Obamacares.
LA Times featured an op-ed yesterday that is a must-read:
I want to apologize to President Obama. But first, some background.
I found out three weeks ago I have cancer. I’m 49 years old, have been married for almost 20 years and have two kids. My husband has his own small computer business, and I run a small nonprofit in the San Fernando Valley. I am also an artist. Money is tight, and we don’t spend it frivolously. We’re just ordinary, middle-class people, making an honest living, raising great kids and participating in our community, the kids’ schools and church.
We’re good people, and we work hard. But we haven’t been able to afford health insurance for more than two years. And now I have third-stage breast cancer and am facing months of expensive treatment.
To understand how such a thing could happen to a family like ours, I need to take you back nine years to when my husband got laid off from the entertainment company where he’d worked for 10 years. Until then, we had been insured through his work, with a first-rate plan. After he got laid off, we got to keep that health insurance for 18 months through COBRA, by paying $1,300 a month, which was a huge burden on an unemployed father and his family.
By the time the COBRA ran out, my husband had decided to go into business for himself, so we had to purchase our own insurance. That was fine for a while. Every year his business grew. But insurance premiums were steadily rising too. More than once, we switched carriers for a lower rate, only to have them raise rates significantly after a few months.
~snip~
Fortunately for me, I’ve been saved by the federal government’s Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan, something I had never heard of before needing it. It’s part of President Obama’s healthcare plan, one of the things that has already kicked in, and it guarantees access to insurance for U.S. citizens with preexisting conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months. The application was short, the premiums are affordable, and I have found the people who work in the administration office to be quite compassionate (nothing like the people I have dealt with over the years at other insurance companies.) It’s not perfect, of course, and it still leaves many people in need out in the cold. But it’s a start, and for me it’s been a lifesaver — perhaps literally.
Which brings me to my apology. I was pretty mad at Obama before I learned about this new insurance plan. I had changed my registration from Democrat to Independent, and I had blacked out the top of the “h” on my Obama bumper sticker, so that it read, “Got nope” instead of “got hope.” I felt like he had let down the struggling middle class. My son and I had campaigned for him, but since he took office, we felt he had let us down.
So this is my public apology. I’m sorry I didn’t do enough of my own research to find out what promises the president has made good on. I’m sorry I didn’t realize that he really has stood up for me and my family, and for so many others like us. I’m getting a new bumper sticker to cover the one that says “Got nope.” It will say “ObamaCares.”
As more and more people find out about the benefits of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Republicans are going to find it difficult to continue the “Repeal Obaaaaahmaacare” siren song. And the fact that health insurers are cutting their lobbying costs because the Department of Health and Human Services has stated that such lobbying costs cannot be counted as providing healthcare is just icing on the cake.
From The People’s View,
Their lobbying scheme didn’t work. They know it and are finally resigning to the fact that health reform is the law of the land and that they are going to have to comply with it. And since they can’t count lobbying costs as providing you with health care, lobbying costs are now in direct competition with shareholder gain. If the insurance companies want to make more money but can’t do it by kicking people off their insurance or counting everything and its mother as a “health care cost,” there are only a few ways of doing it: cut administrative costs (hello, industry lobbyists, hi! Waving atcha!), and raise revenue by attracting more customers in a level playing field.
As many of you know, I have a microprolactinoma (a pituitary tumor). Navigating the health insurance industry over the past 6 years has been a pain in the ass. I’ve wrangled with Blue Shield and I’ve been horrified by Kaiser Permanente, and the experience has left me disheartened, frustrated, and often in tears. I have found myself calculating how much time I will allow for the drugs to work and shrink the damn thing in my brain before I decide to have it surgically removed just so the procedure will be covered by insurance. It’s insane.
No one should be forced to make a significant health decision that includes life-threatening surgery simply because they don’t have the time to let non-surgical options run their course, and they won’t be able to pay for surgery should they need it. So I am very grateful to President Obama for the government’s pre-existing condition insurance plan because when my COBRA runs out, I’m going to need it.
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
Benjamin Franklin
This is why social change occurs at the light speed of glaciers.
Medicare and SS were cottage industries in the beginning. The evolution of popular reception happens when the incentives have eclipsed urban legend and become part of the culture.
It’s not perfect, yet.
Nom de Plume
Hey, positive anecdotal evidence doesn’t count. Only hysterical, unsourced negative anecdotal evidence can be cited when it comes to Obamacare.
Cermet
But Obama is a MUslim – so there. Free the healthcare industry for profit not Shia law!
Ok – for the ill-informed – bad joke. For trolls here, their beliefs.
smelter rat
The rest of the civilized world looks at the US “debate” over health care and shake our heads in amazement.
gonzone
Comments section at LATimes paraphrased:
“Looks like Obamacare saved another damn dirty fucking hippie’s life.” “Take a bath and get a job! Stop expecting me to pay for your damn health care!”
Yutsano
Wait until Vermont comes online. They’ll have to put up walls to keep people out.
taylormattd
Kill The Bill! Oh wait . . .
CA Doc
I saw this via my Twitter this AM…but did you read the comments? Compassion is an endangered species in America, apparently.
Ian
BUT DOES SHE HAVE FANCY COUNTER-TOPS?
(I’m guessing the oppo dump is beginning even as I type)
daveNYC
I’m glad this lady is being taken care of, but the sad thing is, if she hadn’t gotten cancer she’d be in the “I’ve got mine, fuck you.” camp.
The story basically condenses down to, “I thought Obama sucked until I needed something, then I discovered he didn’t suck.”
And the worst part is, if the Republicans win enough in November they’ll kill the ACA dead.
FormerSwingVoter
@gonzone:
Just wanted to point this out. Again. Conservatives honestly believe that people who disagree with them deserve to die.
qwerty42
Geeze, just got back from the LA Times site and many of the commenters seem to be delusional paranoids.
different-church-lady
Yup, that’s how it goes: the government completely sucks right up until the time you need it.
Of course, it didn’t help that that they did an absolutely piss poor job of explaining the benefits of the law, instead allowing everyone to focus their white-hot intensity on the mandate.
Massachusetts made exactly the same mistake: the did, and still do, focus all the PR and information on trying to get people to buy into the system, and spend almost no time explaining all the protections, nor how the programs actually work.
Citizen Alan
@FormerSwingVoter:
And after twenty years of exposure to their psychotic tendencies, I know feel the same way about them.
El Tiburon
A lot to unwrap here before we get too jiggy with it.
According to this person, she state: and it guarantees access to insurance for U.S. citizens with preexisting conditions who have been uninsured for at least six months. The application was short, the premiums are affordable,
So, she has access to insurance. Does this mean she is guaranteed to receive healthcare? And all of the care she needs?
Affordable premiums. For who? How much?
It seems this lady still has tom rely on the whims of the insurance companies.
