grinreaper

Check this out: Moody's rating agency has lowered the outlook for health insurers from stable to negative, blaming ObamaCare. Few Americans will shed tears for insurance companies. But the Moody's announcement is a warning sign to taxpayers. They'll be getting clobbered. Section 1342 of the Affordable Care Act forces taxpayers to make insurers whole for most of the losses incurred selling ObamaCare exchange plans through 2016. The bailout is designed to conceal the failure of the president's signature health law until he is out of office. No one in the Obama administration talked up the advantages of bailing out insurers. It was kept under wraps until the fall of 2013. That's when 5 million to 6 million health plans were canceled because they didn't comply with ObamaCare's one-size-fits-all coverage requirements effective Jan. 1. Insurers developed new plans, as the health law required, set premiums (generally higher) and sent out notices canceling the old plans. That caused public outrage. Trying to quell it, the president ignored his own law and told insurance companies on Nov. 14 they could keep selling the old plans. Insurers were caught off guard. They predicted there would be less demand for their new plans and that they'd lose money. Here's where the plot thickens. On the same day, an Obama administration health official, Gary Cohen, announced that the federal government (taxpayers) will offset most losses, citing Section 1342. Sweetening what the law already guarantees, he pledged to "modify" the bailout's "final rules to provide additional assistance." That's when Congress finally did its job and read Section 1342. http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/013114-688457-obamacare-has-a-dirty-little-secret.htm#ixzz2s5KQ665P

Here's some analysis for you: The "ACA" has nothing to do with affordable healthcare. It has everything to do with trying to insure everybody. In reality it is just a giant redistribution of wealth. The young and healthy will tend to not sign up until they need to due to the minor fines imposed. The insurance will be used by people that need it and they will be charged accordingly. High premiums and/or government subsidies will ensue. The government subsidies have to come from somewhere. More government borrowing? Higher taxes? I've been saying for 4 years that the premise of the ACA is all wrong, not just from a philosophical point but from a practical one. The numbers don't work. The law goes against "The Law of Large Numbers" which is the basic underpinning of all insurance. Sorry for being so "partisan".

I didn't go back far enough to check what I had said so technically you are correct in saying that I was "nearly accurate". I guess if you are buying a jacket there is a difference between $90 and $300 but not so much when the alternative is $2400 in premiums witha $6000 deductable, eh? The ACA, as written can do nothing but fail. It was poorly designed and jammed down our throats by subterfuge, chicanery and coercion, not to mention bribary. Putting aside philosophical positions, it will fail because it wasn't crafted properly. On top of that this administration is so incompetent that it couldn't set up a workable website in 4 years. This was supposed to be their major accomplishment and they didn't bother to have enough oversight to insure a smooth rollout? Going back to fast and loose, wasn't that Obama's MO to get the bill passed? I'm not talking the main board (TSW) which has a bunch of good posters and then ones that think we should have traded Mareo for John Skelton. There is a sub board called PPP that debates the issues of the day. Try that one out. You can make anything up you want, but if you can't see that this administration has been shielded from a plethora of embarassing serious mistakes and misdeeds by the MSM then you are drinking the Kool-Aid with blinders on.

How incompetent does someone need to be to be as wrong as he was? Look at him over the years, even going back to his Illinois State Senator time with all his "present" votes. He has always stood with what was expedient, not on principle. Now i really am going out! Go to The Stadium Wall and scroll down to Politics, Polls and Pundits. It's self moderated (mostly) and many fine subjects are debated.

Pick it up later---off to wet my whistle. Have you ever spent much time at PPP? You seem like someone who would enjoy it. A little rough and tumble at times, but posters are held accountable and idiots are soon (mostly) driven away.

I don't believe I gave any specifics on penalties, so don't insinuate that I was playing fast and loose with the facts. The person who played fast and loose with the facts was Obama with his promises he knew couldn't be kept.

It got a little confused there when glass case threw in the bit about government mandated auto insurance. I believe there is some medical coverage with a rental contract that covers accidents. It's always been a moot point with me since I've always had my own coverage.

That election was won by Obama's superior ground game and his continual use of canards, ie. Romney has a horse, he killed a woman with cancer, put his dog on the roof of his car, blah, blah, blah. Everytime Obama goofed up it was covered up by his lap dog media, with the most hideous coverup at one of the debates. Candy Crawly made it look as if Romney was the one who was at fault over Benghazi rather than our Commander-in-Chief who literally turned his back on four of our citizens and caused them to die. We've had scandal after scandal with Obama and the media has given him a free pass. With a populace that doesn't follow politics on a daily basis and gets its news from the MSM, no wonder we end up with amateur hour at the White House. Too low. For practical reasons they would need to be up there with what the premiums would be. When renting a car you have an option of purchasing collision. Liability is already provided. Normally if you own a car the rental car (for collision) is covered by your insurance.

And that is a bs argument. You don't have to buy car insurance unless you buy and drive a vehicle. How many people don't own a car in Manhattan? Would it be fair to make them buy auto insurance?

A car accident would most likely be covered by auto insurance. Although I am opposed to the law on principle (as you bolded) I think that for practical reasons the fines should be many times what they are in order to be effective. Also the tens of thousands of IRS employees and others add greatly to the cost and bureaucracy. A few simple law changes would have had a much bigger impact than for less money (see up thread).

