Baucus is the first top Democrat to publicly voice fears about the rollout of the new health care law.... Normally low-key and supportive, Baucus challenged Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at Wednesday’s hearing.
He said he’s “very concerned” that new health insurance marketplaces for consumers and small businesses will not open on time in every state, and that if they do, they might just flop because residents don’t have the information they need to make choices.
“The administration’s public information campaign on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act deserves a failing grade,” he told Sebelius. “You need to fix this.”...
At one point, as Sebelius tried to answer Baucus’ demand for facts and figures, the senator admonished: “You haven’t given me any data; you just give me concepts, frankly.”
ADDED: This must be the tip of an iceberg of anxiety among the Democrats, who are alone responsible for this law. For the first time, it crossed my mind that Democrats might decide to support repeal. It would be a huge admission of mistake — like denouncing a war you once supported — but at some point, going forward is even worse.
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169 comments:
Frankly, knowing how effective government is at doing...anything; I'm shocked by this development.
Baucus is up for re-election in Nov 2014. He voted for Obamacare and now he's trying to get the chains off. Good luck.
Baucus is highly involved in the Senate Finance Committee which writes our complex tax laws so he knew how f-ed up Obamacare regs are.
Baucus voted for Obamacare, was involved in its creation and is just trying to lower expectations here. Everything to these pukes like Baucus is about the next election.
If only there were a way to foresee problems with a bill that was 2700+ pages long, restructured 1/6 of the economy and no one in congress read before voting for it.
Baucus voted for this abortion, and now he's shocked.
I'm shocked there is gambling here!
I should watch that movie again to get the quote right :)
You've gotta implement it to find out what's in it, dontcha know.
Rats...Ship....Sinking
You never give me your data,
You only give me your concepts, frankly,
And in the middle of responding blankly,
You break down.
Saying "huge train wreck" would get a politician into trouble, back in the old days.
Good morning sweetie. Time to get up and go to school.
Baucus is trying to deflect blame for the oncoming train wreck. He's up in 2014. This needs to be nailed to his front door.
Come on Lefty trolls, come and defend how awesome Obamacare is.
I could use some laughs with all the fucked up things going on in downtown Boston lately.
My favorite part of that whole thing was were Helen was freaking out as usual and Ann was all pump pump pump pump w.a.t.e.r. it has a name, bitch, everything has a name, and Helen was all whoa, holy shit I'm having an epiphany over here, everything has a name! [Sullivan Keller epiphany]
I'm with the guy who said to forget the politics of it, Obamacare is just plain incapable of being implemented by human institutions yet on earth, even with the best of will and full cooperation by all concerned.
Epic fail; this administration just cannot write a bill that will work for any purpose whatever.
There is 0 chance Obama would every sign a repeal of his signature legislation.
Also at 0%: The chance of that HHS Commissar (комисса́р) being able to fix anything.
You are a bright bulb in the candelabra Professor.
hilarious. this asshole wrote most of obamacare.
enjoy the decline in polling dumbass.
"Sebelius served as executive director and chief lobbyist for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association (now Kansas Association for Justice) from 1977–1986"
And her father and father-in-law were rich, elected politicians. So she has eggggcellent qualifications to re-write 1/6 of the US economy.
Ahem:
About 7 million people, nearly double the earlier estimates, will no longer get health insurance from their employers because of changes to the tax code made by the health law, according to CBO projections.
I think it has been the opinion of the republican senate and house leadership that Obamacare would collapse on its own all along. The democrats have owned it from the start and theres no distancing themselves in 2014.
There's only one explanation -- Sen. Baucus finally finished reading the Affordable Care Act, now he knows what's in it.
The rats are leaving the USS Obama as fast as they can.
A. He is a lame duck. And about as lame as they come. They will have no problem throwing HIM under the bus (ironic isn't it?) His mega-vacations, two-faced speeches ('We need to tone down the blame game, including those lying Republicans'.)
B. The "we must pass it in order to see what is in it" stupidity was just that, stupidity. And it was a all Democrat stupidity with mid-term elections coming just as the worst of Obamacare's laws come into effect.
C. The economy, still in a recession (yea yea they SAY we are not in one but everyone else knows we are), is going nowhere while Obamacare promises to take more money from everyone except the newly found 'undocumented Democrats' (Love that Jay Leno line!)
So Dems... Truth to power.. ya know what I mean?
The administration’s public information campaign on the benefits of the Affordable Care Act deserves a failing grade,” he told Sebelius. “You need to fix this.”...
?????
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
You model something after PHRAWNCE and it might not work?
Who knew?
he should demand a recount.
Stupid party won't nail Baucus with this.
What's funny is Baucus is actually asking for more oversight.
Baucus and friends are still pretending that ObamaCare's intentional destruction of our existing and affordable health insurance system is unexpected and a surprise to the well meaning good Democrats.
But that was its sole reason d'etre.
Nationalized health serfdom is the Dem's gift to us that they all get to act surprised by after the election.
Wait until American find out that they need separate appointments for everything.
And fewer doctors.
This is the same Sen. Baucus who is up for reelection in a fairly red state, and who voted against all the gun control bills. And, who has a reputation of being somewhat corrupt with his constituents (though his Montana colleague Tester was reelected despite also being known as fairly corrupt - last fall had to live through months of watching Jon drive his combine in his back-to-back reelection ads).
I think that Sen. Baucus will be reelected, and this is part of the reason. ObamaCare is unpopular, is likely to get much more unpopular over the next year or so, and he is positioning himself on the winning side of the issue. Sure, he voted for it, despite having to pass it to see what was in it, but that was then, and this is now. He has seen the light, and is now being seen as vigorously defending his Montana constituents from the ravages of ObamaCare.
But, I also expect that he is just the first of many Dems who are going to bail on their support. He just has the seniority and power to be the one taking the lead on it.
