Obamacare cost...

[All-American]

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.

Bennett-Wyden would have been much, much better than Obamacare. But I doubt tea parties looked past TARP when they decided to throw Bennett under the bus.

[VirginiaCougar]

Bennett-Wyden would have been much, much better than Obamacare. But I doubt tea parties looked past TARP when they decided to throw Bennett under the bus.

Yes, no doubt TARP was also a primary reason they targeted him. Good point.

And Bennett-Wyden does have some interesting elements to it.

[Uncle Ted]

No wonder the damn thing doesn't work... they are doing something wrong:

[FMCoug]

This is awesome. She babbles on and on about HIPAA and then gets into talking about servers, clouds, etc. which she clearly knows nothing about. LOL.


http://www.upworthy.com/congresswoma...t-doesnt-exist

[il Padrino Ute]

This is awesome. She babbles on and on about HIPAA and then gets into talking about servers, clouds, etc. which she clearly knows nothing about. LOL.


http://www.upworthy.com/congresswoma...t-doesnt-exist

So, you're saying she's a politician?

[Jacob]

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.

Of course. But you were passing that historical tidbit off as a reason republicans should share in the blame for a bill none of them approved of or voted for. It's a ridiculous claim by people like Krugman, but they came up with such nuttery from the start and they are apparently sticking to it. Also, if would be false to claim, as you have, that the GOP was ever considering the ACA, or something quite similar.

We do have the well-known historical fact, that not republican president or nominee has supported anything similar (I won't go back to Nixon and whatever his scheme was). John McCain ran against Obama in 2008 while Obama was running on an Obamacare-like plan, but McCain never supported anything like it. His plan was vastly different and vastly more simple. His plan would have worked quite easily, but I'm not sure how much good any national healthcare plan will ever do.

So, republicans have spend the last 2 presidential election cycles running against Obamacare (even before it was a thing) and the 2 previous administrations not pushing for anything remotely similar, and the 2 administrations before that fighting against another democratic healthcare plan (when some of them may have supported an individual mandate), but sure, they should share in the blame despite these many decades of fighting against eh implementation of anything remotely similar.

PS, I don't much care for republicans.

[Uncle Ted]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert...b_4166664.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/op...dge.html?_r=1&

"Krugtron the Invincible" is never wrong.

Krugtron the Invincible, Part 1

It's an ill wind that blows no one any good. The financial crisis that came to a head five years ago with the failure of Lehman Brothers has been especially beneficial to the economist Paul Krugman. In his widely read New York Times column and blog, Krugman regularly boasts that he has been "right" about the crisis and its consequences. "I (and those of like mind)," he wrote in June last year, "have been right about everything." Those who dare to disagree with him -- myself included -- he denounces as members of the "Always-Wrong Club." Readers of his blog have just been treated to another such sneer.
[...]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/niall-...b_4060733.html

[byu71]

"Krugtron the Invincible" is never wrong.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/niall-...b_4060733.html

Does he document what he called right? While not a follower of everyting he says, I can't think of anything he has said in the past where I have thought lately, "dang Krugman was right".

He reminds me of the little turd in school who would have his mother come to school to fight his fights.

[All-American]

Of course. But you were passing that historical tidbit off as a reason republicans should share in the blame for a bill none of them approved of or voted for. It's a ridiculous claim by people like Krugman, but they came up with such nuttery from the start and they are apparently sticking to it. Also, if would be false to claim, as you have, that the GOP was ever considering the ACA, or something quite similar.

We do have the well-known historical fact, that not republican president or nominee has supported anything similar (I won't go back to Nixon and whatever his scheme was). John McCain ran against Obama in 2008 while Obama was running on an Obamacare-like plan, but McCain never supported anything like it. His plan was vastly different and vastly more simple. His plan would have worked quite easily, but I'm not sure how much good any national healthcare plan will ever do.

So, republicans have spend the last 2 presidential election cycles running against Obamacare (even before it was a thing) and the 2 previous administrations not pushing for anything remotely similar, and the 2 administrations before that fighting against another democratic healthcare plan (when some of them may have supported an individual mandate), but sure, they should share in the blame despite these many decades of fighting against eh implementation of anything remotely similar.

PS, I don't much care for republicans.

As funny as it is that Democrats are trying to blame Republicans for the ideas behind Obamacare, it is far more telling that they are trying to share the "credit" for the act. That says a lot about how it's working out.

