Liberal activists and Obamacare supporters have been telling us for years that Ocare is not really meant to be a platform for single payer, and anyone who says that is engaged in a conspiracy theory. They aren’t really looking for that, you guys, all they want is to make sure citizens have affordable health insurance, and Ocare is doing so darned great that there’s no reason for a public option. Hence the reason no one is calling for a public option. Not Bernie Sanders. Not Hillary Clinton. Not the NY Times, Washington Post, elected Democrats. No one. Certainly not Obama. Right?
Just a reminder: Congress isn’t going to fix Obamacare (or enact single-payer) any time soon https://t.co/lyIOCwV2el pic.twitter.com/kLtBjZtCRu
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) August 20, 2016
There’s an odd sort of complacency, and even smugness, in some progressive circles over the problems being created by the flight of private insurers like UnitedHealth and Aetna from participating in the Affordable Care Act’s purchasing exchanges. It is being widely noted that this is precisely the sort of contingency that a “public option,†originally supported by the president and most congressional Democrats but abandoned in the final legislation to get it through the Senate, was designed to address. In the most prominent “told you so,†Bernie Sanders has predictably commented that the leverage of private insurers over Obamacare shows why we instead need a single-payer system that abandons private insurance entirely.
The collapsing support from insurers in the exchanges is not a bug, it is a feature, much like most provisions of Ocare. It’s all designed to a) put people more under the thumb of government and b) move towards full single payer.
Of course, NY Mag’s Ed Kilgore is very upset that Republicans will block any fixes to Ocare, because it apparently needs a lot of repairs. Seriously, why didn’t anyone point out all the potential problems before this travesty was passed over the objections of the citizens?
That is all well and good, but the very same political problems that prevented the adoption of a public option (much less “Medicare for allâ€) in 2009 and 2010 when Democrats controlled Congress by comfortable margins have gotten worse, not better. Yes, if Hillary Clinton is elected in November she has already announced support for adding a public option to Obamacare, and there’s a decent chance she will bring a narrowly Democratic Senate along with her. A Democratic House, however, remains a very long shot, and even if it happens, getting something as controversial as an Obamacare “fix†through a closely divided Congress is at best an even longer shot. Yes, in theory, something like an increase in insurance subsidies to lure the private companies back in could be enacted via a budget reconciliation bill that is immune to a GOP Senate filibuster. But progressive Democrats who want to abandon private insurance entirely aren’t likely to go along with that, and it’s doubtful a major structural reform could be accomplished without the kind of legislation that could be filibustered (barring elimination of the filibuster altogether).
Those political problems would be the public not wanting government run health care, not wanting Ocare in the first place, and elected Democrats mostly not wanting to expose their ultimate agenda, which the progressive base was pushing, namely, government run health care.
So even if they hate Obamacare’s structure and the very existence of private health insurance, progressives should hope against hope that private insurers hang around and that the ACA continues to function. Much of the coverage gains achieved by Obamacare were via state Medicaid expansions that are unlikely to be revoked, at least in the bare majority of states that enacted them. So the picture is not all bleak. But it’s politically unseemly and morally questionable for progressives to enjoy the problems bedeviling the ACA, even if they told us so.
In other words, Progressives should be circumspect over their ultimate plan of single payer, and celebrating the collapse of Ocare in order to push single payer overtly should be put on the back burner.
Oh, but don’t forget, Democrats had been telling us that Ocare was doing super awesome
These new studies show that Obamacare is actually working incredibly well: http://t.co/EUa37Zq2rw
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) December 7, 2014
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Teach –
The PPACA was the most expansive policy that could be enacted over the objections of all Republicans and some conservative Dems.
Most progressives prefer a simpler universal single-payer system. There are a number of examples globally of advanced nations making high-quality affordable healthcare available to ALL their residents. Educate yourself on the programs in France, Switzerland, Israel and Sweden, for example. Their overall per capita healthcare expenditures are much lower than ours and their care is as good if not better.
Most conservatives do not support universal healthcare and would even eliminate Medicare and Medicaid altogether. To them America would be better off if the elderly and the poor would just die and die quickly. The Republican Party is on record supporting a grossly underfunded voucher system for healthcare.
So whine all you want about the PPACA. Take your case to the American voters and explain your plans and win the elections.
Who would ever suspect lefist communists to be brainwashed?
Alan Grayson, a commie if there ever was once stated: “The Republican health care plan is Die Quickly”.
Grayson, like almost every leftist known t man, has no clue what “Republicans want” because they rarely ask and when they do refuse to listen to the answer.
