Any questions about what Slugline BuzzFeed’s raison d’être is?
Gosh I’m shocked. No sirens while you’re at it Ben? Maybe that’s not in the budget.
President Obama’s enemies often accuse him, in the starkest political terms, of crudely acting to shift resources toward his political base: Green energy donors; single women; Latinos; African-Americans.
But the next 12 months are likely to reveal the opposite. Imminent elements of Obama’s grandest policy move, the health care overhaul known as ObamaCare, are calculated to screw his most passionate supporters and to transfer wealth to his worst enemies.
His worst enemies apparently being “BuzzFeed”, judging by the article.
The passionate supporters are the youth, who voted for him by a margin of 60% to 36%, according to exit poll samples of people 29 and under. His enemies are the elderly: Mitt Romney won 56% of the votes from people 65 and over. And while one of ObamaCare’s earliest provisions was a boon to the young, allowing them to stay on their parents’ insurance through the age of 26, what follows may come as an unpleasant surprise to many of the president’s supporters. The provisions required to make any sort of health insurance plan work — not just ObamaCare, but really any plan of its sort — require healthy young people to pay more in health insurance than they consume in services, while the elderly (saved by Sarah “Death Panels” Palin from any serious attempt to ration expensive and often futile end-of-life care) consume far more than they pay in. There is always a push and pull, however, and this year will be spent laying plans to shift the burden further toward the young.
Holy crap, Ben Smith has discovered ACTUARIAL SCIENCE. Healthy people paying for premiums and not consuming health care pays for sick people who are consuming health care. ALERT THE INTERNETS.
State and federal officials and the health care industry are currently preparing to implement two specific ObamaCare provisions taking effect on January 1, 2014, acting on this politically perverse principle of shifting resources from your supporters to your opponents. The first is the individual mandate, which aims to force the young, childless, and healthy — “Young Invincibles,” as they are said to think of themselves — to buy heath insurance, even if they think (and even perhaps make a rational, if risky, bet) that they don’t need it.
2010 Teabagger town halls are on the phone, Ben. They want their crapass argument back. Seriously man, are you just now figuring out how Obamacare works, bro? Why the individual mandate was kind of key to the program? You can’t possibly be this dense.
The second is a lesser-known policy to limit the practices of charging different premiums to different ages, known as age-rating. Many states currently set a limit on this difference, often mandating that an old person shouldn’t pay a premium more than five times a younger person’s, even if she’s expected to use more than five times as much health care. The ObamaCare provision kicking in next January 1 would reduce that ratio to three-to-one, essentially limiting what the elderly pay in part by forcing young people to carry a larger share of the total cost of national health care.
Once again, this BREAKING NEWS MUST CREDIT SLUGLINE BUZZFEED has been common knowledge to any of the policy wonks that have been involved in this discussion, the list of which apparently never included one Ben Smith. Skip to the end already, son.
So attack Obama on whatever grounds you want, and accuse him if you like of rewarding his friends and punishing his enemies. But that charge, true to some degree of most politicians, may be less true of this one than any other in recent memory. The central question, as Mahar notes, is, “How do we choose between children and their grandparents?” In any normal political calculation, that answer would be clear: You choose the ones who voted for you.
This isn’t even effective firebagging, frankly. It’s high school newspaper level nonsense. In all seriousness, this information has been readily available for years now, and the whole point of doing all this is by invoking th mandate, overall health care costs are pushed downwards based on the other provisions in the law that Slugline BuzzFeed Ben conveniently forgets about. If you’re just now sitting down to the table on ObamaCare, man, all the seats are taken.
Sit your ass down at the kid’s table with the rest of the cat GIF “journalists” and stop talking.
Bulworth
Some weapons grade Derp there. smh
cervantes
He also doesn’t seem to realize that young people will get older, and have parents and grandparents. Apparently young folks are unaware of that.
Redshirt
What does Reddit have to say?
Also, incoming troll in 5, 4, 3…
Cacti
I foresee a comment section with lots of “argle bargle public option”.
priscianusjr
In other news, Chicken Little reports the sky is falling.
MikeJ
@Redshirt:
“Where are the upskirts?”
General Stuck
I wouldn’t go too hard on Mr Smith, as he is just trying to make a living. In his business of clicks for money, there is a virtual cash cow within the bereaved writhing masses of the nutroots. Especially on the topic of health care and entitlements.
Yearning for a great white libtard hope, and to be rid of the black sellout sheriff who does not cow tow to their shrieks, and just doesn’t look like them to boot. In the meantime, in the market place of internet bullshit, who is to deny grifters their grift. American as apple dumbplings
and a pre fuck you to ms knockabout.
burnspbesq
Discovery is not the same as understanding.
PeakVT
essentially limiting what the elderly pay in part by forcing young people to carry a larger share of the total cost of national health care.
Bennie is going to be shocked when he hears about Medicare.
RP
Is this the same guy who used to write for Politico? This is amazingly stupid for a guy who was once a semi-serious political journalist.
Yutsano
Maybe we should explain to him how a single payer system works too. You know, where everyone pays in at the same rate but the risk pool is balanced enough to cover everyone. But everyone has to buy in and ZOMG youngs subsidise olds 2!!
