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TheImmigrant posted:Right, the solution to insurance companies driving the US healthcare system is to force even more citizens to contribute to their finances and give them even more control over healthcare policy. This is slapping a Band-Aid on a malignant tumor and sending the patient away with a clean bill of health. Banning some of the insurance industry's most egregious (and profitable!) practices does not constitute "giv[ing] them even more control over healthcare policy." Like I said, if the ACA was such a boon for the insurance industry, why were they so keen on seeing it defeated? And nobody (certainly nobody in this thread) is "sending the patient away with a clean bill of health." There's more work to be done, and Single Payer should remain our endgame goal. But in the short-term, let's be glad that the ACA, flawed as it is, is saving lives and making the U.S. a slightly less horrible place to get sick in for poor and middle-class folks.
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Aug 1, 2015 17:05
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The industry wrote the bill; it didn't work to defeat it. And while guaranteed issue is a baby step toward joining every other first-world country, too many people are still underinsured under ACA's private individual policies, which still leaves medical bankruptcy a likelihood in the event of serious illness or injury (especially with the narrow networks and exposure to out-of-network bills). But the ACA has led us a step closer to single-payer because of its expanded Medicaid. Even with so many states' having rejected the expansion, the total enrollment in Medicaid by the formerly uninsured dwarfs that of those in the private individual plans. Satisfaction is greater among Medicaid enrollees than those under private individual plans, Medicaid enrollees report having an easier time scheduling doctors' appointments than those under private individual plans, and Medicaid enrollees cost the government less than those enrolled in private individual plans. So in spite of its intent to entrench private insurance, the ACA has already helped the cause of single-payer, and I think that'll grow in the years ahead, as employer-provided insurance is taxed out of existence and the current subsidized individual market becomes unsustainable in terms of its financial and political costs.
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Aug 1, 2015 19:55
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Except it really hasn't due to the huge increase in deductibles even on employer-sponsored plans. Single Payer is an inevitability anyway because Medicare continue to balloon and the federal government needs a way to keep them down, and that's the only way forward. e: The public option got struck down and states are freed to not enact the Medicaid expansion. If the public option was intact and states were forced to agree to the expansion then I would be much much happier with the idea that PPACA is a precursor to single payer. As it is, I'm not so sure. The Phlegmatist fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Aug 1, 2015 |
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Aug 1, 2015 19:58
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Willa Rogers posted:The industry wrote the bill; it didn't work to defeat it. AHIP spent $102.4m lobbying against health care reform in 2009-10.
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Aug 1, 2015 20:34
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The Phlegmatist posted:Except it really hasn't due to the huge increase in deductibles even on employer-sponsored plans. people keep saying this but I have yet to see any proof
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Aug 1, 2015 20:39
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blowfish posted:What, that poo poo counts as a preexisting condition? Goddamn dude you should go watch Sicko.
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Aug 1, 2015 20:53
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Immortan posted:Goddamn dude you should go watch Sicko. Michael Moore is like an inverted Rush Limbaugh: a fat and hypocritical liar playing to the choir.
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Aug 1, 2015 21:04
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The whole "blah" of the left doesn't work anymore, hth.
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Aug 1, 2015 21:07
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The industry has totally played both sides of the fence when it comes to some of the ACA's components, but the bill was literally written by a former industry lobbyist, who was then hired by HHS to oversee its implementation. AHIP wouldn't have filed its amicus brief for the administration in King, nor hired Tavenner to replace Ignani, if it wanted the ACA overturned. That doesn't mean they won't try to further shittify the private plans they've foisted on the individual market (and that are soon to be the norm in the group market); they're pushing for even "skinnier" coverage than the metal plans currently carry. It'll be fun to watch Tavenner pimping for these crappier plans in the years ahead. And by fun I mean absolutely sickening. 
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Aug 1, 2015 22:08
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TheImmigrant posted:Michael Moore is like an inverted Rush Limbaugh: a fat and hypocritical liar playing to the choir. Agreed for the most part but Sicko was an interesting watch and his only really good film. To its credit it made healthcare a main focus of the 2008 elections.
