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February 04, 2014



When are you going to accept that the ACA has nothing to do with Affordable, or Healthcare?
So far it's big success has been to increase the number of people on Medicaid, decrease the number of people that are actually insured, increase the amounts that people have to pay to be insured buying a plan that is worse than the one that got cancelled. I know you like to bring out how many people for the first time are able to get insurance, but it is a far smaller number than everyone else that has been affected negatively. Like me.... I now have to pay $260 a month for myself (I'm 47) for the honor of getting to pay $6000 out of pocket if something more serious should happen. So I pay $3132 a year for... the ability to pay my medical costs which would be over $9000 before the insurance pays.... and guess what... it's mandated.

Oh but it has RX benefit... yeah. I can pay a $5 copay.... or $3 if I use... (wait for it)... Money. $2 isn't much to bitch about, but in the scope of things, that's a 66% differential. 66% is a much bigger deal on higher priced procedures yes?

ACA... Which should be renamed the American Communism Agreement, is nothing more than a way to control behavior of a society. It has nothing to do with healthcare, or insurance or making the country a better place. It is designed to take away the motivation of people. No reason to strive to be better and help others... no instead be average and that's okay. No reason to work, when you can stay home and collect more money and benefits from the USSA. No reason to work harder when you are going to be taxed heavier, shamed for being an over achiever and shunned into being average... just like the rest.

Now all this talk about raising the minimum wage and how your president is going to do it with another unconstitutional executive order. The effort is to make every job a "living wage" We want the teenager working at McDonalds at his first job to be making as much money as... a doctor, or physicist because its not fair that those guys took chances like borrowing money to get through years of college, studying and interning hoping to not wash out. It's just not fair they make so much less. Maybe nobody ever considered that a lot of jobs that are available at entry level are not really "living wage" jobs. But now that there are fewer jobs available... and these jobs are now the target to get rid of. Take a simple easy entry level job and make it unfeasible for the business owner to provide, and suddenly that job will go away. That's what will happen. No business is going to run at a loss, only the government can do that.

I agree that the CBO report doesn't say 2.2 million jobs will be lost. What it says is that 2.2 million people will be less inclined to work because they will be penalized or paid better by Uncle Sugar than be productive. Is that what we want? A nation of people that don't do anything but make CO2 and poop. Is that the goal, a nation that wants to be ruled by it's politicians instead of free to choose and succeed without being defamed for it? It is easier to control a mass of people with no will or means to rebel.

I know you are going to mock my words and say I'm a hater of this and that. By the way, I'm an Independent. One thing that you might want to consider. If minimum wage goes up to a "living wage" here in Oregon... you can kiss your coffee shops goodbye.

I've noticed the bulk of your blogs for the past several months have been local Salem issues... Has the big picture been a little too much to defend?

Dan, I am indeed going to mock your words, because so much of what you said is unfactual. I realize that truth-telling isn't high on the list of virtues for Affordable Care Act-haters. But you guys really should object to things about Obamacare that are genuinely objectionable, rather than make stuff up.

It has been well documented that when comparable policies are put side by side, the new exchange/Affordable Care Act plans are less expensive. I'm pretty sure that the annual out of pocket limit for those plans is $3,500, or thereabouts, not $6,000.

Some people, and maybe this includes you, have been fooled into signing up for an insurance company replacement plan, rather than shopping around on the Obamacare exchanges. My wife found that the Regence replacement policy was much worse than the plan she found on the Cover Oregon exchange.

Yes. she is paying a higher premium for the exchange plan. But she is saving money overall, because her previous Regence plan had a $7,500 (or maybe higher) deductible. Now her deductible is $1,000. Lots of Americans had cheap insurance plans that was crappy. They didn't realize how crappy until they got sick and needed to pay for expensive medical care.

I assume you have car insurance. I do. My State Farm agent tells me what coverage is required under state law. Why aren't right-wingers up in arms about car insurance? Why isn't this viewed as a Marxist plot? Everybody who owns a car has to have it. Certain benefits are mandated by the government.

Relax: the Affordable Care Act is here to stay. Despite your Fox News talking points, hugely more people have gotten insurance (7 million or so) than have lost it (a few tens of thousands, I believe). In fact, everyone who wants good health insurance can get it now. Oh, unless they live in a GOP controlled state that refuses to offer health insurance to poor people.

Blog host wrote: "Why aren't right-wingers up in arms about car insurance?"

--Probably because the only required auto insurance is liability and property damage. This is to protect the public if you screw up. No one is required to carry collision insurance which is protection from damage you caused to yourself.


--Exactly. Many people, as a result of Abummercare, are choosing to work less so that their incomes fall below certain thresholds and they quality for subsidised benefits. Who pays for subsidies? People who work hard and earn more.

So, here is an example of how Abummer's social justice philosophy and policies disincentivises a population to be productive and work hard. It encourages a mindset of 'why work harder to succeed if working less results in getting the same stuff for less or for free?' It actually results in less social justice if justice means getting what you deserve and work for and not what you are entitled to by decree.

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