David Leohardt has a very good column up on McDonald’s and healthcare reform. A taste:
In 2014, however, the choice for McDonald’s workers will no longer be between a bad policy and no policy. Through the exchanges, they will be able to buy a real health insurance plan — one that covers cancer, heart attacks, surgeries, M.R.I.’s and hospital stays. Dr. Carroll notes that many families will end up paying less than they are now paying out of pocket and will get more access to care, too.
For insurance companies, these changes won’t be quite so positive. They will no longer be able to sell plans that devote 30 percent of revenue to salaries for their workers. They will not be allowed to compete over which company can come up with the most ingenious ways to say no to the sick. Their benefits and prices will become more public, thanks to the exchanges.
The health care overhaul that passed Congress is far from ideal, as I have written manytimes in this space. But it does represent progress.
The fact that it is beginning to disrupt the status quo — that some insurance policies will eventually be eliminated and some inefficient insurers will have to leave the market altogether — is all the proof we need.
I wrote along these same lines last week. Expect to hear plenty more horror stories about health insurers or private businesses dropping coverage or raising costs. One thing these stories also won’t point out is that people were losing coverage and insurers were raising costs before the healthcare reform law was even a twinkle in Obama’s eye. This has been the steady trend for years, for decades. This is why we worked to pass healthcare reform in the first place, warts and all.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Expect them to look a lot like the horror stories that proved we needed med-mal tort reform.
Phoenix Woman
All those folks claiming that it wasn’t Obama but Congress that zapped the public option, might want to read Tom Daschle’s book (especially that part which he’s pathetically trying to walk back):
Butch
A couple of years ago I was sitting at a red light and got hit by a drunk driver. I made the mistake of honesty when I filled out the insurance company’s questionnaire; nobody at the insurance company could have picked me out of a police lineup, but with no examination whatever concluded that my injuries were actually caused because I’m a weight lifter and refused coverage. I say stick it to ’em.
Punchy
“we”? I thought you were a conservative?
Doesn’t matter anyway, as this HRC will either be defunded by the GOP in 4 months, or repealed wholesale by President Palin in 2.4 years.
beltane
The only thing the insurance industry is good at is concocting excuses for their yearly premium increases and cutbacks in coverage. I look forward to the day when 30% of the money we pay for health insurance does not go to subsidize the existence of these insurance executive deadbeats. I could redo my whole kitchen with the money we are forced to pay these people every year.
cleek
FUCK THE MOTHERFUCKING PUBLIC OPTION
Brachiator
The unfortunate devil in the details is that Congress and the Obama Administration stretched HCR implementation out into 2014. This creates all kinds of room for mischief, not only the GOP looking to repeal health care provisions, but the insurance companies looking for ways to drop people from coverage.
Uloborus
@Phoenix Woman:
Jesus Christ is that a lot of assumptions and ‘my friend’s brother’s roommates’. But I must confess that if Obama did indeed promise not to pursue the public option as part of dealmaking, I don’t care in the slightest.
Culture of Truth
One thing these stories also won’t point out is that people were losing coverage and insurers were raising costs before the healthcare reform law was even a twinkle in Obama’s eye.
Unpossible!!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Punchy: What the fuck is it with doomsayers and firebaggers swarming this blog today?
Ash Can
I had insomnia last night, so I was looking forward to laying down and taking a nap once a few morning chores were out of the way. I was just falling asleep when the phone woke me up. It was some Republican broad asking me if the Illinois GOP candidates could count on my vote in November. We went round and round for five minutes, and I managed not to raise my voice or drop any F-bombs on her. Now I’m still tired but too awake to nap, and I want to punch a Republican, any Republican, in the face. So I’m going to take a pass here on frothing at the mouth over legislative miracles that would have surely happened if we’d only clapped hard enough, and be thankful that there are just barely enough barely-decent-enough people in DC to make anything good happen at all, because I have my doubts about this country surviving any more of the alternative.
Omnes Omnibus
@cleek: Don’t get out of the boat.
MattR
I think this is the money quote from the article (emphasis mine)
@Ash Can: It is hard work, but the most effective thing you can do is keep that GOP phone banker on the call for as long as you can.
eemom
@Phoenix Woman:
As noted previously, it’s interesting that Daschle has morphed from Mr. Industry Shill Extraordinaire to Righteous Speaker of the Truth among your crowd.
As John wondered the other day, why do you feel the need to come peddling your shit over here? You don’t even have the guts to stick around and defend it on your own.
btw, will I be making another unauthorized appearance over in your comments section today so you can sic the big dogs on me?
Dexter
@Punchy:
Then we will start from scratch? Another 60 year quest for healthcare reform? Doesn’t sound like the best of ideas.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@cleek:
Someday I want to live in a normal country where we can talk about reforming the health care system without the discussion immediately degenerating into a combination L’Affaire Dreyfus and political Rorschach ink blot test which tells you more about the state of mental health of most of the participants and their pet obsessions than it does anything about the rational and objective merits or demerits of this or that policy choice.