MattF
@cervantes: Which is basically what Yglesias says:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/02/11/obamacare_and_age_ben_smith_says_obama_screwed_his_base_but_he_s_wrong.html
I’d normally spare everyone a link to Slate, but Yglesias also makes the interesting point that Obamacare’s financing is extremely progressive, in the sense that it makes rich people pay for poorer people’s health care. Of course, this couldn’t possibly be what Smith is really upset about, hmm?
burnspbesq
Where I come from, we call that “the triumph of hope over experience.”
scav
Shit. Guardian’s reporting another courtroom shooting in DE, three dead, but only one of those red no further details yet thingy
ETA. NYT / AP has more but I don,t have time to link.
burnspbesq
Going off topic for just a second.
Every time I have to come to Las Vegas, I hate it more than the last time.
General Stuck
And why can’t Politico make hay burning both ends of the candle in a free market.
Now how about that covering your bets. Obama is going to screw his base and attack the republicans at the same time. It is the sign of a great county, when the bullshit flows in every direction, and all things are relative to something.
geg6
Jeebus. This guy just figured out how all insurance has worked since the first time insurance was ever sold?
It’s always amazing to me how stupid the media are about, well, pretty much anything that a normal person understands and experiences. It shouldn’t, I know, but just when I think they can’t be any more stupid, someone like Ben Smith happens along and I’m amazed all over again.
priscianusjr
Update: Henny Penny explains why it is Obama’s fault that the sky is falling.
dmsilev
@General Stuck:
To make those two statements logically consistent, we must assume that Republicans are Obama’s base.
OMG, Obama sold us out!
Tone in DC
The 2nd amendment rides again.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/bloomberg/article/Delaware-Courthouse-Shooting-Results-in-At-Least-4268493.php
NCSteve
When you come from Politico, discovering the existence of policy consequences must be shocking the way going to a U.S. grocery store was shocking to minor Soviet diplomats. An amazing, wonderful, heretofore unimaginable thing so threatening to all the convictions formed by your life as an orthodox hack that fantastic explanations about why it’s bad must be created to defend your very sense of self.
General Stuck
I see Ben is now with politico. minor adjustment to my last comment,
geg6
@burnspbesq:
Well, there’s a topic that both you and I agree on completely and utterly. Shittiest place ever (okay, large sections of the South are shittier, I admit). Thankfully, I am never forced to go there.
BGinCHI
How many dickhead journos are named “Ben Smith”?
There must be like a dozen of them.
Punchy
How, precisely, is this “transfering wealth” to old people? Is it the fact we dont make them eat cat food due to $17,000 ER visit bills what makes them “wealthy”?
Pops will be glad to hear that I’m making him rich by supporting Medicare.
Bobby Thomson
You can’t possibly be that naive.
MikeJ
@BGinCHI: This is the same one that you’re thinking of from Politico. He left and went to BF.
Keith G
I hope we will soon come a time when we can have an intelligent discussion about a thoughtful and humane process to ration medical care using both price and non price factors.
Knockabout
You’ve got balls showing up after I destroyed your credibility yesterday. You and that race based chip on your shoulder are going after another white liberal journalist for not being deferential enough to Obama. You’re using strawman and ad hominem arguments to do it. You haven’t answered a single one of your critics.
You are so fucking done.
Frankensteinbeck
In any moral calculation delivered by a president who cares about doing the right thing first and politics second, you do your damnedest not to choose and try to help absolutely everyone.
We are not all Republicans, Ben.
Robert
I’m one of those many young people without health care. It is not by choice. I currently cannot afford the coverage available to me because of my medical conditions. It’s not that I can’t get a basic insurance plan; I can’t get a basic insurance plan that allows me to check in with a mental health professional to help me control my OCD and anxiety disorders. I don’t respond well to psychiatric medication so having a GP through a Xanax at me makes things worse. My healthcare needs require nothing out of the ordinary except for a trip every few months to a mental health professional who would check up on my symptoms and run me through various techniques to help calm me down.
I’d go monthly if I could afford it but I can’t. It’s either have general health insurance that doesn’t cover what I need beyond the occasional sinus infection or save up my money to visit a doctor who can actually help me in my day to day life. An insurance exchange as implemented by the ACA will help me find an appropriate plan for me. I just need to white knuckle it until the October enrollment period and see if Chris Christie or the federal government will be guiding me to a plan.
In other words, that article is total BS. I’m not without insurance because I don’t want it. I’m without insurance because I can’t afford it. I’m self-employed not by choice but by necessity and have a comfortable life with the exception of no health care. The ACA mandate kicks in when I’m going to be able to shop all the options and find the best program for me. I’m putting more money into savings as a precaution to make sure I can keep up with monthly payments. I doubt what I need will cost anywhere near what the closest approximation costs right now, but you never know.
Yutsano
@Knockabout: And just like clockwork…
But keep up the good fight! You’ll defeat that durn nigra yet, you will!
Cassidy
@Knockabout: You never fail to disappoint.
This isn’t M_C. She had a much more stunted sentence structure when losing her shit and could have pleasant conversations on other topics.