The basic problem for the Dems right now, given that ObamaCare is already unpopular, and is likely to get much more unpopular over the next year or so, is how much can they get the Republicans to help them out in cleaning up the worst of the mess. A lot of them, right now, are content to just watch the Dems sink into the quagmire that they created, believing that if they do nothing, they will likely pick up seats in both Houses of Congress in 2014 and 2016. There wasn't any bipartisanship in the original legislation (or the thousands of pages of regulations issued to implement it). None was needed, and none was seriously requested. So, how much political cover should they give the Dems here?
My daughter is an FBI agent and told me that the bureau has just scrapped an IT project that has taken 20 years and millions (lots of millions) of dollars to set up a system that all agents and all offices can use. It has never worked and they have begun again.
What does anyone who has ever worked in programming think the prospects of Obamacare's IT system being successful will be ? Microsoft is a smaller project. There is a reason why the USSR collapsed. Central planning requires perfect information and never gets it.
Re: Althouse:
This must be the tip of an iceberg of anxiety among the Democrats, who are alone responsible for this law. For the first time, it crossed my mind that Democrats might decide to support repeal. It would be an huge admission of mistake — like denouncing a war you once supported — but at some point, going forward is even worse.
Ehhh, maybe. I have about 60% certainty right now that the Obamacare system is going to fall apart in 2014, but even if it falls apart, who knows what that will bring? I don't think even total failure will necessarily bring about a cathartic repeal of the whole mess. The most visible failure of the law will probably be
(a) employers continue terminating their employee health insurance plans in response to the perverse incentives set up by Obamacare,
(b) people go to exchanges to get individual health insurance plans (+subsidies), and
(c) exchanges don't exist, don't work, or are totally incomprehensible to the average layman, so people can't obtain or afford qualifying health insurance plans and are thereby subject to the penalty tax.
Since almost all of the individual and employer incentives are based on the tax code, the most likely result of the Rube Goldberg machine failing in that way is just a law suspending the effect of the Obamacare penalty taxes for a year (and then getting extended every year into perpetuity, like the "doc fix"). If that happens, huge sections of the law might just end up becoming dead-letter without being formally repealed.
And when it comes down to it, while the law itself is pretty bad, it's certainly true that the administration, with its usual cack-handed incompetence, has likely made things worse than they otherwise would be, by dawdling on regulations and setting up exchanges. If Baucus wanted to blame the administration for screwing up the law he wrote, they've certainly given him ample fodder for the critique.
Good thing you voted for it, you asshole.
" This must be the tip of an iceberg of anxiety among the Democrats, who are alone responsible for this law. For the first time, it crossed my mind that Democrats might decide to support repeal."
Because, look, I've got one political party -- Democrats. I'm going to teach them first of all about values and how to win elections by turning out low-information voters. But if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with Obamacare.
This guy was much funnier when he was on "Gilligan's Island."
Anyone care to see how obnoxious David Sirota is?
For the first time, it crossed my mind that Democrats might decide to support repeal
Maybe a handful, but not generally. Democrats always intended Obamacare as a temporary policy until they can justify further government control. Obamacare's failure will simply be blamed on not being socialist enough, and they'll try to "reform" it with single payer.
In every direction costs have gone up--with great programs in California (Healthy Families) that were really helping the poor being cut so medicare can be used, and the latter is much worse. Huge uproar here.
For what? So privileged white women can get free birth control?
It's doing the opposite it promised and hurting the people it claimed to help.
They need to start over and instead of having a monstrosity like this, have targeted fixes that fill the gaps, not nuclear options that destroy everything.
btw - in real life, David Sirota looks like a Nazi skinhead pig.
Chief Justice Roberts bears a lot of blame too.
He helped further the problem by ignoring the symptoms of its brokenness. It was his role to see this coming, and he wanted to be party to the privileged, not a protector of the people.
Marshall @12:09 - bingo.
Single payer/ full government control of the health care system from the top down is the left's stated goal. They do not deny it. They see it as "free!", but it will be terrible. We will all be required to seek permission before any procedure or treatment.
Need a new knee? How old are you? Need a new hip? Sucks to be you. Do you have cancer? Take a pain pill.
Destruction must come first.
Re: Paddy O:
He helped further the problem by ignoring the symptoms of its brokenness. It was his role to see this coming, and he wanted to be party to the privileged, not a protector of the people.
In fairness to Roberts, though, evaluating the broken-ness of legislation isn't his job. The legislature is permitted to enact even stupid laws, provided they are Constitutional.
lol. Just lol.
This is what happens when you put a black guy in charge.
Enjoy the decline, anti-racists!
"Anyone care to see how obnoxious David Sirota is?"
Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I now know that Sirota was deputy campaign manager for a (failed) Philly mayoral candidate, until he got fired for dirty tricks (racially oriented, natch).
Thanks, Internet!
Balfegor said...
Re: Paddy O:
He helped further the problem by ignoring the symptoms of its brokenness. It was his role to see this coming, and he wanted to be party to the privileged, not a protector of the people.
In fairness to Roberts, though, evaluating the broken-ness of legislation isn't his job. The legislature is permitted to enact even stupid laws, provided they are Constitutional.
There is no defense for Roberts. He decided that he didn't want to evaluate the law as it was written. He would rather decide that the law was not what was written and then punted.
Cayman is building a medical facility. I wish I had the money to buy a condo there.
Sirota is probably attempting to get in with MSNBC. His resume of corruption and stupidity might just do the trick. He's stupid, corrupt, a racist, and is radically leftwing.
Baucus and crew did nothing to prevent this diseased bill, and now they're worried it's beyond cure. How painful.
A pox on them.
The only way I can watch this is to put some heavy metal on.
Obamacare is indeed a train wreck.
It will be replaced with Medicare for all.
Fixed!
said...
For the first time, it crossed my mind that Democrats might decide to support repeal
Maybe a handful, but not generally. Democrats always intended Obamacare as a temporary policy until they can justify further government control. Obamacare's failure will simply be blamed on not being socialist enough, and they'll try to "reform" it with single payer.