Sadly, that is not the case here in the US of 2010. Instead, we have mutant sea bass with fricking laser beams on their fricking heads…
Uloborus
@Brachiator:
True, but I’m not sure they had any choice. It’s a massive overhaul you can’t just put into effect instantly. I cannot say this is true for certain, but only being able to impliment it in stages over years is what I would have expected.
suzanne
God, why do we have to go for Round 687 about the public option? We didn’t get it, I would love to have gotten it, but what we got is better than what we had before. Some people are gamblers, and some aren’t. GOD.
Omnes Omnibus
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Dreyfus was innocent.
ETA: I thought we wanted to start a new old fight.
eemom
I’ll gladly trade ED’s “conservative” for a blogosphere full of self-proclaimed “progressives.”
Hell, the Fox News crowd is already using them like asswipes — might as well make it official.
Ash Can
@MattR: I’ll keep that in mind. I could have kept her on for longer if I hadn’t been half asleep. I hope she goes home tonight looking for a nice big slug of bourbon and finds nothing but tea bags in her cabinet.
StevenDS
E.D.,
I’m not sure if you have addressed this, but if you were in congress, would you have voted for HCR, with the only alternative being that the status quo stays that way until a future congress takes up the issue again?
Uloborus
@eemom:
I’m a moderate. Always have been. Maybe slightly left-leaning, but I fall on the conservative side of a few issues.
But at this point if you’re capable of finishing a coherent sentence you’re a Democrat.
Brachiator
@Phoenix Woman:
I don’t care.
Let me repeat. I don’t care.
What matters now is what we do going forwards.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Omnes Omnibus:
Un diner en famille
“We must not speak of it”
…
[they spoke of it]
New Yorker
Hey, that sounds like good ol’ fashioned free enterprise to me. Why do teatards want to prop up inefficient industries/companies?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@suzanne: Because there are some people who know that if you complain about something hard enough, reality will warp itself and cause it to become real.
In other words, they don’t want to vote for Democrats and don’t want to be held responsible for Republicans winning. (Normally, I hate these generalizations, but I think it applies here.)
Irony Abounds
I thought for a moment that when O’Donnell won the primary in Delaware that the Dems might enjoy a sustained bounce because it showed just how friggin crazy the GOP had become, but now I’m back in despair mode. The Dems are going to get crushed in November, with the GOP taking 70+ seats in the House and probably 9 in the Senate (which, when Nelson and Lieberdouche flip will give them control). There will be HORROR stories, and no matter how false they may be, they will be lapped up by the mainstream media and used as a cudgel against healthcare reform. The Republicans will maintain the insurance company friendly provisions and gut the real reform. Just watch, it’s going to happen.
Omnes Omnibus
@Irony Abounds: Why do you think this?
joe from Lowell
Decoupling health care finance from employment is a very, very GOOD thing. It’s an important step on the road towards making health care a right of citizenship, not a privilege to be distributed according to wealth and societal status.
Employer-based health care delenda est.
Ash Can
@Irony Abounds: Sounds like you’re either ready for happy hour to start, or ready for it to end.
quaint irene
You’ve been reading Rasmussen again.
The Other Chuck
@Irony Abounds:
Nine seats in the senate? Name them.
joe from Lowell
@Phoenix Woman:
Jesus fucking Christ, WTF is wrong with you?
There is actually an issue of some importance that’s the subject of this thread. Do you remember what it was, or did the effort to hijack the thread into a dissertation on your own alleged rightness and awesomeness drive it completely out of your head?
Nice priorities. “Health care blah blah blah…DEMOCRATS WHO AREN’T LIKE ME WERE WRONG! I’M STILL BITTER! FUCK OBAMA! WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THAT!”
Does the question of whether low-income people are going to get better or worse health care actually matter to you anymore?
Omnes Omnibus
@joe from Lowell: Not if doesn’t come with the PO. There are people who cannot talk about health care without having it become about the public option. Like other monomaniacs, they are best ignored.
azlib
HCR will stay in place. The pieces of the puzzle are too interlocked. Perhaps the most unpopular part of the bill is the individual mandate. Keep in mind this only applies to the individual market which right now is a relatively small percentage.
Insurance companies will fight repealing that part of the legislation because without it their business model collapses. Same with the low income subsidies, since without the subsidies, the insurance becomes unaffordable by all but high income families. Other provisions are too popular to repeal. I dare the Republicans to repeal the prohibition on denial of coverage for preexisting conditions or the child coverage provisions, etc.
As a person in the individual market, I am already seeing policy changes to bring them into alignment with the HCR act even before they are required.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
Great post. Thanks.
El Cid
@eemom:
I don’t have a concrete argument regarding what did or didn’t happen with the PO, but this is an utterly false characterization of people citing Daschle.
If Tom Delay in an interview appeared to reveal something reflecting basically his own and his party’s view about something which was in some way uncomplimentary, believing it to be credible (though certainly not proven) would in no way suggest one’s admiration for Tom Delay.
I really can’t believe people think you have to consider someone a “righteous speaker of the truth” to use them as serious evidence. What utter bullshit.
