The Affordable Care Act II - Because Mr. Obama Loves You All

[DC Tom]

So...the ACA web site has now purged all reference to "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." Gone are the instructions on how to keep your doctor under the ACA, gone are the explanations why you may not be able to keep your doctor.

 

You simply can't now.

[snafu]

Then why not do the same thing with home lending? Subsidize people's mortgage payments, so those that can't afford to buy a home can now afford one.

 

And mandate that everyone own a home, to drive down the cost of buying a home.

 

We can call it the Affordable Home Act, or Obamahome.

That happened already starting in the first clinton administration. We all lived through it and haven't really recovered yet. Edited August 27, 2016 by snafu

[reddogblitz]

The epipen's price started ratcheting up in 2011. Same time the ACA took effect. Coincidence? Are they trying to save your the ACA or did the ACA make this a good (money making) strategy?

 

Insulin is experiencing price gouging as well. 2 products that if you need them, you'll die if you don't get it. If a person doesn't have insulin they'd be dead within days and it would be very unpleasant. They got us by the short hairs.

 

But hey, we made a conscious decision to let the rest of the world get cheap drugs while we pay through the nose and the world is a better place because of it, right Heather?

Edited August 27, 2016 by reddogblitz

[OCinBuffalo]

So...the ACA web site has now purged all reference to "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." Gone are the instructions on how to keep your doctor under the ACA, gone are the explanations why you may not be able to keep your doctor.

 

You simply can't now.

Wait, you mean the website Chef told us would be saved by all his Valley clowns from Apple and Google? How stupid does all of that look now? F the code, they go and change the value proposition, on their website, which is the ironic cause of about 1/3 of their trouble? This is the kind of irony that can bend time/space.

 

Somebody should remind these clowns that there is such a thing as the Wayback machine. And, that if they really think that doing this, allows them to get over on the 1000s of personal, saved instances of the entire, original Obamacare website...and all its content...which will be hosted, forever...they are F'ing delusional.

 

Then again, since it's clear that these are the same people who thought they could build an enterprise system the same way one builds a webpage for the local plumber?

 

Yeah, I bet they do think they are actually "erasing" things.

[Chef Jim]

Wait, you mean the website Chef told us would be saved by all his Valley clowns from Apple and Google? How stupid does all of that look now?.

Wow! I really got under your skin with that one didn't I.

[B-Man]

Health-care exchange sign-ups fall far short of forecasts

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/health-care-exchange-sign-ups-fall-far-short-of-forecasts/2016/08/27/3d93f602-6895-11e6-99bf-f0cf3a6449a6_story.html

 

 

Enrollment in the insurance exchanges for President Obama’s signature health-care law is at less than half the initial forecast, pushing several major insurance companies to stop offering health plans in certain markets because of significant financial losses.

As a result, the administration’s promise of a menu of health-plan choices has been replaced by a grim, though preliminary, forecast: Next year, more than 1 in 4 counties are at risk of having a single insurer on its exchange, said Cynthia Cox, who studies health reform for the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Debate over how perilous the predicament is for the Affordable Care Act, commonly called Obamacare, is nearly as partisan as the divide over the law itself. But at the root of the problem is this: The success of the law depends fundamentally on the exchanges being profitable for insurers — and that requires more people to sign up.

[unbillievable]

Instead of single payer, why not single provider?

 

Expand the VA to include everyone!

[IDBillzFan]

Instead of single payer, why not single provider?

 

Expand the VA to include everyone!

 

Great plan. If we're all covered by the VA, the number of people who will die from neglect will thin the crowds quickly, making is more affordable than anything else!

[Nanker]

I had a very close friend that was a Viet War vet. He went to the VA and was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm and was told to go home because it would be six weeks before he could have corrective surgery. Two days later his wife came home to find him dead. That happened about thirty years ago. Things haven't changed much since then.

[B-Large]

I had a very close friend that was a Viet War vet. He went to the VA and was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm and was told to go home because it would be six weeks before he could have corrective surgery. Two days later his wife came home to find him dead. That happened about thirty years ago. Things haven't changed much since then.

This happens today. Non critical AAA will get surgically repaired on and OR schedule when there is time, and that is not always next day. Just like bypass surgery isn't same day, or even same month. Contaxt is important here.

[Chef Jim]

This happens today. Non critical AAA will get surgically repaired on and OR schedule when there is time, and that is not always next day. Just like bypass surgery isn't same day, or even same month. Contaxt is important here.

So the VA does not have the capacity to save lives? !@#$ing awesome!!

[B-Large]

So the VA does not have the capacity to save lives? !@#$ing awesome!!

Point is VA is not a exclusive example of triage and scheduling procedure. Most people believe when you go in and something needs surgery, that Cigna and your private hospital immediately jump to action to save your life... But the reality is the VA and a private hospital probably have similar procedures. Many of our doctors practice at the university and VA.

 

I'm not trying to say Nankers story is BS, but that anecdote happens both government run, single payor and private systems.

