People are still fighting Obamacare?

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Apparently so. I really thought this fight was over and the irrational panic had passed.

From NBC

“We're going to continue to do everything we can to repeal the president's failed healthcare law,” Boehner told reporters on Capitol Hill. He said the House will pass a continuing resolution “that locks the sequester savings in and defunds Obamacare.”

Failed? Obamacare is a "failed" law? I know it's all political spin but really? How has it failed?

From the Atlantic Wire:

For the activist base of the party, there is understandable frustration. After more than three dozen futile House votes to trim or gut the healthcare plan (and with another on the horizon), conservative Republicans rallied in Washington last week, demanding that the party take some sort of action during the budget fight. As the Daily Caller put it, the activists wanted the party to "not just keep going through the motions to appease the conservative base."

And from the Washington Post

Here's the Republican Party's problem, in two sentences: It would be a disaster for the party to shut down the government over Obamacare. But it's good for every individual Republican politician to support shutting down the government over Obamacare.

...

"What we're seeing unfold in the House is something that has animated internal House deliberations all 2013: the end of power as we knew it," writes Costa. Absent a Republican president or Republican nominee for president, "power has shifted away from the Capitol leadership offices to Tea Party Inc and backbench."

To me, this really is a great example of what happens when an extremely vocal minority takes control of a larger body. We're back to fighting the same old fight, putting the nations financial stability at risk, for an ideal that the majority of Americans seem to care less about and that isn't even backed up by any data. It would be the same if a small group of Democrats had taken control, tried to push through a single-payer system, were beaten and just kept pushing it every chance they got even despite opinion only turning further against them. What's the point? If you've got convictions about this sort of thing, great, just try to find another way to go about it because this way isn't working and it's only destabilizing things.

Not sure I'd call it a vocal minority if the poll nested in this CNN article is to be believed.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/11/cnn-poll-who-would-get-blamed-for-government-shutdown/

If those numbers are correct, there are still a lot of people who disagree with it. I don't necessarily disagree with the thought behind the act, but I really despise how it was rammed through congress.

Note: I am at work and have not read all of the articles linked in the OP as of yet.

It's a problem for Republicans, because as people become more familiar with the law, they are likely to like it. Once that happens, it's over for the defunders.

obirano wrote:

Not sure I'd call it a vocal minority if the poll nested in this CNN article is to be believed.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/09/11/cnn-poll-who-would-get-blamed-for-government-shutdown/

If those numbers are correct, there are still a lot of people who disagree with it. I don't necessarily disagree with the thought behind the act, but I really despise how it was rammed through congress.

Note: I am at work and have not read all of the articles linked in the OP as of yet.

The numbers have consistently shown that people hate the law, but agree with pretty much everything it does. That's one of the reasons that Republicans are fighting it so hard. If it works like it's supposed to, then everyone who's said it's a Holocaust on liberty designed by the Anti-Christ are going to look at least a little silly.

Kehama wrote:

Failed? Obamacare is a "failed" law? I know it's all political spin but really? How has it failed?

The only thing that's failed about Obamacare are the 41 separate House votes to repeal it, each of which has cost taxpayers around $1.5 million. Besides, I don't even understand how a law that technically doesn't go into effect until next month can be considered a failure.

Kehama wrote:

What's the point? If you've got convictions about this sort of thing, great, just try to find another way to go about it because this way isn't working and it's only destabilizing things.

Convictions *are* the point. The core belief of the Tea Party is that the Republican Party has made too many compromises so what's needed it *more* ideological purity. That translates into a willingness--nay, requirement--to burn everything down to the ground before you compromise.

I can only hope that the GOP's willingness to drive our country off the face of a cliff (for realsies this time) is enough to shatter the Stockholm syndrome that a lot of conservatives have been suffering from for the past decade or so. Today's GOP is nothing like their daddy's party.

Robear wrote:

It's a problem for Republicans, because as people become more familiar with the law, they are likely to like it. Once that happens, it's over for the defunders.

So 4+ years is not enough to get familiar with the law?

Failed? Obamacare is a "failed" law? I know it's all political spin but really? How has it failed?

Numerous delays and missed deadlines by the government, numerous corporate exemptions, a congressional exemption from the law when it was Congress that passed it. If it is such a great law then why the exemptions?