That's called failing forward. Look at every health care program ran by the federal government and you see nothing but problems. The health care on reservations is awful. The VA health care ranges from horrible to merely bad. The health care for active duty military members and their families is sinking fast. Medicare and Medicaid are riddled with fraud and are unable to keep costs under control. That made them think that turning over 1/6th of the economy to Obamacare was a great idea. So, naturally, they think that when (not if) Obamacare also fails, that would be an argument in favor of letting them control all health care. Failure to them isn't a motivation to reexamine the idea of government controlled health care but justification for even more government control.
How is it possible to be so deluded and still be alive?
Baucus voted for this abortion, and now he's shocked.
Send Obamacare over to Dr. Gosnell. He can fix it.
What does anyone who has ever worked in programming think the prospects of Obamacare's IT system being successful will be?
An IT professional shares the gory details in this Michael Barone column at the Washington Examiner:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/more-on-the-obamacare-it-nightmare/article/2524900
For the first time, it crossed my mind that Democrats might decide to support repeal.
Yes. Right about the time the devil builds a snowman.
But in reality they will simply blame any cockup on the GOP, Tea Party, insurance companies and old white men.
That's astonishing video. Such frankness!
Yeah I'm not buying it either. This is the Dem Congress trying to lay the blame at the feet of the Executive branch. There will be swift and fierce retaliation and soon they will all be back on the same page, blaming Republicans. And no, that doesn't make sense, but it doesn't have to with these people.
I'm glad to hear Baucus' concerns.
However, Baucus sounds like a bumbling idiot who has no place leading his constituents.
Time to wake up, Montana.
You can do better.
The analogy to Iraq doesn't fit. War is easy to distance onself from. Everyone knows that the opponents of war can always claim the high moral ground.
A cockup of this magnitude on domestic policy? That they demonized anyone who opposed? That Obama assigned the details to Congress for? Nope, I don't believe there will be any awitching sides...there will just be fingerpointing for who is to blame for the "implementation", andd it won't be anyone with a D by their name.
The demos wrote and voted for ObamaCare without ONE SINGLE REPUBLICAN VOTE, and without any input from the opposition party.
(never mind all of Obama's broken promises on that one)
I suppose the Demos think our nation is filled with idiots if the demos are now going to blame Obamacare's failures on the party that didn't have any part of the thing.
Our nation is filled with idiots. So - who knows.
Obamacare addressed increased revenue and little more. It certainly does not ensure that health care will be affordable, or even available, other than through redistributive (i.e. recycled) change, and marginal care, respectively.
What is the recovery efficiency of a redistributive economic model?
The polling for Obamacare in MT must have Baucus shitting his panties.
real polling - not the fake polling done by the "media".
"How is it possible to be so deluded and still be alive?"
It's called a "safety net", and employed to help those who are truly helpless. Then other people who are just lazy or greedy were allowed in, and found out it's really very nice and comfortable in there, so they they called it home. Now they defend their home. It's understandable.
A CPA he mentioned said ~"My small business clients don't know what to do, and I don't know what to tell them."
Exactly. My lawyers don't understand it, my accountant doesn't, even my insurance brokers don't. Nobody knows how it works, because it doesn't and can't.
We hired failure to run our government, and they delivered.
" annk said...
What does anyone who has ever worked in programming think the prospects of Obamacare's IT system being successful will be?
An IT professional shares the gory details in this Michael Barone column at the Washington Examiner:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/more-on-the-obamacare-it-nightmare/article/2524900"
I was a member of the American Medical Informatics Society for years. Getting one hospital to work with the doctors' offices was a huge challenge. The new Medicare EMR rules have diminished doctor productivity tremendously already.
This will be a complete nightmare.
When a country has a history of creating insolvent entitlements like Medicare and Soc Sec, why should we be surprised when the country creates a third entitlement [Obamacare] and it is also craptastic?
"Come on Lefty trolls, come and defend how awesome Obamacare is."
Most "real" lefties won't defend it and have never defended it, as it is a huge gift to the private insurance behemoths and no solution at all for the lack of access by many Americans to quality, affordable health care. It's a con, a right-wing plan repackaged and sold as a panacea by the coldly calculating to the desperate.
Paul Z
“You haven’t given me any data;
You just give me concepts, frankly”
And treat my persona, non grata.
Or you just stare at me so blankly.
Now if we can get some voters to wise up, and admit their mistakes, we might save this nation if it's not too late. More likely they will double down again, with all kinds of silly justifications, from pants creases to binders of women to racial harmony to letting Democrats prove if their policies work and hold them accountable. That last one is the dumbest of all.
Yaaargh, Captain Cook, Robert The Red, Redbeard as he's known, strikes again.
Avast ye mateys, it's time for the crew to control means of production on this here vessel.
Even the cabin boy shall not want.
Baucus should be tied on a rail and let the trainwreck go over him. Fucking asshole foisted this shit on us and now it's bad?
Bago - Remember, that's why the Professor wanted the dems to win, so they'd own it?
I agree with Cook, we need socialist single-payer healthcare, because it works so fantastic in the UK.
Did Robert Cook just call Obamacare a "repackaged right wing" plan? Unbelievable!
I can just imagine the congressional aids sitting around the table drafting this as one offers that "We can just have a big computer system communicate stuff all around and keep it in giant database thingy like Google."
"Yea, yea. Write that down, Scooter; that's great! It will totally rule.
I know that's the standard lefty line, it's right-wing, but after 40 years, Teddy Kennedy using it as a cudgel, multi-millions spent on panels & commissions by Hillarycare for her namesake, that's that best you can do?
It's not a gift to the insurance companies, it will, in the end, put them out of business, or just (indirectly) working for Uncle Sam.
We're still at the beginning of fundamental change, give it time.
