Now that ACA is a done deal in regards to the mandate, now Republicans are cooking up another mess:
Critics of the new health care law, having lost one battle in the Supreme Court, are mounting a challenge to President Obama’s interpretation of another important provision, under which the federal government will subsidize health insurance for millions of low- and middle-income people.
Starting in 2014, the law requires most Americans to have health insurance. It also offers subsidies to help people pay for insurance bought through markets known as insurance exchanges.
At issue is whether the subsidies will be available in exchanges set up and run by the federal government in states that fail or refuse to establish their own exchanges.
Critics say the law allows subsidies only for people who obtain coverage through state-run exchanges. The White House says the law can be read to allow subsidies for people who get coverage in federal exchanges as well.
The law says that “each state shall” establish an exchange. But Washington could be running the exchanges in one-third to half of states, where local officials have been moving slowly or openly resisting the idea.
See what they are doing? Degenerate sociopaths like Scott Walker, Rick Scott, Rick Perry, and Bobby Jindal are all screwing their own citizens by refusing to set up exchanges, and then, their Republican allies in the House and Senate are going to try to make it impossible for federal subsidies to be allowed. I’m sure at this very minute Randy Barnett is hatching up a legal theory that will make Antonin Scalia moist in the loins.
The Republican health care plan is clear- repeal the ACA, end Medicare and Medicaid, and basically just tell the American people to piss off and die. If that can’t be accomplished, then the fallback option is to just make everything the Democrats try to do so difficult that it is near impossible, all while lying to the American people and then, when things are a disaster because of their intransigence, gleefully cackling- “SEE, GOVERNMENT CAN’T DO ANYTHING RIGHT!” The media will pay no attention, Pete Suderman and all the other bought whores in wingnut welfare publications will amplify the message, and David Brooks and Charles Lane will write 400 more columns about how Republicans and Democrats need to come together with a market based solution.
David Koch
no difference btwn Bush and Gore.
JPL
John you need to stay away from the NY Times for awhile.
John Weiss
Hold her head Earl I think she’s trying to buck!
Make yourself a nice drink, sit down and pet a doggie. I’m taking a vacation from politics myself and I find that it’s refreshing.
cathyx
Sorry to sound callous, but I hope that means more money for those states that want it.
Phil Perspective
And just on time .. guess who the Old Grey Lady gave Sunday op-ed space to? Why, Arthur Brooks, of course. He claims Cons are happier than liberals. Haha!! Figures coming from the soul-less AEI ghoul.
Elmo
Okay, but why?
I know the tag says “sociopaths,” and its fun and cathartic to pretend that these people really are Jeffrey Dahmer with a more sophisticated palate, but they’re not. They really do think that this is somehow better. WHY? Why do they work so hard to make sure poor people can’t get health insurance? What’s the upside for them?
I just really dongeddit.
Southern Beale
I am optimistic that Obama will get a second term in the White House with huge majorities in the house and senate so shit like this won’t happen.
Make it so!
General Stuck
I may be weird, but this is the sort of politics I like. Straight forward ideological cage match on the big issues of the day. The wingnuts hate HCR and want to kill it, our side can put away childish things like compromising when the only compromise the nutters will accept is complete surrender and do want we want. It is raw political warfare of the two great parties and not this sick thing of the GOP fringe putting up personal BS on Obama and the like.
And yeh, yeh, I know, Obama likes the bipartisan and he doesn’t fight fight fight. Bullshit. A functioning democracy where the other side in the minority agrees to let a dem majority govern, is how it is supposed to work. But we don’t have that, and the moral high ground in any war, is just as important as the physical high ground. And trying to work with the republicans is holding the moral high ground.
And since we haven’t started shooting each other yet, with one or two exceptions, the moral high ground is the watchword for the state of play. And anyone who thinks Obama has surrendered one single thing without getting something in return, all I say is that either the defense budget is about to be cut, or it’s used as leverage by O to get something in return. And cutting medicare providers is a tough but necessary measure if we want to reign in health care costs in this country.
There is no mercy for the republicans coming out of the Obama camp these days. Only squeals of republicans and a few democrats at Chicago Ball being played on their happy asses, and all they can do is go wimpering to the WAPO, or whoever, to make it stop. It won’t.
Now for the rest of the dem party. WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU PREPARED TO DO!!
It’s the first world war babies causing all this trouble. Tally Ho!!
Davis X. Machina
@Elmo: Health insurance is in part a positional good — my coverage is good because I have it, and you don’t, not because mine is very good per se. This works with education, retirement, and a number of other sorts of social provision.
GregB
Do Republicans have an endgame for the day that the render our democracy totally incapable of functioning?
