Topic: Wait.... what's wrong with "Obamacare"? (Read 10123 times)

Well lets just "improve health care" even more.  We'll have the state pay for health care, and also intense promotion and advertising on how great health care is.  Then we'll have the state shut up anyone who says anything to the contrary.

That oughta work.

Frankly if it was to be redone, it would be first fix the VA, meaning using more systemic and serious (modern) tools to approach the question in a more strategic way of thinking and then working roll out main stream... sound more professional to me, not that the private sector isn't able to make more than shoes, or even provide the most perfect health maximizing return for everyone, it's just that if the solution developed for the VA is better than all the others why not, which would make it a free choice, and the natural death of an industry... And it's not like if the VA didn't need fixing, which would solve the health part of it, at least. Obamacare is actually at least a case study of the risks of the concept of public-private partnership. why not try a full true (deep) state side solution to a real problem like health issue in veteran affairs? Market have agreed to the collectivization of defense (offense  ), if collectivized health solutions are provably better, who could resists? Anyone can marketing what ever a shoe, but if it hurts, it hurts...

Actually, several assertions he made are what might be dubbed "well known and well propagated total falsehoods".  Easy to find them on google and so forth.  But a simple examination of them shows they are false. 

I have to suspect it's part of making Obamacare seem more palatable or less threatening than it actually is.  Because they most certainly will come after the 20-40 year old singles market, and with a vengence.

I don't really remember who's who on the forum unless they have a very obnoxious avatar or obnoxious giant flashy signature with neon lights around. I try to do my best to comment and reply to the core of what I read every time, as I do not prejudge people on forum.

 

 

The main problem is about the homeless aint it? They can't pay for obamacare and can get punished for it? Or have I missunderstood something?

Do you have a source for this claim? Because I've not heard it, I find it hard to believe, and it undercuts the entire system if there's no penalty for not joining.

Spendulus is right about enforcing the mandate. It's not a criminal action, it's administrative. There are fees and interest, which if you don't pay may eventually wind up with a criminal complaint, but the IRS is an administrative agency.

I've read about this and find the arguments lacking or outright false.  For example, the argument that for non payment of the penalty "the IRS cannot criminally prosecute  you."

But almost all IRS prosecutions are civil, under administrative and  regulatory law.  They are not criminal prosecutions - those are reserved for such as fraud.

So the IRS simply adds the amount not paid for the penalty to the tax liability, and assesses penalties and interest to that.  The sum doubles or triples each year from those.

And your argument about "not able to collect the penalty because they don't get a tax refund" is false, also.  Look at the nature of the "Earned income credit."  Lots of people get paid money when their return is processed and it's not a "tax refund."

The IRS certainly does have effective ways of enforcing the individual mandate, and it certainly will do it.

The IRS/government has actually explicitly said they will not enforce the individual mandate. The whole concept of Obama care is a joke, it is just a ploy to get more people on a new entitlement program so more people will vote democrat

Stop the presses! We just agreed on something Wilikon.

A.  The Employer Mandate begs to differ with you.

B.  The IRS certainly can and will enforce the individual mandate.  Ever heard of the Earned Income Credit?  They can withhold it in whole or part.

I didn't think of that. I'd guess your employer significantly subsidized healthcare costs where wages (especially for single adults) typically exceed Medicaid income tests and now face higher costs because they have to go from their own insurance pool of productive, able-bodied people to a massive pool of all sorts of people. I thought the practice of companies paying for insurance'd pretty much died off outside, say, $100k+/yr jobs where the tax benefits of taking health care over increased pay gets pretty extreme.

The IRS has no effective way of enforcing the individual mandate. They're claiming they'll withhold federal tax refund checks, but a household failing the Medicaid income tests are unlikely to be receiving a tax refund (though this could be extremely different state-by-state, and some states do asset tests).

Yep!

I doubt that's anywhere close to accurate.

For example, small businesses are struggling with the implications of the new taxes.

My insurance costs almost tripled.

The IRS added 18,000 more goons for enforcement.

The effects are certainly not almost non existent.

I understand how it works, I don't make more than $200,000 a years, and I'm still opposed to it. What the program "aims to do" and what it actually does are not the same. Government has a long-running problem with unintended consequences. Unfortunately, the two parties act out of political necessity now, not with any design on what is best for the country. Democrats needed a major policy accomplishment, so this was rushed and rammed through. The vast majority of the Congress didn't read the bill, let alone understand it or be able to foresee the unintended consequences the bill would create. Republicans aren't opposing out of a sense of what is good for the country either. They're opposition is rooted in denying Democrats a major policy win.

My opposition to the bill is on principle. You can't be forced to buy something you don't want to buy, and someone else's problems cannot be made to be your own by government. Everyone is born free and equal, and as a free and equal person to everyone, you cannot be forced an obligation to them unwillingly, which is what socialized medicine is at its base. Your unwillingness to help others who are less fortunate makes you a bad person, but you're free to be a bad person because you're free.

Fwiw, surtax is .9%, not .009% (3.8% on investment income). The CBO estimates ~2% of the pool of uninsured Americans will be penalized by the individual mandate requirements, roughly half of uninsured Americans. Oddly enough, this indicates almost a decrease in non-Medicaid-insured Americans from 2007 census data, where uninsured Americans are mostly (~60%) made up of people who are making under $50k/yr and very likely exempt from the ACA's individual mandate. This'd suggest to me that the CBO is estimating the ACA will have little impact on healthcare coverage in the US, roughly in line with 2007 levels. The CBO estimates $9B in receivables (still no word on viable plans to collect since few subject to the individual mandate will have a federal tax refund) from the individual mandate, while the Joint Commission on Taxation estimates ~$45B in additional revenues from ACA taxes. The CBO suggests it's unfunded, with the law creating an additional ~$100B/yr in unfunded federal liabilities from baseline (presumably from Medicaid expansion).

I don't mean to suggest Obamacare is bad or good - I just don't understand why it's such a popular topic when its effects are almost nonexistent outside the related expansion of Medicaid in most states, which could've been done by simply expanding Medicaid - and I doubt "Obamacaid" would've caught on. Since a free market approach to healthcare is outside the realm of political possibility in the US (and mixed [crony capitalist] systems are terrible everywhere, all the time), I'd be willing to support measures to enact single-payer systems with full, hassle-free national coverage, which the CBO projected in the 90's as being nearly cost-neutral or even cost-negative (compared to current system) due to the greatly reduced administrative costs. Politicians always seem to half-ass things in the US; "compromise."

Basically EVERYONE who's against 0bamacare is making $200 000 or more every year? I did not know I was making so much money with my bitcoins 

If you are typing this from any country but the US or being a paid assistant of the gruber propaganda team then I understand your position.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/health_care_law

Let me quote this typo before it gets changed...

Gruber dismissed the controversy as arising from a “typo” in the law and his own statement as a “speako.”

http://freebeacon.com/issues/the-worst-of-jonathan-gruber/

nothing worng...

This deserves some sort of award.  Not sure what, though.

"Best Leftist Fantasy of Post-Gruber-Medical-Apocalpse?"

The majority of people who oppose Obamacare also known as the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" don't even have a clue how it works.  The new guideline basically aims to make health care more affordable for everyone. It's not exactly a free handout. The tax increase of .009% only applies if you make more than $200,000 so you can imagine who is voicing their protests for it and brainwashing the masses who don't make anywhere near that to do the same.