Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[froot loops]

The description that Geezer gives about pre-existing conditions is exacerbated in this bill because the mandate is gone, instead of making a mandate you can opt out and only pay a penalty of something like 130 percent of the premium for a few months. This will likely make the insurance pools much sicker as healthy people have an incentive to opt out.

[Wild Hoss]

The ACA is far from perfect, but many folks seem to have developed healthcare amnesia since it was passed. As froot mentioned, pre-ACA premiums were increasing every year, sometimes by double-digit percentages. At best, the ACA provided a temporary reprieve for some, and got more covered...it almost certainly saved one of my relative's lives . Of course, now he hates it.

There's no getting around the fact that

[Whitley]

All I know is because of the fuckin' ACA my premiums doubled whilst my deductible went up 250%. Affordable my ass. Fucking joke.

Basically now unless I accumulate $25,000 of medical expenses in a year I lose. Basically just a catastrophic plan. It's a fucking drain on the economy.

Do you live in a state that expanded medicaid?

[froot loops]

Here is a primer on what they are voting on

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/3/15531494/american-health-care-act-explained

[hack]

This is about the metric system, isn't it? Fess up.

I think there is truth in there, but if we're talking about a failure of balancing competing interests then exceptionalism doesn't really apply. Where the idea gestates is secondary to whether one party can blow the other off the ball to the degree necessary to implement policy.

There is a certain type of Canadian who retains a degree of bitterness over America not following through on their promise to convert to metric when Canada did. They're all pretty old now, but I find the retained bitterness charmingly amusing. It's like a character trait in a Christopher Guest mockumentary.

[crashcourse]

to quote eCat
"Why does health care cost so much? Set aside Obama's ego driven huge fucking blunder and just look at Medicaid and Medicare - Government funded health care for the people that consume the largest percentage of health care in the nation. Medicare fraud alone is a $60 billion dollar industry. Government has driven the cost of medical care up because it writes the checks"

to quote myself 100 million people receive government assistance -and consume most of the medical expenditures and commit most of the fraud
while the other half of us pay the bills

Obama care is just another burden the middle class earners and above have to pay for

until somebody has the balls to cut the purse strings and cut down that 100 million to something a little more manageable we're just going to kick the can down the road to our kids and grandkids--who likely will see a government go bankrupt

[froot loops]

Today is a great for you, all of those people with a handout got their just desserts.

[crashcourse]

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21603078-why-thieves-love-americas-health-care-system-272-billion-swindle

[Da Geezer]

yup, crash.

One of the improvements in this new Rinocare is a work requirement for able-bodied Medicaid recipients. Clinton and Gingrich passed a pretty good overhaul of welfare in about 1997, the economy took off, and the budget was balanced. It also triggered the best economic times of my life.

Because of that, welfare reform has zero chance of passing. The whole immigration debate is really about illegals drawing welfare. Sen. Johnson of Wisconsin called today for much more immigration of untrained folks to work on dairy farms. Those Wisc. farmers should go into Milwaukee or Chicago and tap into the large number of unemployed in those cities. But they won't. The core problem is that it pays better to not work, so the unemployed don't work.

[froot loops]

That's the ticket, pluck those deadbeats out of urban areas an make them work in Real America.

[entropy]

Our dear neighbors to the north canceled an art exhibit in Toronto. The paintings were of Native Americans. The reason for the cancellation? The artist committed cultural genocide. http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...nocide-toronto

..smh. No words.

[entropy]

I do know that the US spending on healthcare for the elderly is way higher than government-owned systems.

Personally, I'm more concerned with normal procedures like hip replacements and such. I prefer that folks don't have to wait 10-12 months. That's the more consequential outcome of government healthcare.

All true. There are never all winners in any healthcare system. Everyone would love that to happen, but there is not an unlimited supply of money. So somewhere, decisions have to be made. it's dishonest to think otherwise.

[hack]

From crash's linked Economist story:

"Since tighter screening was introduced under Obamacare, the CMS has stripped 17,000 providers of their licence to bill Medicare. Thousands of suppliers also quit after being required to seek accreditation and to post surety bonds of $50,000."

"Obamacare has had a big impact, says Shantanu Agrawal of the CMS. One thing it requires is that when a state kicks out a dodgy Medicaid provider, it shares that information with Medicare, and vice versa. Previously there were legal impediments to doing this, for some reason."

Anyways, if you check the numbers, it's not fraud. Fraud should be fought, no doubt, but $98bn of a $2.7tn total is 3.6%. Fraud isn't the big problem.

[entropy]

All I know is because of the fuckin' ACA my premiums doubled whilst my deductible went up 250%. Affordable my ass. Fucking joke.

Basically now unless I accumulate $25,000 of medical expenses in a year I lose. Basically just a catastrophic plan. It's a fucking drain on the economy.

in froot's world, you don't matter..

[hack]

I see Wiz opted for the Wiz-only plan.