Besides duck and cover behind the gated walls?
Gin & Tonic
@Elmo: Because if the poors get something, that means less for me. Simple.
jl
@General Stuck:
I read poll saying most population wants pols to accept SCOTUS decision and move on. GOP may have deluded themselves into thinking otherwise.
Just have to hold down fort until mass of pople notice the new benefits (that they won’t want to surrender).
the Buhjaysus
The Children of Jeff Davis need a new fucking hobby, besides wreaking havoc.
Violet
So when this refusing the Medicaid money thing came up, I heard that hospitals in these Republican run states are going to raise a big fuss because they want that money. Anyone know more about that?
Narcissus
@GregB: I think most of them are betting on the second coming
satanicpanic
@jl: And then continue to hold it down while “centrists” try to end it through the backdoor by whining about deficits.
General Stuck
@jl:
My take on the nutters, is that they are but a dogs breath away from saying fuck it, and bring the whole thing down. And they can use their minority rights to do that, and stop the country from functioning, dead in its tracks. if they choose.
I hope it doesn’t come to that, but am hardly certain it won’t. If Obama wins, all hell gonna break loose in the organized rebellion at the red state government level . We’re in the pre game warmups right now. And who knows how the rest of the country, or the white population majority is going to react to that.
Jay in Oregon
Why would anyone would trust people who, when asked “Why do you want to work here?” replied with “Because I think you are a corrupt, inefficient bureaucracy that steals from hardworking citizens and gives to lazy, stupid criminals, and if you give me the job I will do my damnedest to make sure that you don’t get ONE. SINGLE. THING. done.”
And then proceeded to do just that, while running up the company credit card and selling the office computers and potted plants to their friends.
Jerzy Russian
It looks like I picked the wrong week to stop smoking, drinking, sniffing glue, etc.
Triassic Sands
It’s one thing to have an economic view of the world that causes you to want to minimize the power of the federal government. I don’t happen to agree with the Milton Friedman/John Galt school of economics, but it’s not surprising such people exist.
What is wholly different is to have an economic view of the world that not only allows you to accept the deaths of people for lack of health insurance, but to cheer for such an unnecessary and barbaric outcome — to believe that it is the correct path for a modern, advanced economy to follow.
And finally, what is absurd, is the idea that Democrats, liberals, progressives, or lefties, whatever name you choose, should even consider compromising with such people. Negotiating with terrorists is widely regarded as a bad idea; negotiating with Republicans is equally bad, not just because their policies are inhumane, but also because Republicans are insane and believe that true compromise is when their political opponents adopt Republican policies without exception.
There is no place in a decent society for the Modern Republican Party.
MazeDancer
If the Federal Government is running exchanges in 1/3 to half of the states, plus covering those with pre-existing conditions, well, isn’t that even closer to single payer? Yes, the exchanges go to private companies. Allegedly. But if the private companies will only cover healthy rich people, how is all this going to work without, eventually, the US joining the rest of the free world in handling health care?
Baby Boomers gonna all be on Medicare. Big numbers of people in Red States going to be getting Federal aid. People will get used to having the Gov take care of health.
Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God
GOP == Party of Treason.
Push it. Because it’s true.
If a foreign power interfered with our economy and physical health to the extent that the GOP has over the past few years, we would bomb them.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
What you just said, twice, with sprinkles, and cherries on top. They are domestic terrorists pure and simple, willing to do anything and everything to get the NI*CLANG out of the Whitehouse, they are willing to shoot the hostage and put a gun to the five year old’s head to get their way. It is about time the media started calling them on it.
Republicans. Willing to keep millions out of work to make sure one man loses his job.
Jay in Oregon
@GregB:
I think the idea is neofeudalism—the Gilded Age v2.0.
The Federal government and state governments will exist only to rubber stamp the decisions being made by “the jaaaaahb creators.” Anyone not in the 1% will work for whatever our Galtian overlords deem we are worthy to get, and fight with each other over the scraps they toss down to us.
You heard it with Romney’s comment about how Americans deserve all of the education and health care they can “afford.” We aren’t fellow citizens to him; we are the hired help and, if we’re lucky, customers.
General Stuck
@MazeDancer:
What it is closer to, is the thing wingnuts say they fear and loathe the most. GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE. They are in such a tunnel vision mentality, all they know to do is react react react , to what dems and Obama do. Barely looking past the end of their own noses. And the more the government takes on for providing insurance itself, even under a private model, the more people see that government can do the health care thing pretty well, and further advance the idea we all have around here, that government running health care, at least the insurance part, is the ONLY way for it to be done for the benefit of the public, and not shareholders in some for profit corps./
Jebediah
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
Yes! This times eleventy billion.