Bobby Thomson
If this troll is DougJ, he needs to dial it back a few notches. Too strong in the stoopid.
Cassidy
@Yutsano: “Only please, Brer Fox, please don’t throw me into the briar patch.”
Frankensteinbeck
@Cassidy:
Doesn’t even resemble MC, other than the personal level of the attack – and that’s common for trolls.
Ash Can
@RP:
I was just thinking the same thing. He really embarrasses himself here.
Cassidy
@Frankensteinbeck: I agree. I think some other people were thinking this was her. Because of the “you’re done” and “I got you” type comments.
Mark S.
Why is it taken for granted that young people don’t want health care? Sometimes young people do this thing called sex and have children and then they really want health care.
RoonieRoo
@Knockabout: Who the heck is this asshole?
Yutsano
@Frankensteinbeck: @RoonieRoo: Knockabout is one of Zandar’s imported trolls. Apparently he has a personal beef with our esteemed front pager due to a promotion they were both up for and Zandar got. Bitterness is a helluva drug.
(Added you Roonie since I think this answers your query as well.)
nemesis
For the life of me, I cant figure out what that clusterfuck BuzzFeed site is trying to be. Its a hot mess of fail.
burnspbesq
@geg6:
Alas, the ABA and Bloomberg have both figured out that it’s less expensive to put on continuing legal education programs in Vegas than in San Francisco or San Diego.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ash Can:
I’ve been detecting a lot of ‘Why aren’t the Democrats in disarray?!’ desperation in the national media these days. That includes online, and includes supposedly liberal sources.
Patricia Kayden
Isn’t it a good thing that the President’s policies benefit all citizens, including those who loudly denigrate every dang thing he does? What’s the problem?
burnspbesq
@Knockabout:
Protip: Cole gave Zandar a set of keys to the joint. He’s here until he decides he’s not, and there isn’t anything you can do about it, so please STFU and GTFO.
Redshirt
@nemesis: It’s essentially an aggregator. Mostly of Reddit.
MattF
@Ash Can: In fact, Smith was always kinda superficial and shaky when called on to say something logical. Apparently leaving Politico was a ‘free at last’ moment for him, but not in a good sense.
Mnemosyne
I suspect this article I came across in the NY Times will make Ben Smith cry:
In Montana, Young, Liberal, and Open to Big Government
Don’t those darn kids know what’s good for them?
Mark S.
@Yutsano:
He’s one lone man taking on Big Nigra.
(I’ll understand if I get banned for that one.)
schrodinger's cat
@Mark S.: Also, young does not mean invincible, one can get into an accident, fall sick. The probability is low but not zero.
Chyron HR
Bazinga! Now that Benny-Boo has dropped this
loadbombshell there’s no way Obama’s getting re-elected in 2016!geg6
@Yutsano:
Seriously? That’s what this asshole’s stupidity and bigotry spewing is all about?
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! What a fucking loser! Doomed to be a stalker troll out of bitterness over a promotion? I can’t think of anything more loser-like.
BGinCHI
@MikeJ: But how can you be sure?
Seems to me like they’re multiplying like tribbles.
Mnemosyne
@Mark S.:
Not to mention that, a lot of times, young people have witnessed other people in their lives experiencing serious accidents or illnesses that make them realize that they are not actually immune from those dangers and should have health insurance just in case.
Why are young people as a class assumed to be idiots?
Mike in NC
While getting ready to go off for a job interview, I made the mistake of turning on MSNBC where the WaPo’s odious Ruth Marcus was bloviating about the failed Obama Administration. Had to resist kicking the TV screen.
Scott S.
@Knockabout: The only credibility you’ve managed to destroy is your own. And you do that every single time you post a comment. So, ya know, keep it up, maybe someday you too will get a promotion. But probably not…
Yutsano
@Mark S.: I’m taking that risk myself, but I’ll accept the punishment. I think for troll mockery the threshold of tolerance is low, although I feel dirty just typing that.
@Mnemosyne: If you really wanna see some confused looks on teatards’ faces, bring up the fact a lot of the old labour movement used to be based in Idaho. It’ll cause a nifty short circuit for a second, plus it’s true.
@geg6: Ahh bitterness. It’s not just for Starbucks coffee anymore.
Maude
@Cassidy:
MC used a variation of her name. She also commented in German. It was her. I don’t remember what thread, but it was within the last 24 hours.
KA is a troll to Zander.
geg6
@Mnemosyne:
Because the people who assume them to be so were actual idiots when they were that age. And aging hasn’t changed that state for them.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Frankensteinbeck:
The currently lowered level of Democratic disarray is a result of their inability to get bills through Congress. That’s preventing them from fighting each other over the spoils.
Cassidy
@Maude: Ahhh, then I completely missed the context. Oops.
geg6
@Maude:
Well, I do have to admit that M_C really is a step up based on the trolls we’ve been getting around here lately. I’d take her over any of the idiots currently crapping all over the site.
Xecky Gilchrist
@MikeJ: What does Reddit have to say?
—
“Where are the upskirts?”
LOL. This is why I call that site Reddflag.
MattF
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Also, you can blame Nancy Pelosi. I suspect that anyone who strays too far from the party line will get an express delivery of a severed body part the next day. In a good way.