Look, I hope Obamacare saves millions of lives and is but the first step to a rational, single payer system down the road. But I doubt it. I don’t think it’s the game changer we were looking for.
I will stop the trolling here and not mention other Obama policies…
different-church-lady
@qwerty42:
Some day someone’s gonna do a psychology dissertation on exactly why newspaper comment sites attract that type of mind like flypaper. I mean, even the most rabid trolls here at BJ look like great thinkers compared to what you see there.
Yevgraf
Clearly, this writer has no fealty to the faith structures represented by the infantile filth of Sweet Baby Jesus or It’s older incarnation, spittle-flecked and enraged Angry White Republican Jesus…
The Ancient Randonneur
Thanks ABL! I linked to that piece in Kay’s post about Sherrod Brown and I’m glad to see this get some front page love. It really is important to note that the law is making a difference in people’s lives.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@daveNYC:
to be fair, we don’t if she was in the Broder-Roberts “Obama is too partisan and has overreached!” camp or the Hamsher-Krugman-El Tiburon “Obama is a spineless fucking crypto-Republican!” camp.
Jeff Boatright
@qwerty42: They are desperate. They are desperate not because they understand the issue(s), but because they live in a world where, when the other team “wins” (ACA or indeed any gov’t entity), then their team “loses”.
From my experience, they will hold this stance even when the involved government entity actually saves their doddering old mother’s life. See, even though Dear Old Mother was saved, their team “lost”. And they hate the government even more afterwards.
Snowball
@gonzone:
I’m so tired of this argument. These are the same people that demanded that I pay for their Iraq war.
Satanicpanic
I like that the first comment on the story is- we save for our healthcare but this lady gets to take vacations, she’s not taking reponsibiliteeeee When did the concept of personal responsibility mean seeing who could suffer the most? Has it always been like this?
JoyousMN
I’ve posted a lot about my family’s trials and tribulations navigating US health care on my blog. Suffice to say, I can now explain the ACA in a tweet *smile*
No one can be denied insurance, so everyone must buy now–before they get ill; subsidies for low income families.
Yes it does more, but this is it in a nutshell and I think anyone who supports it should be able to get these points across. Just my .02
different-church-lady
@daveNYC:
Too long for a bumper sticker, but wouldn’t that be a great tag line for a 30 second commercial?
Here’s the deal: about half of the country still has the luxury of affording to be cynical, mindless fucks. But with each passing day more and more people can’t afford it anymore. Cynicism about the government is a hobby for only the well-to-do.
different-church-lady
@JoyousMN:
Yeah. Should. Actually able to, however, seems to be mysteriously out of their reach.
Norm
Same story with medical marijuana. “I was against it until my wife/mother/son/daughter/I got cancer and we suddenly needed it.”
Legalize
@daveNYC:
I think that’s the point ultimately. Lots of otherwise fuck-you-I-got-mine folks will see a personal benefit from the changes the law makes. In Ohio, we had thousands of otherwise fuck-you-I-got-mine folks lose their shit when Fox News Employee Kaisich tried to fuck with unions. The result was a punch in Kaisich’s nuts, and a likely win for Obama in 2012 in this state. Once these people see how things personally benefit them, they get in line behind the one who gave them the benefit. They used to be Reagan-Democrats; no longer.
FormerSwingVoter
@Satanicpanic:
Yes. Yes it has. These are not people for whom the ends justify the means – these are people who want to use the most terrible means possible and use the ends to justify it. There’s a difference, there.
Conservatives oppose health care reform in any way, shape, or form because if other people don’t suffer and die for no reason then there is a smaller gap between themselves and the bottom. And then it gets harder to differentiate between “them” and “us”. “They” suffer and die and I do not – therefore I am good and “They” are bad. If both sets live and prosper, then “we” are not clearly and obviously superior. Therefore, others need to suffer and die so I can feel better about myself.
Also, PROTIP: Anyone in the entire world who ever uses the phrase “personal responsibility” means personal reponsibility for other people, and literally never for themselves.
Elizabelle
@qwerty42:
Yeah, I am glad that ABL posted Spike Dolomite Ward’s op ed.
And some of the commenters on LATimes were beyond cruel. Sobering.
Ronald Reagan: be proud of what you have wrought.
Mike Goetz
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Her name is Spike Dolomite Ward and she runs an art education non-profit in the San Fernando valley. I think we know what kind of Obama Sux person she was.
Emma
@El Tiburon: You know, parsing things to the smallest molecule so you can find something wrong with them is the first sign that you’re either just an anti-Obama troll or one of those people who would find fault with chocolate mousse with edible gold shavings.
She can afford them and she’s obviously getting the healthcare she needs. It might not be the holiest of holies of the hyperleftists, but it’s helping her. And that’s good news.
Culture of Truth
This is a problem for Obama, but it also presents a problem for Republicans. For those who are well-off, who really are better off than they were 4 years ago, sure, some will vote GOP because they are rich, but for many others the insistent, hysterical claims that Obama has been a disaster will ring hollow.
For those that are not better off, who are struggling in today’s economy, what is the GOP message – “Obama has failed you – now go take a bath, you lazy bum”?
slag
@different-church-lady: Sometimes, I really do think those commenters are chained to computers somewhere in Southeast Asia just cutting and pasting away. I keep waiting to see Translate Server Error in one of them.
El Tiburon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Perhaps then you can help out. Is she guaranteed insurance at a reasonable premium for the duration? What about co-pays and deductibles? There are many ways to carve a turkey.
And if she can’t afford any premiums or co-pays or deductibles?
Me and my family have insurance. That doesn’t necessarily translate to access to health care. I had to get a certain level somthat the deductibles will be somewhat of a burden. Not to mention if me or my spouse fall seriously I’ll for an extended period and can’t earn income. What then? Is there a provision for that? Will I pen my ObamaCares! Mea culpa for that?
Or, continue on with the cute little remarks because that contributes.
Again, as I stated prior, I hope I am wrong – just don’t think so.
bemused
The comment section really is a cesspool. Incredibly nasty. I’d like to think many of them are getting paid to write that sewage but there are far too that really think like that. Disagreeing while ignorant of facts is one thing, the vile hate spewing is sociopathic.
polyorchnid octopunch
@different-church-lady: If you go through the email archives that were placed online by Anonymous after they hacked HB Gary Federal, you’ll discover that there is software that was commissioned (in all likelihood) by the US Chamber of Commerce to allow one person to play many people online, complete with rejigging the language in the post while keeping the talking points, a range of IP addresses to post from as well as building online “histories” of the posters to make them look legit. The software is also to be used by the US military in their disinformation programs in other countries. It is aimed very much at flooding things like newspaper comment sections with a large number of moral defectives to try to make it look like they’re winning.
daveNYC
@Satanicpanic: Seriously? Someone thought that you could bank enough to pay for cancer treatment? Shit, if you’re lucky, you might have enough to cover some basic lasering of some low end skin cancer, but high end breast cancer? With chemo, and radiation and surgery… oh my? That stuff will cost as much as a house, if you’re lucky.
