More ObamaCare Exemptions

[umair127]

Nearly 90% of the 30 million uninsured will not pay the penalty required by the law because of expanding exemptions. With one of the crucial pieces of the law being the individual mandate, enforced through these penalties, this is just another crack in the hull of the sinking ship that is PPACA.

[noviapriani]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

[umair127]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

It's just Medicaid that has an effect, but it's a very small piece of the total.

[sana8410]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

It's just Medicaid that has an effect, but it's a very small piece of the total.

#13 is awesome, no.accountability just someone that feels the cost is too much.

Hardship exemptions

If you have any of the circumstances below that affect your ability to purchase health insurance coverage, you may qualify for a “hardship” exemption:

1. You were homeless.

2. You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.

3. You received a shut-off notice from a utility company.

4. You recently experienced domestic violence.

5. You recently experienced the death of a close family member.

6. You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural or human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.

7. You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.

8. You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months which resulted in substantial debt.

9. You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.

10. You expect to claim a child as a tax dependuh ent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and CHIP, and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child. In this case, you do not have the pay the penalty for the child.

11. As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, lower costs on your monthly premiums, or cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.

12. You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

13. Your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other Marketplace plans are unaffordable.

14. You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.

[umair127]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

It's just Medicaid that has an effect, but it's a very small piece of the total.

#13 is awesome, no.accountability just someone that feels the cost is too much.

Hardship exemptions

If you have any of the circumstances below that affect your ability to purchase health insurance coverage, you may qualify for a “hardship” exemption:

1. You were homeless.

2. You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.

3. You received a shut-off notice from a utility company.

4. You recently experienced domestic violence.

5. You recently experienced the death of a close family member.

6. You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural or human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.

7. You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.

8. You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months which resulted in substantial debt.

9. You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.

10. You expect to claim a child as a tax dependuh ent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and CHIP, and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child. In this case, you do not have the pay the penalty for the child.

11. As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, lower costs on your monthly premiums, or cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.

12. You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

13. Your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other Marketplace plans are unaffordable.

14. You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.

#3 is really good, too. You can get out of a federal tax penalty by not paying your utilities for a couple of months until they send you a shut-off notice. In almost every state, you get 10-30 days' notice to cure your nonpayment. So, take the notice and apply for the exemption; meanwhile, pay your past due balance.

[noviapriani]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

It's just Medicaid that has an effect, but it's a very small piece of the total.

#13 is awesome, no.accountability just someone that feels the cost is too much.

Hardship exemptions

If you have any of the circumstances below that affect your ability to purchase health insurance coverage, you may qualify for a “hardship” exemption:

1. You were homeless.

2. You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.

3. You received a shut-off notice from a utility company.

4. You recently experienced domestic violence.

5. You recently experienced the death of a close family member.

6. You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural or human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.

7. You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.

8. You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months which resulted in substantial debt.

9. You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.

10. You expect to claim a child as a tax dependuh ent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and CHIP, and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child. In this case, you do not have the pay the penalty for the child.

11. As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, lower costs on your monthly premiums, or cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.

12. You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

13. Your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other Marketplace plans are unaffordable.

14. You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.

This is strange, I didn't remember you being a blindly-partisan retard... but here you are BADLY misrepresenting the PPACA.

The hardship exemption you reference can be applied for by filling out a form and providing documentation that your existing plan has been cancelled, so you're demonstrating not only that you did in fact lose coverage but also its costs. So "I don't feel like paying" still isn't a reasonable excuse. Premiums going from $100/month to $500/month? Perhaps. Premiums on cancelled plan were $100/month, you can now get covered for $90/month? I wouldn't expect that waiver to be granted.

But even if it is, it just means that you qualify for catastrophic coverage which still means you're buying insurance, you're just getting a plan which is bare-bones enough to be considered viable only as a short-term stopgap measure.

