…you’re out of luck.
It was always an obvious lie, except to the rubes.
I’m still amused at Bill Clinton’s prediction of how popular this would be once it passed, and I continue to wonder if he really believed it, or was setting up the Messiah for failure, in anticipation of 2012.
Poor students. The one most enthusiastic about the Anointed One. Now they get to pay for much more expensive health care insurance while at college (and when they get out). Does the expression “useful idiots” apply here?
Open enrollment is coming up in October. I wonder how much will be disclosed to people at that time? And will such disclosure constitute “electioneering?”
MfK, we have to
pass the billwait until November 3rd to let you know what’s in it.MfK, we have to
pass the billwait until November 3rd to let you know what’s in it.Pray they don’t alter the deal any further (unless to end it).
Leland, I find your lack of faith in my protege disturbing.
None of the senior Democratic leadership will ever be punished for Obamacare. They’re in safe seats, except for Harry Reid, and he’s really being punished for Nevada’s unemployment. Only Obama himself will, perhaps, and a bunch of Democratic n00bs in McCain districts who are going to have only 1 term in Congress. But who cares about either? Obama never really seemed all that interested in a second term, less so now, and Democratic cannon fodder are cheap and replaceable.
Furthermore, the old bulls will now be seen as essential to “fixing” Obamacare, the same way they’ve been essential to each and every “fix” of Social Security that’s come down the pike since the 1960s (to my memory). Remember the sacred statist She Swallowed A Spider To Catch The Fly principle: every ill caused by government intervention is only an argument for still more and bigger government intervention. C’mon, what do you want — to do “nothing”(TM)?
I don’t think they really cared what was in the bill. What they probably figured — and they may be right — is that now we’ve got nationalized health care, and it will stick for good. We’re all just going to be bickering about what exactly it should look like, and endlessly tinkering with it, the way we endlessly tinker with the Federal income tax code, and that is sweet, sweet job security for lawmakers. Elect me so I can go to Washington and Fix Your Health Care! It will work for decades. As Mark Steyn points out, once you’ve got nationalized health care, every other conversation about government fades away.
What the old bulls may think is that now we’ve got past the dive into cold water point where we lost the attitude that nationalized health care would be an unthinkable intrusion of the Federal government into everyone’s lives, or some fantastically unsustainable Ponzi scheme. Now we’re just carping about what kind of nationalized health care we’ll have, and that, as I said, is just where they want us to be.
They may be right. You’ll notice few are saying that even if Obamacare did everything it was advertised to do, it would still be unconstitutional, wrong, unAmerican, or unworkably economically inefficient. Those arguments — that the thing is wrong on first principles — are less commonly made in the mainstream. It’s more the kind of argument you see here, that the thing is not living up to its promises, it’s not working as advertised. But the subtext to that criticism is that if you could make it work as advertised, then it would really be A-OK for the Federal government to have complete charge of your medical treatment. For some of us, that shift in the terms of the debate is deeply repugnant.
For those of us with no health insurance due to self-employmen and/or pre-existing condition and/or age, this is a tempest in a teapot. We have nothing now; we will continue to have nothing. It’s no fun being on the “crawl off somewhere and die, loser” health plan.
Ah, but soon you’ll get to pay a tax for not having health insurance, B Lewis. Do that make things better for you?
Somehow, I think not.
We’ve been told at our workplace that if the current law is in effect in 2014, the company will ditch its health plan and pay the fine. Oh joy!
We’ve been told at our workplace that if the current law is in effect in 2014, the company will ditch its health plan and pay the fine. Oh joy!
Gee, who could ever have predicted that? Other than those of us who did, of course…
Larry J: No, ObamaCare won’t make things better for me, which is why I didn’t support it.
Unfortunately, nothing is going to make things better for me in terms of health care. I’m self-employed and cannot obtain coverage at any price due to a pre-existing condition. If the government requires insurers to carry those of us with pre-existing conditions, the Good Hands People, etc, will simply jack their premiums higher than they already are. Since I can’t afford the premium associated with private health insurance now (even if I could find an insurer who would cover me), I certainly won’t be able to afford a higher one in the future.
