Obamacare cost...

[Uncle Ted]

This is how screwed up our politics are.

So in the end, Obama and Democrats own a bill fundamentally based on GOP ideas that the GOP fought against because Obama is Obama and it didn't really matter - they were going to fight anything from the Black, Marxist, Kenyan Muslim. They refused to give him any victory, even when it was their ideas he was promoting in an attempt to have a large bi-partisan victory early in his administration.

The ironic thing will be that if the bill does fail, it will be in good measure an indictment of 20 years of GOP thinking on the issue. It is funny that they really should be hoping that Obamacare succeeds.

It seems that the republicans are in a pretty good position. If Obamacare fails they can blame it all on the dems and Obama. In the end of the day Obama owns it and won't be able to shake it. But if somehow all the 20-somethings are convince to pay more than their share and BYU71's insurance and it actually works then the republicans can dust off Milton's old papers on the subject and say, "it wasn't really the dems' idea anyway."

My money is on the 20-somethings saying to hell with both the dems and republicans and throwing their votes away on a third party like I and the English have been doing.

[Uncle Ted]

LOL. Hillary's "Individual Mandate" is a single payer system. That is the history. The individual mandate we are discussing has long come from my side of the aisle (GOP).

With all this huff and puff, wouldn't it be ironic if Obamacare, based on GOP ideas, actually worked despite the GOP trying to shoot themselves and their ideas in the face as many times as possible? Bloomberg's editorial board took that position today:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...prognosis.html

Wait... Hillary's snake oil was really a single payer system? Holy crap, she was sleeping with Barney Frank and she is not even Barney's type.

[VirginiaCougar]

Professor:

I am going to try and type this slow because the beating of this refrain annoys me. Just because the bill has the individual mandate does not make it a Republican bill. You go back and read those think tank recommendations and see how many other "Conservative" recommendations were heeded? There are many reasons why our politics are screwed up. But this bill is screwed up because it is a bad bill. It just is. One cannot take one concept from a very complex solution and then give some dumbass response of this will be an indictment on Republican thought for the last 20 years......without also attempting to also incorporate the other recommendations that were ignored.

See Professor, this is what is wrong with our politics. Attempting to deflect the bad bill passed by Democrats as somebody else's fault. Now as a Professor of Political Science I am sure you are intimately aware how bills are passed. You see, this was a bad bill. When bad bills are passed we should blame the people who write and vote for the bad bills. Not sit like a "moderate" and scream but this part came from a conservative think tank back when I was waking up with sticky jockey shorts thinking about the big breasted girl in my honors Algebra course in the 8th grade! It is all their fault and this proves it. No, this is a bad bill and it proves the people who wrote the bill wrote a bad bill and the people who voted for a bad bill voted for a bad bill.

It might prove the point that compromise in some situations is also a bad idea. I think a better solution to the problem is if the Liberals just rammed home a socialized medicine program that pays for the basics and then others can get a more comfortable health insurance program on the private market. Now to me it means poor folks end up with ugly teethe, but I likely don't poll well with feeling the pain of the middle class - wtf that is!

I must have pushed a button there, something to rile such an emotional response full of slow typing passive aggressiveness and memories of 8th grade infatuations. Is it OK, i..f..I...d...o...n...'..t t...y....p....e....s...l...o...w..l...y....i...n.. ..r....e....s....p....o....n....c....e....?

I hope so, as I find that a bit tedious. Obamacare is a deeply flawed bill, I've said so countless times. Democrats did pass the bill, they will own it - in fact my post you responded to said as much. But your little tirade misses the key points.

First, Democrats do carry responsibility for this bill. But so does the GOP which refused to participate in the intended Constitutional process of legislation (they were told they couldn't even negotiate on the issue). They would have said no to mothers getting flowers on Mother's Day if Obama's name was attached to it. They took their ball and went home, pitching the mother of all fits we are still suffering from (Thanks Tea Party....) This doesn't fit the "rammed down our throats" narrative that were the talking points, it is something even more sinister.

Second, the indictment of Obamacare is an indictment of IDEAS, not parties specifically. Not just who wrote the bill, but what is IN the bill. If you can't see that connection, I don't know what to tell you. Political Science is about what works and what doesn't, developing and testing ideas through theories and application. So if you are going to disparage my profession, at least get it right. If the legislation does fail, it is a failure of those ideas.

