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

If by "self sufficient" during the Great Depression, you mean families ate their pets and men abandoned children and wives they couldn't feed, then yes, you're absolutely right. We should go back to that post-haste.

We discussed all this at length at the time over on JBM. There are just as many frustrated liberals as there are nonliberals. The 'error' recorded in history will not be that Obamacare went too far, it will be that it did not go far enough. Unless, they manage to patch and fix it while addressing the other items I listed. What bothers me most is that many people think the alternative to Obamacare is what we had before... rather than what we should have.

What we had before was worse than Obamacare, arguing to go back to it is nonsensical. Yet, the GOP is so busy trying to do their dog and pony show for political points that they aren't even attempting to move us to what we should have, and the Democrats are so politically locked into calling Obamacare successful that they aren't going to move us toward what we should have either. Frustrating when, as much as we disagree about politics, even we could probably have hammered out the framework of a real working health system over the course of a holiday weekend or two. :2 cents:

Maybe they can eat their iphone :thumbsup Men are evil aren't they. If only women ruled the world there would be no more eating of the pets and abandonment of the children. save the childrennnnnnnnnnn please

Well, what's a man supposed to do when he has only a limited number of pets and so many mouths to feed? It seems you are arguing that we should all start stocking up on cats and parakeets in case things take a turn for the worse. :winkwink:

(Watch, some GFY genius won't even notice the sarcasm)

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. This plan sucks ass and the old way sucks more ass.
We in the US should have health care the same way as the rest of the civilized world. Call it socialized medicine if you want, but the US should have it. We drive on roads that the GOV builds and we don't bitch about that!!!

The republican party has persuaded the religious right that they should keep paying big corporations for their shitty health care, because they shouldn't pay for freeloaders to have health care. It's all big business and the politicians are corrupted by the insurance companies.

believe it or not there are some people that are living it, right now in this country. For example if you're working 24/7 to stay alive you're living a great depression.

If someone had to kill a pet or abandon a child I would think that they felt there was no other way to survive. I don't think that is something people just decided to do for shits and giggles. I also think that if things completely collapse ( i don't know why it wouldn't at this point ) eating a pet or leaving a family will be the least of our problems. People are seriooooosly fucked up :2 cents:

I think I'm going to get some pet bison's

The obamacare is total horse shit and window dressing, just like obama......:321GFY:321GFY

this this is nothing more than a PIG....

And as obama stated when he was running for president.....you can put lipstick on a pig, but in the end, it is still a pig :thumbsup

I wish that were the case. Universal healthcare would be great.

I went to fill a prescription for a loved one this week and it turned out that what had previously run $50 to $60 is now nearly $1,000 for cash patients.

Big Pharma apparently didn't get the memo that they should not mess up.

As near as I can tell, a lot of Democrat-identified people assume incorrectly that everyone against Obamacare is rich and Republican. Given that Obamacare and Romneycare are the same thing, I don't really get why people get all partisan about it now.

Elli, I had a professor who is one of the architects of Obamacare and he told me that 25% of smallbusiness owners are uninsured. In the State of California, at least currently, they calculate eligibility for help based on gross revenues and not net income. That means small business owners won't get help and they comprise a significant portion of the people who are uninsured. And, pretty much by definition, they are probably not rich.

Other uninsured people are new college graduates who don't think of themselves as the sort of people who would go on welfare and many feel like huge losers being forced onto it by Obamacare.

Big Pharma laughs at the clown in the whitehouse..:1orglaugh

That does sound like a lot of people who don't qualify as "poor" will get a big pinch. Hurting small business is not cool at all. But changes like this take time, and the wrinkles can be worked on now that the ball is rolling in the right direction.

It just seems to me that people aren't realizing this is a huge sea-change for the country. Individual groups can now work on the legislation that they disagree with, but the framework is in place for everyone to be covered. Sure, bitch how the launch was a little unprepared and half-assed, but the ideas are there to work on now.

What? I wasn't ranting against men at all. In the 30s it was typical for a woman to care for the children while also trying to work and for the man to travel to find work if there was nothing locally. Often the men kept travelling and never came back.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that the Great Depression was a terrible time, and pointing at people as being "self sufficient" by not needing health insurance during that era is not appropriate. omg you're giving me a headache. I need more coffee.

Hi Elli, did you know during the Great Depression to generate more money to try and get out of it, they raised taxes on the rich.

