It's all fucking nuts!

Obamacare and Romneycare are the same thing, so, if you are cheerleading this debacle because of your team colors, you are mistaken. This is corporate welfare for big pharma and the insurance industry (because the taxpayers didn't give AIG enough)

Are you self-employed and in California? Ya know, like a lot of webmasters are?

Here is the California question for the self-employed on getting help with the insurance they are going to be forced to buy, whether or not they can afford it:

"Gross Income - How much do you earn in self-employment revenues in an average month before you pay your business expenses or taxes?"

It doesn't matter how broke you are, if you are genuinely self-employed, odds are good you will not qualify for help. If you have ever been a pro webmaster, photographer, writer, musician, model, illustrator, designer, creative person or entrepreneur of any kind, you know that the money you get to live on is what is left over after you have paid your business expenses. This is second grade math.

Democrats are scrambling to make changes to the law. This is what it took for Democrats and Republicans to work together.

Pre existing conditions? Think again, insurance companies are already learning how to get around it.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/healt...tions-20131107

Lower costs? As long as you don't have to use it, deductibles are going way up!


This whole law was about getting Barry's name on something, no one knew what was in it, no one cared

Again, I'm for healthcare for everyone, but this law was passed by idiots that never read the damn thing and the president lied to get it passed

I have to wonder if the population knew before the last election what we know today..would Obama have gotten reelected. This first year has been nothing but drama, scandals and lies.

Keep in mind, this is still the honeymoon period..

prices are going up to help pay for people that can't afford health care... i.e. if you are using the 'exchange' for health care I am paying for part of your coverage :2 cents:

yes, because Obama supports don't believe any negative reports about Obama, choosing believe anything negative is only slander by the republicans. that's the best part of being a liberal... selective truth .... and anything 'not true' is just hate filled bigotry from hate filled minds and total moron scum :2 cents:

And rather than getting a thankyou from the government and the *entitled* for your hard effort,you get a fuckyou...give us more!

High incomes already pay historically low taxes. Just the facts as some people like to say. Who cares though? They're spending over half a billion dollars already on a fucking website. Lets all come together and bitch about that.

Just a reminder...28% of a million dollar income is $280,000
28% of a $75,000 income is $21,000

What does the government do for those in the higher income levels to justify 10+ times more money for the identical services?

The government is collect more tax revenue than ever before

Yet they want more

Maybe spend the money more carefully first? Then talk about higher taxes

the state websites are very expensive as well as are the people hired to push it

Universal healthcare would be awesome. Giving big pharma and insurance companies a bunch of extra money from people who can already barely put food on their tables and gas in their cars -- that is not healthcare.

I know that revenues are not income. Apparently the State of California does not know the difference. That was my point. I am telling you what the government web sites in California calculate to determine eligibility.

How exactly do you think a Federal subsidy is going to work, if a person's state does not make them eligible? If the subsidy happens after there is a Schedule C, then it is too late for someone who did not have the money for the insurance.

Also, what wealthy school district did you go to school in that you got to take accounting classes in 10th grade?

I read an article about that yesterday as well, but then I read another that had some different numbers so I'm not sure how they count them. The article said that nationwide there have been more than a million people that have applied. The point of the article is that most of those applications were from states that set up their own sites and were handling things themselves while those states that were leaving it all up to the feds were having a harder time and getting fewer applications.

I agree. I think this is step one towards us ending up with a single payer style system. I don't know when that will happen, but I think it eventually will.

Provides roads, currency, military support, national guard, nasa, darpa, food inspection, drug inspection, clean water, clean air, the list goes on and on and on. The idea that the government could spend less or be more efficient is all fine and good. However the notion that someone who earns 21K benefits as much as someone earning 280K from the status quo is simply ridiculous.

Yes, they both breathe air, but the guy making 21K isn't going to be able to act on new technologies that come out of Darpa the way big tech firms do with things like GPS. The guy making 21K doesn't need the police and military to protect his assets, he has none. The guy making 21K is the one who is likely to be IN the military getting shot at overseas to protect the assets of the guy making 280K. The guy making 21K doesn't need a road that handles tractor-trailer traffic nearly as much as the guy who owns a factory. The guy making 21K likely has zero dollars so a reliable currency doesn't matter to him nearly as much as it does to the guy with 280K.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, those of us who are paying more in ought be afforded a level of respect for doing it. We also ought to do it without belittling someone making 21K or in dire need of help to obtain subsistence support like food stamps. If you make 1B you are getting more out of the status quo than if you make 1M. If you make 1M the status quo helps you more than if you make 100K. If you earn 21K, the last thing you want is to keep things as they are now. Even with Obamacare and every other change made in the last 100 years, the government is about protecting the status quo and preventing radical change. Wealthy people get more from that and pay more for it. :2 cents:


**EDIT** I mistakenly wrote "Wealthy people get more from that and pay more for it", in reality it's more accurate to say Barely Rich people get more from it and pay more for it. Wealthy people get the most from it and pay 12% or less ;)

It's a feeble justification. People who continue to cry about how unfair it is that people who are in a higher income bracket always talk about percentages. Convert those percentages to real dollars.

