So where does it say in the "libertarian" holy book(s) that it is moral to allow unregulated market forces to kill, maim and starve people? lol "libertarians" and tallanver talking about morality!!
As a result of lack of insurance, tens of thousands were dying before the ACA was put into place. Technically, that would be due to lack of access to the healthcare market, but access to a market is one of its defining characteristics. So, it isn't that difficult to see how our healthcare market was killing people.
The only difference between having insurance you can't afford to use and no insurance at all is a monthly bill. Saying that lack of health insurance was "killing people" is disingenuous at best.
But isn't that monthly bill tantamount to a price on life? (if the person is extremely sick and cannot afford insurance).
Hey I was trying to give you a break by attributing some sort of philosophical system, albeit how faulty, behind your lack of ordinary empathy for folks without health care.
if you want me to pay for someone else's healthcare then why not bill me (tax me) instead of 2,000 pages of legislation? Obviously Obamacare is not about getting healthcare to the poor. There are far less infringing ways to do that. I would of preferred legislation that reduced healthcare costs as a means to help the less fortunate get healthcare. Obamacare does not make any attempt to do this and achieves the opposite by taxing healthcare providers. Also you weren't trying to give me a break. You were trying to make an assumption about me.
No it didn't. This is true, given the medical device tax went into effect in 2013. Perhaps you don't know anything about the medical industry in the US,, but hospital cost have been going up faster than inflation for the past several decades. Taken alone? Yes. But ACA isn't a single tax with no other effects. You would have to be really, really ignorant or have a pretty transparent agenda to conclude something like that. Difficult to do at the state level because what one state does affects other states. If MA has no pre-existing conditions and I live in CT and get cancer, what happens if I just move to MA? It inflates the cost of health care there because there are factors influencing it outside of the system.
I get your point. If you look at what Obamacare is going to cost, it would have been cheaper to simply buy a policy for each uninsured person. In fact, in many ways, this would have been preferable.
So you're saying it would be cheaper to buy all the uninsured people a full policy than to just subsidize part of a policy for them? Did you really think this through?
U.S. GDP Dropped 1% In The First Quarter 2014, Down From First Estimate Companies don't raise costs for impending taxes? So Obamacare doesn't reduce healthcare costs? So Obamacare does reduce healthcare costs?
That is a annual pace. US GDP dropped at a 1% rate for 1 quarter. Thus, GDP dropped by approx 0.25%. You really only had to read the first 2 sentences of your own link to know that. Not necessarily - especially not with sales taxes. If sales tax goes up next year, companies don't start charging more now. The medical device tax and the insurance tax - the two primary taxes in Obamacare - function like sales taxes. There's no reason to think a company would raise the price unnecessarily earlier and then lower it the following year and counter it with the tax add-on. That's still TBD. But nothing in the article suggests that - this is another one of those conclusions born of ignorance or a blatant agenda. How on earth do you conclude that if costs were rising higher than inflation before Obamacare and after Obamacare, that it does or doesn't reduce costs? Maybe they were going up by 15% before and 5% after - both still above inflation. Or maybe it was vice-versa and Obamacare raised costs. And, of course, none of Obamacare's theoretical cost reductions (higher volume, experimental changes in billing, preventive care, etc) had taken effect in 2012, so why you'd even try to make any conclusions about that is beyond me - except, of course, going back to agenda or ignorance. See above.
Same could be said about everything he argued for - it was all about voluntarily living by his teachings and never by force of government. Do you feel that way, say, about abortion? That the goal should be to encourage people not to have them instead of forcing it by decree of law?
Well yeah. Amending the Medicare Act to your date of birth would have solved these problems and of course been much simpler. The Act was a beast due to the need to pacify the insurance companies and keep all the special interests on board. I don't think there is any proof that it is any more expensive than the simple fact that covering more folks is more expensive than covering fewer people, if you insist on keeping CEO's million dollar stock options, expensive billing and marketing etc. of private insurance companies. Of course you have the usual GOP/conservative about face such as people who could have cared less about folks who could not afford to use their private insurance prior to Obamacare allegedly up in arms for new folks with their Obamacare insurance having problems with co-pays.
So you disagree with the cost figures provided by the CBO. They have adjusted up the cost figures and still stated that they aren't sure that it still isn't too low. That doesn't even consider the additional taxes that are going to be levied upon full implementation of ACA or the costs associated with the increase in premiums that many have experienced in their ongoing policies.
Where did I suggest that? What do the CBO figures say, and what is the cost of buying all the uninsured insurance? And how does that strategy impact the other costs/benefits of the legislation?
The CBO came out a few weeks ago and stated that they can no longer calculate the costs of ACA. If that is not bothersome, I am not sure what is. A lot of this story was written in 2011 when HHS decided to scrap that CLASS program, which was supposed to save $86 billion. With that, almost half of the savings of the ACA went out the window. With providing health insurance, at least the CBO could calculate the costs. I like that a lot better than an incalculable amount. Were there other benefits? Sure...like with pre-existing conditions. But, that isn't free...and most people are paying a lot more for their insurance now than they were before. I got lucky...mine only went up by 10%. I know a lot of small firms that have scrapped their health plan entirely. Now those employees have to try to find coverage on their own, and it will be expensive. Refgal's kids are in college. They went through the ACA website to try to get a policy they can afford. Let's just say that it is a piece of crap. Between the two of them, they saved $2.50 per month from what they found using eHealthInsurance. The difference is that the coverage they found on the ACA website wasn't nearly as good as the coverage they found elsewhere.
I didn't see that - but how do you conclude from that that buying insurance for all the uninsured is cheaper than Obamacare? I presume you have no idea how much it costs to insure all the uninsured, and now you're telling me you also have no idea how much Obamacare costs. I want to know what data you used to conclude this: If you look at what Obamacare is going to cost, it would have been cheaper to simply buy a policy for each uninsured person. Sure - there are plenty of other benefits. For example, standardized policies to make it easier to compare plans - a key piece of any "free market" solution. Subsidies for people who have insurance but it was a huge financial burden. Opportunities to escape job lock. Experiments to cut costs through various innovations. On and on and on. But let's explore your "cheaper to buy all the uninsured some insurance". What happens in your scenario, when I lose my coverage (job loss or whatever). Do I now get free insurance too? Or am I left out in the cold? What if I can no longer afford it? Or just choose not to buy it? I'm curious how you are pricing your claim. I'm not sure the relevance here. People *should* be using EHealthInsurance - it's a fantastic site. If Refgal's kids aren't eligible for subsidies, there's no reason to use the ACA website. And eventually, EHI will be able to handle subsidies as well.