I am not a big Anti-Obama Care person but implementation has not gone well so far. The congressional exemption from the law really gets me though. Washington hypocrisy at its best.

The real problem with the law, from what I can tell is that it expands coverage with little cost control, which would probably require a single payer system or somthing like it. In economics when you expand demand but supply does not grow at the same pace, you know what you get.

I don't like that "Obamacare" is the coined phrase to describe this.

You could be a polarized non Obama supporter but the system might be good (I don't know as I carry private insurance).

Some people see the name and suddenly there's only a binary answer or an answer only along "party lines."

Given the crap that my conservative family members keep posting about the law on Facebook, no four years isn't long enough.

I'm really looking forward to getting my Obamacare-mandated microchip implanted next year.

FeralMonkey wrote:

Given the crap that my conservative family members keep posting about the law on Facebook, no four years isn't long enough.

I'm really looking forward to getting my Obamacare-mandated microchip implanted next year.

The year after that Obama is outlawing pies and onion rings, leaving us with cakes and fries.

FeralMonkey wrote:

Given the crap that my conservative family members keep posting about the law on Facebook, no four years isn't long enough.

I'm really looking forward to getting my Obamacare-mandated microchip implanted next year.

As a Canadian, we have had our government-mandated chips implanted for years now. My daughters had them implanted shortly after birth, when they take the blood from their heel to check for various diseases. If you can, make sure to get a chip with a serial number that is not a multiple of 15. Unless you like randomly killing the person next to you on the 15th of every month...

Death panels! Religious liberty destroyed! European socialist nanny state!

edit: forgot destruction of the nuclear family by the gays.

I can't believe no one has written the real reason.

HE'S BLACK.

seriously... Republicans are in an absolute seizure over this thing.

The biggest complaint that I have is that the administration has been absolutely horrible in explaining this thing. They're apparently stepping up the announcements, ads, etc. as the time to enroll comes up but come on guys! You pass something that looks like it is going to help a lot of people, and then spend absolutely no time explaining how it's going to help. Talk about looking incompetent, and yet this seems par for the course with how the democrats work.

The more quiet the proponents of this are the more it plays right into the opponent's arguments (even if it is a bad argument.)

As for how they can call it a failure when it hasn't even really started... I just don't get it.

Robear wrote:

It's a problem for Republicans, because as people become more familiar with the law, they are likely to like it. Once that happens, it's over for the defunders.

The trend in the poll seems to show the opposite if this. The longer people have to get to know the law, approval goes down.

Ahhh. Now I see why the message hasn't been so good...
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/18/opinion/carroll-obamacare-poll/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

Originally, Obamacare was expected to come with more than half a billion dollars to be spent on outreach and education efforts about the exchanges. This money was supposed to be used to help people understand how Obamacare was supposed to work for everyone. But the Republican-led House of Representatives cut the whole implementation budget. When Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was further forced to move what little money remained in the PR budget into the Prevention Public Health Fund (which was also cut), Sen. Max Baucus, one of the main architects of Obamacare, got upset. He remarked that the law was complicated and that we would get a "train wreck."
obirano wrote:
Robear wrote:

It's a problem for Republicans, because as people become more familiar with the law, they are likely to like it. Once that happens, it's over for the defunders.

The trend in the poll seems to show the opposite if this. The longer people have to get to know the law, approval goes down.

Obriano- That's not true. The polls are reflecting the unease that people have because they don't understand the thing. I think if this law manages to get off the ground, next year you will see a big swing in the direction of the poll with people saying "Hey I get healthcare and I never had it before. This is ok"

obirano wrote:

The trend in the poll seems to show the opposite if this. The longer people have to get to know the law, approval goes down.

Begging the question are they actually getting to know the law, or listening to the counter-propaganda? Because I know my local reps love nothing more than to puke out sound bites against.

Robear wrote:

It's a problem for Republicans, because as people become more familiar with the law, they are likely to like it. Once that happens, it's over for the defunders.

You heard it here first.

When the defunders finally recognize that they can't keep fcuking the chicken, they will rename "Obamacare" "The Tea Party Fix" and announce that they "fixed" it and saved the country.

