People are still fighting Obamacare?

NormanTheIntern wrote:

So anyway, how about these October numbers.

*silently mouths "wow"*

Which numbers or you wowing, the 26K that signed up or the 27 million that visited the site? I think we already knew that they were not getting people signed up. Are Republicans really going to play this like a lack of interest?

Jayhawker wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

So anyway, how about these October numbers.

*silently mouths "wow"*

Which numbers or you wowing, the 26K that signed up or the 27 million that visited the site? I think we already knew that they were not getting people signed up. Are Republicans really going to play this like a lack of interest?

Let's says 26.999 million. I only went to the site to see how jacked up it was.

Jayhawker wrote:

Which numbers or you wowing, the 26K that signed up or the 27 million that visited the site? I think we already knew that they were not getting people signed up. Are Republicans really going to play this like a lack of interest?

I'm not really sure it requires "play" or "spin" to consider 20% of a self-defined benchmark a massive failure.

So which is it anyway, have you decided?

Is the law massively popular and that is why the web site it getting so much traffic or is it a hated law that sucks with huge amounts of interest on their web site?

I can't remember which of the excuses people are supposed to be using to show how evil the law is.

Anyway, snarky comments aside.

It is disappointing but with only 30 days to judge, and a glitchy (best case) / colossal failure (worst case) web site I think it is hard to make many judgements from these numbers.

Norm, stop being passive aggressive! You are just agreeing with what people are saying and sabotaging them behind their backs! Well . . .

26k is disappointing, but there is still time for people to enroll.

Obama says crappy plans can stay another year

A Democratic official says President Barack Obama has decided to allow the sale of canceled individual health insurance policies to existing customers, part of a plan to satisfy public discontent with "Obamacare."

Obama set a late morning White House announcement.

The official said the administration's one-year plan is to let insurers continue to offer plans that had been canceled because they did not meet coverage standards under the health care law.

The official says insurance companies must also notify policyholders that alternatives exist under Obama's health care program, and have to describe the areas in which their own plans fall short of coverage requirements in the law.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because this person lacked authority to speak publicly ahead of a formal announcement.

Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) wrote:

WH to insurers: Follow the law, cancel the plans.
Insurers: Done as requested.
WH: Reinstate them.
Insurers: We can't.
WH: It's THEIR fault!

So they're basically just saying the individual mandate won't be enforced against those 5 million people and telling insurers it's okay to keep selling illegal plans?

W-what

NormanTheIntern wrote:

So they're basically just saying the individual mandate won't be enforced against those 5 million people and telling insurers it's okay to keep selling illegal plans?

W-what

For one year, yeah.

It's a little jarring they're doing/extending it now, but delayed enforcement or time for industries to become compliant with such-and-such law isn't all that confusing or rare.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

So they're basically just saying the individual mandate won't be enforced against those 5 million people and telling insurers it's okay to keep selling illegal plans?

W-what

I don't think that the mandate is really being delayed, those people will still have insurance.

Grandfathering old things into new laws, especially with a short expiration, is hardly unique for this law, but I do think it's dumb and wish that they hadn't done it. Those insurance plans were terrible and getting rid of them was a good thing.

The right of company's to defraud customers is one of the foundational principles of this great nation, you Constitution hater, you!

Those plans are so bad that they're fraudulent and were made illegal, but its cool you can totally buy them anyway - also net/net keeping millions of self-insured out of the national exchanges.

Am I taking crazy pills or did they just voluntarily shred their own narrative?

You're omitting the "this is a temporary measure while we fix our screw up" part that makes it less crazy.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

Those plans are so bad that they're fraudulent and were made illegal, but its cool you can totally buy them anyway - also net/net keeping millions of self-insured out of the national exchanges.

Am I taking crazy pills or did they just voluntarily shred their own narrative?

... For someone who has gone on so much about how the Democrats "forced through an unpopular plan and deserve all the troubles the Republicans are giving them" you sure are critical of their attempts to compromise and give into the Republicans' wishes. When you deign to acknowledge the compromises at all.

Bloo Driver wrote:

You're omitting the "this is a temporary measure while we fix our screw up" part that makes it less crazy.