We would bomb foreigners for a hell of a lot less. If they get their way and push more and more Americans into misery, they may find that a few might snap. A few of those might even have figured out that the GOP is their real enemy, not simply the monolithic “gubmint.” Given how they squeal over hurt fee-fee’s, I’d hate to see their reaction to actual violence aimed at THEM. Of course, it was aimed at the GOP, they and the media would drop the “lone nut” stuff faster than a heartbeat.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Jay in Oregon:
Weird but this reminds me of a “Robin of Sherwood” episode where the rotten meat from the Lord’s kitchen was sold to a butcher in town by the Lord’s guards. The butcher then sort of dyed it red to make it look fresh and he sold it to the plebs, who of course then promptly died from eating rotten meat. It was seemed to be a win win for the Lord, the guards and the butcher. Robin (played by Michael Praed *swoon*) stopped it. Methinks we need a new Robin Hood.
Anne Laurie
@Davis X. Machina:
Tragically true. Someone I’ve known for many years, an actual rocket scientist and Christian who generally attempts to live by it tenets, complains that the real problem with the ACA is that she has to wait longer for a doctor’s appointment now that so many ‘undeserving’ Massachusans are covered.
Also, her kid, after much research & a couple cross-country campus tours, chose a very reasonably-priced yet highly-rated college to study for a sensible hard-science major. So he wouldn’t graduate with much debt even if his parents hadn’t had the forethought to start putting away a portion of their hard-earned, well-paid salaries even before he was born. When I pointed out that a five-year-old just over the border in NH might not be quite so fortunate, she actually waved her hand and said, “Those people (parents) made their choice”.
And so she “won” the argument — because that’s when my mind broke. Th’ fuck can you say, after that?
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: We do need a new Robin Hood. I wonder if someone could come up with that sort of concept. If Obama is all about soshulism, then Obama must be Robin Hood and RH is a hero, right? Hmm…
scav
@Anne Laurie: Agree that it’s a real tragedy that allowing all those people to eat causes lines in supermarkets.
Caz
Degenerate sociopaths? Because they disagree with you, and they agree with MOST Americans who also think Obamacare is a bad law, they are degenerate sociopaths.
Is that different than the vile scumbags you wrote about in one your last posts?
I wonder how unhappy you must be in life to spend your free time coming up with the most insulting names for people with different views than you.
You’d probably call your mom a whore wingnut scumbag if she disagreed with you on a political issue.
Try writing with some class and actual intelligent analysis once in a while and you might actually attract readers outside the useful idiot echo chamber. I mean, when you and all the rest of BJtard Nation are all brainwashed the same way, it’s hard to get a frame of reference on issues, because no one with different views can stand it here with all the insults, arrogance, mockery, and total lack of couth.
How proud you must be of what BJ has become. I really get a kick out of your posts where you bitch about conservatives who go out of line and use some foul words to describe liberals, like you’re all sophisticated and learned. Stay classy, jerk!
jl
@General Stuck:
I trust the majority of the whites not like a blow up, or be friendly an organized GOP state administrative government rebellion.
But IIRC, you live up in some ‘compound’ at the top of a impregnable windswept mesa in the SW. So, calm down Stuck, we will weaken up up before they get your vicinity.
Violet
@Anne Laurie: Did you ask her who does and doesn’t deserve to be able to visit the doctor at a reasonable rate? Why are they undeserving? What’s her criteria? And then, since she’s such a good Christian, ask her who Jesus would deny medical treatment. No, really. Since all those undeserving folks are making her wait, who would Jesus tell they had to get out of the way to make room for her?
What does she even mean by “those people made their choice?” You were comparing her 17 year old kid to a five year old. Did she mean they shouldn’t have had kids because in twelve years they couldn’t afford to go to college? Or they chose to live in NH? And what does that have to do with college?
Peter
My take on it is that once they’re not jockeying for electoral position anymore, most if not all of these douchebag governors are going to buckle and set up an exchange. I really can’t see this as anything other than grandstanding, because of they go through with it they’re ceding power to the Feds.
Raven
@Caz: How bout go fuck yourself you scumbag motherfucking punk.
scav
@Caz: Well, given that you apparently think killing other people so that one doesn’t have to wait in line is merely a minor quibble of detail and an equally moral position to take, than yes, we must seem like mean people to your absolute moral perfection. Color me blinded by your holy light.
rikyrah
@Judas Escargot, Acerbic Prophet of the Mighty Potato God:
GOP == Party of Treason.
Push it. Because it’s true.
SAY IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN
becca
I read about the “goofy” GOP and then I read about the next bankapocalyspe and it puts everything into perspective.
