Wait.... what's wrong with "Obamacare"?

[sickhouse]

The main problem is about the homeless aint it? They can't pay for obamacare and can get punished for it? Or have I missunderstood something?

[Wilikon]

The majority of people who oppose Obamacare also known as the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" don't even have a clue how it works.  The new guideline basically aims to make health care more affordable for everyone. It's not exactly a free handout. The tax increase of .009% only applies if you make more than $200,000 so you can imagine who is voicing their protests for it and brainwashing the masses who don't make anywhere near that to do the same.

I understand how it works, I don't make more than $200,000 a years, and I'm still opposed to it. What the program "aims to do" and what it actually does are not the same. Government has a long-running problem with unintended consequences. Unfortunately, the two parties act out of political necessity now, not with any design on what is best for the country. Democrats needed a major policy accomplishment, so this was rushed and rammed through. The vast majority of the Congress didn't read the bill, let alone understand it or be able to foresee the unintended consequences the bill would create. Republicans aren't opposing out of a sense of what is good for the country either. They're opposition is rooted in denying Democrats a major policy win.

My opposition to the bill is on principle. You can't be forced to buy something you don't want to buy, and someone else's problems cannot be made to be your own by government. Everyone is born free and equal, and as a free and equal person to everyone, you cannot be forced an obligation to them unwillingly, which is what socialized medicine is at its base. Your unwillingness to help others who are less fortunate makes you a bad person, but you're free to be a bad person because you're free.

Yep!

Stop the presses! We just agreed on something Wilikon.

I don't really remember who's who on the forum unless they have a very obnoxious avatar or obnoxious giant flashy signature with neon lights around. I try to do my best to comment and reply to the core of what I read every time, as I do not prejudge people on forum.

 

 

[Spendulus]

......

I don't mean to suggest Obamacare is bad or good - I just don't understand why it's such a popular topic when its effects are almost nonexistent outside the related expansion of Medicaid in most states, which could've been done by simply expanding Medicaid - and I doubt "Obamacaid" would've caught on. ....

I doubt that's anywhere close to accurate.

For example, small businesses are struggling with the implications of the new taxes.

My insurance costs almost tripled.

The IRS added 18,000 more goons for enforcement.

The effects are certainly not almost non existent.

I didn't think of that. I'd guess your employer significantly subsidized healthcare costs where wages (especially for single adults) typically exceed Medicaid income tests and now face higher costs because they have to go from their own insurance pool of productive, able-bodied people to a massive pool of all sorts of people. I thought the practice of companies paying for insurance'd pretty much died off outside, say, $100k+/yr jobs where the tax benefits of taking health care over increased pay gets pretty extreme.

The IRS has no effective way of enforcing the individual mandate. They're claiming they'll withhold federal tax refund checks, but a household failing the Medicaid income tests are unlikely to be receiving a tax refund (though this could be extremely different state-by-state, and some states do asset tests).

The IRS/government has actually explicitly said they will not enforce the individual mandate. The whole concept of Obama care is a joke, it is just a ploy to get more people on a new entitlement program so more people will vote democrat

Do you have a source for this claim? Because I've not heard it, I find it hard to believe, and it undercuts the entire system if there's no penalty for not joining.

Spendulus is right about enforcing the mandate. It's not a criminal action, it's administrative. There are fees and interest, which if you don't pay may eventually wind up with a criminal complaint, but the IRS is an administrative agency.

Actually, several assertions he made are what might be dubbed "well known and well propagated total falsehoods".  Easy to find them on google and so forth.  But a simple examination of them shows they are false. 

I have to suspect it's part of making Obamacare seem more palatable or less threatening than it actually is.  Because they most certainly will come after the 20-40 year old singles market, and with a vengence.

[BitMos]

Frankly if it was to be redone, it would be first fix the VA, meaning using more systemic and serious (modern) tools to approach the question in a more strategic way of thinking and then working roll out main stream... sound more professional to me, not that the private sector isn't able to make more than shoes, or even provide the most perfect health maximizing return for everyone, it's just that if the solution developed for the VA is better than all the others why not, which would make it a free choice, and the natural death of an industry... And it's not like if the VA didn't need fixing, which would solve the health part of it, at least. Obamacare is actually at least a case study of the risks of the concept of public-private partnership. why not try a full true (deep) state side solution to a real problem like health issue in veteran affairs? Market have agreed to the collectivization of defense (offense  ), if collectivized health solutions are provably better, who could resists? Anyone can marketing what ever a shoe, but if it hurts, it hurts...

[Spendulus]

Frankly if it was to be redone, it would be first fix the VA, meaning using more systemic and serious (modern) tools to approach the question in a more strategic way of thinking and then working roll out main stream... sound more professional to me, not that the private sector isn't able to make more than shoes, or even provide the most perfect health maximizing return for everyone, it's just that if the solution developed for the VA is better than all the others why not, which would make it a free choice, and the natural death of an industry... And it's not like if the VA didn't need fixing, which would solve the health part of it, at least. Obamacare is actually at least a case study of the risks of the concept of public-private partnership. why not try a full true (deep) state side solution to a real problem like health issue in veteran affairs? Market have agreed to the collectivization of defense (offense  ), if collectivized health solutions are provably better, who could resists? Anyone can marketing what ever a shoe, but if it hurts, it hurts...

Well lets just "improve health care" even more.  We'll have the state pay for health care, and also intense promotion and advertising on how great health care is.  Then we'll have the state shut up anyone who says anything to the contrary.

That oughta work.