But 6 weeks ago delaying millions of people from entering the exchanges for a year was "an attempt to kill Obamacare" and out of the question, now it's just a "temporary measure" and nbd - it's not an apples to apples comparison, in terms of scope, but surely all the same principles in terms of adverse selection leading to increased premiums apply. And what "screw up" is going to be fixed here a year from now? I assume it will be easier to sign up, but a year delay doesn't fix the lie, and premiums would be more expensive then, not less, right? It's almost like some... "event" or something, I dunno, is happening in 2014, and this gives certain... "people", for lack of a better word, air cover until that's over.

IMAGE(http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/you-dont-say.gif)

NormanTheIntern wrote:

But 6 weeks ago delaying millions of people from entering the exchanges for a year was "an attempt to kill Obamacare" and out of the question, now it's just a "temporary measure" and nbd - it's not an apples to apples comparison, in terms of scope, but surely all the same principles in terms of adverse selection leading to increased premiums apply. And what "screw up" is going to be fixed here a year from now? I assume it will be easier to sign up, but a year delay doesn't fix the lie, and premiums would be more expensive then, not less, right? It's almost like some... "event" or something, I dunno, is happening in 2014, and this gives certain... "people", for lack of a better word, air cover until that's over.

Six weeks ago it was about delaying the entire individual mandate--all of it. That was an attempt to kill Obamacare because, as you pointed out, there's an "event" happening in 2014 and Republicans would have just loved another 12 months of screaming at everyone about how terrible Obamacare was for them and America to help them out at the polls so they could win a few seats and finally have that 44th vote against Obamacare actually work.

I'm not even sure what you're all riled up about now. In your mind, Obama lied and a few million people had to give up their insurance, even if it was absolutely sh*tty insurance, and that was a horrible, terrible, bad thing. Now they don't. And yet you're still not happy. Hell, one of your first posts in this thread was that you thought it was terrible that businesses were getting all kind of exceptions, but people were being forced to comply. Well guess what. Now people have their very own exceptions.

And I don't think anyone here wouldn't claim this was a political move by Obama. Just like it was a political move by Republicans to vote 43 times against Obamacare. Just like it was a political move by Republicans to shut down the government. Just like it was a political move by 150-odd House Republicans to vote against the debt deal just so they could prove their Tea Party street cred. Such is politics.

But election day 2014 is a long way away. That's plenty of time for the kinks of Obamacare to get worked out and have millions of Americans benefiting from the law. And, more importantly, to have tens of millions Americans realize Obamacare isn't the end of the world like conservatives have been saying for the past three years.

NormanTheIntern wrote:
Bloo Driver wrote:

You're omitting the "this is a temporary measure while we fix our screw up" part that makes it less crazy.

But 6 weeks ago delaying millions of people from entering the exchanges for a year was "an attempt to kill Obamacare" and out of the question, now it's just a "temporary measure" and nbd - it's not an apples to apples comparison, in terms of scope, but surely all the same principles in terms of adverse selection leading to increased premiums apply. And what "screw up" is going to be fixed here a year from now? I assume it will be easier to sign up, but a year delay doesn't fix the lie, and premiums would be more expensive then, not less, right? It's almost like some... "event" or something, I dunno, is happening in 2014, and this gives certain... "people", for lack of a better word, air cover until that's over.

I didn't say it's no big deal. I just said it's not an unusual consequence of what is happening right now. You're trying to act like it's some crazy out of nowhere pointless insane-o nosedive that makes no sense. I mean, given the situation we're in now, what do you think the White House should do: Keep plugging along as if nothing has been a problem, or attempt to address some of the problems? I mean, as long as we're using supposition quotes, a few weeks ago it was "hahaha it's not working and they're acting like it is!" and now it's, "haha it's not working and they're doing something to address it!" Seems a little unfair.

Also, re: the bolded: Really? (edit: That is not a sarcastic "really". I mean, is it not obvious that this is in response to the problems with the website, which can probably be fixed in a year or less?)

Bloo Driver wrote:

Also, re: the bolded: Really? (edit: That is not a sarcastic "really". I mean, is it not obvious that this is in response to the problems with the website, which can probably be fixed in a year or less?)