RoonieRoo
@Yutsano: Thank you! I just started seeing this creep in the comments and couldn’t figure out why on earth he was targeting Zandar. Now I can ignore him. :)
ricky
Don’t the Obamaphones offset the cost of Obamacare for
the youngsters in our audience?
If not he better hurry up with that free FCC internet stuff
or he’ll lose that base to Firebaggia. Primary his ass they will.
Redshirt
I like Buzzfeed, except the Political section.
Reddit is fun too, on the surface. Just don’t dig too deep.
aimai
@cervantes:
This whole notion that “young people” don’t want to pay for health insurance because they think themselves invincible is such a load of gendered crap. A 20-30 year old woman needs health care in order to gain access to birth control, gynecological services, and obstetrical services. People also get hit by cars, pushed down the stairs, assaulted by criminals and generally injured at work. The story about the “healthy young guy” who refuses health care coverage when its offered to him may be true of some proportion of young guys, I don’t know, but most of the women I knew when I was younger (before I was on my spouse’s medical insurance) quite interested in affordable health insurance and quite well aware of the need for coverage. I also wonder whether the common exclusion of dental and mental health services leads to the illusion that there are lots of people who “choose” not to be covered because they “are so healthy.” Teeth and mental health/addiction services are one area where the young also always need coverage.
Health insurance: the bet we all place, one way or another.
jamick6000
I always find the “transfer wealth from old to young” line of thinking pretty stupid. Young people become old people, so paying more now and getting something later is kind of like “saving.” Not to mention that young people have old family members, etc.
aimai
@Cassidy:
Not enough weird allusions to sci fi, artificial intelligence, demographics, IQ and islam.
Maude
@geg6:
Until she spams the threads and we can’t comment.
We have a bit of icy rain here.
shortstop
@aimai:
This is an excellent point. Most of the complaining seems to be coming from young men, and the young women who are participating in the kvetching are the ones who’re able to pay for gyn stuff out of pocket.
Ben Franklin
Obama prepares to screw his base
Is this 2008? “It’s Deja Vu, all over again.”
NonyNony
@burnspbesq:
I’ve only been once so far in my life and I hated it so, so much.
So far I’ve been lucky that my professional conferences have only hit Vegas once. If I have to go back again, I may just skip it. I’d rather go to Minneapolis in the winter for a conference than ever go to Vegas again.
chopper
@burnspbesq:
apes, philosophy, etc.
Maude
@Cassidy:
You can go look for the comment, but it’s not worth it. It’ll show up in a future thread. The troll, not the comment.
Little Boots hits here and Atrios at night. It starts spamming threads.
chopper
@Knockabout:
lol. “you’ve got balls showing up on your blog after i commented the other day!”
yeah, i’m sure his knees are knockin.
shortstop
@NonyNony: I feel a kind of desperate sadness (or perhaps a sad desperation) when I’m in Las Vegas. My skin literally starts itching and I cannot wait to get out of town. We occasionally fly there as a jumping-off point for places like Bryce and Zion, and I almost have to close my eyes in the airport on the way to the car rental.
chopper
@Cassidy:
i said in the other thread how it reminded me of her mixed with some baghdad bob. mostly because of the singular focus of hatred on a single FPer (the former), and the constant cries of ‘he’s out of here’ incongruent with an actual hold on reality (the latter).
Cassidy
@Maude: I never considered M_C a troll. Yes, the casual bigotry was disturbing, but she did participate in this community at much more than an antagonistic level. I’d much rather have her back than deal with any of our firebaggers and their nonsense.
Xenos
@burnspbesq: Sheer volume of available rooms in LV is critical. I know of a certain accounting firm that used to book thousands of rooms at a time there. They eventually had to scale back the size of the meetings and host them elsewhere as, er, problems of a sensitive nature kept occuring as a result of the opportunities for mischief there.
different-church-lady
@Knockabout:
What are you going to do, bleed on him?
Cassidy
@different-church-lady: I don’t think that’s the fluids he’s emitting.
Tone in DC
This guy, Ben “BS” Smith, never left PolitiHo, from what I can gather.
As an aside… I think ABL and Zandar have the same trolls/sockpuppets. Just sayin’.
Xecky Gilchrist
@shortstop: I feel a kind of desperate sadness (or perhaps a sad desperation) when I’m in Las Vegas.
Me too. Very well said. The only reason I bother with the town anymore is that two of my siblings attend a professional conference there every year and it’s a handy spot for us far-flung family members to get together and hang out. I’d be happier if that were done somewhere else.
Villago Delenda Est
@RP:
Problem identified. It’s all about the clicks for hangwringing. Actual policy analysis is for nerds, not cocktail weenie eating kool kids.
FlipYrWhig
Hey, guys, I just realized something! You know all those kids in public schools? They’re getting a free ride on my hard-earned tax dollars! This is a blatant intergenerational wealth transfer. Let those little bastards pay their own way. Someone should do something about this.
gelfling545
@Yutsano:
Fairly easy to see why it turned out that way. Promoting the deluded is rarely a good policy and most employers require some impulse control.
