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Obamacare Mandate Delayed

Acknowledging “complexities” in a key provision of its socialized medicine law – and eager to stave off the political damage from its implementation until after the 2014 elections – U.S. President Barack Obama announced a one-year delay of the controversial mandate this week. According to the administration Obamacare’s employer mandate…

Acknowledging “complexities” in a key provision of its socialized medicine law – and eager to stave off the political damage from its implementation until after the 2014 elections – U.S. President Barack Obama announced a one-year delay of the controversial mandate this week.

According to the administration Obamacare’s employer mandate – which forces any business with more than fifty employees to offer coverage – will now go into effect in 2015 instead of 2014.

“We have listened to your feedback,” a spokesman for Obama’s Treasury Department said. “And we are taking action.”

Unfortunately the employer mandate isn’t dead. Also the law’s insidious individual mandate – which forces uninsured Americans to purchase health care policies or face fines – is still scheduled to go into effect in 2014. Obamcare’s state-level “exchanges” are also still scheduled to open in October of this year.

Meanwhile Obamacare’s taxes – many of which are already being levied – have not been discontinued or delayed.

Translation? This sprawling new entitlement remains as dangerous as ever to the American economy.

While we’re obviously glad one of many job-killing components of this monstrosity has been pushed back, it’s curious to see the liberty Obama is taking in administering the legislation it shoved down the throat of a Democratic-controlled Congress three years ago.

“As we implement this law, we have and will continue to make changes as needed,” Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett wrote on the White House blog. “In our ongoing discussions with businesses we have heard that you need the time to get this right.”

In other words they are making it up as they go along …

***

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81 comments

CorruptionInColumbia July 3, 2013 at 5:49 am

Did 0bama fart when this picture was taken. The other guy in the pic has that look like he just took a deep breath and is about to say, “Ooohhhhhhhhh……..THAT AROMA”.

Reply
jimlewisowb July 3, 2013 at 8:35 am

Nope, think fella in back is trying to ease one out and is praying that it is silent and not violent

Reply
jjevans July 3, 2013 at 8:41 am

He’s in pain from the blisters on his penis.

Reply
Sandy Burglar July 3, 2013 at 3:12 pm

Every time Obummer opens that yap of his it’s like a fart – nothing but bad gas comes out. The biggest liar and fraud ever perpetrated on the American people is one Barack Hussein Obummer.

Reply
CorruptionInColumbia July 3, 2013 at 5:49 am

Did 0bama fart when this picture was taken. The other guy in the pic has that look like he just took a deep breath and is about to say, “Ooohhhhhhhhh……..THAT AROMA”.

Reply
jimlewisowb July 3, 2013 at 8:35 am

Nope, think fella in back is trying to ease one out and is praying that it is silent not violent

Reply
jjevans July 3, 2013 at 8:41 am

He’s in pain from the blisters on his penis.

Reply
Sandy Burglar July 3, 2013 at 3:12 pm

Every time Obummer opens that yap of his it’s like a fart – nothing but bad gas comes out. The biggest liar and fraud ever perpetrated on the American people is one Barack Hussein Obummer.

Reply
Mguzman July 3, 2013 at 7:11 am

This will FORCE uninsured Americans to buy health insurance or pay a fine……if Americans can’t afford health care then how are they suppose to pay a fine? Does this also apply to those on Welfare??????

Reply
Smirks July 3, 2013 at 8:44 am

The fine is only levied against people based on their income, so if your income is below a certain amount, there is no fine.

Furthermore, the IRS has no mechanism to come after you for this fine. I’m guessing they may be able to withhold your tax returns, but to my knowledge there is no language in the bill that lets them put a lien against you. That is something that is present in Romneycare.

Reply
guest July 4, 2013 at 3:33 am

The fine starts very low but increases as time passes. Saying the IRS has no mechanism to come after you, they can come after you now for tax evasion, and the obamascare will come to a head eventually taxing everyone until it hurts. Taxing dividends at =>40%.

Reply
Mguzman July 3, 2013 at 7:11 am

This will FORCE uninsured Americans to buy health insurance or pay a fine……if Americans can’t afford health care then how are they suppose to pay a fine? Does this also apply to those on Welfare??????

Reply
Smirks July 3, 2013 at 8:44 am

The fine is only levied against people based on their income, so if your income is below a certain amount, there is no fine.

Furthermore, the IRS has no mechanism to come after you for this fine. I’m guessing they may be able to withhold your tax returns, but to my knowledge there is no language in the bill that lets them put a lien against you. That is something that is present in Romneycare.

Reply
guest July 4, 2013 at 3:33 am

The fine starts very low but increases as time passes. Saying the IRS has no mechanism to come after you, they can come after you now for tax evasion, and the obamascare will come to a head eventually taxing everyone until it hurts. Taxing dividends at =>40%.

