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Thread: It's time for national healthcare - Page 166







Post#4126 at 08-06-2013 11:13 AM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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Privatizing Medicare is not the answer, it's part of the problem.

"The deterioration of the ACA began within the first year when the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) started issuing waivers to exempt companies and unions from provisions required by the ACA. In the first year, so many requests for exemptions were filed that the DHHS created an expedited waiver process, and 1,200 waivers were granted. These included waivers for businesses like McDonalds to continue providing very low benefit health plans instead of the more comprehensive insurance mandated in the ACA."

A Choice: Medicare For All, Or No Medicare At All

The Medicare program just reached its 48th birthday. Events were held in 27 cities across the nation to celebrate, but we will have to do more if we hope to preserve this national treasure. The very real attacks on Medicare from both Democrats and Republicans raise concern about its future survival and the direction that our healthcare system is going in the United States.

As outlined in Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity,” the Republicans support turning Medicare into a voucher program which would provide funds for seniors to purchase private insurance. This would change Medicare from a defined benefit program in which particular services are covered to a premium support program in which one would only get the services they could afford. Similarly, the Democrats led by Obama have expressed support for cutting Medicare in response to the manufactured fiscal crisis. Little known is that last September, Jonathan Gruber, a White House health adviser, announced at the National Press Club the intent to eventually put Medicare into the state health insurance exchanges in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This would similarly privatize and dismantle Medicare.


The ACA, which became law in 2010, is further privatizing health care and adding more bureaucracy – through managing the new exchanges, providing subsidies and enforcing both the mandate to purchase insurance and the new regulations – to our already overly complicated system. All of this is increasing health care spending rather than bringing it under control. Health spending is estimated to be $3.1 trillion in 2014 which is around 18 percent of GDP. Compared to the average industrialized nation, the US spends 2.5 times more per person each year on health care.
Amazing how big business gets a pass.

And recently, the Obama administration announced that the mandate for large employers to provide health insurance or pay a penalty would be delayed a year and not take effect until after the midterm elections. This removes another pillar of the Affordable Care Act.

Conclusion

"We have no more excuses to delay moving immediately to a Medicare for All system. It’s time to end the failed experiment of market-based health care and join the civilized world. It’s time to preserve and protect our national treasure, Medicare, and expand it immediately to everyone living in the United States." ...... Margaret Flowers
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#4127 at 08-06-2013 01:24 PM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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"Some of America's leading news analysts are beginning to recognize the fallacy of the "free market." Said Ted Koppel, "We are privatizing ourselves into one disaster after another." Fareed Zakaria admitted, "I am a big fan of the free market...But precisely because it is so powerful, in places where it doesn't work well, it can cause huge distortions." They're right. A little analysis reveals that privatization doesn't seem to work in any of the areas vital to the American public."

8 Ways Privatization Has Brought Pain and Misery to American Life


Health Care


Our private health care system is by far the most expensive system in the developed world. Forty-two percent of sick Americansskipped doctor's visits and/or medication purchases in 2011 because of excessive costs. The price of common surgeries is anywhere from three to ten times higher in the U.S. than in Great Britain, Canada, France, or Germany. Some of the documented tales: a $15,000 charge for lab tests for which a Medicare patient would have paid a few hundred dollars; an $8,000 special stress test for which Medicare would have paid $554; and a $60,000 gall bladder operation, which was covered for $2,000 under a private policy.

As the examples begin to make clear, Medicare is more cost-effective. According to the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, Medicare administrative costs are about one-third that of private health insurance. More importantly, our ageing population has been staying healthy. While as a nation we have a shorter life expectancy than almost all other developed countries, Americans covered by Medicare INCREASED their life expectancy by 3.5 years from the 1960s to the turn of the century.

A look at other privatizations that aren't working in the best interests of Americans:

http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-u...ife?paging=off



Isn't it time we stood up to the profits over people system?
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#4128 at 08-06-2013 02:57 PM by radind [at Alabama joined Sep 2009 #posts 1,595]
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Quote Originally Posted by Deb C View Post
"Some of America's leading news analysts are beginning to recognize the fallacy of the "free market." Said Ted Koppel, "We are privatizing ourselves into one disaster after another." Fareed Zakaria admitted, "I am a big fan of the free market...But precisely because it is so powerful, in places where it doesn't work well, it can cause huge distortions." They're right. A little analysis reveals that privatization doesn't seem to work in any of the areas vital to the American public."

8 Ways Privatization Has Brought Pain and Misery to American Life


Health Care



A look at other privatizations that aren't working in the best interests of Americans:

http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-u...ife?paging=off



Isn't it time we stood up to the profits over people system?
The standard republican line that 'free enterprise solves all problems' clearly does not work for the medical industry. There is an inherent imbalance of power when anyone seeks medical help and ( almost) no parent with a sick child goes shopping for the 'low bidder'. We do need a real health care system, but I am concerned that the ACA has many issues also. I am ready for a "BRAC" commission on health care because Congress seems incapable of dealing with complex problems.







Post#4129 at 08-06-2013 03:52 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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Quote Originally Posted by Deb C View Post
Privatizing Medicare is not the answer, it's part of the problem.

