Who gives a fuck?  It's your red herring and I couldn't care less if Romney did something in Massachusetts.

 

But if I believed the states could and would do this, then more power to them.  I like the experimental power of federalism.  Unfortunately, the poor folks in Mississippi couldn't afford it.  I believe in universal coverage and federalism can't achieve it.

 

Since you guys care about americans all of a sudden, what about the thousands harmed by illegal immigrants who democrats refuse to deport? What about the thousands of qualified people who lose out on college admission or a job because their skin color wasn't dark enough. 

 

 

First, Obama deported a shit ton of people.  Second, Democrats and GOP Presidents have been trying to reform immigration for years and the Congressional GOP has prevented any serious discussion from getting off the ground.  Third, we just had a discussion about affirmative action in which I told you why I'm generally not in favor of it.

 

So what was your point again, since nothing you said is relevant to this conversation?

 

Oh, yes, the harm of scary brown people.  Well, I view immigration, primarily, as an economic problem.  You should too, by the way.  It's basic supply and demand in the labor market. 

 

Why does every conversation come back to minorities and immigrants for you?  That's a serious question.  You bring them up in almost every conversation.

 

You had no problem causing harm in any of these instances.  You had no problem with the ACA wrecking millions of peoples insurance.  Excuse me if I don't find the new found outrage entirely genuine.   

 

People harm one another all the time, without intent or knowledge.  If I drive slowly and the person behind me is late for work and gets fired, have I harmed him?  If he goes ballistic and shoots up his work place, am I responsible?  Is the guy who fired him responsible?  We can't prevent the harm we cause by chance occurrences, but it's undoubtedly there.  And it's undoubtedly different than a knowledgeable choice that you KNOW will inflict harm, which is what we're getting from the AHCA.  It WILL cause millions to lose insurance.  Some of those millions WILL get sick and WILL die because they get no care or get care too late, because they're being asked to choose between their financial "well being" and their physical.  We sometimes make choices that cause people to die.  We certainly do so when we go to war.  We certainly should debate whether the benefits outweigh the enormous human cost.  I can't imagine why we wouldn't do the same here, knowing that the benefits include only deficit reduction and the fiction of "choice" and "access".

[Mr. Roboto]

Why is this bad again?

 

 

Why is this bad? Because we'll put the uninsured right back where they were before: In our ERs, which will push up costs. Likewise more Americans will be out of insurance exchanges, also driving up costs. Of course too this would have a profound impact on the healthcare sector. If tens of millions of Americans are no longer being serviced, what do you think happens to the healthcare jobs? I'd imagine this would certainly be a drag on the economy as well. 

 

Why is this bad? Because it strips away health insurance for the poor and vulnerable (many red states and Trump supporters lose bigly here) and gives tax breaks to the wealthy. 

[PERM BANNED]

y

[freedom78]

Wait, now you want Medicaid for all (aka a public option)?  And prescription limitations (do you mean costs or how they're prescribed...)? 

 

By the way, you can already be compelled to enter a plan.  I know in college I had to either have coverage or enroll in the school's plan.  They rightly don't want immature 18 year olds running around uninsured.  The question was whether government can compel you to buy a plan.

 

After all this arguing, I can live with about 90% of what you just said.  I'd prefer expanding Medicare to all and scrapping Medicaid altogether.  I have no issue with copays of some sort, except perhaps for the most severely destitute.  I have no issue with RNs and other nurses handling basic clinics to cover your sinus infection, etc (we have one at my university...very handy when I have something but not something serious).  I have no problem with some measure of tort reform, though I think it's cost savings are dubious...I support it more because we're an overly litigious society and it's despicable how much we sue.  I could live with opening state lines IF there were a strong public option like Medicare/aid that they had to compete against. 

 

I would also add some sort of measure to help poorer states cover the state portion of the plan, the problem being that poorer states will both have less revenue and more people who quality per capita. 

 

That said, I can't imagine any of that happening.  I can't imagine that tort reform, opening state lines, and a minor "responsibility tax" in the form of poor copays is enough to get the Congressional GOP to vote for the more liberal parts of this policy.  But what you describe may very well reflect what a real world compromise solution could look like.  If only we had real world compromisers, anymore!

 

I feel like we've had a real Kumbaya moment here...I'm going to resist seeing anything you've written in other threads and just back in the glow of this for a while.

[Mr. Roboto]

Not enough votes to repeal...

[freedom78]

Makes me wonder what their next step might be.  They could just move to fully repeal it, which would be disastrous.  I can't imagine any Republican currently against it because it takes away coverage as being willing to vote for a full repeal.  I suppose it would bring in the chaos sowing libertarians, anti-government whackos, and dum-dum market purists.

[Mr. Roboto]

They had 7-8 years to come up with something better, and they came up with shit. That's because Obama built the ACA on a conservative idea, something they should have worked with him on in the first place. But they were so interested in winning (ahem...destroying) that just like many other things they once advocated, they were suddenly against it. This is what they end up with, a whole lotta nothing. Sure Ryan is giddy at the thought of taking healthcare away from the poorest Americans, but he'll have to wait I guess. 

[Mr. Roboto]

Annnnd.....nope. 

[freedom78]

I'm surprised they weren't able to get something done.  I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that people who hate government are bad at governing.  Imagine walking into a job interview and saying "everything this place does is shit!".  Only in Congress...

[Mr. Roboto]

haha, looks like they blew their load early on this one.