More Obamacare fuckups

[Tgo01]

That's the correct takeaway, you got it Terry. A+ and a sticker.

Yay!

[Wrathbringer]

cwolff is like John Cleese's character in the argument clinic sketch.

Love that sketch!

[Methais]

Methais wants to send black men to die needlessly. How am I not surprised.

Tgo's first name is Terry.

Hulk Hogan's real first name is Terry.

Hulk Hogan and Apollo Creed were both in Rocky 3, a movie about a black guy helping a white guy beat up another black guy after said black guy beat up said white guy.

Something is fishy here, and I'm pretty sure it means that Tgo is racist.

[Tgo01]

Tgo's first name is Terry.

Hulk Hogan's real first name is Terry.

Hulk Hogan and Apollo Creed were both in Rocky 3, a movie about a black guy helping a white guy beat up another black guy after said black guy beat up said white guy.

Something is fishy here, and I'm pretty sure it means that Tgo is racist.

[Parkbandit]

The Obama administration has quietly adjusted key provisions of its signature healthcare law to potentially make billions of additional taxpayer dollars available to the insurance industry if companies providing coverage through the Affordable Care Act lose money.

The move was buried in hundreds of pages of new regulations issued late last week. It comes as part of an intensive administration effort to hold down premium increases for next year, a top priority for the White House as the rates will be announced ahead of this fall's congressional elections.

Administration officials for months have denied charges by opponents that they plan a "bailout" for insurance companies providing coverage under the healthcare law.

They continue to argue that most insurers shouldn't need to substantially increase premiums because safeguards in the healthcare law will protect them over the next several years.

But the change in regulations essentially provides insurers with another backup: If they keep rate increases modest over the next couple of years but lose money, the administration will tap federal funds as needed to cover shortfalls.
Although little noticed so far, the plan was already beginning to fuel a new round of attacks Tuesday from the healthcare law's critics.

"If conservatives want to stop the illegal Obamacare insurance bailout before it starts they must start planning now," wrote Conn Carroll, an editor of the right-leaning news site Townhall.com.
On Capitol Hill, Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee began circulating a memo on the issue and urging colleagues to fight what they are calling "another end-run around Congress."

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...ry.html#page=1

No seriously.. this will lower the deficit though.

Really.

[Whirlin]

Stuffs

It's shifty to be changing things... I'm surprised it can circumvent due process. However, I think the republicans really need to start offering ways to fix and improve the bill rather than just constantly arguing against it's existence, and focusing in on one particular issue and nitpicking.

That aside, the government is already picking up the tab when it comes to uninsured individuals obtaining health care. These changes appear to just shift it from a state based distribution of tax revenue to federal, and from a per hospital basis consolidated to a per insurer basis. I'm not sure how this is really a material change in the bill, it's just making less recipients and streamlining the process from a micro to a macro level. It really doesn't sound like a bailout to me, it's the same existing distributions, to a different party that'll be paying the tabs on the micro level.

Interestingly, I heard on NPR the other day that some hospitals have actually started offering free health care to reduce costs. The example that they were using to highlight it was some guy with a massive cyst behind his ear. Fundamentally, they had two options: Eat the cost now, and remove the cyst, or wait til it ruptures, he gets rushed to the ER, and needs to receive emergency treatment, where they may not have the staff available, and it becomes a much more costly endeavor. Since the individuals likely wouldn't be paying either way, the hospital found it would be financially advantageous to pre-emptively eat costs rather than waiting for the situations to get out of hand.

[cwolff]

It's shifty to be changing things... I'm surprised it can circumvent due process. However, I think the republicans really need to start offering ways to fix and improve the bill rather than just constantly arguing against it's existence, and focusing in on one particular issue and nitpicking.

That aside, the government is already picking up the tab when it comes to uninsured individuals obtaining health care. These changes appear to just shift it from a state based distribution of tax revenue to federal, and from a per hospital basis consolidated to a per insurer basis. I'm not sure how this is really a material change in the bill, it's just making less recipients and streamlining the process from a micro to a macro level. It really doesn't sound like a bailout to me, it's the same existing distributions, to a different party that'll be paying the tabs on the micro level.

Interestingly, I heard on NPR the other day that some hospitals have actually started offering free health care to reduce costs. The example that they were using to highlight it was some guy with a massive cyst behind his ear. Fundamentally, they had two options: Eat the cost now, and remove the cyst, or wait til it ruptures, he gets rushed to the ER, and needs to receive emergency treatment, where they may not have the staff available, and it becomes a much more costly endeavor. Since the individuals likely wouldn't be paying either way, the hospital found it would be financially advantageous to pre-emptively eat costs rather than waiting for the situations to get out of hand.

Did the report on NPR say why he didn't have health insurance?

[Jarvan]

Did the report on NPR say why he didn't have health insurance?

Maybe he couldn't "afford" it.

[Whirlin]

Did the report on NPR say why he didn't have health insurance?

Health insurance doesn't make surgery free.

[cwolff]

Health insurance doesn't make surgery free.

No it doesn't. I'm just curious about his situation. It says that he wouldn't be paying which made me wonder what the guy's situation is. It probably didn't come up in the piece you heard anyway.