I’ve stated before that thinking the USA with a population of 330 million could use the same healthcare system as France, Israel, Switzerland or Sweden is naïve.
I’ll also state another thing which leftists don’t seem to understand: if the ACA or any other type of health insurance is so good why is the president, his family and Congress exempt?
Do any of the people who are “for” the ACA actually have the ACA? Bernie doesn’t, nor Hillary!, nor Nazi Pelosi, nor Alan Grayson. So they are all liars. If it was good they would have it. So why don’t they?
Hoagie,
You are wrong. Congress is not exempt from the PPACA.
“Notwithstanding any other provision of the law, after the effective date of this subtitle, the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and Congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are — (I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or (II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an Amendment made by this Act).â€
It’s always a problem when dealing with the ignorati, having to kill zombie lies time and again.
Fixed that for you.
Teach,
And yet it’s the law of the land, and if it gets replaced it will be by a law even more to the liking of progressives and Americans.
Given the choice between the PPACA and any Republican alternative, the people choose the ACA. The most unpopular Dem in a generation who promises to uphold the ACA is leading the Republican choice.
Fixed that for you.
Still wondering when that average savings of $2500/year on premiums will go into effect.
Also when the cost of medical procedures will go down.
Probably should go ask that Gruber guy for answers.
Oh wait….
It’s funny. Obamacare is so popular it lead directly to the party who passed it losing a wing of their party permanently.
Obamacare is so popular that it lead to the Democrats losing the Senate, and establishing the highest number of Republican Congressmen since the Great Depression.
That the people voted against the bill is a pretty obvious conclusion.
And here’s the thing that liberals never quite understand, because they don’t have any integrity to speak of – when you have to lie to pass your bills, people stop trusting you.
Obamacare was sold as guaranteeing health insurance, when its real goal was government running everyone’s health care. People aren’t too keen on that, which is why liberals always must disguise their intentions.
It is obvious to anyone who has even spoken casually to a conservative about healthcare, that conservatives do not want people to die. It should be obvious that our position is “The government must not dictate your health choices” in the large. However, it is not obvious – or perhaps, not admitted – because liberals not only lie about their own motives, but they lie about what conservatives desire.
This makes it hard to have any honest conversation because liberals know that selling their positions truthfully sticks in the craw of the audience. People do not want government taking care of them and shutting off their options. Yet that is all that liberalism can sell – “Big brother is here to take care of you.”
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Most Americans want single payer.
Conservatives are but a small minority within the minority party. They are not going to decide what the future of the USA looks like.
–Jonathan Gruber
Thanks retard for proving his point.
We simply cannot afford single payer.
The health care system in this country is a 5 trillion dollar a year industry…..if they cut that in half…..that is still 2.5 trillion the government has to absorb Not to mention the cost of running Medicare and Medicaid.
So quite simply somewhere we have to raise 2.5 trillion to pay for it….remove 2.5 trillion in spending into the consumer driven free markets and in essence you have a financial disaster of ginormous proportions on your hands.
Not to mention the entire health insurance industry going belly up and shedding millions of jobs.
I wonder…..what part of all that the left doesnt get?
Liam,
It’s you that doesn’t “get it”. Our total healthcare expenses are less the $4 trillion/year. That includes Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, all we pay for premiums, out of pocket, pharmaceuticals, etc. Everything, all in.
A trillion of that is wasted, but paid for by the American people. It’s a transfer of income from the working classes to the wealthy. Is your argument reduced to our bloated healthcare system being a jobs program for the wealthy?? Even worse, the current system doesn’t serve all Americans!
How do you make the argument with a straight face that we can afford the current system but not afford a better system? Every, not most, not almost all, but every advanced nation pays less per patient than we do.
Our healthcare system is not “free market”. Our pharmaceutical and device industries are government protected monopolies. We limit the ability of foreign trained physicians to practice. We discourage competition at all levels. Our patchwork employer-based system forces employees to base employment decisions on the availability of health insurance!
The single payer system will replace Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA.
@Jeffery
You are talking apples and oranges.
I wont even begin to touch your communist laced argument of our healthcare system is a transfer of wealth….God…if you buy an apple at the store you have transferred wealth from the poor to the wealthy…..IE….Joe Farmer does not sell his apples in Safeway or Krogers…..he sells them to a corporation who then bares the burden of getting apples to the market.
So even the simple fact that you buy a pencil is a transfer of wealth. Thats what CONSUMER DRIVEN FREE MARKET CAPITALISM IS ALL ABOUT.
