Wednesday, April 2, 2014
7+ Million Goal Achieved for ACA. GOP depressed.
UPDATE:
Obamacare numbers coming in huge: Here's a guide to GOP excuse-making
The Obama administration announced yesterday that the ACA enrollment hit their goal: 7.1 million sign-ups, and mirabile dictu! the United States of America did not implode and President Obama did not throw Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin in prison!
The folks who hoped this soshallist-government-sticking-its-nose-in-their-lives act would fail now have to come to terms with the fact that it didn't, that Americans actually like it, and that they've been WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! about all the catastrophic predictions they hoped with their tiny little minds and hearts would come true.
Now they can go back to attacking Mrs. Obama and her nefarious program to get American children to eat healthy food and exercise. Can you imagine the impudence of a First Lady suggesting anything so sensible?
Death panels.
Sarah Palin and others warned the ACA would include government-controlled “death panels” that would ration care, effectively deciding who qualifies for life-saving treatment and who doesn't. That was never part of the law and nothing like it is in effect. While the government, under the ACA, provides subsidies and tax credits and helps [wink wink] with enrollment, all insurance is provided by nonprofit and private-sector firms, just as before the law. They have their own rules governing what’s covered, based on the type of policy — but that has always been the case.
Mass layoffs.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and others warned that many firms — especially small and medium-sized businesses — would be forced to slash payrolls on account of the ACA. That hasn’t happened. The economy has added nearly 900,000 jobs since the ACA went info effect, and small-business optimism has improved substantially. Back in February, ACA critics waved around a Congressional Budget Office report estimating the law would reduce employment by about 2 million people during the next 3 years; but rather than "killing jobs," the CBO itself pointed out that the law would allow people working mainly to obtain healthcare benefits to quit their jobs. Meanwhile, it’s true that penalties for employers that don’t comply with the ACA have been delayed until 2015, but those don’t apply to firms with fewer than 50 employees, and so far there are no major signs that bigger firms will axe workers. It will probably happen in a few cases — especially at firms right around the 50-worker threshold — but overall, economists expect job growth to pick up in 2015 and beyond.
Part-timer nation.
Another concern has been companies replacing full-time workers with part-timers, to skirt ACA requirements that mostly relate to full-time workers. That hasn’t happened either. The full-time workforce has increased by 936,000 since the ACA went into effect, while the number of part-time workers has fallen by 91,000. It’s still plausible some firms will replace full-timers with part-timers as the 2015 deadline approaches, but there are business reasons not to do that and other economic trends may simply be more powerful than incentives generated by Obamacare.
Skyrocketing health costs.
Sort the data in such and such a way, and you can find instances where insurance premiums or overall healthcare costs seem to have skyrocketed since the ACA became law in 2010. But in general, there’s been a surprising slowdown in the rise of insurance and healthcare costs during the last few years. The annual premium for a typical family plan rose by 13% per year from 1999 to 2013, on average, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. But from 2012 to 2013, premiums rose by only 4%. Data from Standard & Poor’s shows that overall medical costs have been rising at a smaller rate as well since at least 2010. It’s probably not accurate to claim Obamacare is responsible for those improvements, since it could mostly be due to pinched consumers spending more carefully or other factors. But it is does seem clear Obamacare has not pushed costs up.
The total collapse of American society.
Rush Limbaugh predicted Obamacare would boost the divorce rate. Other fears include government agents snooping on your sex life, showing up at your home for unannounced inspections and imposing a whole range of unadvertised new taxes. Nobody would be able to see an actual doctor any more, and America as a whole would end up as a failed socialist state.
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31 comments:
Ho hum, wake me when something either REALLY good, or REALLY bad happens, cause the life goes on unchanged is not very exciting.
I suppose you could say though that for those getting health insurance for the first time (many for little cost or free) or those who had there plan cancelled or their cost significantly increased it would be either REALLY good or REALLY bad. Depending on which group you fall in.
Me, call me Rip, or RVW if you prefer.
It is amazing that they know 7.1 million signed up but have no clue how many have paid. No idea how many had insurance cancelled because of obamacare and what the demographics of the people are.
Of course this is the same administration who had a drop of four points in unemployment before the election that turned out to not be true and you can keep your insurance company and Dr. which we know was a lie.
Of course the lemmings will say this is wonderful we have enrolled 1 million people who didn't have insurance so it was worth trashing the other 99% of Americans.
that didn't take your resident whiner long did it
"...so it was worth trashing the other 99% of Americans."
So you're here again with complaints and claims backed up by nothing?
Not surprised. You're in that group that hoped Obamacare would fail. That it didn't is eating you up.
