Originally Posted by The Rani

What I don't understand is why they didn't expand Medicare coverage to include low-income younger folks, instead of trying to force states to do it through Medicaid programs. They could have taken all that subsidy money and funneled it into Medicare, too.
I guess it made more sense for the whores, er, I mean our elected officials, to placate the private insurance industry.

Education costs out of control? Let the young people pay more, but give them a slightly better interest rate on the loan.

Healthcare costs out of control? Let the young people pay more, but if they're really poor we'll chip in a bit on the admission fee. Maybe. If they're in a state that voted the right way.

Social Security ever creeping up? Screw it, let the young people pay more!

"Wait.. what? You expected a job that would cover these obligations and leave something left over? You don't like watching wealth transferred from the young & poor to rich & old? Quit being so entitled!"

Oh, and it's definitely not inflation that explains why all of these spending categories and commodities - that can't be replaced by cheap Chinese knock-offs - keep raising in price as quickly as the Fed can inflate the Dow.

"Let the young people pay more, they don't even remember when life in America was affordable for a typical worker so what are they missing?!"

The Obama Apology That Is Needed

By Kevin Zeese

November 17, 2013 "Information Clearing House - My fellow Americans, tonight I want to apologize for the results of my efforts in reforming US healthcare. It is now evident from the roll-out and the technical problems that have been exposed that we have created a complex system in which these types of problems will exist, not just at the beginning in the setting up of a website to sell health insurance, but as the law takes full effect. Therefore, tonight I am announcing my intent to work for a major but simple change in direction.

First, I apologize because these problems should have been evident before we passed the Affordable Care Act. Prior to the ACA, the existence of the insurance industry created tremendous bureaucracy for consumers, doctors, health providers and hospitals as well as for business and the government. It also resulted in millions of Americans not being able to get the healthcare they needed, even if they had insurance. After the ACA we now see these problems persist. This is not surprising. The ACA requires each state as well as Washington, DC and Puerto Rico to have an exchange to sell health insurance. Each exchange has four levels of insurance – platinum, gold, silver and bronze. Within each level there are multiple insurance companies and each insurance company puts forward multiple insurance plans. Each state has its own regulatory system for health insurance and the federal government has thousands of pages of regulations as well. This is a very complex system not only for the purposes of selling insurance, but will remain complex throughout the system. Doctors, health providers and hospitals will continue to need to spend more time and money managing payments for healthcare; businesses will continue to need to spend a lot of overhead figuring out what kind of insurance to have and government will have to create bureaucracy to manage thousands of insurance policies.

Second, I want to apologize for stifling the debate we should have had in developing a national healthcare system. When we began this process we had the opportunity to look at three very distinct systems currently operating in the United States – a market-based system dominated by the insurance industry with healthcare provided for-profit; a single payer system, Medicare, where the government is the only funder of healthcare and private providers deliver healthcare services; and, a completely government-run healthcare system for Veterans (VA) where the doctors, hospitals and healthcare providers all work for the government. This would have been a great debate that would have resulted in the United States putting in place the best national health plan based on our experience, and the empirical evidence, of what has worked and what has not, in US healthcare. I suspect if we had that debate the market-based system would have been shown to be the weakest of the three alternatives and a combination of Medicare and the VA would have been the most cost-effective way to provide healthcare for every person in the United States.

As a former advocate for single payer I knew this, but put aside the empirical evidence. Instead, I allowed those with the most money to decide what kind of healthcare we should have. Even though single payer had the support of more than 60 percent of Americans, two-thirds of doctors as well as nurses, I ignored the desires of the people and instead worked with the insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry and for-profit hospitals. This was a terrible mistake and a missed opportunity that would have resulted in the United States getting on the path to becoming the most efficient and effective healthcare system in the world; instead we remain the most expensive system that produces mediocre results.