"The deterioration of the ACA began within the first year when the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) started issuing waivers to exempt companies and unions from provisions required by the ACA. In the first year, so many requests for exemptions were filed that the DHHS created an expedited waiver process, and 1,200 waivers were granted. These included waivers for businesses like McDonalds to continue providing very low benefit health plans instead of the more comprehensive insurance mandated in the ACA."

A Choice: Medicare For All, Or No Medicare At All


Amazing how big business gets a pass.



Conclusion

"We have no more excuses to delay moving immediately to a Medicare for All system. It’s time to end the failed experiment of market-based health care and join the civilized world. It’s time to preserve and protect our national treasure, Medicare, and expand it immediately to everyone living in the United States." ...... Margaret Flowers
The 1200 businesses getting a 1-year exemption represents 4 million employees, less than 3% of the population. The delay is primarily for logistical reasons centered around the federal govt having to set up more exchanges because GOP-led states are refusing to do so (who could have imagined that GOP shitbags would deny health care coverage to their constituents? ). The delay helps the long-term viability/sustainability of the biggest overall of our health system since Medicare enactment.

Here is the eventual distribution of health insurance coverage by type with and without Obamacare -





Now most people would note the huge decrease in the uninsured (leaving mostly illegal immigrants and a relatively small group that will decide to pay the ACA penalty instead), but that has no value at all to Debs because some of those previously uninsured will now be subject to the evil insurance companies - something that 2/3's of us have 'enjoyed' for some time (but note, a number of those joining us will be subsidized and we will all now enjoy having no more exclusions for pre-existing condition.and the 80-85% medical loss ratio that limits the insurance companies profits and CEO salaries).

But even if Debs discounts the reduction in people with no insurance, the ACA also will actually increase the number of people on Medicaid which is basically Medicare for the most vulnerable of us - hard to imagine Debs or any Progressive not being happy about that!. Essentially, Obamacare does more than anything else to move the nation towards "Medicare for All" that Deb pines for. Obamacare will actually do more to meet that objective than all the gum flappin Debs and her various links have ever done (i.e. zero) or will likely achieve in the next two decades.

The issue Debs rails about is everything on the pie chart except for the Medicare and soon-to-be-ACA-expanded Medicaid. So why does she focus so much on the smallest piece, Obamacare??? Can't the argument for an alternative to commercial insurers be done without the vitriol against not only the smallest piece but the piece that has moved us farther toward the alternative than anything since Medicare was established? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Last edited by playwrite; 08-06-2013 at 04:08 PM.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#4130 at 08-06-2013 04:07 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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Quote Originally Posted by Deb C View Post
"Some of America's leading news analysts are beginning to recognize the fallacy of the "free market." Said Ted Koppel, "We are privatizing ourselves into one disaster after another." Fareed Zakaria admitted, "I am a big fan of the free market...But precisely because it is so powerful, in places where it doesn't work well, it can cause huge distortions." They're right. A little analysis reveals that privatization doesn't seem to work in any of the areas vital to the American public."

8 Ways Privatization Has Brought Pain and Misery to American Life


Health Care



A look at other privatizations that aren't working in the best interests of Americans:

http://www.alternet.org/hard-times-u...ife?paging=off



Isn't it time we stood up to the profits over people system?
Now this is better!

Not an attack on what Obama and the Dems were able to achieve in a highly polarized political environment where one side (the GOP, in case you were wondering) has completely lost its mind. And yet it gets to the real issue of private vs public capacity to deliver the best health care to the nation's population.

There is no doubt that a public approach is better. The question is how to make it happen. It is a political strategy/tactical discussion.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#4131 at 08-07-2013 02:39 PM by Eric the Green [at San Jose CA joined Jul 2001 #posts 22,504]
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Quote Originally Posted by The Rani View Post
Sounding the themes that still drive him every day, Clinton wraps up our meeting with a message, reminding me that "the way we consume food and what we consume" are driving the unsustainable level of health care spending in America. To truly change the conditions that lead to bad habits and poor health, he warns, "we have to demand it by changing the way we live. You have to make a conscious decision to change for your own well-being, and that of your family and your country."
Yes indeed. We need concerted movements for this, which I myself contribute to. Sometimes I wish he had been as careful about economic regulation (e.g. repeal of Glass-Steagall) as he is about regulating his diet. And I wish we had started on health care reform when he tried to start it, which unfortunately the Republicans resisted him just as they resist Obama, and make the medicare for all that we need, impossible to achieve today.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive,

Eric A. Meece







Post#4132 at 08-13-2013 04:30 PM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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Health plan sponsors and carriers allowed to set NO LIMITS on out-of-pocket costs until 2015 (unless they continue to complain, at which time limits may never be imposed).

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/us...?emc=eta1&_r=0
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#4133 at 08-13-2013 05:02 PM by Seattleblue [at joined Aug 2009 #posts 562]
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This whole health insurance scam is just funny. But it does illustrate the central fallacy of control freaks and the dumb Clovers who worship them.

In this case the leftist "trope" is that if it weren't for greed, everyone could have <insert whatever>. Therefore, all we need to do is to create a law (which is backed by violence) and force people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. That is the one single solution that drives the entire "left" in the US. That's why the Republican Party and "conservatives" are also "leftists". We have no right wing national party to speak of. Assuming you could identify what right and left wing mean in today's world.