Kay
@aimai:
I don’t think the whole premise is true, that there is this huge segment of libertarian young men who feel they don’t need health insurance. Most of them say they’d buy it if they could afford it:
I think there’s a huge segment of libertarian young men who opine a lot on the internet , but they’re over-represented, in my view.
Health care has a real class component that no one ever talks about :)
rikyrah
did I just imagine that there was an Elon James White post on the front page about a STOP AND FRISK APP?
minutemaid
Why are a$$holes that write misleading titles on click hungry political blogs often called Ben Smith?
geg6
@Tone in DC:
Hmmm, now why would that be, I wonder. I can’t imagine what they have in common.
patrick II
How much is it worth to a young person to be assured that he will never — in his hopefully long life — he will never be denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition? How much is it worth to a young person entering a dreary, fluid job market to know that he will never have to lose his insurance because he lost his job? How much is it worth to a young person to know that when he has children those children will not be denied health care and sentenced to an early death because of a pre-existing condition? How much is it worth to young people that more preventive health care will be available so that medical conditions that are developed over a long period of time may be halted while they are still young and serious disease will not develop?
How much is it worth for young people to live in a country where their government, representing the desires of a majority their fellow citizens, says we will help with your medical care — instead of a country where letting them die is ok because we value you less than a few tax dollars?
I don’t have the actuarial data on any of that and I would say that Mr. Smith doesn’t either.
Cassidy
@rikyrah: Hi. Welcome to Monday. I had a good weekend as well, but apparently not as good as your’s, although the part where you’ve blacked out by Saturday could be an issue. :D
Petorado
It’s obvious to Ben Smith the youth of this nation need to go Galt. Obama is closing the great loophole that all the young people have been taking advantage of: that they can always go to the ER and get all the free healthcare they need, while skipping out on the bill and not minding the debt collectors that come calling afterwards. It’s their way of shifting the cost of healthcare onto the older folks where it belongs.
Shorter politics according to Ben Smith: screw the other guy before they can screw you.
RaflW
Ezra Klein’s takedown of BuzzColaBen is remarkably gentle on him, but brutal in that it uses, ummmm, facts.
What are those, Ben? And research, and critical thinking? Why bother!!!
Tone in DC
@geg6:
Heh, indeed.
Somewhere, Arsenio Hall is chuckling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzzGjCmABzw
dmbeaster
@burnspbesq:
Its that experience that stayed in Vegas from your last visit. might as well leave it there again.
Go visit the Red Rock Canyon park, or drive up SR 157 towards Charleston Peak and look for pygmy nuthatches in the Jeffrey pines.
Maude
@rikyrah:
He might have published then changed it to draft. That would cause us to have hallucinations of posts.
RaflW
Just now saw the Tim F. piece on the SEAL loosing his health insurance. How about a screaming headline on that, BuzzMoronBen?
I guess its more fun to attack Obama with a set of nonsense than to stand up for an actual person/citizen hero getting screwed.
You FuckingJackassBen.
Chris
@geg6:
It helps that young people are, well, different. Not like a “nonwhite people” or “immigrant people” or “unChristian people” level of different, but different just the same. And for a certain kind of person, “different” just inherently means lesser.
Cassidy
@rikyrah: Feb 7th.
MikeJ
@RaflW: And a site that publishes mostly kitten pictures gets a link from the paper of Woodward and Bernstein.
ericblair
@Kay:
Besides, isn’t this one of those moral hazard problems they keep harping on about, anyway? I doubt all of these dudes have a good million or so stashed away in liquid assets to deal with an unexpected catastrophic injury or disease, so it’s pretty likely they’d end up not paying their bills and putting the rest of us on the hook for it. Basically, the Obamacare tax is a free-rider tax.
dmbeaster
@jamick6000:
Maybe the oldsters should make the younguns pay for the roads too before they drive on them. Otherwise its a transfer of wealth from the oldsters to the young takers, right? Freeloading on roads they did not pay for.
ruemara
@geg6: Hat size. No, wait. They both look good in red.
Mr. Longform
@FlipYrWhig:
Move to Indiana, man, and you can get a voucher that both screws the money out of your public school and supports the free-market school of your choice. Or, you can sign your kid up for “virtual” school, wherein some large corporation gets the cut your kid would add to the local public school. But if you have no kids to allow direct screwage of the public school system, I’m sure we’ll next figure out how to deny healthcare to millions, even after oblahmacare kicks in. Freedom; not to mention guns.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@dmbeaster:
What’s the cost of a K-12 education? Those young freeloaders owe us a ton of money – and I wannit’ now!
prufrock
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m living proof. I was twenty-four, a college student, and developed testicular cancer. Thank the FSM for the VA.
Chris
@Mnemosyne:
The article overall does make me happy, it’s just,
Fucking Christ. The Scandinavian countries have the most extensive social safety net in the world, are considered “socialist” by most of their neighbors, and it has done precisely nothing to hurt the entrepreneurial spirit – what it’s actually done is encourage people to take risks, since they know that if they fail, that failure won’t leave them out in the street without health care or other basic necessities of life.
It’s a really small thing, especially since it’s an article that’s full of good news, but the country’s perpetual allergy to the word “socialism” really makes me want to bang my head against the wall sometimes.
