CNN Poll: 3 of 4 Americans Say Stimulus Money Wasted

Let's see.. Tax cuts don't work for the rich because they just save it.

So, if we can't guarantee 90% of Americans would spend their tax cut, we should never cut their taxes as well.

 

Still clinging to Dear Leader's "jobs saved" statistic? How do you measure a "job saved" by the way?

 

A job saved is one that would not have been funded without stimulus money.

 

Pretty easily. Jobs saved are those like thousands of teachers that would have been let go, had not stimulus money paid for their jobs.

 

CBO is not from Obama - it's non-partisan.

 

The same CBO that reported cost savings from Obamacare? ROFL.

The CBO is not per se partisan, just strongly biased in favor of the client. They're just like investment bankers: they start with the number the client wants to arrive at and then change things around until they get there. Ever heard of the phrase "garbage in, garbage out"? When the CBO is required to make unrealistic assumptions, the estimates turn into a joke.

 

The CBO has come up with figures that both support and disagree with Dems plans, and it has come up with figures that both support and disagree with GOP proposals all in the last 2 years.

The client is congress. And you analysis is unsubstantiated. There are plenty of conservatives who have praised the CBO or used it's figures to justify their positions under a Dem controlled congress.

First you attack the stat as coming from Obama - which clearly shows you don't know very much my friend. Try learning some facts here - look into the matter, and then post please.

Thanks.

 

I can actually agree with this as well. I would much rather have seen that money go into public works projects to build things that everybody will use. Then the people that work on those projects will pay taxes on those earnings.

Imagine that.

 

Yes that's correct. Did you notice the latest health care cost real numbers? The cost of health care has already gone down, in real numbers.

 

The problem with tax cuts giving money to the rich is they will go invest it in factories in china where they can pay them 1/20 of what they get here and increase their margins.

 

Is that so?


Dems retreat on health care cost pitch

Big Employers Estimate Health-Care Costs Will Rise 8.9% in 2011

All indications from people who have received insurance cost estimates for the next year from their employers are that rates are skyrocketing. The only people who are coming out ahead are olds. It costs 100x as much to insure a 55 year old as a 25 year old, yet the law mandates that the 55 year old can only be charged twice as much. So now, after getting to pay low, actuarially correct rates when they were young, the same baby boomers who wrecked the economy are being massively subsidized by a generation much less able to afford it. And your boy Mr. Hussein let it all happen.

 

twice as much should be 5x as much in the previous post

 

Did you read the article, or just the headline? The reason Dems are retreating on the health care cost pitch is not because it is false or turning out to be wrong. The reason is because it isn't having the political impact that they'd like. (Possibly due to the large number of people such as yourself who they would say are misinformed on the subject.)

You may have read this blog post, but it doesn't say anything about what the costs were last year. It does link to another blog post which says:[rquoter]Medical costs will grow by an estimated 9% in 2011, down from 9.5% this year.[/rquoter]
I'm not sure how that squares with FranchiseBlade's claim, but it's certainly not indicative of a failed reform plan.

The links you posted don't back this at all. Do you have any evidence for these assertions?

 

The uninformed people like me and Obama's medicare actuaries?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-04-22-health-care-costs_N.htm

Sorry that your Messiah lied to pass his crappy bill.

Did you even read the post you're holding out as evidence? Last year they also underestimated the increase in cost. And premiums are going up, up, up:

42% of employers surveyed say they’ll increase employee contributions, 41% will boost deductibles and co-pays and 26% will increase prescription-drug cost-sharing.


But that ignores the larger point, that if costs are still growing by estimated 9% per year (and actual will be higher than estimated), Obamacare failed. If healthcare was too expensive already, maintaining the same cost growth rate is a joke of a reform. Real reform would have actually reduced costs, or at least reduced the rate of growth so much that after inflation, they could be reduced in real terms. The fact is, any reform had to make tradeoffs between costs, quality, and access. Obama chose to shift all tradeoffs towards access. The majority will see more expensive, lower quality care in the name of increased "access." The whole reform started on a faulty premise. There was no healthcare "crisis." Healthcare was a bit expensive, but the vast majority were happy with how it was functioning.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/24/most-happy-with-health-care-but-some-struggling-with-costs/

If you want to see what a "crisis" looks like, look here:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/141512/Congress-Ranks-Last-Confidence-Institutions.aspx

11% approve of Congress thanks mostly to this turd of a bill.