The problem is that we are arriving at a liminal point for this leftist trope. When you move from the bounds of ruling people's lives with money to ruling their lives by direct fiat, things change. This health insurance scheme goes too far because it openly demands people obey, rather then enticing or hiding the coercion as they have done up to this point. Therefore, it will collapse.

You can pass all the laws that you want. You can pound your fist on the table and scream for people to obey. But as the Romans finally found out, at some point it is just easier to ignore the shrieks from the imperial capital and go your own way.

They are going to make this process very easy if they keep going with the NSA-Warfare-Welfare state. They may think they have control, but things fall apart quickly when people stop playing your game.







Post#4134 at 08-15-2013 12:31 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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http://www.local986.org/news.php

When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat...

James P. Hoffa
General President
International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Joseph Hansen
International President
UFCW


D. Taylor
President
UNITE-HERE


Moron union thugs. WE TOLD YOU SO! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Quote Originally Posted by Deb C View Post
Health plan sponsors and carriers allowed to set NO LIMITS on out-of-pocket costs until 2015 (unless they continue to complain, at which time limits may never be imposed).

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/us...?emc=eta1&_r=0
-Actually, the reason Obama did that was that the alternative would be to raise premiums, which of course, would be the electoral kiss of death for any D associated with Obamacare. Obama is simply trying to put off the inevitable day of reckoning for is polices.







Post#4135 at 08-15-2013 01:16 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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Assume that the ACA is launched (almost a certainty) and it produces positive results (highly likely). Compare that to the real issues at stake here, and see if the ACA is actually a solution or a bandaid. We'll still need more ... much more.

Quote Originally Posted by Tina Rosenburg in the August 13th NY Times, and included for discussion purposes only
The Cure for the $1,000 Toothbrush

Here is a basic fact of health care in the United States: Doctors and hospitals know what they charge, but patients don’t know what they pay. As in any market, when one side has no information, that side loses: price secrecy is a major reason medical bills are so high. In my previous column, I wrote about the effect of this lack of transparency on the bills patients pay out of pocket.

We know about these bills, which hit us directly. What most people don’t know, because the costs are hidden, is that the same imbalance exists with insurance. The employers and employees who buy health coverage have delegated vigilance over health care costs to insurers — but insurers, for the most part, have gone AWOL.

Consider the story of Texas811, a company with about 200 employees based in Dallas. (They mark utility lines so people don’t damage them when they dig.)

In January 2010, the company was enrolled in a Blue Cross P.P.O., or preferred provider organization. That month, Blue Cross told Texas811 that it was planning to raise the company’s premiums by 75 percent. That was extreme. But health insurance premiums are rising three times as fast as wages, doubling since 2002. “We freaked out,” said Lee Marrs, the company’s president. They negotiated. Blue Cross agreed to lower the increase to 68 percent. “At that point it was go out of business, drop health coverage, or try something new,” Marrs said.

They tried something new.

What Texas811 did first was drop Blue Cross and its P.P.O. and become self-insured. That means that the company itself paid claims up to a certain amount, and bought an insurance policy that kicked in after that. This isn’t revolutionary – self-insurance is how it’s done for about a third of the insured work force. After one unsatisfactory year, Texas811 signed up with GPA, a Dallas-based company that administers claims for about 230 workplaces like municipalities, school districts, retail businesses.

The difference was astounding.

Under Blue Cross’s P.P.O., the company had been paying $10,000 per visit for dialysis patients. Now it was paying $975. Other costs dropped commensurately. After the first year, the company lowered premiums by 3 percent and increased coverage, providing free vision, dental and life insurance to all its employees, including part-timers. “We saved so much money we were able to hire a third-party contractor to establish a medical clinic in our office,” said Marrs. “We provide a free primary care physician in our office to all employees and their dependents.”

What Texas811 did was become part of a nascent movement away from the P.P.O. model, one that negotiates prices up from the hospital’s cost or the lower Medicare price rather than down from the hospital’s higher one.

Eighty percent of America’s insured — some 200 million people — are insured through P.P.O.’s. A P.PO. assembles a network of health facilities and providers who agree to deliver care at a negotiated discount rate. P.P.O.’s were not originally a force for price secrecy, but their role changed as hospital chains began to grow. Between 2007 and 2012, there were 551 acquisitions of hospitals. Chains have merged, and hospitals buy up their competitors and physician groups.

Because they are so large, hospitals now control negotiations with P.P.O.’s. Patients want their own doctors in the network — which means that hospital chains are must-haves for a P.P.O. A study of the health care market in 12 cities found that dominant hospital chains could get high prices, secrecy clauses and other contract advantages. Insurers don’t argue — they need the P.P.O., and they can simply pass the higher costs along to payers in the form of premium hikes. With some insurance contracts, the more the hospital is paid, the more the insurer makes.

“Even a giant company like General Electric in any given market doesn’t have that market power,” said Kathy Hempstead, senior program officer with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “Provider consolidation is very, very hard to deal with. It gives providers the opportunity to play hardball with purchasers and their agents.”