But I guess burning through your retirement savings and the kids’ college fund builds character.
SBJules
I learned at the Thanksgiving table that my niece has been helped by Obama care. More to be thankful for. We’re all democrats and most are Obots too.
Elizabelle
@bemused:
I don’t know why you see that so much at the LATimes, but you do.
Kind of trains you not to read the comments section, and maybe that’s the point. Drown out the others with your misanthropy and lies.
MomSense
There have been a couple of other good news stories about ObamaCares. Yesterday Forbes ran a piece about the Medical Loss Ratio provision of the ACA. This provision requires that insurance companies pay 80% (for a small insurer) or 85% for a larger insurer on actual health care.
Here are some links.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/12/02/the-bomb-buried-in-obamacare-explodes-today-halleluja/
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2011/12/defeated-health-insurers-cut-lobby.html
eemom
Because I am an evil and unforgiving person, I still kind of despise this woman for being a willfully ignorant asshole before she got cancer.
El Tiburon
@Emma:
Yeah, wondering about the cost of the premiums and if she will actually get the care she needs is really parsing the smallest molecule. Boy am I glad I didn’t ask what the font on the application was.
But yes, let the Feel-Good story of the Hoilidays erase all need to question this program. Just close your eyes to the sweet melodiesmof Obamacare.
For the third time (and very un-troll like): I hope Obamacare is the answer. I just don’t think so.
Tractarian
If anyone at the DNC had half a brain, they would be ordering up a couple million “ObamaCares” bumper stickers to distribute.
I mean, what a perfect campaign slogan.
It captures exactly what you want people to think of Democrats, especially compared to their heartless counterparts.
It reminds supporters of the candidate’s signature achievement.
And it coolly co-opts a derogatory phrase and turns it into a laudatory one.
Just perfect.
Rabble Arouser
@El Tiburon: One more thing you should take into account when asking all of your questions is that the Medical Loss Ratio just kicked into effect, and those same insurers must now spend between 80 and 85% of premiums on healthcare. Anecdotes are not the plural of data, but my fiance just received a letter from her health insurer basically letting her know that annual caps on most things are now a thing of the past. The insurers are desperate to pay just about any claim they can get their grubby little hands on now, so that may just be a mitigating factor when considering whether or not policies such as the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan are worthwhile or effective.
FormerSwingVoter
@daveNYC: This reminds me of the fact that most people have no idea what life-saving medical treatments actually cost.
As a stupid (but relevant) example: On Tosh.0 (stupid web clip show of people doing stupid things and failing painfully), they were interviewing a kid who was in one of the videos (he had fallen out of a car and hit a parked car face-first at 30 mph) and asked him what his deductible was. His response: $1.5 million.
The interviewer was waiting for an opening to make a joke, but was too dumbfounded. He was just like “$1.5 million? Really?” It was a stupid accident, to be sure, but that’s not even an amount of money that someone can comprehend, let alone save.
carpeduum
@MomSense: Yea, I am amazed that this little doozy was not even mentioned by anyone back when the debate was still white hot. At least I don’t remember hearing anything about it. Not from anyone from the firebagger left to the teabilly right.
When you think it through it’s a very powerful force. It almost completely immunizes these private companies from the poison that is profit motive. When you think about it, it will make them think and act more like a non-profit and in healthcare that is not a bad thing.
Satanicpanic
@daveNYC: No kidding. Last surgery I had cost more than the previous ten years of vacations I took combined (thankfully I have insurance). I would figure a cancer diagnosis would add up to several lifetimes of middle class visits to national parks.
This might explain why the savings rate in the USA is so low- the amount you are expected to save to guard against fairly common occurences is so high, and the amount of pleasure you have to sacrifice is so extensive, is it any wonder that people don’t bother?
FormerSwingVoter
@eemom: I kind of agree, to be honest. “I was all like ‘I got mine, fuck you’, but then I didn’t really have mine! I was against this when I thought it went to the Browns and the Poors, but once I found out that real Americans like myself would benefit I changed my tune in a second.” Fuck her.
Raven
@El Tiburon: chingada
lb 22
Go read the comment section if you don’t get enough mean-spirited sociopath in your diet.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@El Tiburon: Obamacare is an imperfect improvement on a bad system. And it was the best bill that was going to get through the Congress we had, one controlled by the Democratic Party, which included Ben Nelson, Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln, Bart Stupak, Dennis Moore, and on and on and on. And not one person lost in the House or the Senate for working against even that imperfect improvement. You bitch and piss and moan about “Obama policies” and show no understanding of, or more accurately, you show a refusal to understand the realities of American politics and society. So forgive me if I don’t take your willfully ill-informed petulance seriously.
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
It’s called Medicaid, and Obamacare makes a major expansion to the Medicaid system to cover situations like that.
I realize you hate the law so much that you’re unwilling to actually educate yourself and find these things out for yourself, but it’s not like they’re a secret, for chrissakes. Why do we have to spoonfeed you every damn thing about ACA? Why do you ask stupid questions that five seconds on the HHS website can answer for you?
bemused
@Mnemosyne:
Because he doesn’t want to believe HHS website or any other reliable, healthcare savy source.
kay
I think it was almost inevitable that people were going to encounter the health care law this way, one by one.
It was much easier to demonize and mislead on it than it was to explain it.
The phrase that still makes my blood pressure go up is “junk insurance” applied to either the pre-existing condition plans or the exchanges, because it’s really not junk insurance, by any reasonable measure. That was a flat-out lie.
Dave
@Satanicpanic: From experience, I can tell you that a single round of cancer treatment, in-hospital, can run between 25-40K. It varies based on the drug and length of stay.
StevenDS
@El Tiburon: Obamacare has subsidized insurance exchanges that won’t go into effect until 2014. Once those exchanges go into effect, the author will be forced to buy healthcare from the exchange, and will not be discriminated as a result of her pre-existing condition. If her families’ income level is low, she will get subsidies for some (perhaps all) of her insurance expense.
What she has now is the opportunity to buy into “high risk pools”. These high risk pools are there on a temporary basis to deal with the 3 year transition to Obamacare with full exchanges.
Ironically, Republicans cite “high risk pools” as their solution for making sure everyone has access to health care. So what the lady in this article is praising is actually a Republican idea.
The problem is that high risk pools have a fatal flaw – they make it so that people, like the author of this article, have an incentive NOT to purchase health insurance generally because they know that they can simply get insurance in the event they get sick.