Violet
@rikyrah: I agree. Anyone on the Twitterverse? Maybe #GOPartyofTreason?
Peter
@Peter: Oh also, much like the stimulus, although they caterwaul about it and swear they’re not taking that money, in the end they’ll quietly take it, and then have the gall to take credit for any benefit that comes of it. Just how these pricks roll.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Caz:
Get your facts right, the majority of Americans believe that Obamacare is a bad law because it does not go far enough. Funny how you can pick and choose your poll results isn’t it. The majority of Americans want Obamacare to go further, they WANT single payer. Please parse your Limbaugh talking points with a grain of truth.
GxB
@Davis X. Machina: Salary – don’t forget salary. Insurance is a closely related proxy. Rule #1 in the Big Book of Pug is Every Human’s worth is in Direct Proportion to Their Salary. If you’re poor it’s cuz you’re not worth anything (and/or lazy/stupid/disabled – and without the fire in your belly to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.)
I’m really not a man of the world, but I have seen this attitude exhibited time and again in different parts of the country, consistently equating money to worth. It drives their pathology without fail.
JenJen
I sure do love me some shrill John Cole.
jl
@Caz:
I see that phrase hit a nerver there.
Follow the link at the end of the article through and see what a an egghead joint this blog is.
@Litlebritdifrnt: Majority believe law is OK or does not go ‘far enough’. Only a minority want to scrap whole effort Hope Caz checks it ou.
Caz
@General Stuck: Bring the whole country to a stand-still?? LOL. That’s the problem with you liberals – you think that if the gov’t stops operating or ceases to control every aspect of society, somehow the country won’t be able to function without the gov’t involved and up and running on everything. If the gov’t totally shut down, I mean every aspect of the federal gov’t ceased functioning, it would affect a ton of people who depend on handouts (which itself is a separate problem that needs to be addressed), but the country wouldn’t basically even skip a beat. It’s the people, American citizens, that make this country work, not the federal gov’t. All the fed. gov’t does is screw things up and make everyone’e life harder…except for the growing masses of people the gov’t controls via handouts. When the gov’t shut down back in the Newt era, the liberals cried that the country would practically collapse, and things went on as normal without any change at all, lol. The fed. gov’t is basically just in the way, slowing things down, creating inefficiencies, adding corruption, increasing costs, taking our money, strangling the economy, etc.
I only hope that the gov’t ceases to operate for a length of time – then we’d all get a break from them messing with everything.
You don’t think we can live without the gov’t, lol. It would be funny if there weren’t so many idiots like you that think this way and keep voting for the corrupt anti-American bastards that want to fundamentally transform the greatest nation on earth. Why would you want to fundamentally transform what was working before the gov’t got involved more and more and more every day over the last 200 years.
The Dangerman
If there’s one thing that makes the Teahadists heads explode more than the ACA, it’s high speed rail…
…and CA and Obama (as it’s partially federally funded) just shoved HSR down their throats yesterday.
ChrisNYC
Yes on sociopaths. But it’s really a sign of how terrified they are of this bill. Effective fed reg of healthcare. A huge win for Dems. A repeat of SS and Medicare. That’s what they — rightly! — are so scared about.
It works in Mass. It’ll work nationally.
Yeah, yeah, the media will not help. But they didn’t help in the run up to passage, they didn’t help during the court battle and the GOP has dropped back and back and back. Lost every time. Even with the Kochs and the teapartiers. (ha! remember the Tea Party? What a fearsome force THEY were.) At this point, I’d bet on the ACA being implemented. The GOP idiots will waste time and try to wring another election cycle out of it but the end for them on this is nigh.
Fax Paladin
@Caz:
*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*
Oh, BTW? Take it from someone who lives in Texas: Rick Perry is quite definitely a sociopath.
amk
@JPL: Agreed. Stop fucking freaking out over every shining object dangled by the msm.
Tripod
GOP heavy state leges meets Presidential year electorate. They’re gonna lose seats and chambers. If they want that narrative to be about ObamaCare, we can do that.
NobodySpecial
@Caz:
Yes, you’re a troll, but I’m going to ask anyways, knowing I’ll never get a straight answer from you.
Why do you consider it desireable to have common Americans be unable to go to the doctor?
amk
@ChrisNYC:
This
Litlebritdifrnt
@jl: Oh yeah the Federal Government is just “in the way” with all those fancy useless roads and shit, with that fancy stupid post office and shit, with that fancy, useless DEFENSE DEPARTMENT and shit. Yeah the federal government is just useless. As are your opinions.
jl
@The Dangerman:
Hurrah!
But, ‘shoved it down their throats’? You know something about CA politics I don’t?