Maude
@ruemara:
I give up, what is it? These are vicious trolls.
ETA I don’t read troll comments. It’s upsetting when they attack on a personal level.
MattF
@RaflW: I wouldn’t call that gentle– the message I got is that Smith is ignoring the most basic facts. In fact, Klein is an actual expert on health care insurance, so he gets a lot of practice explaining the basics in a diplomatic fashion.
Upper West
I simply cannot believe that they used that headline. I thought it was Zandar parodying whatever headline they used. Next on Buzzfeed: Young people convinced they won’t get social security!
Kay
Another health care article that completely ignores poor and working class young people, who absolutely benefit from the law.
It’s just amazing to me, because they have the highest numbers of uninsured. A lot of their parents don’t even have health insurance. We’re on second and third generations of uninsured here.
maus
After putting my Facebook account on hiatus for some months, I find my interest in the rest of social media, and certainly my interest in conservative social media waning. I enjoy hearing my coworker crowing about his latest “Twitter win” when he spends hours hurling electronic insults at Pelosi or whomever. It’s having a great calming effect on my usual need for outrage.
bemused
Mahablog posts about this too pointing out that unless we die young, we will all experience landing in every risk pool. “Today’s hunky young dude is tomorrow’s old geezers”.
Smith and crowd agenda is to create distractions pitting one demographic against another counting on “young invincibles” to fall for that. Maybe I’m naive but I think a large number of the young, healthy and childless are aware they need to be concerned about health care availability and affordability as they age, become parents and have unexpected health issues unless they are completely oblivious to what their own parents, family members or friends in different risk pools are experiencing.
RaflW
It’s probably been said already, but I’ll also note that
1) young people are not automatically shallow and selfish. They might actually get that contributing to a common social good is desirable, that the ‘me’ generation has done an awful job and left this country a mess and now it’s time to try something new/old, ie: a commonweal.
2) young people have parents. Many have grandparents, still. They might just be able to figure out that their parents in their 50s are gonna benefit from ACA pronto. Heck, their parents might even be uninsured right now. Or trapped in dead-end jobs to hang on to ever-diminishing insurance that’s better than going it alone.
I just cant quite believe how suck-ass Ben Smith is. But I should never overestimate a former Politico hack.
Fair Economist
Everybody has to have insurance these days because of the medical extortion racket. Whenever I get any kind of health care apart from OTC meds and walk-in flu shots the bill is far in excess of reasonable fees, generally in the neighborhood of 3 times and sometimes much more. If you look at insurance statements, they are full of “$1500 charged, $900 disallowed, insurance covers $480, you owe $120”. I had a CAT scan once which was charged over 10 times a reasonable fee, and my mom has a friend who was billed $150,000 for a routine angioplasty. Even granted that healthy young individuals without insurance will have smaller bills in the short run (because of course they’ll be old someday) once you put in the 3-fold or more extortionate payments without insurance they’re better off buying insurance and subsidizing older folks *even in the short run*.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
We’re more open and honest in discussing race in our politics than we are about class, and our Beltway Betters really don’t like to talk about race.
cckids
@dmbeaster:
As a Vegas-area resident, thank you! For the rest of you, get off the Strip/Downtown/airport corridor & have some fun! Red Rock is wonderful, Lake Mead & the surrounding area is beautiful. Go take the Dam tour, or the Haunted Vegas night bus. Visit the Springs Preserve.
We’re not San Francisco or Manhattan, but we aren’t Hastings, Nebraska, either. Lighten up, enjoy where you are.
My vehemence comes from being the main caretaker for my disabled son. Since his health worsened, we cannot go anywhere beyond the occasional movie as a family. Travel is completely out, at least with my husband & me together. Listening to people bitch about not liking where they are traveling to makes me a bit crazy. Find something to like, or go somewhere you love! Life is too short & uncertain.
AxelFoley
@shortstop:
As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced?
cckids
Also, on the insurance “wealth transfer” front, the premiums paid by my extended family & probably most everyone we know, added together, I am sure wouldn’t begin to cover my son’s medical expenses. Not just old people are expensive.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Help! I’m being oppressed; my auto insurance company is transferring some of my wealth to bad drivers.
handsmile
@MikeJ:
Well, Kaplan Test Prep Daily does love kitten pictures:
http://onaissues.tumblr.com/post/11955143341/post-covers-occupyoakland-with-a-picture-of-a-police
manual
Crimes against our leader! They should execute this brute.
Frankensteinbeck
@RaflW:
Detailed explanations of Obamacare and the numbers involved are why anybody ever trusted Ezra Klein in the first place. On health care economics, the man really knows his stuff.
Suffern ACE
@cckids: Hey. Kool Aid was invented in Hastings, Nebraska. What’s Vegas ever done to match that.
Alex S.
BuzzFeed is moving to the right, hard.
Suffern ACE
This is basically the argument made by the retirees on how education spending is endless and I don’t have children so why should I have to continue to pay taxes to support that. Obamacare doesn’t stop people from aging, therefore I’m screwed.
What is the equivalent of the old man shouting “get off my lawn” for 25 year olds?