Bank on it.

Hell, bet the house.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
obirano wrote:

The trend in the poll seems to show the opposite if this. The longer people have to get to know the law, approval goes down.

Begging the question are they actually getting to know the law, or listening to the counter-propaganda? Because I know my local reps love nothing more than to puke out sound bites against.

I honestly don't know.

Regarding JC, I don't think we can necessarily make that assumption either. Both are assumptions mind you, not saying my original thought was right. We cant say what exactly it reflects other than more people are "dissaproving" as time goes on. I guess we will see when and if it finally goes active.

JC wrote:
obirano wrote:
Robear wrote:

It's a problem for Republicans, because as people become more familiar with the law, they are likely to like it. Once that happens, it's over for the defunders.

The trend in the poll seems to show the opposite if this. The longer people have to get to know the law, approval goes down.

Obriano- That's not true. The polls are reflecting the unease that people have because they don't understand the thing. I think if this law manages to get off the ground, next year you will see a big swing in the direction of the poll with people saying "Hey I get healthcare and I never had it before. This is ok"

How can you say it is not true? You have no facts to prove it other than the conviction that people will like it the more they know and if they do not like it it must be because they do not know about it.

I think it is safer to say that people know more about it now than when it was passed and that knowledge has generally increased to some degree given public discussion of the topic. They might not know allot more but they know more or atleast think they do.

Tenebrous wrote:
JC wrote:
obirano wrote:
Robear wrote:

It's a problem for Republicans, because as people become more familiar with the law, they are likely to like it. Once that happens, it's over for the defunders.

The trend in the poll seems to show the opposite if this. The longer people have to get to know the law, approval goes down.

Obriano- That's not true. The polls are reflecting the unease that people have because they don't understand the thing. I think if this law manages to get off the ground, next year you will see a big swing in the direction of the poll with people saying "Hey I get healthcare and I never had it before. This is ok"

How can you say it is not true? You have no facts to prove it other than the conviction that people will like it the more they know and if they do not like it it must be because they do not know about it.

I think it is safer to say that people know more about it now than when it was passed and that knowledge has generally increased to some degree given public discussion of the topic. They might not know allot more but they know more or atleast think they do.

sorry for the snark, but this just needed this.

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_D_Z-D2tzi14/S8TTPQCPA6I/AAAAAAAACwA/ZHZH-Bi8OmI/s400/ALOT2.png)

Tenebrous wrote:

Numerous delays and missed deadlines by the government, numerous corporate exemptions, a congressional exemption from the law when it was Congress that passed it. If it is such a great law then why the exemptions?

It's a law that affects tens of millions of Americans and touches on an Byzantine industry that accounts for 18% of our GDP. Did you honestly think that it would roll out smoothly and there'd be absolutely no hiccups whatsoever? That there wouldn't be various companies or groups that wanted some sort of special treatment?

There have been delays with Obamacare, but that's not unexpected. Remember Dodd-Frank, the financial reform law Congress passed three years ago? They haven't even finished writing that law yet.

There have also been missed deadlines. But most of those have been for "bureaucratic busywork," like writing reports about the appropriate level of of education required about diabetes and not things that are essential to the ACA.

There have also been about 2,000 corporate exemptions. But what tends to get left out of the news reporting is that they are temporary exemptions that will give those companies a year to figure things out. That seems like a relatively prudent thing to do, especially when the health care exchanges those employees are supposed to turn to aren't mandated to be up and running until next year.

And, no, Congress didn't exempt itself from Obamacare. Members of Congress and their staff get their health insurance from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. It's the same plan that all federal employees use. Had nothing happened, there wouldn't have been any controversy. Like employees of a company that provided health insurance, members of Congress and their staffs would have been able to stay on their existing health insurance.

But something did happen. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wanted to make a political point so he wrote an amendment to the ACA that forced members of Congress and their staff off of their Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan and required them to get their insurance through the new health care exchanges.

Unfortunately, Grassley's amendment was poorly worded so it created a rather large problem: when members of Congress and their staffs were covered under FEHBS, the federal government--like any employer--paid a large chunk of their insurance costs. His amendment didn't explicitly say that Congressional staff would still have their employer pay for that chunk of their insurance costs, which then led to a situation where Congressional staff would be faced with paying 100% of their healthcare costs.

