Mark Levin noted, during his radio show last week, an article from the The New England Journal of Medicine which lays out how ObamaCare can be dismantled after the victory of Conservatives last Tuesday: (h/t Dave Ross)
[audio:https://floppingaces.net/Audio/levinobamacare110310.mp3]A more serious possibility [than repeal] is that ACA opponents could deliver on another pledge: to cut off funding for implementation. Here is how such a process could work
~~~The ACA contains 64 specific authorizations to spend up to $105.6 billion and 51 general authorizations to spend “such sums as are necessary” over the period between 2010 and 2019. None of these funds will flow, however, unless Congress enacts specific appropriation bills. In addition, section 1005 of the ACA appropriated $1 billion to support the cost of implementation in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS)…. [and the] ACA appropriated nothing for the Internal Revenue Service, which must collect the information needed to compute subsidies and pay them. The ACA also provides unlimited funding for grants to states to support the creation of health insurance exchanges (section 1311). But states will also incur substantially increased administrative costs to enroll millions of newly eligible Medicaid beneficiaries…
Without large additional appropriations, implementation will be crippled.~~~Since most major provisions of the ACA do not take effect until January 1, 2014, [these] delaying tactics might eventually enable repeal
Check out the whole PDF on Levin’s facebook page here.
Probably 25% of the new House members were elected because they promised to throw ObamaCare out the window. The rest of the members can see the writing on the wall. Either follow suit with your promises or be thrown out yourself. Get a repeal motion through so those who oppose repeal are on record with their votes then go through the process of defunding it, as the author of the above article so helpfully lays out.
There is more to be done on top of ObamaCare. Just yesterday Senator-Elect Marco Rubio gave an address laying out the priorities of our new Congress. Specifically to reduce the debt, repeal and replace ObamaCare, prevent the Obama tax increases that are looming, be bold and put forth alternatives to the Obama policies coming out of Washington and then fight for them.
The newest members of the House and Senate will be held accountable. Either do what you promised to do or you’re gone. As it should be.
See author page
I don’t believe it is going to be repealed. The ground work for government run health care was being implemented years ago. The ruling class wants control over your life, it doesn’t matter what letter is after their name.
I DO believe it will eventually be repealed. As for this supposed “ruling class,” well I admit that there is an elitist attitude in both parties, but as for some ruling class with members of said class on both sides of the aisle that is bound together by an agenda to take over the world – well that is the ultimate conspiracy theory now isn’t it?
No, what we have is a set of elitist mentalities that are both Dems and Repubs. This was proven after the ’94 Contract with America GOP upsurge. The GOP were given the reins and at first did what was asked of them, but then power corrupted absolutely and we got the Dem takeover in 2006.
This time I truly believe that with the Tea Party movement, things will be different. This time you have a whole slew of newly elected officials who know they are being watched as never before and don’t forget to add that these newbies are of the small government, conservative mindset.
It BETTER be repealed. NO more “reaching out”. NO compromise. Enough is enough. These new hires better be prepared to take the gloves off and the “establishment leadership” better listen to the will of the people.
Antics, I don’t usually waste time with conspiracies, but when the UN and our president want us to surrender sovereignty to the UN and allow them to tax us and bring lawsuits against us in their kangaroo court, the process is all over except for the shouting. That is how close we are to International Socialism. Ask a Liberal and he will tell you the idea makes sense, all in the name of Wealth Redistribution. Courtesy of the nitwit in the White House that so many Americans admire.
Many of the workers of the world have a much lower standard of living and they wont stand for us keeping our thermostat on 72 and driving our SUV gas guzzlers. Remember that? We can fix that by destroying the American economy and robbing non-union workers of their savings and pensions and distributing the money among the Third World and their Marxist dictators. That is the way the nitwit in the White House thinks and that is what he wants to accomplish. To assume otherwise is to admit you are delusional.
Skookum, I firmly believe that Obama is a “world citizen” waaaay before he is an American citizen. I also am aware of the UN’s role in what Obama wants to implement. As far as conspiracy theories, I was speaking to the idea that folks in both parties were joined at the hip in trying to exert dominance over the world, e.g. Soros, et al.
Is there a Marxist push for one world governance? Most definitely. However, I don’t see some ruling class pulling puppet strings on both sides of the aisle. Are there RINOS that are useful idiots to Soros and company? Again, most definitely.
SKOOKUM: hi, yes this is definitly an insidius way of advancing the UN goal, using
the countrys less able to see their game; IT’s show that the leadership is seeking a future seat
among those who want to assimilate AMERICA with the world, not as a leader but as a follower,
and some powerfull players are carefully monitering their goal, using all the tools to get there, to that end. bye
Dismantle Obamacare, huh? That means the GOP wants to:
a) Bring back the donut hole, the several thousands of dollars of expenses the elderly face after the first couple thousand dollars of covered expenses
b) Put back in $500 billion in extra spending in Medicare that Obamacare subtracts
c) Reinstate pre-existing conditions bars
d) Eliminate the interstate insurance pools for the uncovered that are part of Obamacare
e) Excise the small business subsidies for buying health insurance for their employees
f) Undoing the hospital electronic records keeping initiatives that are paid for by Obamacare
g) Reinstate the lifetime benefit caps that bankrupt families facing catastrophic health conditions . . . little Jimmy’s leukemia will once again cost mom and dad the family home. But hey — there are always homeless shelters . . . .
h) Delete adult children aged 21 to 26 from their parents’ plans
i) Eliminate the individual mandate that everyone have their own insurance plan so that hospitals, once again, are drowning due to uncompensated medical care.
j) Reversing the savings that CBO calculates will from from this plan (which lower the long term deficit projections), and adding back hundreds of billions to the future deficit projections.
k) Giving back the anti-trust exemption to insurance companies
l) Claw back the monies sent to the states (including all the Red States that sued over the individual mandate) meant to finance the administrative costs associated with the plan.
Obamacare accomplished all these fixes. THAT is what you cons are calling to be reversed.