So healthcare is a transfer of wealth…YES IT IS. NO DOUBT…..Almost every transaction in America is a transfer of wealth. In France their health care system is a transfer of wealth. Its just done differently in higher taxation as well as additional insurance purchased on the market to ensure they are taken care of.
Now to the point…..So you say we have 3 trillion in costs after removing 1 trillion in waste..
I have a simple question for you…..HOW IS THE GOVERNMENT GOING TO PAY 3 Trillion dollars in addition to their already existing budget which consists of around 400-500 billion per year in DEFICITS?
The answer is a transfer of wealth from the MASSES to the GOVERNMENT…..the only thing that changes is in your system the GOVERNMENT GETS THE MONEY……in America the Doctors, Lawyers, hospitals, pharmacies get the money.
In both cases it is a transfer of wealth…..Now
JEFFERY…..if you can show us all in your infinite wisdom how any healthcare system can be accomplished WITHOUT A TRANSFER OF WEALTH….well then I will join your bandwagon and toot your horn.
You don’t get it. How do we pay $3.8 trillion now? Payroll taxes, income taxes, fees, premiums, out of pocket.
Private insurers are forced to compete to make a profit to satisfy shareholders. First they stopped writing policies for the elderly since the elderly get sick and also cannot afford the underwritten premiums – the gov’t stepped in with Medicare. The poor can’t afford premiums – hence Medicaid.
Private insurers don’t like to insure sick people. They prefer healthy people who never make claims. It’s how you make a profit.
Every other civilized nation understands that making a nation’s healthcare a for-profit endeavor is not wise, and have eliminated the profit motive. As a plutocracy American politicians tend to be beholden to the donor class and not the people they are supposed to serve.
again you didnt answer the question… YOur bitching about the transfer of wealth but you did not answer the question.
Right now…..insurance companies are dropping like flies because of ACA. Then the government is going to step in with single payer and so where does the money come from to pay that?
SIMPLE
TRANSFER OF WEALTH TO THE GOVERNMENT who then in their infinite inability to manage anything……doles out health care…..
So again….how do we pay for all this?
Let me break this down for you…..
1. Humana owns hospitals…..they charge hefty amounts in order to pay hefty amounts to nurses, doctors etc. along with making a profit for their shareholders….I know a communists worst nightmare is profits by anyone.
2. The government steps in…..I will assume they will keep humana in charge of running their own buildings, which they paid for with their own money….they will nationalize the billions and billions in equiptment that Humana paid for with their own money and then they will tell Humana that you have a budget now which will include ZERO profits…..
HUMANA will tell the government to go fly a kite….the government will nationalize Humanas property. Humana will go out of business….this will happen to hundreds of companies and corporations who will be forced to CUT millions of jobs……
The government will then step in and take over……and hire back a percentage of these people for much less then they were making and tell everyone this is fair.
The government will then step in and take over……and hire back a percentage of these people for much less then they were making and tell everyone this is fair.
How do you fairly take over trillions of dollars of property?
You dont. Thats why its called Fascism.
The government acts as an insurance company, just as with Medicare.
Medicare is going broke as well as the whole country.
This will be compounded by the way the government workers are paid. The incompetent as well as the corrupt will be paid at the same rate as those who are competent and want to do their jobs. After a few years those hard workers will give up because they look around and see the incompetent/corrupt get paid the same rate for doing less.
The current Civil Service system created to protect workers from the Spoils System of the 19th century now protect them from getting fired for not doing their jobs. This means poor service and poor results. Need proof just look at the VA system.
Medicare is not going broke. America is not going broke.
20 trillion in debt and growing. Stop being stupid Jeff.
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah……..hahahahahahahahahahah….bull$hit!
Stop being stupid Beaner. Hoagie can’t help but be stupid (but he may be brain damaged, perhaps a stroke).
If you make $100,000 a year and have a $200,000 mortgage are you “going broke”?
As Dick Cheney famously said, “Ronald Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”
Recall several years ago when the cons insisted debt causes runaway inflation? Remember? Recall when the cons said debt will drive interest rates through the roof? Remember?
It was just revealed that candidate Trump has millions of personal debt held by the Chinese government. Is that a problem?
America is not going broke. We have debt and we make the payments (although Republicans occasionally wish to default – and Trump suggested we negotiate away part of the principal, the way he does with the vendors and contractors he cheats).
Since no conservative ever wants to raise taxes (except on the poor), what would you cut to reduce the debt? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Defense are your choices.
Much of what conservatives believe to be true is false.
America is not going broke.