It works well everywhere else.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Show me another 310 million person country with our diversity where it works, much less well.
I think it has been the opinion of the republican senate and house leadership that Obamacare would collapse on its own all along. The democrats have owned it from the start and theres no distancing themselves in 2014.
I always wondered if the Chief Justice was playing the long game.
"Bago - Remember, that's why the Professor wanted the dems to win, so they'd own it?"
That's where I got it alright. Five years now, and no owning yet. Maybe this is it, but we have the Robert Cooks who will just blame the failure on an insufficient amount of failure being incorporated. That plus whatever the latest bullshit-47%, war-on-women crap that comes up next time. That shiny stuff always sends them off track. Even the smart ones fall for it.
Regardless, an enormous amount of damage has and will already be done with years wasted, advancement lost. All because McCain looked old, or seemed unpredictable, or first Black President, or whatever gets you to simply choose what's behind the curtain.
I've said it before: we actually got lucky with Obama. Nobody that voted for him had any idea how bad he could be - it could have been much worse than just the awful we got.
Yes Cook- ObamaCare is "right wing" and that explains why those pesky sneaky rightwing republicans didn't stamp their name on it. NOT ONE.
Is this the latest brain dead attempt by the left to shift reality?
The goal, by the left, (that's you Cookie) is to destroy the private insurance market and kill competition in the marketplace, so that all is ripe for government take-over.
That's been the left's design for decades. Single Payer.
Only the big 3 insurance companies will be left standing and they will gladly enjoy their government take-over. Lots of perks for those at the top.
They said they could insure 30 million of the uninsured at no additional cost to the public.
They said free preventive care would save more than it cost.
Neither assertion is true.
When they're unable to get automated insurance exchanges online, they'll hire a zillion people to do it manually. And they'll make a zillion small (and more than a few large) errors, necessitating another layer for appeals and assorted fixers.
Train wreck? Sure, trains sometimes wreck. But we need a more contemporary metaphor, and one that implies ruin and devastation on a far larger scale than is possible with a mere train wreck.
Thank you, Madame.
Where are all the trolls who told us how people would love it once they found out what was in it?
Look, we should be able to afford anything we want. All we have to do is tax the millionairesandbillionaires 18% of their adjusted gross income. Problems solved.
Cook claims it's a right wing plan because somebody, somewhere (The Heritage Society?) had a white paper once on the individual mandate.
The GOP has to be smart enough to realize that after hoping for a SCOTUS invalidation, and then running (weakly) against Obama in 2012, and failing both times, the smartest thing they can do is sit idly by and let it come off the tracks and then wait for the anger in the electorate. Then harness it. Any move to work with folks like Baucus now, who are just trying to mitigate the damage to Democrats, will just muddy the contrast. It has to be - steaming train wreck over here, GOP over yonder.
I mean Heritage Foundation. I get my right wing, subversive organizations mixed up.
" But we need a more contemporary metaphor"
California high speed train wreck? No that's redundant.
Peter said...
Train wreck? Sure, trains sometimes wreck. But we need a more contemporary metaphor, and one that implies ruin and devastation on a far larger scale than is possible with a mere train wreck.
Titanic Iceberg?
Smoot-Hawley?
Final Solution?
Great Leap Forward?
Great Society?
It's a con, a right-wing plan repackaged and sold as a panacea by the coldly calculating to the desperate.
Cook is really fucked up.
No Republicans voted for it.
So, the "coldly calculating" were Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obamalamadingdong. The desperate were those who voted for it: all the other Democrats.
Cook is really fucked up.
Maybe Obamacare will become the new metaphor.
They never told us that the SAHS would lose coverage and have to go into the exchange.
Since those who stay home are mostly women, talk about a war. Mommy doesn't get the same care daddy & the kids do.
B said...
"I think it has been the opinion of the republican senate and house leadership that Obamacare would collapse on its own all along. The democrats have owned it from the start and theres no distancing themselves in 2014."
Right.
The internal contradictions are too large to ignore, and too large to fix.
This will fail.
It is only a matter of time.
Otherwise, where are the trolls to defend this?
Hey trolls, "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"
"Democrats might decide to support repeal."
Haha, Althouse's perpetual inability to understand how lefty pols operate is always good for a (derisive) laugh. Althouse is a noise processor rather than a signal processor.
The dems (very effective) political strategy is to buy votes by giving governmental privileges to dem privileged interest groups (PIGs), to perpetually expand the size of government, to politicize institutions, and to increase the size of the lower class (natural dem voters) and decrease the size of the middle class (not natural dem voters) by screwing up the economy. Creating permanent dem constituencies is much more important than winning a particular election.
ObamaCare is a dem wet dream since it is a huge increase in the size of government, will politicize healthcare (a huge chunk of the economy), and will create vastly more citizen dependence on the government. This will also permit the dems to steer oceans of gov graft money (think Stimulus bill) to their friends and to tailor health services to favor dem voters while punishing their political enemies (white males, for example) with reduced services.
People who vote for dems tend to be members of PIGs (getting preferential treatment from the fed gov in some way(s)) or are low information voters (i.e. stupid voters) easily influenced by mass media so they will continue to vote for the dems no matter what. You can't fix stupid and greedy. Dems will pay much less penalty for ruining our healthcare system than ought to be the case.
ObamaCare is here to stay.
A con put together & passed by dems to get single-payer.
"Great Leap Forward" is certainly apt. The only difference in death toll is leaning versus leaping. Cook prefers the commitment of a good leap.
Regarding the incontrovertible observation that the Democrats alone are responsible for this law - I am amazed at how many leftists friends on social media doggedly insist that Republican fingerprints are all over Obamacare.
"Do you think this is gonna last? There's a storm coming, Senator Baucus. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us."
Robert Cook said...
"Most "real" lefties won't defend it and have never defended it, as it is a huge gift to the private insurance behemoths and no solution at all for the lack of access by many Americans to quality, affordable health care."