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Aug 1, 2015 22:26
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BTW, how many innocent foreigners is a president allowed to murder before he can be considered "not so good"?
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Aug 1, 2015 22:49
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mobby_6kl posted:BTW, how many innocent foreigners is a president allowed to murder before he can be considered "not so good"? It's bleak to contemplate, but every single U.S. president since, like, FDR has a ton of innocent blood on his hands. It's just what comes with being in charge of a multinational military empire. Basically, you've gotta grade on a curve. Obama is a murderer, sure, but as far as international criminals go he's pretty decent.
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Aug 1, 2015 23:05
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Willa Rogers posted:
Of course they filed an amicus brief, because the outcome of a ruling for the Plaintiffs in King wouldn't have been full repeal, but rather the utter destruction of the private healthcare industry. Doesn't mean they support the ACA, just that ACA with subsidies is better for them than ACA without subsidies. Falstaff Infection fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Aug 2, 2015 |
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Aug 1, 2015 23:09
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Falstaff Infection posted:It's bleak to contemplate, but every single U.S. president since, like, FDR has a ton of innocent blood on his hands. It's just what comes with being in charge of a multinational military empire. Basically, you've gotta grade on a curve. Obama is a murderer, sure, but as far as international criminals go he's pretty decent. "You have syphilis. On the bright side, you don't have Ebola."
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Aug 1, 2015 23:19
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I, too, believe that any leader who kills people is automatically bad.
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Aug 1, 2015 23:23
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mobby_6kl posted:BTW, how many innocent foreigners is a president allowed to murder before he can be considered "not so good"? Somewhere between Chavez and Stalin.
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Aug 1, 2015 23:39
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Falstaff Infection posted:It's bleak to contemplate, but every single U.S. president since, like, FDR has a ton of innocent blood on his hands. It's just what comes with being in charge of a multinational military empire. Basically, you've gotta grade on a curve. Obama is a murderer, sure, but as far as international criminals go he's pretty decent. Don't be silly, you've got to at bare minimum go back before the Spanish American war. Then you've got to add on a few more guys because after Hayes everyone pretended the South wasn't a horror thumbing it's nose at the constitution. Lincoln and Grant both killed at least a couple innocent people with the whole Civil War thing. Of course, you've a whole bunch of assholes from before the Civil War killing Indians, attacking Mexico and the like. I guess Zachary Taylor, but he didn't really have much time to get in on the killing before himself dying. Maybe Andrew Johnson on account of nobody even letting him do anything? Edit: I forgot William Harrison. He spent his entire time as President dying. So maybe him, fellow dier Taylor, and Andrew Johnson. Every other President; totally caused the death of innocent people. Gyges fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Aug 2, 2015 |
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Aug 2, 2015 00:00
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mobby_6kl posted:BTW, how many innocent foreigners is a president allowed to murder before he can be considered "not so good"?
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Aug 2, 2015 00:42
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Sethex posted:It is sort of an inevitably when operating an empire. I'm not expecting a zero death rate/no collateral damage empire until an ai rules our governments. It's an inevitability of being in any significant position of power, ever, in all countries.
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Aug 2, 2015 00:46
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Fojar38 posted:It's an inevitability of being in any significant position of power, ever, in all countries. I guess it comes down to how far you wanna drive the chain of causality. Like, is the prime minister of Denmark to blame when some schmuck slips on the ice in Copenhagen and dies because he didn't fight hard enough for increased municipal anti-ice-patch services? I think there are plenty of world leaders whose countries are small and unassuming enough that their hands are relatively clean, but once you start leading someplace powerful that wants to stay that way you're gonna have to start wading through blood.
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Aug 2, 2015 01:42
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Not to say that it's futile to criticize presidents for killing people and working to minimize the harm that our foreign policy causes to innocents all over the world, but if you want to be able to usefully compare one president to the other, you're going to have to start with a baseline of "ok, so this guy did cause a few hundred people to die."
