Health Care Reform Dead

[Kael]

No, I'm Whitacus!

[lisarea]

Is there a new Obamacare thrad that I'm forgetting about?

Oh, well, I prefer this one anyway, because I like to periodically remind everyone that has had a defeatist thrad conceding health care reform SINCE 2009.

Life after Jan. 1: Kentucky clinic offers early glimpse at realities of health-care law - The Washington Post

The part about the newspaper, oh god. I'll give for profit healthcare one thing: They have made some outstanding advances in the practice of evil.

Also, this is a really astute observation from another forum:

They never used the word "Obamacare." Instead, they rolled out Kynect and sent teams to county fairs and every other little community gathering you can think of to get Kentuckians signed up. We were at the Wooly Worm festival in October and they were set up right by a booth selling t-shirts that said "God Guts and Guns Made this Country Great - Don't Let Obama Ruin It", and they passed out tote bags and asked people questions, and made it happen.

I enjoyed that anecdote more than a psychologically well-balanced person probably should. The idea of tricking ignorant people into letting you help them... it's like getting to be as good as a superhero and as cool as a supervillain at the same time.

[Stormlight]

God Guts and Guns

God Guts

GOD GUTS

GOD GUTS

GOD GUTS

[Adam]

Originally Posted by lisarea

...astute observation...

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Adam

Yup. I totally did that on purpose.

Assuming that the thing was something really clever, which OF COURSE.

[Adam]

Don't front like you're not always lurking around in That One Thread.

[lisarea]

HOLY MACKEREL. SO MANY RESULTS.

What is wrong with you people?

[ceptimus]

We have each been using one of these for too long.

[lisarea]

OK. I did sort of get that reference, I think.

THAT THRAD IS SEEPING INTO CONSCIOUSNESS BY OSMOSIS.

[Kael]

That thrad is the ultimate endurance test on this forum. I'm pretty sure Lady Shea is the reigning champion.

[LadyShea]

Originally Posted by Kael

That thrad is the ultimate endurance test on this forum. I'm pretty sure Lady Shea is the reigning champion.

Yeah I have been trying to introspectalize that. The thread doesn't bore me , and boring is the worst thing. When I get bored I'll stop.

Dunno why

[Vivisectus]

OMG obamacare will kill 2.5 million jerbs!l

...by allowing some people to work a little less, because they don't need to go the extra mile in order to afford healthcare. And because in some income bands, the extra money from working more will be offset to a degree by the reduction in healthcare support they receive.

Granted: the cost of labor will go up a little bit. That is what happens when you get rich countries with well developed infrastructure and a lot of wealth: people start expecting not to have to live like they are in a developing country. Most developed countries manage to work around it. Germany doesn't do too bad.

[The Lone Ranger]

The Washington Post published a nice piece on this. After first publishing a very misleading article claiming that Obamacare would cost over 2 million jobs.

No, CBO did not say Obamacare will kill 2 million jobs

[ImGod]

I thought the headline was Obama kills 2 million.

There's a TV ad out with some lady who says Obama let her down because she couldn't keep her insurance. Weird. I get to keep my insurance through work. Her company must have cancelled hers. In that case, wouldn't her company be letting her down?

We're a red state, so I'm not sure why we have anti-obama ads anyway. Preaching to the choir and all that jazz.

Oh well the TV says

[lisarea]

There were a ton of those fake Obamacare horror stories, mostly Teabaggers who didn't check the health care exchanges and just went by what their (horrible) insurance companies told them in the letters they got.

This was my favorite one. That is precisely one of the things that health care reform is supposed to rectify. People without catastropic health care coverage who end up in a hospital, racking up exhorbitant bills that they can't pay. If your plan doesn't have some sort of meaningful coverage for hospital stays, it's not health insurance, so that doesn't even qualify as not being able to keep your insurance.

I actually feel bad for that lady, because she seemed to be really confused and scared, and nobody likes being assigned some big mandatory research project like that. Sometimes you just want to do something later.