This leads to the third point, if Obamacare does fail - it is an indictment of GOP ideas, longstanding ideas that I spent a lot of time promoting back in the day. One area where you are wrong, is that almost all of the key elements (Individual Mandate, Penalty, State Exchanges, etc.) are straight out of that original plan. Obamacare isn't socialized medicine, in fact in a comparative sense its failure is relying too much on markets. The data is quite clear that key health care costs are very inelastic. Here is where you miss the big picture. Comparatively, the US has double the OECD health care cost averages because it has the most market based system. You had better hope that Obamacare works if you want a market approach, because if it is doesn't it shows the breakdown of markets (just in this case - I advocate markets for most things. But they aren't the magic bullet for everything- that is dogmatic ideology). If Obamacare fails it is because it still has too much market not that it doesn't have enough. That is why the US has double the costs of other advanced democracies.

I have no doubt that many Americans trying to sign up for Obamacare are experiencing sticker shock. That is because they are being forced into an already expensive system. More market' would make it even worse. It is the market mechanism in Obamacare that isn't controlling costs (exchanges), more of that medicine will make a sick patient even sicker - if that fails. You really had better hope Obamacare works if you want a market based US Health Care System and not a single payer or some variant of Germany/Japan/etc.'s systems.

[Moliere]

That's funny. Mandate is the GOP's fault. Sure, since zero Republicans voted for the bill. Please.

Unrelatedly, the mandate is absolutely essential to this whole scam working. The Democrats aren't dumb enough to pass this sham of a bill without the mandate, even if they were dumb enough to think the whole thing might work.

I think you misread me. The idea of the mandate and healthcare exchanges have their root in the GOP (or at least some in the GOP pushed for them back in the late 80s), I think that much is a fact. Even Newt admitted to pushing such an idea. The fact the ACA passed is not the GOP's fault and thankfully they didn't have the power to implement it back when they were considering it.

[imanihonjin]

This leads to the third point, if Obamacare does fail - it is an indictment of GOP ideas, longstanding ideas that I spent a lot of time promoting back in the day. One area where you are wrong, is that almost all of the key elements (Individual Mandate, Penalty, State Exchanges, etc.) are straight out of that original plan. Obamacare isn't socialized medicine, in fact in a comparative sense its failure is relying too much on markets. The data is quite clear that key health care costs are very inelastic. Here is where you miss the big picture. Comparatively, the US has double the OECD health care cost averages because it has the most market based system. You had better hope that Obamacare works if you want a market approach, because if it is doesn't it shows the breakdown of markets (just in this case - I advocate markets for most things. But they aren't the magic bullet for everything). If Obamacare fails it is because it still has too much market not that it doesn't have enough. That is why the US has double the costs of other advanced democracies.

I have no doubt that many Americans trying to sign up for Obamacare are experiencing sticker shock. That is because they are being forced into an already expensive system. More market' would make it even worse. It is the market mechanism that Obamacare that isn't controlling costs, more of that medicine will make a sick patient even sicker - if that occurs. You really had better hope Obamacare works if you want a market based US Health Care System and not a single payer or some variant of Germany/Japan/etc.'s systems.

And in these paragraphs you show that you are completely incompetent when it comes to markets and economics. I also love how you conveniently leave out "free" when you type markets.

[Goatnapper'96]

I must have pushed a button there, something to rile such an emotional response full of slow typing passive aggressiveness and memories of 8th grade infatuations. Is it OK, i..f..I...d...o...n...'..t t...y....p....e....s...l...o...w..l...y....i...n.. ..r....e....s....p....o....n....c....e....?

I hope so, as I find that a bit tedious. Obamacare is a deeply flawed bill, I've said so countless times. Democrats did pass the bill, they will own it - in fact my post you responded to said as much. But your little tirade misses the key points.

First, Democrats do carry responsibility for this bill. But so does the GOP which refused to participate in the intended Constitutional process of legislation (they were told they couldn't even negotiate on the issue). They would have said no to mothers getting flowers on Mother's Day if Obama's name was attached to it. They took their ball and when home, pitching the mother of all fits we are still suffering from (Thanks Tea Party....) This doesn't fit the "rammed down our throats" narrative that were the talking points, it is something even more sinister.

Second, the indictment of Obamacare is an indictment of IDEAS, not parties specifically. Not just who wrote the bill, but what is IN the bill. If you can't see that connection, I don't know what to tell you. Political Science is about what works and what doesn't, developing and testing ideas through theories and application. So if you are going to disparage my profession, at least get it right. If the legislation does fail, it is a failure of those ideas.