Soonergrunt
@Knockabout: That’s some weapons grade delusion you’ve got brewing there.
Yutsano
@Soonergrunt: At this point it’s just fun. Plus he has a defender in CS. Now THAT’LL get you street cred!
handsmile
Re “Sin City”
I must confess that having been intellectually and psychologically brutalized by years of reading postmodern cultural theory, I love Las Vegas. The simulacrum rules, bitchez!
cckids
@Suffern ACE:
I did not know that. As for Vegas . . . Liberace? Showgirls? Of course, we have those jackasses Adelson & Wynn to apologize for, so . . .
I grew up 20 miles from Hastings, now I’ve lived in Vegas/Henderson for 16 years. Central NE has its charms, as does Southern NV. I, personally, do want to get out of the desert,& the heat, but the non-stop bitching about Vegas from people who probably don’t leave the hotel/casino, plus they have the money & ability to travel at all, makes me a bit cranky.
cckids
Oh, Christ on a saltine, I used the “C” – asino word when talking about Vegas. Halp, moderation has me!!!
Soonergrunt
@geg6: Yeah. When he first started trolling Zandar, he was spewing all the “You’re posting during work hours!! I HAVE YOU NOW!!” and going on and on about how we should all know that he was doing this and how he had just “utterly destroyed his (Zandar’s) credibility on Balloon-Juice.”
That was like a year ago.
Redshirt
The slot machines drove me crazy in Vegas. Everywhere you go – DINGDINGDINGDING!!!!
My Personal Hell will feature slot machines.
Suffern ACE
@Redshirt: I love that sound. I collectively, the sound of all those slots is like walking into a room full of monks chanting OMMMMMMMM.
I apologize, though. I am the target auidence for that sound.
Steeplejack
@cckids:
Second this. Going to Las Vegas for business or “what stays in Vegas” debauchery can be dispiriting, but if you get off that axis it can be enjoyable. I used to go to COMDEX every year on business, but the last 10 years or so I have visited relatives and friends who live there now. Lots of great little restaurants and lots of outdoorsy stuff to do in the area–and varied environments, from Death Valley to Lake Mead and even some mountains. I like to get out and poke around in the desert. The silence is unbelievable, and very restorative.
Soonergrunt
@geg6: They’re both sparkling conversationalists?
Steeplejack
@Suffern ACE:
“Thanks, boomers. It’s all your fault!”
scav
@handsmile: Well, it that’s how you roll, then hie thee to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention center. Delirium. And that’s in comparison to The Madonna Inn before which Eco falls into raptures.
and that bit’s before he got rolling. And the Madonna Inn nearly feels authentic and grounded next to the Gaylord.
Ben Cisco
I guess I’m the only one who caught the Brisco County, Jr. reference?
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
FYWP is acting up today — that post was from this weekend. I think you’re supposed to hold down the “shift” key while you reload the page and that should fix the problem.
Older
I had insurance when I was young, but that was a long long time ago. I can tell you why young people don’t have insurance these days — many of them are working at jobs where they aren’t offered insurance as a benefit, and getting insurance as an individual is much more expensive. Moreover, they’d have to pay for it out of their much smaller (“inexperienced”) paychecks.
Prufrock (at 109) is lucky to have been in the military and to have access to a government plan, somewhat like what Obama wants to extend to everyone. Not everyone gets cancer at 24, and that’s why the young think they can put insurance off until later. But some of them will need that insurance, and will be sorry they did not insist on healthcare for all much sooner.
Really though, it’s not their responsibility, it’s the responsibility of older people who know how devastating an illness could be without insurance.
geg6
@cckids:
I actually did most of those things when in Vegas. It still sucked. It’s Vegas. But take heart, I’d go to Vegas if I was forced to choose between any city (with the exception of New Orleans) below the Mason-Dixon Line and Vegas.
But then, despite being born and living all my life a suburban community in an inland region that is a mix of Appalachia and the Midwest, the only places I feel totally myself and totally comfortable and happy would be northern east coast and west coast cities.
Zandar
@Ben Cisco:
About damn time somebody did.
Comrade Mary
OTOH, BuzzFeed did bring us this Bill Murray feature.
Kay
@Suffern ACE:
Education is the best frame for the PPACA because it’s universal and guaranteed. I honestly think that’s why we get such lousy analysis. The law continues to be discussed in chunks, as if people don’t live within families and their lives remain static. We’ve never had this level of of a comprehensive plan (although it has gaps, it’s MORE comprehensive and MORE guaranteed than anything prior) so people approach it piecemeal, without considering that if you pull on one thread all the other threads move.
People literally don’t know how to talk about it. After three years-or however long we’ve been discussing this- I just refuse to discuss the law in pieces. It doesn’t make sense to me, and I ultimately think it’s a waste of time.
People don’t live like that. They don’t live as discrete, isolated segments of a demographic, frozen in time and circumstance. I think media look at the law in that fashion because that’s the way they’ve always looked at health care. I just don’t think one can ignore the essential nature of the thing and ALSO discuss it, but they keep trying!
JoyfulA
@Robert: Where are you located? In PA, standard Blue policies allow what you want and need at about $500-$600 per month.
