Obama has gotten his healthcare and amnesty.... whats next?

[Pl3wA]

yeah, finland is pretty baws. highest education rating. most amount of professional race car drivers... i could go on

[mrsleeve]

One of the highest personal tax rates in the world coupled with very high fuel taxes and VATs

Yeah shits not free there either, you are just prepaying for everything your entire life.

[Pl3wA]

they also have some of the nicest e30's. sign me up

[mrsleeve]

not worth it. You live in NJ you should understand high taxes. Unless your not old enough to be making your own living and paying them yet

[LBJefferies]

These wastes of skin are praying for the health care law to be found unconstitutional. I think I will post it in the religion thread as well.

[LBJefferies]

h0mes you have come a ways into the conservative fray but you cant be a conservative and endorse both the scotus ruling or the law, its counter to everything we believe in

BS Sleeve. Free market capitalism is a great system but it is not perfect. The free market is like a sociopathic entity, with little regard for the lives of people. The very purpose of laws is to keep this in check and step in when peoples lives are at stake. I understand that we have too many laws and regulations which attempt to manipulate and sway markets for the benefit of a few. But this law does not fall into that category. The very core of Obamacare is to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage. That is a GOOD thing. When lives are at stake, the free market no longer has my moral or philosophical support.

[mrsleeve]

BS Sleeve. Free market capitalism is a great system but it is not perfect. The free market is like a sociopathic entity, with little regard for the lives of people. The very purpose of laws is to keep this in check and step in when peoples lives are at stake. I understand that we have too many laws and regulations which attempt to manipulate and sway markets for the benefit of a few. But this law does not fall into that category. The very core of Obamacare is to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage. That is a GOOD thing. When lives are at stake, the free market no longer has my moral or philosophical support.

NO

a line form the SCOTUS ruling "the ability of congress to tax and spend is UNLIMITED", The SCOTUS ruled that congress does NOT have the constitutional ability to force us to buy something (in this case, buying HCI ) but they DO have the ability to tax people for ANY reason and to ANY extent. Stop for just a moment and think about what a precedent this sets.


I am going to poach something from another board from someone in the Insurance business as he has put it so much better than I can.

I am a licensed health insurance provider in 5 states, I have attended over 40 hours of continuing education, meetings, and seminars on this topic. I have seen several presentations from both sides of the situation, including health insurers and government employees who's job it is to go around the country and sell the thing. My job is LITERALLY to know about this law and consult my clients on how it affects them. That being said, this is how I see it going.

I want to reface this with, I believe (most) of the Democrats have their heart in the right place, they just never look at the unintended consequences.

Here is what will happen over the next 10 years...

Employers with over 50 employees are hit with a $2,000 penalty tax per year per employee if they don’t cover their employees. That tax is cheaper than the insurance coverage. Also, offering insurance is no longer viewed as a way to gain talented employees because anyone can buy health insurance as they need it, not as a precaution. So the employers will drop insurance coverage.

Now those employees will either go to the free market or exchanges to buy individual policies or pay the penalty tax the greater of $650 or 2.5% of AGI. Again, the penalty is cheaper (for most). So they will pay the penalty and not buy the policy.

These two groups of people choosing the tax over the coverage will cause insurance companies to lose insureds, resulting in decreased premium revenue. Then, when these uninsured people that chose the penalty tax over the insurance get injured/hurt/sick, they will turn to an insurance company that is FORCED to cover them (Imagine setting your house on fire and then buying home insurance). The insurance company will now have to pay that claim even though they never earned any premium off the insured. This will cause premiums to sky rocket in order for the companies to afford these medical bills from people who never paid anything in. The sky rocketing premiums will cause any remaining honest people to pay the penalty instead of buy the insurance, because the premiums will now be more than the penalty, and the problem grows exponentially.

On top of the mandate, the law also forbids insurance rates from being determined on anything other than age (you can currently use age, gender, and tobacco use) and a 64 year old person’s premium can be no more than 1.5 times that of an 18 year old, it is currently 3.5 times.

This will cause a young non-tobacco smoking male’s premiums to skyrocket, while a 64 year old female that smokes will see a modest decrease. This will also drive people off insurance and into the penalty tax. As a 30 year old male that does not use tobacco, I am literally expecting my insurance to go up over 200% in 2014

Assuming the law stands as it is with no revisions, I see some insurance companies exiting the market (as Principal has already done). Some insurance companies will change their business model to something that works around the regulation (like AFLAC). And others will try to make it but fail. It could take 5-10 years before it happens, but it will lead us to single-payer healthcare. Guaranteed.

We can all admit, the costs are too high. But the costs are too high at the source, the hospital, not the insurer. Most insurers spend 85+% of premiums on medical care, the other 15% is paid on administration, commissions, taxes, etc. They have very thin margins. For example, in 2009 Wellmark BCBS in Iowa paid out $1.01 in medical expenses for every $1.00 they took in premiums. That didn't even cover their administration, taxes, etc.

The insurance companies are being attacked for a problem that hospitals and doctors are responsible for. The government needs to look at and reform the source of the expense.

People's attitudes toward insurance and health care need to change. People have gotten used to $200 deductibles and $5 copays. They no longer have any "skin-in-the-game" when it comes to their health care decisions. They aren't paying the bill, so of course they want the Cadillac treatment. It has created a near perfectly inelastic market for health care which drives prices up.

