Quote :

"WHAT DO WE WANT MOST FROM THE COMPANIES WE SUPPORT? TURNS OUT, IT'S HONEST COMMUNICATION ABOUT THEIR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES."

http://m.fastcompany.com/3038488/the-number-one-thing-consumers-want-from-brands-honesty

11/15/2014 3:26:23 PM

Quote :

"yes, Yes, YES!!!"

Well, now I understand: you're just a fucking moron. Really? A PERSON now qualifies as a fucking STATE to you?

Quote :

"When a state fails to establish an Exchange, HHS assumes the role of the state and establishes said Exchange."

So what about the parts of the tax subsidy provisions that say "established by a STATE under section 1311"? I'll ask you again: is the Secretary of HHS a STATE. As in, Is Sylvia Matthews Burwell a US State. Is there a star on the US flag that represents her, and only her. Who are the US Senators and Representatives elected from Sylvia Matthews Burwell? Where is the state capitol located? In her belly button? You don't seem to understand the difference between "for" and "by". These are basic English prepositions, dude.

Quote :

" I'm sure you've gotten a speeding ticket before and hired a lawyer to show up in court on your behalf. Yeah, he's not "you", but for the purposes of the law, he is. Otherwise your ass would be cited for missing a court date."

That's because there are precisely ZERO laws or statutes that require me to be there, and plenty of laws that say I can authorize a representative. The PPACA says the Secretary of HHS can establish an exchange, but the relevant sections of the law that deal with tax subsidies make it abundantly clear, TEN TIMES, that subsidies are only available to plans purchased "on an Exchanged ESTABLISHED BY A STATE UNDER SECTION 1311." So, unless the Secretary of HHS is a State and was acting under that authority of Section 1311 (which you've already admitted she was not, by stating that she created the exchange under the authority of section 1321), then it is abundantly clear that any plans purchased on Exchanges established by her are not eligible for tax subsides. And we shouldn't be surprised by this, because it's exactly what the Democrats wanted, it's exactly how they described the law shortly before and after its passage, and it's exactly how the IRS drew up the regulations. The only reason we're having the argument, besides your naked partisanship, is because so many states refused to establish their own exchanges, and it undercuts Obamacare and makes Democrats looks bad.

Quote :

"People act like they had the most perfect insurance, that was never a pain in the ass, that never went up in cost pre-obmacare. Anyone with one iota of critical thinking skills knows insurance sucked donkey balls before Obamacare. "

And anyone with TWO iotas of critical thinking skills understands that health insurance sucked donkey balls due to massive gov't interference in the market in the form of minimum coverage requirements; Obamacare doubled down on that shit.

Quote :

"I definitely like the face I can change insurance companies and not have to worry about getting a physical just to satisfy the insurance company I am healthy."

I, too, like purchasing insurance and not allowing the insurer to take something silly into account like, I dunno, risk.

Quote :

"The insurance system worked OK before for people who were full time employed at a large corporation or government job, but for everyone else it fucking sucked. Freelance and contract work is much more common these days and there needs to be be a level playing field for people to buy their own insurance in these cases."

The said thing is that you are correct. The insurance system works well for those who get it from their company, but employer-provided insurance was precisely the problem, because it removes so much competition from the marketplace. Obamacare, however, doubled down on the employer-sponsored system. We need a system where people are purchasing their insurance on their own, and at most the employer is providing the dollars for the purchase, tax-free or not. Instead, we have a one-size-fits-none system, where men pay for gynecology exams, women pay for prostate exams, and fifty-year-olds pay for pre-natal care. With all of this indirect payment for services, it's no wonder that prices skyrocket, both premium AND provider prices.

Quote :

"Fox news has been hammering this Gruber thing hard, I've probably seen more than a dozen different articles and opinions about it, and I don't blame them. This is going to be hard to explain away, since Grubers statements are essentially true. Politicians never tell the full truths about things. If I were in charge, I would respond by laying the full idea out behind aca and Health reform, with all the nuance that goes into the process, but I don't see this happening. I think the democrats will continue trying to pretend they don't know Gruber or what he's talking about, Fox news and the rest of the media are going to keep pushing the issue, voters will get pissed , and I could see large portions of the law being repealed as a result. I don't see a good scenario for Obama unless he can come up with a good explanation."

