The wife and I have been on MAHealth since she got laid off three years ago. I was self-employed at the time, so MAHealth was the only way we could get affordable health insurance on our own.

The plan we're on is better than any of the employer provided plans we've been on in our lives, the rates are ridiculously reasonable, and when I got hired to teach at the local State Community College a few months back, it was a piece of cake to transition into a different plan based on my new income levels.

Dealing with them on the phone is great, too... Haven't had one problem with our insurance in three years.

If this is how the ACA exchanges are going be, I can't understand what some folks are getting their panties in a bunch over.

Fat GOP Guy At Work: "My rates have gone up in the past year! Damn Obamacare!"
Me: "They have been going up every year!"
Fat GOP Guy at Work: "But this year, my taxes went up too!"
Me: "They went back to what they were before Obama was in office."
Fat GOP Guy at Work: "I dunno, it sounds like socialism."
Me (voice in my head): "Maybe if you and millions of other fat asses weren't so god damn fat our premiums wouldn't be so high to pay for your cardiac treatments. My socialism is keeping you alive, you dumb inbred fat f*ck."

//used to be fat, so it's cool

Commander Lysdexic: jst3p: Dinjiin: If I recall correctly, Obama was originally pushing for a public single payer plan.

What is the basis for opposing single payer at this point?

Well socialist national healthcare just kills those that are not 'useful' to society.

If that Stephen Hawking fella had been at the mercy of socialist healthcare he'd have been killed, fortunately free-market healthcare saved him - an enormous benefit to the world.

Poe's Law.

Anenu: 4 years from now Republicans will like the bill. 8 years from now they will be claiming that it would have had republican support all along if it wasn't for them dam dirty spendocrats and their partisan ways. 16 years from now it will have been their idea and democrats will have been the party opposed to it.

16 years ago it was their idea. There is a beautiful symmetry there if it comes true.

coeyagi: Fat GOP Guy At Work: "My rates have gone up in the past year! Damn Obamacare!"
Me: "They have been going up every year!"
Fat GOP Guy at Work: "But this year, my taxes went up too!"
Me: "They went back to what they were before Obama was in office."
Fat GOP Guy at Work: "I dunno, it sounds like socialism."
Me (voice in my head): "Maybe if you and millions of other fat asses weren't so god damn fat our premiums wouldn't be so high to pay for your cardiac treatments. My socialism is keeping you alive, you dumb inbred fat f*ck."

//used to be fat, so it's cool

Mine:
FGGAW: "Teachers are socialist scum that shouldn't be allowed to vote because they're on the government dole!"
Me: "Isn't your wife a public school teacher?"
FGGAW: "Yeah, but she's quitting next month to teach at a private schoo.l"
Me: "What are you guys going to do for health insurance? I know you don't get any here."

Fast forward two months...
FGGAW: "Holy shiat!! Private insurance wants $1600 a month because I'm overweight and my son's on insulin!"
Me: "Good thing Obamacare got passed then. Otherwise those pre-existing conditions probably would have kept you from getting any at all."

Bloody William: Already, 25 of the 50 states have declared, as is their prerogative under the 2,700-page law, that they will refuse to set up Obamacare health-insurance exchanges. Another 7 states have said that they will administer some regulatory aspects of the exchanges but will leave the bulk of the work of determining eligibility for the new subsidies to the federal government. Only 18 states plus the District of Columbia are planning to take on the full responsibility for the administration of Obamacare.

Isn't the ironic result of this that those states will simply get a federal exchange and more power will be given to the federal government in terms of leverage with insurance companies instead of the states fine with Obamacare, which will ensure it's state-run?

Did they think this through?

Oh they thought it through, alright. They just accounted for the rubes not noticing, which they haven't, I assure you. The GOP are many things, but I'd hesitate to call the whole party stupid. No, a much better generalization is they are cynical as f*ck.

jst3p: Dinjiin: If I recall correctly, Obama was originally pushing for a public single payer plan.

What is the basis for opposing single payer at this point?

1) You couldn't get it through.

I would like to see a public option, but I don't have a problem with seeing if the private sector could compete with a public option.


I would be concerned with single payer because Republicans would play the same game they are with SS and Medicare now pretending that it pays our money but doesn't take in revenue specifically for it.

If people don't get this for SS and Medicare why would they get it for a new system?

Corvus: jst3p: Dinjiin: If I recall correctly, Obama was originally pushing for a public single payer plan.

What is the basis for opposing single payer at this point?

1) You couldn't get it through.

I would like to see a public option, but I don't have a problem with seeing if the private sector could compete with a public option.


I would be concerned with single payer because Republicans would play the same game they are with SS and Medicare now pretending that it pays our money but doesn't take in revenue specifically for it.

If people don't get this for SS and Medicare why would they get it for a new system?

Wait, wait, wait, so the GOP actually has people convinced that FICA doesn't do what FICA says it does?

We need a wet bar here at work.