Except liberal activists, health care activists, health care policy wonks (mostly on the Left, by the way), Democrats, and elected Democrats Love, Love, Love themselves some Obama-care.
Love it.
Fellate it in public love it.
Otherwise, yeah, you're right.
Marxists and Communists of all stripes don't like it.
It doesn't permit summary execution of health care insurance executives, hospital and pharmaceutical CEO's and venture capitalists funding R & D for new medical devices.
So I get why you don't like it.
But Leftists to your right just love it.
One day Deng Xiaoping will come to power, and we'll be rid of these left-wing deviationists.
"It doesn't matter whether it's a white cat or a black, I think; a cat that catches mice is a good cat."
We don't need a cat, we need a panther.
What I hear leftists say is that they think healthcare should be a giant non-profit organization.
Balfegor said...
Re: Paddy O:
He helped further the problem by ignoring the symptoms of its brokenness. It was his role to see this coming, and he wanted to be party to the privileged, not a protector of the people.
In fairness to Roberts, though, evaluating the broken-ness of legislation isn't his job. The legislature is permitted to enact even stupid laws, provided they are Constitutional.
4/18/13, 12:15 PM
Dude I just love CJ Roberts logic. To legally avoid paying one tax you pay another. Dazzling brilliance I tell ya. Dazzling.
The lefties have to believe it, Hillarycare notwithstanding. That's why I LMAO whenever they push the blame on the republicans.
Yeah, the Non-profits are run so well.
Oh, wait, W's IRS was supposed to start eyeballing NP tax returns & the screaming.........
"No Republicans voted for it."
They would have if Romney had been President and had wanted to bring his Romneycare from Massachusetts to the national arena. They voted against it simply to be obstructionists, not because they cared whether it was a good or a bad plan.
Which shows that being heedlessly obstructionist can sometimes accidentally be the way to come, even if accidentally, to the correct vote.
"So, the 'coldly calculating' were Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obamalamadingdong."
Did I say otherwise?
D'oh! The redundancy! Well, I'll let it stand.
Alex said...
I agree with Cook, we need socialist single-payer healthcare, because it works so fantastic in the UK.
4/18/13, 2:04 PM
Actually in the UK you can buy private medical insurance and see fee for service doctors. Its like k-12 education in the US, first you pay for public schools via taxes and then if you want you pay again for private school out of pocket. And like the public schools here in the US, where you are (such high income communities not surrounded by poor neighborhoods)determines how god the public schools are, NHS hospitals have similar situations.
You can be sure the posh elites who use NHS facilities are the ones who are in the tony sections.
Everyone else, its just luck.
Via Drudge:
But health law supporters are pushing back, noting close ties between the actuaries making the forecasts and an insurance industry that has been complaining about taxes.
By Jay Hancock, Kaiser Health News Staff Writer
THURSDAY, April 18, 2013 (Kaiser Health News) — Few aspects of the Affordable Care Act are more critical to its success than affordability, but in recent weeks experts have predicted costs for some health plans could soar next year.
Now health law supporters are pushing back, noting close ties between the actuaries making the forecasts and an insurance industry that has been complaining about taxes and other factors it says will lead to rate shock for consumers.
"Most actuaries in this country -- what percentage are employed by insurance companies?" Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, asked an actuary last week at a hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
The committee was discussing a study published last month by the Society of Actuaries (SOA) predicting that, thanks to sicker patients joining the coverage pool, medical claims per member will rise 32 percent in the individual plans expected to dominate the ACA exchanges next year. In some states costs will rise as much as 80 percent, the report said.....
From a commenter:
I am in the insurance industry and have watched the progress of this law from day one. Many people are focused on the short term immediate effect of this law. As a matter of fact that's what the lawmakers want you to do. This law was passed to create an environment of chaos. So far so good. Things like attaching actuaries to insurance companies is another tactic to place the blame on someone else. So if you play chess and apply the same principals of looking three moves ahead here is what you see. Pass a law full of over the top administrative tasks, IRS compliance, and numbers that don't add up. Make sure lower middle class Americans see much of the pain. Blame the health insurance industry for the increase in rates. Now, introduce a public option into the Exchanges with lower rates than private insurance companies. Once everyone migrates to the public option introduce a single payor government run Medicare type system for everyone. After all this will solve the problems of higher cost. Charge higher income earners for the single payor coverage. Check mate.
"They would have if Romney had been President and had wanted to bring his Romneycare from Massachusetts to the national arena."
"...and had wanted to..." No Republican wanted that. RomneyCare was a huge millstone around Romney's neck. He got the nomination in spite of it. And you damn well know it.
Was it really all his Romneycare?
He had a Dem congress, they could add or subtract/rewrite at will and override a veto.
AprilApple said...
Yes Cook- ObamaCare is "right wing" and that explains why those pesky sneaky rightwing republicans didn't stamp their name on it. NOT ONE.
It's an old debating trick to support only hypotheticals so you can simply deny any negative aspects. If there's no reality to contradict you then you aren't "proven" wrong.
Cubanbob. You have it exactly right about the UK and the public/private school comparison is apt. Canada,, as I recall, did not permit private health providers until very recently. Hotels in Buffalo NY are doing well with Canadians coming over for healthcare.
I knew there was a reason they were holding back the policies for small business. Closer to the 2016 election.
I was gonna post something about Canada from the NYT from 2006 and why it was failing.
Wait times were horrendous.
They never had the number of MRI machines necessary for their population, it was like in the low 20s for over 20 million people in the 90s, I think.
Dogs & cats were getting MRIs faster than humans in the early-mid 2000s.
Marshal said...
AprilApple said...
Yes Cook- ObamaCare is "right wing" and that explains why those pesky sneaky rightwing republicans didn't stamp their name on it. NOT ONE.
It's an old debating trick to support only hypotheticals so you can simply deny any negative aspects. If there's no reality to contradict you then you aren't "proven" wrong.
