LastPommerFan

*wipes sweat from brow* phew.

least competitive super bowl in 21 years :bag:

Went to my high school, I met him there once, we had the same Theater teacher (years apart). The problem is, he was a Heroin addict long before he was successful, He said on 60 minutes a while back that he is amazed he lived through college. And that addiction is one that never really goes away. Even in recovery, you're always just an inch from the edge.

It goes beyond the money in. People who have health insurance are more likely to get preventative care that keep them healthier and and reduce the total cost of healthcare. (source) This is a huge part of the goodness of the law. In addition to mandating 100% coverage of preventative care (no deductible, no copay for all plans) the law gives millions more people access to the most important part of the healthcare system, preventative medicine.

Less than 5MM people had their plans deemed sub par and cancelled. Millions of those people qualify for subsidies on the exchanges that are close to what they were paying with better care. Beyond the exchanges is the Medicaid expansion. More than 5MM people have been added to the Medicaid expansion alone. These are working people who would have no insurance otherwise. This law has helped then the most, and it would be even more people if a couple dozen State level GOP officials would allow this expansion. There was a study done on "unmet medical needs" not wait time, but general access to healthcare. Canada came in at 11% to the US's 14%. According to that study Americans actually have lower access to care. (I can find it and link when I'm not on my phone) I will concede the wait times are higher in Canada, but allow that it has less to do with a single payer system, and more to do with the fiscally conservative approach to health spending. Look at our Medicare program and compare hip replacements (a procedure that is almost entirely covered by our single payer system) or access is faster, but we pay over twice as much. Increasing wait times for our elective procedures may be a good way to save on the costs of that program. I think (again on my phone makes it cumbersome to look up) I noted in my original comment on the 300MM voting that it wasn't all of them, but that's democracy. You may have missed it. Weaves situation sucks, but there is nothing in this law preventing his company from paying the same percentage of his care that they did before. They are using it as an opportunity to push costs onto their employees, as weave wrote, "with a clear conscience." I really think the GOP is campaigning themselves into a corner not this one. If the law fails to completely destroy the American Healthcare system, they will have been wrong. They could point out more specific problems and offer solutions, but instead they are crying Armageddon. The mandate and plan/rate controls were their idea (Gingrich and Heritage in the 90s) the democrats came to this option as a compromise with the moderate wing of their own party. Single payer was always the Democrats position, but I don't think the party was ready to risk electoral retribution on a ridiculous scale to use a law passed by democrat votes alone to tank the healthcare system and force single payer. We're dumb, but not that dumb.

Because I can't get past the childish part to get to the question. It's not how I want this place to be.

I want to have this debate with you, but I can't debate statements like this. If you want to reword it, and ask the same question we can have a conversation.

I like that the sub title is "The Original Humdinger" classy is right. :)

Off hand, without looking it up, how many people do you think this group, many/most of whom would have been considered underinsured, consists of? Millions have signed up for medicaid who couldn't before. it says right on the page that the self reported data isn't comparable. I don't care how many people voted. Unless we want to debate the validity of our elections, this question is moot. My health care didn't go up for the first time in 10 years. I got screwed substantially harder in 2008 when my company took advantage of the ###### job market to rape their employees. 300MM are NOT going to have worse, some may, but more will have it for the first time. So the Insurance industry backed, and still backs, a law that is going to cause the nationalization of their industry? I'd ask for my lobby money back. Like I said, I want the GOP to keep repeating this line. I should add, I completely agree with your assessment of the relationship this administration has between the truth and it's communication to the american people. I just don't think it's any worse than it has been in the past few decades.