P.P.O.’s, of course, negotiate discounts — the statement you get from your insurer always highlights how much was saved. Some of those discounts sound impressive: 50 percent off, sometimes more. “But nobody ever asks, ‘discount off what?’” said Mike Dendy, the chief executive of Advanced Medical Pricing Solutions, or AMPS, an Atlanta company that reviews and renegotiates hospital bills.

P.P.O.’s negotiate their discount off the hospital’s chargemaster price. The chargemaster is like a supersonic rack rate. It’s a fantasy figure, set by the hospital alone. These are the $77 gauze pads, the $1,000 toothbrushes, the components that add up to the $200,000 joint replacement.

Compare the chargemaster price with what hospitals pay Medicare — a figure that is around the break-even point. ( A recent study found that a third of community hospitals make a profit at Medicare rates.) Chargemaster prices are almost always at least 300 percent what Medicare pays a hospital, and some are 1,000 percent or 2,000 percent. Suddenly that 50 percent discount doesn’t seem like such a bargain. Fifty percent off a $1,000 toothbrush is a $500 toothbrush.

The lack of transparency with P.P.O.’s continues when the bill comes in. In general, insurance companies don’t ask for the details. They don’t challenge the prices. They just pay. Most corporations would never dream of paying invoices blindly. Yet they never look at the bills that make up their second largest cost category, after labor.

Hospital charges are by law supposed to be “reasonable and customary,” but some P.P.O. contracts have clauses that prohibit arguments about the price. “If the administrator decides to review a bill and finds a double charge for a service that is an error then they can correct that mistake,” Dendy said. (His company is hired by insurers to review some especially large PPO bills.) “But they can’t argue about what was charged for the service, regardless of how ridiculous the charge might be. Of course, they typically don’t look in the first place. Ninety-nine percent of hospital bills are paid without what any rational individual would consider reasonable documentation of the hospital’s charges.”

Hospital executives say the ban on challenging prices is justified. Joe Fifer, the chief executive of the Healthcare Financial Management Association, compared scrutinizing line items to looking at the price of a steering wheel of a car. “It’s the overall price of the procedure that’s important,” he said. “Line-item level review for ‘reasonable and customary’ forgets the forest for the trees.”

Auditing bills isn’t difficult. Medicare does it. (“Funny that the federal government got this right before private industry,” said Dendy.) It began to do automated audits in three states in 2005, and now audits are nationwide. It has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars by catching practices like double billing. And the fear of audits has no doubt reduced Medicare fraud in general.

Seven years ago, GPA, the company hired by Texas811, began offering clients the option of getting out of P.P.O.’s, working instead with ELAP Services, a Philadelphia-area company that, like AMPS, uses a very different method of evaluating the reimbursement for hospital bills. About 100 clients now have made the shift, said Kathy Enochs, GPA’s chief operating officer. ELAP advises plans to pay a hospital its cost, plus a profit. ELAP, like AMPS, also employs doctors who do a line-by-line audit of every single bill their clients receive.

Steve Kelly, ELAP’s president, said that this strategy was rarely used by the mainstream health insurance market. Enochs said that clients usually saw a 15 to 20 percent reduction in medical spending in their first year after switching from a P.P.O. — if they have a lot of hospital costs, the reduction can be much larger. After that, costs are close to flat.

Why don’t more employers choose this strategy? The most important reason is that a lack of transparency keeps businesses in the dark. Employers don’t realize that their insurance company isn’t doing audits. They know, of course, that prices are high, but they don’t realize that there’s no good reason for it. So they don’t look for other options.
There are other hurdles. Going cost-plus takes guts. Some hospitals won’t accept patients at these rates. It doesn’t happen very often — Marrs said it’s happened once to a Texas811 patient, who then went to a different hospital. But employees don’t like uncertainty.

The other retaliation that patients can face is the dreaded balance bill — a bill from the hospital for what the insurance company wouldn’t pay. Dendy calls this extortion: “if you don’t pay what we want, fair or not, we’ll harass the member.”

Enochs said that about 15 percent of patients get balance bills. But that doesn’t mean they have to pay them — lawyers for companies like AMPS and ELAP fight the bills. Hospitals depend on the fact that very few people request or challenge bills. Once they are challenged, the hospitals normally lose, since it’s hard to argue that the charges are reasonable. Kelly said that ELAP wins “98, 99 percent of the time.” Sometimes the health plan will negotiate and pay part of a balance bill, Enochs said, but she said that so far no patient with GPA has ever had to pay.

Some employers believe they can’t persuade their work force to accept the uncertainties of a cost-plus plan. But rising health care costs are changing the equation, especially since workers are now bearing much of the costs themselves. A little uncertainty might now seem preferable to large premium increases.

Another way transparency cuts cost is through reference pricing. CalPERS, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System — one of the nation’s largest buyers of health care — is a pioneer. It found that California hospitals charged between $15,000 and $110,000 for a hip or knee replacement — the usual ridiculous spread of costs. But 46 hospitals, including some of California’s most renowned, agreed to do these operations for $30,000. CalPERS told members it would reimburse them only up to that amount. They could go anywhere — but they’d have to pay the difference out of pocket.

This had two effects. One was that patients began shopping around. But far more important, 40 other hospitals lowered their price. A Berkeley study found that over all, CalPERS’ spending on joint replacement dropped by 19 percent with no reduction in quality. It also found that because some of the 40 competitor hospitals had charged very high prices, the drop down to $30,000 at those hospitals was responsible for 85 percent of those savings. The government’s recent public release of hospital charges is allowing WellPoint, which was CalPERS’ insurer, to expand reference pricing to other procedures and states.

