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

[BitMos]

Welcome to my ignore list Fatman3001. You are the first one to get this privilege. I hope you are proud of yourself...

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[Fatman3001]

Welcome to my ignore list Fatman3001. You are the first one to get this privilege. I hope you are proud of yourself...

I have tried to be civil (admittedly with mixed success), but if you can´t bear having your opinions shone a light on it is quite strange that you offer them so freely. Well, the best of luck to you.

[Elwar]

Ah, I see! You are both anti-rationalists. How dumb do I feel? Yes I guess I do want to make people fit into categories in a way, not perfectly, but enough to understand them. I, like most, naturally react to inconsistencies so I see how that can be annoying to you. You don´t have to accept the label I have given you but it sure makes me feel better to have figured this out. It´s kind of like solving a bunch of lines in tetris with one piece.

By only thinking of people in groups you take the lazy path forward. Which is ok, many people do not want to have to consider that each person might have their own thoughts or ideals. It is much easier to create categories and only think of those categories and work to put people into those categories.

I am an individual with my own thoughts and ideals. I have formed my thoughts not by choosing a collective and then finding out what their beliefs are. I have come to my conclusions on my own. I am myself. Nobody else. No matter how hard you try to make me the same as someone else.

[Fatman3001]

Ah, I see! You are both anti-rationalists. How dumb do I feel? Yes I guess I do want to make people fit into categories in a way, [1]not perfectly, but enough to understand them. I, like most, naturally react to inconsistencies so I see how that can be annoying to you. You don´t have to accept the label I have given you but it sure makes me feel better to have figured this out. It´s kind of like solving a bunch of lines in tetris with one piece.

By only thinking of people in groups you take the lazy path forward. Which is ok, many people do not want to have to consider that each person might have their own thoughts or ideals. It is much easier to create categories and only think of those categories and work to put people into those categories.

I am an individual with my own thoughts and ideals. I have formed my thoughts not by choosing a collective and then finding out what their beliefs are. I have come to my conclusions on my own. I am myself. Nobody else. No matter how hard you try to make me the same as someone else.

I would like to refer to [1].

Your experience is similar to that of most people who have given these things a bit of thought, and like most people your view of things fit some schools of thought better than others.

BTW: I saw your website and I really like it. It is very well laid out and the concept is awesome. Lets hope for some more bitcoin adoption waves so more people can enjoy it.

[Elwar]

Ah, I see! You are both anti-rationalists. How dumb do I feel? Yes I guess I do want to make people fit into categories in a way, [1]not perfectly, but enough to understand them. I, like most, naturally react to inconsistencies so I see how that can be annoying to you. You don´t have to accept the label I have given you but it sure makes me feel better to have figured this out. It´s kind of like solving a bunch of lines in tetris with one piece.

By only thinking of people in groups you take the lazy path forward. Which is ok, many people do not want to have to consider that each person might have their own thoughts or ideals. It is much easier to create categories and only think of those categories and work to put people into those categories.

I am an individual with my own thoughts and ideals. I have formed my thoughts not by choosing a collective and then finding out what their beliefs are. I have come to my conclusions on my own. I am myself. Nobody else. No matter how hard you try to make me the same as someone else.

I would like to refer to [1].

Your experience is similar to that of most people who have given these things a bit of thought, and like most people your view of things fit some schools of thought better than others.

BTW: I saw your website and I really like it. It is very well laid out and the concept is awesome. Lets hope for some more bitcoin adoption waves so more people can enjoy it.

Thank you, I hope it is helpful to people.

As for schools of thought, I tend to agree more with libertarians, I ran within the party for congress at one point. But I have evolved from there and understand now that it is mainly about power, no matter the structure. We live in an anarchist, darwinist, survival of the fittest world. It is the governments that have gathered the power to survive and thrive through the gathering of power from the people, using that power to continue to gather more power. Each promises different things or puts on different window dressing, but it is all the same. Even without governments we would have people coming together to combine their power and create structures to get even more power.
Fortunately Bitcoin gives people more control of the financial aspect of their lives. Hopefully that plays a major role in freeing many people from the power structures they are stuck in.

[Fatman3001]

Ah, I see! You are both anti-rationalists. How dumb do I feel? Yes I guess I do want to make people fit into categories in a way, [1]not perfectly, but enough to understand them. I, like most, naturally react to inconsistencies so I see how that can be annoying to you. You don´t have to accept the label I have given you but it sure makes me feel better to have figured this out. It´s kind of like solving a bunch of lines in tetris with one piece.