Would you like some cheese with that whine?
Gooper think being 37th in the world in health care delivery is something to be proud of. Better we're 37th than sochialists!
Generations will thank Obama for this and the whiners here will pretend they were for it.
tell your resident troll to read this:
"About 9.5 million Americans who were previously uninsured have gotten health coverage under Obamacare, according to a new analysis.
The Los Angeles Times reported the number, which combines data from an unpublished study by RAND Corp. with other publicly available figures. It's one of the most comprehensive efforts yet to asses the law's impact on the uninsured as open enrollment comes to a close."
skudrunner's comment is a poopburger with a side of asshat. It's like we read a self-righteous, booger-eating 10-year-old.
Don't you find it coincidental that the unemployment rate came down just prior to the 2012 election?
Skudrunner is correct
No, Anon@7:23, I don't. I find it partisan hackery to be suspicious of anything that suggests success during the Obama administration.
The unemployment rate continued to decline, with a momentary blip, since the 2012 election. Do you find that uncomfortable to believe?
Yes. I would say you would if you are so besotted with hatred toward the Obama administration.
Any good news connected with Obama is greeted with cynicism and suspicion because of your partisan blinders.
With sign-ups for private insurance nearing 7 million on the final day of open enrollment for Obamacare, Republicans are once again trying to unskew the polls. While Wyoming Senator John Barrasso accused the White House of "cooking the books," Ted Cruz (R-TX) pretended the number of uninsured Americans is actually rising.
Sadly, this conservative whimpering doesn't mean the GOP's all-out war on the Affordable Care Act is over. The avalanche of court challenges continues. The 50-plus repeal votes will continue to grow. The conservative misinformation campaign about mythical "death panels" and a bogus "government takeover of health care" left millions of Americans fearful and confused—the uninsured most of all—about Obamacare. Thanks to the refusal of many Republican-led states to accept the ACA's Medicaid expansion, over 7 million red staters will needlessly remain uninsured—and thousands of them will needlessly die as a result. Many of the same GOP-dominated states are blocking the work of Obamacare "navigators," despite supporting the same federal outreach program for Medicare for over two decades.
The conservative media bubble is in freakout mode because of the surging Obamacare enrollment numbers. When will we hear calls for Rep. Darrell Issa to hold hearings to find out the numbers because of Benghazi? It's not shocking that there's been a tremendous increase in the amount of people signing up because most Americans do wait till the last minute to get things done-- just like their taxes.
A last-minute enrollment surge enabled the White House to meet its original sign-up target for the Affordable Care Act, a surprising victory for the Obama administration after a rocky rollout of the program that has become a political hot potato for Democrats and a rallying cry for Republicans. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that 7.1 million people had signed up on federal or state exchanges for coverage under the health care law now often known as Obamacare.
Jonathan Cohen writes that the last minute rush was every bit as big as the experts had always predicted.
Experts that don’t include conservative outliers whose mission it is to keep Americans trapped in a healthcare system that is unaffordable and destructive. When the website was crashing, conservatives jumped for joy and laughed at the enrollment number, (the website was a nightmare) but now they are so stunned that Americans actually want healthcare that they're forced to whine like little children, denied their sugar fix.
Conservative Libertarians-vs-Liberal Progressives... and neither camp is telling the whole truth.
We'll just have to wait it out to ultimately and finally realize the full truth.
@skudrunner -- ... so it was worth trashing the other 99% of Americans.
-----
The word for the day boys and girls is hyperbole.
It means rhetorical exaggeration.
Can the class guess how often the right wing noise machine has used hyperbole to describe the effects of the ACA?
To assist you, Shaw has posted some great quotes from right wingers reacting to good news for the administration.
Thanks to Shaw for kicking some ass on you local yokel, stuck in the mud, willfully ignorant, conservative, anti-Obama types. It worked despite of its flaws. The idea is to get people into the doctor's office. I guess you would be happier if these same people still could not go to see a doctor. Obviously! Nice job on hating people and wishing them a slow death or chronic illness unattended by any medical care, sheeple.
GOP personifies the definition of idiocy: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
There are always consequences, unintended and otherwise. We do not yet know what the unintended consequences may be. Nor do many even question, let alone care. It is enough to just accept w/out question or concern We are the stupid ones though, the sheeple, the dregs of society.
Whatever... carry on.
Yep, your right FJ, absolutely and completely right. Just ask you and you will.tell us.
@skudrunner:
"How many people really signed up for health insurance?