Comrade Bob likes to piss on your leg and then try and convince you it's raining.
Via Drudge:
Under the immigration reform bill, some employers would have an incentive of up to $3,000 per year to hire a newly legalized immigrant over a U.S. citizen.
In avoiding one controversy — the cost of providing millions of newly legalized immigrants with ObamaCare subsidies — the Senate "Gang of Eight" may have risked walking into another.
The bipartisan legislation released Wednesday dictates that those granted provisional legal immigrant status would be treated the same as those "not lawfully present" are treated under the 2010 health law.
That means they would neither be eligible for ObamaCare tax credits nor required to pay an individual tax penalty for failing to obtain qualifying health coverage. It also means some employers would face no penalty for failing to provide such workers affordable health coverage.
For employers who don't offer insurance, fines are based on full-time equivalent staffing levels, so distinctions between citizens and visa holders don't matter....
Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/041713-652257-immigration-reform-meets-obamacare-employer-mandate.htm#ixzz2QqfJXGrD
Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook
" But we need a more contemporary metaphor"
Lance Armstrong on 60 Minutes.
JC Penney Everyday Pricing.
McCain-Palin '08.
This Week with Christiane Amanpour
The New York Jets.
Solyndra.
Free health care is awesome, if you're completely healthy.
RE: Robert Cook:
They would have if Romney had been President and had wanted to bring his Romneycare from Massachusetts to the national arena. They voted against it simply to be obstructionists, not because they cared whether it was a good or a bad plan.
The problem is, along the metrics used to promote Obamacare (to wit, the "Affordable" Care Act), Romneycare has been a complete and total failure. And we knew it was a failure in 2009/2010 too.
Prior to Romneycare, one could, in good faith, have thought that the approach taken (punitive mandate + exchanges + expansion of Medicaid) was an effective policy solution to the problems of rising health care costs and incomplete health insurance coverage. Romneycare was the experiment to test that proposition in the laboratory of democracy. It failed.
One understands why Romney could not admit during the campaign that, ah, Romneycare failed in ways that render Obamacare's eventual failure wholly predictable. I find it difficult to believe that Congressional Republicans, who were well aware of Romneycare's failure, would have gone along with an attempt to replicate it nationally. And for that matter, Romney's not stupid. I'm pretty sure he recognises Romneycare did not work as planned, even if as a politician he can't admit that. I'd have been surprised if he seriously pushed for Romneycare to be implemented at the Federal level. That would just be doubling down on FAIL.
Just remember one of the basic fundamental rules of government.
Government grows through failure.
Repost:
How is Obamacare like Cyprus
Section 163 of the bill now in Congress allows the government real-time access to a person's bank records, including direct access to bank accounts for electronic fund transfers
Cook said:
"They would have if Romney had been President and had wanted to bring his Romneycare from Massachusetts to the national arena. They voted against it simply to be obstructionists, not because they cared whether it was a good or a bad plan."
Wrong again Comrade Bob,
The republicans were not given any space and they knew it was a disaster. They didn't obstruct it because it IS impossible to obstruct when you are in the minority.
OBAMACARE PASSED on party line vote. Remember? I know. It's hard.
as Original Mikes makes clear:
No Republican wanted that. RomneyCare was a huge millstone around Romney's neck. He got the nomination in spite of it. And you damn well know it.
This. A thousand times - this.
But it's fun to live in the make-believe world of "maybe/perhaps/could have/speculation/" isn't it?
Democrats voted lock-step in the dead of night -ALL OF THEM- to approve the Nancy Pelosi-Obama shove-down.
I suppose this was just a figment of our collective imagination?
The problem with the chaos-then-Medicare for all approach is that the transition will be destructive to employment that will take decades to unravel.
Its effect on healthcare will be destructive, especially to small towns that will lose doctors (who cannot afford ACA compliance).
And single payer will be destructive in ways I have outlined online elsewhere, although Democrats want those changes.
No, Obamacare's not going away. It's going to cause chaos for years and years. The damage has already begun.
hence my anger at people who voted for this evil man and his conspirators.
"I find it difficult to believe that Congressional Republicans, who were well aware of Romneycare's failure, would have gone along with an attempt to replicate it nationally."
Cook doesn't believe it either. He's playing dumb so he can fling his "They voted against it simply to be obstructionists" poo.
Contrary to Comrade Cook, there's nothing "Republican" about Obama's ACA. The exchange idea has no particular partisan paternity; states of various partisan leanings have enacted them in the past, usually in an effort to create a large group from individual buyers.
However, they've almost always failed.
So, the liberals decided they weren't big enough.
Seems these liberals think losses can be made up by volume.
Idiots.
"Cook doesn't believe it either. He's playing dumb so he can fling his "They voted against it simply to be obstructionists" poo."
I figured. What confuses me is why he thinks it's shameful to have obstructed such a horrible piece of legislation.
"Cook doesn't believe it either. He's playing dumb so he can fling his "They voted against it simply to be obstructionists" poo."
I figured. What confuses me is why he thinks it's shameful to have obstructed such a horrible piece of legislation.
Peter @ 2:28 pm said "Train wreck? Sure, trains sometimes wreck. But we need a more contemporary metaphor, and one that implies ruin and devastation on a far larger scale than is possible with a mere train wreck."
ObamaCare is it own metaphor.
Peter @ 2:28 pm said "Train wreck? Sure, trains sometimes wreck. But we need a more contemporary metaphor, and one that implies ruin and devastation on a far larger scale than is possible with a mere train wreck."
ObamaCare is it own metaphor.
Baucus is up for re-election in Nov 2014.
Yeah, that was my first thought. That ought to be in the article, I think. "Democrat, worried about being fired by the people of Montana, criticizes Obamacare."
Via Marginal Revolution:
Minimum income guidelines for people entering the State’s new insolvency process have not been set in stone or at “subsistence level living or anywhere close to that”, the head of the agency overseeing the process has said.