Freeman, Millions of americans have benefitted from the government's subsidies and medicaid expansion by having more people insured at a lower cost to them. People who have insurance also have access to preventative services which allow them to live healthier lives. I would definitely count this as "better" care. So to answer your question, yes, I believe it will, and so far, I'm right. The cutting edge top of the line medical procedures in the United States are the domain of the insured. The un-insured do not have the health infrastructure to get access to it. So now, in addition to rich people from other countries coming here, more working class Americans will have access. This is a good thing. The wait times differences between Canada and the United States are not statistically significant. I challenge the assertion that they are and require more than anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Lastly, The government hasn't taken over the insurance system. It has regulated it (pre-existing conditions, children two 26, birth control, etc.) and it has thrown it a huge bone (mandate) but it certainly hasn't "taken over". That is a blatantly false characterization of the situation. All of these corporations are still private or publicly traded independent corporations. The 300M slightly worse vs. the 15M significantly better, yup, and the 300M voted twice largely based on the issue. They've given their permission. Not all of them, but democracy. Grin, Your still not using the right numbers, you're sticking with the initial phase in number, not the actual final penalty. In 2015 the penalty for our $30k income 35-year-old single person in Butler County, OH would be $750. for $2500 he could get a gold plan with $25/$45 co-pays for doctors and specialist visits. The premium could also be tax deductable. We're definately getting into the range of decision inducing penalties, but if we can make them even higher, by all means, lets do it. Also, none of the top 15 health insurers were downgraded this week. Ms. Mccaughey's article is more editorial than news. Which brings me to the so-called main stream media. The primary difference between the legacy media and the right's "new media" is the difference between journalism and editorial. Rush, Hannity, Will, McCaughey, etc can say whatever they want because they don't have to base their writing on fact finding and investigation. By calling out the "MSM" as liberal biased, you are essentially conceding that fact checking and investigation results in a liberal bias. I just hope the GOP spends the next 3 years fighting this quixotic battle, because I'm fairly certain it will yield the same results that it has for the past 3 years.

Yeah, I really think it's a matter of when he re-signs. If there is no contract on March 4th, he has to go on March 5th. He cannot under any circumstances hit July as a Sabre, and not under contract for 2015.

Offer Sheet Kassian.

no vanek no way, or no vanek...unless there's a huge discount...which isn't gonna happen...so :P

Now I have nothing to believe in.

Except "No Goal", right?

Fair enough, I will upgrade from insinuation to presentation. From your opening statement: This law (all law) has serious flaws and will need to be amended from time to time (like the Constitution) but the primary thrusts from opponents tend to focus on the presentation of nearly-accurate information designed to either scare or insinuate that it was written by idiots. This is a perfect example of that. You play fast and loose with the truth, but I don't believe you are doing it on purpose, I believe you are simply repeating the half-truth. It's the same when the democrats went around campaigning on keeping all plans. Somebody knew that a lot of states had such terrible standards that their low cost insurance was worthless and could not, with any semblance of consumer rights and protection, qualify as health insurance (these are the "underinsured" we heard so much about). But someone stated the half truth that people would mostly get to keep their plans, and everyone else just ran with it.

The penalty for this person in 2015 will be $750. The premiums for a single person making $30k in butler county ohio, $180/mo. Those would be harsh enough to get action out of most people. The reason I'm pointing this out is that the schedule I proposed is the actual law as it stands. The $95 is only the minimum penalty. A person with $30k in income would pay closer to $300. When you asked what nearly accurate facts I was talking about, it's things like this.

Nope. I'm ok with that setup. I'm also ok with letting people without bodies go without health insurance. Grin, could you answer my question about the fines? Would the numbers I proposed be better than the $90 or whatever you said was too low?

And the car insurance is, of course, a purchase mandated by the government.

Ok, let's make the fine this year on a person making $30k bigger, like say $300. The. Next year we'll make it $600, then after that, over $1000. Would that be better?

There are new taxes to support the subsidies for low income people. This is soundly different than a management fee for overseeing the administration of healthcare. I highly doubt I can affect your thinking on this, but i do think it is important to point these things out to other readers. The use of "nearly-accurate" information to defame this effort to help the american people avoid bankruptcy due to illness is effective, but it's wrong all the same.

It's temporary, but at 53, we are empirically not the worst team in the league!!! Hooray!!!

I think the win last night moves the sabres to 29th place through 53 games. We're (temporarily) out of the basement.

You can't have an effective pre-existing clause without a price control, and a price control requires something else to make up the actuarial math on the other end. There is no government management fee in the ACA schema. It's the same companies. I agree cost control is more important. We'd probably had that if it weren't for brain cancer. Yes, the ACA is a wealth redistribution scheme. That's how we, the people, have decided it should be, for the last 40 years. The ACA will either succeed, or fail into a National Single Payer System, either way, I'm ok with it.

When we left it up to the insurers, They refused to insure them. We did that already. I'm ready to try something else.