So this article is full of ironies. On the one hand this lady was an Obama supporter, whose family couldn’t afford health insurance. Obamacare was passed, which will make it much more likely her family will be able to afford health insurance in the future, yet she lost faith in Obama.
Obamacare contains a republican idea, high risk pools, which is flawed. But in this case saves this poor woman from either financial ruin or perhaps death. Which makes her come around to liking Obama again. But causes conservatives in the comment section of her article to blast away at her. For manipulating the insurance market in a way that the Repbulican’s “mandate free world” would encourage.
feebog
@eemom:
I think willfully ignorant asshole is a little harsh. The fact that she did not even know she was eligible for this insurance speaks volumes about the ineffective messaging of Democrats and the White House.
I just posted this story to my facebook page. I also live in the San Fernando Valley, and hopefully some local folks will read the story and become more educated. Want to spread the word? Post to your facebook page or email the link to some non-believers.
taylormattd
@Mnemosyne: Answer: because that’s not what Jane told him.
Emma
@El Tiburon: It seems to me that when someone writes an article to say, specifically, that they are satisfied with something, we should take them at their word. But reading down some more I realize that other posters have taken you to task about now knowing the actual provisions of the law. I should have realized it from the questions. I’ll know better next time.
AxelFoley
@Mike Goetz:
Strange name for a white lady. I’m guessing it’s a stage name or sumthin’.
http://www.spikedolomite.com/
I mean, first, a lady named “Spike”. WTF?
And then “Dolemite”? Double WTF?
El Tiburon
@Mnemosyne:
No and yes.
I don’t hate the bill. Not a big fan. And as I recall I’ve stated numerous times recently something to the effect: I HOPE IT WORKS BUT I DON’T THINK SO. Now, does that sound like hate to you? It sounds more like CONCERN fused with DOUBT. But not HATE. HATE would probably sound something like this: GODDAMN I HATE THIS FUCKING STUPID BILL BECAUSE OBAMA SUCKS BECAUSE HE IS A CRYPTO FACIST YADDA YADDA YADDA AND WHY AM I YELLING!1! See the difference?
And I will admit to a lot of ignorance on the bill. You and the rest of the brigade here are correct. But, one of the reasons I frequent this blog is to get educated and some of the posters here have been very generous in listing some things in the bill that have promise.
But the overall premise of the bill – coming from a right-wing think tank, etc., no, I am not in love with the damn thing. I don’t think it is the bill we needed and could have gotten if Obama would have fought for it. I don’t think it is a good road map to eventually get us to a place with a rational healthcare system.
Is it an improvement? Well no shit Sherlock. But forgive me if I don’t get all goose-bumpy like the rest of you. ‘Cause as you know Hamsher Hamsher Hamsher Greenwald!
kay
@feebog:
It’s easy to say that, but, man, the misinformation was LOUD. It was coming from everywhere. I honestly think there was no way to make themselves heard until the dust from the battle settled.
The pre-existing condition program evolved, too. The subsidies were (too low) at the outset, so they subsidized it further, to make it affordable.
It’s a huge piece of legislation. I think it was inevitable there were going to be parts that worked and others that didn’t, and changes.
Conservative governors have been a barrier to information, too. They don’t want this to work. They don’t want people to have this information.
I think it’s gotten better since the media got bored with health care and went back to covering Donald Trump. Less noise around it :)
Monkey Business
My sister has a chronic thyroid condition that normally costs her several hundred dollars a month in prescription medication. She’s a freelance photo/video person, and previously was paying for her own private health insurance. Thanks to Obamacare, she was able to rejoin our father’s policy, which has saved her several hundred dollars a month between deductibles, drug costs, and other related expenses.
Long story short: you didn’t need to sell me on Obamacare, I’m already a fan.
taylormattd
@kay: I’d add to this kay. Not only was the misinformation “LOUD” it was insane, out of control, and coming from all directions.
Various industries spent billions of dollars funding insane advertising lies about “Obamacare”, and the 2/3 of the media either deliberately spread those lies or were gleefully implicit in giving the lies airtime. To this day, there is still a substantial portion of the country that believes Obama tried to kill grandma and eliminate medicare with the bill.
To blame “poor messaging” is very ridiculous.
El Tiburon
@Emma:
Am I doubting anything she wrote? I believe 100% of what she wrote.
But let’s remember that next time Karl Rove writes an article on why he is satisfied with pepper spraying protestors. We shall all take him at his word.
Snowball
@El Tiburon:
I guess he could have done what Bill and Hillary Clinton did back in 1993. Fight for it and not even get Congress to vote on it.
It is easy to sit on the sideline two years later and say that Obama should have done this or that. He has gotten more accomplished with healthcare than any other recent Democratic President in spite of our dysfunctional Congress.
If you don’t like the bill, work to get a better Congress. They are the problem, not President Obama.
Brachiator
@daveNYC:
This is part of human nature. I’m also struck by how often the writer notes,
and
She internalized the lie that only the un-deserving poor, losers and parasites ask the gummit for anything. But she learned. That’s the larger point.
@different-church-lady:
I disagree here. It is more that the media is lazy and stupid, especially with respect to anything complex, and that a lot of people found it easier to clutch onto “Sozul eyes Medikins, bad!” and never moved beyond the lie.
El Tiburon
@StevenDS:
Thanks.
Some follow up, and I think another commentor touched on this:
Will there now be a cap on premiums, co-pays and deductibles? And can the insurance company decline a procedure?
You know my main beef with the bill is that it still leaves us at the mercy of the insurance companies. If I fall seriously ill – and need hundreds of thousands of dollars of care, can the insurance company, via deductibles or co-pays or denial of service, still in effect control my healthcare?
And what if my family is above an income threshold – will the insurance companies try to raise our premiums, etc. to compensate?
different-church-lady
@polyorchnid octopunch: I’ll bet that explains half of it, and the other half is genuine crackpots with no life.
quannlace
And that there are no such things as victims. Something bad happens to you, it’s your own damn fault. Some how.
Sick with no health insurance? Tough, you should have found the obscene premiums somewhere.
Out of work? Too bad, you’re obviously not trying hard enough, and extending your unemployment insurance will only increase your laziness.
Some guy sexually harress’s you? Ha, don’t make me laugh. You’re just some femi-nazi who can’t take a joke and/or looking to get a fat settlement.
Bludger
Jesus H Christ the comments thread for that Op-Ed is depressing…
Why the fuck do I read those things?
r€nato
please don’t make the mistake of believing that the comments section of a major newspaper represents an accurate cross-section of humanity. It doesn’t. It’s many of the same cranks who used to write letters to the editor, only the barrier of having to type/print/mail a letter has been removed.
Our local newspaper’s website recently moved to having comments appear on Facebook only. The comments people were posting to the website were just atrocious – a cesspool of unrestrained id.