Reply
CL July 3, 2013 at 7:59 am

He cannot implement it as written. It has too many serious flaws, as one would expect in a 1000+ page bill that was not even read by most of those who were voting for it. As a pro-Obama union put it: “In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the Act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer sponsored coverage could keep it.” http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/04/16/roofer-union-calls-for-repeal-of-obama-health-law/?KEYWORDS=health+reform. That union is calling for a full repeal of the act. Max Baucus, who helped write the monstrosity, has called the implementation a “train wreck.”

Obama has tried just acting illegally to fix some of the problems, such as having the IRS issue a rule with zero statutory support to address a fatal flaw in the exchanges ( http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2012/07/adler-cannon.html ), but even he can only do so much. I suspect the hope is that they can retake the House and start passing some “fixes” to at least make the bill functional.

There will not be any consideration of scrapping it, because for progressives self-reflection seems to not be an option. The stimulus poured a trillion dollars down the toilet and the Left says it should be bigger. If government intervention fails, it must be because it did not intervene enough. For the left, the answer is always “More cowbell!”

Reply
Smirks July 3, 2013 at 8:56 am

There shouldn’t be a consideration of just scrapping it. This country has been addled by rising health care costs and dwindling affordability of access, and insurance companies have been abusing loopholes to drop coverage of people they saw fit to cover while they remained profitable. The last time reform was rejected, it took nearly two decades for any meaningful reform to be seriously considered.

Legislation obviously can have flaws and does need to be tweaked. The real problem is that the GOP doesn’t want anything fixed, they won’t allow it. They’d rather keep the flaws in place for the political convenience of it. Republicans don’t want Obamacare to work in any way, shape, or form, not really even because of ideological differences, but because it would be a huge political victory for them.

The reality is that Republicans don’t give a shit about health care at all. That is why they want to block grant Medicaid so that corrupt and incompetent state governments can blow the money with far less oversight, and the block grants can slowly dwindle to nothing. That is why they want to voucherize Medicare so that old people will be forced to buy insurance with vouchers that may or may not rise in value with inflation, let alone rising health care costs which can be several times the rate of inflation. Nothing being done to rising health care costs just means those programs die faster.

The rich have a vested interest in letting the system remain broken. The quicker affordability of access burns to the ground, the quicker they get to hoard more wealth at the expense of the rest of society.

Reply
CL July 3, 2013 at 9:16 am

The Republicans said the bill was a disaster and should not be passed, which the American people overwhelmingly agreed with (even electing a Republican in Massachusetts to vote against it). Now they are to blame for not helping Obama fix the mess he created with this bill?

It would have been far preferable in my view (compared to Obamacare, not in a vacuum) to have just expanded Medicaid eligibility. The costs could have been more easily projected and the reform would have been much easier to implement. But that would not have allowed for a full government take over of the health care system. So of course that was not good enough for Obama.

Now my personal preference would be market based reforms like allowing policies to be purchased across state lines. I know the left needs its talking point that Republicans don’t care and want everyone to die, but the reality is that Heritage and other conservative think tanks have proposed any number of health care alternatives. Jim DeMint’s proposed bill would have been infinitely better than Obamacare.

Reply
Jan July 3, 2013 at 9:37 am

The bill was bipartisan. As we have seen over and over nothing could have been passed without Republican support.

Allowing policies to be purchase across state lines does nothing but turn control of the health insurance system over to the smallest states in the country. The needs of the state of Wyoming where cows outnumber people have nothing to do with the needs of densely populated states like New York and California. Where is your vaunted Federalism when you are using the Federal Government to force one state to bend to the will of another state as to what insurance should be sold within that state and what reserve requirements an insurance company should be required to have before they can sell in the state?

Jim DeMint’s bill was a total joke and amounted to nothing more than if you can’t afford health care ask your church for help or die. You can argue this is just a talking point if you want to, but its not. All of the proposals by conservative groups ultimately come down to “hope” that fear of death will force those who can come up with more money to pay and if there are people out there who truly cannot afford health care someone will step forward and voluntarily take care of them so the rest of us do not have to be involved.

Reply
CL July 3, 2013 at 10:01 am

Jan,

Are you honestly claiming Obamacare was bipartisan? Every Republican voted against cloture and again against the bill in the Senate. Every Republican in the House (and 34 Democrats) voted against it. The Democrats had to follow the unprecedented reconciliation process to ram it back through the Senate because Brown’s election gave Republicans enough votes to filibuster.

This was the most partisan bill I can recall in my lifetime. I hope I am misunderstanding your post. If you are really claiming it was a bipartisan effort you either are grossly misinformed or are being willfully dishonest.

As to selling across state lines, that is the very definition of interstate commerce. So I don’t really see a federalism objection to say that a policy containing xyz can be sold anywhere in the country. It is not asking one state to bend to another, it is classic preemption. And 50 unique markets which each impose specific mandates that increase costs would be a situation where the feds have historically stepped in to provide uniformity.