A study (registration required) by Truven Health Analytics looked at another impact of more widespread price transparency. Truven looked at 300 procedures that are shoppable — patients plan for them and schedule them in advance. If purchasers got care at facilities charging the median price in their local market (not the lowest price; the median price after trimming the extremes on both sides), the United States would save $36 billion a year. And that does not take into account the downward pressure on prices that transparency would create — the factor that was so important to CalPERS’ savings.

Price secrecy costs corporations a lot of money. Yet one important reason that businesses don’t know what they’re paying is that they’re not looking very hard. “I was at a conference of C.F.O.’s on controlling health care cost,” said Kelly. “Not one C.F.O. at the table could identify what a day in the hospital cost. They couldn’t cost a CAT scan or an M.R.I. They had no idea of the unit cost of health care. They are under the impression that a detailed review of bills is being done, and if they leverage the largest carrier they’re going to get the best rate.

“We encourage employers to use their business instinct. Employers are very good at containing costs. Except in the area of health care, where they abdicate to insurers — we’d say with disastrous results.“
Last edited by Marx & Lennon; 08-15-2013 at 01:19 PM.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#4136 at 08-15-2013 01:26 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_1...care-repealed/

A new CBS News poll finds more Americans than ever want the Affordable Care Act repealed.

According to the poll, 36 percent of Americans want Congress to expand or keep the health care law while 39 percent want Congress to repeal it - the highest percentage seen in CBS News polls. The poll also found a majority of Americans - 54 percent - disapprove of the health care law, 36 percent of Americans approve of it and 10 percent said they don't know about it...


Quote Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon View Post
We'll still need more ... much more.
-We'll certainly need to do a lot to fix all the things Obamacare screws up.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/obamac...rticle/2533624

White Castle has offered their employees health insurance since before the Great Depression, and Mr. Richardson testified that this law and the uncertainty it creates is harming his company's employees, its ability to offer health insurance, and its capability to create jobs.

He said that White Castle's growth was directly and negatively impacted by this law. Richardson said, "I would like to tell you we've continued to open more restaurants in more neighborhoods, providing more jobs, and serving more customers. I'd like to tell you that, but I can't. In fact, White Castle's growth has halted."

These stories are the new normal. Michigan Subway franchisee Ken Adams is now hiring more part-time workers and letting go of full-time workers to avoid the higher fines. Tennessee Burger King franchisee Mike Clayton was forced to close his doors after 39 years because of the law.







Post#4137 at 08-16-2013 05:27 AM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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Quote Originally Posted by Deb C View Post
Health plan sponsors and carriers allowed to set NO LIMITS on out-of-pocket costs until 2015 (unless they continue to complain, at which time limits may never be imposed).

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/us...?emc=eta1&_r=0
Okay, more heroics from the other side of the globe to deal with the cognitive dissonance sprouting on this forum in my absence.

To counter this latest primal scream from Debs, just check out any of these links on this 'evil' delay of a very limited element of Obamacare -

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2...redicament.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archive...mal_scream.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...amacare-delay/

- and judge for yourself - is Debs about trying to inform or misinform?

Expect the desperation on both the Right and Debs Far Left to heighten as Obamacare rolls out and the Right looks increasingly like social miscreants and the Far Left like silly people that they are.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#4138 at 08-16-2013 05:32 AM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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08-16-2013, 05:32 AM #4138
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Quote Originally Posted by Seattleblue View Post
This whole health insurance scam is just funny. But it does illustrate the central fallacy of control freaks and the dumb Clovers who worship them.

In this case the leftist "trope" is that if it weren't for greed, everyone could have <insert whatever>. Therefore, all we need to do is to create a law (which is backed by violence) and force people to do things they wouldn't otherwise do. That is the one single solution that drives the entire "left" in the US. That's why the Republican Party and "conservatives" are also "leftists". We have no right wing national party to speak of. Assuming you could identify what right and left wing mean in today's world.

The problem is that we are arriving at a liminal point for this leftist trope. When you move from the bounds of ruling people's lives with money to ruling their lives by direct fiat, things change. This health insurance scheme goes too far because it openly demands people obey, rather then enticing or hiding the coercion as they have done up to this point. Therefore, it will collapse.

You can pass all the laws that you want. You can pound your fist on the table and scream for people to obey. But as the Romans finally found out, at some point it is just easier to ignore the shrieks from the imperial capital and go your own way.

They are going to make this process very easy if they keep going with the NSA-Warfare-Welfare state. They may think they have control, but things fall apart quickly when people stop playing your game.
Dude or duddet, every time you use a US dollar (paper, coin or electronic), you are buying into the fiat system including the taxation that is ultimately backed up by society's scanctioned violence. If you don't want to buy into it, be brave or stupid, and just quite using those dollars. You could grow a garden or live on handouts. If you just move, you'll just have the same choices in a different land with a different fiat.

If none of that is appealing, you could also just try growing up.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#4139 at 08-16-2013 05:43 AM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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08-16-2013, 05:43 AM #4139
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_1...care-repealed/

A new CBS News poll finds more Americans than ever want the Affordable Care Act repealed.