Some Bay Area legislators were trying to get a few more bennies out of the project for their districts was what I heard.
Anyway, it passed. CA public is getting cold feet because cost estimates rising. But that is to be expected. And most increases are due accommodating to NIMBY (or maybe justifiable, I’m not sure how much of which) demands for local amenities and changes, primarily in SF Peninsula.
Jebediah
@NobodySpecial:
He’s refused to answer that question before. Unlikely he’ll answer it now.
jl
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I agree with you. Maybe you hit wrong reply button?
I was just accuratizing your poll quote: Majority of US pop either supports healthcare reform, or wants it to go further. Which is good news, in my opinion.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Caz: Loser says what?
Enjoy November; even drunk-ass Boehner admitted today your side’s going to get beaten like a crack whore who didn’t make her nightly take.
sagesource
@Caz: “It’s the people, American citizens, that make this country work, not the federal gov’t.”
First time I ever heard that the Federal Government was staffed by Martians. Or Kenyans. Whatever.
If you think a country with no functioning federal government would be paradise, why don’t you move to Somalia?
Litlebritdifrnt
@jl: oops my righteous rant was supposed to be directed at Caz, not you. No idea how that happened :)
Raven
@Caz: You can’t really be that stupid can you?
Cap'n Magic
I’m surprised no one in the GOP Congressional leadership has filed for articles of impeachment against Roberts for his blatant disregard for failing to uphold the Constitution.
Jebediah
@Caz:
You’re a shitty troll, you whore wingnut scumbag. So wordy, and all you do is give normal people a laugh.
Ronzoni Rigatoni
@Raven: Now, now, Raven. In a true spirit of compromise, how ’bout instead of “Go fuck yourselves, ” we offer “Go fuck each other?” Now, isn’t that nicer?
Cap'n Magic
@sagesource: Simple-‘cuz they’re nothing but mental masturbators for their paymasters-after all, if they did go down that road and turn Somalia into their Liberterian Utopia, who’d pay for their currently company-sponsored healthcare?
soonergrunt
So it’s a day that ends in ‘y’.
InternetDragons
Another thing that sucks about this (I work in public health at the statewide level) is that for many states, our budgets have been so decimated that part of the decision around letting the feds run the exchanges was to try to ease the pressure on our own state resources a bit…because public health services have been gutted in ways I can hardly stand to write about.
Now we can’t even consider that if we want to try to preserve the exchanges.
Republicans are fucking sociopaths. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t understand how anyone with any vestigial level of conscience can retain that party identity. The disease of that party needs to be gone, and hopefully some sort of sane alternative can grow in its place.
Raven
@Ronzoni Rigatoni: That sissy punk isn’t fuckin anything but it’s keyboard. Cut the head of snakes like that.
Cap'n Magic
@Caz: I’d shred you into tiny little cazburgers, but after reading your rant, I got better things to do than to deal with your rectal-to-cranial insertion issue-that’s best left to medicine. Then again, that probably explains why your excrement excites you-no thought whatsover, just your so-called processed wisdom.
amk
What was the previous avatar of caz here ? cole should learn something about IP address block.
Litlebritdifrnt
@InternetDragons:
Yup. They are fucking sociopaths. They would take down the entire country so long as they got the N*CLANG out of the Whitehouse. They do not care what it takes.
piratedan
OT and yet not….
now.msn.com/money/0706-CEO-fired-44-million.aspx
and this is perfectly okay….. you climb to the top, leave all morals and ethics behind you so that one day, you can do this.
I have no idea why people in what is supposedly the greatest nation on earth continually want to turn us into 1850 Alabama. The only people that get anything or deserve anything are those of us with the right color skin, go to the right churches and live in the right neighborhoods.
WTF ever happened to America, the land of opportunity? A country where with hard work and perseverance, you can change your lot in life for you and your family.
Instead, asshats like Bill Johnson walk away with more money for doing a shitty job as well as setting themselves up for the next two generations unless someone develops a crack habit or a passion for the ponies.
Yutsano
@Cap’n Magic: Too many blahs.
Cap'n Magic
@Yutsano: Yeah-anything that takes a functional synapse to parse is probably asking too much of ’em.
Since the Civil War failed, perhaps we ought to let those states who won’t sign on to ACA to have their citizens vote on statewide amendments for ITS CITIZENS to decide if they want ACA or not-kinda like they have done with gay marriage.
Forum Transmitted Disease
All my fucking life, dude, just glad to see that everyone else is starting to figure it out as well.
DonkeyKong
Can we call the Republican health plan Soylant Green or is that too shrill?