[umair127]

The domestic violence one is puzzling as well. No doubt, domestic violence is a serious issue and its victims deserve the utmost protection and the best help available, but I am struggling to see why that qualifies you for a federal tax exemption.

[noviapriani]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

It's just Medicaid that has an effect, but it's a very small piece of the total.

#13 is awesome, no.accountability just someone that feels the cost is too much.

Hardship exemptions

If you have any of the circumstances below that affect your ability to purchase health insurance coverage, you may qualify for a “hardship” exemption:

1. You were homeless.

2. You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.

3. You received a shut-off notice from a utility company.

4. You recently experienced domestic violence.

5. You recently experienced the death of a close family member.

6. You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural or human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.

7. You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.

8. You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months which resulted in substantial debt.

9. You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.

10. You expect to claim a child as a tax dependuh ent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and CHIP, and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child. In this case, you do not have the pay the penalty for the child.

11. As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, lower costs on your monthly premiums, or cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.

12. You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

13. Your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other Marketplace plans are unaffordable.

14. You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.

#3 is really good, too. You can get out of a federal tax penalty by not paying your utilities for a couple of months until they send you a shut-off notice. In almost every state, you get 10-30 days' notice to cure your nonpayment. So, take the notice and apply for the exemption; meanwhile, pay your past due balance.

To my understanding, people generally want to be insured. Risking the termination of utility services in order to avoid having to get insurance seems like the sort of tactically bad, lazy-at-all-costs thing that poor people do all the time in the minds of conservative dipshits, and incredibly rarely in real life. (See also the results of drug tests for welfare recipients.)

[Spendulus]

The domestic violence one is puzzling as well. No doubt, domestic violence is a serious issue and its victims deserve the utmost protection and the best help available, but I am struggling to see why that qualifies you for a federal tax exemption.

Because it's a matter of buying your vote, silly.

[zolace]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

It's just Medicaid that has an effect, but it's a very small piece of the total.

#13 is awesome, no.accountability just someone that feels the cost is too much.

Hardship exemptions

If you have any of the circumstances below that affect your ability to purchase health insurance coverage, you may qualify for a “hardship” exemption:

1. You were homeless.

2. You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.

3. You received a shut-off notice from a utility company.

4. You recently experienced domestic violence.

5. You recently experienced the death of a close family member.

6. You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural or human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.

7. You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.

8. You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months which resulted in substantial debt.

9. You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.

10. You expect to claim a child as a tax dependuh ent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and CHIP, and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child. In this case, you do not have the pay the penalty for the child.

11. As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, lower costs on your monthly premiums, or cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.

12. You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

13. Your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other Marketplace plans are unaffordable.

14. You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.

#3 is really good, too. You can get out of a federal tax penalty by not paying your utilities for a couple of months until they send you a shut-off notice. In almost every state, you get 10-30 days' notice to cure your nonpayment. So, take the notice and apply for the exemption; meanwhile, pay your past due balance.

To my understanding, people generally want to be insured. Risking the termination of utility services in order to avoid having to get insurance seems like the sort of tactically bad, lazy-at-all-costs thing that poor people do all the time in the minds of conservative dipshits, and incredibly rarely in real life. (See also the results of drug tests for welfare recipients.)

No they don't. People generally want to be healthy. Beyond that (when they're sick or busted) they want to be fixed. Once healthy again, they don't want to be indentured servants for the remainder of their days to pay the bills. But there is no risk. Once you get the late notice, it's the free-ride ticket, and then you pay the bill, and everything is fine with the utility again.

[noviapriani]

As for the DV component of the hardship waiver, we're talking about a life event with far-reaching implications, and it is noble and keenly perceptive of the lawmakers to have included this exemption. DV incidents would be indicative of a high level of financial uncertainty, particularly when you consider the likelihood that the person making use of this hardship is financially dependent on the person who just went to jail for beating her up.

[noviapriani]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

It's just Medicaid that has an effect, but it's a very small piece of the total.

#13 is awesome, no.accountability just someone that feels the cost is too much.