JoyfulA
@Yutsano: Is Knockabout the one who used to attack Zandar on his blog and “threaten” to tell his boss [something]? If so, there are very good reasons why Knockabout is not promotable.
Shortstop
@cckids: I can certainly understand your lack of appreciation for people slagging Vegas if they have the ability to travel when you don’t right now. But look, it’s a tourism and convention mecca precisely because millions and millions DO want to go there. Why worry about those of us who don’t like it, especially when the parts most conventioneers see (and many don’t have the option of driving into the interesting natural areas outside of town) are designed for a very particular taste in merrymaking? My own city, Chicago, isn’t everyone’s cup of tea; I don’t take the gazillions of anti-Chicago cracks I’ve heard personally.
RaflW
@cckids: My last visit to Vegas we had a fantastic Vietnamese dinner at a clearly very ‘locals’ place not even 1.5 miles from the strip. Yes we needed a car to get there, but rental cars are often cheap in Vegas, and if you want to go to Red Rocks (you should!) or other off-strip things, you’ll want a car.
We also had breakfast at some locals joint that was en route to Red Rocks with just an awesome waitress with leathery Vegas skin and a no-nonsense style that charmed us. The grub was good, too.
I still can’t really enjoy more than about 48 hours in Vegas, but it’s a real city if you get away from the ding-ding-ding of the slot machine mega-parlors.
I also, on an interminable convention jaunt some years ago, prevailed on my boss to lend me the one, shared rental so I could get away for a few hours. I drove up to Ski Las Vegas and just sat amongst the towering pines and watched people scrape down the icy slopes. Amazing to go from a heated pool to ski slopes in maybe 1 hour.
JaneE
Young people do get sick. And have accidents.
In ’66 I was on my way to school, and got broadsided at an intersection. Back when seat belts were new, two point, and mine were tangled under the seat of my VW bug, so naturally I didn’t belt up as I was late for class. Head through windshield, broken jaw. Even then it was thousands of dollars, for ambulance, emergency room (and I was a minor, so all they could do was make sure I wasn’t actually dying until they could contact my parents), transfer to another hospital for surgery, five days of hospitalization, with special nurses in attendance until I was able to stay awake, then post-op care. My dad had group health insurance, but it only covered children till they were 19. Did I mention this was one day after my 20th birthday? Fortunately the university had a “student health and accident” group policy that you could pick up for $6.00 a semester. I had signed up, more by luck than any rational thought.
If I had not had that health insurance, it would have been the end of college, and set my parents retirement back about a decade. As it was, I got to finish, just a semester late, and out of pocket costs were under $1000.00. Back then that was a lot of money, but it was something my parents could cover. I made sure that I signed up for health insurance every semester afterward, and when I graduated and was looking for work I took out a health insurance policy on me (which my parents paid for) until I had full time employment and group coverage.
There will be thousands of young people who do not need health insurance for every one that does, that is the way it is supposed to work. The point is, we don’t have a way to determine just who will need help, or when. It would be wonderful if everyone would buy insurance on their own, but some percentage will always think they are “Invincible”. We have already had enough examples of poor risk management this century. We don’t need and idiot like Ben Smith to encourage more of it.
aimai
Thanks to advances in medical care there are hundreds, if not thousands, of preemie babies who start out in the NICU,sometimes for months at a time, and require batteries of nurses and therapists. These kids have nothing but pre-existing conditions. The imaginary perfectly healthy teenager is some portion of the population but there are tons and tons and tons of people who will benefit from the ACA increasing the pools and getting rid of the pre-existing condition stuff.
Uncle Cosmo
@Fair Economist:
For all the good it’ll do you. With insurance going through the roof a few years back my employer went to “junk insurance”–a high-deductible mostly catastrophic policy–& gave everyone a no-interest loan for the amount of the deductible that they paid off by payroll deduction. One of the few nice aspects were that regular visits to a GP were covered for a $20 copay.
Yeah, right. The medical group charges $227 for a regular visit to my GP that rarely lasts more than 10 minutes. Which on the face of it is ludicrous–damn few specialists are worth $1400+/hr. I pay the deductible, the insurance pays about $100–& the bastards have debt collectors going after me for the extra $100. Anyone who thinks Big Pharma are a bunch of criminals needs to start thinking about Big Medical too.
Jennifer
Here’s another newsflash for Mr. Smith: people in their late 20’s to mid-30’s make less money, at the exact point in their lives where they have the most burden on their incomes. They’re paying off school loans, having children with the attendant costs for both childcare and all the rest of it, trying to get into a home of their own, all while trying to get established in their careers. Which also isn’t fair, and why isn’t Obama setting up a welfare program to help these folks out?
Ok, so not the same, but just as stupid. As probably everyone above has pointed out, the young are paying it forward – when they get older, they will get it back. I honestly didn’t know about the age-rating provision being changed, but again they will get it back.
redheadedfemme
@Knockabout: Maybe he hasn’t answered his critics (or you in particular) because they’re…stupid?
I wouldn’t give you the time of day either.
sharl
As a former Politico “reporter”, Ben Smith still performs with the instincts he learned during many staff meetings in the Politicave.*
*original xtranormal version here; for me, audio on the YouTube version was a bit better