OBAMA/TRUMPCARE MEGATHREAD

[bmags]

I think I'll just prefer to be pissed at the person who is a d*** about it to everyone.

 

And your mom can be pissed at her doctor, but she can't sue them! That would make her greedy and ridiculous and cause our healthcare system to spiral out of control.

[StrangeSox]

And your mom can be pissed at her doctor, but she can't sue them! That would make her greedy and ridiculous and cause our healthcare system to spiral out of control.

Tort reform!

[Balta1701]

And your mom can be pissed at her doctor, but she can't sue them! That would make her greedy and ridiculous and cause our healthcare system to spiral out of control.

(the problem of course is that "knee replacement surgery" isn't exactly a panacea for old, achy knees, so there's no obvious lawsuit to file)

[ptatc]

My mother taught middle school for >25 years. In her early 60's when she was not eligible for Medicare, she had a knee replaced after several years of it causing a lot of problems. After the replacement, she could barely walk correctly for a couple years and frankly she should have retired. But she couldn't, because she couldn't get health care on the individual market, so she basically taught her class from a chair for the next couple years until she became eligible.

 

Please call more people like this lazy asses to their faces. Please.

Needed a better physical therapist. I could have her walking correctly in 8 weeks

[Balta1701]

Needed a better physical therapist. I could have her walking correctly in 8 weeks

I think it was about 8 weeks afterwards before she was doing the stairs, IIRC.

[ptatc]

I think it was about 8 weeks afterwards before she was doing the stairs, IIRC.

Wow, that is a long time. Most come along a little faster than that.

 

Doctors can screw up replacements. There are also infections that occur that may or may not be someone's direct fault. Sometimes it's just that they had the problem so long that the soft tissues take a long time to work properly again. As I say to my patients, you had pain and abnormal mechanics for 20 years. Do you really think you will regain that motion and strength in a couple of months?

[Balta1701]

Wow, that is a long time. Most come along a little faster than that.

 

Doctors can screw up replacements. There are also infections that occur that may or may not be someone's direct fault. Sometimes it's just that they had the problem so long that the soft tissues take a long time to work properly again. As I say to my patients, you had pain and abnormal mechanics for 20 years. Do you really think you will regain that motion and strength in a couple of months?

Which is why "retirement" wound up seeming like a good option if health insurance wouldn't have bankrupted them.

[ptatc]

Which is why "retirement" wound up seeming like a good option if health insurance wouldn't have bankrupted them.

I agree. I still like the idea of insurance for more people but the down side is still that the current medical system is not ready for it. There still aren't enough medical professionals to handle the patient loads.

[EvilMonkey]

Artists and Obama volunteers: the only people who would like to do something else! You never, ever hear about people saying that they'd start their own business and become the vaunted Small Business Owner/Job Creator if they didn't have to stick to their job to get health insurance. It's lazy moochers all the way down.

Most people are not entrepreneurs, geniuses, artists or novelists. Most people don’t have big ideas. Most people get by and advance in small steps, not giant leaps. Jobs are the principal way people improve themselves, their lives and the lives of their families, and leave their children better off than they were. More long-term unemployment, even the unemployment of people who leave the workforce willingly in order to “pursue their dreams,", means more people stuck on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. That does wonders for income disparity, which this administration seems to bring up every other week. Where I see people mired in economic dependency, you see reliable Democratic voters.

[EvilMonkey]

I think it was about 8 weeks afterwards before she was doing the stairs, IIRC.

So, could she she could barely walk correctly for a couple years, or was she doing stairs at 8 weeks and never got better than that?

[StrangeSox]

Most people are not entrepreneurs, geniuses, artists or novelists. Most people don’t have big ideas. Most people get by and advance in small steps, not giant leaps. Jobs are the principal way people improve themselves, their lives and the lives of their families, and leave their children better off than they were. More long-term unemployment, even the unemployment of people who leave the workforce willingly in order to “pursue their dreams,", means more people stuck on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. That does wonders for income disparity, which this administration seems to bring up every other week. Where I see people mired in economic dependency, you see reliable Democratic voters.

 

The CBO found that unemployment overall would decrease, and that some people will voluntarily choose to leave the work force because they can still have health care. This doesn't mean more long-term unemployment or more people stuck on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

 

Where you see economic dependency, I see enhanced freedom and agency and something that's a baby-step closer to how the rest of the modern world functions.

[EvilMonkey]

The CBO found that unemployment overall would decrease, and that some people will voluntarily choose to leave the work force because they can still have health care. This doesn't mean more long-term unemployment or more people stuck on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

 

Where you see economic dependency, I see enhanced freedom and agency and something that's a baby-step closer to how the rest of the modern world functions.

'enhanced freedom' on the government dime.

[Jake]

'enhanced freedom' on the government dime.