The rest of your post is little more than ad hominem attacks. It would be like me saying Obamacare is little more than death panels.

Jan July 3, 2013 at 10:15 am

I never said it was a bipartisan effort. There are no bipartisan efforts any more. If there had been a bipartisan effort we would have had a better bill, but that is no longer political reality. I said Republican votes were required to get the bill passed, and they were. That makes it a bipartisan bill. That is certainly the position taken by Republicans when the shoe was on the other foot.

CL July 3, 2013 at 12:10 pm

Please cite a single Republican vote in support of the bill. Just one. There was not one. This was as partisan as you can get. Especially considering how unpopular the bill was. Again, Mass. elected a Republican just to vote against it.

Sandy Burglar July 3, 2013 at 3:09 pm

And not only were there NO republican votes for this POS garbage legislation, remember how a number of Dimoshits had to be either bought off or bribed to go along with this POS garbage legislation? Because even they knew how bad it was? Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieux, Chris Dodd, Bart Stupid…er Stupak…those clowns ring a bell? 2,700 pages of pure out and out garbage that has stifled economic growth, worsened health care, increased costs and premiums and is unquestionably the single worst and ill-conceived law “passed” in my lifetime.

Jan July 3, 2013 at 10:49 am

As for selling insurance across state lines. If you are arguing insurance should be regulated at the federal level, I might be willing to listen, but you are not. You are arguing the federal government should butt out, except to require that all states accede to the regulations of the states that regulate the least.

States regulate insurance because they know that when a person does not have adequate insurance the cost falls to the state or to the people who have insurance. It effects everyone. In a densely populated state if an insurance company with few reserves sells a crappy policy to a lot of people and then goes under it will be a disaster for the state. They will have to pay money to another company to take over the policies, assume the care themselves, or leave the policies holders without insurance.

Its easy for a big insurance company to bribe legislators and insurance regulators in small states to let them sell crappy policies, and have low reserves. A little over 500,000 people live in the state of Wyoming. 15% to 20% of those are on Medicare. That means that at most about 400,000 people are in the insurance market. You are going to let a company that meets the regulatory requirements for Wyoming sell in New York or California without meeting their regulatory requirements?

CL July 3, 2013 at 12:12 pm

Thanks for telling me what I am talking about. As the word preemption indicates, I was talking about federal involvement.

Jan July 3, 2013 at 1:30 pm

If you are calling for regulation of the Insurance Industry to be turned over to Federal Regulators you are the only Republican doing so. I do not disagree that should be considered. One set of regulations nationwide would seem appropriate.

CL July 3, 2013 at 9:24 am

And your attacks of the “Republican plan” I presume refers to Ryan’s 2013 proposal (which again was one of many), but your description is off. First, the Ryan plan (which Romney basically endorsed) was a premium support rather than a voucher, and it did not even apply to “old people,’ since it only applied to those under 55. It also gave people a choice of plans that guaranteed the current Medicare benefits levels. It was also a bipartisan proposal until his co-sponsor got cold feet during the election.

Reply
Jan July 3, 2013 at 9:52 am

There is no difference between a voucher program and a premium support program. Republican spin masters told Ryan and the gang that people did not like the idea of a voucher and they should call it something else. So they did. But its still a voucher. There is still no assurances that a person over 65 with sever medical problems will be able to find comprehensive insurance he can afford.

The reason it did not apply to people over 55 is because it is nothing more than the repeal of Medicare and leaving sick old people to the mercies of the private insurance industry. Republicans knew they could never get that passed unless they exempted from the law those who were old enough and experienced enough to know what it would mean for a sick old person to try to negotiate insurance coverage with a private insurance company. If the law is bad for 55 year olds its bad for 45 year olds. Otherwise why exempt 55 year olds?
The Ryan proposal is a disaster and would leave millions of seniors and disabled people without adequate health care.

Reply
CL July 3, 2013 at 12:23 pm

You can say the sky is green and that does not make it so. The premium support went to the plan (kind of like how my employer’s subsidy of my insurance does), and the enrollee was guaranteed an option with at least the current Medicare benefits. No voucher was issued, and your scenario of someone with a voucher that does not cover their care is just false (sort of like your claim that there was bipartisan voting for the bill).

Since current benefit levels were a guaranteed, supported option, the only people who would get less were those who chose less to pocket the difference.

And it applied only to those under 55 because it was too late for those over that age who had planned for retirement under the current structure to make meaningful investment decisions. So it was the concern for those folks, despite your imputations of callousness and unfeeling, that led to the cutoff.