By only thinking of people in groups you take the lazy path forward. Which is ok, many people do not want to have to consider that each person might have their own thoughts or ideals. It is much easier to create categories and only think of those categories and work to put people into those categories.

I am an individual with my own thoughts and ideals. I have formed my thoughts not by choosing a collective and then finding out what their beliefs are. I have come to my conclusions on my own. I am myself. Nobody else. No matter how hard you try to make me the same as someone else.

I would like to refer to [1].

Your experience is similar to that of most people who have given these things a bit of thought, and like most people your view of things fit some schools of thought better than others.

BTW: I saw your website and I really like it. It is very well laid out and the concept is awesome. Lets hope for some more bitcoin adoption waves so more people can enjoy it.

Thank you, I hope it is helpful to people.

As for schools of thought, I tend to agree more with libertarians, I ran within the party for congress at one point. But I have evolved from there and understand now that it is mainly about power, no matter the structure. We live in an anarchist, darwinist, survival of the fittest world. It is the governments that have gathered the power to survive and thrive through the gathering of power from the people, using that power to continue to gather more power. Each promises different things or puts on different window dressing, but it is all the same. Even without governments we would have people coming together to combine their power and create structures to get even more power.
Fortunately Bitcoin gives people more control of the financial aspect of their lives. Hopefully that plays a major role in freeing many people from the power structures they are stuck in.

Amen to that

[Wilikon]

ObamaCare 2016: If you like your plan, you’ll love it when we pick a different one



Alternate headline: HHS Decides to Make Plan Choices for the Grubes. In a Friday afternoon filled with document dumps, HHS announced that its controversial auto-enrollment plan would be significantly changed in 2016. This year, enrollees who allowed their plans to auto-renew risked running up big tax bills, thanks to annual recalculation of subsidies and base rates. To solve that problem, HHS wants people to allow the Obama administration to auto-enroll them into the lowest-cost plan in their 2016 tier, regardless of what the coverage or deductibles will be:

Another proposal calls for having Obamacare customers be “defaulted” to a lower-cost insurance plan instead of their current plan.

“Under current rules, consumers who do not take action during the open enrollment window are re-enrolled in the same plan they were in the previous year, even if that plan experienced significant premium increases,” CMS said.

“We are considering alternative options for re-enrollment, under which consumers who take no action might be defaulted into a lower-cost plan rather than their current plan.”

Although CMS said it is considering allowing state-run Obamacare exchanges to implement that default option in 2016, the agency is eyeing using that option on the federal Obamacare exchange HealthCare.gov starting only in 2017.

While the defaulted option could protect customers from sticker shock once their now-pricier plan renews, the option also increases the likelihood that people will find themselves in a plan that doesn’t include their preferred doctors or hospitals.



The ObamaCare sales pitch has really progressed, has it not? We started at If you like your plan, you can keep your plan, which Politifact belatedly called the Lie of the Year once ObamaCare rolled out in 2013. After that, the White House line was If you liked your plan, it’s because you were too stupid to know what’s good for you, but you’ll like what you can pick now. Finally, we’ve arrived at You’re still too stupid to choose your own plan, so you’ll like what we tell you to like.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it follows the basic message of Jonathan Gruber ever since Congress passed ObamaCare. This system was set up by people who have contempt for Americans exercising free choice, and it was designed to remove choice in favor of elitist diktats.

Peter Suderman points out that the actual solution to this problem is to turn off auto-renewals and instruct people to enroll each year for their coverage. That’s what most employers do as well; every employer for which I’ve worked has required their employees to enroll each year in order to make sure they are informed of pricing and coverage changes. HHS won’t do that, though, because they’re afraid of the attrition:

It’s not just auto-reenrollment. It’s auto-reassignment, at least for those who pick that option. Basically, if you like your plan, but don’t go out of your way to intentionally re-enroll, the kind and wise folks at HHS or state health exchanges might just pick a new plan—perhaps with different doctors, clinics, cost structures, and benefit options—for you. And if you want to switch back? Good luck once open enrollment is closed. There’s always next year.

A hassle? Maybe. But have faith: They know what’s best.

Presumably the idea came up because, even though by some measures premiums aren’t rising by large amounts this year, premiums for many of the lowest cost and most popular plans from last year are rising quite a bit. And since HHS decided over the summer to institute auto-renewal, and since the majority of Obamacare enrollees are expected to take no action and thus stay in their current plans, the reality is that under the current system a lot of enrollees are likely to see large premium hikes, just because they didn’t shop around for a new plan.