Agreed, Gruber is NOT a good thing for Democrats right now. It's probably a good thing that stuff didn't come out before the midterm elections, as it could have made things even worse for them.

11/15/2014 9:02:49 PM

My insurance was cancelled last year for failure to conform to ACA requirements, so I signed up on the exchange for one that cost four times more. That plan has now been cancelled this year and I'll need to find another one. Round and round we go.

11/17/2014 9:33:22 AM

i wish you stupid assholes would quit bitching about it or saying its going to go away

it isnt, no matter how badly it sucks, so get used to paying for the old / sick

remember youre young / privileged and this isnt the only way baby boomers have set you up for failure

shrike is probably some 47yo manager somewhere, so that should be sufficient enough to explain his every position in TSB

everyone else is the idiot that gruber referred to, voted for clay aiken, and has O stickers on their subaru forester

enjoy your $5500 dollar deductibles

11/17/2014 9:47:53 AM

you can't knock anyone for voting for clay aiken, the other option was ellmers

[Edited on November 17, 2014 at 9:57 AM. Reason : .]

11/17/2014 9:57:13 AM

thats true, but hes probably the only person on the planet democrats could have run that would have lost to her

11/17/2014 10:14:37 AM

How can the cost of medical care ever go down without any transparency on cost of services.


For instance, say I am 90% sure I have a sinus infection, and need antibiotics. Still have to see a dr to get those, the PA comes in, listens to symptoms and agrees, then the dr comes in looks everything over, agrees with me and the PA and writes the scrip.

Lets say that DR visit cost $375 to my insurance. What if I could actually shop around and bring the cost of it down to $100, that is totally reasonable for a 30 minute appt, but I have no incentive to do it, and the Dr is not gonna tell me how much my bill will be up front.

The way the system works now the doctors do everything they can to run up their bills, so that there is money left over after the insurance companies are done beating them down. They have to have additional staff to haggle with the insurance company, they have to have money built in for un-ncollectable patient debt, and gargantuan insurance coverage.

Anytime you do away with the consumers incentive to monitor costs you will create a bubble. This is true with easy financing for college, housing, cars, anything really. The consumer gets what they want and does not have to pay for it then, they are happy for the moment, the cost is pushed down the road and prices rise.

This is not really different in medical practice either. The consumer does not have to pay for it then, or if they do its a co-pay that has nothing to do with the actual cost of service. The consumer is not going to shop around for a better deal, and there is no downward pressure on prices.

The result is the medical professionals and insurance companies having huge administrative staffs just to bicker with each other about costs, but the result is they are both running each others overhead up.

This problem existed before and after the ACA and I don't see a clear solution to it.

11/17/2014 1:32:24 PM

^^and the only reason he won the nomination is the other guy died

11/17/2014 1:58:41 PM

11/17/2014 2:21:47 PM

Quote :

"This problem existed before and after the ACA and I don't see a clear solution to it."

The only real solution will be one we don't like. Doctors will simply stop taking insurance and you will either need to pay out of pocket or bill the insurance company yourself. My boss' doctor has already done something like that. He can only see that doc on 3 days of the week under our insurance because on the other 2 days, the doctor runs a separate practice that takes no insurance, no medicaid and no medicare. Just the doc, a nurse and a whole lot more time.

Unfortunately, if that actually becomes wide spread enough, I'm sure we'll start seeing laws requiring doctors to take insurance, probably routed through the fact that so many practices are associated with major health groups and hospitals. It will be some law that says if any practice in your health group takes insurance, they all must take insurance to ensure "continuation of care" or some other such wording.