The 7.1 million figure the White House cited may be too low. The raw number doesn't include all of the most recent updates from 14 states and the District of Columbia, which have their own websites and saw a flurry of activity leading up to the open enrollment deadline. Nor does it include the applications still pending at the exchanges. Also missing: those who will sign up throughout the year when they become eligible because of a major life change, like marriage or moving to another state.
People who bought Obamacare-compliant insurance directly from a carrier aren't counted either.
Confusingly, the 7 million number may also be too high: We don't know how many of those people took the crucial final step and actually paid their first month's insurance premium to lock in coverage. Based on anecdotal reports from individual insurance companies, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said 80 percent to 90 percent of consumers thus far had paid up. There also will surely be people who let their policies lapse during the rest of the year."
Been over to pond scum Derve the Swerv's spoof blog lately? The Crown Jewel of Progressive Blogistan. A real gas! But that IS what lying pond scum progressives like Derv revel in Ian't it? Gas.that is.
"We do not yet know what the unintended consequences may be. Nor do many even question, let alone care."
How do you question something you don't know yet? or care about something you don't know yet?
"It is enough to just accept w/out question or concern We are the stupid ones though, the sheeple, the dregs of society."
Who says no one is questioning? or isn't concerned? This is just more of the same conservative doomsday predictions that look at what may happen instead of what IS happening.
Calling yourself "sheeple," and "the dregs of society," is self-victimization. Shaw hasn't done that. you're reading far too much of your own doubts, anger, and fears into what shaw's posted.
RN,
There is no reason to taunt Shaw and other readers of this forum just because you have a beef with another blogger from another venue, and you are wrong to paint all liberals with the same brush in stereotypic fashion. Your anger management problem with Derve is starting to turn into a REAL problem.
"Anyone that believes Obama's numbers for people who have regestered for Obamacare are either Nut-Cases, ignorant 5th grade drop outs, or Obama's Progressive Terrorist friends.."
They're coming out from under their rocks. Obamacare isn't a failure and they critters are in meltdown mode.
I always like to look to the past....to the great political thinkers and rhetoricians...and usually there I find truth and clarity. None was greater at explaining exactly what the truth was than.... Don Rumsfeld...a genius at explanation.
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.
Donald Rumsfeld
.....which pretty much sums up the whold genius of the Bush administration...the only thing they tried to do for the people of the USA was start a war they had no idea of how to prosecute,conduct or finish. Or pay for. Killing people is easy.
so when we have a current administration who has a goal of helping fix an internal problem, providing Health Care for citizens...he is assailed for failing before it has truly begun.
oh, that the voices had raged so greatly at the start of the Iraq Afghan adventure.
there are a few knowns, that I know..and one is that most who rage incessantly know little, or nothing.
"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."
Donald Rumsfeld.
You're on to something okjimm.
The American people swallowed everything the Bush people fed them about Iraq and WMDs, and supported the Bush administration's war--for a time, until reality set in. War is about killing, war is about failure--failure to avoid killing.
The American people were against the idea of providing health insurance to Americans who had suffered health and financial disasters from for-profit insurance corporations.
Those corporations are still raking in the money from insurance policies, only now they can't drop- people, charge extra for who people are and what health problems they've suffered from in the past--IOW, the ACA was proposed to HELP AMERICANS, not kill people.
Add to that the big monied corporations, assisted by nitwits like Sarah Palin and Louie Gohmert, spreading lies and fear, and we had a perfect storm of stupidity, avarice, and misinformation.
I boil it down to this:
War and killing for any reason = good. Let's do it!
Helping people to get good health care coverage = SOSHALLISM!11! and also it cuts into PROFITS!!111!
Sick.
sick is right. I will be the first to allow that the ACA may need tweeking, improvement, adjustment...but it is here to stay and about time. So many on the far right spectrum seem to think this is 'something new and scary'. Affordable care has been an issue for decades. One needs only view National Collegiate debate topics..(OK..it is just a barometer of thought)
1960-1961
RESOLVED: "That the United States should adopt a program of compulsory health insurance for all citizens."
And again...
1972-1973
RESOLVED: "That the federal government should provide a program of comprehensive medical care for all its citizens."
this is NOT new....
I feel that the UNITED STATES is one of the most inovative societies ever on the planet earth...we put men on the moon, established one of the most democratic unions ever imagined....and...cannot get this done????
Imagine if fiscal conservatives, bankers, investors...joined and brought their collective knowledge to bear..IT CAN BE DONE!
...BUT...the wealth of the nation is being squandered by a few, to the goals of greed and power...and they will, this selfish few, use all their resources to stymie positive growth.
I have a conservative friend, a very nice guy, who worked very hard and did make a significant amount of money, which he earned. Now, Rupert Murdock controlled media has him running scared... He sends me a opinion piece penned by Charles Koch in the WSJ as evidence that billionares only want 'free speech'. an analysis at Salon...