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Aug 2, 2015 01:45
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Falstaff Infection posted:I guess it comes down to how far you wanna drive the chain of causality. Like, is the prime minister of Denmark to blame when some schmuck slips on the ice in Copenhagen and dies because he didn't fight hard enough for increased municipal anti-ice-patch services? I think there are plenty of world leaders whose countries are small and unassuming enough that their hands are relatively clean, but once you start leading someplace powerful that wants to stay that way you're gonna have to start wading through blood. I've slipped on ice in Copenhagen and didn't die, therefore it is his own fault. Serious answer: there's a lot of dirty poo poo all the big countries are doing constantly. I mean, I'm horrified at the stuff I know about thats being done in the name of the American people. Imagine the poo poo that's under wraps.
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Aug 2, 2015 02:33
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Fojar38 posted:It's an inevitability of being in any significant position of power, ever, in all countries. I think Jose Mujica manages to avoid it, but for world powers this certainly holds.
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Aug 2, 2015 02:41
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If you're the head of state of a G20 country you're automatically a monster.
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Aug 2, 2015 02:51
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Obama was a better president than George Washington because Obama didn't own slaves.
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Aug 2, 2015 06:26
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I know that without the change to pre existing conditions, I would have been absolutely hosed turning 26 and being dropped from my parents insurance. I'm talking thousands of dollars a month for the rest of my life. I can't say I'm entirely disappointed when I hear people complain that their deductible is a little high.
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Aug 2, 2015 07:19
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I can speak a little bit about why political opposition has become so - and I must emphasize the cosmic proportions of my euphemism - intense. So, some people mentioned how the media, and the internet is responsible. That's entirely true - but not in a "the internet is making us stupid!!1" sense. Instead, we need to think about what makes the internet so important - it's the most direct, vibrant, and interactive way that humanity has ever divised to disperse information. Since the first paparazzo stalked the first debutante into the first marble-floored bathroom, we can assume people have wanted the down low. Now, it took until the advent of the internet, and the 24 hour news cycle before we reached our current depths of partisanship. Why is this? Because, simply put, the mediums available were unengaging. In other words, readin' is for queers, and folks who don't work in the mines for 17 hours a day. Now that you can hold the entirety of human communicative desire in a plastic rectangle in your pocket, and we've eradicated the scourge of miner's lung, it's relatively easy to be reminded about each little niggling bit about your opposition. This is reinforced by television, radio, and newspaper. Then there's the partisan lean of the outlets themselves, which in turn encourages return patronage. It goes without saying, I feel, that we all understand the allure of intelligent media that espouses your political viewpoint. It's a feedback loop, more or less: A liberal will go to the NY Times because it has a reputation for being liberal, where they will find the usual cosmopolitan fare and be satisfied by what they find - I found the recent feature on bird singing competitions by middle-aged Guyanese men gratifying myself. The same goes for a conservative and whatever red-meat dogwhistle is howling loudest at the moment, with a more pronounced effect. But yeah, everything I've read in terms of empirical research suggests that our state of media immersion merely reinforces ingrained differences in perception that are expressed as our lovely two-party political system. And along that path, folks who identify as conservative are significantly more likely to flock to their partisan cattle call than those on the left. Why is this? Well, officially, researches don't know why. But if it's not because they're small-minded, inconsiderate and essentially selfish prudes I'll submit to a mod challenge based around GOP Furry Cosplay. e: To elaborate, let's make this comparison: In 1962, JFK had pamphlets being printed by the John Birch Society that looked like a pathetic high-school mimeograph 'zine espousing his allegiance to the Pope and Fidel Castro simultaneously. Today, in 2015, there's at least 10,000 glossy, shiny, free websites about Obummer and his Kenyan Paramilitary Squadrons. Then you've got AM radio, FOX, &tc. For the left, I suppose it could be something like 1968 only had the evening news, and these days we've a minute away from a youtube upload of Iraqi orphans being shoved into tar pits by Marines. Hooray!!! MODS CURE JOKES fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Aug 2, 2015 |
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Aug 2, 2015 08:06
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Leneson posted:I know that without the change to pre existing conditions, I would have been absolutely hosed turning 26 and being dropped from my parents insurance. I'm talking thousands of dollars a month for the rest of my life. I can't say I'm entirely disappointed when I hear people complain that their deductible is a little high. Staying on your parents' plan until 26 is also an ACA change.
