…from an unwashed hillbilly:
Those words mean two things to this unwashed hillbilly: (1) I have doubts that Obama is “the smartest guy ever to become President,” and (2) he lies.
When Obama was trying to sell the plan, he said it would bring the cost curve down. Once his plan was signed into law, he said he knew that it was “going to increase our costs.” At least that sure looks like a lie to this ignorant know-nothing. Maybe there’s some nuance I don’t understand. Or does “down” mean “up” in actuarial science? Maybe Katie Couric could enlighten me; she knows pretty much everything about climate science.
I guess I’m an unwashed hillbilly, too.
I was at Obama’s Town Meeting in Portsmouth, NH where among other canards he said that his plan would reduce costs and that I could keep my healthcare plan if I wished. Last month Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare cancelled its entire Medicare Advantage program. Advantage plans though hugely popular were a primary target of Obamacare. My wife and I along with 25,000 others in MA and NH need to find a new plan. Thanks, you liar.
Health insurance costs at my company went up about 14% for 2011. Boeing is raising the cost of health insurance for 70,000 non-union employees ([UnionGoonSpeek]”Serves them right! Those scabs should’ve joined the union![/UnionGoonSpeak]). Even AARP is raising the cost of their supplemental insurance.
AARP’s endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Now the seniors’ lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law.
In an e-mail to employees, AARP says health care premiums will increase by 8 percent to 13 percent next year because of rapidly rising medical costs.
Funny how Jim and Chris assured us that this wasn’t going to happen. Everyone would get to keep their insurance and prices would go down (and a pony!). Who is the rube now? We knew you were wrong then and it’s proven now.
My sister is the office manager for a 4 doctor practice that serves primarily elderly patients. A couple weeks ago, she learned she’s losing her job because the doctors are dissolving the practice to lower overhead costs. Two of the doctors are going to drop Medicare and Medicaid altogether because they simply can’t stay in business after these new cuts hit.
Funny how Jim and Chris assured us that this wasn’t going to happen.
And now they will tell us that the increases are all because of the greedy insurance companies and that the only way to stop it is for the government to take complete control.
Advantage plans though hugely popular were a primary target of Obamacare.
They were a scam on the taxpayer — they cost more, and delivered less. Anyone who cares a whit about the fiscal position of the country would want them gone. Rooting for Medicare Advantage is like rooting for the Ares-I.
Two of the doctors are going to drop Medicare and Medicaid altogether because they simply can’t stay in business after these new cuts hit.
Wait, I thought the problem with Obama was all the spending. And now the problem is that he’s cutting government spending too deeply?
Obama promised peope could keep their doctors and you repeated the claims. He (and you) refused to listen when people pointed out that the doctors would drop Medicare patients. At best, Obama was wrong but more likely, he lied and so did you.
“Wait, I thought the problem with Obama was all the spending. And now the problem is that he’s cutting government spending too deeply?”
Enjoy that disingenuous artifice while you can. You know perfectly well Medicare was cut to pay for Obamacare. If you are going to resort to this kind of linguistic knot-tying, I suggest you might want to go the con side of the debate.
Shorter Jim – “I lied because you can’t handle the truth.”
Didn’t work in the movie either.
True, Leland.
But, unlike the movie, I neither want nor need Obama on any wall, because he’s generally up there telling people, “don’t worry, we’re going to take this wall down and leave soon. You just have to wait us out a little bit longer.”
And now the problem is that he’s cutting government spending too deeply?
Jim, do you have no shame? YOU KNOW overall spending has gone up. YOU KNOW that spending was cut to those actually providing services. You’re not completely stupid Jim. I do suspect you’re typing with a teleprompter.
How is it Jim, that you, like the president, are such easy liars? What is it about lying that tickles your toes? Are you sharing your tingles with Chris Mathews? Did the red button give ya an orgasm?
No… that’s just too much info.