According to the poll, 36 percent of Americans want Congress to expand or keep the health care law while 39 percent want Congress to repeal it - the highest percentage seen in CBS News polls. The poll also found a majority of Americans - 54 percent - disapprove of the health care law, 36 percent of Americans approve of it and 10 percent said they don't know about it...




-We'll certainly need to do a lot to fix all the things Obamacare screws up.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/obamac...rticle/2533624

White Castle has offered their employees health insurance since before the Great Depression, and Mr. Richardson testified that this law and the uncertainty it creates is harming his company's employees, its ability to offer health insurance, and its capability to create jobs.

He said that White Castle's growth was directly and negatively impacted by this law. Richardson said, "I would like to tell you we've continued to open more restaurants in more neighborhoods, providing more jobs, and serving more customers. I'd like to tell you that, but I can't. In fact, White Castle's growth has halted."

These stories are the new normal. Michigan Subway franchisee Ken Adams is now hiring more part-time workers and letting go of full-time workers to avoid the higher fines. Tennessee Burger King franchisee Mike Clayton was forced to close his doors after 39 years because of the law.
This polling nonsense has been going on for years now and hasn't changed. If you poll on the entire concept of Obamacare, you get what Glick indicates. If you poll on the individual elements (e.g. up to 24 years old kids remain on parents's insurance, expanded Medicaid, health exchanges, end of pre-condition denials, individual spending caps, medical loss ratio requirements, etc), you get overwhelming support. Even the mandates are supported if asked correctly (e.g. Do you support getting rid of freeloaders who make everyone else insurance payments more costly?).

The polling shows more how little people know about what Obamacare is and how effective the social miscreants can be in swaying the sheeple away from their own economic interest.

Again, expect the disperation from the Right and the Far Left to heighten over the coming year; they're time is running out.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#4140 at 08-19-2013 12:55 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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08-19-2013, 12:55 PM #4140
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngood...lthcare-costs/

In 2011, David Cutler of Harvard testified that the Affordable Care Act would reduce average health care costs by about 5 percent by 2015. That would decrease the cost of labor for employers and increase nationwide employment. Cutler also organized and signed an economists’ letter to Congress asserting that “repealing the Affordable Care Act would produce job reductions of 250,000 to 400,000 annually.”

Although Cutler is an able health economist, he’s not an expert in labor economics... Casey Mulligan... took Cutler to task for ignoring all of the ways in which ObamaCare discourages hiring, discourages full time employment and discourages businesses from becoming large rather than small. At The New York Times economics blog he writes:“Neither Professor Cutler’s testimony nor the economists’ letter mentioned that the Affordable Care Act also creates explicit taxes on employers, subsidies for layoffs and various implicit taxeson employees with many of the same economic characteristics as taxes on employers.”

According to Mulligan’s “calculations, the tax effects that Professor Cutler left out are about 10 times greater than, and in the opposite direction of, those he conveyed to Congress…If his estimate of the cost-savings channel is accurate, and I am right that the overall labor market effect of the act is about 10 times larger (in the other direction) than the cost-savings channel, we might then expect the act to contract the 2015 labor market by about 3 percent rather than expand it.”
That’s a loss of 4 million jobs!

Mulligan lets Cutler off the hook on his claims that health reform will produce cost savings. I won’t be so kind. Is it really credible to think that ObamaCare will reduce the cost of health care?

There are only two cost control features in ObamaCare and neither is very promising...

To be fair, Cutler has a
rejoinder to Mulligan
in which he argues that ObamaCare will have the following positive effects on the job market... Even so, these positive benefits are likely to be overwhelmed by the negative aspects of the law...

Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
Dude or duddet, every time you use a US dollar (paper, coin or electronic), you are buying into the fiat system including the taxation that is ultimately backed up by society's scanctioned violence...


-PW misses the point that just because we're currently stuck with a fiat system does not mean that it 1) is the best system or 2) that it has to continue.


Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
This polling nonsense has been going on for years now and hasn't changed. If you poll on the entire concept of Obamacare, you get what Glick indicates...
...and, strange, that's what Obamacare is. After all, we had to pass the bill in order to find out what's in it. And he's still not addressing the fact that this claim of his:


Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
from the Right as well as the Far Left shot down -
Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
STUDY: Very Few Employers Have Actually Cut Workers’ Hours Because Of Obamacare...
...is already falling apart.

Maybe he's feeling some of that cognitive dissonance?







Post#4141 at 08-21-2013 04:33 PM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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"Our system is very different from other countries: It’s worse."

As a result, Americans die younger than our counterparts in other rich countries.


The Medical-Industrial Complex

Our health industry's big players focus on making as much money as possible.

Unfortunately, the solution isn’t rocket science. We’re pretty good at rocket science. It’s political science at which we’re notoriously bad. Have you seen Congress pass many budget bills lately?

The single biggest impediment is the bizarre fact that one of our major political parties has sworn to uphold the rights of the profiteers.