Congress is not exempt from the ACA.
The Clinton’s have not had enemies killed.
Vaccines do not cause autism.
Global warming is not a worldwide hoax/conspiracy.
There are no FEMA camps to house conservatives.
There is no plan for martial law.
There is no widespread voter ID fraud.
Jeffrey, perhaps unwittingly, tells the truth:
It certainly is true that progressives and wholly different from Americans!
Sorry, progressives are wholly different from Americans!
Jeffrey wrote:
From the Treasury Department: National debt to the penny, as of August 18, 2016: $19,445,100,633,520.18.
US GDP for 2015: $17,947 billion. Translation: our total national debt is now 108.35% of our total national productive output for an entire year! We would have to work more than a whole fornicating year just to pay off the national debt!
Oh, but no! we’re not broke, not broke at all!
The very highly educated Jeffrey wrote:
A mortgage has a specific payment rate, and if you keep making the payments, no you aren’t going broke, and in ten or fifteen or thirty years, your mortgage should be paid off. You also have the ability to sell your house, hopefully making a profit, and be able to pay off your mortgage with the proceeds.
But that isn’t how the government works. While each debt instrument has a pay-off date, we keep issuing new debt instruments to pay off the expiring ones. If we were comparing this to a mortgage, it would be like taking out a second mortgage every year, and never paying off anything.
If you made $100,000 a year, had a $200,000 mortgage, and kept piling up more and more consumer debt every year, never catching up, always adding more, are you “going broke?” Yes, you are! Oh, you may not have gone broke quite yet, as you write out your minimum payments for your seven Visa and MasterCard bills — what’s in your wallet? — but you are well on your way.
@Jeffery
There is so much wrong with everything you said that I don’t eve know where to begin.
If you make $100,000 a year and have a $200,000 mortgage are you “going broke�
As Dick Cheney famously said, “Ronald Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.â€
There is a bit of truth to this. However my friend there is ONE ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PRIVATE SECTOR DEBT AND THE GOVERNMENT SECTOR DEBT
That of course you once again fail to grasp.
FOLLOW ALONG HERE…….
IF I owe 200k mortgage and I borrow on my credit cards to pay my debt…….HOW LONG BEFORE I CAN NO LONGER PAY MY DEBT WITH CREDIT CARDS?
The government is borrowing money to pay its debt….It would be one thing entirely if they had the money to pay this debt each year but they do not…….
So your example says its okay for the government to borrow forever because??????
No friend economics for people and countries work basically the same way…….
THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH!.
many nations are finding this out….soon the USA will as well.
Much of what conservatives believe to be true is false.
America is not going broke.
Congress is not exempt from the ACA.
The Clinton’s have not had enemies killed.
Vaccines do not cause autism.
Global warming is not a worldwide hoax/conspiracy.
There are no FEMA camps to house conservatives.
There is no plan for martial law.
There is no widespread voter ID fraud.
PROOF PLEASE OR IT DIDNT HAPPEN.
According to your “reasoning”, most of the advanced world is “going broke” while poor companies are doing fine.
Japan, Germany, Israel, Ireland, Canada, UK, the EU, Belgium etc all have significant debt (>50% of GDP).
Libya, Guinea and Nigeria all have low debt. Do you prefer Nigeria’s economy (11%) over Germany’s (71%)?
Three questions:
What damage do you imagine debt causes – a real hazard or some kind of moral hazard?
What 3 primary policy changes do you advocate to reduce debt?
Is it OK for a nation to borrow for emergencies, e.g., wars, recessions?
Are you worried that lenders are concerned about the full faith and credit of the US?
You seem really worried, yet the lenders are not worried at all, at least as indicated by the interest rates. They prefer their funds be held by the US even at 1% interest than any other investment. Why is that?
Ronald Reagan doubled the federal debt? Was that OK?
Jeffrey wrote:
Actually, yes, they are. All of the advanced countries are awash in debt, and we’re seeing the consequences, in Greece, in Italy, in Spain and in Portugal. Pretty soon, we’ll start to see in in France and Germany.
The US has an advantage that the European countries do not: the US debt is denominated in our own currency, and we could — and probably will — use that to leverage away some of our debt, as we have already done through ‘quantitative easing.’ By switching to the euro, the eurozone countries now have debt denominated in currency that the individual countries do not control, which is what has allowed Angela Merkel to be stringent on the Greek bailout. Part of the reason for the Brexit vote was that the Brits aren’t thrilled about having to bail out other people, as part of the EU, even though they don’t use the euro.