It is not obvious - first, the website issues are a proverbial wet willie compared to the triple crotch-kick of getting kicked off your plan, being lied to about getting kicked off your plan, and in many cases being forced to pay more for your replacement. A year's delay will solve none of the crotch-kicks, and based on the logic used in this thread against delaying the individual mandate, will make the last kick even harder. Second - if the goal here was to mitigate the inconvenience of website issues, they're still screwing every single person without insurance today - they still have to sign up.

NormanTheIntern wrote:
Bloo Driver wrote:

Also, re: the bolded: Really? (edit: That is not a sarcastic "really". I mean, is it not obvious that this is in response to the problems with the website, which can probably be fixed in a year or less?)

It is not obvious - first, the website issues are a proverbial wet willie compared to the triple crotch-kick of getting kicked off your plan, being lied to about getting kicked off your plan, and in many cases being forced to pay more for your replacement. A year's delay will solve none of the crotch-kicks, and based on the logic used in this thread against delaying the individual mandate, will make the last kick even harder. Second - if the goal here was to mitigate the inconvenience of website issues, they're still screwing every single person without insurance today - they still have to sign up.

Well, nothing is going to soothe the second crotch kick. The first and last crotch kicks are... I dunno. I'm torn, honestly. The Venn diagram of people who can't keep their current plans and are also the people who are going to have to pay more because their plan is horrible AND won't benefit from having actual health insurance seems small to me. And beyond that, it's probably better for them in the overall health care sense, but there's no telling if this is a personal bust to their household budget or not. I'm going to imagine that many of them will feel the pain, but many of them will be alright. But that's more of a feeling and kind of a lame moral argument and I won't cling too tightly to it. Part of the problem ACA is supposed to solve is that people who DO pay for healthcare is the fact that they're subsidizing the people who don't (but realistically could). And this is a step towards fixing some of that, and the idea that no one would get squeezed in the transition is not realistic. There's no denying it's pretty crappy to be in that crosshair, though.

But beyond that, keep in mind that the number of people who are being forced off their plans into more expensive plans is relatively small. Somewhere between 10-15 million, based on how people toy with the numbers. So that's a small percentage of Americans overall. So to the point that this is like delaying the mandate and causing the domino effect that could stall out and kill Obamacare? It doesn't compare. The problem with delaying the mandate overall was a major lack of participation. This is not that.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

It is not obvious - first, the website issues are a proverbial wet willie compared to the triple crotch-kick of getting kicked off your plan, being lied to about getting kicked off your plan, and in many cases being forced to pay more for your replacement. A year's delay will solve none of the crotch-kicks, and based on the logic used in this thread against delaying the individual mandate, will make the last kick even harder. Second - if the goal here was to mitigate the inconvenience of website issues, they're still screwing every single person without insurance today - they still have to sign up.

Healthcare.gov: Known bad thing, getting fixed.

Being lied to: HHS talked about this three years ago. It was a known side-effect of the policy.

I also understand that none of that matters to people who thought Obama was a lying liar even before Obamacare and that pointing to said policy and trying to calmly discuss it is trumped by an interview with someone's grandparent who is freaking out because their perfectly good insurance that totally would have covered them for everything was just canceled because Obama's a bad man.

Paying more: I didn't realize Obama also promised everyone they'd pay the same as they did before... Even so, the cases we've looked at in this thread have shown that people affected would only have to pay modestly more (like 50 bucks a month) to get vastly superior coverage and some, shocker of shockers, are actually interested in getting better coverage even if it costs a bit more.

Year delay: Totally a political move to placate the "Obama's a lying liar" crowd. Only affects some of the self-insured, which are only a fraction of the total pool of people impacted by Obamacare.

I think the problem with your position is that you're assuming that everyone who is self-insured would rather keep their cheaper current insurance--even if it essentially gives them no coverage--than pay slightly more for much better coverage. While there are likely people who think their $75 a month insurance will cover them for everything, most people are rational enough to admit they bought cheap insurance because it was at least better than their other option at the time, which was no insurance. Now they have another option.

Your position also ignores the HHS analysis of self-insured people showed that the vast majority of them switch plans within a year anyway, so it's extremely disingenuous to pretend that they were wedded to their plan and would fight tooth and nail to keep it.

Screwing the uninsured: The goal of this announcement was most definitely not to mitigate the issues related to the exchange website. The goal was to turn the media and political heat down on the rocky public launch of Obamacare.