Fortunately, the main offenders can be clearly labeled. Chief among them are the health insurers and the drug manufacturers. Big Pharma wields an army of lobbyists and administers large doses of campaign contributions to their friends in Congress.

http://otherwords.org/the-medical-industrial-complex/
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#4142 at 08-22-2013 04:24 PM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
Casey Mulligan...
A year from now, when all the hysteria proves to be as stupid as it is, will Casey Mulligan admit to his doing his namesake, as in golf?


Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
PW misses the point that just because we're currently stuck with a fiat system does not mean that it 1) is the best system or 2) that it has to continue.
Okay, thick-as-a-brick, tell us what countries, outside of magic pony land, are not on a fiat system? You do understand that a country that pegs its currency to the dollar is pegging to a fiat system and that would make it a fiat-based system, right?

Hey, did you also know that people in most countries also use languages to communicate? Kind of kills that dream of yours of using brain farts to get by somewhere in the world.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#4143 at 08-23-2013 05:26 PM by JDG 66 [at joined Aug 2010 #posts 2,106]
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08-23-2013, 05:26 PM #4143
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...415486176.html

...Most people are unaware that if they don't use insurance, they can negotiate upfront cash prices with hospitals and providers substantially below the "list" price. Doctors are happy to do this. We get paid promptly, without paying office staff to wade through the insurance-payment morass.

So we canceled the surgery and started the scheduling process all over again, this time classifying my patient as a "self-pay" (or uninsured) patient. I quoted him a reasonable upfront cash price, as did the anesthesiologist. We contacted a different hospital and they quoted him a reasonable upfront cash price for the outpatient surgical/nursing services. He underwent his operation the very next day, with a total bill of just a little over $3,000, including doctor and hospital fees. He ended up saving $17,000 by not using insurance...

This process taught us a few things. First, most people these days don't have health "insurance." They have prepaid health plans...

Second, even with the markdown for upfront "cash-pay" patients, none of the providers was losing money on my patient... With the third-party payer taken out of the picture, we got a better idea of the market prices for the services. It is the third-party payment system that interferes with true price competition, so "market clearing prices" can't develop.

Take the examples of Lasik eye surgery or cosmetic surgery. These services are not covered by insurance. Providers compete on the basis of quality, outcomes and price. And prices have continually dropped as quality and services have improved—unlike the rest of health care...
Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
...tell us what countries, outside of magic pony land, are not on a fiat system?
-Oops. PW is confusing what is currently done with what could be done.







Post#4144 at 08-25-2013 02:24 AM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...415486176.html

[COLOR=#ac193d]...Most people are unaware that if they don't use insurance, they can negotiate upfront cash prices with hospitals and providers....
Readers, just note that the guy who posts trash like this suggesting the non-insured will do better by negotiating the price of their health care is a guy who depends completely on his health insurance provided by the evil federal govt. He needs to push you down in order to build himself up.

Just like the latest batch of GOP hypocrites that tell the uninsured they can get their health care from emergency rooms - all of them are also on a federal govt insurance plan -

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013...-go-to-the-er/

Conservatives Finally Announce Alternative To Obamacare: Just Go To The Emergency Room
Anyone who listens to these hypocritical idiots should have their head examined.

Quote Originally Posted by JDG 66 View Post
-Oops. PW is confusing what is currently done with what could be done.
I don't do magic pony land. If a non-fiat system worked, there would be at least one major or even one not-so-major nation doing it. But keep living the dream and maybe you'll get one of those magic ponies that poop gold nuggets - too bad it won't be useful to extract yourself from the t-park livin.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#4145 at 08-25-2013 11:39 AM by pbrower2a [at "Michigrim" joined May 2005 #posts 15,014]
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Quote Originally Posted by playwrite View Post
Readers, just note that the guy who posts trash like this suggesting the non-insured will do better by negotiating the price of their health care is a guy who depends completely on his health insurance provided by the evil federal govt. He needs to push you down in order to build himself up.
Indeed this is much like the argument that a good worker will be better off negotiating individually with his employer on his merits as a worker than relying upon an employer and paying union dues as a reasonable cost of collective bargaining. What happens in the "individual bargaining" is that one singly deals with a bureaucracy adept at seeking and exploiting one's weaknesses as a negotiator.

If a worker's duty (and it is easily enforced even with a union contract) is to achieve a certain standard of performance, then that may be incompatible with the talents necessary for judging one's value to an employer. Judging what the employer wishes to pay? Of course. When a 3T culture prevails within a business (now the norm) the usual expectation is that the employer will pay as little as it can get away with for as much toil as it can extract.

With one's medical insurance one of course is not negotiating the sale of one's toil for income but instead trading the fruits of one's toil for medical insurance. But the profiteer ordinarily decides, as is possible with near-monopolistic power, to get as much for as little as possible. One typically gets an application with some health-related questions (obviously, age, gender, cancerweed use, alcohol use, occupation, weight, pre-existing conditions) and those set the rate. One gets a rigid offer set by actuaries. One sends in a check or commits to a payroll deduction by the amount prescribed or one does not get coverage.

Just like the latest batch of GOP hypocrites that tell the uninsured they can get their health care from emergency rooms - all of them are also on a federal govt insurance plan -

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013...-go-to-the-er/
Emergency rooms have their limitations. Chronic conditions that lead one to a medical crisis do not go away. An ER is the right place to treat a diabetic coma, but it is clearly the wrong place for discussing habits to be changed -- especially if those habits led to the diabetic coma.