Is it my fault or problem that the guy down the road is a boozer and can't hold a job? He drives the same roads, calls the same police and fire department...has basic freedoms because of the same military. And now I am supposed to give him free healthcare.


Wealthy people don't get more from the system.. They EARN more from it.

Why is it, people that always seem to have a axe to grind against Obamacare always claim some ridiculous prices.. Yet anyone else seems to come up with very affordable numbers?

For what the website alone has cost they could have given 2 million dollars to each american man woman and child and said "pay for your own fucking health care - goodbye"

Your math is a little off.

The site cost around 630 million to make. There are around 317 million Americans.

This means that we each could have gotten about $2 not $2 million dollars.

"All wealthy people get more from the system.. some earn it" would be a much more accurate slogan to go with, just as some poor people are "boozers." The majority of wealthy people would be willing to admit timing and luck play a role. The majority of poor people would be willing to admit drive and aptitude also play a role.

None of that changes the fact that those 'winning' the game get more out of the status quo than those 'losing' the game, or that government activities are mostly about securing the status quo. :2 cents:

Just under 1 million people have "created" an account at the exchanges to shop/compare plans.

106,000 people have actually "selected" a plan. Though not all of them have "paid" for the plans. They have till December 15th to make payment on their plans. What % of those will follow through and pay for it? We shall see.

The number of billionaires in the US is what..maybe 100? So for the sake of clarity, I assume that is who you are talking about as the wealthy.
That group is so small, to spend much time considering how they look at the world is a waste of time.

It's that group under them. The 4-5 million families that are considered millionaires that I am talking about. People who go to work. Do the math on that group 4.5 million people all in that 28% bracket. Just figuring their income at a flat 1m they contribute $1,260,000,000,000.00 annually in taxes.

The number of billionaires may be around 100, the number of wealthy people who did not earn their wealth through their own aptitude is much higher than that. Someone who inherits 100M and never works a day in their life is wealthy. They have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Someone who earns 100M and has it at risk on new ventures isn't in the same boat. I don't view it as simply a 'number' above or below to qualify.

You consistently underestimate the number of people who are wealthy because of luck or timing more than any drive or aptitude on their part, while grossly overestimating the number of people who are poor because they are willfully stupid, boozers or lazy. I'd agree more driven high-aptitude people are wealthy and more lazy boozers are poor, but the numbers aren't as far apart as you pretend. I've known plenty of wealthy boozers who are quite lazy, and some incredibly driven really bright poor people.

Those winning the game do get more out of the status quo. The losing pay less to keep the game going. Those facts have been true since this civilization began. We can argue how much less is fair, what benefits are within reason... But the notion that you and someone earning 21K get an equal benefit per dollar the government spends is just silly.

Incidentally, a millionaire in New York isn't even barely rich. A millionaire in Montana may be a wealthy modern day land Barron. Wealthy vs barely rich is a label more of how you earned it and whether or not you are at real risk of losing it, more than it refers to a dollar amount.

Help me out here: how is this so terrible for the rich folks who already have nice insurance plans? Why are they so upset?

Because they are very bitter people whom have a very strong contempt toward social equality. There have been several studies that have shown that the more money a person has the less empathy they have toward other people. ie.. The term rich snob, didn't come about for no reason..

It's going to be cheaper for me and way better. I'm going from a catastrophic plan only that I pay $148/month and only covers medical expenses above $5900 per year. This ensures that I don't go bankrupt in case something bad happens but I get no actual care, ER visits in Tahoe are around $600 to $1000 each time. I also pay $600/month for my asthma prescriptions so I tend to not take them since I can't afford them and suffer from constant asthma attacks.

With the government subsidies, I now qualify for a $328 plan that I only pay $103 for and I can go to the ER, receive preventative care and get prescriptions for about $20 copay for each incident. SOO MUCH BETTER!

I am very excited for the change.

I decided to stick with my high deductible HSA for now, and see what happens. My application is stuck or something, and I haven't had time to call them to wait on hold while they figure it out.

But going by the general stuff I saw on the site, I think I am better off paying what I have been.

I'm in the exact same boat. I also have asthma and only have a catastrophic policy that doesn't cover medicine, doctor visits or much of anything. For about the same price I will be able to get actual health insurance with a decent deductible that will cover doctors and give me a small co-pay for meds.

There has to be more to it than that, surely?

Asking crockett to explain higher income people is like asking Stevie Wonder to explain fine art.

Oh shit well, I tend to fuck up zeroes sometimes. I am trying to even imagine how I fucked up that bad lol. I guess I keep a calculator on my desk for a reason, should use it.

