Will Obamacare succeed where term limits failed?

[Xiahou]

This could be the best thing to come from Obamacare....

Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting.

The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.

This is too delicious. The people that wrote and passed the law are now talking about quitting their jobs to avoid being subject to it....

[drone]

I would cynically state that they would just amend the bill quietly to keep their privileged status, but that would require them to actually pass something. Unless it was hidden in a larger, unrelated bill it's not politically feasible, and an unrelated bill large enough to hide the amendment isn't going to get passed, because, well, Congress.

[LittleGrizzly]

Sounds like a good way to get a great health system, force the lawmakers and aides to use the same system as everyone else...

[Lemur]

Who's everyone else? The upper-middle-classer who thinks they're struggling because they have to pay a hefty premium?

That would be me. And I spent a ridiculous amount of time this week battling with a hospital that was double-billing my family. Anyone who defends the status quo of our medical system is delusional, probably blinded by ideology.

I remember when the debate over healthcare reform was going on, I kept asking my more rightwing friends, "Show me an example of market-driven healthcare on a national scale that works." Inevitably, they could not. Which tells you everything you need to know. Much like communism, profit-driven national healthcare sounds good in theory. The fact that it's unable to show results in the real world? Don't confuse us with empiricism.

[HoreTore]

Still, you haven't seen the worst solution, Lemur: New Public Management (NPM).

Properly implemented, this brilliant idea captures the positives of both the market-driven system and the government system. Then it decides to shed all of those, and instead focus on combining the worst aspects of both. Brilliant, I say. No freedom, no choice for the patient, an anal adherence to rules and regulations, time wasted on billing other departments and spiraling deficits.

I Love Thatcher and Blair, I really, really do. I love them so much I wish them to go somewhere very warm in the afterlife.

[Xiahou]

We need a universal option, with universal standards and universal accountability. Its only fair.

Since healthcare isn't equal, we need to have government lower the standards until they're equally bad for all.

I remember when the debate over healthcare reform was going on, I kept asking my more rightwing friends, "Show me an example of market-driven healthcare on a national scale that works." Inevitably, they could not. Which tells you everything you need to know. Much like communism, profit-driven national healthcare sounds good in theory. The fact that it's unable to show results in the real world? Don't confuse us with empiricism.

None of this justifies passing Obamacare. It makes healthcare more expensive and doesn't solve any of the problems it set out to address.

Edit:
Here's more...
Coverage may be unaffordable for low-wage workers

[Lemur]

An interesting take from Ramesh Ponnuru:

Conservatives and Republicans in Washington — activists, strategists, politicians — are increasingly embracing a theory about Obamacare: It’s going to collapse of its own weight, and its failure could yield a sharp right turn in the 2014 and 2016 elections. That theory is probably wrong, and dangerously so. To be rid of Obamacare, Republicans will have to do more than just wait for it to go away — and more than they have done so far. [...]

Republicans’ confidence that Obamacare will collapse has contributed to their lassitude in coming up with an alternative. It is a perverse complacency. If the program were going to collapse in the next three years, it would be all the more important for Republicans to build the case for a replacement for it.

[Papewaio]

Problem with a market model for medical care is that it is not a fair buyer-seller relationship.

Often the buyer has to be healthy to get insurance. Wait months before being eligible for various benefits and a lot of insurance benefits tie your medical procedures to the insurers preferred choice. So you have buyers who spend money to get a delayed benefit as determined by the seller, to deal with scenarios which are not always elective for the buyer.

Also it is a highway mans dilemma "Your money or your life". So the rates get ratcheted up and up as time passes. As you become more at risk your premiums go up. So for a lot of retired people it is not an affordable option.

Universal health care provides a baseline access. With private healthcare mixed in it shortens the wait time for those paying for it and the universal healthcare provides a minimum level of competition and covers any overt or covert private health gaps. Also every person who moves to private health should in theory shorten the queues in the public system. However specialists are a limited resource that in Australia have a quota as set by their own colleges. So it doesn't really shorten the line for public health.

Universal healthcare provides here a free to play option. Private health provides bonuses such as queue jumping and a private room.

Get the combination right and you have a cos efficient synergy. Get it wrong and you double up all that is wrong in both big government and big business.

[Lemur]

double up all that is wrong in both big government and big business.

Yeah, that's the hybrid jackalope we managed to create here in the States. It may be hideously expensive and bureaucratic, but at least we get middling to sub-par results.

[LittleGrizzly]

Who's everyone else?
......................

I was mainly referring to the working/middle classes...

[HoreTore]

A misleading label, in my opinion. Much of the working class in in poverty, and the middle-class is in fact rich by any standard that isn't coming from a perspective of considerable wealth. If you want Congress to get the point, make them live like the lowest common denominator for a month or so. Hell, that should be like a rite of initiation for politicians--you could even make a reality TV show about it.