In 1925, the top tax rate was 25%
October 29th, black Tuesday, the stock market crashed. Loses during the month we about 16 billion dollars
In 1932, the top tax rate was raised from 25% to 63%
In 1936, the top tax rate was raised from 63% to 79%

It took war to bring the world out of the depression , not raising taxes like the democrats want to do. Some people never learn from history.

1945 The top tax rate is 91 percent. It will stay at least 88 percent until 1963, when it is lowered to 70 percent. During this time, America will experience the greatest economic boom it had ever known until that time.

A good economy is good for keeping families together, keeping crime at a low level and just good for our business as well..........................

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt...me_History.PNG

Oh wow, I didn't know that! Those seem like ridiculously high rates.

Politicians won't bring that up, I got a healthy love for history from a teacher I had in high school that was awesome. Learning outside the books from school and finding the real truth. Like the mayflower landed on Plymouth rock according to the ships logs because they were out of beer!

Here's some more fun facts, I love this shit!!!

1. The shortest inaugural address in U.S. history -- 135 words -- was given in 1793 by George Washington. His dentures hurt, and he wanted to get it over with. BTW, they were not made of wood!!

2. George Washington was also quite an alcohol manufacturer. In 1798 alone, he produced 11,000 gallons of whiskey. I would buy a bottle of Washington Whiskey!!

3. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the great explorers of the Northwest, gave President Thomas Jefferson two bear cubs. Jefferson kept his new pets on the South Lawn of the White House.
Could jyou ust imagine two bears crapping on the white house lawn?

4. Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, but he didn?t stop there. He?s also credited for the urinary catheter.

5. Abigail Adams, foreshadowing later feminists like Susan B. Anthony, tartly reminded her husband John, our second President: "Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors [were]. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands."

6. During the election of 1828, politics got personal when Andrew Jackson?s opponents called him a jackass. He gleefully adopted the image for the Democratic Party.

7. Like the Democratic donkey, the Republican party symbol was born out of mockery. In 1874, the satirical cartoonist Thomas Nast drew an elephant and labeled it ?the Republican vote.?

8. Chester Alan Arthur, who served as Chief Executive from 1881-1885, had an extremely futuristic nickname: The Dude President.

9. Although the Red Cross isn?t a government agency, it does have a Congressional charter. The nation?s legislators granted it in 1900, giving the Red Cross responsibility for disaster relief and for help to the military and their families.

10. There have been eight left-handed presidents: James A. Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama.

11. William H. Taft was the first president to submit a national budget.

12. Elijah McCoy, an African-American man, invented a device to keep train wheels oiled while the train was running. Others tried similar devices, but his was the best ? and that?s the origination of the phrase The Real McCoy.

13. John F. Kennedy. was the only president to die before his parents.

14. The U.S. first wanted to build a canal in Nicaragua, not Panama. But the French tried unsuccessfully to build a canal through Panama and then sold the rights to the U.S.

15. The first and probably only trial of a tomato was held in 1820, in Salem, NJ. Robert Johnson ate an entire basket in front of a crowd who was convinced he was going to die right away. He didn?t, although it's safe to assume that he had a stomach ache.

16. Thirty-eight thousand black men served in the Civil War.

17. Who besides America was born on the Fourth of July? Louis Armstrong, the greatest of all Jazz musicians, always said he had a July 4th birthday. Broadway song and dance man George M. Cohan, who wrote Yankee Doodle Dandy and Over There, also said he was born on Independence Day. Others include song writer Stephen Foster who wrote ?Dixie?, President Calvin Coolidge, playwright Neil Simon, Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, and advice-givers Ann Landers and her twin sister Abigail Van Buren. And Malia Obama!

18. Fourth of July fireworks have a long and honorable tradition. They were first used in July 1776 and may have been meant as a mockery of the tradition of fireworks for British royalty.

19. Once upon a time, we didn?t have an actual July 4 holiday. Although Americans celebrated it informally, it wasn?t an official day off until 1941.

20. What?s on the back of the Declaration of Independence? People who have seen the movie "National Treasure" want to know. Well, on the back, at the bottom, upside-down, is simply written: "Original Declaration of Independence dated 4th July 1776." According to the National Archives, "While no one knows for certain who wrote it, it is known that early in its life, the large parchment document was rolled up for storage. So, it is likely that the notation was added simply as a label." Sorry, there are no hidden messages.

Number 12 is awesome :)