You mean people like Jim and his hero-president Ogabe LIED to us??? People whose political philosophy is essentially legalized looting and bullying would actually play fast and loose with facts? Shocking; absolutely shocking.
Obama promised peope could keep their doctors and you repeated the claims.
Nothing in Obamacare forces you to change doctors. If you interpreted Obama to mean that doctors would be forced by law to never drop a patient, then you misunderstood.
You know perfectly well Medicare was cut to pay for Obamacare.
Not Medicare, Medicare Advantage — a scam. If you want a smaller and more efficient government, you should applaud that decision.
YOU KNOW overall spending has gone up.
At approximately the same rate as before Obama took office, in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 30s. Obama has spent less saving the economy than Bush Sr. did cleaning up for the S&Ls! And on questions of long-term fiscal solvency — e.g. the rate of Medicare cost growth — Obama has been on the right side (e.g. the Independent Payment Advisory Board), with the GOP complaining that he’s cutting too much.
YOU KNOW that spending was cut to those actually providing services.
Evidence?
You know perfectly well Medicare was cut to pay for Obamacare.
Not Medicare, Medicare Advantage — a scam. If you want a smaller and more efficient government, you should applaud that decision.
Says who? The effect is higher costs and less benefits. Spin all you want.
Nothing in Obamacare forces you to change doctors. If you interpreted Obama to mean that doctors would be forced by law to never drop a patient, then you misunderstood.
Jim, for your information, nobody “interpreted” Obama this way. The economic incentives were changed to encourage doctors to drop Medicare patients. And as a result, we see that people are forced to change doctors even though doctors are not forced by law to drop patients.
The only words Jim should be writing here are “I’m sorry.”
“They were a scam on the taxpayer — they cost more, and delivered less.”
Of course. That’s why they’re so popular with seniors. (You need to do some research on Medicare Advantage plans, and you should also examine why you assume that millions of retired people are dimwits.)
These all-in-one plans wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for lofty government do-gooders (cheered on by complicit profiteers) cramming mandatory prescription drug coverage down seniors’ throats. Now, regardless of which type of Medicare they purchase, they have to meet with consultants or read through the fine print of formularies at the end of each year to determine whether their insurance carrier will continue to cover the drugs they depend on. If not, they have the delightful option of searching for an insurer that will, and switch providers for the coming year. Meanwhile, stand-alone Part D premiums are averaging an increase of approximately 40% over 2010 costs. I can only surmise that the main “benefit” of this mess is that the elderly will ultimately throw up their hands and decide to let the feds do it all.
Well, we already know that about him, but it would have the advantage of being true.
Jim sorry? That would be like Obama saying he was wrong.
The economic incentives were changed to encourage doctors to drop Medicare patients.
Name the provision(s) of Obamacare that has changed the incentives for treating Medicare patients. Hint: Obamacare is a convenient scapegoat for doctors who were dropping Medicare patients before it was even passed. You are being played.
That’s why they’re so popular with seniors
They’re popular because the insurers pass some of the money they’ve scammed off the taxpayer to their beneficiaries.
Read the whole thing (and follow the links).
Yeah, you can keep your doctor if you’re willing to pay full-tilt plus mandatory premiums to insurance you’re not using! How manganimous of Him! I’m positive that’s what the electorate thought he was saying…
The ones that reduce payments to doctors and hospitals: $229 billion in the first 10 years.
“Read the whole thing (and follow the links).”
I did better than that. Rucker quotes the KFF which has strong ties to the WaPo. The Wood Foundation funds nothing but leftist activities and your esteemed economists are quick to attack others with whom they disagree. He seems to be a fan of Ezra Klein too; referencing his blog in criticizing others. That alone should raise an alarm.
So we have a study funded by a far left organization, promoted by groups with ties to each other. You should read the comments where the Frakt replies he doesn’t know what happens to the 86 cents; whether is’s paid in benefits are not, he can’t say.