Well yes you are probably right, it's likely a bit more than that.. If it had the name Romneycare they would likely be jumping in line to support it.

:) So how is it so detrimental to people who already have nice insurance? Why are the rich so hellfire and brimstone upset that the middle-lower classes now have a bit of a safety net? Did the taxes for the rich increase to cover the extra cost?

But it doesn't..It's obamacare. A poorly designed product with a near pathetic execution and embarrassing release. At the end of the day, the numbers strongly suggest it will hurt more people than it will help. And if you are one the paying side of the equation you aren't happy.

How bad is it? Obama's side is turning on him now. I saw a clip on television where he looked us in the eye and told us(18 times)... You can keep your existing policy.
Obama only wanted it named after him. He clearly never read any of it. And he lied to the people over and over.

THe cost of that insurance has risen again. And I will say that is not unexpected. It would've risen without obamacare. But what I didn't expect was that along with the price hikes the quality of the policy went the other direction.

I can't speak for the rich. I can only speak for me. I am not against lower middle class having health insurance. I am against the way it has been designed and administrated.
And the biggest issue is the cost. It's not the lower middle class or the poor that will pay for it. It's the middle class. And when the average takehome pay has dropped yearly, prices for food and basic living expenses have increased, now was not the time to add more burden.

Keep in mind the US is over $17trillion dollars in debt. The predicted cost of obamacare of 1 trillion has risen to 2.6 trillion. I realize that these numbers are speculative, but when does the federal government ever come in ontime and under budget?

Didn't you get the memo, the middle class has been cancelled

It is funny, I have seen numerous people say the exact same kind of thing. "Would've been easier to just give everyone $1mil"
It is almost like they read this somewhere and didn't bother to think for themselves....


also you dont need a fucking calculator to know 600million / 300 million = $2

I'd definitely agree that just because you work hard, its not a guarantee of success. It's definitely a component, but there's so many other variables like timing and connections. Most people who have worked hard and have made lots of money might be hesitant to say they also had outside help, or knew the right people, or got lucky on some things. Or maybe they never factored that into the equation.

AmeliaG

Im really not looking at thios as a Republican or a Democrat thing...Im taking the pragmatic view, We have decided, like it or not that healthcare is a right, if you wander into a hospital because you drank too much beer and rode your Harley into ditch and broke your neck and you have neither cash, credit or insurance we will treat you, at the expense of the taxpayers, we wont just let you die, or suffer. Because of that it has to be paid for by someone (meaning all of us taxpayers)

Now pragmatically speaking yes this is romneycare, the whole thing is just the first step to Universal Healthcare because they couldn't pass that one ...and thats what the insurance companies, big pharma and torte lawyers better understand....This is the last country on earth with money that health insurance companies can gouge....so if the want to stay at the trough they better not fuck it up or the next step is eventually Universal healthcare

The lower middle class sure had a good thing going with the whole "get sick and die/go bankrupt cause of no health insurance" thing...

They would continue to do what they do today. Go to an emergency room for treatment.
And if they are able, work out a payment schedule with the hospital or clinic.


What's the plan for healthcare for the 6+ million illegal aliens currently in the uS?

I don't know a single business person that hasn't said they've had some damn good luck and great timing in their careers. I certainly have had both. I have also had a great banker, attorney and CPA that I talk to all the time to help me guide my company.

in addition.. all my advisors that I listen to are private sector. I have met with state and federal SBA people and to date have not taken any of them up on anything they have to say or offer. The government programs are far to complicated to deal with.

As long as we attempt to fix one part of the system rather than reboot the whole thing, we will always have messy results that take time to improve. Passing new laws that create a single payer system, institute a national sales tax, reduce and flatten the income tax, remove all personal tax loopholes, provide true banking reform, cut our military spending by 25% and so on in a single year... or single decade is unrealistic. However, if those things did all happen we would be in a much better place than we are today across the board.

The last reboot of that magnitude was the New Deal, which required the Great Depression to gain muster. Hopefully we don't have to sink that low to rise up again.

You hit the nail squarely on the head. This is why so many nonliberals are very unhappy with obama and obamacare. None of the things you list were even discussed.

All they wanted was to raise taxes on the wealthy. which in turn raises costs for all the classes. Who reading this doesn't think that the people paying the higher taxes simply won't raise their prices to the ultimate consumer..

i am with you on every word you said. Im afraid however the government will need to go hopelessly bankrupt before such reforms can even get to the table.

:1orglaugh we're broke. raperoomcare just accelerates us into a collapse not before funnelling shit loads of $$$ to foreign banks. that's the idea. that's the plan, what gave you the idea somebody gave a fuck about you and your health. during the great depression people where self-sufficient. what are they now ? where's my iphone dildo *we *are *fucked