You've caught me, an underground member of the Bourgeois.

Auto-edited on 2020-08-02 to update URLs

The individual mandate was never intended to be what it, ultimately, turned into.  It was supposed to be a requirement that, if you worked for a company that provided health insurance, and you were eligible for it, you were automatically signed up.  This was to get young people who rarely required health insurance to pay into the system just like us safe drivers that rarely need to make a claim on our auto insurance. 

Unfortunately, many Millennials are having trouble finding full-time work, meaning that they're not eligible for health insurance even if they are working.

Smudge wrote:

Baywolfe wrote:

The individual mandate was never intended to be what it, ultimately, turned into.  It was supposed to be a requirement that, if you worked for a company that provided health insurance, and you were eligible for it, you were automatically signed up.  This was to get young people who rarely required health insurance to pay into the system just like us safe drivers that rarely need to make a claim on our auto insurance. 

Unfortunately, many Millennials are having trouble finding full-time work, meaning that they're not eligible for health insurance even if they are working.

Huh? I don't get your point(s).

The purpose of the mandate is to broaden the base of insured by forcing most people to participate, and yes, this primarily impacted young people who might otherwise roll the dice and take their chances rather than buy insurance. But even those who can't find work (a large and growing population) are required to get insurance, which will be subsidized or even free based on income. The mandate is working more or less as intended.

Broadening the base of insured was the primary mechanism for getting health insurers to support the Affordable Care Act. With the mandate gone, rates will rise as the base of insured shrinks, and people begin to self select (the healthier drop coverage because of price, the sick retain coverage, which forces further premium increases). If they rise enough, that will cause further erosion of the market as more people opt out, and it risks a 'death spiral' as increasing prices set up the conditions for the next price increase.

No one is certain how much the markets are about to be impacted, but everyone agrees that insurance prices will increase. I mean, Trump admitted it; he mentioned yesterday that the tax bill also just killed Obamacare. He's almost certainly right.

As I said, for the majority of people, the tax cut they receive will likely be less than the increase in health insurance premiums. This is what Republicans have set in motion, and they own it 100%.

We got a SS raise of 2%.....but they raised Medicare too.....go figure.....

Baywolfe wrote:

Smudge wrote:

Baywolfe wrote:

The individual mandate was never intended to be what it, ultimately, turned into.  It was supposed to be a requirement that, if you worked for a company that provided health insurance, and you were eligible for it, you were automatically signed up.  This was to get young people who rarely required health insurance to pay into the system just like us safe drivers that rarely need to make a claim on our auto insurance. 

Unfortunately, many Millennials are having trouble finding full-time work, meaning that they're not eligible for health insurance even if they are working.

Huh? I don't get your point(s).

1.  They never enacted a single-payer system.
2.  They penalized people who are working one or two part time jobs or one shitty full time job and don't have or can't afford insurance to pay a penalty to the government, instead of just making everybody who works full time and has benefits to purchase health insurance for themselves at a minimum.
3.  The health care they're forced to get is shitty compared to what we people fortunate enough to have benefits and can afford to buy it (or have it paid for by their company)  Why?  See #1.

I hope I didn't give the impression that I'm a fan of Obamacare; I'm not. Obamacare is a mess, but it was also better than what existed prior. My point was simply that the tax bill will make the existing system much more expensive, and that this will offset any tax relief for the vast majority. I think that that's a fairly obvious consequence of what's in the bill.

I'm actually more optimistic over the longer term. The reasonable strategy at this point is not to attempt to go backwards and fix what's wrong with Obamacare, but rather to jump forward into a single payer program. So destroying Obamacare may, in fact, make getting to a really decent health care system happen more quickly. The impetus will be there to make some major moves because I believe the health care system, post tax reform, will eventually collapse. Republicans are kidding themselves if they think people are just going to sit around and die for lack of coverage.

It is almost as though the far right is saying "We don't know how to stop ourselves, so we're just going to keep breaking things until you all get so fired up that you stop us." Breaking health care without providing for any form of alternative is, in my view, a way of begging to be removed from office. I base this on my belief that when people's kids start dying from lack of health services, they'll stop being so impressed by what Hannity or Limbaugh says they should believe.

But maybe I've got it wrong. I certainly have many times in the past.

It's simpler than all of that.  We've been on a 9 year employment and equity run but they want to make to go faster.  Faster doesn't in fact exist.

Instead of reinforcing our steady growth they want to change things, so the rest of us are now fucked.  The when, where and why are yet to be determined, we'll find out the hard way in due course.

So fuck you very much politicians, you managed to fuck something up this term.

If it ain't broke don't fucking fix it.

Baywolfe wrote:

We can only hope they start getting it.  The U.S. is the only democracy left without universal health care.