Brachiator
@Uloborus:
Actually, some of this was a political calculation to establish some funding mechanisms for various healthcare provisions that would kick in after 2013, and to secure the votes of some of the more bullheaded Congress critters.
This was risky strategy, but now it just means that they will have to work harder to defend and expand health care protections.
eemom
@joe from Lowell:
It never mattered to that tribe.
Actually, this is more than a little freaky. PW used to be what passed for a sane person over there, and now it seems she’s devolved into a full metal Hamsherator.
David
I would like an explanation of how the current HCR made the public option less likely in the future compared to not passing HCR at all? Seriously, even if you’re so hung up on the public option that you are incapable of seeing the existing HCR bill as an improvement over the status quo, what kind of thought process has to go on to not see that we’re closer to a public option after the HCR reform passed, even if it hasn’t happened yet.
Roger Moore
@suzanne:
It’s not that some people are gamblers and some aren’t. It’s that some people are whiners, and not getting the public option is a great thing for them to whine about. If we had gotten the public option, they’d be complaining that we didn’t get single payer, and if we had gotten single payer they’d be bitching that we didn’t get NHS. They’re a pain in the ass, but I think that they’re ultimately right that we’ll never get anything more than what we have without some PITA complainers on the left pushing for more.
joe from Lowell
@Omnes Omnibus:
I love to talk about the public option. Having a public option is important, and needs to be the next bite we take of the sandwich. There’s actually an important connection between the public option and the subject of this post: as more people leave employer-based health care for the exchanges, it will create greater political and economic pressure for a public option, and make one increasingly necessary.
But, you see, the comment that pissed me off so much isn’t about the public option. Take a look at it again. The subject of that comment is found in the first three words:
That comment isn’t about the public option. The author doesn’t give a crap about the public option, except as a jumping off point to discuss her grudges and identity.
jl
@Brachiator:
Me too. Me too. I agree a thousand per cent.
Whether there was a deal or not, or whether it was mutual presumption greased by excess caution by Oama administration, or Obama actually shook hands with slimey dudes while puffing on cheap stogie in a back room, or Obama was making repeated incremental calculations on how many Senators would support a public option…
Makes not one damn bit of difference now. We will never know for sure.
The damn bill got passed. Now the work is to move forwards toward a sensible health care system. Passing the bill will be a good thing if we can roll it forwards, and not roll it back.
Whether the final destination is a private Swiss or Dutch type system, an Australian Medicare for All, or France or Sweden, or Singapore, the work is to get to something that works and is cheaper, rather than what we have now which does not work and is more expensive.
The Other Chuck
I think it’s going to be hilarious when the teatards get their marching orders from corporate HQ to agitate for keeping the mandate in place.
Punchy
@Omnes Omnibus: Sorry, next time I’ll clap harder. Didn’t know that was requirement to comment here!
Yea, ponies are coming!
eemom
@El Cid:
I’m sorry, but yours is the bullshit.
Credibility is not something that flips on and off like a switch depending on which side of the argument someone is on. If Daschle wasn’t to be trusted when he was supposedly a whore for the health insurance industry, why should he be trusted now that he’s airing dirt on his own party? What’s changed?
The fact that he’s got a book to sell, perhaps? Is that what suddenly makes him so CREDIBLE?
joe from Lowell
@The Other Chuck:
Ladies! To your Medicare-funded scooters!
Ailuridae
@David:
It didn’t. If the public option or a Medicare buy-in (the latter being a better idea than the former but both having a lot of value) ever has a majority in the house and 51 votes in the Senate and, at least in the short term, a Democratic President it can be passed at any time.
Dork
You do know how a veto works, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@joe from Lowell: Let me amend my earlier comment to this: Some people cannot talk about healthcare without it becoming about the fact that the ACA does not have a public option and that it is due to some action or failure to act on the part of Obama which proves that he is a corporate sellout who wants us all to die in a ditch if that’s what the corporations tell him to want.
Is that better?
El Cid
@eemom: That’s a bunch of horse-shit and you ought to know it. It’s like ignoring what a bunch of tobacco lobbyists said unfavorable to their industry because professionally they’re liars. It’s one of the stupidest arguments I’ve encountered in politics yet. Yeah, it’s possible that Daschle’s account is full of shit, but it isn’t particularly self-serving.
joe from Lowell
You mean like they’ve done to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?
There’s a reason why wingnuts fight to the last breath against new entitlements: they don’t go away. They’re sticky.
joe from Lowell
@Omnes Omnibus:
I find it difficult to call something “better” that makes me want to beat myself with a cinder block until I pass out, but it certainly is truer.
Yep, you are absolutely right. There is no more important topic when it comes to health care, to certain people, than the topic of how the Pure were betrayed by the Corrupt.
The most important thing to Protest People is their self-image as Protest People. That’s the only story that interests them.
danimal
I wish the zealots would start the process of building support and introducing a bill establishing a public option as a liberal revision to HCR rather than using the lack of a PO as a club to beat down Obama and moderate Dems.