I’ve mostly quit reading the comments on stories posted on major newspaper websites.
Culture of Truth
Do they give out Nobel prizes for not being goose bumpy?
Larv
@El Tiburon:
The tension between these statements is why you’re getting a lot of shit. You admit to being poorly informed about the bill, but you’re still pretty sure you don’t like it. That makes a lot of people assume that your reasons for not liking it have little to do with the actual details of the bill itself, and more to do with your disappointment over the lack of ponies.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
Well, clarification: I kinda lumped together two related thoughts into a single concept. The media did their usual shitty job both in Mass. and nationally.
However, the Mass. Law has been in effect about 5 (?) years now, and most self-employed people I know still don’t understand that they can buy their insurance at relatively decent rates through the state program, nor that they might qualify for subsidies. And the State does next to nothing to promote that knowledge. The “Health Connector” website is a tangled mess. There’s a billion programs with inscrutable names, and when you call them it takes you forever to figure out what they’re talking about. You can’t blame the media for that.
If that sounds like the voice of experience, it’s because it is.
ADDITION: When the state does promote the Health Connector, it’s never, “Let us help you get insurance,” it’s always, “It’s the law, there’s penalties, you can still die if you’re young, OOGA BOOGA!”
Brachiator
@El Tiburon:
So what? Although “single payer” is the perpetual health care wet dream of many supposed progressives, it is not necessarily the best answer.
Liberals need to quit flogging the single payer pony, just as conservatives need to quit clinging to guns, religion and vouchers as the answer to everything.
Assuming (or hoping) that Obama wins re-election, we need innovative minds to improve and expand health care reform, not the same tired old ideas that people keep trying to push.
metricpenny
@feebog:
Isn’t it more about the ineffective job our main stream media does of educating the citizens using the public airwaves?
I live in metro-Atlanta and the coverage our media provided on the provisons of ObamaCare was negligible. Only watched just to make the determination.
I made it a point to research it online personally. It’s something a lot of Americans don’t, or in some cases can’t, do. However, methinks the writer of the letter could have done so.
r€nato
OK I did read a couple comments:
Sophieac3 is right. She should appreciate instead, a politician who will give her a tax cut or blame the gays marrying rather than merely helping make health care affordable and accessible.
How horrible that this woman should like Obama for helping her deal with her cancer. What is wrong with people these days?
different-church-lady
@eemom:
If you actually were an evil person, you would despise her for getting cancer.
r€nato
@Bludger: don’t… unless you can get some cheap laughs from how fucking stupid are some of the things these people say.
different-church-lady
@El Tiburon:
It is a game changer. But it’s not the game winner we’re looking for.
Emma
@El Tiburon: And so we should. Rove is a bastid who would probably love to see the rest of us pepper-sprayed into submission. Your point?
r€nato
@El Tiburon: I understand what you are saying, and I as well have little patience for people who are adamantly against all social safety net programs and government spending unless and until they find out they need it.
But, I think you should get over it. She not only changed her mind, she wrote an op-ed (which makes her ‘fair game’, she’s probably already getting hate mail since the op-ed provides the website for her place of work) which could have a great effect on others who scorn Obamacare without really knowing much about it other than Fox News told them it was going to kill Granny.
(you do know that the proprietor of this blog was once a card-carrying member of the loony right who had a change of heart, yes?)
StevenDS
@El Tiburon:
I’m not an expert on PCIP. If you want more info, go here:
https://www.pcip.gov/FAQ.html
Generally, this high risk pool stuff is a band-aid on the problem, while the big fix – the exchanges – are being constructed. The same way you might drink bottled water for a year while your town builds a massive water purification plant.
Once the exchanges are created, if your employer doesn’t provide insurance, you will have to buy insurance from the exchange or pay a penalty. If your income is lower, you will get full or partial subsidies for this. The cost of your insurance will be based on “community rating”, and will not be affected by your condition or any changes in your condition.
Regarding living in a world where you are at the “mercy” of insurance companies… I really don’t know what to say. I’m pretty sure Obamacare as a whole will make insurance companies better, more efficient and more responsive. But you never know.
Under the act, the insurance you buy from the exchanges must provide a certain minimal level of coverage. The more coverage you want, the more your premiums will be. The coverage level is high enough either way so that medical bills alone should not send you into bankruptcy.
Here is more on coverage levels: http://www.acscan.org/pdf/healthcare/implementation/background/PlanLevelsStandardizationofCoverage.pdf
In general there will always be a battle over how to allocate scarce resources. And, there will always have to be a bureaucracy of some sort to keep the health CARE industry in line and not just use the insurance company (whether private or government) as an unlimited ATM.
r€nato
@FormerSwingVoter: I couldn’t agree more with everything you said.
I truly believe that many of the people screaming about Obamacare think that health care is a zero-sum game: if Obama helps someone get affordable health care, that means there is less to go around for them.
El Tiburon
@Larv:
Oh, if only that were the case. Sadly too many people here like to fling poo because it’s all they know to do.
But moving on: and unlike many here, I am at least willing to admit to my ignorance and own up to it. This also means I have no problem admitting when I am wrong and I could be persuaded to embrace this bill.
That this lady had a good experience (as have others) does not alter my opinion on the bill. I think there is still a lot to see with it.
@Brachiator:
Continuing to have for-profit insurance companies between me and my doctor certainly is not the answer. Do you have insider information to a better answer? Is there a better answer than EVERYONE receiving access to healthcare regardless of your ability to buy private insurance? Because if so, I would love to hear it.
r€nato
@El Tiburon: you seem to believe that the answer is to abolish private health insurers and have a government-run system. While that’s one answer, it’s not the only answer. See here for a sampling of the different methods of providing access to health care around the world.
StevenDS
@El Tiburon: I think I made this point above, but unless you pay for EVERYTHING out of pocket, there will always be someone between you and your doctor.
And that system will never be perfect, as no man-made system ever is. I agree that the evidence indicates that European systems with heavy government involvement are better, but that doesn’t mean that private insurance is shit. It is a hell of a lot better than having no insurance.
Soonergrunt
@MomSense: We ran it here, too.
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/12/02/were-not-at-the-end-of-the-beginning-but-perhaps-the-beginning-of-the-end/
r€nato
@Soonergrunt: you and I know what’s going to happen someday, right?
Sooner or later, the GOP will get their grubby hands on the levers of power in the WH.
They will assign reliable minions to HHS who will change the rules so that health insurers will be able to count lobbyist expenses and who knows what else, as part of the cost of providing health care.
Soonergrunt
Shorter El Tiburon:
That’s pretty much everything you say here.
El Tiburon
@StevenDS:
I checked out the first link. So, if I have a pre-existing condition, a few things:
1. I can’t have been insured for six months. So, basically, I have to drop my current insurance if it won’t cover the condition for six months.