The doctors are really the only ones with the incentive to stop this, since they're being squeezed from all sides (lower reimbursement, less time, more patients, more paperwork and audits). The insurance companies don't have much of an incentive. Yes, they have an incentive to try to negotiate lower costs, but it's something of a prisoners dilemma thing, where continuing their current behavior doesn't pay off the most, but requires all (or most of) the other companies to alter their behavior as well for the better strategy to pay off. The consumers don't have an incentive because the costs are too well hidden and when they do see the costs, they're the artificially inflated ones and way beyond what anyone reasonably wants to pay. And the government has no interest in actually lowering healthcare costs because that doesn't do anything to increase governmental authority and reach, and frankly "We've made it illegal for insurance to cover routine care" doesn't really do much for your re-election prospects (nor would it be something the government should be able to do)

11/17/2014 3:04:25 PM

According to the letter I just got the cost of my BCBS silver plan is going up $100 next year.

That is after I had to pay ~$4400 out of pocket for some unforeseen surgery my wife had to have. The bill for that surgery was around $22,000 so the insurance is definitely helping out, but it feels like I am paying on the front and back end.

11/17/2014 7:18:45 PM

quit bitching; that is the fault of bcbs.

...not obamacare.

obamacare in no way influenced you policy's pricing; just ask shrike.

greedy insurers!

11/17/2014 7:34:15 PM

insurance companies never raised premiums before obamacare

11/17/2014 10:25:29 PM

Yeah mine went up $60 for the privilege of a $3600 deductible that I didn't use a single time in the past year. I'm definitely switching something, but who knows how much it will help

11/17/2014 10:59:46 PM

We used the fuck out of our insurance last year, so I cant act like there was no return on it.

Had no problems with anything being out of network, but am looking at doing a smaller network plan to save money next year.

11/18/2014 2:20:31 AM

Wow

And here I am bitching about my employer sponsored coverage with a 1000 deductible. Which I assume will be going away after this year when Obamacare gets its hands on employer sponsored coverage. Yay 3600 deductible.

11/18/2014 9:11:38 AM

Quote :

"insurance companies never raised premiums before obamacare"

Of course they did. But the ACA was supposed to reduce the rate of increase, which doesn't seem to be the case for many people. So we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars to wind up in the exact same place we were before. Even if you believed the 47 million uninsured people number was exaggerated and you wanted to get them all insurance, you could have gotten done that on a fraction of the money we've spent just on the healthcare.gov website ($319M as of Dec 2013 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/10/24/how-much-did-healthcare-gov-cost/)

11/18/2014 9:59:49 AM

Typical tactic here. "Well, you're premium would have gone up $400, however due to the ACA, it only went up $150."

Whatever happened to the promise of saving families $2500/year on premiums? So we go from being $2500 cheaper, to only being $150/year more.

11/18/2014 10:16:52 AM

it has saved a lot of people money, most of the people on this site are in the demographic that shoulders that burden though

11/18/2014 10:44:44 AM

The people getting the most screwed are not eligible for subsidies, and are watching their deductibles and premiums climb.

I have wondered what if everything to do with health insurance was taken off the employers shoulders. The employer could pay a subsidy and cut the employee loose to find their own plan what would happen? A huge disadvantage small business have in recruiting talent is that large corporations get better rates than small and medium businesses. That would seem more "free market" than letting the fortune 500 companies get the best deal while a start-up cant even offer any competitive benefits.

11/18/2014 11:15:49 AM

Personally, free market or not if that were to happen it would be disastrous for me and my family. Right now my employer pays about 15k toward my plan, and I'm still responsible for $500/month. Do you really think that my employer would give me a 15k raise if insurance was taken off the table? Absolutely not.

11/18/2014 11:35:46 AM

I wonder if the "pool" of ObamaCare policy holders is basically a high risk pool. They said if enough young healthy people bought insurance it would offset all the people with pre-existing conditions getting in the insurance market.

Corporations bring their own pool to the insurance company that is basically made up of all their employees regardless of who is healthy and who is not. I would imagine however there are not as many people with debilitating health problems employed at most companies as there are in the rest of the population that is unemployed or underemployed.

Kind of odd how rates are jumping so high this year.

11/18/2014 12:08:46 PM

Quote :

"Well, now I understand: you're just a fucking moron. Really? A PERSON now qualifies as a fucking STATE to you?"

Not to me, to the law. It's in the parts you refuse to read because it completely invalidates your argument. You know, your usual tactic to avoid intelligent discourse and just keep blabbering talking points from right wing pundits.

