Y2HH

Want to know a pet-peeve of mine? When people continue calling this Obamacare...when it's absolutely nothing like what he pitched or intended. It's a X number of pages law that's filled with compromise after compromise. In the end, it's -- at best -- "Compromisecare", because calling it Obamacare is asinine. I don't think Obama is the greatest President of all time by any means (then again, who was?), but blaming him for things he didn't intend, etc...is dishonest at best.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 11:55 AM) You'll need to explain how non-emergency care is covered "one way or another" By simply going to the ER and calling the non emergency care emergency care...such as they do. It's a bass-ackwards method of coverage, but it's how the system currently works. I'm not claiming I like it...it's why ER's are always full and have enormous wait times when they should be empty and reserved for actual emergencies. But that's what it is right now...even if it makes no sense.

In the end, the "reform" that was passed, was -- at best -- a s***ty bandaid that's already falling off. If you're happy with it, all the power to you. But they had a historic opportunity and failed us...again. Granted, that's just my opinion.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 11:52 AM) Emergency care isn't health care I didn't say it was. I simply said they're covered one way or another.

QUOTE (bmags @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 11:39 AM) If companies dump off insurance, the exchanges will get stronger and more affordable. In theory, yes. But if suddenly truckloads of doctors say they're not accepting such insurance, it undermines the system as it's designed. It's exactly what they're doing with a lot of HMO's and Medicare...simply not accepting new patients that have it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:52 AM) Unless you don't have insurance, like 30M Americans. Which is the counter-point to Republican rationing claims: we already do, it's based on wealth and it leaves millions without health care at all. I don't have a problem with supplemental private insurance under a UHC system. But those awesome socialist systems get more people coverage for less cost and don't leave significant portions of their population SOL in a "f*** you, I got mine" system. In the end, nobody is left without insurance, even in our current system. Those 30M americans are still covered, one way or another.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 11:02 AM) How, specifically, are the murder rate statistics being manipulated? Good question, I'll have to ask, because I can't tell you off hand, as I don't remember the terminology.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:52 AM) Very different though. In the case of the racial data, hispanic people were being noted as white during traffic stops. That's a long ways from classifying a homicide as something different, which I highly, highly doubt is happening with any frequency. Think about the dynamics of that - a guy gets shot, what are they going to do, call it natural causes? Suicide? If this were true, suicide rates would be skyrocketing. Its just not believable. Your right, Chicago would never lie about it's statistical crime rates. After all, we are known as the bastion of clean politics. I'd have colored that green, but there isn't a green bright enough.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:42 AM) Well, I guess this means that the current system rations care too, right? edit: I know kap's gone on about how it's just a plan to destroy private insurance to end up with UHC, and it's a pretty common Republican claim. But I apologize for wrongly attributing that view to you. Of course it rations care. If a single doctor has 500 patients in front of you, there isn't much he can do. However, under the current system, you could always go elsewhere and not wait. Under a united system, you cannot...unless of course you do what many of the rich people in these awesome socialist systems do and buy private insurance or pay in cash so they don't have to wait.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:35 AM) Balta's argument is that they'll continue to make "business decisions" and this won't dump insurance coverage en masse. He's mocking the idea that they will in some sort of Randian "going Galt/Atlas Shrugging" action to protest the law. Look, everyone here has some very valid points...including Balta (and you ). You're right when you say they won't dump insurance coverage en masse...that's just an intelligent thing to say...here we agree. But over time, some WILL. And if those that do it somehow figure out a way to continue being a viable choice for employment and actually saving money in the process, others may steal that idea and implement it...it's called dominos falling. There could be any number of flaws, or ways to move money or get deductions elsewhere that could supersede the loss of the insurance deduction...if/when they find it, believe me, some WILL use/abuse it. The point is, and the point I tried to make from the start of this...is that regardless of study after study, or through the use of macroeconomic templates, if companies find a way to save money by dumping insurance...they will. That's my only point.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 22, 2011 -> 12:38 PM) Nothing about intelligence there, but you keep rejecting data in favor of anecdotes from police friends in Chicago. To back him on this, that's because the data you receive is often corrupt or outright falsified, however legally. How? I'm glad you ask! For a good example of how they do this, look at the "murder" rate in Chicago dropping rather precipitously over the last few years. They could do this in two ways: 1) The way they're doing it, by legally corrupting the data. 2) The way they're NOT doing it, which is actually lowering the murder rate. If they don't call the death a homicide, it's NOT counted as a murder...even if it was. Legally, they could call it a number of things, which is what they've been doing. Oh, and if you believe they wouldn't do such a thing, I have some oceanfront property to sell you...in Chicago.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:28 AM) I know I can tell you this... Since the reform, health insurance companies are making more money than ever before.