This sort of problem was more or less inevitable with automatic renewal, which was probably instituted as a way to shore up enrollment and prevent too much attrition in year two. The easy, straightforward way to fix it would be to turn auto renewal off. But that might result in lower enrollment. And anyway, why go the obvious route when there’s the possibility of having federal and state health bureaucrats make even more choices for you?



At the moment, this is a proposal, not yet a rule change. There may be some room in it to give users the option to turn off auto-renewal, although one might imagine just how difficult it will be to find that option in a notoriously-unfriendly system.  Don’t expect HHS to back away from this plan, though, especially after having 1.3 million enrollees disappear from their system in just 5 months this year.

It’s becoming a real clown show, bro. Or maybe a clown shoe, Mary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpE_xMRiCLE

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/22/obamacare-2016-if-you-like-your-plan-youll-love-it-when-we-pick-a-different-one/

[Kluge]

You are being taxed just for being alive.

With the income tax you at least have a choice of not working. This is a tax on breathing.

*shrug* I'm excepted from withholding as well as the individual mandate and I definitely don't have the $200k+/yr Obamacare surtax. I have the joyous experience of filing as head of household with a dependent, refusing overtime because "fuck you, EITC pays me to sit on my ass." I get a 10% bonus to my "refund" by taking it as an Amazon GC and Michigan even refunds my property taxes.

As you can see, Obamacare gives people incentives not to work (or in your case work less) and although it may seem like you are getting "free money" your standard of living is going to be lower over the long term and will likely miss out on opportunities that would significantly increase your income. 

Somewhat, possibly. Income-tied welfare and tax burden makes working more hours come in at a significantly lower take-home rate. For those on full-time at minimum wage who take advantage of welfare offered, they may actually effectively reduce their take-home pay by working more and/or at a higher pay rate. This effect is more severe the more dependents you have and creates a kind of wall you run into going from lower class to higher class where your nominal pay rate is increasing but your take-home is barely moving. "Middle class" is a bit of a myth.... I guess it exists from ~$80k-120k/yr, ~2x above median income of FT workers in the US.

Assuming one dependent and filing HoH, someone earning $17k/yr (EITC sweet spot) should expect ~$21.2k take-home after EITC + ~$30k/yr in welfare benefits (mostly Medicaid, keeping in mind Medicaid in most states is outrageously superior to most private insurance plans) for a total of ~$51.2k/yr. This isn't matched until you're making >$60k annually, while earning more than is allowed for Medicaid will massively decrease effective pay rate. Factoring in compound interest, many people would be better off "deferring" pay raises until they can earn enough to get over the hump. The only real exceptions are if you have no kids or genuinely value health insurance very low compared to its costs, where losing Medicaid coverage while being excepted from the individual mandate might be preferable (~$35k-$50k/yr for this example). In the latter case, the point where the individual mandate kicks in would be the "wall" where you wouldn't want to have your pay increased (unless it comes with a reduction in hours). Of course, welfare cut-offs, allowances, and conditions vary wildly state-to-state -- YMMV. In some states, incentives are very strange... for example, you can't have more than $xxxx in a bank account in many states, so you have to immediately spend it, or take it out as cash, or possibly buy bitcoin (depending on how various states' welfare departments rule on it)... I'm sure it was a well-intentioned rule originally, though.

ETA: US census data (2010) shows 89.57% of US workers earn <$80k. I'd consider consider the middle class to make up ~4%* of US workers ($80-120k), upper class ~6.5%* (>$120k). Therefor, I don't believe in the 99%, but rather the 89.57%. ....
*US census doesn't create sub-groups for people earning >$100k/yr.

[beetcoin]

what's wrong with obamacare? kooky conservatives. we already knew how well it would work, since it had already happened in MA, and although it wasn't perfect, it was an improvement.

[Spendulus]

Welcome to my ignore list Fatman3001. You are the first one to get this privilege. I hope you are proud of yourself...

And thus Grubering comes to the Forum.

[Fatman3001]

Welcome to my ignore list Fatman3001. You are the first one to get this privilege. I hope you are proud of yourself...

And thus Grubering comes to the Forum.

You mean that guy who wrote that bill for the republican presidential candidate?

[Wilikon]

what's wrong with obamacare? kooky conservatives. we already knew how well it would work, since it had already happened in MA, and although it wasn't perfect, it was an improvement.

