Obamacare is a terrible idea because…it just might work.

How horrible! That Americans who haven’t had health coverage will now get it without bankrupting themselves.

But Obama did fuck up.  All he had to do was have a law that said “Medicare is now extended to all Americans and legal residents of the USA”.  Done.

By tdbach, January 21 at 10:39 pm Link to this comment

“Marshall: Where did you find that little “fact” about CBO assuming 4.5%
unemployment in 3 years?”

I said 4.8% but was wrong; it’s actually 5.6% and starts in one year (2012).  I’d
wager you can’t find a single economist (even Paul Krugman) that thinks we’ll
have close to 5.6% unemployment starting next year.  And with the looming
state budget crises around the corner, we may not reach that number for many
years.

“would you care to explain how unemployment changes the efficacy of ACA in
reducing the impact of healthcare costs on the deficit?

The higher the unemployment rate, the fewer workers are paying into the
system to support the more who are now covered.  Here’s an article that
outlines the math:

http://economics21.org/blog/effects-prolonged-unemployment-cbo-projections

BQ: Sorry, but it’s not called “health insurance reform” either. It’s “Affordable Care Act” – which is more accurate to its mission, although maybe less potent as a political play thing. The point is to make healthcare more affordable, not only for the majority of individuals but as a nation. And, like it or not, we can’t achieve either of those objectives without mandates. Libertarians hate mandates, of course. Theirs is a world in which the individual fends for his or her self, and screw any collective advantage. But then there are the single-payer, national health insurance progressives who are screaming bloody murder of the mandates, as you so tritely put it, “as a giveaway to corporations.” It’s not, any more than your paycheck is a “giveaway.” You have to work for it. In exchange for such onerous demands as having to take all comers, limiting overhead to 15% of income, etc., the insurance companies get to offset their losses with a new batch of healthy young customers. If you think the insurance industry wouldn’t LOVE to get rid of this legislation, then you are the one whose lunch is getting eaten – by Republicans.

The real beauty of mandates – and the reason I think Obama and the congressional leaders use it, is because it opens the door, politically, to a tax-based national healthcare system. With everyone’s skin in the game, and with everyone paying out of pocket for the equalized cost of insurance, a new tax will be palatable to the electorate, because they can see the value. If I’m paying $12K per year in premiums, and a national healthcare system raises my taxes by $11K a year while getting rid of that cost, it starts to look like a bargain.

Marshall: Where did you find that little “fact” about CBO assuming 4.5% unemployment in 3 years? Was it where the sun don’t shine? Nowhere in the CBO analysis of ACA does that assumption show up. And the CBO’s own economic predictions, in a separate document, show a relatively steady decline in unemployment, from 9% in 2011 to 5% average between 2015 and 2020. Besides, would you care to explain how unemployment changes the efficacy of ACA in reducing the impact of healthcare costs on the deficit?

And finally, rob: the CBO didn’t estimate that in 1964 that Medicare would cost only $10 billion by 1990. The CBO didn’t exist before 1975. And it came about to prevent partisan fudging of data and predictions that were used to sell legislation. Where do you people get your facts?

QUO VADIS?

{RL: The Reps are suddenly concerned about deficits when they approved so much spending during the Bush administration and wouldn’t budge on tax cuts for the rich. }

Quite right.

The Nobel Prize economist George Stiglitz once calculated the cost of the Iraq invasion at 1 trillion dollars during the Bush Administration. Others have put the current cost for Afghanistan above that estimate. Of course, the estimates are numerous and we’ll probably never know the exact amounts.

The wars in the Middle East have been an enormous drain not only budget-wise but of human lives. In fact, if Health Care and Medicare (HC & Mc) take up 24% of the US budget (of 1.3 trillion dollars in cash outlays), then the Iraq-expenditure could have bought us three-years of HC & Mc.

My point: The Federal budget - first and foremost - prioritizes our national objectives. We have thus given decisional predominance to make War rather than provide HC & Mc to American citizens. It is as simple as that.

Think of how much HC & Mc that War-money would have purchased. In fact, for Iraq alone, it would have bought us about 3 years of both. Ditto Afghanistan, another three years.

So, in fact, we may be upset with BO & Co’s inability to pull our sorry asses out a recession, but we really ‘n truly shot ourselves in the foot by reelecting into power a party that has systematically got its budget priorities wrong, wrong, wrong.

Given the current level of the Obesity Pandemic, we are running a course towards the worst health-care disaster since AIDS - which makes Health Care an obvious priority. One wonders What the hell is going on in America?

Has Uncle Sam taken leave of his senses? Or, just the American people? Quo vadis?

By RayLan, January 20 at 7:53 pm Link to this comment

“Reps are suddenly concerned about deficits when they approved so much
spending during the Bush administration and wouldn’t budge on tax cuts for
the rich.”