Quote :

"The PPACA says the Secretary of HHS can establish an exchange, but the relevant sections of the law that deal with tax subsidies make it abundantly clear, TEN TIMES, that subsidies are only available to plans purchased "on an Exchanged ESTABLISHED BY A STATE UNDER SECTION 1311.""

The relevant sections? The section you're referring to details the actual calculations for subsidy amounts. It certainly does not lay out eligibility requirements for Exchanges. This section however does,

https://sites.google.com/site/healthreformnavigator/ppaca-sec

Quote :

"SEC. 1411. PROCEDURES FOR DETERMINING ELIGIBILITY FOR EXCHANGE PARTICIPATION, PREMIUM TAX CREDITS AND REDUCED COST-SHARING, AND INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY EXEMPTIONS."

Seems like if you intended on a crippling subsidy eligibility requirement, this is where it go, don't you think? Care to tell me what "Exchange" they are even referring too? Also, how about section 1312, which only allows individuals who "resides in the State that established the Exchange" to even purchase plans. Does this mean section 1321 authorizes HHS to create Exchanges for whom no one is eligible to use (since Sylvia Matthews Burwell is not a "State" according to you, and no one may reside in her).

Quote :

"Of course they did. But the ACA was supposed to reduce the rate of increase, which doesn't seem to be the case for many people."

What does this even mean? That the reduction we've seen since the enactment of the law is due to other factors? Or that if they didn't reduce for everyone, at the same time, by roughly the same amount, that the law failed in it's intended outcome?



[Edited on November 18, 2014 at 3:41 PM. Reason : :]

11/18/2014 3:35:45 PM

Quote :

"Right now my employer pays about 15k toward my plan, and I'm still responsible for $500/month. Do you really think that my employer would give me a 15k raise if insurance was taken off the table? Absolutely not. "

rjrumfel,

remember this comment the next time that you agree with the party line that cutting payroll taxes and otherwise benefiting corporations benefits employees

11/18/2014 4:07:52 PM

I don't think I've ever really commented on that particular topic, and I don't see how payroll tax cuts for employers help employees. Might be an incentive for them to hire a few more, but once an employee is in the door, most companies aren't hell bent on retention. In this job market especially...there's always someone willing to fill a gap made by you and your disgruntled self, should you decide to go somewhere else.

11/18/2014 4:33:03 PM

I thought Obama was gonna make insurance free.

11/18/2014 4:50:59 PM

Wait, 3.9%? Jesus christ, no wonder they are talking up this Gruber shit. From a historical perspective that is amazingly low. Long term, you want health care costs to grow in line with GDP, which should be the main driver of insurance premiums in a post-Obamacare world. If nothing else, it means that on average, premium increases were in line with annual pay raises. Not bad.

11/18/2014 6:00:40 PM

They're talking up the Gruber thing because it was a pretty bad statement to make in public, and helps them validate anything else right-wing media wants to say. I was at the landfill in JoCo today, and the attendant was listening to AM radio where they were talking about this. The average conservative is now pretty well galvanized against anything related to ACA, and any doubt of their distrust of Obama has been wiped out. If you have conservative friends, there's not much you're going to be able to say to them anymore about anything the Obama admin wants to do.

Gruber probably thought he was "safe" at his academic conference, but he should have known to choose his words better.

11/18/2014 6:12:06 PM

Then the average conservative is a fucking idiot and I don't care what their opinion is. These are the same people who think Dubya is a war hero despite all kinds of recorded, documented, videotaped, etc.... evidence of people within his administration admitting the whole WMD thing was a fucking farce. They can eat shit for all I care.

11/18/2014 6:16:15 PM

^i love this post

11/18/2014 9:31:02 PM

^^

Most conservative voters think more of their tax money goes to waste on food stamps than the 800 Billion for the Iraq war too.

11/18/2014 9:39:25 PM

^^^ the average American is an idiot, but they can all still vote.

The democrats basically have no moral high ground anymore. They can't argue they're better than the republicans, because clearly they're willing to mislead and obfuscate to get their was just liked the republicans would. If they couldn't figure out a way to sell ACA to the people, they shouldn't have lied about it.

