Official 2013 Budget/Debt Limit/Obamacare Crisis Thread

Calling out your Rice education is civil.

 

Glad to see senate Dems standing up to the crazy!

 

lol

lol


lol


lol


lol

if you only read and trust those that explains a lot

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/09/all-the-ways-to-get-out-of-obamacare/280075/

All the Ways to Get Out of Obamacare

It turns out there is an enormous array of exemptions to the individual mandate.

GARANCE FRANKE-RUTASEP 27 2013, 4:57 PM ET


(John Gress/Reuters)
Have you been unable to pay a medical bill in the last two calendar years?

Did you get a shut-off notice from a utility company?

Did you experience substantial property damage from fire, flooding, or other natural or man-made disaster?

Did you have to shell out unexpectedly on travel to go take care of your elderly mom, who got sick?

Has your mortgage company moved to foreclose against you?

If you can answer yes to any one of these questions in 2014 and do not have health insurance for at least nine months of that year, then you may be eligible for an exemption from the fee for remaining uninsured under the individual mandate.

Many Republicans in Congress are calling on the Obama administration to delay the imposition of the individual mandate to carry health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, exempting individuals in the same way large employers are being exempted from penalties for not providing insurance for one more year while kinks in the system are worked out. And yet if you look at the fee exemptions already available to individuals, it's clear that the individual mandate system is full of loopholes for people experiencing hardships and irregularities in their lives. So full, in fact, it seems to have accounted for a broad sweep of the possible things that might actually make it hard for someone to pay the fee for staying uninsured.

To begin with, no one will have to pay a fee for remaining uninsured until 2015, when they file their 2014 taxes. At that point the fee for skipping insurance will be fairly small — $95, or 1 percent of your income, whichever is higher. While that number could in theory climb sharply with income, it's also the case that almost everyone with a higher income will either be employed full-time and getting employer-sponsored insurance — and so won't need to pay a fee — or else will be well-to-do enough that they could buy, at a minimum, a rock-bottom catastrophic care package through the exchanges without much hardship. And if they aren't that well off, well, that's where the exchanges' subsidies and tax credits to encourage people to buy insurance come in. These will be offered as monthly discounts against insurance premiums during 2014, rather than lump-sum after the fact rebates in 2015, though some people could still get a rebate — or have to pay a fee — in 2015 if they or the system calculated an incorrect level of tax credit for whatever their income for the year winds up being.

The penalty for remaining uninsured is set to climb rather precipitously by 2016 (as filed in 2017), at which point it will be $695, or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is higher.

But the exemptions list so far is fairly extensive. Here are the regular exemptions, according to Healthcare.gov:

And here are the 12 "hardship" exemptions, which you can apply for through the marketplace when the bad thing happens to you:

The fine-print here is kind of extraordinary.

What this means, for example, is that people who had major medical expenses from being under-insured pre-Obamacare that they're not able to pay off this year or next can apply for exemption from the individual mandate fee in 2015 if they choose to remain uninsured next year — though one might image those people especially might want to seek out health insurance that gets them adequately covered.

It also means that everyone who's low-income enough to qualify for the Medicaid expansion under the ACA but lives in one of the red states that's saying no to it won't have to pay a fee for staying uninsured, so long as they apply and get accepted under the federal rule but rejected by their local Medicaid administrators. The online Healthcare.gov application system is set up to approve people who are eligible under federal law, and forward their applications to local authorities to be rejected in states that have rejected the Medicaid expansion, so that the rejection comes from the local government run by Republicans, not from the feds.

And strapped sandwich generation people who have to pay a lot out of pocket to take care of their elderly relatives, well, they can skip on health insurance too if they need to, without being penalized, so long as their exemption is approved. That's kind of a big deal, if you suddenly have to spend thousands on taking care of an elderly relative and need to skimp somewhere on yourself.

All of these exemptions, of course, depend on authorities accepting the applications. But if they're anything like the hardship deferment options built into federal student loan programs, they could be a godsend for people who are facing tough times and can't plug into the new exchanges for a variety of reasons.

 

Wait - the exemptions are intended to work that way. The goal is to make insurance affordable by getting those who can afford it to get it. The mandate is not there to penalize poor people who can't afford health care, so they aren't subject to the penalty. That was the exact intent.

 

So it's basically giving free stuff to the poor? And tax those who can pay for it? At least call it what it is.

 

What is the poor getting for free by not paying the mandate penalty? It's insurance for those who can afford it, and no insurance for that can't.

And let's keep in mind that your proposed solution was to give a tax subsidy to the wealthy for getting health insurance and nothing to the poor if they get health insurance. So let's call your plan what it is: a huge giveaway to the wealthy.

 

I wouldn't call zero hedge far right in the least bit.

A site for gold bugs, sure, but not far right.

also, I would disagree about some of those websites regarding legitimacy.

Carry on as we watch Congress continue to lose the faith of the people they are supposed to represent

 

No it's not giving away insurance. They are simply exempt from the penalty and exempt from having to get insurance. They won't have insurance. It will still be the same as before.

 

There are too many exemptions to make it effective imo. Further, if what you say was the point of the program then I just don't understand the economic and health benefits of it.

 

who pays for all those deadbeat adults who will now be covered on their parents plans up to age 26? When I was 22 I had to find a way...

 

I do not fear a gov't shutdown.

I fear a gov't so entrenched in the lives of it's citizens that they fear it's partial closure.

I fear a gov't that over spends by $16 TRILLION and asks for more credit so it can be "responsible".

I fear a population who looks to what the gov't will do for them instead of looking to what God will allow them to do for themselves and their neighbors.

I fear a media who allows their biases to obscure their obligation to truth.

I do not fear a gov't shutdown.

-author unknown

 

Leadership.

Wonder where the president was over the weekend as the government neared shutdown?



playing golf, of course.

http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/09/30/shutdown-crisis-unfolds-obama-sets-personal-golf-record

 

It seems to me the Republicans' message is: Obamacare is going to screw this country, so let's try to screw it up first before that happens.

 

We already do that. They're called ER visits.

The ACA is an attempt to shift those health care costs into a more cost effective method of health care delivery for the poor and middle class.

But from what I gather, you support our current system of free ER care for the poor that you end up paying for.

 

The parents pay for it, if they want their kids on their insurance. It's not like kids are covered on health insurance for free. Do you even know the basics of health insurance?

 

So says the person who promoted a health care alternative that balloons the deficit while opposing the one that is deficit neutral.

 

exactly. The parents. Personal accountability means nothing anymore.

Gotta wrap up those youth votes for the dims. They gotta find a way since the whole jobs thing isn't working.

 

bwaaaahahahaha surely you're not that naive.

 

So now you're opposed to allowing parents to decide what's best for their children? Fascinating.