Jan July 3, 2013 at 1:17 pm

If you believe what you say is true, you do not understand the Ryan bill. Only healthy people would be able to obtain insurance other than Medicare. This would shift all of the sickest seniors and the disabled into Medicare and take away the premiums paid by the healthy seniors. Over time either Medicare premiums would soar or Medicare benefits would be slashed to the point doctors would no longer accept the program. The idea was always to kill Medicare or make it so unattractive that people will be forced to buy expensive private insurance.

There was no guarantee in the bill that the (premium support payments or vouchers whichever you propose to call it, because it works the same way) would keep up with medical inflation. Because if it did there would be no savings unless you count the savings from escalating Medicare premiums or slashed Medicare benefits. The risk would always be that the payment would not be sufficient for a person to get private insurance and at some point people would be forced to try to reenter a now gutted Medicare system.

A simple answer would be to open Medicare to everyone and let it compete openly with the other insurers and set what it will pay for drugs just like the other insurers do.

As for the age. Explain, what a 54 year old would do that is different from what a 55 year old would do to prepare for the new law. Also, if the bill is going to make things better, what is it that 45 to 54 year olds are preparing for?

How would they need to change their investment strategy to prepare for their health care after they are too old and too sick to work?

CL July 3, 2013 at 3:30 pm

If current benefits are guaranteed as an option, no one is getting squeezed out of the program any more than they are today. The modest savings came from the same competitive bidding process that has worked to contain costs under Medicare Advantage. Plus Ryan’s growth rate was exactly the same as Obama’s. So the inflation argument is bogus unless you are ready to trash Obamacare.

You are just being pedantic about the 55. You have to pick a year, and you need to give time to implement and adjust. For instance, if Obamacare is so great, why did it have a delayed implementation built in? Why are they still delaying implementation?

Jan July 3, 2013 at 6:03 pm

You are mischaracterizing the Ryan proposal. The Ryan proposal has as its goal ending Medicare as we know it, and with it guaranteed affordable comprehensive medical coverage for people who are too old or too sick to work.

I get pretty tired of senior citizens who have worked their entire life being referred to as takers by a wingnut who has been living on a government check, receiving government health care, and stashing money into a government retirement plan most people in the private sector would kill for since he graduate college. All after receiving a government social security check from the time his father died until he was 18 years old.

As for age the age selected, are you saying we need an entire decade to prepare for the implementation of this law? If its so great, surely we want to extend the benefits to people sooner? Once again. what are those of us affected, like me, preparing for. How bad is it going to be that I need a decade long warning to get ready for it.

I do not believe that is why age 55 was selected. I think they were simply trying to make this a non-issue for senior citizens, so they would not vote against supporters of this proposal.

CL July 4, 2013 at 3:09 pm

Not one factual point in here. But if Ryan had tried to implement earlier the left would have tried to scaremonger with the elderly even more than they did.

Your personal attacks are sad. But it is what you have to expect when the alternative would be to try to defend a train wreck like Obamacare.

CL July 3, 2013 at 7:59 am

He cannot implement it as written. It has too many serious flaws, as one would expect in a 1000+ page bill that was not even read by most of those who were voting for it. As a pro-Obama union put it: “In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the Act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer sponsored coverage could keep it.” http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/04/16/roofer-union-calls-for-repeal-of-obama-health-law/?KEYWORDS=health+reform. That union is calling for a full repeal of the act. Max Baucus, who helped write the monstrosity, has called the implementation a “train wreck.”

Obama has tried just acting illegally to fix some of the problems, such as having the IRS issue a rule with zero statutory support to address a fatal flaw in the exchanges ( http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2012/07/adler-cannon.html ), but even he can only do so much. I suspect the hope is that they can retake the House and start passing some “fixes” to at least make the bill functional.

There will not be any consideration of scrapping it, because for progressives self-reflection seems to not be an option. The stimulus poured a trillion dollars down the toilet and the Left says it should be bigger. If government intervention fails, it must be because it did not intervene enough. For the left, the answer is always “More cowbell!”

Reply
Smirks July 3, 2013 at 8:56 am

There shouldn’t be a consideration of just scrapping it. This country has been addled by rising health care costs and dwindling affordability of access, and insurance companies have been abusing loopholes to drop coverage of people they saw fit to cover while they remained profitable. The last time reform was rejected, it took nearly two decades for any meaningful reform to be seriously considered.

Legislation obviously can have flaws and does need to be tweaked. The real problem is that the GOP doesn’t want anything fixed, they won’t allow it. They’d rather keep the flaws in place for the political convenience of it. Republicans don’t want Obamacare to work in any way, shape, or form, not really even because of ideological differences, but because it would be a huge political victory for them.

The reality is that Republicans don’t give a shit about health care at all. That is why they want to block grant Medicaid so that corrupt and incompetent state governments can blow the money with far less oversight, and the block grants can slowly dwindle to nothing. That is why they want to voucherize Medicare so that old people will be forced to buy insurance with vouchers that may or may not rise in value with inflation, let alone rising health care costs which can be several times the rate of inflation. Nothing being done to rising health care costs just means those programs die faster.