The "exemption" is merely an administrative ruling that Congressional staff will still have the federal government contribute financially to their health insurance, just like every large employers.

JC wrote:

The polls are reflecting the unease that people have because they don't understand the thing.

No. People understand all too well what's happening here: while restrictions and penalties for employers and insurance companies are being kicked down the road, the individual mandates and connected penalties are somehow still going into effect. How is that in any sense of the word good or equitable? Either Obama is selling out to special interests, or the law is structurally unworkable and broken.

And we're only starting to see the tip of the iceberg in terms of what happens when you incentivize businesses to keep people under 30 hours per week. That already double digit underemployment rate is going to spike. I realize the appeal of just claiming the people are too ignorant to understand, but they really do. Its not like the government screwing them is an unrcognizably foreign concept.

NormanTheIntern wrote:

And we're only starting to see the tip of the iceberg in terms of what happens when you incentivize businesses to keep people under 30 hours per week. That already double digit underemployment rate is going to spike. I realize the appeal of just claiming the people are too ignorant to understand, but they really do. Its not like the government screwing them is an unrcognizably foreign concept.

And we're also just starting to see the tip of the iceberg in terms of what will happen when health insurance isn't tied to your employment. Just imagine how many entrepreneurs are out there who haven't acted on their dream--and created jobs--because they have kids that need braces or a loved one with a chronic health condition. Obamacare will allow them create new businesses as well as take care of their families.

I just can't understand how you guys haven't worked out this universal healthcare thing by now... It is incredibly frustrating to sit on the other side of the pond listening to stories like Phoenix Rev's where citizens of almost any other developed nation would be treated like they were worth a damn

DC Malleus wrote:

I just can't understand how you guys haven't worked out this universal healthcare thing by now... It is incredibly frustrating to sit on the other side of the pond listening to stories like Phoenix Rev's where citizens of almost any other developed nation would be treated like they were worth a damn :(

Exactly.

Tenebrous wrote:

Robear wrote:

It's a problem for Republicans, because as people become more familiar with the law, they are likely to like it. Once that happens, it's over for the defunders.

So 4+ years is not enough to get familiar with the law?

Absolutely not, considering that many parts of it's implementation were not defined until this year, and some I think are still not defined. How could you possibly know exactly how it's going to affect you when most of it has not yet been put in place? The exchanges won't even open until October, and those are just the ones where the states set up their own, or let the Feds do it. No offense, Tenebrous, but you cited something in your earlier statement that simply was not true (that Congress exempted itself).

So far, the law sets up marketplaces where people can get affordable insurance (in fact, the initial indicators are that these policies will cost *less* than expected, especially for young people, who could see fees of about $100 a month in many cases); require health care companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions; requires that 80% of insurance monies be spent on healthcare services, and rate changes of more than 10% be publicly justified; prevents companies from canceling your insurance because you became ill; allows you to choose your doctor within the plan network, and disallows higher copays and fees for out of network emergency room visits; extends coverage under parents plans to young people up to age 26; provides free preventive screenings under many plans (even colonoscopies and the like); ends lifetime and yearly limits on insurance payouts; and strengthens your ability to appeal refusals.

Gee, I dunno, sounds terrible to me... Something for everyone to hate, right?

For reference, for anyone who cares (not aimed at Tenebrous), you can learn more about the Act at healthcare.gov.

I'm still firmly in the camp of all the negative propaganda is influencing the polls. You're asking people how they feel about something that hasn't truly gone into place. All you have are tea party and republican groups frothing at the mouth and telling people that this is bad.

I think Robear has nailed it. As soon as you see good come out of this law, people are going to swing around and look at the people that tried to convince everyone it was horrible and voted against it.

But what really torques me up is the fact that even if it is bad, there isn't anyone suggesting a solution, especially the most vocal opponents.

The only solution they have is to cut of their noses to spite their face via a potential government shutdown.

Can we do single payer now please?

OG_slinger wrote:
NormanTheIntern wrote:

And we're only starting to see the tip of the iceberg in terms of what happens when you incentivize businesses to keep people under 30 hours per week. That already double digit underemployment rate is going to spike. I realize the appeal of just claiming the people are too ignorant to understand, but they really do. Its not like the government screwing them is an unrcognizably foreign concept.