Is this too much different a tactic as having Colin Powell point at blurry pictures of 18 wheelers and say they are mobile weapons labs? It's very likely the Bush admin knew this was a lie, but they felt it justified the outcome.

11/18/2014 11:28:01 PM

Quote :

"It's in the parts you refuse to read because it completely invalidates your argument."

Says the guy who refuses to read the text in the law that says only plans purchased "through an Exchange established by the State under section 1311" are eligible for subsidies. I've said this multiple times, and you STILL won't address this simple fact. Would you like the page number of this?

Quote :

"Seems like if you intended on a crippling subsidy eligibility requirement, this is where it go, don't you think? "

Actually, no. You'd first need to go to the section that tells you WHO is eligible. You know, the section you refuse to acknowledge which says, TWICE, that only plans purchased through an exchange established BY A STATE under section 1311 are eligible for subsidies. But hey, never let the facts get in the way of your hyper-partisan opinions, right?

Quote :

"Then the average conservative is a fucking idiot "

Says the guy who just said that the Secretary of HHS is a US State.

Quote :

"Personally, free market or not if that were to happen it would be disastrous for me and my family. Right now my employer pays about 15k toward my plan, and I'm still responsible for $500/month. Do you really think that my employer would give me a 15k raise if insurance was taken off the table? Absolutely not."

You're damned right they would. Otherwise, you'd go to someone else who WOULD. If they are already paying 15k for you, why do you think they suddenly wouldn't pay that to you?

11/18/2014 11:43:51 PM

Aaaaaaaaand it seems the 1312 argument concerning "resides in the State" has been demolished, too. Put simply, 1312 is a section which defines additional requirements for Exchanges established by Section 1311. Thus, when the Secretary of HHS establishes an exchange for the state, she must do so in such a way that it meets the same requirements. A better explanation is here:

Quote :

"Judge Friedman was also troubled by the definition of “qualified individual” in Section 1312. This provision, which appears among a series of requirements for exchanges established by a state under Section 1311, defines “qualified individuals” eligible to purchase insurance on a state-based exchange as a person who “resides in the State that established the Exchange.” Accepting the plain text meaning of Section 1401, Judge Friedman argues, would also require reading this provision literally, thereby barring the purchase of health insurance altogether in states without a state-established exchange. Judge Friedman’s error here is in failing to consider the structure of the act in interpreting the various provisions. The qualified individual definition is one of a series of requirements that states must meet should they choose to establish an exchange under Section 1311. For such exchanges, only those who reside in the establishing state may purchase insurance. Section 1321, however, provides for what happens if a state fails to establish its own exchange that complies with the relevant requirements. It further instructs the Secretary to both establish an exchange for that state and “take such actions as are necessary to implement such other requirements” – such as to adopt regulations that serve the same purpose as the requirements identified in Sections 1311 and 1312. Thus in the case of a federal exchange the qualified individual requirement is met when the Secretary promulgates a parallel rule limiting the purchase of insurance to those in the relevant state. Thus there is no anomaly in this provision either – nothing that leads to “strange or absurd results — and certainly nothing that allows (let alone requires) abandoning the plain language of Section 1401."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/03/24/what-the-district-court-got-wrong-and-right-in-halbig-v-sebelius/

11/19/2014 12:47:39 AM

Quote :

"Put simply, 1312 is a section which defines additional requirements for Exchanges established by Section 1311."

Quote :

"Judge Friedman’s error here is in failing to consider the structure of the act in interpreting the various provisions."

Hahahahhaha really now? Now the structure of the act is important, not just 5 words? Also, Exchanges now means "1311 Exchange established by the State", right? Because section 1312 doesn't mention section 1311 or any definition of "Exchanges". If it wasn't obvious before, it's pretty clear now ya'll are just making shit up to conveniently fit whatever argument you're trying to make.

11/19/2014 6:46:29 AM

even aaronburro's op-ed agrees that the secretary can establish a 1311 exchange for the state

11/19/2014 8:31:43 AM

Wow. Shrike is an A+ wonderful American.

I am honestly shocked at the lack of public outrage regarding Grubers comments. I heard a new one yesterday where he admitted that certain parts of the bill were purposefully mislabled. ???

