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

[Tiberius]

I agree with this and I think people get confused by the word "right" because it's a vague term with a bunch of different meanings. There are what I call "inherent rights" (freedom of speech, religion, etc.) and then there are what I call "state-given rights" (public roads, gun ownership, etc.). State-given rights can be taken away (i.e. drive recklessly and you can no longer drive on public roads), whereas inherent rights can't (even if you commit murder in the name of Islam no one can force you to convert to a new religion). Healthcare would obviously be a state-given right, there is nothing inherent to it. And it's finite, whereas inherent rights have no limit. So when people say they think Americans have a "right to affordable healthcare" I don't think they're talking about it in the same sense as freedom of speech. They're talking about it like the right to own a gun. Conservatives should stop trying to argue that healthcare can't be a right because it's finite - the other side already knows that, but many things we know to be finite we also know as rights. It's just semantics. At the end of the day the question is whether we as a society are able to provide healthcare to all without making things worse.

That's all they have left.

[grinreaper]

I agree with this and I think people get confused by the word "right" because it's a vague term with a bunch of different meanings. There are what I call "inherent rights" (freedom of speech, religion, etc.) and then there are what I call "state-given rights" (public roads, gun ownership, etc.). State-given rights can be taken away (i.e. drive recklessly and you can no longer drive on public roads), whereas inherent rights can't (even if you commit murder in the name of Islam no one can force you to convert to a new religion). Healthcare would obviously be a state-given right, there is nothing inherent to it. And it's finite, whereas inherent rights have no limit. So when people say they think Americans have a "right to affordable healthcare" I don't think they're talking about it in the same sense as freedom of speech. They're talking about it like the right to own a gun. Conservatives should stop trying to argue that healthcare can't be a right because it's finite - the other side already knows that, but many things we know to be finite we also know as rights. It's just semantics. At the end of the day the question is whether we as a society are able to provide healthcare to all without making things worse.

Which one of those two are not constitutional rights?

[B-Man]

 

 

 

 

 

The Concept of Personal Responsibility Is Deeply Unsettling to Technocrats and Populists Alike

by David French

 

Yesterday I wrote a relatively short piece (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447371/health-care-crisis-obamacare-republicans-obesity-depression-feminism-political-blame-game) taking issue with the idea — spread far and wide on the Left last week — that conservatives are literally killing people by voting to repeal Obamacare.

 

Through the use of a fictional character (named “Bob” — apologies to all the Bobs I alarmed on Twitter) I made some rather common-sense observations that a person’s health outcomes aren’t merely determined by the presence or absence of health insurance. I even implied that some portion of Bob’s health was actually — gasp — in Bob’s control. For example, his weight, his level of exercise, and whether he drank too much.

 

To read some folks on Twitter you’d think that I was blaming kids for getting cancer, denying my own mortality (yes, that was one explanation), or stating as a medically false blanket assertion that all chronic health problems are due to individual choices. It’s amazing how medicine changes when politics gets involved. Remove the politics, and doctor after doctor will tell you that you can improve your health outcomes by eating right, exercising, and getting good sleep. Conversely, you can hurt yourself if you’re obese, smoke, drink too much, or get addicted to drugs.

 

All of these elements are to greater and lesser degrees within our control. Everyone dies, and some people who do everything right die premature deaths, but in general it’s better to make better choices. As a good friend (a critical-care doctor here in Tennessee) told me, “If it weren’t for addictions, I’d be out of a job.” His ICU is full — on a nightly basis — with people suffering the effects of smoking, drug addiction, obesity, and alcoholism.

 

But that’s actual medicine. Political medicine is completely different. Political medicine takes an overweight alcoholic dying of heart disease and immediately asks, “Which of my political enemies put him in that sorry state?” And the more the politician suffers from a savior complex, the more they’re willing to ignore human agency to score their political point. The populist says that his job was shipped to China, and that sent him into a spiral of understandable depression. The technocrat claims that he was one job-training program and one government insurance policy away from prosperity.

 

Because politics can never create utopia, there will always be more than enough suffering to exploit. I’d like to think that conservatives are different. I’d like to think that we understand that politics matter, but human choices matter more. Absent catastrophe (which happens and should be mitigated when possible), in the United States of America it is still true that a person’s life outcomes are far more dependent on their choices and their family’s choices than they are on any government policy. So, sorry, technocrats and populists — Bob still controls his own life more than you do. Pretending he doesn’t helps you far more than it helps him.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/447388/concept-personal-responsibility-deeply-unsettling-technocrats-and-populists-alike

[Tiberius]

 

 

 

 

 

The Concept of Personal Responsibility Is Deeply Unsettling to Technocrats and Populists Alike

by David French

 

Yesterday I wrote a relatively short piece (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447371/health-care-crisis-obamacare-republicans-obesity-depression-feminism-political-blame-game) taking issue with the idea — spread far and wide on the Left last week — that conservatives are literally killing people by voting to repeal Obamacare.