Bottom line:

If President Obama really wanted to apologize to the American people he would not be focused on the fact that some have been required to drop poor insurance plans, but would apologize for the ACA requiring them to buy poor insurance plans that leave them paying 30 percent to 40 percent of the cost of healthcare if they get the most common silver and bronze plans. He would be apologizing that the ACA is a symptom of his administration which is dominated by Wall Street and other big business interests like Monsanto serving as food czar, the outsourcer General Electric serving as jobs czar and the Attorney General coming from a corporate law firm that represents the big banks and other business interests. We are not holding our breath expecting President Obama to apologize for these actions, but hope that others will work with us to build a mass popular resistance that can change the direction of the government and the economy. Change has always come from the bottom up, so we are not waiting for the top to acknowledge their own corruption.

Kevin Zeese is an organizer at Popular Resistance.

I encourage even the most loyal admirers of president Obama to read the entire article. It is a dose of truth that we cannot continue to ignore about this severely broken political system. To our own peril will we keep apologizing for the ACA.

MORE: http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle36892.htm

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Instead of obsessing over your uncanny ability to repeat the party's latest spin,

The quote of mine you refer to is about NC GOP a-holes deciding to not extent Medicaid coverage to an estimated 500,000 people. That is not spin; that is a FACT. A large part of what is wrong with this country today is people like you have become apparently intellectually incapable or too damn intellectually lazy to discern the difference between simple facts and idiotic spin. It makes you the type of sheeple that bays all the time about their woes but have absolutely no sense as to what is the true source of their problems let alone a clue as to what to do about it.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

...maybe I should have focused on shedding some light on the random accusations that constitute the unique sliver of original content that is your typical post.

If I hadn't gotten married earlier this year, I would not indeed be eligible for subsidies. Given a complete lack of competition, the only provider in my county has decided to set premiums at roughly 8% of the median income, or in other words, what Congress arbitrarily decided someone with a median income could afford, before they receive any actual medical services.

As a married couple, we will be eligible for subsidies - if and only if - we both sign up for a plan on the exchange. To do this, my wife will need to drop her non-profit plan run by the very school-owned hospital that provides the services (for both of our plans, actually). Of course, that's just theoretical because right now I can't get a proper application on the exchange. My first attempt dropped her halfway through the process, and the second attempt created a second copy of me, and wants to bill me for three plans. Making changes to those applications is "currently not available," but I've probably already committed federal wiretap fraud in trying to make a second attempt so I'm hesitant to spend more hours writing up a third.

In all, this will result in a 150% increase in the amount we spend on insurance, and we will end up with significantly worse plans. Does it make me feel better that I might be able to get the government to pay some or all of that increase? Not in the slightest.

You're getting a govt subsidy by either going through the exchange or by joining your wife's employer-based insurance (subsidized by tax credits to your employer). Dude, you are far far more fortunate than the 500,000 being denied ANY coverage as a result of NC deciding not to expand Medicaid. Further, your individual market insurance might be the most perfect policy in the world right now because you are healthy but I guarantee you that if you get cancer or some other chronic disease or laid up for a long time due to an accident, your insurer is go to drop you like a hot potato at the next open enrollment. And finally, this is no longer an ACA issue, the ObamaFix has given your state insurance regulator and your insurer to offer you exactly the same policy; if they don't, then your beef is with them. Have you done ANYTHING to get in touch with them to make that happen or do you thing more whinning about Obamacare is going to make that happen for you?

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

.Now your other claim... that I'm healthy... well thank you, but it has nothing to do with the medical system except perhaps that I stopped trusting & seeing doctors, and started taking responsibility for researching my own health. See, I've been through the for-profit system as a chronically ill patient. I even got the VIP treatment via my dad's federal employee "platinum plan." Do you know what I looked like to those doctors? A blank fucking check. Every specialist you can name failed to diagnose a relatively common disease with a free cure. Go figure. They did manage to prescribe a lot of useless and dangerous drugs & surgeries to mask the symptoms until the side-effects kicked in... but the "benefit" of that excessive spending isn't a fate I'd wish on my worst enemy.

