The War on the Working Poor . . . Part Time 'Merika . . .

[sonofdaxjones]

http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital-hill/030513-646812-gallup-part-time-workforce-surges-obamacare-mandate.htm

[OregonSmock]

Obamacare is what happens when you have to compromise with Republicans who don't want to go to a single payer health care system.  The public option would have been nice as well, but again, Republicans wouldn't pass it.

[sonofdaxjones]

I'll just leave all the pet companies that were exempted from Obamacare but the Obama Administration.

Not to mention all the back office deals to big Pharma and others to get their support.

[OregonSmock]

I'll just leave all the pet companies that were exempted from Obamacare but the Obama Administration.

Not to mention all the back office deals to big Pharma and others to get their support.

Again, this is the way Republicans wanted it.  Remember when they all tried to claim that a public option system would eliminate the need for private insurance companies? 

[CNS]

They need to just completely open the market up.  It's bullshit that company A can provide insurance in KC but not in Western KC, or Eastern CO.  Any insurance co should be able to sell any package anywhere. 

No one in washington has any interest in making insurance any better or less expensive.

[sonofdaxjones]

They need to just completely open the market up.  It's bullshit that company A can provide insurance in KC but not in Western KC, or Eastern CO.  Any insurance co should be able to sell any package anywhere. 

No one in washington has any interest in making insurance any better or less expensive.

This is very true Casey, sadly some people on here want to make this a Republican/Dem deal, they only see the world through very partisan eyes.

Sad

[Stupid Fitz]

I'll just leave all the pet companies that were exempted from Obamacare but the Obama Administration.

Not to mention all the back office deals to big Pharma and others to get their support.

Again, this is the way Republicans wanted it.  Remember when they all tried to claim that a public option system would eliminate the need for private insurance companies?

Yes, because there was so much repub support for this. 

[OregonSmock]

I'll just leave all the pet companies that were exempted from Obamacare but the Obama Administration.

Not to mention all the back office deals to big Pharma and others to get their support.

Again, this is the way Republicans wanted it.  Remember when they all tried to claim that a public option system would eliminate the need for private insurance companies?

Yes, because there was so much repub support for this.

Obamacare was actually a Republican idea.  The only reason Republicans didn't support it was because of Obama:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/why-obamacare-is-a-conservatives-dream.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

IF Mitt Romney’s pivots on President’s Obama’s health care reform act have accelerated to a blur — from repealing on Day 1, to preserving this or that piece, to punting the decision to the states — it is for an odd reason buried beneath two and a half years of Republican political condemnations: the architecture of the Affordable Care Act is based on conservative, not liberal, ideas about individual responsibility and the power of market forces.

This fundamental ideological paradox, drowned out by partisan shouting since before the plan’s passage in 2010, explains why Obamacare has only lukewarm support from many liberals, who wanted a real, not imagined, “government takeover of health care.” It explains why Republicans have been unable since its passage to come up with anything better. And it explains why the law is nearly identical in design to the legislation Mr. Romney passed in Massachusetts while governor.

The core drivers of the health care act are market principles formulated by conservative economists, designed to correct structural flaws in our health insurance system — principles originally embraced by Republicans as a market alternative to the Clinton plan in the early 1990s. The president’s program extends the current health care system — mostly employer-based coverage, administered by commercial health insurers, with care delivered by fee-for-service doctors and hospitals — by removing the biggest obstacles to that system’s functioning like a competitive marketplace.

Chief among these obstacles are market limitations imposed by the problematic nature of health insurance, which requires that younger, healthier people subsidize older, sicker ones. Because such participation is often expensive and always voluntary, millions have simply opted out, a risky bet emboldened by the 24/7 presence of the heavily subsidized emergency room down the street. The health care law forcibly repatriates these gamblers, along with those who cannot afford to participate in a market that ultimately cross-subsidizes their medical misfortunes anyway, when they get sick and show up in that E.R. And it outlaws discrimination against those who want to participate but cannot because of their medical histories. Put aside the considerable legislative detritus of the act, and its aim is clear: to rationalize a dysfunctional health insurance marketplace.

This explains why the health insurance industry has been quietly supporting the plan all along. It levels the playing field and expands the potential market by tens of millions of new customers.

The rationalization and extension of the current market is financed by the other linchpin of the law: the mandate that we all carry health insurance, an idea forged not by liberal social engineers at the Brookings Institution but by conservative economists at the Heritage Foundation. The individual mandate recognizes that millions of Americans who could buy health insurance choose not to, because it requires trading away today’s wants for tomorrow’s needs. The mandate is about personal responsibility — a hallmark of conservative thought.

IN the partisan war sparked by the 2008 election, Republicans conveniently forgot that this was something many of them had supported for years. The only thing wrong with the mandate? Mr. Obama also thought it was a good idea.

[sonofdaxjones]

Mitt Romney and those of ilk . . . conservatives 

[OregonSmock]

Mitt Romney and those of ilk . . . conservatives 

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank.

[Cartierfor3]

Beems, its ok to say that Obama's health care plan is a disaster, but that you don't think Republicans would've done any better.