 

Through the use of a fictional character (named “Bob” — apologies to all the Bobs I alarmed on Twitter) I made some rather common-sense observations that a person’s health outcomes aren’t merely determined by the presence or absence of health insurance. I even implied that some portion of Bob’s health was actually — gasp — in Bob’s control. For example, his weight, his level of exercise, and whether he drank too much.

 

To read some folks on Twitter you’d think that I was blaming kids for getting cancer, denying my own mortality (yes, that was one explanation), or stating as a medically false blanket assertion that all chronic health problems are due to individual choices. It’s amazing how medicine changes when politics gets involved. Remove the politics, and doctor after doctor will tell you that you can improve your health outcomes by eating right, exercising, and getting good sleep. Conversely, you can hurt yourself if you’re obese, smoke, drink too much, or get addicted to drugs.

 

All of these elements are to greater and lesser degrees within our control. Everyone dies, and some people who do everything right die premature deaths, but in general it’s better to make better choices. As a good friend (a critical-care doctor here in Tennessee) told me, “If it weren’t for addictions, I’d be out of a job.” His ICU is full — on a nightly basis — with people suffering the effects of smoking, drug addiction, obesity, and alcoholism.

 

But that’s actual medicine. Political medicine is completely different. Political medicine takes an overweight alcoholic dying of heart disease and immediately asks, “Which of my political enemies put him in that sorry state?” And the more the politician suffers from a savior complex, the more they’re willing to ignore human agency to score their political point. The populist says that his job was shipped to China, and that sent him into a spiral of understandable depression. The technocrat claims that he was one job-training program and one government insurance policy away from prosperity.

 

Because politics can never create utopia, there will always be more than enough suffering to exploit. I’d like to think that conservatives are different. I’d like to think that we understand that politics matter, but human choices matter more. Absent catastrophe (which happens and should be mitigated when possible), in the United States of America it is still true that a person’s life outcomes are far more dependent on their choices and their family’s choices than they are on any government policy. So, sorry, technocrats and populists — Bob still controls his own life more than you do. Pretending he doesn’t helps you far more than it helps him.

 

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/447388/concept-personal-responsibility-deeply-unsettling-technocrats-and-populists-alike

 

 

Oh great, so we should all turn vegan! That's the Right's health care plan!

[B-Man]

AETNA CEO: Obamacare Will Continue to Deteriorate If Nothing Happens.

 

Aetna, one of the largest insurers in the United States, announced last week that it planned to exit the Obamacare exchanges in Iowa and Virginia, citing major losses.

“Looking beyond 2017, we continue to evaluate our footprint with a view towards significantly reducing our exposure to individual commercial products in 2018,” said Shawn Guertin, Aetna’s chief financial officer. “We have already disclosed our planned 2018 exit from one of our 2017 state-based exchanges and intend to communicate other 2018 footprint decisions when appropriate.”

Bertolini mentioned that Medica, another health care insurer, notified Iowa last week that it was also pulling out of the exchanges which means there will be no one in Iowa with coverage.

 

 

 

 

I’m so old I can remember when ObamaCare was touted as the salvation for private health coverage.

[Tiberius]

AETNA CEO: Obamacare Will Continue to Deteriorate If Nothing Happens.

 

 

 

Aetna, one of the largest insurers in the United States, announced last week that it planned to exit the Obamacare exchanges in Iowa and Virginia, citing major losses.

“Looking beyond 2017, we continue to evaluate our footprint with a view towards significantly reducing our exposure to individual commercial products in 2018,” said Shawn Guertin, Aetna’s chief financial officer. “We have already disclosed our planned 2018 exit from one of our 2017 state-based exchanges and intend to communicate other 2018 footprint decisions when appropriate.”

Bertolini mentioned that Medica, another health care insurer, notified Iowa last week that it was also pulling out of the exchanges which means there will be no one in Iowa with coverage.

 

 

 

 

I’m so old I can remember when ObamaCare was touted as the salvation for private health coverage.