In 15 years you and everyone will prolly be wanting the system we have now back no matter how you slice it you cant be a conservative and support this law at all, the grass is not always greener on the other side no matter how great they make it look. You have bought the over view to get people behind it and ignored the facts of the matter and not used your own logic center to think it though to conclusion and what it means and what this laws real intentions are.

[Farbin Kaiber]

LBJ - No, the part displayed as the "core" of it is that, people are so tied up in what it is that they are not taking the time to see what it is going to do.

EDIT: Looks like sleeve covered it there.

[Fusion]

I lol'd at this part

A shared responsibility requirement, commonly called an individual mandate, requires that all persons not covered by an employer sponsored health plan, Medicaid, Medicare or other public insurance programs, purchase and comply with an approved private insurance policy or pay a penalty, unless the applicable individual is a member of a recognized religious sect exempted by the Internal Revenue Service.

[herbivor]

One of the highest personal tax rates in the world coupled with very high fuel taxes and VATs

Yeah shits not free there either, you are just prepaying for everything your entire life.

Yet One of the happiest countries in the world.

[mrsleeve]

you dont know very many finns do you???? The have the 3rd highest suicide rate in the world, down from #1 recently as well. Yup really happy people

<--------- G/F is a finn, all her family are 100% finns. I know many finns, and have a good perspective on this

[mar1t1me]

Well, you can call it what you want...

.....but every time I turn around, my health insurance goes up by another 10-20% and I'm very healthy and have few claims of any kind. Why shouldn't I consider that essentially a tax/fee increase? They're not upping their coverage....the product didn't change, but because other people use it so much more, I have to help pay more to keep those CEOs in Mercedes Benzes.

College has gone way up, and grants for bright students being removed. And since the cost has far outstripped the ability of a student to work their way through college, the poor ones turn to loans. This is effectively a higher "tax/fee" on poor people, is it not?

Maybe paying for it all up front is better. It's not like Americans are better off, on the whole....even the ones who pay little or no income tax. We're losing our shirts to other countries who believe education is an economic matter, not a social one.

The American exceptionalism touted by the Conservatives is fading to a distant nostalgia.

And suicide? Well, if I lived in a country where the sun didn't rise for months at a time, I'd probably be ready to slither off the mortal coil, too. Rates have fallen greatly in recent years due to several factors.

[Victell]

Free market capitalism is a great system but it is not perfect. The free market is like a sociopathic entity, with little regard for the lives of people. The very purpose of laws is to keep this in check and step in when peoples lives are at stake. I understand that we have too many laws and regulations which attempt to manipulate and sway markets for the benefit of a few. But this law does not fall into that category. The very core of Obamacare is to prevent insurance companies from denying coverage. That is a GOOD thing. When lives are at stake, the free market no longer has my moral or philosophical support.

Pretty much sums up how I feel about it. Also hit the nail on the head about free market capitalism and its limits for doing good. The point where capitalism fails is where government should step in.

The ACA is flawed and limited in my opinion. It really should be a single-payer system. Hopefully it will be someday.

[joshh]

There's no glut of houses in Norway. There is apparently no trading of toxic assets. No liar loans. Many of the economic experts I've read believe that this is the result of high demand for a relatively fixed number of homes. What a shock! Capitalism actually working!

Given they aren't saddling their recent graduates with up to six figures of debt, and no one wonders how they're going to pay for that expensive life-saving treatment.... one of the lowest homicide rates on the planet.....3% unemployment.....I'd have to agree with you. They pretty much have their shit together.

We look like fuckin' barbarians in comparison.

Yeah while the majority of them live as squatters and make things over here look fantastic. You keep believing it. A housing bubble is not capitalism working...lol.

Barbarians?...LMFAO....yeah guys like you want to burden a person for life with taxes while giving them freebies early in life. I want to burden them early in life and give them the *opportunity* to pay it off, and continue to make good money and remain free men. So fucking barbaric....

[mar1t1me]

Yeah while the majority of them live as squatters and make things over here look fantastic. You keep believing it. A housing bubble is not capitalism working...lol.

I see facts are lost on you.....

The majority of Finns live as squatters? Right. It is such a huge problem that typing "Finnish squatters" into Google gets no relevant result until the second page-where there is even a mention of one isolated incident, and then nothing more. Boy they must be keeping a lid on it over there! hahahaha

Barbarians?...LMFAO....yeah guys like you want to burden a person for life with taxes while giving them freebies early in life.

Are we not all burdened by taxes for life already? And if you've paid, then it's not a freebie, is it?

Your solution is to saddle 'em early with lots of debt and indenture them for the rest of their life, and that, is barbaric! These guys will love it! They are already partnering with governments to lock up people who owe relatively small amounts of money. Never mind it actually costs the taxpayers more to process these small-time debtors and collect the money than the usual size of the debt (<$1000 in most cases), the CCA says they are only profitable if the prisons are over 90% full. So this is a way to keep those beds full to the tune of $200 a night charged to the taxpayers! Further proof of idiotic barbarism.

What is this "opportunity" you speak of? The good money is held by but a few, and if you still think we are "free" then read the Patriot Act, and try to understand the 3.7 million words that are the current tax code. You cannot own a house-that modern delusion of a man and his castle. You may think you can, but miss a few property tax payments and you won't own it anymore....but don't worry: the CCA has your cell ready.