Here’s footage of an anti-sharia law riot being handled by Koch Industries Police,Fire and Sanitation Services in 2014 somewhere south of Kentucky.
youtube.com/watch?v=-wa4U6TQlNI
GxB
@Caz:
Tell that to the thousands of folks, rich and poor, across the country that are watching their fucking homes go up in flames. Yes, let’s have the free market correct that along with the climate change that ultimately makes it worse… asshole.
Funny thing is I’d honestly like to hear a well reasoned argument from your camp, backed with non think-tank sourced data, or at least not just glibitarian anecdotes. But, of course, the discourse in this country is so far beyond that it’ll never happen. As others have said Somalia is your poster country for freedom, and what a paradise it is.
John Weiss
@Caz: I think that you’re a troll. I don’t feed trolls. I hope there’s room for you and yours under a nice bridge.
Davis X. Machina
There’s a space on the wall where it usually hangs with a little hand-written note from the conservators. Apparently it’s been taken down for conservation and study, but will eventually be re-hung as part of the permanent collection. Eventually.
Davis X. Machina
@GxB: Don’ t hold your breath. You’ll get testimony, not evidence. Gospel, not history. You’re dealing with revealed religion here.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of compassion
@Elmo: I don’t speak for anyone here but myself, but when I use the label “sociopath”, I am not being fun and cathartic. I am being literal, and as someone trained in behavior analysis, I don’t use the term lightly. Sociopathy is defined by the behavior of the individual being described. It isn’t an insult, or an a priori category to which someone doesn’t belong in spite of their behavior. Republican actors have repeatedly demonstrated that they delight in the suffering of others, and will utilize any stratagem, regardless of how amoral, hurtful, or deceptive, to accumulate power. Which part of that description doesn’t strike you as sociopathic?
When the health and survival of others doesn’t matter as long as you get your way, what behavioral category would you belong to? SASQ.
That’s why you “dongeddit.”
Yutsano
@Cap’n Magic: That didn’t work out too well in North Carolina. A lot of good Christian folk down there believe sickness and poverty are punishments from Sky Daddy after all.
Cap'n Magic
@Yutsano: Might be a different result when the state taking away your meds, tho.
Yutsano
@Cap’n Magic: The hospitals will lead that charge. Unpaid liabilities are a huge deal for them, and they want that Medicaid expansion badly. Having everyone on a constant paystream is a goldmine for them.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Caz: Only saw this because I’m on my phone, but thanks for demonsrating that you’re still weak with the troll-fu.
NR
Wait. You mean the law DOESN’T clearly state that people will receive subsidies regardless of how they buy insurance?
Wow. That’s unbelievable. All along, the justification for forcing everyone to buy insurance from private, for-profit corporations is that there would be subsidies to cover the cost. Ignoring the fact that lots of people won’t be able to afford insurance even with the subsidies, now you’re telling me that because of the way the law is written, there’s a chance that millions of Americans won’t even get any subsidies at all?
Why don’t you all tell me how this is even remotely acceptable? Why don’t you tell me how a clusterfuck of these proportions could possibly have made it into the final bill?
Because it sure looks to me like the Democrats, in addition to being corporate whores, are incompetent on top of that.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Raven: Wanna bet?
magurakurin
@Caz:
bubble bubble bubble cough cough
do another bong hit, Caz. We know you’re just a junior in high school trolling blogs for kicks.
Dude, there are these people in the world, called girls. You should find one and talk to her. Pro’lly open up some new doors for you.
Another Bob
And if thwarting the implementation of the exchanges doesn’t work, next they’ll start blockading roads and dynamiting bridges to isolate their citizens from the evil Kenyan and his federal storm troopers. It would just be a more concrete form of sabotage.
Cap'n Magic
@Yutsano: Then maybe It’ll take some of those hospitals in the states refusing to come up with exchanges to start closing their doors on the grounds that the state can’t pay their bills-like what’s probably going to happen to happen in Greece shortly (meds are already not being shipped, won’t be too much longer before staff won’t get paid.) Then when MS, AL and LA become the American Greece of the South they can show how wonderful their Liberterain utopia is for all their citizens-rich AND poor.
Yutsano
@NR: Well since you’re writing in Jill Stein and essentially voting for Willard why do you care?
@Cap’n Magic: This will be more or less the process. But the Republicans will just blame Obama or welfare queens and the rubes will buy it.
Ol Froth
From a legal standpoint “shall” is an absolute. So the states that fail to comply are in violation of the law.
Patricia Kayden
Let’s be clear. If the American people vote in Romneybot 2.0 and flip the Senate to the Repubs, then the ACA will be repealed. If President Obama is re-elected and the Senate stays Dem, I think the ACA will survive, regardless of what Repubs try to do.