Looking forward and using the existing HCR as a baseline for improvements is immensely more useful than lining up behind Republicans saying we hate HCR as much as you do. The former ratchets up the progressive elements of HCR while the latter almost guarantees HCR will be repealed or revised in a conservative direction.
ETA: fixed a former/latter error.
joe from Lowell
@El Cid: What’s happened to you lately?
I’ve always thought of you as one of the most reasonable and intelligent commenters on this and several other sites. I’ve always really enjoyed reading your stuff. You always made me think, and you always brought both knowledge and understanding to the discussion.
But lately, you’ve been going off for no reason at the slightest hint of disagreement. It’s not like you.
Ailuridae
@joe from Lowell:
Ladies! To you Medicare-funded scooters!
Speaking of actually relevant health care cost control and deficit reduction issues ….
Omnes Omnibus
@Punchy: It’s not just you. Sometimes my side of the aisle frustrates the living hell out of me. Too many people’s optimism seems to fall at the first hurdle. I am not asking for ponies; I’m hoping that people won’t simply succumb to despondency and give up. I also know that there are a large number of people who bitch and complain, yet work their asses off for progressive causes. Anyway, my point is I am getting tired of knee-jerk negativity.
joe from Lowell
@danimal:
Or even arguing that HCR is inadequate, doesn’t go far enough, and needs to be reformed, like the people who criticized Social Security from the left used to do in the 30s, or who criticized Medicare in the 60s. That’s how you move the window to the left.
If that’s what you want to do. If your main purpose is to talk about “All those folks…” vs. you and your hallowed band of Protest People, then talking about HCR and its supporters as an evil is a rational action.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@David: Shhh! That is one of the many verboten questions in the Post-HCR Debating Game.
Neither are you allowed to ask if the person POed about the lack of a PO has health insurance.
Asking anyone to name a single social initiative that sprang fully-formed from the head, thigh, ear or ass of the person(s) who first conceived of it is right out.
NobodySpecial
@David: If you’re talking to the more reasonable on the subject, it’s because the can has been kicked even further down the road to an unforseeable future.
Next we’ll be told to wait on a public option until the provisions actually take effect and we see problems with them. That takes us to probably 2016. Then we have to deal with all of it again with a new President and Congress whose makeup might be significantly different – for the worse.
Daschle seems to think that parts of it are bulletproof from a Republican controlled Congress as far as funding. I don’t believe he’s right. I think he’s thinking of Republicans as something they maybe used to be when he was younger, but they’re all headed to Teatard land now.
In short, the best this lower-class person hopes for is that I get my car payments taken care of before HCR comes into effect, because the subsidies aren’t large enough at my end of the economic scale and they seem unlikely to change before 2014.
NobodySpecial
@kommrade reproductive vigor: I don’t. But there’s a real problem with HCR as it stands now for people of lower than median income. But it ain’t getting fixed by your crowd.
Ailuridae
@danimal:
The polling was minimal because the Medicare buy-in compromise was so brief but it was overwhelming positive in favor of a Medicare buy-in for the elderly and at risk individuals. That’s an issue Democrats can run on and win on and then when they implement it run on and win on again.
If you think about why the phrase “public option” came into existence it was because our side thought that the public would react adversely to a Medicare for all bill or allowing a Medicare buy-in. Well, they were plainly wrong about that at least in the latter case.
Adding millions to medicare at cost, especially if it meant that they would still be able to use the PPACA’s subsidies to buy it would do an amazing amount to control costs. And, no, it wouldn’t be because it “stuck one” to insurance companies but because it would effectively end the most egregious doctor and provider abuses.
Mnemosyne
@David:
I keep trying to get an answer for this and … crickets. Apparently ACA has magical powers that prevent a public option from being added to the exchanges because shut up, that’s why, QED.
Some people seem firmly convinced that since there wasn’t a public option in the very first law that was passed, that means that there won’t be one for another 30 years. It’s completely irrational.
joe from Lowell
Dammit, now I’m doing it!
Intra-mural pissing matches are irrelevant. This is a thread about how the plans offered by the exchanges are superior to the employer-based plans that may be cut.
Remember, it’s the lowest end of the employer-based health plan market that will be dropped. These are crappy plans anyway, inferior to what is available on the exchanges. Comparing what’s on the exchanges to the employer-based plans enjoyed by upper-middle class professionals is irrelevant, because it’s not those high-quality plans that will be dropped.
Look at McDonald’s stated reasoning here: they can’t meet the requirement that 80% of their revenues go towards health care. They’re probably right, because a certain amount of administrative overhead is a fixed cost, which doesn’t decline when administering a cheap plan vs. an expensive plan. That is, they’re working on a slim margin.
It is precisely these plans with the slim margins that can be better handled – in terms of both being able to cover their costs, but more importantly, being able to provide more money for health care – by taking advantage of the greater economies of scale available through the exchanges. (And would be even better-positioned if they were taking advantage of the even greater economies of scale available through a big public program, ahem ahem).
Likewise, the addition of millions of fast-food employees into the exchanges, in addition to the people who didn’t have coverage before HCR, is going to serve to increase those economies of scale.