And of course I won’t be able to pay any fines. Maybe they’ll put me in jail. Health care in jail is of low quality, but is provided free of charge. It’d be better than nothing, which is what I have now.
We’re leaving the United States within the next five years, anyway. The country where we are going has the highest-rated health care system in the world. What they’ve got is far from perfect, of course, and the taxes you pay for it are just nuts, but anything beats our wonderful American “crawl off and die, Useless Eater” program.
Actually, the US has a great program for those with pre-existing conditions or the self-employed.
It’s called Fee For Service.
For anything other than the most routine care, fee-for-service has another name: it’s called bankruptcy.
B, I think that the government’s well intentioned entry into subsidized health care may have been the biggest contributor to out of control cost increases. For example, neither the government programs nor insurance companies have offset the cost of the Lasik eye surgery procedures, and over the past 20 years that procedure has made significant improvements in quality and also reduced recovery time, all while the price has plummeted. The lack of insurance coverage certainly hasn’t stopped people from specializing in this field or companies from manufacturing this equipment.
Because the markets were allowed to work, and because no one was given any guaranteed reimbursement for services, competition improved the product and reduced the price to the consumer.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could test this by removing insurance and government reimbursement for other elective procedures. Perhaps dentures and braces? I would imagine that the market would have a similarly dramatic effect on pricing and quality over the next decade.
So, BL, it sounds like you’re going to sponge off the taxpayers of whatever country you’re moving to, and forcing them to pay for your healthcare. Fine. We don’t need more parasites over here.
B Lewis, if it’ll help, I’ll leave an envelope with $1,000 in it on my coffee table, but you have to break it and take it yourself — no fair getting the IRS to do it for you.
B, I don’t know the nature of your situation but I work at a clinic. If you need treatment and can’t pay, just about any clinic will find a way to help. Same for the bigger hospital right across the street from us. Both of these facilities are for-profit organizations, but they help individuals almost daily either by providing service pro bono or by negotiating some kind of payment plan. We have several individuals who have been paying ten bucks a month for years; as we live in a rural area in a poor state, and a week does not go by without someone bringing in bushels of corn, pears, or whatever to express their appreciation.
We’ve had our own employees donate their accumulated paid-time-off to other employees with an extended hospital stay so that they don’t have to take leave without pay.
For that matter, our church helps folks in a similar manner, either by helping with a hospital bill or by giving cash for food, utilities, and fuel so that the person in need can divert their existing cash to where it is needed most.
Yes, it becomes obvious after a while both at the clinic and at the church as to those who are sincerely in need and those that are just lazy. But community remains a really good source of help, far better in my opinion than government.
Thanks for the responses. I see the milk of human kindness is nowhere thicker than among the readers of this site. There’s a lot of love in this room.
NB: The country for which we are leaving has a private health-care system.
Thanks for proving my point — it’s not enough for the statist to take your wealth, you must love him for it because the natural response exposes the morality of his act.
Jiminator wrote: Wouldn’t it be great if we could test this by removing insurance and government reimbursement for other elective procedures. Perhaps dentures and braces? I
Here in Canada, we’ve had nationalized health care all my life, in all but two areas: optometry and dental care are not covered. Laser eye surgery here starts at $495 per eye, wisdom tooth removal is $223 (just had two pulled). How does that compare to, say, midwestern USA?
Ed, similar starting point for Lasik (which generally isn’t covered by insurance) here, though the average is $1300-$2100 per eye. Wisdom tooth extraction (usually covered under separate dental insurance) will run about $200-$500 per tooth, plus anesthesia (another $300-$500).
“There’s a lot of love in this room.”
Certainly none for coercion and legalized plunder. I don’t know about anyone else, but once the guns and bludgeons come out, love flies out the window. I’m funny that way.