Anyone who (heeds) these hypocritical idiots should have their head examined.
Of course, an ER is not the place in which to get wisdom that could counteract right-wing ideology.

If a non-fiat system worked, there would be at least one major or even one not-so-major nation doing it.
I can't imagine any country going to the gold standard and committing itself to a huge reduction in living standards that might lead to a popular uprising.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."


― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters







Post#4146 at 08-25-2013 01:31 PM by radind [at Alabama joined Sep 2009 #posts 1,595]
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Quote Originally Posted by Deb C View Post
"Our system is very different from other countries: It’s worse."



The Medical-Industrial Complex

Our health industry's big players focus on making as much money as possible.

Unfortunately, the solution isn’t rocket science. We’re pretty good at rocket science. It’s political science at which we’re notoriously bad. Have you seen Congress pass many budget bills lately?

The single biggest impediment is the bizarre fact that one of our major political parties has sworn to uphold the rights of the profiteers.

Fortunately, the main offenders can be clearly labeled. Chief among them are the health insurers and the drug manufacturers. Big Pharma wields an army of lobbyists and administers large doses of campaign contributions to their friends in Congress.

http://otherwords.org/the-medical-industrial-complex/
Congress has clearly failed to pass budgets and has failed to adequately address the Health Care 'System'. However, I see two parties at fault, not just one. Both are yielding to big business pressure.
The military base realignments ( BRAC) have at least provided positive results( still need more reductions). That is why I favor a BRAC type process to address the health care system with a variety of experts , including a good system engineer. I doubt that Congress alone will ever get it right.







Post#4147 at 08-25-2013 05:42 PM by Deb C [at joined Aug 2004 #posts 6,099]
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Quote Originally Posted by radind View Post
Congress has clearly failed to pass budgets and has failed to adequately address the Health Care 'System'. However, I see two parties at fault, not just one. Both are yielding to big business pressure.
Yes, both parties are responsible. Those over stuffed pockets of corporate money tells the real story, doesn't it?
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a







Post#4148 at 08-26-2013 06:56 AM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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Quote Originally Posted by Deb C View Post
Yes, both parties are responsible. Those over stuffed pockets of corporate money tells the real story, doesn't it?
Only the weak-minded and the contemptible would blame the firefighter as much as the arsonist
Last edited by playwrite; 08-26-2013 at 09:25 AM.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#4149 at 08-26-2013 09:52 AM by playwrite [at NYC joined Jul 2005 #posts 10,443]
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If we just had a lost less idiots

Krugman and Klein both have some fun with the typical t-baggers that will not have a clue that the highly govt regulated new health exchanges they will soon be benefiting from are a result of the evil Obamacare -

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...-on-obamacare/

Don’t Let The Government Get Its Hands On Obamacare!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...out-obamacare/

These three paragraphs say everything about Obamacare
This next one is particular insightful where it notes a recent poll that 39% of people want the govt's socialist hands off of Medicare and another 15% don't know enough to have an opinion -

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/201...figure-it-out/

Maybe They’ll Never Figure It Out
- in other words, a majority of Americans are uninformed (likely, dumb as dirt) - not too heartening.

Fits with the polling that most people don't understand that federal deficits are falling like a rock and that growth in health care costs have leveled off for the first time in a long time -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...st-impossible/

Also, we find that more Repubs than Dems are benefiting from Obamacare's requirement that kids can stay on their parents' insurance into their early 20s -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...han-democrats/

There’s an Obamacare program that Republicans use more than Democrats
We also find that some hypocritical GOP govs, like Rich Perry, love a certain provision of Obamacare; and we continue to find the many ways that Peggy Noonan is a complete idiot -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-noonan-hates/

Rick Perry loves the part of Obamacare Peggy Noonan hates
And here is a great insight on what is actually going on with the rush to set up the exchanges to meet the deadlines -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-up-obamacare/

Inside the last-minute scramble to stand-up Obamacare
- feel free to compare the efforts of these federal, state and local govt workers and volunteer groups to those of so-called 'Progressives' that spend their time on Internet forums bashing them as "no better than Repubs" and believe they are actually doing something.
Last edited by playwrite; 08-26-2013 at 10:06 AM.
"The Devil enters the prompter's box and the play is ready to start" - R. Service

“It’s not tax money. The banks have accounts with the Fed … so, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed. It’s much more akin to printing money.” - B.Bernanke


"Keep your filthy hands off my guns while I decide what you can & can't do with your uterus" - Sarah Silverman

If you meet a magic pony on the road, kill it. - Playwrite







Post#4150 at 08-26-2013 10:25 AM by radind [at Alabama joined Sep 2009 #posts 1,595]
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08-26-2013, 10:25 AM #4150
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I still do not like the Affordable Care Act (ACA) , but we do need a way to have health care insurance on a national level.

Will Obamacare destroy jobs?
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democ...aredestroyjobs
…"Opinions are furiously divided as to whether the unintended harm caused by health reform will outweigh its benefits. Republicans, who have always hated the whole package, howl that it will destroy jobs. Nonsense, say Democrats; it will promote growth and boost employment. Since the law has so many moving parts, it is hard to predict who is right. But there is a risk that a lot of workers will be hurt."...
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