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:26 AM) More reasons for UHC. Won't happen now, so there is no point in discussing it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:23 AM) Ok, fine, I'll start saying what you keep insisting I'm saying. Corporations will stop making business decisions. Corporations will stop taking the employer tax deduction because they want to screw the government and they're going to lose money to do so. No corporation makes business based decisions. Therefore, a plan that jumps through an enormous number of hoops to make sure corporations continue making the same decision they're making right now won't work because they're going to make decisions that lose them money out of spite. More foolishness right there...and a massive wad of assumptions that they can't save money elsewhere. Stop leaning on a single tax deduction when they will find 50 others to replace it. Oh, and stop pretending corporations are trying to "screw the government", because that's completely dumb, they'd do it to SAVE f***ING MONEY, not to screw the government.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:21 AM) A lot? Seems so far the numbers dropping it are pretty low % wise. We'll see if that holds, it might not. I do think that eventually, health care will become unwound from employment, and be a personal cost to people directly. And amazingly, I think that could be a good thing, as long as certain protections are in place around it. I've noticed a huge boom in consultants in the IT market...then again, that's the IT market, which I have knowledge of. What they do in other types of work I have no idea, and won't pretend to know.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:19 AM) I think the most bizarre part of this argument is the people who are usually claiming how evil and greedy corporations are, are now banking on the fact that the same corporations won't be making business based decisions, when history shows they did exactly that with the pension plans over the 20th century. This is exactly my point and has been since they started trying to argue with me. I've been right about this health sham from the start (before it was passed), and as the only person on this board with an inkling of how health insurance works, I will continue to be right.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:17 AM) Y2HH, if it was as simple as "if they save a lot of money, they will cut insurance benefits", then companies would have dropped this en masse a long time ago. The rates were increasing so much more than inflation, even before the health care legislation was passed. So not, its not at all that simple. Its more like "if it makes business sense", or if "they can't afford it anymore", then they may drop it. Insurance is a benefit, its ALWAYS an added cost, so they have to look at the full compensation package and decide if they are competitive enough. A lot ARE doing this. Hence the boom in "consulting jobs". Consultants get no health coverage.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:13 AM) Sure, because our existing system is a gigantic, expensive mess that f***s over individuals. Supposedly the exchanges will offer cheap, affordable insurance. Actually it wasn't all that hard to get insurance. It was quite easy to get insurance, and it wasn't expensive, I know because for years I was paying for my own insurance. As a matter of fact, when my wife was still my girlfriend (2005-2008), I had her drop her employer sponsored healthcare because she was able to go out on her own and get it *much* cheaper directly from Blue Cross at the time. Everyone at her company followed suit. Most people don't even realize you could just get it on your own, and further, that's it's often cheaper than what your company gives you. I'd be willing to bet that 99% of the people posting here never once bothered to price check what they could get on their own vs what they pay for their employer coverage. That said, most still don't WANT too...they'd rather their employer handle that for them. People hate having to do things like this on their own...and I'm not sure why...maybe out of laziness.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:11 AM) You're dismissing the entire concept of predictive macroeconomic policy studies here. Those same types of studies "predicted" our housing market was sustainable in 2007...and that Fannie and Freddie were completely solvant companies.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:10 AM) I'm pretty sure we're both saying the same thing: Republican scare-mongering claims here are bulls*** and it'd be good to shift from our current employer-provided health insurance model anyway. If employers drop insurance but raise compensation to the point that I get the same thing in some manner that's economically beneficial to them, awesome. But that relies on the exchanges working extremely well to keep insurance costs down. Either way, the scenario of 30% of companies dropping insurance and not making up for it to employees in any way is pretty much fantasy for a variety of reasons, most of which fit right into Republican orthodoxy. Many employers already do this...it's called consulting. Unfortunately, as someone that's been a consultant, and knowing many that currently work with me, they'd prefer to have the coverage rather than having to get their own.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:10 AM) Which is exactly what you'd predict they did if you did a large scale study, as has been done repeatedly but which you've told me can't be done. Ok, I shouldn't say they "can't be done", and if I said that, I take it back. You can do such studies...they just won't be accurate.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:08 AM) Of course, they could wind up making mistakes and doing things that lose money. Of course, you could even factor that in based on previous precedents. Or, in opposite to what you said, they could wind up not making mistakes and doing things that make them money.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:07 AM) They will if they lose the employer health care tax deduction. That's a pretty big if. You also don't know half the games they can play to simply equal that tax deduction in other (multiple/various) ways.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:05 AM) Y2HH apparently rejects the entire field of macroeconomics. More backhanded stupidity and outright ignorance.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2011 -> 10:06 AM) The idea that you have to study every individual company in the country in order to determine net economic impacts is....bizarre, to say the least. It's not. But whatever.