Like I said before, decoupling health care coverage from employment is a very good thing.
Employer-based health care delenda est.
kommrade reproductive vigor
I just said asking anyone to name an initative that sprang fully formed etc was right out. So I won’t.
Yes, relying on the Royal Order of Dudes Who Ass Around in the Comments Section of a Blog would be a huge mistake. Maybe the United Peoples Liberation Front of Screaming Blue Murder in the Comments Section of a Blog can help … No.
OMG! Could it be that blog comments mean jack in the grand scheme of things?
Nah.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
So who’s doing the “telling,” the voices in your head? Why are you not rounding up Bernie Sanders and other members of the progressive coalition and asking them to write a public option bill? What’s the downside of that?
I’m just surprised you haven’t started spouting your favorite “nothing can be done!” phrase yet since that always seems to mean “if it didn’t happen the exact way I wanted it to, it can’t happen at all.”
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
…with all that disposable income they get from working at McDonald’s. Fortunately, 19 year olds never get seriously ill because if they did it would be another couple grand out of those McDonald’s filled pockets on top of the 4.3% they aren’t going to pay in the first place because they’d rather spend it on something else.
Seriously, why are we even talking about this? Why is the richest society in the history of the planet exulting in the few crumbs it throws to its working poor? I get that the new plan is less shitty than the dog-shittiest plan, really, I get it. Why this maniacal need to pat ourselves on the collective back for it?
eemom
@El Cid:
How do you know that? How do you know what axes he may or may not have to grind with his erstwhile colleagues? How do you know ANYTHING about his motivations for saying what he’s saying?
Or are you just a fucking mind reader who knows EVERYTHING now?
joe from Lowell
@Ailuridae:
Adding millions of young and middle-aged people onto Medicare at the cost now paid per Medicare recipient would also do a great deal to shore up Medicare’s finances, even apart from cost-control, since those people would have cheaper medical bills than the elderly.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
I hate to tell ya, but if you’re an individual making $45,000 a year — which is the income level at which you stop being eligible for a subsidy — you’re not lower-class.
NobodySpecial
@Mnemosyne: You guys claim there’s no support for a public option. That’s A. B is that it’s election time, therefore they ain’t writing bills right now. C is that Bernie Sanders holds zero power in the Dem caucus, because he’s a dirty progressive. (This is another talking point from the Nick crowd you follow, comprende?)
After the election, I’ll be happy to whip Dick Durbin on it. It won’t mean jack since we couldn’t get it with 60, though, right? After all, we’re never gonna see 60 again because the professional left who don’t count are gonna torpedo everything, right?
(This is sarcasm, for the slow. You’ll know who you are about 20 posts later.)
Omnes Omnibus
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Because it took a shitload of people 50-70 years to get this much done. No one has come this far before. Doesn’t mean there isn’t work to do, it just means that some of it finally got done.
eemom
and another thing? Usually when a professional liar gets caught telling the truth it’s not in an interview on the public record. Just so you know that too.
NobodySpecial
@Mnemosyne: I don’t make 45k – and the subsidies don’t work at my income level. This is not a new debate, and I’ve run the numbers. There’s a lot of people like me who can’t magically pull an extra $1,500 or more a year out of an already squeezed budget.
Ailuridae
@NobodySpecial:
If the subsidies are substantially inadequate though the inclusion of a public option would do little to address that. Most versions scored at 92 cents on the dollar versus private insurance and, more importantly, the subsidies are not a percentage of cost of plan but a percentage of income for enrollee. For instance a family of 4 earning 42K would have a maximum premium cap (for reasonably high quality insurance) of $2730 (6.5%). But if the PO had passed the only difference is that this family would have had the option to pick from a government plan as well – the cost to them would have been the same regardless.
So ability to pay as a customer is not an issue for recipients of health care although overall cost is. Since the average private plan will likely be about 5-8% more expensive than the PO would have been the federal government has to make up that gap in costs and that’s where the 40B or 80B over ten years figure comes in.
So you can argue the subsidies are inadequate but you can’t argue that you can’t afford health care because of the failure to pass the PO.
Mnemosyne
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Because if all you do is run it down, people will say, “Let’s just end it and go back to the old system, then, since this new one sucks so much.” And if everything sucks about this new system, then they’re right — we should get rid of ACA and just keep the system we have now.
If, however, you say, “Hey, this is a great start, let’s do more,” that actually moves us forward and lets us improve ACA rather than having to start back on square one all over again.
NobodySpecial
@eemom: That comment was funny coming from someone who’s claiming he only said it to push book sales.
But you knew someone was gonna say that, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@NobodySpecial: Okay, it was the worst bill ever, and the people who are benefiting from it today, right now, just don’t know what they are talking about. The people who currently have the McD’s mini-plans and will move on to a better plan with subsidies and the exchanges can all piss off as well. Fuck it, I am going running.
joe from Lowell
@NobodySpecial:
Wait wait wait – you’re not doing anything about this issue that you claim to care about because of something that people you don’t agree with say, that you don’t believe? Uh…whut?