Some people were not able to keep their insurance, and I'll eat my hat if there aren't a few people who fell through the cracks and are worse off under the ACA. But most of that is because the insurance companies chose to cancel noncompliant policies or replace them with ridiculously overpriced versions as scare tactics to dissuade people from even finding out what their options are.

[The Man]

Delighted Health Insurance Executives Gather in Outdoor Coliseum to Watch Patient Battle Cancer | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Nation Recalls Simpler Time When Health Care System Was Broken Beyond Repair | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

The Onion has been on fire lately.

Also:

Why the AFP ads suck » Balloon Juice

[Janet]

We had our management/union meeting on our new health plan under ACA. Obviously I can't report the details but it wasn't nearly as bad as we feared. The most interesting thing we learned was that Blue Cross of Michigan and Blue Care Network between them had 600 plans not one of which complied with ACA. They have taken the opportunity to simplify things and are now offering only 50.

[LadyShea]

An acquaintance was all "OMG Obamacare I can't afford it blah blah blah" and I tried to help her on the exchange site back when it was borked and told her the call the number instead and left it alone. She did nothing and so still has no insurance. She recently went to the ER and I don't even want to know what kind of bill was racked up that she will never be able to pay for, since she had a head scan of some kind (thought it was a stroke).

I know, for a fact, that she would get a large subsidy and would pay very little out of pocket, but has been so brainwashed against it that this huge debt is her preference.

[lisarea]

This would not be worth noting at all if it were on some stupid wingnut's shitty Geocities looking blog with ads for gun targets and conspiracy books.

But this is an editorial in the New York Times:

Log In - The New York Times

(The actual title of this article is "I am a dumbass who doesn't understand the difference between pet insurance and health insurance for humans, writing for a paper that doesn't know how to internet.")

In both cases, having deductibles that high means this is largely insurance to make sure that we don’t go bankrupt if we become very ill. Yes, the new plan has more coverage, including pediatric vision. But we don’t have children, and I’d trade coverage for things like substance abuse treatment and mental health in return for lower premiums.

Yes, and I would like to trade my coverage for Eric L. Wee-style mild but poorly controlled asthma for coverage of things I need coverage for. In fact, I would like to only pay for coverage of services I actually need, and not for anything that does not apply to me specifically.

But that sort of coverage exists, and it is called "not having insurance"! All you have to pay is 1 percent of your adjusted household income or $95 per adult, whichever is more.

And while I am mad anyway, I'm going to just point out that the newspaper with the most ridiculously, painfully stodgy style guide ever doesn't know the difference between jealousy and envy.

[ImGod]

Maybe he could sign up under the dog's insurance. Then when the family goes in to the vet with him they can decide if a procedure costs too much and have him put to sleep instead.

The best part is then we can mandate all people get vaccinated, tagged, and we can neuter the ones with bad genes.

[The Man]

Wonkette has a piece on how the lack of Medicaid expansion in red states is literally, not figuratively, killing people.

Yes, Red States, Not Expanding Medicaid Is Actually Killing People. But You Knew That.

Lawyers, Guns & Money has more:

"...awesome in its evilness." - Lawyers, Guns & Money

I fully support prosecuting each and every legislator and governor responsible for each and every one of these preventable deaths to the fullest possible extent of the law.

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by Janet

The most interesting thing we learned was that Blue Cross of Michigan and Blue Care Network between them had 600 plans not one of which complied with ACA. They have taken the opportunity to simplify things and are now offering only 50.

Less choice, just as you were told.

[The Man]

Ah, yes, being able to choose from 600 crappy plans is obviously superior to being able to choose from 50 significantly less crappy plans. Really, are you even trying?

[Adam]

I demand the freedom to make objectively poor choices!

[Dingfod]

Obamacare is killing jobs.

Free clinic in Mena, Arkansas is closing because of Obamacare, because so many people have signed up for insurance they don't need the free clinic any more. Seriously, the clinic normally averaged around 300 patients per day, but that dropped to 80 in February, and just 4 people per day in March.

More on Arkansas' Medicaid expansion here at KFF.org

Also, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has resigned.