Common knowledge bro. If you don't know what the bill requires or haven't read any of the long list of articles about skyrocketing premiums, how can I have an informed discussion with you? Maybe you should do some research, starting with a google of "community rating." And apparently I was still wrong on the ratio, it changed several times as the bill was moving through Congress, and ended up at 3:1.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=10233582

This is one of the more conservative estimates and even it sees premiums for young people going up by 17% to subsidize olds. The people hit the hardest by the recession are going to subsidize the people who caused it. I'm not sure how anyone could support that, unless they were an old person with no sense of ethics. I know that I've lost half my salary since the recession started (barely even making 6 figs now), and my career track has been permanently altered. I'll never enjoy the lifestyle/wealth that someone with my credentials from the prior generations did. The people coming out of school right now are much, much worse off now, scratching and clawing for unpaid internships and 30k/yr entry level jobs, but mostly ending up unemployed or at starbucks.

The baby boomers need to die, and die quickly, yet instead we're going to rob from the next generation to unnaturally prolong their lifespans with state of the art health care? That's absurd. I will personally support my own parents because they are the complete antithesis of typical baby boomers, but I resent supporting the rest of that sorry lot through increased insurance premiums and higher taxes. If they wanted that level of social services, they should have funded it during their working years. I'm going to bank as much as I can in the next 10 years (which won't be nearly as much thanks to Obama), then move to Aussie or Panama.

 

Did you think I was backing up FranchiseBlade's comment? Did you think I was disagreeing with you and pimping the health care reform? Did you notice that I said "they would say are misinformed on the subject"? Calm down a little and respond to the actual post instead of your assumptions of what the post says, please.

Hmm... article says that health care costs will be essentially unchanged (higher by 0.9% in this decade but possibly lower thereafter). Is that your belief, that the reform will have little effect on cost?

Of course I read it. Does an underestimation last year mean this year will be underestimated? Not really. They could just as easily have learned from what was wrong last year as they could repeat it. And the question is about how the health care reform affects costs. If costs were already skyrocketing before, then the fact that they are still going up doesn't tell us anything about the reform's effects. And as I said before, I'm not sure how FranchiseBlade's claim about real dollars squares with that data.

Which is it? Healthcare was too expensive already or there was no healthcare crisis? I'd agree with you that the reform failed to significantly curb costs, but can the blame for that not be spread around? I seem to recall the measures Democrats wanted to use to cut costs (e.g. the public option) were the ones fought so vociferously by Republicans.

And again, even your own evidence doesn't show that the majority will see more expensive care in the name of access.

From that link:[rquoter]79 percent say the system is in need of reform[/rquoter]

Thanks "mostly" due to that bill? Really? The fact that they got a 12% the year before the bill was brought up indicates that maybe that's an exaggeration.

I was actually talking about the implication that health care reform was causing these things to happen. If you are just saying that the reform didn't do enough to prevent it, then that's different.

Do you know how much money in tax credits people wil get to offset these costs? Do you know how much income you need to receive to qualify? Seems to me the hardest hit by the recession are the people most likely to qualify for tax credits to offset cost increases.

I'll leave you to your issues except to say that I imagine that when we are elderly and the young folks are looking at us as leaches I'm guessing our society will still be working to make our lives better even at some cost to them. I've got no problem giving up a little now when I don't really need it to benefit others who need it more.

 

Hey JC, most of the health care reform hasn't even gone into effect - you realize that?

Further more, you can't just look at how the costs are changing in one year. Because costs would go up anyway - whether it would be more or less is the real question.

 

An outstanding point.

The real effect of the healthcare bill will not be measurable in any meaningful way for a decade or so.

Oh, and JC...you lose any credibility your argument had when you start with snarky comments like "Your Messiah lied," etc etc.

 

What a pathetic bitter miserable person you must be.

And apparently ignorant as well. A bit expensive? It's bad enough you have a terrible habit of making wide sweeping, infantile generalizations, but then they are in regards to something you clearly have no clue about.

Aren't you the same guy everyone laughs at in the GARM since you seem to think you're some sort of stats guru?

 

How often do government programs come in under government estimates? Reform was supposed to reduce costs, instead these very early estimates are already stating that costs are going up. That should be a massive red flag since we're dealing with two things (government and health care) that almost always cost much more than projected. If history is any indication, reform will increase costs far more than the 0.9% currently indicated.

It tells us that the reform failed in its stated goal of reducing costs. Reducing costs means a negative growth rate. Instead, the growth rate will probably accelerate once the reform is fully implemented. I don't think you're familiar with what it does, particularly wrt "qualified plans." People are going to be forced to buy insurance plans with coverage types they neither need nor want because those will be the only types of plans offered. All of that extra coverage isn't free. Why do you think the industry favors this reform? I suggest you take a look at Table 1 here:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/26200.html

The primary beneficiaries of this plan with relation to income redistribution are those in the 10th to 30th percentile income (since 0-10th gets Medicare). The 30th to 50th percentile will also get a slight redistribution, but this will be more than offset by having to purchase unwanted, more expensive "qualified plans." There's room to argue that percentiles 30-40 might get enough redistribution to offset this, but over 40 definitely won't. So the winners in all this are the insurance industry and those in the 10th to 30th income percentiles. The losers are the vast majority of American people (40th to 100th percentiles), who will lose out economically and also in terms of quality as resources are strained.