[Nanker]

Point is VA is not a exclusive example of triage and scheduling procedure. Most people believe when you go in and something needs surgery, that Cigna and your private hospital immediately jump to action to save your life... But the reality is the VA and a private hospital probably have similar procedures. Many of our doctors practice at the university and VA.

 

I'm not trying to say Nankers story is BS, but that anecdote happens both government run, single payor and private systems.

You're quite right. And my story is 100% true... tragically true.

[Doc]

I had a very close friend that was a Viet War vet. He went to the VA and was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm and was told to go home because it would be six weeks before he could have corrective surgery. Two days later his wife came home to find him dead. That happened about thirty years ago. Things haven't changed much since then.

This happens today. Non critical AAA will get surgically repaired on and OR schedule when there is time, and that is not always next day. Just like bypass surgery isn't same day, or even same month. Contaxt is important here.

 

The other hospital in my town just had a patient come into the ER, wasn't seen for 4 hours, and ended up dying of a ruptured AAA.

[B-Large]

The other hospital in my town just had a patient come into the ER, wasn't seen for 4 hours, and ended up dying of a ruptured AAA.

That's unfortunate, indeed.

[B-Man]

GEE, IF ONLY SOMEONE HAD WARNED ABOUT THIS BEFORE IT WAS RAMMED THROUGH ON A BOGUS, PARTY-LINE, PROCEDURAL VOTE:

 

Gray Lady Raises the White Flag on Obamacare.

 

 

Six years after a Democratic majority rammed the most complex piece of domestic legislation in decades through a party line vote, using a legislative technique that ensured the final bill would be a mess that nobody actually advocated, the law, shockingly, isn’t working very well. Enrollment is only half of what proponents expected, premiums are going up by double-digits, healthy people are shunning what they see as an over-priced and underperforming program, the ‘cooperatives’ that Democratic wonks gushed over are going belly-up, and insurance companies are fleeing the market in droves.

And even more amazingly, the New York Times has sorted through the chaos and come up with the conclusion that the Obamacare mess is serious, costly, damaging—and very, very hard to fix. . . . The signature domestic accomplishment of the Obama administration is, the Gray Lady appears to be conceding, a dysfunctional mess.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a debacle, and Obama and the Democrats did it all themselves.

[DC Tom]

 

It’s a debacle, and Obama and the Democrats did it all themselves.

 

But only because the obstructionist Republicans blocked the normal legislative process and forced the Democrats to pass it by questionable parliamentary procedure that required removing all the effective parts of the Bill.

[B-Man]

ANALYSIS: FALSE. Modesty Could Have Averted the Anguish of Obamacare.

 

 

Megan McArdle writes:

 

The weakness of the mandate, like other flaws in the law, was politically necessary because the l

aw was already quite unpopular, and its supporters couldn’t afford to alienate a single other voter. So they passed what they could and hoped to fix it later.

 

However, the unpopularity of the law meant that there was a strong risk that they wouldn’t be able to fix it later, and indeed that is where we now find ourselves.

 

I don’t mean to suggest that the law has been an utter failure by the standards of its architects. They have not achieved anything close to universal coverage, but they did manage to reduce the number of uninsured people by somewhere between a quarter and a third. However, I think that if they had been a little less stuck on the idea of attacking every problem at once, they might have passed a less ambitious plan that would nonetheless have expanded coverage substantially, with far fewer risks to either the system or the Democratic Party.

 

 

 

 

 

It isn’t so much that McArdle is wrong on the facts, it’s that “modesty” and the “comprehensive reform” (to say nothing of “fundamental transformation”) desired by Progressives are mutually exclusive.

[IDBillzFan]

It's kind of a running gag here that when another story is out reporting the predictable incompetence of Obamacare, one of us comments sarcastically "If only someone had warned us..." or "If only someone could have predicted this mess..."

 

Unfortunately, we are heading quickly to "If only someone could have predicted this was designed to fail so it could lead to single payer."

 

That'll be a sad day, indeed, because then the left will have reached beyond its hold on minorities as hostages who are excessively dependent upon the federal government for survival, and have reached the rest of us.

 

By the time Hillary finishes her second term, the US will look more like Detroit than any assemblance of a free people.

Edited August 31, 2016 by LABillzFan

[Azalin]

It's kind of a running gag here that when another story is out reporting the predictable incompetence of Obamacare, one of us comments sarcastically "If only someone had warned us..." or "If only someone could have predicted this mess..."

 

Unfortunately, we are heading quickly to "If only someone could have predicted this was designed to fail so it could lead to single payer."

 

That'll be a sad day, indeed, because then the left will have reached beyond its hold on minorities as hostages who are excessively dependent upon the federal government for survival, and have reached the rest of us.

 

By the time Hillary finishes her second term, the US will look more like Detroit than any assemblance of a free people.

 

It's about time that people like me were punished for daring to appreciate our employer-provided "Cadillac plans". Soon I won't have to feel guilty for intentionally selecting an employer who provides excellent benefits.

 

Boy, that'll sure be a load off......