There's two reasons for this of course.  1.  We not really a democracy anymore, we're a plutocracy.  2.  The trust fund retards haven't realized that the people with the torches and pitchforks are coming for them, soon.

Yes. I agree with you.

Fled wrote:

Emmeran wrote:

It's simpler than all of that.  We've been on a 9 year employment and equity run but they want to make to go faster.  Faster doesn't in fact exist.

Instead of reinforcing our steady growth they want to change things, so the rest of us are now fucked.  The when, where and why are yet to be determined, we'll find out the hard way in due course.

So fuck you very much politicians, you managed to fuck something up this term.

If it ain't broke don't fucking fix it.

That is how I see it.  Very misguided timing, which makes it seem like a grab for the brass ring while the merry-go-round is still spinning.

Yes; priming the pump at the end of the business cycle is basically insane because you use up your only bullet at a time when your enemy isn't around.

I think Republicans have become convinced that as long as they please the donor class, they can win elections even when three quarters of the population is opposed to their actions, as was the case with net neutrality, tax cuts and repealing the ACA. If they're right, then we have become a one party nation as the far right has built itself a machine which can continue in power without the inconvenient necessity of listening to what voters want.

I'm not saying they're wrong about this either. I think it remains to be seen.

I think it's entirely possible to conclude that the far right has, through a combination of exploiting loopholes in government structure (those think tanks have been busy at this for half a century now -- think ALEC), taking over strategic media, voter suppression and gerrymandering, they have figured out how to do that which the Constitution was designed to prevent from happening; maintain power continuously, in opposition to majority intent. In other words, they may have bought themselves a government which now works for them alone.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

I can't disagree with a thing you are saying, but I also know that if you search/replace every instance of "right" with "left", it still parses perfectly well. It's when you see "bi-partisanship" cast as a good thing, then you just know that it means they are both happy at the trough, with enough slops for all.

My initial reaction was to disagree, but I resisted my impulsiveness and re-read what you said several times. I can't argue with you.

I don't think that both sides of the political aisle are the same, but that's not what you said. I think part of the problem is simply that the right has been winning most of the battles for far too long, and things are way out of balance. But this is not dissimilar to where the left was when Reagan took office; the left had been winning most of the battles for decades, and there was a need for re-balancing. When I look, historically at the worst extremes of the left, they are absurd and dangerous -- possibly as much so as those coming from the right. The thing is, however, we're half a lifetime away from any real experience with that. The excesses of the sixties and seventies were a long time ago now,

I think the CORE problem is that, in spite of the rhetoric to the contrary, our system of government is not particularly representative, and that it's so easily compromised by money that cronyism is inevitable. Much of this is structural. I've personally come to view our system of government as outdated and deeply flawed.

The far right these days are very much like the dog that finally caught the car and now is totally baffled about what to do with it. Everybody knows that nothing good can come of the situation, but nobody quite knows how to back down or what to do next.

Baywolfe wrote:

George Bernard Shaw said “politics is the last resort for the scoundrel”

That's a great line.

GooberMcNutly wrote:

More like the first resort.

It's when the fact of you winning is more important about what you won that you know you have a problem. I feel like that balance shifted on the first day of Reagan's second term.

I feel as though the shift may have started shortly after Lincoln.

Bigcat wrote:

I feel as though the shift may have started shortly after Lincoln.

If not four score and twenty before. We need to rethink the executive branch from the ground up.

Smudge wrote:

If there's a lesson which is emerging from the Trump phenomenon, it's that we DO need to rethink the executive branch from the ground up. The presidency provides far too much power to a single individual.

alas, if so.....then nothing will never get done....even less than now...without the Pre. having enough of an edge to prod Congress along...I see it as the Presidents have obtained more power in order to get anything done.....Congress has been lacking and the Exec office had to something to keep things running....and it evolved....now to get the Pres. back to keeping both feet in the batters box...because a few have abused the power..

GooberMcNutly wrote:

For good measure also remove his ability to mobilize troops into battle above the division level without Congressional approval.

That may not be exactly the right way to limit the scope of his military power, but I like the direction of your thinking on this.

Smudge wrote:

we DO need to rethink the executive branch from the ground up.

This is exactly right.

What I am not sure I agree with though is "too much power to one person" only because of the huge number of self serving cockheads on both sides of the proverbial isle. It is impossible to get anything meaningful accomplished for the good of the nation or the world with the tribe of greedy motherfuckers fighting for themselves.

Emmeran wrote:

GooberMcNutly wrote:

Bring some esprit de corps back to the civil service by paying a good wage and telling the unions to get stuffed when you fire an incompetent.

Isn't it astounding that the only unions that actually matter anymore are Public Employee Unions which by the very definition are an oxymoron.

Orwellian.