(Insert some blah-blah from Jim I was too bored to read much less quote on the wondrous wonders of Obamacare and how we are too stupid to understand how it makes medical care better and more affordable for all.)
I guess those insurance companies are raising rates and those doctors are dumping Medicare patients or just closing up practice out of sheer meanness and racism.
Andrea, you racist (any religion other than black liberation theology) meanie (gun clinger), don’t you know that everything Jim and Obama say is absolute T.R.U.T.H. (Totally Revealing Untruth Told Hedonistically.)
I dunno, I just can’t see Jim as a hedonist. He’s just too much of a scold: in the Middle Ages he’d be a doom-prophesying flagellant monk who spent time not applying the lash to his shoulders bragging about his scars and demanding of everyone else “What have YOU done?”
Obama, though, definitely is a hedonist. But that’s okay now. Remember when the press went into hysterical sneers at a president who went “now just look at this swing!” Unfortunately that president’s name was Bush, not Obama. Now when O hits the links, the press sighs and wishes they looked as dreamy in golf pants, and yearn to be the ones carrying his clubs.
Every Fall employers announce the changes to health plans that will be implemented in January. How many of those announcements came before the election? Obama may not have counted on that kind of an October surprise.
Well, he doesn’t know that much about how real places of work operate. (Ba-da-BUMP.)
I did better than that. Rucker quotes the KFF which has strong ties to the WaPo. The Wood Foundation funds nothing but leftist activities and your esteemed economists are quick to attack others with whom they disagree. He seems to be a fan of Ezra Klein too; referencing his blog in criticizing others. That alone should raise an alarm.
Ah, epistemic closure. When the facts don’t match the ideology, dismiss the facts.
I guess those insurance companies are raising rates and those doctors are dumping Medicare patients or just closing up practice out of sheer meanness and racism.
No, they do it because they can and want to. But they were doing it just as much before Obamacare passed, which makes Obamacare an unlikely motivation.
Shorter Jim: “SINNER! REPENT!”
No, they do it because they can and want to. But they were doing it just as much before Obamacare passed, which makes Obamacare an unlikely motivation.
I see you don’t understand how business works. If I am a doctor and I boot out my patients because I “want” to, then I’m throwing away business to my competitors. If I am a insurer and I raise rates merely because I “want” to, then my customers will go to other insurers and I’ll lose business. What you are foolishly claiming here is that there are a bunch of businesses that are raising prices and chasing off customers because they want to.
Here’s what you miss. Insurances and doctors have been increasing their prices for decades because costs have gone up for decades. This year, we see an unusually large increase in insurance prices coupled with doctors dropping medicare. That is consistent with the claim that Obamacare has increased insurance costs and made Medicare much less profitable than regular patients.
As to the Medicare Advantage “Scam”, Klein admits that the providers in question do provide more service than standard Medicare (the “perks”). So what makes it a scam? The US government coughs up public funds and gets service in return. Instead, it sounds like the program is supposed to be a “scam” because there is an alternative which pays less even though the alternative also provides less.
We can run that out to some absurd conclusions. For example, we could eliminate all public spending on medical care. That’s the “sucks to be you” option. Sure, it provides less coverage than Medicare does, but we’ve already shown that any concrete service is a “perk” and hence, has zero value to a public policy. It’s also a hell of a lot cheaper too since government isn’t spending anything. Therefore, using the same logic as Klein employs, Medicare is a scam and we should eliminate it completely.
As to the Medicare Advantage “Scam”, Klein admits that the providers in question do provide more service than standard Medicare (the “perks”). So what makes it a scam?
The fact that the perks they provide cost only a small fraction (14%) of the extra taxpayer money they are taking in. Those perks are a kickback to the beneficiaries, paid in order to preserve political support for the huge subsidies being pocketed by the insurance companies. There is no public policy rationale for spending public money to give those perks to some Medicare beneficiaries and not others, much less to line the pockets of the insurers.