This is starting to sound pretty fishy, John. You have some mysterious chronic illness that was covered under your dad's federal policy while you were young and yet you were able to get really good but really cheap individual market insurance????? I don't think so.

My guess is that you are suffering from the same 'illness' as this guy with the same self-prescriptive cure -



- you haven't made any claims with your current insurer so they view you as completely healthy and thereby you get that 'great plan.' But again, start making claims if you get some less mysterious illnesses and see if you don't become a hot potatoe (please note that is metaphorical, I don't actually mean you will become a potatoe - well, unless the Zartogs are beaming potato-making waves at earth; they're not suppose to since they signed the Inter-Galactic Agreement that bars potato-making wave weapons, but who knows for sure?).

Originally Posted by The Rani

Found an article that explains what I've been talking about:

In states that rejected Medicaid expansion, poorest people will get no insurance help from Obamacare

It's totally fucking ass-backwards.

You're just waking up to this???

This has been the situation ever since the SCOTUS decided states are free not to take up the ACA's Medicaid expansion. It's cause by GOP state governors and legislatures being so hateful of Obama that they are refusing Medicaid coverage to the truly neediy in their states. It is also F-ing up many of the hospitals that focus on taking care of the needy.

To blame the ACA for this is like blaming the firefighters for your house burning down instead of the arsonist that poured on the gasoline and lit the match.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

...
The problem is that "liberals" have not succeeded in anything except being rejected by the corporate-center Democrats. The public option was much more popular than the current ACA, but Reid & Baucus decided to use the Republicans' old healthcare proposal as a starting point in negotiations. It doesn't take a degree in political economy to realize the GOP is going to take that as a concession of weakness and demand even more.

Democrats coulda/shoulda/woulda rode the millie wave and pushed hard to the left on this issue. There was too much at stake not to, and now this defeat is of their own doing, and this has not been caused by any particular victory from the right. It's basically the last reason the right has any life left in it - all of the usual limo-liberal suspects are coming out to mock the concerns of the "misguided" poor people they're trying to help - and they do so in such a way as to prove they are wholly ignorant of exactly what those concerns are. Their hearts might be in the right place, but their heads are in a totally different social class and economic world than the one they're trying to help. You can't afford healthcare? Let them enroll in platinum plans at a small discount! Cake too, please. [while the quote and Antoinette attribution may be apocryphal, there is truth in the saying still]

A rational universal healthcare system based on economic and healthcare success demonstrated in two dozen countries around the world could have been Obama's silver bullet for reversing the Reagan trend, but the party would rather follow their corporate sponsors than lead in a new direction. Opportunity cost is still a cost, and that cost is incalculable in terms of political capital, American's health outcomes, bank accounts, as well as our workers' competitiveness in the global economy for decades to come.

Your like a child who is told that a car will take them to Disney World who, after sitting in the car for hours, throws a tantrum because it didn't magically take him to his desired destination. No gas, no keys, no driver, no map, no credit card, but but but I was told it would take me to the Magic Kingdom!!! Whaaaaaaaa!

Dude, your magical "millie wave" still has to work through the system of electing enough like-minded people to the Congress to pass the type of legislation that you believe is needed and possible. As much as you, Rani, Debs and others believe that magic ponies would have pooped magical perfect single payer nuggets except for the mean nasty Obama and Dems, the real world doesn't' work that way - Millie wave or no Millie wave.

Originally Posted by The Rani

What I don't understand is why they didn't expand Medicare coverage to include low-income younger folks,....

WHAAAAAA, whaaaaaa, why doesn't my car take me to the Magic Kingdom???!!! I want to ride the magic ponies!!!!! Why, oh why??? WHAAAAAAA!!!!

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Education costs out of control? Let the young people pay more, but give them a slightly better interest rate on the loan.

Healthcare costs out of control? Let the young people pay more, but if they're really poor we'll chip in a bit on the admission fee. Maybe. If they're in a state that voted the right way.

Social Security ever creeping up? Screw it, let the young people pay more!