Good luck selling that, cons! “To the American people, yes, we want to go back to the great system we had before Obama and the Dems, by a majority vote in both houses of Congress, foisted this monstrosity on us. Sure, it was bankrupting the federal budget; impoverishing families; leaving 30 million Americans with spotty or non-existent medical insurance. But we conservatives want to go back to a blizzard of paper in our hospitals; requiring hospitals to treat all comers even if there is no way in hell the hospital will receive a dime for the medical services rendered; uninsured 23 year olds praying they don’t get pregnant, then getting abortions because they don’t think they can take care of a baby’s material needs — such as medical care; old folks wondering what they will do to pay for prescriptions once they hit the donut hole in federal funding (because the GOPers designed the program that way); small businesses simply cutting out health insurance because they have no options to the 30% annual premium increases; and states with swelling Medicare rolls as businesses drop health insurance.”
Make no mistake: that is the situation the cons want to reinstate. How do we know this? Because for each and every one of the 12 elements of Obamacare mentioned above, cons have offered NOT A SINGLE PROPOSAL to deal with those specific problems, only one of which (l, above, state administrative cost increases) is caused by Obamacare. They run around screaming “repeal and replace” but offer nothing to replace it with.
Let’s face facts: the GOPers liked the system as it was in 2000 through 2009; we know this because the GOP, when it had the power, did NOTHING to address the 11 failures in the American health care delivery system. The GOP was handed balanced budgets and had years upon years to offer “conservative answers” to those problems. The only thing the GOP did was make the entitlement problem even worse by creating Medicare D and not providing any funding for that uneven program.
Let Jim DeMint explain why we should go back to the pre-existing conditions regime when there is a way to fix that problem (i.e., the individual mandate), a solution that satisfies the hospitals and the insurance companies — both groups LOVE the individual mandate (which was a conservative concept borrowed from the Heritage Foundation and Mitt Romney, mind you . . .) You think the insurance companies are going to sit around and cheer as you eliminate the individual mandate that provides a stream of customers AND provides for a younger, healthier risk pool? Think the hospitals are going to throw a party for the GOP as it tries to reinstate the same uncompensated care situation that was costing them billions? Think the teabaggers are going to cheer when the see the price tag for undoing Obamacare? Really . . . .
In reality, I figured this out a while ago, how this is going to go down. Cons will offer a symbolic vote against Obamacare, but without any actual intention of ever doing anything to change it. Why? Because the individual parts just make too much damn sense, and they know it. They will campaign against Obamacare; but actually do anything to change it? Not on your life. Because the Dems did the heavy lifting to actually address existing health care problems . . . AND they can be hung for actually offering solutions?! Sweet!
But then there is my other possible prediction — Obama will sign off on some measly package of GOPer “reforms”, like eliminating the 1099 paperwork problem that was used to partially fund the bill, or some tort reform b.s. (b.s. because it is a state law problem, not a federal law problem), or some conservative “market based solutions” in the form of federally funded demonstration programs. Then cons will cease calling it Obamacare well before the 2012 election and try to rebrand it all. Something like:
Obama’s package of solutions + measly con solutions signed by Obama = Romneycare!
@B-bobby You have just proved that you did not learn a thing from the mid-term election results. Do you have a problem with reality in other areas also???
Dehl —
You are trying to change the subject. Why not answer the question: which parts of Obamacare are you going to get rid of? Walk me through it . . . .
I did hear a clip from Rush Limbaugh, your party leader, claiming that the pre-existing condition prohibition is “welfare.” Hopefully you can chime in and explain to me how you cons will sell the whole “the pre-existing condition bar is a good thing” argument. In fact, I am looking forward to you making the argument! So have at it! Tell me why that part of Obamacare is a bad thing that needs to be repealed! Obama solved the problem, so let’s hear why his solution sucks and should be reversed!
@Silly Rob: You said:
LOL, wrong – On July 8 of this year HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a press release that 300,000 eligible seniors who have entered the Medicare Part D “Doughnut Hole” have been mailed their tax-free, one time rebate check for $250, from the US Department of Health and Human Services. The plan calls for starting to fill the hole through a 50% discount on brand name medication – something pharmaceutical manufacturers will be expected to provide for senior citizens in the coverage gap.
This half off discount is somehow supposed to come out of the pharmaceutical companies. However, the government does not control the underlying price; which leaves that to the market.
Therefore a bottle of drugs worth $50 could go to $100 and then offer a $50 discount – and the senior citizen is still in the hole of Obama’s sweetness of the Doughnut’s outer edge but not the hole.
As a disabled American, I have to rely on Medicare and I can tell you that those “extra spending” dollars that Obamacare took from Medicare are already resulting in rationing. In another thread, I told of my experience of being denied hospital admission by Medicare this summer, even though my doctor wanted me admitted. So yeah, I would very much like those dollars put back into Medicare, and so would every other person who must rely on Medicare for their insurance.
A 25 year old “child?” Yeaaaah. Maybe that is what is wrong with the 20 somethings today. Too much reliance on others and not enough on themselves.
The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday released a new estimate attributing $115 billion in additional spending to the new national health care law, driving the full cost over the first decade to over $1 trillion.
But the CBO cautioned that it didn’t have enough information to project all of the additional costs.
The discrepancy between the new figures and the oft-cited $938 billion ObamaCare cost estimate comes because during the health care debate, the media only focused on the cost of the spending provisions aimed at expanding insurance coverage.
But the health care law also had all sorts of other discretionary spending costs, and implementation expenses, that were never calculated into a total figure. These include spending such as $39 billion for the Indian health improvement act; $34 billion in Federal Qualified Health Center grants; $9.1 billion in funding for the National Health Service Corps; and $5 billion to $10 billion in increased costs to the Internal Revenue service.
Add it all up, and it brings the cost of ObamaCare to $1.053 trillion from 2010 to 2019.
* On average, a person who is uninsured for the entire year will spend considerably less on health care 38% of what a person who has health insurance for the full year will spend in 2008.