Grungehamster: Also, calling it: we will have a large group of people who are convinced 50 years from now that government intervention created the problems of some providers being crappy and the cost of care going up over time. After all, back in the early 2000's any insurance company who tried to claim someone had a pre-exisiting condition as an excuse to terminate benefits would have seen all their customers flee them and there were so many insurance companies around that each one offered cut to the bone competitive rates.

52 years ago, some fascist said about Medicare:
"Write those letters now; call your friends and then tell them to write them...If you don't, this program, I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow, and behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country. ... And if you don't do this and if I don't do it, one of these days we are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children, what it once was like in America when men were free."

It's not a new idea. Anything the government does (well, anything Democrats do) is instantly the harbinger of socialism/doom, while anything they do saves us from whatever crisis is threatening to doom/socialism us all.

When I'm 80, this will be taught as rural, conservative America's Lost Cause. Which is good, because maybe it'll finally replace that other "Lost Cause" that Gen. Sherman resolved in 1865.

verbaltoxin: Corvus: jst3p: Dinjiin: If I recall correctly, Obama was originally pushing for a public single payer plan.

What is the basis for opposing single payer at this point?

1) You couldn't get it through.

I would like to see a public option, but I don't have a problem with seeing if the private sector could compete with a public option.


I would be concerned with single payer because Republicans would play the same game they are with SS and Medicare now pretending that it pays our money but doesn't take in revenue specifically for it.

If people don't get this for SS and Medicare why would they get it for a new system?

Wait, wait, wait, so the GOP actually has people convinced that FICA doesn't do what FICA says it does?

We need a wet bar here at work.

Where the hell have you been?

Yes. even people like Nate Silverman bought into this bullshiat. They are pretending that these program are adding to the US deficit when they are actually not because they are taking money in from specific tax revenue.

Why the hell have you been? Republicans have been repeating the lie over and over that the deficit is being caused by SS and medicare which is total BS because they are not counting the revenue this plans bring in specifically to pay for them. They even have many Democrats repeating these talking points.

Corvus: Yes. even people like Nate Silverman bought into this bullshiat.

sorry. FTFM

safetycap: Corvus: I would like to see a public option, but I don't have a problem with seeing if the private sector could compete with a public option.

Competition is the antithesis of our Free Market Corporate Welfare System.

[i651.photobucket.com image 340x474]

Ok, I am was not asking for the system we have now. So not really sure what your point is.

cybrwzrd: Corvus: I would like to see a public option, but I don't have a problem with seeing if the private sector could compete with a public option.

I don't think a for profit health care system is capable of competing with a not for profit single payor system. The need for tort reform aside, there are far too many people skimming off the top of the current system and becoming insanely wealthy for doing very little to improve the quality of medical care.

Well then they would lose wouldn't they? So what would be the problem with doing it?

Also some are Non-profits now.

1/22/13 Wkly Std Internal Memo - Subject: Ad & subscription revenue down in January. Must fix immediately
1/23/13 Wkly Std PR Email - Subject: Obama said what? Ok...strategy mtg - 10 mins. Conf Rm A.
1/24/13 Wkly Std Marketing Email - Subject: (URGENT): Is Palin available for editorial?
1/25/13 Wkly Std Marketing Email - Subject: (URGENT): Cancel Palin. (Accidentally hit send too soon)
1/26/13 Wkly Std PR Email - Subject: Schedule Kristol for Fox interview with Kraut/Hannity STAT!
1/27/13 Wkly Std All Recipient Email - Subject: Obama said that too? OK - Another strategy mtg! - 5 mins. Conf Rm A.
1/28/13 Wkly Std Marketing Email - Subject: Push print headline to website one week early.
2/4/13 Wkly Std Headline: "DELAY, REPEAL, REPLACE: THE OBAMACARE FIGHT HAS JUST BEGUN"

Grungehamster: What I actually had more in mind was even further back, with so many people these days convinced if we rolled back the New Deal we would see markets self-correct fast enough that they would maintain a steady constant growth and we wouldn't see so many economic bubbles or recessions because they never remember hearing about any market crashes before the 20th century.

You used a 50 year timeline, which reminded me of the prediction another Republican made 50 years ago, is all. Republicans talk about fundamentally altering Medicare, but never eliminating it entirely (those that do seem to find themselves out of work within 2-6 years, curiously).

Republicans not understanding the flow of history? I'm white-faced with shock.

ghare: keylock71: The wife and I have been on MAHealth since she got laid off three years ago. I was self-employed at the time, so MAHealth was the only way we could get affordable health insurance on our own.

The plan we're on is better than any of the employer provided plans we've been on in our lives, the rates are ridiculously reasonable, and when I got hired to teach at the local State Community College a few months back, it was a piece of cake to transition into a different plan based on my new income levels.

Dealing with them on the phone is great, too... Haven't had one problem with our insurance in three years.

If this is how the ACA exchanges are going be, I can't understand what some folks are getting their panties in a bunch over.

Uhhh, perhaps you haven't noticed, but the President is a Democrat AND blah.

Oh, I've noticed. What clued me in was he wasn't actively trying to fark me over to make life even easier for the wealthy elite.

I guess I should have clarified. "... I can't understand what any rational, non-partisan folks are getting their panties in a bunch over."