"Wait.. what? You expected a job that would cover these obligations and leave something left over? You don't like watching wealth transferred from the young & poor to rich & old? Quit being so entitled!"

Oh, and it's definitely not inflation that explains why all of these spending categories and commodities - that can't be replaced by cheap Chinese knock-offs - keep raising in price as quickly as the Fed can inflate the Dow.

"Let the young people pay more, they don't even remember when life in America was affordable for a typical worker so what are they missing?!"

Okay, you're able to grasp some of what's wrong with our society. Now maybe start educating yourself as to the true causes.

Here's a hint - what the FED does has very little to do with it.

Originally Posted by Deb C

... Instead, I allowed those with the most money to decide what kind of healthcare we should have. Even though single payer had the support of more than 60 percent of Americans, two-thirds of doctors as well as nurses, I ignored the desires of the people and instead worked with the insurance industry, pharmaceutical industry and for-profit hospitals. ...

Let's translate -

"Daddy didn't make the car go to Disney World!!!! All my friends told me the car can take me to Disney World, but my mean old daddy says there is no gas n the car, no one will give him any money for gas, and someone took the keys away. I don't know what any of that means. I just know my daddy is very mean because he won't take the car to Disney World so I can ride the magical ponies!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!"

Debs, go buy a clue about how the Congress works.

Here's all the numbers from ACA's 'failed' first month -



Let's note the 1.1 million people who were deemed eligible for an exchanged policy. If the website had been working, that would be 1 million people ready for insurance coverage beginning in January. Does anyone doubt that they'll be back?

More importantly look at the people who now are in position for insurance at the start of 2014 - the 100k plus for the exchanges and around 400K for Medicaid. That totals to 502,446 people that will have insurance from Obamacare.

Just by coincidence that is exactly 502,446 more people that Debs and her ilk have brought insurance coverage to. Isn't that just an amazing coincidence?!

But to be fair, Debs has been busy -



- "Take me to the Magic Kingdom, daddy-O, I want to ride the magic ponies! Take me or I will whine incessantly for years, Daddy-O-bama!"

Originally Posted by The Rani

Found an article that explains what I've been talking about:

In states that rejected Medicaid expansion, poorest people will get no insurance help from Obamacare

It's totally fucking ass-backwards.

And there's no doubt who's to blame for it. Hint hint; they belong to a political party whose name starts with an R.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

The school run plan will still be there, but a) I'm not eligible because I'm not a student or employee b) the plan isn't registered on the exchange and is not eligible for any subsidies and c) next year's prices won't be available until after Jan. 1, while we are required to make exchange purchases before Dec. 15 to avoid an interruption in coverage.

It seems very strange; I thought the deadline was March 31. Does the ACA require that the school plan drop you although they covered you before, and makes requirements on it that weren't there before?

The public option was much more popular than the current ACA, but Reid & Baucus decided to use the Republicans' old healthcare proposal as a starting point in negotiations. It doesn't take a degree in political economy to realize the GOP is going to take that as a concession of weakness and [I]demand even more....A rational universal healthcare system based on economic and healthcare success demonstrated in two dozen countries around the world could have been Obama's silver bullet for reversing the Reagan trend, but the party would rather follow their corporate sponsors than lead in a new direction.....

I agree....

(although Reid did try to put through the public option; the DINOs and GOPFERS blocked him)

Originally Posted by The Rani

What I don't understand is why they didn't expand Medicare coverage to include low-income younger folks, instead of trying to force states to do it through Medicaid programs. They could have taken all that subsidy money and funneled it into Medicare, too.
I guess it made more sense for the whores, er, I mean our elected officials, to placate the private insurance industry.

No doubt. Yes that would have been better.

I also wonder how long it will take for all these new Medicaid applications to make their way through the system. I've seen it take up to six months, and that was before ACA. And you're right about wait times increasing. Docs willing to work for Medicaid rates are in short supply. Personally, I'd rather hang out with my neurosurgeon boyfriend in Costa Rica.