The rich have a vested interest in letting the system remain broken. The quicker affordability of access burns to the ground, the quicker they get to hoard more wealth at the expense of the rest of society.

Broken reform is reform, and if it can be fixed, there is no reason to destroy it. Not unless you simply don’t want a better health care system.

Reply
CL July 3, 2013 at 9:16 am

The Republicans said the bill was a disaster and should not be passed, which the American people overwhelmingly agreed with (even electing a Republican in Massachusetts to vote against it). Now they are to blame for not helping Obama fix the mess he created with this bill?

It would have been far preferable in my view (compared to Obamacare, not in a vacuum) to have just expanded Medicaid eligibility. The costs could have been more easily projected and the reform would have been much easier to implement. But that would not have allowed for a full government take over of the health care system. So of course that was not good enough for Obama.

Now my personal preference would be market based reforms like allowing policies to be purchased across state lines. I know the left needs its talking point that Republicans don’t care and want everyone to die, but the reality is that Heritage and other conservative think tanks have proposed any number of health care alternatives. Jim DeMint’s proposed bill would have been infinitely better than Obamacare.

Reply
Jan July 3, 2013 at 9:37 am

The bill was bipartisan. As we have seen over and over nothing could have been passed without Republican support.

Allowing policies to be purchase across state lines does nothing but turn control of the health insurance system over to the smallest states in the country. The needs of the state of Wyoming where cows outnumber people have nothing to do with the needs of densely populated states like New York and California. Where is your vaunted Federalism when you are using the Federal Government to force one state to bend to the will of another state as to what insurance should be sold within that state and what reserve requirements an insurance company should be required to have before they can sell in the state?

Jim DeMint’s bill was a total joke and amounted to nothing more than if you can’t afford health care ask your church for help or die. You can argue this is just a talking point if you want to, but its not. All of the proposals by conservative groups ultimately come down to “hope” that fear of death will force those who can come up with more money to pay and if there are people out there who truly cannot afford health care someone will step forward and voluntarily take care of them so the rest of us do not have to be involved.

Reply
CL July 3, 2013 at 10:01 am

Jan,

Are you honestly claiming Obamacare was bipartisan? Every Republican voted against cloture and again against the bill in the Senate. Every Republican in the House (and 34 Democrats) voted against it. The Democrats had to follow the unprecedented reconciliation process to ram it back through the Senate because Brown’s election gave Republicans enough votes to filibuster.

This was the most partisan bill I can recall in my lifetime. I hope I am misunderstanding your post. If you are really claiming it was a bipartisan effort you either are grossly misinformed or are being willfully dishonest.

As to selling across state lines, that is the very definition of interstate commerce. So I don’t really see a federalism objection to say that a policy containing xyz can be sold anywhere in the country. It is not asking one state to bend to another, it is classic preemption. And 50 unique markets which each impose specific mandates that increase costs would be a situation where the feds have historically stepped in to provide uniformity.

The rest of your post is little more than ad hominem attacks. It would be like me saying Obamacare is little more than death panels.

Jan July 3, 2013 at 10:15 am

I never said it was a bipartisan effort. There are no bipartisan efforts any more. If there had been a bipartisan effort we would have had a better bill, but that is no longer political reality. I said Republican votes were required to get the bill passed, and they were. That makes it a bipartisan bill. That is certainly the position taken by Republicans when the shoe was on the other foot.

CL July 3, 2013 at 12:10 pm

Please cite a single Republican vote in support of the bill. Just one. There was not one. This was as partisan as you can get. Especially considering how unpopular the bill was. Again, Mass. elected a Republican just to vote against it.

Sandy Burglar July 3, 2013 at 3:09 pm

And not only were there NO republican votes for this POS garbage legislation, remember how a number of Dimoshits had to be either bought off or bribed to go along with this POS garbage legislation? Because even they knew how bad it was? Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieux, Chris Dodd, Bart Stupid…er Stupak…those clowns ring a bell? 2,700 pages of pure out and out garbage that has stifled economic growth, worsened health care, increased costs and premiums and is unquestionably the single worst and ill-conceived law “passed” in my lifetime.

Jan July 3, 2013 at 10:49 am

As for selling insurance across state lines. If you are arguing insurance should be regulated at the federal level, I might be willing to listen, but you are not. You are arguing the federal government should butt out, except to require that all states accede to the regulations of the states that regulate the least.

States regulate insurance because they know that when a person does not have adequate insurance the cost falls to the state or to the people who have insurance. It effects everyone. In a densely populated state if an insurance company with few reserves sells a crappy policy to a lot of people and then goes under it will be a disaster for the state. They will have to pay money to another company to take over the policies, assume the care themselves, or leave the policies holders without insurance.