This leads to the third point, if Obamacare does fail - it is an indictment of GOP ideas, longstanding ideas that I spent a lot of time promoting back in the day. One area where you are wrong, is that almost all of the key elements (Individual Mandate, Penalty, State Exchanges, etc.) are straight out of that original plan. Obamacare isn't socialized medicine, in fact in a comparative sense its failure is relying too much on markets. The data is quite clear that key health care costs are very inelastic. Here is where you miss the big picture. Comparatively, the US has double the OECD health care cost averages because it has the most market based system. You had better hope that Obamacare works if you want a market approach, because if it is doesn't it shows the breakdown of markets (just in this case - I advocate markets for most things. But they aren't the magic bullet for everything). If Obamacare fails it is because it still has too much market not that it doesn't have enough. That is why the US has double the costs of other advanced democracies.

I have no doubt that many Americans trying to sign up for Obamacare are experiencing sticker shock. That is because they are being forced into an already expensive system. More market' would make it even worse. It is the market mechanism that Obamacare that isn't controlling costs, more of that medicine will make a sick patient even sicker - if that occurs. You really had better hope Obamacare works if you want a market based US Health Care System and not a single payer or some variant of Germany/Japan/etc.'s systems.

The issue is pretty simple. It will not work without enough incentive for young people to sign up. That incentive is not there. That is the principle reason why it is a bad bill. My guess is neither party have think tanks generating research about making people pay for their healthcare. In theory I would find it to be a conservative principle, but it doesn't get people elected.

As far as what I want, I would like to reduce the cost of health care (big fan of high deductible/HSA plans) by forcing consumers to actually be more closely connected to the cost of their health care. Then I think much of those unable to afford health care would be able to afford it. But once again the reason our politics are ef'd up is because people want stuff but don't want to pay for it. Case in point the quote from the young lady out of California. Now perhaps I am biased but it appears to me that one party outdoes the other in branding itself as giving things to people and making a case that they deserve it while not explaining how it will be paid for except to say if the rich paid their fair share we could afford all these goodies. Now when I get down to really evaluating our ef'd up politics that is what I see as the fundamental issue. Our ruling class likes power and they get it by promising things that should not be promised and that anyone sensible enough to evaluate can see we cannot go on affording. That bothers me much more than Mike Lee's stupidity or Ted Cruz's inflexibility. I fair say that is our real "failure of leadership."

[Katy Lied]

Here's a more gentle parallel: Saying that Obamacare is the result of longstanding GOP ideals is like telling someone how to build a cattle fence. The fence needs to be constructed with a post hole digger, and needs to have sturdy posts cemented into the holes, and then you need to add rails that are fastened with nails, and then you need skirts at the bottom of the rails, and then you need an electrified barbed wire added to the top. So the democrats build a fence with all of these ideas, but leave the gate open, and the cows all run away. And then the Demos issue talking points pointing out how all these elements were exactly what the republicans have been crying for all these years.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

This is how screwed up our politics are.

So in the end, Obama and Democrats own a bill fundamentally based on GOP ideas that the GOP fought against because Obama is Obama and it didn't really matter - they were going to fight anything from the Black, Marxist, Kenyan Muslim. They refused to give him any victory, even when it was their ideas he was promoting in an attempt to have a large bi-partisan victory early in his administration.

The ironic thing will be that if the bill does fail, it will be in good measure an indictment of 20 years of GOP thinking on the issue. It is funny that they really should be hoping that Obamacare succeeds.

I love how this clown says "this is what's so screwed up about our politics" as if he's above all the riff raff. Meanwhile he's engaging in this delusion that Obama was attempting to be bi-partisan and passed a bill based on Republican ideas -- and it's a delusion pressed by the likes of Robert Reich and Paul Krugman. Yes, he's above all these squabbles.

I think the funniest part is that I don't think Virginia Coug has any idea what the likes of the Heritage Foundation proposed. For all these years, unbeknownst to us, the Republican party was chomping at the bit to impose the individual mandate. For some reason we never heard about it during the 92, 96, 00, 04, 08 elections.

He hears the latest ploy to try to deflect blame from this disastrous bill and parrots it. I have yet to see an original thought from him.