I hope it works for me; I'm going to try and we'll see. It's nice at least that I can use the CA and not the Federal website.

Originally Posted by playwrite

The quote of mine you refer to is about NC GOP a-holes deciding to not extent Medicaid coverage to an estimated 500,000 people. That is not spin; that is a FACT. A large part of what is wrong with this country today is people like you have become apparently intellectually incapable or too damn intellectually lazy to discern the difference between simple facts and idiotic spin. It makes you the type of sheeple that bays all the time about their woes but have absolutely no sense as to what is the true source of their problems let alone a clue as to what to do about it.

Here's another FACT, Obama turned NC blue before he managed to piss it away and create a Tea Party stronghold with his incredibly unpopular policy positions that bear only superficial similarity to primary Obama.

You're getting a govt subsidy by either going through the exchange or by joining your wife's employer-based insurance (subsidized by tax credits to your employer). Dude, you are far far more fortunate than the 500,000 being denied ANY coverage as a result of NC deciding not to expand Medicaid. Further, your individual market insurance might be the most perfect policy in the world right now because you are healthy but I guarantee you that if you get cancer or some other chronic disease or laid up for a long time due to an accident, your insurer is go to drop you like a hot potato at the next open enrollment. And finally, this is no longer an ACA issue, the ObamaFix has given your state insurance regulator and your insurer to offer you exactly the same policy; if they don't, then your beef is with them. Have you done ANYTHING to get in touch with them to make that happen or do you thing more whinning about Obamacare is going to make that happen for you?

Sigh, reading comprehension once again. I am not eligible to be included on my wife's plan - this gives us a perverse incentive to drop the non-profit plan and enrich BCBS (more.)

This is starting to sound pretty fishy, John. You have some mysterious chronic illness that was covered under your dad's federal policy while you were young and yet you were able to get really good but really cheap individual market insurance????? I don't think so.

My guess is that you are suffering from the same 'illness' as this guy with the same self-prescriptive cure -

- you haven't made any claims with your current insurer so they view you as completely healthy and thereby you get that 'great plan.' But again, start making claims if you get some less mysterious illnesses and see if you don't become a hot potatoe (please note that is metaphorical, I don't actually mean you will become a potatoe - well, unless the Zartogs are beaming potato-making waves at earth; they're not suppose to since they signed the Inter-Galactic Agreement that bars potato-making wave weapons, but who knows for sure?).

It was not detected while I was under my dad's coverage, despite it being the "best coverage" you can get in America. Or, despite the fact that Celiac Disease is so common that the WHO recommends universal testing.

See, American doctors diagnose about... 10% of statistically expected Celiac cases, leaving 2.7 chronically ill Americans who could become healthy with dietary modification alone. That's 2.7 million people consuming a disproportionate amount of medical resources, while probably also being too sick to work full time. We could run some $10 blood tests to look for antibodies in suspect individuals, but the AMA still insists on an intestinal biopsy that docs bill $2,000 to $5,000 for. That results in an intolerable amount of human suffering and economic inefficiency.

So... when you sign up for insurance they said, "Have you been diagnosed with or treated for any of the following conditions in the last five years?" No, and mostly because I've stopped going to doctors because they don't really do anything. It's something different if you get in a car accident or something, but that's the whole idea behind catastrophic coverage, right? Well, that plan was a "ripoff" so I have to pay twice as much for a crappier plan with less coverage. Excellent! All the downside of making claims, without ever having made any claims.

Of course, now that the chronically ill and underemployed population has been lumped in with small business owners and sole proprietors, we've created yet another incentive for people to be dependent on the shrinking jobs available from big corporate donors. Let the young people and small business pay! That's where the money is, right? Those are the cohorts who whisk off to Provence every time the DJIA hits a new high, right?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It seems very strange; I thought the deadline was March 31. Does the ACA require that the school plan drop you although they covered you before, and makes requirements on it that weren't there before?