He also said: "What we need to do is admit that it needs to be fixed," he said. "Eight years without touching it, no piece of major social legislation has ever had that happen."

 

 

Fix it, don't use it as an excuse for a give away of free money to the wealthy

[Meathead]

not to mention the sabotage the republicans did to it by eliminating shortage payments to doctors as planned, among other sabotages

 

either fix it or return it to the way it was designed should be step 1

[reddogblitz]

not to mention the sabotage the republicans did to it by eliminating shortage payments to doctors as planned, among other sabotages

 

either fix it or return it to the way it was designed should be step 1

Ideally we could start over and not let the insurance and pharmacuetical companies in to help like they did last time. I knew once they did that we were toast. But that ain't gonna happen.

[Gary M]

Ideally we could start over and not let the insurance and pharmacuetical companies in to help like they did last time. I knew once they did that we were toast. But that ain't gonna happen.

 

So people with no experience in the business should decide how to fix it?

 

I believe that is what got us the mess we currently have.

[Nanker]

Yes. Just let the experts on a football forum decide how to build a really, really good healthcare insurance system. Why, with the broad depth of experience and knowledge of the subject matter, this should be a piece of cake. We could make a bang-up system in no time at all.

[Chef Jim]

Yes. Just let the experts on a football forum decide how to build a really, really good healthcare insurance system. Why, with the broad depth of experience and knowledge of the subject matter, this should be a piece of cake. We could make a bang-up system in no time at all.

This may be sarcasm but we are letting politicians create this monster. Of course it will never work. Both sides are a bunch of dumdasses.

[IDBillzFan]

This may be sarcasm but we are letting politicians create this monster. Of course it will never work. Both sides are a bunch of dumdasses.

 

The only way that could work is if the law demands that even the politicians have to be part of the program.

 

The very moment DC exempted themselves from ACA was the moment thinking people realized how bad their law was going to be.

[reddogblitz]

So people with no experience in the business should decide how to fix it?

 

I believe that is what got us the mess we currently have.

Actually, all those people with "experience in the business" helped get us in the mess we currently have.

 

Do you think when they were "helping" that they were benevolent do gooders trying to help the American people get better health insurance /care? Or do you think them and thier generous lobbying dollars perhaps queered things thier way?

 

I'm going with the latter. Not allowing negotiation on drug prices seems to indicate that among others.

[Chef Jim]

Actually, all those people with "experience in the business" helped get us in the mess we currently have.

 

 

You're referring to Obamacare right?

[reddogblitz]

You're referring to Obamacare right?

That's the mess we currently have right now.

 

Thanks for helping me make my point which was letting these people with "experience in the business" help draft the plan has directly resulted in what we have now (a mess).

Edited May 9, 2017 by reddogblitz

[grinreaper]

Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economics professor is considered the architect of Obamacare. Having people with healthcare experience involved with creating the law is a good thing as long as they have no hidden agenda. Having an ideologue running the show that freely admitted that having a stupid public was the only way the bill could pass was probably not the way to go.

[GG]

Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economics professor is considered the architect of Obamacare. Having people with healthcare experience involved with creating the law is a good thing as long as they have no hidden agenda. Having an ideologue running the show that freely admitted that having a stupid public was the only way the bill could pass was probably not the way to go.

 

It is the way to go if your goal is to tilt the conversation towards your ultimate end goal. And they succeeded.

 

Now even more people confuse insurance with healthcare, people think that 24 million will lose coverage even though ACA added only 4 million people, and that pre-existing conditions are the main feature of insurance plans.

 

Oh, and yes GOP still wants to push grandma down the cliff.

[Azalin]

 

The only way that could work is if the law demands that even the politicians have to be part of the program.

 

Bingo. They should always be subject to anything they pass, no exceptions.

[Chef Jim]

That's the mess we currently have right now.

 

Thanks for helping me make my point which was letting these people with "experience in the business" help draft the plan has directly resulted in what we have now (a mess).

 

And who are "these" people and what what their hand in drafting the plan we currently have?

[Tiberius]

 

It is the way to go if your goal is to tilt the conversation towards your ultimate end goal. And they succeeded.

 

Now even more people confuse insurance with healthcare, people think that 24 million will lose coverage even though ACA added only 4 million people, and that pre-existing conditions are the main feature of insurance plans.

 

Oh, and yes GOP still wants to push grandma down the cliff.

You are leaving out the 9 million picked up by the expansion of medicade

 

And the GOP does want to push people out of fast moving cars, especially if tax cuts for the wealthy are involved