* People who are uninsured (for all or part of the year) will spend about $30 billion out of pocket for health care and receive about $56 billion in uncompensated care while they are uninsured this year. Uncompensated care will make up just 2% of total health care spending in the U.S. in 2008.
* Federal and state government dollars will cover at least 75% of uncompensated care, streaming almost $43 billion through health providers and programs for care of the uninsured. Private sources of charity care cover the rest, with little evidence of cost-shifting to the privately insured.
* If all the uninsured were to gain health coverage in 2008 and use similar amounts of health care as those with insurance, their health care costs this year would increase from a total of $176 billion to almost $300 billion. Put in perspective, this additional $123 billion would increase the share of GDP going to health care by 0.8%, from 16.5% to 17.3%.
Bottom line, the uninsured are not the driving factor in determining hospital costs.
Use emotion in trying to prove your point, much? No one likes to see people struggle under catastrophic medical costs. But under your savior’s health care “reform,” those very same catastrophic health care plans that deal with just such situations as the example you used will be taxed out of existence.
Two new taxes on health insurance, the Cadillac tax for supposedly high value insurance that will apply to more and more plans every year, and another tax on all health insurance from the start, will add nearly $100 billion to health insurance costs over the next 10 years alone. – Source
Let Jim DeMint explain why we should go back to the pre-existing conditions regime when there is a way to fix that problem (i.e., the individual mandate), a solution that satisfies the hospitals and the insurance companies — both groups LOVE the individual mandate (which was a conservative concept borrowed from the Heritage Foundation and Mitt Romney, mind you . . .)
A. The individual mandate is UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
B. The individual mandate was a RINO idea in a feeble effort to forestall Hillarycare in the ’90s. Once conservatives made a fuss about it, even the RINOs abandoned it.
C. Hmm, insurance companies liking the idea of millions more customers? What a concept.
I could go on and on, but I think I have made my point and in the process destroyed yours.
You are so far off base on this Silly Rob that you are resorting to name calling and desperation. Sad, really. Face facts. The vast majority of Americans do not want Obamacare under any circumstances.
How’s it feel to be in the minority, Silly Rob?
Antics, BROB tried to discourage voter turnout on this site and failed. Now it’s angry over the loss and just spewing venom.
I can tell you that the insurance companies are very eager for all those new customers provided they can find a way to make money off the new arrangements. You can bet they have.
Just like the credit card “reform” the businesses were way ahead of the dems on finding ways to make money despite the goal of killing them off and having defacto single payer HCI.
antics — Gotta run, but I will hit the high points:
1) The donut hole would be reinstated if you repeal Obamacare, because it was written into the statute that the GOP passed. The checks “solve” this years problems, but that problem is revived if the GOP has their way in 2010.
2) My wife was 24 when she was finishing med school. Permitting people to be on their parents insurance basically permits them to get through college and grad school without facing the task of finding their own individual insurance policy at market rate — whatever that is. You repeal Obamacare, they have the problem again. Add in the pre-existing condition issue (like my wife’s heart murmur) and . . . geez, if you don’t see the problem with her getting medical insurance at reasonable cost, I am not sure I can explain it.
3) CBO still scores Obamacare as saving money. Eliminate Obamacare and we are back to where we were. The GOP will need to figure out something to close that financial hole.
4) I can appreciate why you, as a disabled person, want no changes to Medicare. But the rest of us, the people paying for your care, simply could not afford the system as it was structured. If Obamacare is eliminated, we will be back int he same sucky position we were before, which is simply not sustainable. If the GOP puts that $500 billion back in, they will need to find that money somewhere.
5) You claim the lifetime benefits cap ban will drive insurers out of business. Not true UNLESS you cons succeed in getting rid of the individual mandate, which the hospitals and insurers both support. You can claim I am relying on “sob stories”. The problem is that those sob stories exist and need to be dealt with in some fashion. No one wins when a family declares bankruptcy over a $123,456.79 hospital bill caused by uncovered expenses incurred fighting cancer — not the family, not the hospital, no one.
6) Uncompensated care, in one study, represented about 6% of the hospitals’ cost stream. That is HUGE. I saw one study where in Texas alone, the hospitals spent tens of billions in one year providing uncompensated care. There is not a hospital administrator in America who would agree with you that it is not a problem. Cons like to downplay the problem, though, because they know that the only real way to solve it is mandatory financial responsibility, i.e., the individual mandate. But downplaying the issue and ignoring it does not solve it.
7) Justice Anticsrocks declaring the individual mandate unconstitutional does not make it so. But even if that Heritage Foundation/Romney idea is unconstitutional, you cons will need to come up with some other mechanism to solve the problems that exist in the absence of an individual mandate — both free rider issues relating to insurance and the pre-existing condition bar, and hospitals’ uncompensated care expenses.
I sum up by saying one thing and one thing only —
Obamacare solved a LOT of big problems with health care delivery in America. If the GOPers chose to repeal Obamacare, they better have some solutions in hand to solve the same problems they will be reviving.
Hard Right —
So the insurance companies are licking their chops at all the new young and healthy customers the Dems are forcing on them through the individual mandate, as the Dems simultaneously try to drive those same insurance companies out of business? How? By drowning them with young and healthy customers?
And this makes sense to you . . . .
B-ROB: DON’T you worry, the CONSERVATIVE PARTY ELECTED ARE very smart and knowledgable,
THEY have the cards ready to solve the problem, that is not wanted by the PEOPLE,
>>adult children aged 21 to 26>>
Adult children. Those two words are in direct contradiction to each other. Either one is an adult or a child – one cannot be both (unless mentally deficient).
I therefore propose that if 21-26 year olds are still on their parents insurance, they may neither vote nor drink legally.
When they start paying for their own insurance, assuming they are of otherwise legal age, then one or both will be permitted.
@Silly Rob: You blather on about this and that, yet you provide no substantiation to your comments. But then if I were taking your views, I would find it hard to provide proof, too.