My understanding of the ACA is that if Repub governors refuse to implement the exchanges, the federal government will step in and do so. I don’t think it matters how Repubs interpret the ACA. The federal government just needs to do what it has to do.
binzinerator
@Triassic Sands:
Not even when this happens, as we’ve seen with Republican responses to the PPACA.
True compromise is when Obama and every non-bluedog dem in congress and every SCOTUS justice who ever gave an opinion left of the moderate right resigns and hands the reins of power over to Republicans without exception.
Tally
@General Stuck:
You called? ;)
oh, and yes. You nailed it.
priscianusjr
They already jumped one shark too many with the ACA. This is a rear-guard action. It ain’t gonna work.
Cap'n Magic
@magurakurin: First mistake is assuming he’s a male, and second is assuming he’s straight. Since empirically we see a higher percentage of male conservatives being gay…
binzinerator
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Damn. So true. These people are twisted.
And I am so stealing this.
Cap'n Magic
@binzinerator: Making a Bumper Sticker of this as we speak.
SiubhanDuinne
@Raven:
Raven, you come up with the best rhetorical questions!!
jl
Was hoping ‘ol Stuck and Feathers come back so I could pick a fight about something or other.
Yutsano
@Cap’n Magic: Oh good Lord. Don’t make me have to claim this mess too!
jcricket
I have a little kid. He takes a long time to put lego or other creations together. But they’re “fragile” and if you get too close they fall apart really fast. Then he gets super mad, and unfortunately it takes forever to put them back together.
This is what we face. It’d probably only take Republicans 4 years to dismantle Medicare, Medicaid, thwart the ACA, gut the FDA/EPA/FTC/etc (they’re already half way there) along with hosing the tax/revenue system along the way. And then it’d take us another few generations to bring it back, even if we could.
And in the intervening years we’d all be in a lot of pain (all the middle-class white folks who are 50 or 45 and vote for the Ryan Plan are in for a rude effin awakening when they can’t afford voucher-care – sucks if they die in the street, but that’s what they want, right?).
I only hope Dems can hold off the Republicans onslaught for a little longer (re-elect Obama, narrowly hold the Senate) and then demographics start working in our favor in another decade or so. We still won’t be in “great” shape, but perhaps the worst danger will have passed.
Cap'n Magic
@Yutsano: I’ll have a sample next week.
Another Halocene Human
@Cole:
This is a stupid strategy (not that they aren’t going to try it). They’re fucked. It’s one thing when Europe does something–it’s across an ocean and only ee-leets have been there or have ties there. Canada exerts a little pressure, but hey, it’s not a real country anyway. It’s not like Americans easily move from state to province. Canada has laws against hiring foreigners before Canadians (so does the US… but our companies just ignore that shit). But Americans can and do move from state to state. And as people start moving from a state with health insurance to a state without, or refuse that job offer because their spouse/elderly parent/disabled kid isn’t going to have the same access to care and quality of care? Whoa, businesses are going to get involved.
This just expose a giant weakness in this law, which is that it allows us to have even more disparity between the crazy and non-crazy states. What sucks is that the crazy feeds on itself. At best, the federal government can raise the level and improve the lives for people in states where the government of that state is cruel, indifferent, and incapable. But when too much is left to states we get this shit. I mean, look what happened with the high speed rail money.
The feds need to find a way to do stuff like they did in the 1930’s, pull shit like building Negro hospitals that the locals can’t do shit about (until, of course, the Feds inevitably left town… good job, feds). There are GSA buildings in every state… why not use them for something useful for once?
Remember community development block grants? End run around state government, get aid straight to neighborhoods. Also, find a way to get aid straight to certain rural areas. And make damn sure everyone knows who the fuck did it.
catpal
@Violet: #14
I found this and think it will influence crappy Repugs in PA.
It will be an interesting fight between the Repug Gov and the $ 4 Billion Hospital system.
Another Halocene Human
@Anne Laurie:
Not sure I follow. I thought people moved to NH and did the hellish, air-polluting, carbon-scorching commute to their jobs in MA so they could pay less in taxes. Now their educational system is collapsing due to lack of … tax revenue.
Fuck them.
Lurker
@Anne Laurie:
Ever since I read this page from Donna Barr’s THE DESERT PEACH, I can’t not help notice the term “those people.” It’s everywhere.
Cain
Be advised that if the republicans gut everything they will eventually have to answer for all the deaths caused by malfeasance of companies. After all, these same folks who are affected have to talk to somebody. I can’t imagine these privleged white folks are not going to talk to theirs senator/representative and not complain when meat/vegetables or drugs start killing people because they weren’t adequately tested.