You need to get your years straight. The ACA was passed in 2010. Regardless, at this point in time polls show only 24% of Americans are in favor of the ACA. The American people don't like con artists and especially don't like to be lied to. The bill got passed by subterfuge, coercion, lies and bribery. There will be massive federal expenditures to prop it up and it will accomplish nothing positive. It will expand the bureaucracy though.

No, we had a national election based on "hope and change" and teleprompter reading. The R's had a very poor candidate. Obama's ground game was fantastic. Nevertheless, if the ACA had a vote today by the populace it would be struck down by a great majority.

Quit sugar coating it! Both the D's and R's are at fault for a lot, but this abortion of an insurance farce called the ACA rests solely on the shoulders of the D's. Not one R voted for it, and the Senate "leadership" had to change their rules to force it down our throats.

What is the "nearly accurate" information? Is it that if I like my health plan I can keep it? How about if I like my physician, I can keep him/her? Am I really going to be saving $2500 a year with the ACA? The ACA was put together so slaphazardly that it will fall on its own: http://www.washingto...3ba3_story.html "Someone you probably are not familiar with has filed a suit you probably have not heard about concerning a four-word phrase you should know about. The suit could blow to smithereens something everyone has heard altogether too much about, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (hereafter, ACA). Scott Pruitt and some kindred spirits might accelerate the ACA’s collapse by blocking another of the Obama administration’s lawless uses of the Internal Revenue Service. Pruitt was elected Oklahoma’s attorney general by promising to defend states’ prerogatives against federal encroachment, and today he and some properly litigious people elsewhere are defending a state prerogative that the ACA explicitly created. If they succeed, the ACA’s disintegration will accelerate." See more at the link above.

If there is no government management fee what do you call the tens of thousands of new IRS employees? We, the people never decided that we wanted the ACA. Our representatives were either bought off or coerced into voting for it. The ACA is wildly unpopular and barely got passed based on lies. If the general public knew what it really was about they would have screamed so loudly that their representatives would never have given in to Obama. God forbid you need an organ transplant and the Cleveland and Mayo Clinics of this world are out of network. UrgentCare anyone?

With a law mandating coverage for people with pre-existing insurance they would have to insure them and then we wouldn't have the government's management fees. There's much more to this though. The focus should have first been on reducing healthcare costs, not taxing medical devices and charging 3.8% of your capital gains when you sell a house. The ACA is just another wealth redistribution scheme. I've been debating this for the last 4 years over at PPP and there are only a few misguided people left who think that the ACA is/will be viable. Game time.

Tort reform is not as small as you think. I'm not just addressing large legal malpractice settlements, but am thoroughly convinced that there is an abundance of defensive medicine being practiced. This costs money. Now, who is actually paying for the people with pre-existing conditions? Does it matter if it filters through the government's hands or left up to the insurers to figure it out? The government is very inefficient. I don't want them administering anything that they don't have to. Eleven---the middle class can pay for their own insurance---the poor still have Medicaid.

I'm not directing this to anyone in particular. The ACA has been debated ad nauseum over at PPP and I think you'll find some pretty strong opinions that make sense in opposing it. I personally am against the government forcing us to buy something. It's just plain wrong. The House and Senate could have gotten a bipartisan bill that changed things incrementally. I could see a law allowing children to stay on their parents insurance until they are 26. I can see the precondition clause. I could also imagine tort reform and purchasing insurance across state lines. All of this could have been done legislatively without tearing apart the insurance industry along with millions. This is going to turn into a gigantic mess when it is time for the employee mandates to kick in. The ACA is doomed to fail. It disregards and perverts the time tested "Law of Large Numbers" which is the basis for all insurance. The young and healthy will not sign up in numbers enough to keep insurance rates "reasonable". In their wisdom, our legislators decided that a $90 fine was sufficient to force the young and healthy to buy on the exchanges. All of this along with the total incompetence of the government is going to hurt everyone of us. You guys want to talk about Tank Nation............

The use of noone instead of no one is not only incorrect and irritating, but nonsensical.

You should take your political stuff elsewhere. If you want to do anything other than a drive-by, post your political stuff in a forum designed for that. How much balls does it take to debate stuff where you are anonymous? Take your snide "fracking" references to PPP and keep them from here.

Your bringing in fracking to this is taking things too far from a hockey discussion. This place is for hockey, not political agendas. Take that schit to PPP over on the Bills side.

This is the deal: They had a first down at (I think) the two yard line. With a little chicanery they could have scored on 1st or 2nd down. This shouldn't be an issue. If they had called the fourth down play on first down, it probably would have worked. Regardless of the win/loss record I feel good about this team.

I doubt he would be called for instigating if someone else challenged him.

Danny Briere should have taught this little prick a lesson and nutted him with the butt end of stick just to set him on the right path. But yes, he'd be a nice addition.

Actually watched him last night in a movie called "The Mexican" with Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. They sucked, but he played a real to life gay mafia hitman. Not exactly the way I want to remember him but he pulled it off. Uh, I mean the part.