Hardship exemptions

If you have any of the circumstances below that affect your ability to purchase health insurance coverage, you may qualify for a “hardship” exemption:

1. You were homeless.

2. You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.

3. You received a shut-off notice from a utility company.

4. You recently experienced domestic violence.

5. You recently experienced the death of a close family member.

6. You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural or human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.

7. You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.

8. You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months which resulted in substantial debt.

9. You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.

10. You expect to claim a child as a tax dependuh ent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and CHIP, and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child. In this case, you do not have the pay the penalty for the child.

11. As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, lower costs on your monthly premiums, or cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.

12. You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

13. Your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other Marketplace plans are unaffordable.

14. You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.

#3 is really good, too. You can get out of a federal tax penalty by not paying your utilities for a couple of months until they send you a shut-off notice. In almost every state, you get 10-30 days' notice to cure your nonpayment. So, take the notice and apply for the exemption; meanwhile, pay your past due balance.

To my understanding, people generally want to be insured. Risking the termination of utility services in order to avoid having to get insurance seems like the sort of tactically bad, lazy-at-all-costs thing that poor people do all the time in the minds of conservative dipshits, and incredibly rarely in real life. (See also the results of drug tests for welfare recipients.)

No they don't. People generally want to be healthy. Beyond that (when they're sick or busted) they want to be fixed. Once healthy again, they don't want to be indentured servants for the remainder of their days to pay the bills. But there is no risk. Once you get the late notice, it's the free-ride ticket, and then you pay the bill, and everything is fine with the utility again.

Nonsense. These are unsubstantiated right-wing talking points, empty rhetoric about "free-stuffers" - where is your evidence of this rampant abuse of the system? Never mind you evidently haven't looked into how the hardship waiver actually works. You realize that under the waiver you still have to buy a plan, it's just cheaper and it's temporary by design.

[Spendulus]

As for the DV component of the hardship waiver, we're talking about a life event with far-reaching implications, and it is noble and keenly perceptive of the lawmakers to have included this exemption. DV incidents would be indicative of a high level of financial uncertainty, particularly when you consider the likelihood that the person making use of this hardship is financially dependent on the person who just went to jail for beating her up.

I'm certainly glad that our lawmakers are noble and keenly perceptive.

Wait a minute....

Actually I like #8.  "You had medical expenses you couldn't pay."

So if you don't pay medical bills, then you don't have to pay them.

Check - mate.

[umair127]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

It's just Medicaid that has an effect, but it's a very small piece of the total.

#13 is awesome, no.accountability just someone that feels the cost is too much.

Hardship exemptions

If you have any of the circumstances below that affect your ability to purchase health insurance coverage, you may qualify for a “hardship” exemption:

1. You were homeless.

2. You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.

3. You received a shut-off notice from a utility company.

4. You recently experienced domestic violence.

5. You recently experienced the death of a close family member.

6. You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural or human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.

7. You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.

8. You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months which resulted in substantial debt.

9. You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.

10. You expect to claim a child as a tax dependuh ent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and CHIP, and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child. In this case, you do not have the pay the penalty for the child.

11. As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, lower costs on your monthly premiums, or cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.

12. You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

13. Your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other Marketplace plans are unaffordable.

14. You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.

#3 is really good, too. You can get out of a federal tax penalty by not paying your utilities for a couple of months until they send you a shut-off notice. In almost every state, you get 10-30 days' notice to cure your nonpayment. So, take the notice and apply for the exemption; meanwhile, pay your past due balance.

To my understanding, people generally want to be insured. Risking the termination of utility services in order to avoid having to get insurance seems like the sort of tactically bad, lazy-at-all-costs thing that poor people do all the time in the minds of conservative dipshits, and incredibly rarely in real life. (See also the results of drug tests for welfare recipients.)