The US has no concept of classes. When a factory worker or plumber can call himself middle class, you know society is on the wrong path... Fear of the reds, I guess.

[drone]

The US has no concept of classes. When a factory worker or plumber can call himself middle class, you know society is on the wrong path... Fear of the reds, I guess.

Plumbers actually make good money.

[HoreTore]

Plumbers actually make good money.

Yes, the working class can make good money. As I said, the US has no concept of classes. A plumber is working class, no matter how much money you throw at him.

[HoreTore]

Every country has a concept of class, we just do it differently than Europeans. To say we don't have a concept of classes is just silly.

A plumber can call himself middle class. That's silly.

You're all terrified of being workers.

[Tuuvi]

Yes, the working class can make good money. As I said, the US has no concept of classes. A plumber is working class, no matter how much money you throw at him.

If a plumber is self-employed and runs his own plumbing business is he still working class or is he a member of the bourgeoisie?

[HoreTore]

If a plumber is self-employed and runs his own plumbing business is he still working class or is he a member of the bourgeoisie?

Then he's moved up to middle class, the petty bourgeoisie. He owns his own means of production, but he is still forced to sell his labour on the market. If he opens a factory producing plumbing equipment, he's a capitalist.

[HoreTore]

What kind of car you drive, what kind of neighborhood you live in, how you can afford to raise your family, the standard of medical care you recieve, whether or not eating out as a family at a restaurant is something you can even feasibly do, these are things that would indicate your class. What kind of work you do to achieve your standard of living is something pretty far down the ladder.

I like how your apparently some kind of authority on American society. When did you live here? How many different sides of America have you seen? Who's terrified of being workers? Most of the people I know would kill somebody to get a chance to go to trade school.

The bolded part shows you've got it all turned on its head. The means of production, ie. how you earn your living in your relation to those who contribute or benefit to that income, is what determins your class. Your cultural standing is largely irrelevant, though some like to use those factors to juggle you around your class(like saying "lower, upper, educated, etc" working/middle class).

[HoreTore]

That you think class is determined by sitting back and calculating some formula is pretty indicative of your class.

I'm a teacher, thus working class. Some like to say I'm part of the "educated working class".

I know the brits like to include family and social relations in their class defintions, and I see some sense in that, at least in the British context(not so much for more egaliatrian societies).

My defintions are the marxist definitions of class. I don't know where you got yours, but since they're obviously not marxist, they're wrong

[HoreTore]

That's my point. Your definitions come from a book, because you're part of the comfortable classes. Middle or upper middle, whatever. The reality is that class is determined by what you have control over and what you have access to. Wealth passes in and out of middle-class and even many wealthy families so fast that your old definitons of basing it on how they got the means is kind of outdated. Especially in America.

It's based on a tradition, the tradition which created the concept

[Husar]

Even the poor think they're middle class who just have a temporary low.
It takes the market to break them for several years to maybe perhaps make them declare themselves poor.
But in their hearts they will still think they should be middle class and the world around them is treating them unfairly.

Even the rich want to be middle class but the poor chaps are unable to spend their money as fast as it flows in, after a while they just give up as well.

[HoreTore]

Even the poor think they're middle class who just have a temporary low.
It takes the market to break them for several years to maybe perhaps make them declare themselves poor.
But in their hearts they will still think they should be middle class and the world around them is treating them unfairly.

Even the rich want to be middle class but the poor chaps are unable to spend their money as fast as it flows in, after a while they just give up as well.

That's the problem with US(and increasingly european) class thinking: you're either poor or you're middle class, the working class has ceased to exist. That's not how it actually is. We've got more and more wage-labourers replacing more independent workers(think the franchise system for shops), so the middle class is smaller, and we've got a record high employment rate meaning that the poor class is smaller.

The working class has become bigger, while the lumpenproletariat and middle class has shrinked(meaning things go according to Marx' predictions).

[FoxLeLay]

Who's everyone else? The upper-middle-classer who thinks they're struggling because they have to pay a hefty premium? The homeless guy who has to use the Emergency Room? The Soldier who gets all the second-rate dental work he wants (seriously, I got fillings that look like they were done in rural mexico)? Even the rich with their concierge doctors have their downsides--Michael Jackson got killed by his, after all.

We need a universal option, with universal standards and universal accountability. Its only fair.

But are you willing to pay the higher taxes that will come with better, universal healthcare? You don't get anything for free, especially when doctors continue to get paid $400,000 a year.

[Husar]

But are you willing to pay the higher taxes that will come with better, universal healthcare? You don't get anything for free, especially when doctors continue to get paid $400,000 a year.