Borrowing money means living beyond the means supported by your production. This can be good, temporarily, if you are doing this only occasionally, to improve your financial situation. The problem comes when you are borrowing to live beyond the means supported by your production every single year; Greece is simply the most obvious example of that, but it isn’t the only one.
Jeffrey seems to think that because President Reagan did it, all Republicans must support it:
Nope! And it seems that Barack Hussein Obama didn’t think it was a good thing when the national debt nearly doubled under the younger President Bush. Of course, maybe Mr Obama doesn’t see that as quite so unpatriotic, given that the debt he has accumulated has left the Bush debt in the dust.
I would argue that Andrew Jackson was one of our greatest Presidents ever, because he was the only one who ever completely paid off the national debt, in 1836.
So the danger is in the future. Sort of like the just-around-the-corner runaway hyperinflation the right has been predicting for the last decade.
Remember all the Weimar Republic hyperinflation talk on the right?
How should we balance our budget?
Jeffrey asked:
Eliminate HHS, the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Labor, eliminate all welfare, restrict Social Security to retirees only, eliminate Medicaid, eliminate block grants to the states, basically cut everything but Defense, Treasury, Justice and maybe a few other smaller services which have to be federal. All government services should be made, and paid for, at the closest level to local as is possible.
dana,
Thanks. That is a plan and cuts federal spending by about 1/3rd.
“Our healthcare system is not “free marketâ€. Our pharmaceutical and device industries are government protected monopolies. We limit the ability of foreign trained physicians to practice. We discourage competition at all levels. Our patchwork employer-based system forces employees to base employment decisions on the availability of health insurance!”
That’s absolutely true. I don’t know any conservative who says that the system as it existed the day before Obamacare went into effect was the most perfect system imaginable. Rather, the argument is that the way to improve the system is to move toward a free market, not even further away from it.
A government-run health care system will inevitably combine the smooth efficiency of the Motor Vehicle Bureau with the compassion of the IRS. If you seriously doubt that, just ask any veteran who relies on the VA system.
Yes, it is true that under a free market system, the rich and powerful can often afford care that the poor cannot. But under a government-run system, it will be a crime punishable by fines and imprisonment to give the poor care that is not approved by the government.
Answer this one seriously: Suppose that there are two terrible, fatal disease facing the country. And suppose that one mostly affects U.S. senators and top executives at major corporations, while the other mostly affects poor people in the south. The government only has the resources to produce medicine for one of these diseases. Which do you think it will pick? Which group can hire lobbyists? Which group has friends in the right places? And by the way, if as you read that paragraph you laughed and said, “Yeah, this is a good way to get rid of those stupid rednecks” … I expect that’s exactly the same thing that a lot of bureaucrats in Washington will think as they ponder the budget.
Liberals regularly say that the U.S. government is a tool of the rich and powerful, that it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the big corporations, and that it’s major purpose is to exploit the poor for the benefit of the rich. Then they say that they want to give it the power to make life and death decisions for poor people. Do you really, honestly believe that this will be the first program in the history of the republic that is run totally fairly? I think you are very naïve.
“Eliminate HHS, the Department of Education, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Labor …”
Or to put it another way, eliminate every government program that violates the Constitution. The Constitution specifically spells out what sort of things the federal government is allowed to do. Managing education, intervening in labor disputes, and running a Ponzi scheme are nowhere on the list.
“If you make $100,000 a year and have a $200,000 mortgage are you “going brokeâ€?”
If you go into debt to buy a house, and then you spend the next 20 or 30 years paying down that debt until you have it paid off, that’s a reasonable plan. Most people buy effectively one house in their lives. By “effectively” I mean that if they buy another house, they usually sell the first one and put the money toward the second one. So you have this one big expense early in your life. And so you spread that expense over many years.
This is not at all the same thing as someone who makes $50,000 a year but spends $100,000, year after year, continually running up new debt and never paying it off. That’s foolish.
So the analogy to a nation would be, if you have some unusual huge expense that hits relatively rarely — the obvious example for a nation would be a war — it makes sense to borrow money to pay for it when it happens, and then to pay that debt off.
This is not at all the same as a nation has tax receipts of $1 trillion each year but spends $2 trillion, year after year, continually running up new debt and never paying it off. That’s foolish.
jay, I like the cut of your jib and I’d like to subscribe to your newsletter.
There is a line that no matter how many times I repeat it leftists still hear: “we had the best health insurance in the world”. Plus, it’s amazing how they confuse health care with health insurance as it pleases their argument.
But your best line is:”eliminate every government program that violates the Constitution.”