No they don't. People generally want to be healthy. Beyond that (when they're sick or busted) they want to be fixed. Once healthy again, they don't want to be indentured servants for the remainder of their days to pay the bills. But there is no risk. Once you get the late notice, it's the free-ride ticket, and then you pay the bill, and everything is fine with the utility again.

Nonsense. These are unsubstantiated right-wing talking points, empty rhetoric about "free-stuffers" - where is your evidence of this rampant abuse of the system? Never mind you evidently haven't looked into how the hardship waiver actually works. You realize that under the waiver you still have to buy a plan, it's just cheaper and it's temporary by design.

While the talking points are just that, I'm not sure why you bother to defend a law that in the aggregate is garbage. I'm not, of course, saying your points are wrong. I just don't see the value in defending a law that was bad when originally thought up in the 90s, and bad when it became law. But to each their own. I try to ignore it as much as possible.

[noviapriani]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

It's just Medicaid that has an effect, but it's a very small piece of the total.

#13 is awesome, no.accountability just someone that feels the cost is too much.

Hardship exemptions

If you have any of the circumstances below that affect your ability to purchase health insurance coverage, you may qualify for a “hardship” exemption:

1. You were homeless.

2. You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.

3. You received a shut-off notice from a utility company.

4. You recently experienced domestic violence.

5. You recently experienced the death of a close family member.

6. You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural or human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.

7. You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.

8. You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months which resulted in substantial debt.

9. You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.

10. You expect to claim a child as a tax dependuh ent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and CHIP, and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child. In this case, you do not have the pay the penalty for the child.

11. As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, lower costs on your monthly premiums, or cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.

12. You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

13. Your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other Marketplace plans are unaffordable.

14. You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.

#3 is really good, too. You can get out of a federal tax penalty by not paying your utilities for a couple of months until they send you a shut-off notice. In almost every state, you get 10-30 days' notice to cure your nonpayment. So, take the notice and apply for the exemption; meanwhile, pay your past due balance.

To my understanding, people generally want to be insured. Risking the termination of utility services in order to avoid having to get insurance seems like the sort of tactically bad, lazy-at-all-costs thing that poor people do all the time in the minds of conservative dipshits, and incredibly rarely in real life. (See also the results of drug tests for welfare recipients.)

No they don't. People generally want to be healthy. Beyond that (when they're sick or busted) they want to be fixed. Once healthy again, they don't want to be indentured servants for the remainder of their days to pay the bills. But there is no risk. Once you get the late notice, it's the free-ride ticket, and then you pay the bill, and everything is fine with the utility again.

Nonsense. These are unsubstantiated right-wing talking points, empty rhetoric about "free-stuffers" - where is your evidence of this rampant abuse of the system? Never mind you evidently haven't looked into how the hardship waiver actually works. You realize that under the waiver you still have to buy a plan, it's just cheaper and it's temporary by design.

While the talking points are just that, I'm not sure why you bother to defend a law that in the aggregate is garbage. I'm not, of course, saying your points are wrong. I just don't see the value in defending a law that was bad when originally thought up in the 90s, and bad when it became law. But to each their own. I try to ignore it as much as possible.

I appreciate what you're saying. For the purpose of this thread, and the larger narrative, I don't consider myself to be a defender of the PPACA so much as a defender of the truth... which may sound trite, but when the larger political landscape is shaped by untruths, it's really pretty much impossible to have a rational conversation about the merits of the law, which of course colors the subject of whether and how to change it (or move on).

[zolace]

Isn't this possibly impacted by states who don't have medicaid/medicare expansions?

It's just Medicaid that has an effect, but it's a very small piece of the total.

#13 is awesome, no.accountability just someone that feels the cost is too much.

Hardship exemptions

If you have any of the circumstances below that affect your ability to purchase health insurance coverage, you may qualify for a “hardship” exemption:

1. You were homeless.

2. You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.

3. You received a shut-off notice from a utility company.

4. You recently experienced domestic violence.

5. You recently experienced the death of a close family member.

6. You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural or human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.