Lorcan O’Connor of the Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI) said the new guidelines would be flexible and would not see people’s finances being “micro-managed” by banks or new Personal Insolvency Practitioners (PIPS).
However, he admitted many people would be forced to give up private health insurance, cars and holidays.
The guidelines on a “reasonable standard of living” for insolvent debtors and “reasonable living expenses” are central to the insolvency regime as they set out how much money people will be allowed to spend within any deal agreed with their creditors.
It includes expenditure limits on items such as food and basic medicine.
Under the guidelines a single adult with no car will be permitted expenditure of €898.96 in set cost over and above any mortgage or rent payments. The set costs will rise to €1,030 if that adult has a a car. They will be given €126 a month – or €29 a week to cover social inclusion. An allowance of €204.88 is to made for each child of primary school-going age....
"What confuses me is why he thinks it's shameful to have obstructed such a horrible piece of legislation."
I don't. I opposed Obamneycare. My point--if you'll reread--is that sometimes heedless obstructionism can lead to one making the right vote accidentally.
In other words, they voted against it without regard for its merits or faults as legislation.
"The problem with the chaos-then-Medicare for all approach is that the transition will be destructive to employment that will take decades to unravel."
Heh. "Free market" (sic) policies are destroying employment well enough on their own, as "job creators" (i.e., slavemakers) race to find the cheapest employment available around the globe or via automation.
"Free health care is awesome, if you're completely healthy."
Taxpayer funded healthcare (I corrected that for you) is even more awesome if you're sick and unemployed or underemployed or otherwise cannot afford to pay for medical care out of pocket or to buy health insurance (or if you have a pre-existing condition that will have you blackballed from the customer pool by the insurance providers).
Robert Cook said...
"The problem with the chaos-then-Medicare for all approach is that the transition will be destructive to employment that will take decades to unravel."
Heh. "Free market" (sic) policies are destroying employment well enough on their own, as "job creators" (i.e., slavemakers) race to find the cheapest employment available around the globe or via automation.
4/18/13, 4:44 PM
Heh...heh. He said...slavemakers.
Minimum wage laws make no sense, because they kill jobs and distort the economy. Much better for the employer to pay market based compensation and for the government to make up the difference via a wage subsidy to those who don't make a living wage.
"In other words, they voted against it without regard for its merits or faults as legislation."
And your evidence for this is?
"Minimum wage laws make no sense, because they kill jobs and distort the economy."
So you say.
"Much better for the employer to pay market based compensation and for the government to make up the difference via a wage subsidy to those who don't make a living wage."
Heh. Talk about a sure way to drive wages down down down, as employers decide to set the "market-based compensation" in decide to keep more and more of what were formerly paid out as wages for themselves, figuring they'll leave it to the government to make up the difference. (As Walmart has often paid their employees so poorly that they cannot afford the companies own health plan and recommend their workers seek Medicaid and other public assistance from their state governments.)
You might as well go ahead and advocate a guaranteed national stipend to be paid to all citizens.
"And your evidence for this is?"
That zero Republicans voted for it. This is a sure sign of bloc voting, and of the pressure placed on Republicans to adhere to the party position. Even bad legislation rarely draws zero votes from an entire party.
"That zero Republicans voted for it."
It was an atrocious piece of legislation and EVERY Democrat voted for it.
Re: Robert Cook:
You might as well go ahead and advocate a guaranteed national stipend to be paid to all citizens.
EITC avoids many of the perverse incentives created by out and out welfare/guaranteed income systems.
It was also unpopular with the public, yet every Democrat voted for it.
"Even bad legislation rarely draws zero votes from an entire party."
I'm trying to wrap my head around this argument. Some people vote for bad legislation, because they are bought off. But in this case, the fact that no one voted for it is somehow damning.
Even bad legislation rarely draws zero votes from an entire party.
Actually it’s quite common as evidenced by the fact legislation for adopting that Obama’s budgets (when he deigns to submit them) often get zero votes from either party.
" race to find the cheapest employment available around the globe or via automation."
I'm sure that when you look for a product or service you always try to pay as much as possible, and avoid automation by carrying water from the creek to bath after cooking breakfast on an open fire.
Man, the depth of dumb in some people is surprising.
Also re: Robert Cook:
Heh. Talk about a sure way to drive wages down down down, as employers decide to set the "market-based compensation" in decide to keep more and more of what were formerly paid out as wages for themselves, figuring they'll leave it to the government to make up the difference.
If the employees are actually producing a surplus for the employer to capture at their wage point (cf. zero marginal product workers -- this is not true for every worker), then the obvious way to ensure that workers capture more of their surplus is to restrain the supply of workers. A tight labor market is the least distortionary way of improving wages for low-skill labour. Supply and demand. Constrain low-skill immigration.
Of course, even with a tight labour market, there's a wage point at which it becomes cheaper to buy an expensive machine to get more productivity out of a smaller labour force, sure, but unless you're some kind of luddite who wants to ban all labour saving devices, there's no way you're going to avoid that one.
What the bewildered are overlooking here is the additional implicit premise: "Republicans are big poopy poopyheads." You need this to get from the intermediate conclusion, "Republican opposition was organized at the party level" to the final conclusion, "They voted against it simply to be obstructionists".
Wanted: Hand-made computer built without use of automation. Willing to pay any price to not be a hypocrite. Please reply by drawing in dirt outside the last cave before the dung heap.
Ben Nelson was bought off with the Nebraska Kickback. Landrieu was bought off with the Louisiana Purchase. Numerous other Democrats got special deals as well. If not for this, there would have been several democratic No votes.
Paul zrimsek wrote:
You never give me your data,
You only give me your concepts, frankly,
And in the middle of responding blankly,
You break down.
Out of college, money spent
See no future, pay no rent
All the money's gone nowhere to go.