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Aug 2, 2015 15:23
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Willa Rogers posted:the bill was literally written by a former industry lobbyist, who was then hired by HHS to oversee its implementation. How horrible that a person who used to do one thing also did a related thing later. Real fuckin' smoking gun, that one.
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Aug 2, 2015 16:17
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Somfin posted:How horrible that a person who used to do one thing also did a related thing later. Real fuckin' smoking gun, that one. Show me a bill regulating a business that wasn't written by someone formerly employed in the industry who knows something about it and I'll show you a pile of garbage that needs to be rewritten by a former industry lobbyist ASAP.
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Aug 2, 2015 16:58
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You've been found guilty in Progressive Court of "using lobbyists." e: I sentence you to one hundred lashes with the straps of a Democracy Now! tote bag.
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Aug 2, 2015 17:01
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Thou shalt not suffer a lobbyist to live. *points, shrieks like Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers*
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Aug 2, 2015 17:06
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As a liberal I'm gonna go ahead and say he was a good president.
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Aug 2, 2015 17:37
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I'm pretty conservative (actually by D&D standards: a counterrevolutionary fascist pig) and I'm in full support of single-payer. Seeing people on the left defending PPACA is just bizarre to me.
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Aug 2, 2015 19:29
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The Phlegmatist posted:I'm pretty conservative (actually by D&D standards: a counterrevolutionary fascist pig) and I'm in full support of single-payer. Single-payer would be awesome but we weren't gonna get it and what we have now is better than what he had before, even if it isn't ideal.
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Aug 2, 2015 20:02
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The Phlegmatist posted:
It shouldn't be. Some of the hallmarks of the American center-left are a belief in the power of the state to curb the abuses of private industry (which the PPACA does through its pre-existing conditions regulations among other new requirements for insurance companies) and the validity of wealth transfers to aid the poor (which the PPACA does through the medicaid expansion). I, like literally every liberal/progressive in the country, believe that Single Payer would be better and will continue to fight that battle. I am not naive enough, however, to believe that Obama could've somehow used the magic of THE BULLY PULPIT to transform people like Max Baucus and Joe Lieberman into social democrats. Could he have fought harder for the public option? Did he give away too much to try to court republican support? Perhaps. But lest we forget, Rahm Emmanuel and Biden were both urging him to abandon the fight for healthcare reform after the special election in Massachussetts, but Obama (correctly) ignored their advice. The PPACA was a progressive piece of legislation and very much a step in the right direction. As always, though, la luche sigue.
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Aug 2, 2015 20:12
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I will say best president since Jimmy Carter but that's not saying much.
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Aug 2, 2015 20:33
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Harald posted:I will say best president since Jimmy Carter but that's not saying much. Carter was a pretty poor president too, though not for the most commonly stated reasons.
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Aug 2, 2015 20:48
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Harald posted:I will say best president since Jimmy Carter but that's not saying much. Certainly the best since LBJ, arguably best since FDR given that he hasn't had a foreign policy debacle on par with Vietnam to mar his legacy.
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Aug 2, 2015 20:56
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Falstaff Infection posted:It's bleak to contemplate, but every single U.S. president since, like, FDR has a ton of innocent blood on his hands. It's just what comes with being in charge of a multinational military empire. Basically, you've gotta grade on a curve. Obama is a murderer, sure, but as far as international criminals go he's pretty decent. Yep. Sorry, America, you're an empire. The leader of any country with foreign ambitions has blood on their hands, and unless you expect Obama to completely disband the US foreign policy and military apparatus on his lonesome, all he can do is to be less worse then predecessors. As a citizen of a tiny country that became independent in the 20th century I can be all  about the horrific poo poo he's ordered but you 're not going to have a president who isn't going to be responsible. Even if Bernie Sanders got elected by magic, he would be a child murderer at the end of his term.And its every president ever. All of them presided over entrenched systems just as awful as the US drone program. It can make them bad people, but not bad presidents. He's the best US president in my lifetime. Until that changes, i'm going to have a soft spot for him. DarkCrawler fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Aug 2, 2015 |
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Aug 2, 2015 21:04
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