[OregonSmock]

Beems, its ok to say that Obama's health care plan is a disaster, but that you don't think Republicans would've done any better.

It's not a disaster for 30+ million people who can now afford health care.

[sonofdaxjones]

Mitt Romney and those of ilk . . . conservatives 

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank.

Who cares, Romney and his ilk are not conservatives.

[06wildcat]

They need to just completely open the market up.  It's bullshit that company A can provide insurance in KC but not in Western KC, or Eastern CO.  Any insurance co should be able to sell any package anywhere. 

No one in washington has any interest in making insurance any better or less expensive.

Open markets do wonders for a lot of things. Sadly, it would create a race to the bottom among states in the health care industry.

Health care should be single payer for multiple reasons, starting with the fact that it would be cheaper for everyone.

The real problem with health care is that often when you need it, there is no open market. If you're in an accident, you're going to the nearest hospital where the staff will order all kinds of tests and treatment ... all the while you're bleeding in the OR not really worried about whether you're getting the best deal on that X-Ray or if the Tylenol after surgery is going to cost you $30/pill.

Also, there is zero transparency from hospitals/doctors offices making it damn near impossible to comparison shop for elective procedures.

[OregonSmock]

Mitt Romney and those of ilk . . . conservatives 

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank.

Who cares, Romney and his ilk are not conservatives.

Okay, Rush Limbaugh.

[sonofdaxjones]

Mitt Romney and those of ilk . . . conservatives 

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank.

Who cares, Romney and his ilk are not conservatives.

Okay, Rush Limbaugh.

Okay, I don't listen to Limbaugh or any of those guys, is that what they say?  You clearly must listen.

It's funny, how twisted and turned the definition of a conservative has become over the years. 

[OregonSmock]

Mitt Romney and those of ilk . . . conservatives 

The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank.

Who cares, Romney and his ilk are not conservatives.

Okay, Rush Limbaugh.

Okay, I don't listen to Limbaugh or any of those guys, is that what they say?  You clearly must listen.

It's funny, how twisted and turned the definition of a conservative has become over the years.

If only we had a health care reform law that focused on personal responsibility and accountability... 

In the shouting match over the health care law, most have somehow missed another of its obvious virtues: it enshrines accountability — yes, another conservative idea. Under today’s system, most health insurers (and providers) are accountable to the wrong people, often for the wrong reasons, with the needs of patients coming last. With the transparency, mobility and choice of the exchanges, businesses and individuals can decide for themselves which insurers (and, embedded in their networks, which providers) deserve their dollars. They can see, thanks to the often derided benefits standardization of the reform act, what they are actually buying. They can shop around. And businesses are free to decide that they are better off opting out, paying into funds that subsidize individuals’ coverage and letting their employees do their own shopping, with what is, in essence, their own compensation, relocated to the exchanges.

[sonofdaxjones]

I have no idea what that even meant, who the source was or anything.

[06wildcat]

If the ACA was the end of health care reform, it would be pretty terrible.

I do lol at the fact Medicare's overhead is 2 percent while PRIVATE insurance average is running around 18 percent (with some considerably higher before ACA kicked in).

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

Obamacare is what happens when you have to compromise with Republicans who don't want to go to a single payer health care system.  The public option would have been nice as well, but again, Republicans wouldn't pass it.

Yes, brilliant work by the Republicans and their large majority in the house and their supermajority in the Senate.



What a delusional imbecile. Indoctrination is a very scary thing, you guys.

[Headinjun]

Repubs had a say.They just decided to play games and vote nay.

I mean for crying out loud Obamacare is their bread and butter 90s idea but when it was proposed by the other side it's some oppressive socialist grand plan to destroy healthcare. 

Grow the eff up and help solve some problems. 

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

One of the single dumbest and disingenuous talking points in the healthcare debate is that obamacare is/was a republican idea.

That talking point only came to fruition after the left realized what an abortion the ACA is and how horribly unpopular it is in the house of public opinion.  Then they started spinning all these lies about how the group that decided to "go it alone" with the "nuclear option" actually were forced to compromise with Republicans resulting in this heaping pile of crap the president had but no choice to sign into law, and how some bill that never left committee in the 90's meant that all Republicans actually support a federally run single payer healthcare system and they just oppose it 20 years later because they're all racists.

[Headinjun]

What? There's a single payer system in place?

One of the single dumbest and disingenuous talking points in the healthcare debate is that obamacare is/was a republican idea.

That talking point only came to fruition after the left realized what an abortion the ACA is and how horribly unpopular it is in the house of public opinion.  Then they started spinning all these lies about how the group that decided to "go it alone" with the "nuclear option" actually were forced to compromise with Republicans resulting in this heaping pile of crap the president had but no choice to sign into law, and how some bill that never left committee in the 90's meant that all Republicans actually support a federally run single payer healthcare system and they just oppose it 20 years later because they're all racists.

[Fake Sugar Dick (WARNING, NOT THE REAL SUGAR DICK!)]

What? There's a single payer system in place?

Yes, it's called Medicare.  However, I think you misread what I wrote.

[Headinjun]

Obamacare is Romneycare and he's republican.