False dichotomy. There are a lot of things people think are too expensive. That doesn't mean there was a crisis. Some things just cost more than we'd like. This reminds me of something ebay did. Because buyers thought shipping was too expensive, ebay instituted maximum shipping charges for items. In many cases these maximum charges are less than the actual cost of shipping. Of course, item prices went up to compensate. The catch is that because ebay takes a cut of the item price but not of shipping, its total profit on each transaction increased. With the middleman taking a bigger cut, both the buyers and sellers ended up worse off. That's all this healthcare reform does: it redistributes money and creates deadweight loss. And to respond to your later contention, I do believe this clearly shows that the majority are going to pay more.

Learn to read a graph bro. They were at 17% down to 11%. And my main point on that is that the public's relationship with congress is what a real crisis looks like. That HCR was the cause of even more disapproval is merely an aside. Even 17% congressional approval is a clear crisis of an elected government ignoring the will of the people.

Check the data. In aggregate, most people currently middle or upper class are going to come out behind on this. Your contention that people hardest hit by the recession will be offset by tax increases ignores the reality of the situation for young people. For the smart ones who bought catastrophic coverage and nothing else, costs are going way up. Now they have to either pay a fine (and receive nothing for it), or purchase overbroad, unneeded coverage that is overpriced even for unneeded coverage because it has a built in subsidy for old people. Who knows if low cost catastrophic plans will even be available anymore. Check out the recent news stories, colleges are claiming that HCR will keep them from offering low cost student plans like they currently do. And all indications are that this reform is exacerbating the recession, making it even harder for young people to begin careers.

I don't really feel sorry for a group that consistently lived beyond its means and allowed institutions to persist that have turned the greatest country the world has ever seen into a joke. They are the first generation in American history to leave the country in a worse state than they received it in. I used to work in law and it's a perfect microcosm of what happened to America. When the boomers started their careers, the prior generation helped them along, gradually shifting their business over until it was time to retire and let the boomers make partner. There was a great deal of loyalty from both sides, and associates would be kept on in lean times with the understanding that they would work hard when business was booming. And for the most part the hours they worked were high but reasonable.

Instead of extending the same courtesy to the next generation, boomers have offshored much of the work that used to be done by young associates to India. They have also increased leverage drastically, meaning the chances of an associate in a large firm making partner are almost 0%. Instead of mentoring associates, shifting clients to them, and retiring at a reasonable age, they're trying to make as much as they can for as long as they can. These days a partner is more likely to try to steal a client the associate brought in than give the associate one of his own. The goal now is to keep associates limited to as narrow of an area as possible so that they can't compete with partners for business (even though before, there wasn't even much competition, just a passing of the torch). Associates are expected to work harder than ever, billing probably 500 more hours per year than what boomers did when they were associates.

So pardon me if I don't care about a group that bought houses it couldn't afford, enjoyed very low tax rates during its peak earning years, and now wants free health care at our expense. I'm supposed to feel sorry for guys who gutted a firm while they were making $800k/yr, ruining the careers of countless attorneys (since a layoff makes you unemployable in this industry)? I only survived because I saw it coming and got out in advance, but some I know have been unemployed for 1.5 years or more. And my career track is totally different now. I'll be lucky to even hit $200k again, much less the $500k-1mm I'd have made just by virtue of being born a generation earlier.

Things like this have happened in industry after industry, where national prosperity was sacrificed to finance incremental short term consumption. I just speak of law because I know it firsthand, but you see the same things in manufacturing and any number of white collar corporate jobs. Boomers need to die, and die quickly (not all of them, just most of them). My cohort is complicit too of course. Generation Y is full of r****ds who voted their own economic destruction because gay marriage and abortion are "cool," as if trivial issues like those are going to impact most of them in their day to day lives.

 

Who are you exactly to decide who should die and when? If we have the medicines and health care techniques for people to live longer, healthier lives, who are you to decide that we should not do that?

As a Catholic, I believe that God decides when it is somebody's time, not some random guy with an internet handle and a subscription to cheap political blogs.

Oh, and my mother was born during the baby boom, so screw you for wanting her to die and die quickly.

I would be willing to bet that you wouldn't be so cavalier in conversations with people in person.

Assclown.