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/03/charles_koch_blasts_collectivists_in_wall_street_journal_op_ed/
...I cannot get beyond the subscription ad at the WSJ site to read the full transcript.
sheesh...no wonder why I drink.......
"In gleaming rays on the dismal night.
And now each night, and all night long,
Over those plains still roams the Dong;
And above the wail of the Chimp and Snipe
You may hear the squeak of his plaintive pipe
While ever he seeks, but seeks in vain
To meet with his Jumbly Girl again;
Lonely and wild - all night he goes, -
The Dong with a luminous Nose!
And all who watch at the midnight hour,
From Hall or Terrace, or lofty Tower,
Cry, as they trace the Meteor bright,
Moving along through the dreary night, -
"This is the hour when forth he goes,
"The Dong with a luminous Nose!
"Yonder - over the plain he goes;
"He goes!
"He goes;
"The Dong with a luminous Nose!"
Edward Lear...from the Dong with the luminous nose.
Well there ya go again Spam and Octo, projecting your own perception and thereby erroneous determination as to someones anger level based on your faulty assumptions.
But fair enough, discussion closed.
RN,
Earlier today, I left this comment at the referenced “Lying Lester” blog:
---------------------------------------------------
De Sophisticis Elenchis:
It appears this blog is built upon an edifice of logical fallacies of the ad hominem type - defined as circumstantial, irrelevant or abusive attacks upon a person that undermines the soundness of the argument. Group affiliations or the abilities of a person do not necessarily account for the origin of a person’s viewpoint; yet such attributes may be erroneously applied and held against subject person in an effort to discredit his or her viewpoint.
If a person self-identifies as Conservative or Liberal, Democrat or Republican, Black or White, Christian, Jew, or Muslim, do these affiliations mean a person is necessarily bad and therefore unworthy of civil and humane treatment? I should hope not!
Tu Quoque. The associations, background, and aspirations of a person may give you sufficient reason to be suspicious of his or her argument, but it does not give you sufficient reason to discount it.
“Oh, but he started it first” (non sequitur)!
Perhaps it can be argued that the purpose of this blog is one of satire. Sometimes, however, a misplaced satire crosses a boundary - when it turns petty and abusive and ugly - and begins to violate all standards of civility and decorum. I believe this blog and these posts have crossed this boundary.
You’ve had your fun. Time to move on.
---------------------------------------------------
In the future, I hope you will have the wherewithal to validate yourself and not depend on other people to do this for you. Are you a Big Boy or a Big Baby?
Actually Shaw, Congress bought into the Iraq war including "what difference does it make" Clinton and "I was for it before I was against it" Kerry not all of the American people were in favor. Some believe we should not try to police the world.
There is a consistent pattern in blaming GWB for the financial collapse but remember we had a democratic congress. The current administration blames it's failures on the other side but that applies both ways.
Go back a few years and RMN proposed a national healthcare plan that was wildly accepted until stupor Teddy said he would not support a Republican bill and it was killed.
I am not against assisting in healthcare for those 30 million who want insurance but can't afford it, can't understand why they are not standing in line to sign up. The problem is it comes at the cost to the other 300++ Million.
RN,
To my surprise, the eponymous blogger posted my aforementioned comment and, to my chagrin, quoted me out of context. When you encounter such a person who takes sadistic pleasure in taunting other people, here is my best advice:
IGNORE IT. Do not respond to it. Do not call attention to it. Do not visit subject weblog or read the posts and comments therein – even out of curiosity. And do not let such persons get your goat (they thrive on knowing they have annoyed you – and it motivates them to re-double the taunts).
Eponymous blogger is an outlier who does not represent my values or those of my friends and associates. Trading one gratuitous partisan stereotype for another, tit for tat, will only make matters worse.
The wise and mature thing to do: Keep these forms of illegitimate discourse out of our respective communities and out of our lives.
"The wise and mature thing to do: Keep these forms of illegitimate discourse out of our respective communities and out of our lives."
Agreed (O)CT(0)PUS.
First Octo says "there is no reason to taunt Shaw and other readers of this forum just because you have a beef with another blogger from another venue", then he posts his comment from another venue here. In an effort to shame me, I guess. Otherwise why discuss it here? I never advertised the blog in question here, or anywhere else for that matter. RN did all the advertising. Nobody would have known about it if not for RN's post. And after reading RN's post I was under the impression he thought it was funny. I was genuinely surprised at the level of anger that came afterward. Anyway, the blog is now closed, Octo. Sorry to have offended you.
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