You can’t have it both ways, on one hand you want EVERYONE on the Government dole, then on the other hand you are tired of paying for people on Medicare. LOL Contradict yourself much? Obamacare did not remove “waste, fraud and abuse.” It took money out of the system, added more patients and then said it will not affect care.
And BTW, the CBO does NOT say Obamacare is debt and deficit neutral. Show me the link. Show me and everyone here at FA that the CBO shows Obamacare – the law that passed, NOT one of the plethora of bills – will not add to the debt.
You can’t. Here let me show you. Pay attention, you might learn something.
So what did the Dems then try?
So go ahead, Silly Bob and show me where Obamacare saves money…and you aren’t allowed to say that the rationing that is coming (and already exists) will save money.
suek —
My daughter is 14, she is my child. Even if I am 77 and she is 37, she will be my child. The rest of your post ignores my point — how do you sell your proposal to take back that change, which permits the adult children of an insured to stay on their insurance basically through grad school? Explain why this is a good change, since you cons are proposing it!
anticsrocks —
It took google less than a second to pull up this
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/113xx/doc11379/AmendReconProp.pdf
The key point:
Cons believed in the CBO numbers until they did not like them; then, the CBO numbers were “rigged.” Sour grapes.
Paul Ryan’s accounting is nonsense. He thinks that the bill “should have included” the doc fix . . . you know, the annual Medicare funding fix that is UNRELATED TO OBAMACARE and which predated Obamacare. He did not want the CBO to score the bills as presented; he wanted to add on other stuff that would turn the negative number positive. Well, Ryan, why not just add on the cost of the second jet engine to Obamacare, too? It is as related to the purpose of the bill as the doc fix is!
The reality is that the doc fix is now the GOPs problem. I think Ryan was trying to argue that the Dems should solve it once and for all so that it would not be the GOPs problem if they won the House. A nice try, but no soup for you, Paul. Heavy lies the crown . . . .
@Billy Bob rides again::
Billy Bob, why don’t you lib/progs explain to we cons just how O’healthcare does whit to solve the real problem.. .which is the rising costs of adminstering health care. Nothing in the 2407 page bill, or it’s reconciliation addendum bill does anything to curb the overhead costs of health care providers. It doesn’t allow for direct negotiations for drugs or equipment. At best it can say it promises to pay out less, putting providers deeper in the fiscal hole for their services.
Instead this legislation simply tries to stay ahead of the cost curve by piling more people onto the system…. dumb in itself since the more premiums you collect and more people that enter the system, the more demands on the system. And they do this by not attacking the root problem… the exorbitant costs and unnecessary tests/medicines administered by providers for litigation self defense, but by attempting price controls on insurance premiums.
Brilliant… So you mandate premiums cannot increase, but still allow the overhead costs to inflate out of control? Only fools and progs like you believe this is a cure.
Then there’s the IMAB death panel of czars… their entire existence will be to figure out lowered payments and coverage for Medicare in order to stay within budget. Medicare was the ponzi scheme you and your progressive buds created, but it’s nice to hear you figured out it was an unsustainable model. Would that you had the brain power to apply that logic to other arenas as well. But to you lib/progs, “heavy lies the crown….” while conveniently attempting to dodge the bullet you, yourselves, manufactured.
I can only say go find an Obama voter to pull that wool cap down over the eyes, guy. You ain’t off the hook that easily when one has a grasp of history.
Oddly enough, it was only a few years back that the Bush CMS regulations proposed a $196 bil cut in Medicare, and you all raised an indignant ruckus. Guess you wouldn’t have if they proposed the half tril cut you want now, eh?
Figured out where those cuts are yet? Hint… not to doctors, but to the facilities. And that includes hospice cuts. By the time Obama and his IMAB death panel have whittled down Medicare to covering zip… after decades of theft from those paying in…. they’ll have also slashed even the coverage to allow those denied treatment to comfortably die at home.
But there are a few good things in there… even if poorly constructed in legislative intent. The electronic record keeping is a good idea. But government mandated and with government officials’ access? No thank you. In fact, most businesses have already figured out that keeping records electronically is a cost savings. This needs to be funded by the taxpayer, or is a government mandate? Why? Because they want to access those not so private health care records. Nefarious intent, IMHO.
The insurance exchange is also a good idea. But government run? Nope. Funny that Lending Tree, Orbitz, Travelocity or the other sundry industry portals were quite successful without having a government mandate, or demanding that govt be the one setting up the portal itself. And BTW, the money you seem to think the states are so blessed with doesn’t even come close to funding the Obama mandate. Which is why they are also battling on the unfunded mandate legal front, as well as over reach in the commerce (and general welfare) clause.
But the problem with private enterprise creating such a portal was state to state differences in insurance coverage. The states maintain their right to create their own minimal coverage mandates. You cannot do a national one size fits all. Costs are higher in MA, NJ, NY than they are in OK, WY, etc. Additionally, some of the more rural states have different medical needs than your urban critical mass places.
Why should the latter states have increases in mandates and costs so they can match the more expensive states’ mandates, and perhaps demands for medical treatment that isn’t as much as issue there as in NJ?
Which brings us to the problem of interstate portability because of the individual states’ mandates. It would be behooving for the insurance companies to provide a base plan that covers all common mandates in the states, and create riders for each individual state specifics. This way everyone could choose a base platform, and simply add on for their desired state. If they relocate, they cancel that rider, and pick up the appropriate state rider. Beauty in simplicity.
Then you may want to tell we dumb types how adding over 100 federal agencies to implement this… all of which has to be paid by taxpayers… is going to control the costs of either providing health care OR keeping premiums low with price fixing. Quite frankly, it’s going to be increasing the costs because of bureaucracy and inefficient government administrative overhead.
I agree that there had better be solutions at hand, and I’m not all that confident the GOP “gets it” for the solutions. But I sure as heck know there isn’t a better way to destroy not only the health care system we have… but our economy simultaneously… than to keep this white elephant government power grab on the books as law. I’ll take repeal, and battle out the wiser paths after that…. all done in incremental steps.