And we're also just starting to see the tip of the iceberg in terms of what will happen when health insurance isn't tied to your employment. Just imagine how many entrepreneurs are out there who haven't acted on their dream--and created jobs--because they have kids that need braces or a loved one with a chronic health condition. Obamacare will allow them create new businesses as well as take care of their families.

So they can employ a bunch of people under 30 hours per week. Honestly single payer would be better than this. There are many larger expenses in starting your own business than healthcare.

Plus as I pointed out all of this comes at increased costs, you can not expand coverage faster than you expand supply and think there will not be an increase in price. If you have increased costs, they will show up in higher premiums.

Tenebrous wrote:

So they can employ a bunch of people under 30 hours per week. Honestly single payer would be better than this. There are many larger expenses in starting your own business than healthcare.

Plus as I pointed out all of this comes at increased costs, you can not expand coverage faster than you expand supply and think there will not be an increase in price. If you have increased costs, they will show up in higher premiums.

Of course single payer would be better. But that was portrayed as Communism incarnate. So we get what we get. At the end of the day, fifty million more Americans get health care.

And we have absolutely no idea how the cost is going to work out. We're expanding the pool of insured by 50 million, so it's likely that there's not going to be increase in costs past the first couple of years when there's a massive backlog of health care services people will demand because they haven't had access for years.

As bad as you might think Obamacare is, it's so much better than the existing laws and, personally, I'm not willing to wait another 25 years before Congress decides it can take on health care reform again.

JC wrote:

I'm still firmly in the camp of all the negative propaganda is influencing the polls. You're asking people how they feel about something that hasn't truly gone into place.

But that's not "negative propaganda", that's reacting to the very public missed deadlines, missteps, and unequal treatment of corporations and companies versus the people the law is supposedly protecting.

Like, sure, the "death panel" stuff from the summer of 09 (I think?) was basically agitprop. This is a large scale reaction to the fact that this is such a bad law that it can't be enforced as written.

NormanTheIntern wrote:
JC wrote:

The polls are reflecting the unease that people have because they don't understand the thing.

No. People understand all too well what's happening here: while restrictions and penalties for employers and insurance companies are being kicked down the road, the individual mandates and connected penalties are somehow still going into effect. How is that in any sense of the word good or equitable? Either Obama is selling out to special interests, or the law is structurally unworkable and broken.

You are overstating the case here. SOME restrictions and penalties have been kicked down the road. Many have not. The lifetime caps are gone. The pre-exisiting conditions clauses will all be gone come Jan. 1. Rescission is outlawed. You cannot be denied coverage by going to an ER that is out-of-network. And on and on.

And we're only starting to see the tip of the iceberg in terms of what happens when you incentivize businesses to keep people under 30 hours per week. That already double digit underemployment rate is going to spike. I realize the appeal of just claiming the people are too ignorant to understand, but they really do. Its not like the government screwing them is an unrcognizably foreign concept.

Nothing gave the incentive to businesses to keep workers under 30 hours. The claim from the CEO of Papa John's that the end was nigh because of Obamacare and that he had to - HAD TO - reduce hours in order to turn a profit was pure unsupported spin. He admitted himself that he would have to raise costs on pizzas by about $0.20 max. Katy bar the door! A whole, whopping $0.20 per pie. There wasn't a single person I heard of or knew who said they would abandon Papa John's because he would raise the price $0.20. In fact, it was just the opposite. Almost every person I know had no problems paying an extra quarter so someone could have decent health care.

In fact, the little pizza joint near my home put up a sign saying that he would not reduce hours but would be raising prices by $0.50 per pie come Jan. 1 so that his workers could have decent health insurance. The response was overwhelmingly positive. Very few people said they wouldn't come back because of the increase. So, this little business man in Phoenix that has a small strip mall pizza shop can get health insurance for his employees by simply raising prices by a very modest half dollar, but the very wealthy, supposedly "in the know" business tycoon who runs Papa John's can't figure it out?

Gee, that tells me that his understanding of Obamacare is just as crappy as his pizzas.

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