7. You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.

8. You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months which resulted in substantial debt.

9. You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.

10. You expect to claim a child as a tax dependuh ent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and CHIP, and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child. In this case, you do not have the pay the penalty for the child.

11. As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, lower costs on your monthly premiums, or cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.

12. You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

13. Your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other Marketplace plans are unaffordable.

14. You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.

"14. You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance"

If it is too much of a "hardship" to require people to obtain a free state provided ID card in order to vote, this "hardship" should be a cake-walk.

[noviapriani]

I wonder to what extent you and I would agree as to the positives and negatives of the PPACA. My dream ultimately is socialized medicine. In certain respects, PPACA advances toward that incrementally, but for the most part it goes in the opposite direction. Within the framework of our mixed economy, I'm not sure how much closer we could get to socialized medicine, particularly with (1) the firmly-established allowance for states to opt out of Medicaid expansion, and (2) so many ultraconservatives in leadership positions, making decisions based on their ideology rather than concern for the health of their constituents. (There are other roadblocks but that part really irks the shit out of me.)

[sana8410]

I wonder to what extent you and I would agree as to the positives and negatives of the PPACA. My dream ultimately is socialized medicine. In certain respects, PPACA advances toward that incrementally, but for the most part it goes in the opposite direction. Within the framework of our mixed economy, I'm not sure how much closer we could get to socialized medicine, particularly with (1) the firmly-established allowance for states to opt out of Medicaid expansion, and (2) so many ultraconservatives in leadership positions, making decisions based on their ideology rather than concern for the health of their constituents. (There are other roadblocks but that part really irks the shit out of me.)

I tend to believe in a modified single payer system similar to Canadian and British models, with whatever tweaks would be needed to make it work a little better, while allowing a robust private system for those who wish to pay a premium while getting a tax break. I find a strong private system is necessary to bring forward the advances. They don't really happen as much in a strictly government system. It would be two tiered, but life is like that. As long as the normal system is good, it should work out.

[Spendulus]

I wonder to what extent you and I would agree as to the positives and negatives of the PPACA. My dream ultimately is socialized medicine. In certain respects, PPACA advances toward that incrementally, but for the most part it goes in the opposite direction. Within the framework of our mixed economy, I'm not sure how much closer we could get to socialized medicine, particularly with (1) the firmly-established allowance for states to opt out of Medicaid expansion, and (2) so many ultraconservatives in leadership positions, making decisions based on their ideology rather than concern for the health of their constituents. (There are other roadblocks but that part really irks the shit out of me.)

I tend to believe in a modified single payer system similar to Canadian and British models, with whatever tweaks would be needed to make it work a little better, while allowing a robust private system for those who wish to pay a premium while getting a tax break. I find a strong private system is necessary to bring forward the advances. They don't really happen as much in a strictly government system. It would be two tiered, but life is like that. As long as the normal system is good, it should work out.

Except that the US doesn't have the money to run the ACA.  It was initially "funded by figuring ten years of tax increases for four years of ACA".  Then the list of exemptions (eg, government payouts) continued to increase.   And it's not through increasing, because the goal is political - to create a class dependent on the government for basic health care.

Meanwhile the US runs a trillion a year deficit.  You can prattle on all you want about lofty progressive expansions of government service, and of course the vision in your head is superior to whatever you are criticizing.  But in the real world, any implemented plan is subjected to corrosive and corrupt influences during its implementation, so your plan, actually is no better or far worse.  The deficit and the budget are what will determine outcomes.

[wasserman99]

The domestic violence one is puzzling as well. No doubt, domestic violence is a serious issue and its victims deserve the utmost protection and the best help available, but I am struggling to see why that qualifies you for a federal tax exemption.

It doesn't. Obama wants to look favorable towards women, and domestic violence victims tend to be women. When the GOP tries to get rid of these exemptions that should not be given in the first place, liberals will spin this as the GOP waging a war on women.