Open enrollment ends on March 31, but my old plan is canceled on Dec. 31. To get an exchange plan that goes in to effect by Jan. 1, I will have to sign up for it by Dec. 15. I am not/have not been eligible to sign up for my wife's plan, but we now have a very strong incentive to drop that highly efficient policy.

Everything about this bill will increase aggregate healthcare spending, so it actually exacerbates the very problem we set out to fix.

Originally Posted by The Rani

So Obama aka King of the Administrative Fix can't get to work on that one, too?
He's playing politics as much as they are. It's disgusting.

I don't see what King Barry can do. The Supreme Court left this option to the states. Republican governors are the ones denying medicaid coverage to their people.

(that's additional medicaid coverage offered by ACA. I think playwrite was pointing out that the already-existing medicaid coverage will continue)

Originally Posted by The Rani

Found an article that explains what I've been talking about:

In states that rejected Medicaid expansion, poorest people will get no insurance help from Obamacare

It's totally fucking ass-backwards.

So, who are you blaming for this? It seems to me that you hold Obama personally responsible for the actions of a bunch of unrelated douchebags. If so, why? If not, then what's your plan to fix problems in states you where don't live and can't vote?

Originally Posted by The Rani

If you already knew that, WTF did you type this stupid bullshit:

Are you actually Rani or are you some substitute while she is in Costa Rica with the neurosurgeon?

I'm asking because she is usually smarter than this.

An $11K/yr income would qualify someone for Medicaid BEFORE the ACA expansion. The ACA expansion includes working poor that make more than that - at least in those states not run by GOP a-holes.

Originally Posted by The Rani

What I don't understand is why they didn't expand Medicare coverage to include low-income younger folks, instead of trying to force states to do it through Medicaid programs. They could have taken all that subsidy money and funneled it into Medicare, too.
I guess it made more sense for the whores, er, I mean our elected officials, to placate the private insurance industry.

I also wonder how long it will take for all these new Medicaid applications to make their way through the system. I've seen it take up to six months, and that was before ACA. And you're right about wait times increasing. Docs willing to work for Medicaid rates are in short supply. Personally, I'd rather hang out with my neurosurgeon boyfriend in Costa Rica.

Answer this one for yourself. Why didn't they? In fact, why isn't this Medicare For All? Here's your answer.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Looks like you missed this, so I'll repeat:

... except this in no way explains why BHO is the culpret ... and I'm not even a fan here.

This is a case of galloping obstructionism, where BHO's major failing is his insistance on not making waves. Yes, he's a weak-stick ... but he's not a douchebage. That title is reserved for others.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Here's another FACT, Obama turned NC blue before he managed to piss it away and create a Tea Party stronghold with his incredibly unpopular policy positions that bear only superficial similarity to primary Obama.

What are you going to blame him for next; the Simpsons coming off of TV? Last I looked, Obama doesn't vote in NC. If a majority of NC folks are too stupid to know what's good for them, that is primarily their own damn fault.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

Sigh, reading comprehension once again. I am not eligible to be included on my wife's plan - this gives us a perverse incentive to drop the non-profit plan and enrich BCBS (more.)

Somewhere upstream you said that you could go on your wife's policy. I might have missed your correction on that. The point still holds that you would be getting govt subsidized insurance which is a lot more that what 100s of thousands of NC are getting. I'm sympathetic to your plight but really in the scheme of things its no where near the bad things that are happening to other people as a result of a-holes fighting the ACA and no where near tipping the balance against all the good things the ACA is bringing to millions of others.

Originally Posted by JohnMc82

It was not detected ...

Dude, I am very sympathetic to you having this illness. So let me give you some really needed advice about this - SHUT THE F UP ABOUT IT FOR YOUR OWN SAKE!!!

The insurers pay investigators big bucks to find people like you that have not reported pre-conditions. AND IT IS A PRECONDITION REGARDLESS IF YOU USED THE INSURER'S MONEY OR IF YOU SOUGHT CARE OUTSIDE OF ORDINARY MEDICAL DELIVERY. They can cancel your policy for ANY claim. If you use their money they can seek reimbursement from you through the courts, and that's only if they are in a good mood. If they had a bad lunch, they might even attempt to bring criminal fraud charges against you.