And I'm not quite sure if you mean the uninsured will be screwed because you think they won't able to sign up through the healthcare.gov in time or if you mean they'll be screwed because they'll still have to buy insurance.

OG_slinger wrote:

Being lied to: HHS talked about this three years ago. It was a known side-effect of the policy.

I also understand that none of that matters to people who thought Obama was a lying liar even before Obamacare and that pointing to said policy and trying to calmly discuss it is trumped by an interview with someone's grandparent who is freaking out because their perfectly good insurance that totally would have covered them for everything was just canceled because Obama's a bad man.

I'm hesitant to go down this rabbit hole again, but someone telling the more nuanced truth somewhere/when else doesn't make Obama not a liar when he said something else. Definitively. It isn't something that's been taken out of context and paraded around like the "you didn't build that" meme. He was precise and repeated himself and left no room for interpretation in a public appearance.

Bloo Driver wrote:

I'm hesitant to go down this rabbit hole again, but someone telling the more nuanced truth somewhere/when else doesn't make Obama not a liar when he said something else. Definitively. It isn't something that's been taken out of context and paraded around like the "you didn't build that" meme. He was precise and repeated himself and left no room for interpretation in a public appearance.

I disagree. The majority of the times there's video of Obama "lying" it's either from his 2008 campaign--long before the ACA was written--or during the summer and fall of 2009 when Congress was actually writing the law. It's a bit much to call someone a liar because something they said didn't match what a group of other people agreed to put in a document months later.

And even when there's video of him after the ACA was passed, I still don't consider it lying because he was still out there selling the idea of healthcare reform to a public that was either skeptical or scared. Telling insured Americans that they wouldn't be negatively impacted by the new law was part of that sales job. And it was true: virtually everyone who was insured got it through their employer and, thus, wouldn't be affected (negatively).

You don't sell anything by focusing on the negatives, especially a negative that, relatively speaking, doesn't affect that many people. Doubly so when theres barely 30% of that group that actually want to keep their sh*tty insurance for more than a year.

OG_slinger wrote:

And even when there's video of him after the ACA was passed, I still don't consider it lying because he was still out there selling the idea of healthcare reform to a public that was either skeptical or scared. Telling insured Americans that they wouldn't be negatively impacted by the new law was part of that sales job. And it was true: virtually everyone who was insured got it through their employer and, thus, wouldn't be affected (negatively).

You don't sell anything by focusing on the negatives, especially a negative that, relatively speaking, doesn't affect that many people. Doubly so when theres barely 30% of that group that actually want to keep their sh*tty insurance for more than a year.

I guess I just don't get it. The dude lied. But you don't consider it lying because it wasn't a harmful lie? That doesn't make it not a lie.

I'm not really gonna go on about this because I, as noted earlier, don't really care that he lied. I even understand why - I agree with similar reasons noted above, but I think he might have saved himself some trouble by not being so absolute and definitive in his statements. But he was, and it wasn't true. I just don't understand why people so tenaciously try to argue it was something else.

OG_slinger wrote:

And even when there's video of him after the ACA was passed, I still don't consider it lying because he was still out there selling the idea of healthcare reform to a public that was either skeptical or scared.

Words matter. What our leaders say matters, because the American people need to know we're saying what we mean and we mean what we say.

I've not seen it discussed here, but I am curious to get other's opinions on the question of whether Obama even has the power to grant this one year grace period. Is this a non-issue, or is it something that will throw another wrench into the works?

Obama stands up for Pokemon! WOO!

sheared wrote:

I've not seen it discussed here, but I am curious to get other's opinions on the question of whether Obama even has the power to grant this one year grace period. Is this a non-issue, or is it something that will throw another wrench into the works?

Apparently yes

It seems he can. It’s not that he’s changed anything in the law. It’s more a case of saying his government won’t enforce it, kind of like what his administration did when it gave employers an extra year to provide health insurance for workers last July.

What Obama's decision does do is kick the cancellation decision back to state insurance commissioners and the insurance companies themselves. “It was a blame-shifting exercise,” says Dr. Scott Gottleib, a health policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute

http://t.nbcnews.com/health/obamacar...

So on a lark the other day I named my pokemon rival Obama. The results have been... unsettlingly salient

spoilered for unintended huge, I fail at imgur

Spoiler:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/4hVQtf2.jpg)