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

I do. I can't prove it, or how much is attributable to it, but I think the ACA has had a positive impact in that regard.

My chief gripe with it is, savings weren't and aren't paramount, but it was sold like they were. And while some of its failing is attributable to states' non-cooperation, the ACA is not working. And where it is working, it's screwing a lot of people of modest means who had fine coverage before which is non-compliant now.

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

Not exactly what you were discussing, but I think it's pretty clear that the low unemployment rate is as much of a function of a decrease in the denominator as an increase in the numerator, which is to say that people who in other years were part of the workforce are not looking for work. I haven't seen a good explanation of this. It could be that some of these people have given up hope of finding work, but if that were the case you would they would come back into the work force as measured unemployment drops.

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

I have. Repeatedly.

Like I said, I'm about the last person you want to compare with. I've spent a year with negative income because of health care costs. I have dealt with health insurance costs for three different operations over a period of 20 some odd years.

That $5000 deductible wonk dealt with - we've gone out of pocket three times to deal with it for people who helped us out with parents and their issues, and we've also helped them with significant uncovered expenses. My wife has one little girl named after her - it was a very tough uncovered pregnancy - and that is a very rewarding thing, even though it was very difficult for us financially at the time.

Among the many things I've dealt with is my wife struggling to come up with $500,000 in a certified check to cover a life saving drug I was denied coverage for, at a point when I had hours to live. I've lost most of my net worth and gone deep into debt dealing with my own cancer.

Believe me, you don't want to compare life dealing with health care costs and bureaucracies with me.

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

Yes, this is one of the big issues of our time, and it's clear there are a lot of things going on, some of which are positive and some negative. They're not all people who have given up on finding work, and some are in a shadow economy that has a lot of its own problems, but some are doing things like spending more time in school. But I also have yet to see that brilliant piece that bring order to the problem.

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

I still don't understand what you mean by paramount. As a political matter, Obama and the Democrats wanted to cover more people without blowing up the budget. So they devised a plan that both spent and saved money. I find it completely bizarre that you think this was selling it as something it wasn't. Yes, there are costs to HCR, but there were also cost savings, and a lot of people spent a lot of time making sure the two were balanced.

When you say the ACA is not working, I'm not sure what you mean. Again, it's a big law with a lot of pieces, and some of them are working better than others. If you talk to someone who was deeply involved in designing it, they will have a long list of things they would fix about it now. No one pretends otherwise. The reason those fixes haven't been adopted is Republicans.

Some people may have had coverage before, but it wasn't "fine." It was crappy coverage, and they didn't know it yet because they hadn't had to try to use it.

Note that what you and Hank are making opposite complaints about the ACA. Hank says it has made care worse. Your complaint is that it requires coverage that is too good -- that it has forced people to raise the level of their care. If you guys were more interested in getting healthcare policy right, you'd be arguing with each other. Instead you're both looking to bury the ACA, and it doesn't really matter why.

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

Fuck. I just hit some button and lost a long reply.

Here's the cliff's notes. The bourgeoisie aren't complaining about the ACA. It's the middle and working class people losing policies and waiting for care.

We should simply expand medicaid, let private equity open unique clinics for the people who can't afford to pay for any coverage, and tax the top 20% to pay for it. But let the middle class and working class folks stay in the private system. Don't throw them into the public side of the two tiered system we all know is coming.

I'm sorry you've acquired those bona fides re: HC.

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

The only people complaining about the ACA are Republicans, and they're doing it for partisan reasons. Normal people care about their healthcare, not about the ACA, and they have all sorts of complaints. They want the government to make the healthcare system work better. Unfortunately for them, Paul Ryan and Republicans on the Hill are more interested in cutting taxes for the wealthy, and have an ideological opposition to using the government to make the healthcare system work better.

If I did this kind of politics for a living, I would be appealing to Trump to protect ordinary people from Paul Ryan and the House Republicans.

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

Exactly.

Yup

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

What part of "Medicaid Expansion" and "insurance subsidies" was not explicit enough for you?

You know that many of them were young and healthy and thus a net positive to the system's cash flow, right? (To the extent they signed up)

I do not know how you missed that in the Obamacare debates.

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

I have three siblings who started solo consulting businesses in the last three years. The two single siblings rely on the exchanges for their health insurance, and both say they would have had to found a job with a company for insurance had the ACA not passed.

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

I think we should be clear about something: everyone in their right mind complains about health care costs.

And in the ACA there is one provision or another that will touch a nerve with almost anyone, and there are some structural features that need to be fixed. Those of us who are fans (at least speaking for myself) don't look at it and say, hey it solved everything, we say, hey, it is the beginning of a solution to a complex set of problems, and the things we're less happy with are more than outweighed by the things we're more happy.

All of which makes it ripe for partisan attack, even though there are, indeed, a huge number of people, mostly middle-income and lower-middle income people but also many people in poverty or in transition, who are very happy with the added benefits now.

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

That's part of it, but it's also a declining part of it.

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

I see from a good source on Twitter that the Republicans' plans for the ACA threaten:

12 million new Medicaid recipients
9 million on subsidies
52 million with pre-existing conditions

Odd that our conversation focuses so much on the 9 million, and so little on the other 64 million. It's almost as if the conversation is not animating by the actual effects on real people, but on the notion that someone without money is getting something they don't deserve.

Re: Ever wonder why the Nihilists were Russian
 

That's total BS. It's folks like you, bourgeoisie, nihilists, partisans, trying to speak on behalf of the working class.

Screw that, we all know what Dude speaks on behalf of the working class.

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

Hmmmmmmmmm.