Its easy for a big insurance company to bribe legislators and insurance regulators in small states to let them sell crappy policies, and have low reserves. A little over 500,000 people live in the state of Wyoming. 15% to 20% of those are on Medicare. That means that at most about 400,000 people are in the insurance market. You are going to let a company that meets the regulatory requirements for Wyoming sell in New York or California without meeting their regulatory requirements?

CL July 3, 2013 at 12:12 pm

Thanks for telling me what I am talking about. As the word preemption indicates, I was talking about federal involvement.

Jan July 3, 2013 at 1:30 pm

If you are calling for regulation of the Insurance Industry to be turned over to Federal Regulators you are the only Republican doing so. I do not disagree that should be considered. One set of regulations nationwide would seem appropriate.

CL July 3, 2013 at 9:24 am

And your attacks of the “Republican plan” I presume refers to Ryan’s 2013 proposal (which again was one of many), but your description is off. First, the Ryan plan (which Romney basically endorsed) was a premium support rather than a voucher, and it did not even apply to “old people,’ since it only applied to those under 55. It also gave people a choice of plans that guaranteed the current Medicare benefits levels. It was also a bipartisan proposal until his co-sponsor got cold feet during the election.

Reply
Jan July 3, 2013 at 9:52 am

There is no difference between a voucher program and a premium support program. Republican spin masters told Ryan and the gang that people did not like the idea of a voucher and they should call it something else. So they did. But its still a voucher. There is still no assurances that a person over 65 with sever medical problems will be able to find comprehensive insurance he can afford.

The reason it did not apply to people over 55 is because it is nothing more than the repeal of Medicare and leaving sick old people to the mercies of the private insurance industry. Republicans knew they could never get that passed unless they exempted from the law those who were old enough and experienced enough to know what it would mean for a sick old person to try to negotiate insurance coverage with a private insurance company. If the law is bad for 55 year olds its bad for 45 year olds. Otherwise why exempt 55 year olds?
The Ryan proposal is a disaster and would leave millions of seniors and disabled people without adequate health care.

Reply
CL July 3, 2013 at 12:23 pm

You can say the sky is green and that does not make it so. The premium support went to the plan (kind of like how my employer’s subsidy of my insurance does), and the enrollee was guaranteed an option with at least the current Medicare benefits. No voucher was issued, and your scenario of someone with a voucher that does not cover their care is just false (sort of like your claim that there was bipartisan voting for the bill).

Since current benefit levels were a guaranteed, supported option, the only people who would get less were those who chose less to pocket the difference.

And it applied only to those under 55 because it was too late for those over that age who had planned for retirement under the current structure to make meaningful investment decisions. So it was the concern for those folks, despite your imputations of callousness and unfeeling, that led to the cutoff.

Jan July 3, 2013 at 1:17 pm

If you believe what you say is true, you do not understand the Ryan bill. Only healthy people would be able to obtain insurance other than Medicare. This would shift all of the sickest seniors and the disabled into Medicare and take away the premiums paid by the healthy seniors. Over time either Medicare premiums would soar or Medicare benefits would be slashed to the point doctors would no longer accept the program. The idea was always to kill Medicare or make it so unattractive that people will be forced to buy expensive private insurance.

There was no guarantee in the bill that the (premium support payments or vouchers whichever you propose to call it, because it works the same way) would keep up with medical inflation. Because if it did there would be no savings unless you count the savings from escalating Medicare premiums or slashed Medicare benefits. The risk would always be that the payment would not be sufficient for a person to get private insurance and at some point people would be forced to try to reenter a now gutted Medicare system.

A simple answer would be to open Medicare to everyone and let it compete openly with the other insurers and set what it will pay for drugs just like the other insurers do.

As for the age. Explain, what a 54 year old would do that is different from what a 55 year old would do to prepare for the new law. Also, if the bill is going to make things better, what is it that 45 to 54 year olds are preparing for?

How would they need to change their investment strategy to prepare for their health care after they are too old and too sick to work?

CL July 3, 2013 at 3:30 pm

If current benefits are guaranteed as an option, no one is getting squeezed out of the program any more than they are today. The modest savings came from the same competitive bidding process that has worked to contain costs under Medicare Advantage. Plus Ryan’s growth rate was exactly the same as Obama’s. So the inflation argument is bogus unless you are ready to trash Obamacare.

You are just being pedantic about the 55. You have to pick a year, and you need to give time to implement and adjust. For instance, if Obamacare is so great, why did it have a delayed implementation built in? Why are they still delaying implementation?

Jan July 3, 2013 at 6:03 pm

You are mischaracterizing the Ryan proposal. The Ryan proposal has as its goal ending Medicare as we know it, and with it guaranteed affordable comprehensive medical coverage for people who are too old or too sick to work.