And one last thing, because I so tire of your lies and propaganda. Pre existing condition limitations only exist for those trying to get individual health plans. Federal law (remember HIPPA? try reading federal law sometime… good for you) prohibits denying coverage for pre’existing conditions in any group plan longer than 12 months. The simple answer is get a group plan. Only takes 5-6 people minimal, if a group doesn’t already exist for her. And, in fact, the Dems didn’t find much interest in allowing for more groups to be created, which would have alleviated your exaggerated and bogus talking point.
I know many with heart murmurs, like your wife… all of them insured. Perhaps her former hubby lawyer was too lazy and ignorant to check into the federal legalities and options? Oh, heavy lies the crown….
Braindead rob, did you not read my post? The reform was intended to drive the insurance companies out of buisness. However, the insurance companies have found a way to adapt and survive. They thought they had found a way to take the profit away even with many new customers. They were wrong. In other words, the govt. failed again at it’s true goal.
@ Hard Right, The Current Regime rules but has no Governed yet. Their goals are very clear to most of Us. Offering Bobert facts or common sense logic is like pounding sand down a rat hole.
Really, my response was not for him but those that may be reading the site. As I have said elsewhere, leftists like him are incapable of seeing facts. That is especially so when the facts go against their fantasy world way of believing.
Hard Right: hi, It could also be that she was influence by higher positionned one to
come up with a decision favoring that side of the party,
It did not take long either to come up with deciding such an important matter,
I would have thought taken quite a long time to explore the pros and con of those who required it. bye
@Silly Rob #17: You said:
How silly of us “cons” to expect that anything related to Medicare be used to help calculate the effects of Obamacare on Medicare!! Are you really THAT brain dead to think that a 21% reduction in Physician payments won’t effect the cost of Medicare? Or that putting off that reduction won’t also effect it? Tell us, just which way do you want it?
In the letter you found –
So what you conveniently left out was that the CBO admits that the proposed legislation made a LOT of assumptions, which it did. IF this happens and IF that happens then this reduces the deficit…yadda, yadda, yadda. More liberal doublespeak, not to mention the jinky accounting that was used to create this monstrosity.
You still haven’t proven anything other than you can google a letter sent by the CBO to Nancy “Stretch” Pelosi.
anticsrocks —
Sometimes dealing with you cons is like beating your head against a wall. Obamacare did not address all of the issues with Medicare any more than the GOPers passing Medicare D dealt with all the issues associated with Medicare. If Ryan wants to put together a permanent fix for the doc problem, he now has the votes and authority to do it. But he wanted to rewrite the bill just to change the scoring from a net reduction to a net increase in projected deficits. He does this by adding in issues that were unrelated to the bill or its underlying purposes, which was increasing the number of people receiving health insurance. The doc fix is entirely unrelated to that goal! It’s as if I can meet a $1,000 budget for plumbing, but then you expect me to replace the gutters, too, because that “deals with water just like plumbing.” Just silly.
The Obamacare statutes cut the projected deficit; eliminating Obamacare will cause the projected deficits to rise. You know that, I know that, and the GOPer cons know that, because the CBO, using its long standing scoring processes, determined that. The doc problem is a separate, different issue that has been around long before Obama took office. Indeed, if the cons felt so strongly about the doc problem, then why the hell didn’t they propose a fix during the Obamacare negotiations? Better yet, why didn’t they fix the problem when they had control from 2001 through 2007?
I suspect one of the reasons you cons here are now opposing Pay Go (on another string) is because you KNOW that repealing Obamacare will necessitate finding money or savings elsewhere to offset the increased costs associated with repealing Obamacare. Alas, that is one more reason that the GOPer cons will NOT be repealing Obamacare, but just tinker with it, declaring it “much improved”, then stop calling it “Obamacare”.
Mata wrote the following:
There is no one “real problem” with health care; there are numerous problems. Including uncompensated care to the uninsured and under-insured; rapidly increasing insurance premiums; a shortage of doctors in rural and inner city areas; the paper chase hospitals have to endure to get paid by insurance companies; the shortage of nurses everywhere; misalligned incentives, such as doctors practicing defensive medicine and getting paid for that; the high cost of pharmaceuticals; medical malpractice issues in some states; the medical malpractice insurance monopolies in some states; the lack of a national medical license such that a doctor in Manhatten needs to have licenses in Jersey and Connecticut to open offices in Newark and Stamford; and even the rules prohibiting medical residents from working as many hours as they used to. All of these issues impact the cost and/or quality of medical care that our people receive. Our system, in short, sucks. Which is why we have very mediocre outcomes compared to our comparators.
As for pre-existing conditions, surely you are aware that many employers change insurers every year, trying to avoid the 40% price increase that Acme Insurance proposes to continue coverage, instead going with Delta Insurance, which would only be 15% more, but with a lower level of benefits? You know that, right? So you understand that pre-existing conditions bars WILL PROHIBIT SOME CARE for some conditions? That bar is one of the reasons that a high school acquaintance swallowed hard and reupped with his insurer after they proposed a 30% increase. He did this because one of this employees had a wife with cancer and she would NOT GET CHEMO under a new plan; it would have bankrupted her family.
See, you, Mata, for purely political reasons act as if one year without coverage is “no big deal”; but anyone with a brain and any basic experience with life knows that a year without health insurance coverage could mean death if you have certain catastrophic illnesses requiring expensive care. Indeed, I see NO GOPer con out here mentioning that Obamcare’s pre-existing conditions bar is “no big deal” — because they know they would be laughed out of the room. When they talk about the parts of Obamacare that they like, they ALWAYS mention saving that clause. The problem with keeping that clause is how do you keep the insurance companies from getting socked with expensive care? Obamcare’s solution was the individual mandate. Cons might come up with a different solution, one not requiring an individual mandate, but I have not heard of one.