 

Yes. I see freedom maximization as one of the primary functions of the government

[pettie4sox]

The buster; I get my daily entertainment watching you guys go back and forth.

[StrangeSox]

It turns out that Julie Boonstra, the cancer-fighting star of a recent Americans for Prosperity anti-Obamacare ad who claimed that her new policy didn't cover her treatments and was more expensive, will actually save at least $1000 a year thanks to her new Obamacare-compliant plan:

 

Boonstra said Monday her new plan she dislikes is the Blue Cross Premier Gold health care plan, which caps patient responsibility for out-of-pocket costs at $5,100 a year, lower than the federal law’s maximum of $6,350 a year. It means the new plan will save her at least $1,200 compared with her former insurance plan she preferred that was ended under Obamacare’s coverage requirements.

 

....When advised of the details of her Blues’ plan, Boonstra said the idea that it would be cheaper “can’t be true.”

 

“I personally do not believe that,” Boonstra said.

 

....She also said her out-of-pocket maximum could be higher than advertised because there’s one prescription that was previously covered by her old plan that isn’t and she now buys with a separate prescription discount card....Boonstra’s health plan covers all prescriptions, [blue Cross spokesman Andy] Hetzel said, who advises she use the coverage instead of a prescription discount card so co-pays would go toward meeting the out-of-pocket maximum.

 

Honestly, there have to be people that have been negatively impacted by the ACA--why can't any of these groups attacking it find them? Every one of these big stories so far turns out to be either a straight-up fabrication or actually a success story for the program.

[Jake]

I think the key with the ACA is that even the "losers" are winning because they are getting more adequate healthcare. Knowing from years of behavioral econ research that people have no idea how to budget for their health ("hmm, I don't feel sick right now, so I don't need health insurance!") makes me feel comfortable with the worst-case scenario being that people had to better protect their own health than they wanted to.

[StrangeSox]

RAND’s estimates could rewrite the enrollment story

 

 

Here’s what’s startling: employer-sponsored insurance—not Medicaid or the exchanges—drove the net reduction in uninsured. An estimated 8.2 million took up employer-sponsored plans, and most of them were previously uninsured. I can’t overstate how stunning this finding is if it’s true; CBO expected that ESI gains and losses would pretty much break even in 2014 and that employer coverage would decline modestly in future years.

 

If it’s correct, it was probably motivated multiple factors—I hate the word “synergy” on principle, but it comes to mind. The economy has been improving, so some of the previously unemployed have secured jobs with benefits. But CBO built in expectations about economic recovery, so I don’t think it’s quite right to try pinning all (or even most?) of the 8.2 million on that. The individual mandate, while weak in its first year, might be a stronger stick than we expected, nudging people to take their health benefits where they’d previously been opting out. Employers could be helping this move this trend along; the University of Michigan, for example, eliminated “opt out dollars” in 2014 (cash compensation for employees who declined coverage).

[cabiness42]

Sebelius out.

[Soxfest]

Sebelius out.

About time she did a worthless job from day 1.

[Balta1701]

The timing does make sense. Successfully saved the goal that HHS completely screwed up at the beginning, now transitioning from startup to long term implementation of HCR, time for the senate to sit on its hands while filibustering the new nominee.

[Balta1701]

CBO updates its cost projections again, finds PPACA doing even better job of controlling costs than projected, cuts estimated costs for next decade by $164 billion, no expectation of extreme increases in plan costs next year, and slightly more people will get insurance through exchanges than previously projected.

 

Somewhere in the ether there were probably several dozen posts telling me how these programs are always more expensive than projected.

[cabiness42]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/16...act-obamacare/#

 

Just want to give some expert insight on this. The claims that the changes are political are pure BS. The Census Bureau has thousands of employees and exactly one employee is a political appointment. The rest are career statisticians that have served through multiple administrations. The changes to the survey are purely for statistical reasons, and were in the works well before Obamacare was passed. There is a very extensive testing and review process before even one question can have its wording slightly changed.

 

It's the same as the BS about how the Census Bureau is fudging unemployment numbers. Never happened, never will.

[EvilMonkey]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/16...act-obamacare/#

 

Just want to give some expert insight on this. The claims that the changes are political are pure BS. The Census Bureau has thousands of employees and exactly one employee is a political appointment. The rest are career statisticians that have served through multiple administrations. The changes to the survey are purely for statistical reasons, and were in the works well before Obamacare was passed. There is a very extensive testing and review process before even one question can have its wording slightly changed.

 

It's the same as the BS about how the Census Bureau is fudging unemployment numbers. Never happened, never will.

All it takes is one.

[StrangeSox]

all what takes is one what?

[cabiness42]

All it takes is one.

 

Please don't even try to pretend that you know 1% as much about how government agencies work as I do.