Seriously? Is your attention span this short? Did you really just say that it’s not worth pushing for something if the legislation isn’t going to be written right away? Bravo, Rev. King.
That’s bullshit. I love Bernie Sanders (who voted for the Affordable Care Act). He’s one of the best men in the Senate. BTW, you just proved my point:
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
Ah, I didn’t realize that you believed in the Mayan calendar and the world is going to end in 2012, so there’s no point in laying the groundwork for any legislation in the future. Gotcha.
Good thing you weren’t in the civil rights movement in 1957 telling all of us that the bill was the one and only one we could ever get so we should just roll over and not try anymore. Otherwise we never would have gotten the better bills that came afterward.
Ailuridae
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
With the subsidies those McDonalds’ workers would be paying less for actual insurance than they are currently for min-med plans that are more like mail-in rebates than insurance.
So, pretty much anyone who works at McDonald’s who could afford this product will be better off as they can get better insurance for less.
eemom
@NobodySpecial:
No, in fact I didn’t claim that he said it only to push book sales. What I implied, albeit snarkily, was that the fact that he’s selling a book sure doesn’t enhance his credibility, now does it?
Read the record before you lob off your next zinger, Nobody.
FlipYrWhig
@NobodySpecial:
WTF are you talking about now? My view is that there is support for a public option, just not 50 votes, let alone 60. Usually the contrary view was that there _were_ 50 votes but Obama somehow sandbagged the whole process because he’s a hateful corporatist sellout or something. Well, if there were 50 votes, and there still are 50 votes, then why ain’t it happening NOW? Obama is twisting arms against it?
danimal is right. All of the energy being spent on Aha!s and other recriminations could be profitably spent instead on continuing to push the merits of a genuinely good idea. Especially if support for it was as high as some people are inclined to believe. Is any push happening? Any petitions, any strategy sessions, any inter-blog lobbying efforts? If you think yours is an activist stand, get active.
NobodySpecial
@Ailuridae:
Part of the allure of the PO was it’s ability to drive down prices incrementally, which is why I supported it. I also would have been fine with TeddyCare. However, what I’m saying right now is that HCR has a big problem in it that probably will not get fixed, that will hurt people of lower incomes than average who earn more than the 133% cutoff for Medicare. That’s more than enough complaint for the folks who are sick of defending HCR to throw me in the Pony Express, evidently.
NobodySpecial
@Omnes Omnibus: Way to not read what I wrote. Perhaps running will improve your vision.
WyldPirate
@joe from Lowell:
This will be rendered irrelevant because the mandated purchase of health insurance will never stand in the courts. That will take those in small business and the uninsurable out of the picture damn quick
I don’t disagree that decoupling of insurance from employment is a good thing, but giving private industry and individuals states so much leeway in establishing exchanges and the like are going to be the Achilles heel of the system. It will end up being like the banking laws in different states–some will be functional and the others will be a haven for rip-off artists.
My problem with the entire health care reform is that the profit motive should be taken completely out of the entire picture. There should be a basic level of health care–on par with what many other Western countries are able to provide–available in this country. If some rich folks want to by gold-plated health care that allows them to have as many face lifts as they want, that’s fine.
I’ve got a huge stake in all of this, too. I had a heart attack 11 months ago and triple bypass 10 months ago. I have diabetes and I’ll be on insulin the rest of my life. Treating the diabetes alone is north of $250 a month now with COBRA. I’m unemployed and have had a total of 4 interviews since I recovered enough to start looking for a job in January. My COBRA subsidy runs out in December. After that, I won’t have any insurance. I won’t be eligible for Medicare until I am completely destitute at which point, I won’t have enough funds to even get to a fucking job interview anywhere.
Omnes Omnibus
@NobodySpecial: Mea culpa. I might have jumped the gun and anticipated where I thought you were going. In my defense, it is where a lot of people have been going all day, so I thought I would just save time.
ETA: Now I am going running because people have been pissing me off, on and offline, all day and running might help.
NobodySpecial
@Mnemosyne: There were 66 Democrats in 1964, and 80 percent of the Republicans voted for it.
If you have some secret knowledge that the Republicans are going to vote for HCR in Civil Rights Act size numbers in the next four years, I’d love a link.
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
The problem won’t get fixed if people just stand around and bitch about it on the blogs, though. Who’s taking the lead to present the problem to sympathetic ears in Congress? Who’s writing the letters to HHS?
Yes, it’s true, the health reform law isn’t perfect. Duh. What I don’t understand is why it’s more important to you to continue to bitch about the process six months later than it is to try and fix those problems. You’ve got at least three years to do it before the mandate kicks in. Get cracking.
FlipYrWhig
@WyldPirate:
I want that too. But of course there are hundreds of thousands of doctors who don’t share our view, and millions of non-doctors who trust them and defer to them. That would be an incredibly hard fight to win.
eemom
@eemom:
Heh. As I suspected she’s back over there in the safe confines of the “fever swamp” trashing us again:
I didn’t get quoted this time, though. Hurts my feefees. : (
Mnemosyne
@NobodySpecial:
Why are you insisting that we only have four years when it took seven years to get from the 1957 civil rights bill to the 1964 one? It’s not like Kennedy’s election was a foreordained conclusion, nor was his assassination that put Johnson in a position to push legislation through. A whole lot can happen in four years, or seven years.