2. My premium for my age would be $248-412 per month depending on the plan. My max out of pocket for “covered services” would be between $6,000 and $7,000.
3. It appears to have a list of providers, so, I assume that means that it has providers who volunteer to be a part of the program.
4. It appears to pay for care, specialty care, drugs, etc.
5. For those who can’t afford, it states “you may be eligible for the Medicaid program in your state.”
So, all-in-all I don’t have a problem with this. This may be a good first step to a more rational healthcare system. I think there are still wrinkles in it: “may be eligible for Medicaid…” which says to me that there is still the issue of many people not being able to get this coverage.
You know I guess it boils down to a sense I get that many people are content and feel the fight is over. And I get that it will take sometime for some of the benefits to filter down so that even batshit crazy teabaggers will finally admit that moving towards a more rational (and less ‘free-market’) healthcare system is the answer. If this does it, then it will have done its job.
But again: I just don’t think so.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@El Tiburon:
Link to one person who has said that. This was the first comment on the thread.
This is why social change occurs at the light speed of glaciers.
Medicare and SS were cottage industries in the beginning. The evolution of popular reception happens when the incentives have eclipsed urban legend and become part of the culture.
It’s not perfect, yet.
Soonergrunt
@r€nato: I fight the battles I can fight. Of course they will do that. If either the House or the Senate are in Democratic hands when that happens, I would hope there would be hearings, and maybe a law passed. Hell, I’d like to see a law passed now, but I’ll take what I can get.
El Tiburon
@Soonergrunt:
Oh fucking please. That is rich coming from you especially after your juvenile rant on Hamsher and Greenwald the other day.
Most if not all of my comments have been very measured and rational.
And I don’t think you know really how to do the entire “Shorter (insert name here)” thingy. Go review Sadly, No for a refresher course. It’s okay. Humor and satire is very difficult to do.
David Koch
And I say…..
Kill the Bill Today!
Kill the Bill Tomorrow!
Kill the Bill Forever!
El Tiburon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If you first link to where I said anyone said that.
I said I get the sense that many feel this way. I am not going to link to all of the responses to me an other comments that give me that feeling. Out of anyone who cared to actually read what I wrote and attempt a serious response was StevenDS. And I actually read what he said and went to one of his links and reported back. I even had some positive things to say about it. Otherwise, most of the responses to me were basically just calling me a moran.
So, maybe take some time to READ what I write instead of just seeing what you want.
And if see the term “cottage industry” one more time I’m going to go apeshit. I fully understand the history of Social Security. And I fully understand people want to draw a comparison to SS and Obamacare. While I see some parallels, I don’t buy into it fully. SS was altering the social contract – Obamacare seems to be entrenching the insurance model with some tweaks.
That’s what I don’t like.
sherparick
Look at the Republican Presidential contest. The sad fact of the matter is about 40% of the country is in some part mad. Stark raving, mad, to some degree.
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
The fight over how to begin changing the system is over. Short of building a time machine, we will never go back to 2009 and instead pass a law that conforms to whatever it is you think it should have been.
There are many improvements that can be made to this law and should be made, but for some reason people like you are obsessed with re-hashing the fights of three years ago rather than looking at how the law as it exists can be improved. Until people accept that this law exists and it has X, Y and Z provisions, we’re going to keep having the same stupid fights about what “should” have been passed rather than improving the law that did pass.
LongHairedWeirdo
DifferentChurchLady:
I don’t know what your opinion of the health care reform bill was before it passed. Maybe you were a big booster of something – anything – that helped repair the then-current system.
But – do you realize how hilariously ironic it would be if those words were spoken by someone who was bitterly angry (at the time) that single payer was off the table and the public option was dropped?
It would be a perfect illustration of the circular firing squad… and of letting perfect be the enemy of “the best we’ll get with a guaranteed 40 Senate votes against anything Obama suggests”.
And what’s worse is, it’s *justified* to be angry that single payer was off the table, and that the public option was dropped.
What needed to happen was that the anger needed to be directed at the right people… the people who made it so single-payer was off the table, or a particular “with us on everything but the war” turncoat who said that an over-55 Medicare buy-in was socialism.
And, yes, maybe Obama could be selling the benefits better, but using the government to boost one’s popularity is wrong, whether done by an R or a D. His abilities are somewhat restricted.
On the other hand, *we* can sell those benefits.
Davis X. Machina
If this woman came to an uninsured and untimely end, together with hundreds, or thousands, of others, but it got us the public option, surely she, and they, would understand what she, and they, bought with their sacrifice. And that realization would serve as an enormous comfort, to go along with the palliative care.
We could have them commemorated on a stamp — if there’s still a postal service when the great day comes. Or a monument on the Mall — nothing grandiose, like the WW II monument, something smaller, and more tasteful.
gelfling545
@FormerSwingVoter: I believe her objection was that the ACA would not be any real help to anyone. She found that it does help some. Not all, which we would like, but some, perhaps many, which is better than none.
PurpleGirl
@different-church-lady: And news sites in general… ever read the comments at YAHOO. I don’t read them very often but when I do… Oh, Goddess, I need full strength brain bleach.
Brachiator
@El Tiburon:
First of all, it’s not all about you. The question is what is the best health care system that we can achieve. And although I don’t have all the answers, I got some questions and observations.
Bottom line is that some Americans and Balloon Juicers keep pretending that every country with universal health care has single payer. This is simply not the case. So, if you want single payer, convince me that it will be equal or superior to every other option that has been implemented. The French health care system is widely praised. It’s not single payer.
And as for the idea that “a more rational (and less ‘free-market’) healthcare system is the answer,” prove it.
One claim about idealized health care reform is that if you entirely eliminate evil profit (and also if you get rid of the military, maybe), you will have infinite amounts of money to spend on the health of citizens. When I ask what is going to be set aside for R and D, for innovation, for possibly reducing costs through modernization, I don’t get a good answer. But if you don’t allow for this, I do not see how you are going to get a “rational” health care system.
Ruckus
@r€nato:
This is a huge point.
Zero sum. The lifeblood of all conservatard talking points. If someone else gets anything, you can’t have any. It is used for everything. Some fat fucking cat on wall street is making up for you not making
enoughanything by making many times more. You have healthcare, I can’t have any. There is no elasticity in anything conservatards are against. It is all fixed amounts.Except bullshit. That they have in ship loads.
OK I see the problem. They are FOR bullshit.
David Koch
Grover Norquist and Jane Hamsher were right, we should have Killed the Bill.