I know this does't sound nice but it is for your own good - your having that great policy at low cost is fraudulent in the eyes of your insurer if they catch you. DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT 200 DOLLARS! Get your ass off that policy and onto the one offered on the exchange. When that's done, count your blessings - you've dodged a bullet.

Originally Posted by The Rani

You do realize that income levels aren't the only criterion for Medicaid eligibility, right?

It would be highly unusual to bump someone off of Medicaid that is earning just $11K; it would be even less so if that is a family. Just what are you talking about that would do that and how prevalent is that, i.e. you got any numbers to back up your horseshit?

Originally Posted by The Rani

And, if you actually believe that they DO already qualify for Medicaid, WTF are you bitching about state legislatures?

This really clinches it - you are either a substitute for Rani and/or you've decided to go stupid for some reason. The key word is EXPANSION that would include people still basically poor but making more than $11.something income. Why is this so hard for you to grasp???

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

And there's no doubt who's to blame for it. Hint hint; they belong to a political party whose name starts with an R.

While many of the Republicans are bat poop crazy, just blaming them is part of the problem. Eric, we have a very broken and and crooked political system. Unfortunately, every time you insist it is just one party and not the system, then we take steps backward. Just like the case of Obama, he's is not the cause of this insanity with the ACA - HE. IS. PART. OF. THIS. DIRTY. ROTTEN. SYSTEM. It has taken a political system of both parties to get us where we are today.

We seriously have no one representing us because the money speaks louder than the citizen voice. Many of the young people are understanding how the system is rigged. We older farts just seem to keep our loyalties to a party instead of justice for all. Too often we treat this politics like a sporting event or an American idol show.

I have purposefully held a light to the pocket that Obama is in because there have been too many excuses for his corporate ways. It's time we stop being an enabler of slick politicians, on both sides, who pretend to work for us while fitting snuggley in the corporate pocket.

There is no political center any longer.

Originally Posted by The Rani

You either don't read my posts or you don't understand them.
I'm not talking about "Medicare for all."
P.S. "Bipartisan fuckup" doesn't imply that it's all King Barry's fault, either. So stop with the strawmen already.

You asked why, and the answer always leads to Max Baucus. Industry wanted (still wants) an industry-friendly law, and Baucus was the single biggest tool in their toolkit.

So everything profitable is focused on private inustry, and things that aren't are purposely spartan and less than user friendly. If Baucus had not been in a position to sway the focus of the ACA, Medicare-For-All may have emerged as the solution. We would have gotten the Public Optoin a the very least.

Originally Posted by The Rani

... income level is NOT the only determinant of Medicaid eligibility!

Cutting to the chase: here are the criteria is general terms.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Cutting to the chase: here are the criteria is general terms.

People who are too poor to qualify for the exchanges but who live in a State that won't expand Medicaid won't get assessed a tax penalty for not getting insured. They will fall under the hardship exemption. So they won't be helped by the ACA but they won't be harmed either; they will remain uninsured. Note that just about everyone who would qualify for expanded Medicaid would have insurance costing more than 8 percent of income.

Among the people who will remain uninsured:

• Illegal immigrants, estimated at around 8 million—or roughly a third of the 23 million projection—will be ineligible for insurance subsidies and Medicaid.^{[120][124][125]} They will also be exempt from the health insurance mandate but will remain eligible for emergency services under provisions in the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).
• Citizens not enrolled in Medicaid despite being eligible.^[126]
• Citizens not otherwise covered and opting to pay the annual penalty instead of purchasing insurance, mostly younger and single Americans.^[126]
• Citizens whose insurance coverage would cost more than 8% of household income and are exempt from paying the annual penalty.^[126]
• Citizens who live in states that opt out of the Medicaid expansion and who qualify for neither existing Medicaid coverage nor subsidized coverage through the states' new insurance exchanges.^[123]