Obamacare did not solve all the problems in our health care system. But as I said, the problems that it did address will not just magically disappear if the GOPers repeal Obamacare. The very lack of any actual proposals to deal with the 12 elements I listed before PROVES TO ME that the GOP is not only not serious about actually repealing Obamacare, they are also not serious about dealing with the underlying issues Obamacare addresses. Your post was full of sound and fury, but it simply failed to address what I was talking about which is the actual problems Obamacare deals with.
By the way “death panel czars”? Way to work two teabagger buzz phrases into a single clause!
Hard Right —
You can claim all you want that the “intent” of Obamacare was to drive the insurance companies out of business. But the claim neither makes sense nor is it supported by the involvement of those self-same insurance companies in drafting the legislation, the history of the legislation, the text of the legislation, or even common sense. In fact, the very Obamacare individual mandate that you cons oppose is STRONGLY SUPPORTED by the same insurance companies you claim Obamacare is intending to destroy! If Obamacare was “intended” to destroy insurance companies, the Dems would not have included the individual mandate when they proposed the preexisting conditions bar, now would they?
Nope, your claims make absolutely no sense at all. But since you are “hard right” in your politics, I understand that things like facts and common sense are optional.
I keep asking the same questions, cons, so I will try again:
If you “dismantle Obamacare”, then what are you going to replace it with? I am all open to suggestions here!
One more explanation why repealing Obamacare ain’t gonna happen:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/11/why_repealing_the_health-care.html
As the charts show, if you take the individual pieces of Obamacare, they are pretty friggin popular. Tax credits for small businesses that provide health care? Check. Closing the donut hole, subsidies for poor and working class people without health insurance through an employer, pre-existing conditions ban, higher taxes for Medicare? Check, check, check, check. The only part that is NOT popular is the individual mandate . . . and the insurance companies and hospitals both want that! So where is the constituency for getting rid of Obamacare? Teabaggers who will NOT find much popular support for what they personally want. You think the town hall meetings opposing Obamacare were loud and angry? Try proposing repeal of Obamacare and see what happens!
LOL! GOPer cons are so screwed . . . .
Ya know, you tug at your BVDs, but the wedgie still remains. As I said, you can form your own group… can be relatives, friends, etc. The amount of people it takes to do such is not very many. Therefore you are not required to be subject to changing insurers every year because of an employer’s whim. You are in control of your own group. In addition, there are sundry associations and groups where you have choices of plans, and is not tied to an employer.
Yes, a pre’existing condition for as long as 12 months can be 12 months too long. But then, if one didn’t have insurance prior to getting the condition, you can expect you’d pay more since the insurer knows it’s immediate pay outs. Granted, I don’t like pre’existing condition clauses at all, but it’s hardly the wrecking ball you progs like to make it. Just as you overinflate the amount of costs for the uninsured, which was at a peak of $66 bil last I looked. Drop in the bucket compared to other problems.. including fraud, unnecessary and overtreatment for litigation protection.
Billy Bob, the quest of O’healthcare was supposed to make health care affordable for everyone. It does just the opposite, therefore is self defeating, and ignores the problem that insurance premiums rise because there is no curbing the costs of administering medical. Remember that insurers’ profit margin is in the 2-3% range… hardly “windfall”.
And you would call a panel of five appointees… the IMAB… who wrest power from Congress to call the shots for payment and what will and will not be covered by Medicare in order to stay in budget…. what?
If the shoe fits….
It’s amazing to me you wander thru your legal world with your inability to comprehend reading, Billy Bob. Let me repeat from above:
You see, in one way I agree with you… I’m not all that confident in the GOP either. Yes, they have had proposals that you, apparently, prefer to ignore or diss as ineffective. Some of those proposals I liked, some I felt didn’t do a thing for curbing the providers’ overhead costs. As I said, I know that O’healthcare is pulling the plug on the American economy as written. It was pushed thru in a hasty and ugly manner, is ill thought out, and couldn’t be worse for economic timing. Repeal it, and have an incremental step plan to address the real problem… base costs to provide medical. When you can lower the price of building a GM car, you can sell the car cheaper. duh
Yes, thanks to progressive rule and spending, we are. In case you haven’t looked around, Billy Bob, which states are those most financially underwater? Those who have had decades of Democrat rule, of course. Despite our fragile economic condition, euro-socialist nations are in worse shape.
We can all thank Obama, Pelosi and Reid for one thing…. when supermajority and progressive rule came to the beltway, the damage was not only immediate and immense, it actually woke an electorate up to the reality that maybe the euro-socialist society ain’t so appealing afterall.
I don’t think I’m alone when I say I hope your days of screwing the rest of us are over.
MATA: hi, nice to read your comment,which make more sense, and easier for people to understand that mix mac of this or that, and the new elected smart one will have the opportunity to read those so many pages of that law so quickly shoved unread to AMERICANS,
IT’S securing to many to know that, some are there for the people best interests,
like you are here for the same reason, for the readers to get it. nice to have you back.
bye
The lefties here have been breathing fire since the election. They just don’t understand how “the people” were so stupid to vote them out. It’s made them even more bitter and rather than honestly look at what they did to deserve the boot, they whine and cry about how undeserving of power the GOP is.
I won’t pretend they deserved a second chance, but thanks to the atrocious job the dems did, they win by default.
Mata said —
There is, of course, another way to look at that generalization: Blue States, which have higher per capita income and a larger share of the GDP and send more money to the federal government (like NY, Illinois, NJ, and California), are doing worse than trough-feeding Red States, which get more back in federal dollars than they put in and, therefore, are disproportionately dependent on federal dollars.
Yeah, Texas balanced it’s budget this year . . . using money from the Obama stimulus package that Gov. Perry SAID they did not support. You give Texas and California the same federal dollars per capita and Texas will ALWAYS come out ahead because they put less into the fisc in the first place.
Ditto South Carolina, its governor railing against the stimulus (just before hitting “the Appalachian trail”), then using stimulus money to balance the budget, and then smugly declaring that GOPers “know how to balance budgets without raising taxes”? W.t.f.? The list goes on and on of Red States getting more out of Washington than they put it. The day the Blue States revolt is the day that Red States have to get their sh*t in order.