I would argue both parties are concerned about deficits which is why Dems
haven’t proposed tax increases… indeed tax cuts were part of the dem stimulus
(one of the rare times Democrats will propose tax cuts and, frankly, seems like
an admission that cutting taxes stimulates the economy which in turn increases
tax receipts).

Also, the amounts of deficit increase under Obama make Bush era deficts look
paltry.  Of course if you believe the various Bush/Obama stimulus programs did
help, then you’d see these increases as justified.

rob
Yah F*ck the seniors.

“This point about the deficits is moot”
Yes- that red herring has been served up ad nauseam.
The Reps are suddenly concerned about deficits when they approved so much spending during the Bush administration and wouldn’t budge on tax cuts for the rich. Tax cuts also increase the deficit by reducing revenues.(as if they didn’t know that)
It’s all political double talk, because all spending is not equally on the table- certainly not defense, which is the most easily disposed of without harming anybody (except in paranoid imagination)
What the red herring does buy is shifting attention away from Wall Street which is the site of the real disease.

MOOT POINT

JC: Although Democrats grumbled, they accepted the CBO findings and rewrote the bill extensively to ensure that it reduced the deficit, as promised.

This point about the deficits is moot. Consider the national budget pie here.

Were we really concerned about the deficit, there are a good number of the budget’s components that could be considered for reduction. It is simply a question of National Priority and it is We, the People who should decide what to prioritize.

Which is why, of course, nobody ever asks us. The Troglodyte Republicans are quite pleased to make Health Care a “deficit issue”, which supposedly gives the matter gravity. But, were we to decide that Health Care was, indeed, far, far more important than DoD or Homeland Security, then ways could be found to reduce one component and increase another’s budget.

One can watch all the Hollywood hospital serials that one wants. One can see some pretty sexy technology on display. But, this exposition does not necessarily mean we have the best Health Care system in the world. In fact, serious studies indicate that we are nowhere near the Best Health Care System in the world. Why’s this?

Because any quality assessment of a national HC-system is considered not only according to its point technology used, but by a host of other factors - foremost of which is how many citizens have an easy access to competent Health Care and how many do not.

Supposedly the BO & Co legislation fixed that problem. We’ll see, but I have serious doubts. I figure, based upon the functioning of the French Health Care system (supposed THE best in the world), of which I am a user, the US has a long way to go.

And the only way to get an adequate National Health System is to do it the way the Europeans have—most of whom have better rankings than the US and all of which are run by a Civil Service.

But, we can’t have World Class HC in America if it means “socializing” ours, can we?

Of course, we can. But the Replicants would rather use lies to make a polemic of the issue whilst they work insidiously to cut its heart out by not financing it.

Of course, it’s their play. We, the People voted the twits back into power, didn’t we ...

That said this “health care” reform / insurance mandate is a joke and I wish the Repugs all the luck in the world to reverse this corporate bag of Democrat/New GOP crapola.

Boner has a hard-on for the American middle class, and he likes to deliver it up the ass.  Problem is they seem to like it.

“CBO’s methods are strictly neutral and indeed bipartisan.”

...and in this case based on assumptions which to many seem highly unlikely. 
Like the idea that national unemployment will be at 4.8% in about three years
(they’ve already missed their unemployment projection for the end of 2010).  If
you disagree with the assumptions, as the repubs do, then CBO conclusions
would be wrong, which is where the debate lies.  This is entirely consistent with
republican stance two years ago that agreed with CBO estimates of an
increased deficit result.  Why?  Because they believe CBO got it right that time
and wrong this one.

CBO reports have often been used by both parties to support or oppose
legislation based on whether it agrees with the party position or not.  It’s never
been considered accurate, simply one opinion - albeit a “third party” opinion -
to be used as a starting point for debate.

JC:>>“Republicans feel obliged to address the fiscal impact of their drive to repeal, defund and destroy health care reform…”<<

Apparently Joey didn’t get the memo (ROFL) about the name change (but some of us knew it when we heard it) or maybe he’s just another cheap political hack.

It WAS “Health Care Reform” until Obombem changed his mind (like he did on individual mandates) and started calling it what it really was: “Health Insurance Reform”* (*Reform= Mandating purchase, a line never crossed before by our captors, i mean “leaders”.)

Then Joey writes:
“...Consistency and integrity are important, not only as basic values but because without them, we have no hope of achieving any public objective. Politicians who knowingly seek to promote fraudulent numbers and budgetary smoke cannot be trusted with our medicine or our money…”

Joey is kinda funny, isn’t he

I wouldn’t trust Joey if we were standing in Miami in July and he told me it was sunny. Better check first.

Special Comment (KMA KO) to those (D)emocrats that support this humongous giveaway to the corporations that have farked up medical care to the point where an aspirin costs $23:

You’ve been had by professionals that eat your kind for breakfast. Have fun convincing the IRS that your “insurance” qualifies.

Mitt Romney laughs at Obombem daily