Doctors on here say "you know, I think we could lower costs if more people were paying cash and simply had catastrophic health insurance. Then doctors/healthcare providers are going to have to compete for that cash instead of milking that insurance cow." Virginia Coug says "nope, inelastic demand" because he heard someone else use the term. Meanwhile, there's some pretty damn inelastic demand for dental care but dental bills haven't been inflating out of control precisely because of the diminishing number of people with dental insurance. My daughters' cavities make her demand for dental work pretty damn inelastic and my resulting bill was much lower than I expected.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

I must have pushed a button there, something to rile such an emotional response full of slow typing passive aggressiveness and memories of 8th grade infatuations. Is it OK, i..f..I...d...o...n...'..t t...y....p....e....s...l...o...w..l...y....i...n.. ..r....e....s....p....o....n....c....e....?

I hope so, as I find that a bit tedious. Obamacare is a deeply flawed bill, I've said so countless times. Democrats did pass the bill, they will own it - in fact my post you responded to said as much. But your little tirade misses the key points.

First, Democrats do carry responsibility for this bill. But so does the GOP which refused to participate in the intended Constitutional process of legislation (they were told they couldn't even negotiate on the issue). They would have said no to mothers getting flowers on Mother's Day if Obama's name was attached to it. They took their ball and went home, pitching the mother of all fits we are still suffering from (Thanks Tea Party....) This doesn't fit the "rammed down our throats" narrative that were the talking points, it is something even more sinister.

Second, the indictment of Obamacare is an indictment of IDEAS, not parties specifically. Not just who wrote the bill, but what is IN the bill. If you can't see that connection, I don't know what to tell you. Political Science is about what works and what doesn't, developing and testing ideas through theories and application. So if you are going to disparage my profession, at least get it right. If the legislation does fail, it is a failure of those ideas.

This leads to the third point, if Obamacare does fail - it is an indictment of GOP ideas, longstanding ideas that I spent a lot of time promoting back in the day. One area where you are wrong, is that almost all of the key elements (Individual Mandate, Penalty, State Exchanges, etc.) are straight out of that original plan. Obamacare isn't socialized medicine, in fact in a comparative sense its failure is relying too much on markets. The data is quite clear that key health care costs are very inelastic. Here is where you miss the big picture. Comparatively, the US has double the OECD health care cost averages because it has the most market based system. You had better hope that Obamacare works if you want a market approach, because if it is doesn't it shows the breakdown of markets (just in this case - I advocate markets for most things. But they aren't the magic bullet for everything- that is dogmatic ideology). If Obamacare fails it is because it still has too much market not that it doesn't have enough. That is why the US has double the costs of other advanced democracies.

I have no doubt that many Americans trying to sign up for Obamacare are experiencing sticker shock. That is because they are being forced into an already expensive system. More market' would make it even worse. It is the market mechanism in Obamacare that isn't controlling costs (exchanges), more of that medicine will make a sick patient even sicker - if that fails. You really had better hope Obamacare works if you want a market based US Health Care System and not a single payer or some variant of Germany/Japan/etc.'s systems.

B.U.L.L.S.H.I.T.

You're delusional if you think Obama was going to listen to the Republicans at all. We have a track record now, what evidence do you have that Obama cared to listen to the GOP? I've heard this horseshit from you before -- I call it the "poor ol' centrist Obama" canard. It's amazing that Bush could win the most divisive election in at least a century in 2000 and still get the Medicare Part D bill passed and get some Democrats on board, yet poor ol' centrist Obama along with Pelosi and Reid have to use chicanery to get this bill passed after Massachusetts (MASSACHUSETTS!!) elected Scott Brown to try to stop Obamacare from happening.

Obama never countenances the GOP until he absolutely has to, he would rather pass a total piece of shit, destined to fail bill (Obamacare) rather than engage the GOP. That's exactly what happened.

[VirginiaCougar]

I love how this clown says "this is what's so screwed up about our politics" as if he's above all the riff raff. Meanwhile he's engaging in this delusion that Obama was attempting to be bi-partisan and passed a bill based on Republican ideas -- and it's a delusion pressed by the likes of Robert Reich and Paul Krugman. Yes, he's above all these squabbles.

I think the funniest part is that I don't think Virginia Coug has any idea what the likes of the Heritage Foundation proposed. For all these years, unbeknownst to us, the Republican party was chomping at the bit to impose the individual mandate. For some reason we never heard about it during the 92, 96, 00, 04, 08 elections.

He hears the latest ploy to try to deflect blame from this disastrous bill and parrots it. I have yet to see an original thought from him.

Doctors on here say "you know, I think we could lower costs if more people were paying cash and simply had catastrophic health insurance. Then doctors/healthcare providers are going to have to compete for that cash instead of milking that insurance cow." Virginia Coug says "nope, inelastic demand" because he heard someone else use the term. Meanwhile, there's some pretty damn inelastic demand for dental care but dental bills haven't been inflating out of control precisely because of the diminishing number of people with dental insurance. My daughters' cavities make her demand for dental work pretty damn inelastic and my resulting bill was much lower than I expected.