Not really. Some are, some aren’t. England, France and Germany are all much more socialist that we are. They are doing fine — especially Germany. Indeed, both France and Britain are biting the bullet and dealing with their long term debt issues; not so the US, with the exception of the Obama deficit reduction committee . . . which the GOP opposed when a similar committee was proposed in Congress.
Hard Right, THERE must be a lot of ANXIOUS new elected, our people to deal and repair and repeal
without any COMPROMISED. OF course they know there is a big job ahead of them waiting,
I’m sure also, they don’t think of taking a vacation to INDIA, to get out of their priorities,
and the AMERICANS will acknowledge their efforts, WHEN the right time come to reward them,
Bees, I hope the TP members can force the RINOs and moderates to do the right thing-what they promised to do.
What happened to the Tea Party senatorial candidates in Colorado,Nevada,Rhode Island, W.Va. and Alaska(of all places)?
Congrats. on wins in Fla.,Ky. and Penn.
How big of a role will they play in 2012 Repub. Pres. primaries? Any predictions?
Mata – thank you for tearing Silly Rob to shreds. I was all set to rip into him, then I read your post and thought, “Time to relax!”
One of the worst aspects of ObamaCare is its infantasizing of our young adults all the way up to age 26.
In the UK they already have ”cradle-to-grave” infants.
And what do we see there?
Riots, tantrums, really.
Every time anything doesn’t go their way, the ”children” go crazy.
This week it is tuition….but the riots were also filled with others who are ”anti-cut-backs.”
The violence was much more than the police anticipated.
The ”children” inhabit strapping, strong, full-sized adult bodies.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1328385/Student-tuition-fee-protesters-smash-Millbank-Tory-HQ.html
Dismantle all of ObamaCare and only re-instate portions as they are READ and debated (for Constitutionality among other things) and compromised and agreed to by a clear majority in both houses.
Edited to add:
It is really stupid to radically and permanently change our mostly excellent health care system because of a temporary bump in aging population caused by the baby boomers.
But Rahm used to always say, never let a crisis go to waste.
Your snobbery knows no bounds, does it? You mean those “trough-feeding Red States” like Wyoming and Alaska? 3rd and 4th of the highest producing states, and leaving socialist Kalifornia in the dust at 10th.
The highest producing “state”? The DC beltway. Gee… wonder why with the salaries they command.
Yet with all that money flowing thru their superior (in your elitist view) hands, they still spend themselves into oblivion, so one has to wonder just how much productivity there really is when you look at the bottom line. The simple economic truth is, when you spend more than you produce, you are not “productive”.
So let’s look at it “another way”, since you’re still uncomfortably clutching at your wedgie. Top indebted states (in reverse order)?
Maryland
Texas
Connecticut
Massachusetts
Ohio
Nevada
Michigan
New York City (not quite a state, but almost…)
New Jersey
New York
Illinois
California
Gee… I’m missing those high productive states of Alaska and Wyoming in there. And what do all, save Texas and Ohio’s swing status have in common? Decades of Dem rule.
Germany is the exception, not the norm. And oh, BTW, Merckel wasn’t about to follow Obama down the spending yellow brick road.
Britain and France are “doing fine”?? What planet are you from, and do you ever climb out from under your rock for a look at the real world? More slide shows for you, the reading challenged. Maybe pretty pictures might wake you up… CNBC’s biggest debtor nations. Then come on back and trip over your tongue, telling us how they are “doing fine”.
Jim DeMint said that he was going to try to make health care “Obama’s Waterloo.” The problem was, DeMint forgot that someone WON at Waterloo — just as Obama won on health care.
Now, and even less intelligent GOPer, goes farther — he is going to make Obamacare his own person Alamo. Because he fancies himself to be Davy Crockett.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/joe-barton-health-care-repeal-is-my-alamo.php?ref=dcblt
Guess ole Joe was not paying attention in history class, otherwise he would know that the Texians LOST at The Alamo and Crockett died there. But that’s OK, Joe . . . hopefully you will get your wish.
Yo… Billy Bob… bait and switch don’t work here, bubba. Clean up your droppings before you let loose with more.
DeMint did not say he “was going to try to make” health care Obama’s Waterloo. He said it *will* be Obama’s waterloo.
So far, via midterms election poll, he’s right. Big slap at the progressive led supermajority, who believes the electorate is too stupid to buy their spending cures.
But here’s the real laugh…
We’ll leave aside your death wishes for a US Representative… that says much about you and your sorry state of value as a human. But let’s talk about your own grasp of history.
Let me put this simply. To say that “ole Joe was not paying attention in history class, otherwise he would know that the Texians (Mata musing: sp error is yours…) LOST at The Alamo” is as unbelievably ignorant as saying that the loss of lives in our Civil Wars, or any of our world wars, was a loss. Can you say
Iwo Jima(sorry meant Battle of the Bulge)? You, being the pampered non military serving urbanite, affirmative action fool you are, mistaken a battle’s outcome with a war. You can lose a battle, and still win a war… or, in this case, the revolution.In fact, the Herculean efforts of those at the the Alamo led to inspiring not only Texans, but other Americans, to defeat the Mexican army just a few months later. Is this a loss? Only to a loser, snake under the rock, deficient privileged “lawyer” like you.
My patience with you on this subject is at it’s end. That those like Old Trooper, in his service, protect your butt in the course of serving our nation is a waste… IMHO. Personally, I’d rather ship you off to Chavez and Venezuela tomorrow.
@ MataHarley, Billy Bob reminds me a whole lot of Baghdad Bob.
I reckon that he needs to get a Kool Aid detox and go to rehab. I can offer him a job at my spread as he is an absolute Natural at Shoveling what my Horses drop. I may even have my hands teach him a legitimate occupation in a year or so. You Tube links courtesy of my Daughter. 😛
OLD TROOPER 2: VERY funny videos, bye
OLD TROOPER 2: that was very funny, thank you JANA
bye
“They are not near Baghdad!” SLAM!!!!!!!!!