I don't get that. Yes some people want a single payer model. Fine. But does that mean everything is acceptable to reach that goal no matter what? Do you want to have something like 0bamacare to be remembered as The First Grubering forever? Does that mean you cannot be better humans than those kooky conservatives and need to be sneaky sleazy lying liberals to have your ideas be forced on people? How does that make you better than a conservative?

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/

[Spendulus]

Welcome to my ignore list Fatman3001. You are the first one to get this privilege. I hope you are proud of yourself...

And thus Grubering comes to the Forum.

You mean that guy who wrote that bill for the republican presidential candidate?

I mean you.  And by the way, this is not trolling.  I'm saying that you are bringing Grubering into the forum with this thread.  Since "Grubering" is actually a new word in English, I figured we should use it.  Why not?

[BitMos]

sneaky sleazy lying liberals

Thank you Wilikon for this. Did you ^tm it? I ask because I may use it often . I think that they missed the concept of Thou shall make War by using deception... the key word is war, not politic. Beginners. But don't worry, my mercyless friends aren't tricked by such rhetoric. the facts only.

[Spendulus]

what's wrong with obamacare? kooky conservatives. we already knew how well it would work, since it had already happened in MA, and although it wasn't perfect, it was an improvement.

I don't get that. Yes some people want a single payer model. Fine. But does that mean everything is acceptable to reach that goal no matter what? Do you want to have something like 0bamacare to be remembered as The First Grubering forever? Does that mean you cannot be better humans than those kooky conservatives and need to be sneaky sleazy lying liberals to have your ideas be forced on people? How does that make you better than a conservative?

Hey, that's not fair.  Obamacare will certainly be remembered as the First Gruber (Although I think Climate Science was actually the first...).

Here, Fatman is the Gruber.

Let him spin it.

We already know how the Gruber thinks.  But we don't know what clever nuances the Fatman may add to the lie set.  I think the novel thing about The Gruber is he comes right out and says the things that shouldn't be said, but that everyone thinks.  In a sick and twisted and perverted way...

....that's worthy of some respect.

[Wilikon]

sneaky sleazy lying liberals

Thank you Wilikon for this. Did you ^tm it? I ask because I may use it often . I think that they missed the concept of Thou shall make War by using deception... the key word is war, not politic. Beginners. But don't worry, my mercyless friends aren't tricked by such rhetoric. the facts only.

Everything I say on this forum is CC BY 4.0 UNLESS I say otherwise

[Spendulus]

sneaky sleazy lying liberals

Thank you Wilikon for this. Did you ^tm it? I ask because I may use it often . I think that they missed the concept of Thou shall make War by using deception... the key word is war, not politic. Beginners. But don't worry, my mercyless friends aren't tricked by such rhetoric. the facts only.

Everything I say on this forum is CC BY 4.0 UNLESS I say otherwise

There is nothing to worry about with Obamacare.  Nothing at all.

"There is nothing ulterior in our motives...We ask only that you trust us."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5NWCD7D5n8

[BitMos]

I like BTC because it's TRUSTLESS.

[Wilikon]

what's wrong with obamacare? kooky conservatives. we already knew how well it would work, since it had already happened in MA, and although it wasn't perfect, it was an improvement.

I don't get that. Yes some people want a single payer model. Fine. But does that mean everything is acceptable to reach that goal no matter what? Do you want to have something like 0bamacare to be remembered as The First Grubering forever? Does that mean you cannot be better humans than those kooky conservatives and need to be sneaky sleazy lying liberals to have your ideas be forced on people? How does that make you better than a conservative?

Hey, that's not fair.  Obamacare will certainly be remembered as the First Gruber (Although I think Climate Science was actually the first...).

Here, Fatman is the Gruber.

Let him spin it.

We already know how the Gruber thinks.  But we don't know what clever nuances the Fatman may add to the lie set.  I think the novel thing about The Gruber is he comes right out and says the things that shouldn't be said, but that everyone thinks.  In a sick and twisted and perverted way...

....that's worthy of some respect.

Let's imagine some of the very few governmental hard drives and emails survive the post 0bama presidency (I doubt it).

Whatever they will find would make the word "nixonian" as cool as the word "whoopsy daisy" when describing scandals in future governments.

Sadly more and more people will be grubered in the future...

[BitMos]

everything will be kept... once you lie in power you become vulnerable by the "dark forces", so your lie become an asset, that may or not be exploited... we hope to be able to move beyond war to true peace.