PurpleGirl
@daveNYC: Saving enough to cover all your potential medical bills is the basis for Medical Savings Accounts. The flaw is that one ever knows what may happen medically in the future. For example, I didn’t have chronic back pain when I was hit with acute herniated disks. (The total bill was probably more than $15,000: exams by orthopedist, neurology, a couple of MRIs — which showed the herniations — and the radiologist’s report, then the neurosurgeon, the surgery itself and aftercare with the neurosurgeon. (It’s a good thing my insurance at the time was with HIP and they had the staff or contracts with outside providers to cover everything.)
Soonergrunt
@El Tiburon: Actually, a shorter here works any fucking way I want it to. I know this because I am aware of all internet traditions. You can look it up.
And since you brought it up, when are we going to get some accountability from “Accountability Now”?
SiubhanDuinne
I’m wondering whether the LA Times has deleted/blocked most of the comments or if it’s just my computer — as of a few minutes ago I could see only three comments (although the counter did say there were several hundred) and now shows no comments and says no comments have been received. Have they disappeared for the rest of you?
PurpleGirl
@AxelFoley: “Spike Dolomite Ward” Think 1960s hippie artist or a new ager spiritual concoction.
cynn
@SiubhanDuinne: Same here. No comments. That must have been some cesspool.
different-church-lady
@LongHairedWeirdo:
For the record, my opinion was (and remains) very mixed.
My direct experience with the Mass. law is that it’s an utterly befuddling tangle of programs that could only be designed by a bureaucrat, and by the time you’ve started to untwist the whole thing you find that we’re slightly better off than we would be without it.
different-church-lady
@PurpleGirl: Well, that’s a good reminder of something nobody seems to remember: back in the day you wanted to have health insurance not as a gateway to all your healthcare, but only in case of catastrophic illness that you couldn’t possibly pay out of pocket.
I don’t know if the concept of the Overton Window applies here, but something sure as hell shifted in the past 20 years. Now everyone behaves like it’s utterly impossible to pay for any health care whatsoever unless insurance is involved. And, in fact, the law now subscribes to that view.
boss bitch
I would forgive her ignorance and blame Dem messaging if she hadn’t said she campaigned for Obama. THEN she altered her sticker or poster and crossed out the H? Sorry, but I would bet money that she was active on a few political sites where she was told over and over that Obama hasn’t done anything for the middle class and HCR won’t amount to shit etc. etc. And if she visited those political then she should know about the pre-existing condition element – it was talked about a lot on political sites. A Lot. She knew. It didn’t matter to her at the time but she knew.
El Tiburon
@Soonergrunt:
?
Well played He Who Also Has Memory Like Elephant. Well played.
David Koch
@different-church-lady:
doctors charge and make alot more money than they did 40 years ago.
I’ve been going to the same doctor for 20 years and she always has the latest high end sports car in her parking space.
different-church-lady
@David Koch: Yeah. Okay. That wasn’t the something I was talking about.
EriktheRed
Get well soon, ABL.
r€nato
@cynn: I can summarize it as follows:
1) condescending lecture from the Galtian self-reliant ubermensch heroic Producer who has always shifted his own load and never, ever asked for nothing from nobody, certainly not any gummint programs
2) frantic hand-waving
3) she got what she deserved for not working a 9-to-5 job with health insurance for a big company, Obama should have let her die of cancer.
4) Stupidity beyond that which can be believed:
EriktheRed
@Snowball: Can anyone here imagine what a total fuckin’ disaster it would have been if NOTHING had passed, like back in ’93??
I think what has Repubs’ panties really in a bunch isn’t that bill as much as it is that this time they expected to entirely derail it again and they failed.
El Tiburon
@Brachiator:
Really? This is how you understand this use of language? Okay.
Look, it’s not that difficult: the US system is completely fucked up no matter how you look at it. All other industrialized nations have some variation of single payer or universal or however you want to characterize it. They all provide mostly superior (or similar) coverage at much cheaper costs. We know this. We know families lose loved ones, go into bankruptcy, lose their homes and so on due to our healthcare system. Period. Is Obamacare a remedy (or the beginning of one) to this? I truly hope so, but I don’t think so.
And please spare me this R&D nonsense. For profit drug companies are going to do the serious lifting unless it’s for boner pills and we all know it.
So go peddle your nonsense over at Reason.
eemom
@feebog:
No it’s not. Anyone who was prepared to conclude, based on ignorance, that Obama had screwed the middle class, and to put an asshole “Nobama” bumper sticker on their car like a fucking teatard, fits that description to a T.
El Tiburon
@Mnemosyne:
Are you on drugs? In no shape or form am I obsessed re-hashing anything from 3 years ago. For fuck’s sake, in the quote of mine you pulled I said I was more concerned that some people figured the fight was over. That kind of blows your entire thesis out of the water.
Me stating that I don’t think it’s the bill that should have passed is not an obessession nor any desire to rehash it. It is what it is. I accept with no reservations that it’s the bill we have. But I also am going to voice my displeasure with elements of it because that is my way of fighting to improve it.
General Stuck
You can always count on El Tibo to raise the dialogue to “all I want for Christmas, is my two front teeth, two front teeth”
Then dive to the bottom and go back swimming with the teh Texas Flounders. He usually doesn’t surface in the daylight hours, so something must be up, and luckily we have a blog to discuss it and find out why.
You are a star El Tiburon, on every thread you privilege us with your brilliant presence.
Brachiator
@different-church-lady:
I’ve reviewed quite a few MA tax returns, and in every one the taxpayers had selected something for MA health care coverage.
I’ve seen many news stories in the NY Times and elsewhere reporting the progress of MA health reform. However, I admit I don’t know what in-state coverage has been like. I am amazed that the state did not hire some PR firm to get the word out.
But I also get the impression that some of the rules have changed since those first years (e.g., losing part of the personal exemption if you didn’t have coverage).
@El Tiburon:
It’s not how I want to characterize it. You at first claimed single payer was THE ANSWSER. Do you want to retract your blanket statement?
I am in favor of workable universal health care. I think that the Obama plan can and should be improved. And instead of simply squaking “single payer, single payer,” I say look at what works and learn from it.
What are you talking about? What do drug companies have to do with medical equipment, training, facilities improvements? How much, if any, should be set aside for medical research? Or do you want the state of the art frozen with respect to whatever procedures, technique and equipment exists now and every other available dime simply spend on providing medical care? How much are you going to set aside for admin?
Hell, the last time I went to the dentist, he had more efficient tools for X-rays and diagnostics, for dental cleaning and irrigation.
On the other hand, I’ve seen recent stories that money is wasted on giving and making decisions based on MRIs (October 28 NY Times, don’t know if everyone can link it).
Part of health care reform has to include development and deployment of effective medical equipment.
How do you propose these choices and decisions be made?
And spare me the spurious nonsense about boner pills. Here’s a couple for you: would you pay for sex reassignment surgery? How about purely cosmetic nose jobs? Breast enlargement or reduction?