WyldPirate
@Mnemosyne:
And I hate to tell you that if you are making that sort of coin and you have to shell out ~$2700 capped premiums for a family of four than you can pull what you don’t have from out of your cakehole either.
NobodySpecial
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s not happening now because they’re about to end the session and go campaign. Plus there’s no push for it from the White House, and what grassroots there is…well, let’s just say they don’t care much about any grassroots push in the current Congress that ain’t astroturf.
Ailuridae
@NobodySpecial:
However, what I’m saying right now is that HCR has a big problem in it that probably will not get fixed, that will hurt people of lower incomes than average who earn more than the 133% cutoff for Medicare. That’s more than enough complaint for the folks who are sick of defending HCR to throw me in the Pony Express, evidently.
If you can’t afford it, apply for your waiver and that’s the end of it. I don’t see how that makes anyone worse off. And merely because you can’t pay with your unique set of circumstances doesn’t mean that someone else at the same income level couldn’t with the benefit of subsidies. I know this because I’ve paid more for insurance at various points of my life when my income was below 400% of poverty than the relevant premium caps would be. And, yes, that was with student loans etc etc.
You seem to be making some claim to a universal from your particular set of circumstances. Instead of you being one of the 30M uninsured who benefit from this bill you are one of the 10M who don’t. But the fact that this bill doesn’t help those 10M doesn’t make it a good reason to not help those 30M.
NobodySpecial
@Mnemosyne: In four years, I have to sign up for a plan, that’s why four years is the cutoff. If I don’t have the money then to pay for the premiums, then it doesn’t matter how good HCR is or isn’t, because a person who has to take a financial exemption from it won’t see any of the benefits of it. And as I said, I’m far from a solitary case.
NobodySpecial
@Ailuridae: No, but it doesn’t make a good reason to argue that those 10M should just shut up about it, either. Which is what you seem to be saying.
suzanne
@Roger Moore:
I’m not advocating giving up pushing for more. I’m advocating giving up bitching about getting the best we could at the time. There’s a difference between, “Okay, one hurdle crossed, fifteen more to go, LET’S DO IT!” and “We only crossed one hurdle?! GOD! What kind of loser are you?!”.
NobodySpecial
Meh, I’m gonna take Aluridae’s advice now.
Ailuridae
@WyldPirate:
I know at least three families where the parents pay for insurance and the kids vary between being uninsured or on SChIP.. All of them make under 45K a year and their combined premiums for the parents is north of 400/month (5000K a year). And frankly the parents’ current insurance kind of stinks. So under the PPACA they would each save 2K+, the children’s SChIP eligibility wouldn’t vary year to year and the parents at least would have much better insurance.
So there aren’t any people who benefit from these kind of plans except all the people who would benefit.
Ailuridae
@NobodySpecial:
If their claim is that the reason the bill sucks is because they can’t afford insurance with the subsidies but they would if the PO were included than maybe they should reconsider speaking out.
Again, as long as you have been making the claim that its simply inconceivable for you to come up with 1500 for insurance because of your financial situation we have all indulged the claim. But you seem to want to claim that its inconceivable for anyone at your income level to come up with that kind of cash in a thread where it was revealed that McDonald’s has 30K non salaried employees paying anywhere from 800 to 1600 per annum for “insurance”.
Ailuridae
@NobodySpecial:
That’s not the claim you made. You made you and many like you would be worse off. Presumably you don’t have insurance now so if you don’t have insurance then its tough to see how this bill make you worse off.
FlipYrWhig
@NobodySpecial: This is a very strange theory of social change, though. The people want it, so it’s stupid for the Obama administration not to fight for it, but if they don’t fight for it, everyone’s just going to roll over and say “meh.” Seems contradictory.
Mnemosyne
@WyldPirate:
A family of four that makes $45,000 a year would qualify for the new, expanded Medicaid benefits.
NobodySpecial
@Ailuridae: I came back because you seem to miss my point. It’s not that everyone like me will have problems. It’s that there’s a lot of people like me who will have problems. That’s what I said, not that it’s ‘inconceivable’ that some people will be better off.
Yes, you can get away with paying a lot of money on healthcare if you can minimize other expenses. It’s a lot easier in a place where you don’t need your own transportation, for example. But as we’ve all noted, the folks at the lower end of the money chain don’t have a lot of slack, and that’s even assuming they have no problems at all.
Lastly, ‘worse off’ is a relative term – in that in a country where supposedly everyone is supposed to have health insurance, you don’t have any, therefore you’re worse off than most. That’s the reality for anyone who gets an exemption for financial reasons – and one where your message “Apply for a waiver and be done with it” sounds a lot like “Let them eat cake”.
IronyAbounds
@The Other Chuck:
Senate seats lost:
ND, Arkansas, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada (only Harry Reid could lose to that loon), Illinois and West Virginia.