Does it matter whether you pay 200$ a month in taxes or 4800$ when you see a doctor every two years?
What's easier, to plan your monthly budget or to prepare for something that may happen ten years down the line?
If you have to take a credit every time you get an expensive health care bill then you also have to add the interest that you pay on the credit to the total cost.

And that's assuming everybody gets the treatment they need either way, of course without universal health care you can let hospitals refuse poor people and watch them die on the streets. If they are forced to treat them for free then they will surely add the cost that is incurred on top of the treatment for other patients just like a convenience store has higher prices for everyone to make up for the losses due to theft.

[FoxLeLay]

Does it matter whether you pay 200$ a month in taxes or 4800$ when you see a doctor every two years?
What's easier, to plan your monthly budget or to prepare for something that may happen ten years down the line?
If you have to take a credit every time you get an expensive health care bill then you also have to add the interest that you pay on the credit to the total cost.

And that's assuming everybody gets the treatment they need either way, of course without universal health care you can let hospitals refuse poor people and watch them die on the streets. If they are forced to treat them for free then they will surely add the cost that is incurred on top of the treatment for other patients just like a convenience store has higher prices for everyone to make up for the losses due to theft.

But that's the problem. Do you really you want to pay higher taxes? I don't think everyone's getting the point. Not only taxes will go up, which would defeat the purpose of universal healthcare anyhow because you will be spending that money elsewhere, thus no savings, but if you don't go to the doctor's and take advantage of what you are paying....

Then the money will be use for someone else, thus, it be no better if someone is treated for free and the cost is put off on other insured people.


Either way, you will not make out. Only these greedy doctors will make out, that's it.

[Papewaio]

What is the income tax rate in the US?

I'm paying 40%. You either pay taxes or borrow money from other countries.

[Lemur]

Not only taxes will go up, which would defeat the purpose of universal healthcare anyhow because you will be spending that money elsewhere, thus no savings, but if you don't go to the doctor's and take advantage of what you are paying....

This argument conveniently ignores the documented fact that single-payer healthcare programs are cheaper than our capitalist-socialist jackalope system. By a factor of at least 45%, if not more, depending on the system chosen for comparison. Our system is the most expensive in the world, by long margins. To argue that other systems yield "no savings" is either ignorant or mendacious.

[Husar]

Not only taxes will go up, which would defeat the purpose of universal healthcare anyhow because you will be spending that money elsewhere, thus no savings, but if you don't go to the doctor's and take advantage of what you are paying....

You mean there are people who never get sick and then suddenly die? There are also cars and houses that are never set on fire but people tend to get insurances for them.

Then the money will be use for someone else, thus, it be no better if someone is treated for free and the cost is put off on other insured people.

No, why? It's not like other people become sick more often just because you are healthy. If people don't go to the doctor the taxes/fees can be lowered. Especially if the system is operated properly whereas a private insurance will just pay out the excess money to shareholders or pay bonuses to managers.

Either way, you will not make out. Only these greedy doctors will make out, that's it.

Not all doctors are greedy and most single payer systems have a limit on how much 5 minutes at a doctor or certain medications can cost.
I'm not sure whether we handle the doctor thing well here as there seem to be some problems but with medications there are tests and if a cheaper medication yields the same results as a more expensive one then the more expensive one will not have to be covered by basic insurances. It's not that every universal health care system is flawless but they're all better than what the US has now.

To say it's better to do nothing if the result of doing something is "only better but not perfect" is quite weird IMO.

[Xiahou]

A recent Gallup poll finds the 41% of small businesses have frozen all new hiring because of Obamacare.

Forty-one percent of the businesses surveyed have frozen hiring because of the health-care law known as Obamacare. And almost one-fifth—19 percent— answered "yes" when asked if they had "reduced the number of employees you have in your business as a specific result of the Affordable Care Act."

Yeah, I get that our old system was bad- but in the rush to "Do Something", we've made it much worse. This is a complete mess.

[Xiahou]

That only proves that 41% of "small businesses" are cheap. It is a well-known fact that small business and large businesses have used the economic climate as an excuse for predatory hiring practices. Crying wolf and cutting costs, that's all they're doing.

They're not hiring because of increased regulatory burden from our government. Whatever subjective personal views you wish to attach to it are immaterial to the fact that they're not hiring. As both parties seem fond of pointing out, small businesses account for most of our employment. If 41% have stopped hiring and 19% have reduced staffing due to government action.... that's a problem.

[HoreTore]

small businesses account for most of our employment.

It doesn't matter how many politicians like to say that, it still isn't true.

Big government and big business are responsible for employment in the US and all other industrialized countries. Also, the US defines "small business" as up to 500 employees... Not exactly your neighborhood bar, now is it?

Pure rhetoric, no substance. Capitalism acting as it usually does.


Also, a job that does not enable you to live a good, healthy life is an irrelevant job and should be cut.