I get pretty tired of senior citizens who have worked their entire life being referred to as takers by a wingnut who has been living on a government check, receiving government health care, and stashing money into a government retirement plan most people in the private sector would kill for since he graduate college. All after receiving a government social security check from the time his father died until he was 18 years old.

As for age the age selected, are you saying we need an entire decade to prepare for the implementation of this law? If its so great, surely we want to extend the benefits to people sooner? Once again. what are those of us affected, like me, preparing for. How bad is it going to be that I need a decade long warning to get ready for it.

I do not believe that is why age 55 was selected. I think they were simply trying to make this a non-issue for senior citizens, so they would not vote against supporters of this proposal.

CL July 4, 2013 at 3:09 pm

Not one factual point in here. But if Ryan had tried to implement earlier the left would have tried to scaremonger with the elderly even more than they did.

Your personal attacks are sad. But it is what you have to expect when the alternative would be to try to defend a train wreck like Obamacare.

Curious July 3, 2013 at 8:08 am

Here’s an actual explanation of the situation, for people who would like one:

All along the premise has been to model the reforms around the existing system; i.e. employer based insurance, private insurers, Medicaid, etc. as opposed to a universal government run system. Postponing the employer penalty may ease the transition to the exchanges, illustrate the potential for savings and system improvements, and fairly layout the future without the threat.

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/argh-employer-penalty-edition/

And do read the short piece linked above to understand the situation before bringing the same tired talking points.

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Curious July 3, 2013 at 8:13 am

And look up the definition of socialism, too, before you use the word. If you think this is socialized medicine, you’re ignorant, plain and simple.

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Smirks July 3, 2013 at 8:40 am

Healthcare needs to be at the very least treated in the same manner as a utility, such as electricity or telecommunications. There must be regulations and checks in place to ensure affordability and adequate service, but not so much that it stifles competition, quality, or to some degree, profitability.

I do think that single payer is a better option, but the GOP is throwing a fit over reform that tries to make the current system work; they will never accept single payer, or even a public option. The health care industry lobbies bigtime to make sure that they get to stick around, and Obamacare, like Romneycare, was designed to reform health care to a small degree in favor of the insurance companies rather than the people.

Most wealthy western countries have universal health care. Even countries touted as being more “free market” than the US often have some form of universal health care. Make no mistake, that is only possible with government “interference.” IIRC the list Cato showed of the top 10 countries for economic freedom, more than half had some form of universal health care. Not all of these countries have single payer.

Ultimately, we need a system that actually affords access to health care to the vast majority of Americans. That will not come without a cost, and the wealthiest individuals who would pay the lion’s share of that cost will fight it tooth and nail. After all, they aren’t the ones that will be denied access due to an inferior and flawed system.

And the wealthiest in this country doesn’t pay good money to buy a government so that it can serve the people.

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Frank Pytel July 9, 2013 at 5:12 am

Holy shit. I’m eligible for Oshitforbrainscare. You’re allowed at 400% of the current poverty level. Excluding my son I’m eligible. Including my son I’m eligible nearly twice over.

Obuttheadcare is going to be the end of this country.

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Curious July 3, 2013 at 8:08 am

Here’s an actual explanation of the situation, for people who would like one:

All along the premise has been to model the reforms around the existing system; i.e. employer based insurance, private insurers, Medicaid, etc. as opposed to a universal government run system. Postponing the employer penalty may ease the transition to the exchanges, illustrate the potential for savings and system improvements, and fairly layout the future without the threat.

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/argh-employer-penalty-edition/

And do read the short piece linked above to understand the situation before bringing the same tired talking points.

Reply
Curious July 3, 2013 at 8:13 am

And look up the definition of socialism, too, before you use the word. If you think this is socialized medicine, you’re ignorant, plain and simple.

Reply
Smirks July 3, 2013 at 8:40 am

Healthcare needs to be at the very least treated in the same manner as a utility, such as electricity or telecommunications. There must be regulations and checks in place to ensure affordability and adequate service, but not so much that it stifles competition, quality, or to some degree, profitability.

I do think that single payer is a better option, but the GOP is throwing a fit over reform that tries to make the current system work; they will never accept single payer, or even a public option. The health care industry lobbies bigtime to make sure that they get to stick around, and Obamacare, like Romneycare, was designed to reform health care to a small degree, but still in favor of the insurance companies rather than the people.

Most wealthy western countries have universal health care. Even countries touted as being more “free market” than the US often have some form of universal health care. Make no mistake, that is only possible with government “interference.” IIRC the list Cato showed of the top 10 countries for economic freedom, more than half had some form of universal health care. Not all of these countries have single payer.

Ultimately, we need a system that actually affords access to health care to the vast majority of Americans. That will not come without a cost, and the wealthiest individuals who would pay the lion’s share of that cost will fight it tooth and nail. After all, they aren’t the ones that will be denied access due to an inferior and flawed system.