Too funny!
Mata, you friggin idjut. Did the Texians WIN at The Alamo? No . . . if you visit there, it will explain that they all died. If Joe Barton wants to give up the ghost, I say let ’em.
Waterloo turned the entire war. Napoleon lost. Obama won on Obamacare. And guess what else? The Deficit Reduction Committee, Simpson and Bowles leading? Their interim report builds on Obamacare. You know what THAT means, don’t you? Both the Clintonista and the conservative GOPer agree that it saves money AND that it will be around for a long time.
By the way . . . who do you think could actually BEAT Obama? Haley Barbour? Palin? Romney . . . get real. Pawlenty, who balanced his last budget with Obama stimulus money? Yeah, right . . . . By my calculation, the only GOPer who could beat him is 5’3″ tall Mitch Daniels and the GOPers are too ideologically hidebound to pick him.
Like I said, Billy Bob, because you’re a privileged, pampered jerk with no military service, you are too stupid to know the difference between a battle and a war. The Alamo was instrumental in the success of the defeat of the Mexican army.
And, as you have already demonstrated, you are not only reading challenged, but math challenged. So it’s no surprise you see O’healthcare thru the rosy eyes of the socialist lib/progs, and their fuzzy math.
As far as who could beat Obama? Time will tell. Keeps going like this, and Daffy Duck may be able to mount a serious challenge… unless you progs boot him to the curb and offer up Hillary instead. The most likely to beat Obama is from one of your own ranks, depending on how he behaves in his lame duck years.
Apparently you haven’t visited there, bozo. Aside from most of the family members that were inside the Alamo, and who survived, there were two others who survived. William Barrett Travis’s slave, Joe, and a Mexican army deserter who fought with them, named Brigido Guerrero.
Mata —
I hear red wine is good for what is obviously ailing you.
Braindead, you should quit while you are waaaaaaaay behind. Mata has burned you at every turn and all you can do is insult her. You only make yourself look bad and convince no one.
Thanks OK, HR… I take great pleasure in insulting Billy Bob when he behaves as the jerk he is 99.9% of the time. That he insults me in return, in lieu of addressing his erroneous dissertations, is actually quite the laugh. If I dish it out, I have no false expectations that I may dodge receiving the same in return. Water off a duck’s back, coming from him.
Billy Bob’s unable to comprehend analogies… i.e. as Barton said when comparing his efforts to repeal O’healthcare to Crockett and the Alamo, it is a battle that most believe is hopeless. But just like the Alamo, tilting at those windmills can be instrumental in in the ultimate success – just as happened in the Texas Revolution. While the war was not won with that particular battle, it was the turning point for winning that war just months later. A reality that escapes one with the tunnel vision of Billy Bob. Barton made this explicitly clear with Billy Bob’s own link:
Billy Bob’s MO is that, when cornered, he simply brings up another talking point and insult to distract from his previous faux pas. He provides amusement for us here, but that’s about his only value as a human being.
Me thinks that Silly Bob is a waste of a carbon footprint.
Way to go Mata.
Mata —
With the Obama Deficit Reduction Commission’s preliminary report dropping, I am even more convinced that Obamacare is not going any damn where. I have pointed out time and again, what are you cons going to replace it with? Where are you going to find the money to restart the costly programs that Obamacare eliminated? How are you going to close the resulting increase in the projected deficit that Obamacare shrinks? The report builds on the momentum set by Obamacare (i.e., cutting Medicare and Medicaid expenses) and keeps cutting. We do not get to a balanced budget without starting with those savings!
You cons refuse to address any of the practicalities militating against eliminating Obamacare, instead relying on nonsensical insult and obtuse arguments that prove nothing. Why is that? Why not put forth a rational explanation, for example, of how you are going to reopen the Medicare D donut hole? Why not explain how to handle the uncompensated care issues and the pre-existing condition problems that the Obamacare individual mandate solves?
Instead, Mata, you just say “these are not important.” Yeah . . . right . . . sure . . . tell that to the insurance and hospital lobbies. Tell the seniors that the donut hole is no big deal.
That is the problem with you cons — you refuse any attempt to actually deal with problems, instead choosing to lean on rhetoric. That might impress the teabaggers, but guess what? The Obama Deficit Reduction Commission just called your bluff.
Finally, I used the word “Texians” intentionally. Google it and see why. Never mind — I’ll just explain it here, so the cons can see how silly your “spelling errors” comment was:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texian
Mata —
You said, once again, that Alaska is a “productive” state but, funny, you still have not linked to anything explaining what is considered “productive” or where Alaska ranks vis a vis New York, Illinois, California, etc.
But look what I found: the list of federal tax donor and recipient states —
http://www.heartland.org/publications/budget%20tax/article/22442/Some_States_Get_Fat_Others_Fleeced.html
Imagine that . . Alaska gets back $1.84 for ever $1 put into the fisc. Hmm . . . doesn’t sound very “productive” to me! Wait! It gets better:
Again, cons rail against the Obama stimulus plan but are the fattest pigs at the trough. With “productive” Alaska leading the way.
Hmm . . . I am wondering . . . if the stimulus was such a bad thing, and did not create any jobs, as you cons claim, then why were GOPer cons right there to take the dollars for the road building (employing construction workers, requiring the purchase of materials, requiring the leasing of equipment, etc.), and other Obama stimulus projects? And if several billions of dollars are spent building a road in Alaska, then how can that NOT create new jobs or, at minimum, save jobs from layoff? And I am still waiting for any con to explain how our economy would have been better off without the extra $800 billion being pumped into it. Another unanswered question that we all REALLY know the answer to . . . .
I await a link from you, Mata, of the supposed “productive” states. It should be entertaining to compare that to the federal tax donor and recipient state list.
Have to run and catch a plane, and still find myself doing your lazy butt’s homework. Really not hard to find, Billy Bob. Link from Mainstreet is here.
New York and California are lower than that. Site is self explanatory. And Alaska is lots of military installations, so of course they would have federal funding… duh