[All-American]

Are the subsidies on plans purchased through healthcare.gov legal?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...stacks_up.html

[byu71]

Are the subsidies on plans purchased through healthcare.gov legal?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...stacks_up.html

This alone tells you how the democrats think. Why do they name it subsidies instead of, oh let's say rebate. Rebate would indicate you did something and got something back for it. Subsidy means the "government" is taking care of you and taking money from some nasty better off than you person and giving it to you.

Good reason for you to vote for them, right? They will make sure no one gets an unfair deal over you.

[imanihonjin]

Are the subsidies on plans purchased through healthcare.gov legal?

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...stacks_up.html

This is very interesting. Thank you for the link. The author is quite correct in noting that the statutory language is unambiguous on the point and rather clear. However, a court is unlikely to overturn it based on the the Supreme Court's unwillingness to throw itself in front of this massive train and its momentum.

[Uncle Ted]

A legal way to opt out of obamacare, social security, medicaid, and other government programs... Become Amish or a Mennonite:

As U.S. struggles with health reform, the Amish go their own way

The debate over U.S. healthcare reform that has gripped the nation and led to a government shutdown is of small concern in rural Pennsylvania's Amish country for a very simple reason.


Along with eschewing cars and many other modern technologies, the descendants of 18th-Century German immigrants who practice the Amish and Old Order Mennonite religions, have effectively opted out of Obamacare, along with most federal safety net programs.


A little-known provision of the law with its roots in a 1950s battle over Social Security exempts these communities from the individual mandate, an element of the Affordable Care Act that requires most Americans to purchase health insurance in some form.

[...]

"There was an Amish guy who refused to pay Social Security. IRS agents confiscated his horses while he was out in the field plowing," said Donald Kraybill, author of "The Amish" and professor at Elizabethtown College.


In 1965, Congress passed a law giving certain Amish and Mennonite religious orders the right to opt out of Social Security, Medicaid and a host of other government benefits.

[...]

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/u-s-st...way-8C11345954

[Uncle Ted]

The Obamacare website is not the only government IT systems having major problems...

NHS pulls the plug on its £11bn IT system

After nine years and with billions already spent, doomed computer system is abandoned

A plan to create the world's largest single civilian computer system linking all parts of the National Health Service is to be abandoned by the Government after running up billions of pounds in bills. Ministers are expected to announce next month that they are scrapping a central part of the much-delayed and hugely controversial 10-year National Programme for IT.
[...]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...m-2330906.html

Let's see 11.4bn pounds is about $18.3bn dollars. I am thinking we just need to spend a lot more money and take a lot more time and we'll get that Obamacare website working. Where do I apply to get a piece of the contract?

[All-American]

Here is the complaint in the case.

http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/05...._complaint.pdf

My initial question is how anybody can claim they have standing to bring this challenge to the law. A party would have to argue that they are somehow harmed by the fact that somebody else gets subsidized insurance. The plaintiffs argue that they have standing in a clever little way:

5. While most subsidies benefit recipients, the ACA’s subsidies actually serve to financially injure and restrict the economic choices of certain individuals. Some individuals would, but for their eligibility for federal subsidies, be exempt from the Act’s individual mandate penalty under an exemption applicable to low- or moderate-income individuals for whom insurance is “unaffordable.” For these people, the Subsidy Expansion Rule, by making insurance less “unaffordable,” subjects them to the individual mandate’s requirement to purchase costly, comprehensive health insurance that they otherwise would forgo. (The Act’s subsidies do not usually cover 100% of insurance premiums.)

6. Furthermore, many employers would, but for their employees’ eligibility for subsidies, be effectively exempt from the “assessable payments” imposed for failure to adhere to the Act’s “employer mandate.” That provision of the ACA imposes an assessable payment on certain businesses that do not offer their full-time employees the chance to enroll in employersponsored coverage that satisfies various statutory requisites. Critically, that payment is triggered only if such employees receive federal subsidies by purchasing coverage on an Exchange. Thus, the IRS Rule also has the effect of triggering the employer mandate payment for businesses in states that declined to establish their own Exchanges.

7. The IRS Rule’s unauthorized subsidies would trigger these mandates and payments against Plaintiffs, who are individuals and businesses residing in states that have opted not to establish Exchanges. The Rule would block the individual Plaintiffs from satisfying the unaffordability exemption, thereby forcing them to purchase comprehensive, costly insurance that they do not want. And the Rule would expose the business Plaintiffs to payments under the employer mandate, thereby requiring them to offer comprehensive, ACA-compliant insurance that they do not want to sponsor. The IRS Rule thus injures all of these Plaintiffs.