Any jobber got the sack
Monday morning, turning back
Yellow lorry slow nowhere to go.
Could be describing Obama's recovery.
Boy, we're gonna carry that weight a long time.
It has been oft remarked that the big legislation of our time; Social Security, Medicare, Civil Rights, were passed with some significant level of consensus from the opposition. That consensus was reached by listening and compromise. It was understood that in order to succeed bipartisan support was necessary. Obama forced this through with a big "Fuck You" to Republicans, and Cook thinks that the fact that at the end of the day no Republican voted for it is somehow damning. It's damning all right. The blame falls squarely on the ham-handed, arrogant occupant of the White House.
Re: bagoh20:
I'm sure that when you look for a product or service you always try to pay as much as possible, and avoid automation by carrying water from the creek to bath after cooking breakfast on an open fire.
Well, maybe not to the point of total luddism, but there are people who are willing to pay a premium for handmade or artisanal goods that can be more cheaply obtained from mass production. Food, for example -- lots of people eat at fancy restaurants from time to time. And there's a market for artisanal cheeses, preserves, cured meats, and the like. Furniture. Textiles (e.g. Harris Tweed). Clothing.
The only reason the market has any depth, though, is thanks to the wealthy, with an assist from the comfortable upper middle classes. You can't bring all our luxury goods to the middle classes without massive automation and low wages. In the future, as wages rise in our overseas manufacturing centers, only huge productivity gains (probably through further automation) will allow the manufacture of such goods to remain economically sustainable.
Re: bagoh20:
Wanted: Hand-made computer built without use of automation.
here.
No, wait, they use a machine to make some of the components.
Cor, now I kind of want one. When I was young, I remember my father had a beautiful abacus. At one point I learned how to use it, but now, I have completely forgotten.
But oh, that magic feeling
In '08 oh
Oh, that magic feeling
where did it go?
Kyoto Treaty - 95 - 0
Which in hindsight...........
Wal-Mart, you talking part or full-time employees?
Why would anyone work for less than the minimum wage? Surely, they must have a reason.
When I was young, I remember my father had a beautiful abacus. At one point I learned how to use it, but now, I have completely forgotten.
My father, who had been in Japan after WWII, once gave me an abacus and a book for my birthday. It was a beautiful thing. From the book I discovered that a trained abacus operator had defeated an American working a mechanical calculator in competition.
I learned to add and subtract on the abacus, faltered at multiplication and lost interest at the complexities of abacus division.
Cookie- Slaves don't get paid.
So, if you earn a wage – you are not a slave. Get your definitions straight.
The deal is, you hate and detest individuals who take risks to start projects and businesses that lead to employment.
Instead you shout – wage slave! like some pathetic leftwing parrot. So then - only government jobs count? Are gov workers wage slaves too?
You hate the free market even though the free market is the best place to provide the most people with the least expensive access to health care.
and of course, like all leftists, you do not understand the definition of insurance.
You bemoan the current system, but the current system is what it is based on bad political moves to corrupt and control. You think that somehow doctors and nurses and specialists and surgeons will be paid, but it will also be free at no expense to anyone except the top 1%-5% of income earners. ..Who will not mind being brought to financial ruin for the common good.
Then I guess we slide down to the next layers of 1%. And even though the whole thing is not sustainable, and we've gotten so far away from what "insurance" actually means and health care is so diluted and phony, and the cost of a bandaid at a hospital is $100 because no one cares... and the interaction between patient and the insurance market is warped and twisted and has disintegrated to a weird co-pay.. and he insurance companies are being billed outrageous and often bogus amounts to cover for all the malfeasance built into the system - all thanks to decades of government intervention, you want more government control . And when it doesn’t work you blame the party who had nothing to do with the legislation. Typical. And you still blame the “free market” even though it’s contorted beyond all recognition, by the government. Bad insurance company bad.
Give up, comrade. You will always be unhappy.
"and of course, like all leftists, you do not understand the definition of insurance."
Ain't that the truth.
Cubanbob. You have it exactly right about the UK and the public/private school comparison is apt. Canada,, as I recall, did not permit private health providers until very recently. Hotels in Buffalo NY are doing well with Canadians coming over for healthcare.
Micheal the irony is that the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that since the State couldn't delivery what it promised the plaintiff had a right to seek private care.
RC pretty rich of you to call republicans obstructionists in not voting for a bill that had to be first passed before they could see what is in it. And as for your remark about minimum wage rates, it's obvious you never met a payroll, ran a business or have any idea of what you are talking about. As an employer I can tell you the most expensive employee is the minimum wage employee. Their contribution to the enterprise is less that what they cost. Otherwise they wouldn't be minimum wage employees.
"It was an atrocious piece of legislation and EVERY Democrat voted for it."
Also an example of bloc voting.
No one who voted for or against the bill was voting for the actual legislation, but as a gesture of solidarity with or protest against Obama.
"No one who voted for or against the bill was voting for the actual legislation, but as a gesture of solidarity with or protest against Obama."
Whatever helps you sleep at night. For me, it keeps me awake contemplating that the majority of Democrats think this is a good idea.
"Cookie- Slaves don't get paid."
Sure they do. Just because you don't (think) you know any slaves doesn't mean they're not all around you.
Cook again, "No one who voted for or against the bill was voting for the actual legislation, but as a gesture of solidarity with or protest against Obama."
Those voting against were voting against a bill that was rammed thorough without hearings and against all the procedures that Congress has practiced for 200+ years.
You are just a poor fool, like those Democrats who voted for it.
Thinking people see Obama's whole flinking administration as a train wreck.
They would have...They voted against it simply to be obstructionists
Non sequitur. What you say has nothing to do with the fact that this huge, messy, screw-up-the-country, filthy, disgusting, asshole-designed fucking train wreck is the Democrat Party's baby. They own it. It will be tied around their necks and they will be pushed overboard.
You really are fucked up.
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