Even better, the amount of hurt lawsuits can bring will be capped so these companies won’t care. Free market bitches. Eventually republicans themselves will have to veer right in order to keep their positions. That will be delicious.
NR
@Yutsano: Because millions of people are going to get even more fucked over than previously thought. Not only will they be forced to buy worthless junk insurance, but it’s going to be even less affordable than the Democrats promised thanks to their incompetence.
And it’s impossible to “essentially” vote for anyone, so fuck off.
kdaug
@Caz:
Why do hate our military?
scav
@kdaug: She counts on the kindness of bankers not to rob us blind and the mercy of megacorps not to poison us in the name of her Holy Profit.
ETA: The Magic of the Free Market scares the once-ever-so-frightening terrorists away too.
Cap'n Magic
@NR:
Perot in 1992, and Florida 2000 disagree. At least the ACA is a stake in the ground that can be moved twords single payer-unless you are of the opinion that not having ACA is better than nothing at all.
Yutsano
@NR: You keep showing not only your ignorance of the health care law (which has a minimum standard for care decided by HHS) but also zero understanding of how politics works.
You don’t have anywhere near the capability to do this. So stop flattering yourself.
Triassic Sands
@binzinerator:
True compromise = unconditional surrender.
Makes sense.
Rome Again
“See what they are doing?” – Uh, yeah… I figured this out DAYS ago. Why is this on the front page today?
Rome Again
@General Stuck:
My oldest brother is a WWII baby and he’s in the thick of it.
TenguPhule
The ignorance displayed here is almost beyond comprehension.
Too stupid to live is an understatement.
TenguPhule
Mine is to make sure they’re up against that wall when the shooting starts.
NR
@Cap’n Magic:
The ACA moves us farther from single-payer, not closer to it. It hands a ton more money and power to the private, for-profit insurance companies by forcing everyone in America to give them money. Thanks to the ACA, they’ll have even more resources to fight single-payer if it should ever come up in the future–not that it will so long as the Democrats are the “left” party in America.
NR
@Yutsano: I know a lot more about the ACA than you do. That “minimum standard of care” that you’re touting is insurance with a 60% actuarial value. That’s the very definition of junk insurance.
And as for politics, you don’t get progressive policies by voting for conservatives.
Yutsano
@NR:
Because condescension = winning.
These statements are meaningless. But that was your point.
NR
@Yutsano:
Hardly. In most parts of the country, a 60% actuarial value means that patients are looking at over $10,000 in deductibles and/or out-of-pocket costs for a family policy. Under your beloved ACA, a family is forced to pay thousands of dollars a year in premiums to an insurance company, just for the “privilege” of having to pay another $10,000+ if someone in their family happens to get sick. See for yourself.
That’s what junk insurance is, and it’s what the ACA forces everyone in America to get.
Maybe you should do a little research next time before you start talking about “minimum standards of care.”
Cap'n Magic
@NR: OK, then: How much health-care is paid for by for-profit healthcare reimbursement administrative companies (known colloquially, but inaccurately as “Health Insurance”) vs. non-profits? [citation needed]
Also, don’t forget that many private plans of any significant size tend to not only be self-insured, but also define as to the what will and what will NOT be reimbursed.
Some entities may be more forward looking than others.
So right out of the gate, your strawman argument is going to be seriously twisting into the wind. All one has to do is look at pharmacy formularies and see that the system is already borked to the point that you and/or your doctor don’t DARE ask for a drug that treats a non-FDA approved (off-label) use due to the bureauocracy that gets invoked (especially in the mental health domain, which should be on parity with the physical health domain, but it isn’t-or even worse, in situations like ADD, where the plan refuses to cover the medication in adults.)
You really want to fix the price of healthcare? Explain to the masses why one person pays $400 for an outpatient MRI, while someone else pays $2,400 for the same identical outpatient MRI procedure in the same physical location with the same techs and MD’s reading the result.
Until I have price transparency in medical services, like I do with other services (where there is no ‘insurance’) you can bitch and moan all you want.
Another Halocene Human
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Crack whores have pimps? I thought they were freelancers. I wouldn’t hire someone who was on crack, even if I were beating them (ugh?). And a crack whore doesn’t care about a beating anyway, all a crackhead cares about is crack. Duh.
SFAW
@Cap’n Magic:
Not to pick too many nits, but they weren’t the same situation.
Polling done at the time showed that Perot drew as many would-be Clinton votes as would-be Bush votes.
Nader, on the other hand …
Lurker
@Cap’n Magic:
ACA is why Vermont’s able to implement its single-payer system in 2017.
I don’t think NR cares about facts, though.