Nixon lied to protect some political friends of his, and he was raked over the coals. What he did didn't affect, positively or negatively, every single American in this country.

Lies.

But with liberals, the means always justifies the ends, no matter what.

11/19/2014 9:34:38 AM

the only reason it's not more of a story is because its how politics always work and it happens on both sides

the optics are terrible, but that actual story is typical

11/19/2014 9:45:30 AM

But the story didn't stop at Gruber's bragging to his academic colleagues about duping the populace. All of the heavy hitters of the Democratic party, those with close ties to either coming up with the bill or promoting the bill, said that they knew nothing of this man, only later to have clips surfacing of them talking about him in some shape or form.

And they're getting away with it.

Sure it is politics, and this is just what we have to put up with in this country I guess, but come on now, have some responsibility for your actions. This is not the first time we've been mislead regarding this bill. Do I need to bring back the "like your plan keep your plan" schtick?

11/19/2014 9:49:11 AM

yeah, that's politics

11/19/2014 9:49:59 AM

Quote :

"I am honestly shocked at the lack of public outrage regarding Grubers comments. I heard a new one yesterday where he admitted that certain parts of the bill were purposefully mislabled. ??? Nixon lied to protect some political friends of his, and he was raked over the coals. What he did didn't affect, positively or negatively, every single American in this country. Lies. But with liberals, the means always justifies the ends, no matter what. "

Bush lied about weapons labs, which got us into the on-going mess of Iraq, and cost the country TRILLIONS of dollars. This is more damaging, by a wide margin, than ACA (which isn't that damaging, esp. if parts can be fixed).

And it's not like congress didn't have an opportunity to read the law and pick it apart. There may not have been transparency in the intention of parts of the law, but the law's text was public and open, so there's no real ground for a politician to say "they tricked us" when they all had the opportunity to read the law themselves.

So other than outrage, there's no real response to this. Maybe if the parts Gruber is talking about hadn't already passed through the courts, there'd be some tangible outcomes.

11/19/2014 12:06:18 PM

so the guy, who, due to his ignorance, gets played like a fiddle by talking heads and fearmongers on a pretty regular basis, is now floored that someone lifted the curtain?

I get that right?

11/19/2014 12:14:54 PM

when a politician tries to mislead the public, it's up to other politicians to point out why what they are saying is wrong

but of course that's not what happens, instead we get told that death panels will vote on if you die

11/19/2014 12:17:03 PM

Is TGL talking about me? Because due to my "ignorance" I've been pretty much aware that this whole thing was a sham from the get-go. This is just proof that the American public had to be decieved to buy into it.

And did Bush not rely and blame the same shitty intel that Obama has blamed for some of his failures of leadership?

11/19/2014 12:33:31 PM

https://www.google.com/search?q=bush+lied+people+died&safe=off

11/19/2014 12:59:19 PM

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/politics/gruber-obamacare-promises/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

gruber is a REPUBLICAN AGITATOR !!!1 OR SOMETHING

dude is totally not legit

shrike is right the ACA is awesome (for everyone, not just me)

11/19/2014 6:55:02 PM

^ that's pretty fascinating. I know the likes of burro have been arguing for the decoupling of employers from insurance, and it seems Gruber is saying that's what ACA was ultimately designed to do.

People have been speculating that ACA was a foot in the door for a public option, but it looks like it was a foot in the door for many things. It WAS designed to break, so that the fixes are the more drastic changes of what some people have been wanting (maybe).

[Edited on November 19, 2014 at 7:10 PM. Reason : ]

11/19/2014 7:09:55 PM

well, its actually an old conspiracy theory that it was designed to be terrible so people would more easily accept any alternative

that alternative being hillarycare universal canada lite

(or something, idk)

its definitely not an original thought-

11/19/2014 7:17:30 PM

but now we have confirmation somewhat, it's no longer a conspiracy theory.

[Edited on November 19, 2014 at 7:35 PM. Reason : ]

11/19/2014 7:34:53 PM

this gruber thing doesnt / wont change anything; nothing sticks to this administration

11/19/2014 7:39:07 PM