And the wealthiest in this country doesn’t pay good money to buy a government so that it can serve the people.

Reply
Frank Pytel July 9, 2013 at 5:12 am

Holy shit. I’m eligible for Oshitforbrainscare. You’re allowed at 400% of the current poverty level. Excluding my son I’m eligible. Including my son I’m eligible nearly twice over.

Obuttheadcare is going to be the end of this country.

Reply
GrandTango July 3, 2013 at 8:49 am

Run out the clock on Obama…then Eliminate Obama-Care, when we get the power…

That’s the ONLY Hope and Change America can relate to…and keep it in mind in the 2014 Elections…

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Sex Wax July 3, 2013 at 11:16 am

“That’s the ONLY Hope and Change America can relate to…and keep it in mind in the 2014 Elections…Obama is a DISASTER…”

Damn good thing Obama’s not running in ’14, huh?

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GrandTango July 3, 2013 at 11:20 am

Oh, but he is is, you ignorant B@$*@d…living under a roack…

Without a GOP House Slapping that stupid Some Beech down, the people have Nobody acting in our intrest…

Your god and savior desperatly needs Congress to continue his record of F*#king up…. why do you thjink FITS is going so hard after Republicans???..they are using their little bit of power to stop your dictator from dick-tating us…

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Sex Wax July 3, 2013 at 11:32 am

When you get off Fantasy Island you might realize your party is big trouble. I’ll let your man explain a bit of it:

“The Republicans are sitting around twiddling their thumbs worried about immigration and whether the Hispanics like them, and they’re being stumped on issue after issue after issue like this,” Limbaugh said.

Who are the people supporting the GOP right now?

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GrandTango July 3, 2013 at 11:39 am

Rush is talking about FITS-Moderates and consultants…who are spending time on Obama’s immigration-amnesty bill…

When Immigration gets through the House, like Obama wants, you may have a club to attack the GOP…

But as long as we Kick Obama’s @$$, the PEOPLE will scream w/ approval…Rush is just making sure the FITS Moderates are aware of that….

Sex Wax July 3, 2013 at 11:54 am

We’ll just wait a see want we? Like Perry had his ass served?

Sex Wax July 3, 2013 at 11:48 am

“…their little bit of power to stop your dictator from dick-tating us…”

Lord, Jesus! Did BigT spell out D-I-C-K?

?..or was it a verb? Dick-Tating: The act of talking into a tape recorder in which said things might bite ass of the orator. Very popular under Nixon.

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Nikki Sicks July 3, 2013 at 4:36 pm

lol…can’t spell a-s-s, but dick? The old bager must be lightening up?

coolhandluke July 3, 2013 at 8:57 am

If the federal govt has all this money it gouges from the working people, then it should just provide money via grants to states and let them be accountable for the health of its people. The federal govt is obviously unable to manage anything in an honest manner and without hiring hordes of many useless people, witness the IRS which is heavily involved in the natl health care law. Obamie is just playing politics with his sorry ass health plan in hopes it will play a role in protecting Senate democrats and gaining control of the house. Hooray for Nicky for declining this piece of liberal shit.

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coolhandluke July 3, 2013 at 8:57 am

If the federal govt has all this money it gouges from the working people, then it should just provide money via grants to states and let them be accountable for the health of its people. The federal govt is obviously unable to manage anything in an honest manner and without hiring hordes of many useless people, witness the IRS which is heavily involved in the natl health care law. Obamie is just playing politics with his sorry ass health plan in hopes it will play a role in protecting Senate democrats and gaining control of the house. Hooray for Nicky for declining this piece of liberal shit.

Reply
GrandTango July 3, 2013 at 9:15 am

The brotha on the right TOTALLY exemplifies Obama’s 5 years….

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Black People's Dogg July 3, 2013 at 11:21 am

Brotha?

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? July 3, 2013 at 9:25 am

Shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. Nothing more.

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? July 3, 2013 at 9:25 am

Shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. Nothing more.

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Jay Ellington July 3, 2013 at 10:18 am

Yeah, but you get a lifetime supply of Brawndo and a free phone for being one of the first 10,000,000 to sign up.

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The Ghost of Fat Greg Dulli July 3, 2013 at 10:18 am

Yeah, but you get a lifetime supply of Brawndo and a free phone for being one of the first 10,000,000 to sign up.

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GrandTango July 3, 2013 at 10:21 am

Without the media continually shilling for Obama, and using Romney as the villian…Obama’s approval numbers are in the low 40s…He is despised mmore and more, even w/ lies and propaganda propping him up….
Obama has been a Total Screw Up, from the economy and energy to foreign policy…But Obama’s MOST-dangerous and most-hated Screw-Up is ObamaCare…
You can get rid of Obama, but Obama-Care will cripple America forever if it’s not eradicated….

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