I really have pushed a few buttons. Beyond slow typing and teenage wet dreams I am now also a clown and a parrot.

I've been arguing what I said here for years, back during the legislative ACA process when I was told by friends on Congressional staffs how they were being hamstrung by leadership on this issue. I've also posted a few historical narratives stating similar things.

I will also tell you that I worked on a Republican gubernatorial staff when the Heritage Document represented the official position of the party during the Hillarycare debates. I knew the arguments top to bottom and part of my job was to advocate those positions when asked about the Governor's position on that national debate.

The comparative health care data is also what it is, regardless of what you say or want to believe.

The bottom line I suspect is that when something is factually correct but ideologically inconvenient, it produces a powerful cognitive dissonance. One of the best ways to avoid that dissonance and to feel all warm and fuzzy again is to disparage the messenger. Which you have done quite well. Feel better?

[Moliere]

Let's all remember that the only reason Obamacare was passed was because Ted Kennedy died and it had already passed the Senate. Even many Dems didn't like it, but when Ted kicked the bucket and Massachusetts elected Scott Brown (even in a Dem-heavy state) there was no other alternative unless the Dems wanted to negotiate with the GOP, which they didn't. Even Dems didn't like the bill and they tried to fix it through the reconcilation process, which helped enough to get some Dems onboard in the House, but it obviously didn't fix it enough.

[VirginiaCougar]

Let's all remember that the only reason Obamacare was passed was because Ted Kennedy died and it had already passed the Senate. Even many Dems didn't like it, but when Ted kicked the bucket and Massachusetts elected Scott Brown (even in a Dem-heavy state) there was no other alternative unless the Dems wanted to negotiate with the GOP, which they didn't. Even Dems didn't like the bill and they tried to fix it through the reconcilation process, which helped enough to get some Dems onboard in the House, but it obviously didn't fix it enough.

Yes. Many Democrats thought ACA didn't go nearly far enough. It didn't have the public option and many thought the GOP ideas simply wrong - they wanted something closer to what Hillary was advocating back in the Clinton Administration.

[PaloAltoCougar]

VC, I tend to be closer to your camp on many issues than most here, and I still take crap that I didn't vote for VP Palin in '08, but I think you should bail on tracing Obamacare's genealogy to the GOP. If McCain/Palin had prevailed, what do you think are the odds that they would have introduced a bill like the ACA during their presidency? I'll wait while you get an acetylene torch and snowball to demonstrate.

[imanihonjin]

Yes. Many Democrats thought ACA didn't go nearly far enough. It didn't have the public option and many thought the GOP ideas simply wrong - they wanted something closer to what Hillary was advocating back in the Clinton Administration.

Yep they didn't like it so much that not a single dem in the senate voted against it.

[VirginiaCougar]

VC, I tend to be closer to your camp on many issues than most here, and I still take crap that I didn't vote for VP Palin in '08, but I think you should bail on tracing Obamacare's genealogy to the GOP. If McCain/Palin had prevailed, what do you think are the odds that they would have introduced a bill like the ACA during their presidency? I'll wait while you get an acetylene torch and snowball to demonstrate.

A President McCain endorsed bill would certainly have been different, no doubt. In some ways, I suspect it would have been more "socialistic." In other ways, less. I don't know, but based on McCain's voting record and on what was happening in the Senate/House at the time, I strongly suspect McCain would have used a version of the Wyden-Bennett Bill (yes, Bob Bennett) as the template.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Americans_Act

That legislation had fairly strong bipartisan support. That bipartisan support is one primary reason Tea Party astroturf groups targeted Bennett.

You are right, I should let this issue go, but it is hard as I have a fair amount of direct knowledge about how those early days played out. I also strongly believed many Republicans would have gone to the mat supporting 90% of ACA if Obama hadn't been president, if it had been McCain. Now later in the ACA process, the Administration and Democrats in Congress did stonewall the GOP, but that was because the GOP was attempting the "death by a thousand cuts" approach to bringing the legislative process to a halt by throwing poison pill amendment after poison pill at the thing.

Interestingly, it isn't the genealogy that troubles me most about all of the politics of ACA. Nor am I a huge proponent of the actual bill. I guess I find the hypocrisy on this specific issue more troubling than most.