I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

the worst of ACA ain't happening so "true" has no meaning. OAN how many conversations have you had with people reporting to you about why their HC is worse than it was? And if your answer to the question is "I did" , did you mention the option of HSAs?

Option for how many?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

the worst of ACA ain't happening so "true" has no meaning. OAN how many conversations have you had with people reporting to you about why their HC is worse than it was? And if your answer to the question is "I did" , did you mention the option of HSAs?

You are the only person I know who thinks the ACA made their health care worse. The blue-helmeted UN bureaucrat who assigns me to my doctor has always done a good job of finding me someone who seems to care.

[Hank Chinaski]

Can someone who understands financial stuff explain how Trump's election has caused the stock market to go up?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

You are the only person I know who thinks the ACA made their health care worse.

i wanted to quote this so it is preserved after you come off whatever bender made your fingers type this. When Sebby talks about the people who spout political views of all sorts at smart cocktail parties, I can't help but wonder if there's a little bit of bullshit going on. With what you say here, I'm not wondering.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

Option for how many?

For lots of people who had good HC and now don't. ACA did not fix the problem of lack of HC, it just mixes the problem around. Like when there's only two squares of TP and you just had a runny shit.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Can someone who understands financial stuff explain how Trump's election has caused the stock market to go up?

Perception there will be

Increased spending on infrastructure
Tax cuts and looser regulation

Plus when stuff goes up, people think the market is hot and buy. Don't forget Asia shit the fucking bed overnight. Yours truly was up all night unloading shit then rebuying when it was apparent that it was all going up.

Source:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/bu...-election.html

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

i wanted to quote this so it is preserved after you come off whatever bender made your fingers type this.

I really don't understand what you're talking about. You're more than welcome to try to explain.

I get the people who think that healthcare is too expensive. The ACA helped slow the rate of increase in healthcare costs, and it gives some people subsidies, but if you're not getting a subsidy then your costs are still going up.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Can someone who understands financial stuff explain how Trump's election has caused the stock market to go up?

With the exception of perhaps a nuclear war, it will inevitably react positively to every event.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

i wanted to quote this so it is preserved after you come off whatever bender made your fingers type this. When Sebby talks about the people who spout political views of all sorts at smart cocktail parties, I can't help but wonder if there's a little bit of bullshit going on. With what you say here, I'm not wondering.

I said they're cocktail parties. Only some are smart. And if people are properly availing themselves of the bar, the smart fades quickly.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

For lots of people who had good HC and now don't. ACA did not fix the problem of lack of HC, it just mixes the problem around. Like when there's only two squares of TP and you just had a runny shit.

Yep. That's it in a nutshell.

People who lost non-compliant policies which could no longer be offered under ACA have good reason to be pissed. People who've been forced to wait longer because massive #s of new entrants have started consuming services have a right to be pissed.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

If that were actually true, that would be bad.

It's absolutely true. The ACA was all about getting the uninsured health care. Paring future costs for all was important, but secondary.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

what we need is a single, national risk pool. That would require repealing mccann-ferguson, but that massive chunk of protectionist legislation should never have been enacted in the first place.

2!!!

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

You can ignore the "polite" racism. That's one-percenter bullshit. People in this country are racist because they are racist. Whites in the vast majority simply believe that this great nation was built for their benefit, based upon their twisted interpretation of their Protestant hypocritical God, who is not the God of the brown and black people.

I sit and listen in public places all the time, more and more than I did when I first moved down here, to white, unemployed folks living on disability and SNAP and one form or another of hustling, talking about how it's the blacks and the Hispanics, all of them living on welfare, who are destroying this country.

Federal benefits and state benefits and all the freebies in the world are just fine, as long as they are being paid to uneducated or undereducated whites who would rather sit in bars all day long than hold down any job.

The only way to change things is to figure out a way to get the white folks who don't believe that to fucking cowboy up and start getting in the face of every racist they hear talking about how lazy and shiftless blacks are, and how the messkins are stealing the jobs of decent (read: white) folk and call them on their bullshit.

We need to get into arguments, lose friends, and maybe be willing to take a punch or two, and throw a punch or two.

And that's what living in the South has taught me.

I agree with this completely. Most of the excuses for racism, the suggestions that if we complained less about racism and worked more on jobs, are bs. Throw the punches, stand up for what you believe in.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Frankly, if I were to mess with it, I'd get rid of the "stay on your parents' insurance until 25" to get a hold of those young healthy lives for the ACA risk pools. Probably would see a drop in rates in a lot of markets if the penalties were incentive enough for the 20-24 year old set to buy insurance.

These kind of practically helpful but politically problematic ideas are the sort of thing that costs the Dems a lot of seats (but might get better healthcare for a lot of people).

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

I know a lot of people who qualified for subsidized plans. The subsidy is based on coverage at the Bronze Level. Coverage there is set like one would get for a HSA plan, without the income to fund the HSA. Why should someone bother paying even $75/mo. for a plan that doesn't pay any benefits until the insured has come $5700 out of pocket?

Of course, there are no shortage of times when covering the healthcare problem that costs more than $5700 is a massively big deal, that kind of catastrophic problem is not at all uncommon.

I advocate ACA as an incrementalist: making things perfect shouldn't be the enemy of making things better. And covering the catastrophic situations is making things better, and $75 a month for that kind of coverage is indeed a bargain.

Would I love a constitutional amendment to provide healthcare as a right, so at least basic and critical care became national costs funded by a national budget and revenue stream (like Medicaid is but broader)? I spent a couple days in a negotiation where there was a Portuguese woman on the other side who, during the breaks and lunches, was expressing how just absolutely appalled she was that the US didn't have a provision like Portugal providing healthcare as a right. I'd love it - but I watched Ted Kennedy spend 50 years trying to build a coalition to do such a thing, and we're going to need a very different political world to get it done here. Until we do, Medicaid expansion will still help millions.