House seats lost is just a rough guess, but the problem is the jobs reports is going to suck on Friday, there will be no real good news on the economy before Nov., and in that environment undecideds will break decisively to the challengers and against the incumbents. It also doesn’t help that the people hurting most are the middle class and below, which might otherwise go heavily Dem. They may not jump to Republicans, but the may just throw up their hands and not vote.
I hope to hell I’m as wrong as can be. With the nutjobs that will likely be in Congress next year this country’s slide will pick up enormous steam.
Ailuridae
@Mnemosyne:
Here’s the table everyone.
Medicaid cut off for family of Four is $29,547. Medicaid cut off for individuals is $14,512
NobodySpecial
@FlipYrWhig: Eventually people get tired of fighting. Especially when it comes down to people in your own party actively blocking progress, and getting cover from everyone else at the same time.
Mnemosyne
@Ailuridae:
D’oh! Well, I feel like a dope now.
ETA: Though I would like to point out that the $2700 is the maximum that can be charged, not the minimum.
Ailuridae
@NobodySpecial: \
I came back because you seem to miss my point. It’s not that everyone like me will have problems. It’s that there’s a lot of people like me who will have problems. That’s what I said, not that it’s ‘inconceivable’ that some people will be better off.
No, No, No. I will quote the exact same passage I objected to again:
However, what I’m saying right now is that HCR has a big problem in it that probably will not get fixed, that will hurt people of lower incomes than average who earn more than the 133% cutoff for Medicare. That’s more than enough complaint for the folks who are sick of defending HCR to throw me in the Pony Express, evidently.
First, if you meant to suggest some people would be hurt you should probably hurt the qualifier. That’s an exceptionally strange way to use that phrasing. If I write that GOP policies “hurt the working poor” everyone understands that to mean that to mean that it hurts more of the working poor than it helps. In this case you use that phrasing to suggest that a bill that insures 3 out of 4 of the uninsured hurts the working poor without evidence besides your individual case/
Even in your case how does it possibly hurt you to have an insufficient subsidy to buy health care when the alternative is no subsidy to buy health care? It doesn’t cause you harm but not passing the bill certainly does harm the 30M the bill actually helped.
Ailuridae
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, I was the one who quoted that earlier (and correctly). The claim that most, many or nearly all families of four can’t pay 2700$ in health insurance in a year if they make $44K is almost surely something that has been completely unexamined by those who offered it. That differs from say, the CBO, who actually looked at the numbers. I know a whole lot of individuals and families that already pay for insurance who are thrilled to be getting their insurance at the rates listed in that table
But, again, the larger issue is that the public option would have done nothing to decrease the cost of health care for individual or family consumers when purchasing their care. That’s a canard. But, yes, it would have made significant cuts in the overall cost of health care for the country and the medical inflation rate.
J sub D
Those aren’t warts, they’re malignant tumors.
aimai
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Dreyfus was guilty!!! –Z.
aimai
joe from Lowell
@WyldPirate:
No, it won’t.
That’s the long-term goal. There are short-term goals that are good in and of themselves, as well as stepping stones to that goal, between here and there.
joe from Lowell
@Ailuridae:
Second. “Nobody Special” is using the term “hurt” to mean “not help as much as it could” or “fail to help.”
How is somebody who couldn’t afford health insurance before, who can’t afford it now, but who gets a waiver, being “hurt?” Setting aside the community health clinics.
BC
One thing about the individual mandate: if the courts deem it unconstitutional, then the push will be for a “Medicare for all” plan of some sort. There is no doubt that US govt can provide Medicare and tax everyone for funding it. So, the conservative AGs may be doing the country a favor and speeding up Medicare for all.
Nick
@NobodySpecial:
Unless you’re a Republican.
Jeez, suck it up people. what fucking whimps
Ailuridae
@joe from Lowell:
Yeah, in the sense that hurt means “unaffected” NobodySpecial’s usage is fine. But that isn’t what hurt means at all.
E.D. Kain
@StevenDS: Yes, absolutely.
mvr
David Leonhardt and at least one other Times business reporter (whose name slips my mind at the moment — Carl Hulse maybe?) really are reporting the Hell out of economic news. They actually look into the facts and then put them together in such a way as to help you figure out what they add up to. I’m hoping this earns them the readership they well deserve.
Triassic Sands
I supported Obama’s health care reform, not because I thought it would solve our problems, but because I figured it was another failure that we must endure before either giving up (in this country a distinct possibility) or moving to a universal, single-payer system in which for-profit, private insurance companies have NO role to play.
Of course insurers are going to raise prices and cut coverage, they have a vested interest in reform failing — because they can’t imagine a world in which the US isn’t fully committed to private wealth over public service. It shouldn’t be surprising if all the major health care players do their best to sabotage the Obamaplan, which was ill-conceived from the start and weakened further during negotiations.
The United States is currently in full-fail mode. We’re failing to seriously address any of the critical problems we face and with an utter lack of leadership among our elected officials, and a population characterized mainly by people who are still holding out for the free lunch the future looks bleak indeed.