Do you have anything meaningful to offer about health care reform, or do you have nothing but your vague dissatisfaction with what Obama has delivered to date?
different-church-lady
@eemom:
It’s like I’ve got to fix everything around here…
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
I would think that would be partially because before the law took effect the coverage rate in MA was already 94% of the population. It’s now at 98% if I recall correctly.
I can only imagine that with today’s economy the rate would have dropped noticeably had the law not come into effect.
The loss of personal exemption was only the first year the law was in effect. After that the tax penalty was half of the cheapest plan the state made available.
One strange little phenomenon is that there are no gradations in the penalty — one dollar’s difference in income can change the penalty from a thousand dollars to zero. There are still bugs in the system.
Brachiator
@different-church-lady:
Not that unusual for credits, deductions and qualifiers to have a “cliff.” But I agree that something like this can be a bug that needs adjusting.
From what you can see, is the MA plan providing real relief and proving to be workable?
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
Keeping in mind that what I can see is quite limited (i.e. my own experience), I’ll repeat what I said above: it’s complicated, maddening, inscrutable, only a bureaucrat could come up with it, and in the end we’re at least slightly better off having it than not.
Snowball
@EriktheRed:
They still have a really good shot it when the politicized Republican Supreme Court rules on the law next year. I am pretty confident they will overrule it based on their other insane rulings over the last decade.
Elizabelle
@PurpleGirl:
Guessing they drained the swamp of comments.
A young woman, who’d been drinking, went over the side of the (berthed) Queen Mary in Long Beach. No comments on that one either. Because who knows what cruel comments the commentariat would be making.
Seriously, though: the comments on the Spike/ACA story were a new low. It does not take that many right-tards to ruin people’s opportunity to discuss current events.
Sheer ugliness.
ABL
@r€nato:
holy shnikeys.
Snowball
@ABL:
Considering that people who were opposed to the Iraq war had to pay for it, I really don’t understand why this person is complaining. This person sounds like the poster boy of somebody who were for the Iraq war.
El Tiburon
@Brachiator:
D
I further characterized it as “rational” healthcare system. But you know if you want to hang on that one statement as a means to impeach me or something, have at it.
And who exactly said to take ALL OF THE PROFIT out of healthcare? I’m talking about takin the profit out of the INSURANCE industry because they serve no purpose other than to try and deny coverage and increase profits. There will always be plenty of profit motive for those who can build a better mousetrap or a better bedpan.
And so what is your point about MRIs? So what? Are you nitpicking on flaws in the system?
As far as paying for a sex change vs. a nose job. Or for a 100-year old woman’s hip replacement. On and on and on. There will always be tough choices for medical care vs. cost. These questions can be better answered by the doctor and their patient. Not an insurance company. I would certainly prefer the doctor and patient to make that decision.
As far as the last part of your comment, I don’t think it’s vague to say that Obamacare has entrenched the status quo: which is we all have to go through private insurers. It has just made them, for the time being, modify some of their behavior. Which is a good thing.
Mnemosyne
@El Tiburon:
Given that you keep complaining over and over again that the things you want aren’t in the bill even after people point out to you that they actually are in the bill, how exactly are you “fighting for improvement”?
Karen
What I haven’t seen anyone mention is that the insurance companies may be forced to go along with the ACA but they’re punishing us for it. My deductible shot up 300 dollars and my drugs costs are now going through the roof with everything…except Enbrel which I managed to get a subsidy from.
And I’ll say it here. If you take expensive drugs like Enbrel ($1.5K a month at least WITH insurance) see if your doctor participates in a drug subsidy program. You’d be surprised how many qualify. If you don’t have insurance there are also subsidies available. You may not qualify but considering even though I have insurance, Enbrel will pay up to $4,000 for my shots and once my deductible is paid in full ($2,500 for drug and medical) my drugs are covered at 100% for everything) it’s worth it to try!
Marshall
I’ve been to the Dolomites (in Italy) and they are indeed pretty spikey.
mikefromArlington
Don’t show this to FDL. They’ll get all pissy.
Mnemosyne
@Karen:
Check with your state’s department of insurance or with HHS — your insurance company may have made those changes without actually having the legal right to (I know, crazy talk, amirite?)
They’re going to try to pull all kinds of shenanigans to get around the ACA’s provisions, so it’s worth making a complaint just to keep them on their toes.
Rome Again
@smelter rat:
It shouldn’t amaze anyone when they realize we are the civilization that celebrated Ayn Rand.
Cain
@El Tiburon:
I think it’s just a part in an overall evolutionary journey for healthcare. We are not going to get it right the first time or get everything we want. We need to continue to evolve the policy. But first, let’s kill some of the power of the insurance company when it comes to the health care. After that, maybe we need to figure out what to do with people who run hospitals.
slightly_peeved
Scuse me for coming in late, but…
If you don’t think it’s the answer, then go to the exchange in 2014, and select the non-profit option that is contracted for by the OPM, and is present, by law, in every single exchange. Then go to your friends, or anyone you see complaining about for-profit insurance companies, and tell them to sign up for that option.
My explanation of the health insurance law in 10 words, for a bumper sticker:
Everyone can get the health insurance their Congressperson has – only better.
(By the law, all congress staff and congresspersons will have to buy insurance through the Exchanges once they start. The Exchanges are managed by the Sec. of HHS, like the FEHBP is now, and the exchanges are based on the FEHBP. The main difference is that you’ll get subsidies for that insurance if you have a low income, and they’ll be a whole new heap of regulations like the medical loss ratio that those insurers have to deal with. So, just like Federal employee insurance, but for everyone – and better).
Don
I don’t hold it against the WH or others for failing to get out the message in the middle of that insanity. I do blame them and the entire Dem machine for failing to be out there beating the drum EVERY SINGLE TIME one of these provisions kicks in.
Where’s the full-page ads saying that, from today forward, your insurance company has to spend at least 80% of the money they take in for premiums on health care? Brought to you by Obamacare
Where was the billboard telling people hey, we know jobs are hard to get for recent graduates. But now if you have health care you can keep your kid on for a few more years while they get on their feet. Brought to you by Obamacare
Where’s the… etc.
We got some lemons in this law but the rollout/phase-in parts should be made into some lemonaid. It’s got political win all over it – it’s pithy quick “this benefit to you” messaging with counter-messaging that’s far more complicated or cynical (well that % thing just won’t work) or nebulous (deficits).
The lack of proud drum-beating on this message is mind-boggling and I have to assume it’s a combination of cowardice against someone being able to play a clip of a Congressperson saying “I voted for healthcare” and fear of the circular firing squad with people like Tib who are just as unhappy (if not more so) with compromising on what could be done rather than just doing nothing.
Nada1
I would like to see A B L rely less upon quoting other articles so extensively. This just looks like a synthesis lacking originality.