The other day I got on a plane for a trip from Ft. Myers to Chicago. When we had all settled in to our seats the pilot came on the intercom and announced, "Ladies and gentlemen! This is your captain. Welcome aboard. We have a 70% chance of making it to Chicago without crashing, so sit back, relax and enjoy your flight."
I got off the plane.
Over 30 % of the people who tried to sign up for ObamaCare on the web site either had their data lost, did not get the insurance they elected or were kicked off before finishing their business. 100% of them had their data subjected to compromise due to the failure of the web site's security features.
But not to worry. It's working fine for 70% of the people who don't care about security.
I think I'll get off.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
23 comments:
Joe - Maybe this insurance thing needs time to work out. Maybe it just needs more time before it is successful. It's pretty complicated - don't you think.
Joe, fascinating analogy. However, when air travel was pretty dangerous, and maybe even at that 70% level, people still chose to fly.
And the industry worked hard for years to make air travel as safe as it is now.
Imagine if even as the airlines worked night and day to improve the product, there was a group dedicated to the failure of their product. How much improvement would we have seen?
Why won't the GOP and conservatives join in and work to improve the ACA? For at least the next two years, we are going to have it, why not try and make it work?
Can someone, anyone, answer that?
When the Dems opposed the expansion into prescription coverage for Medicare, their opposition stopped once the GOP and the conservatives passed the law. Then they stood with the GOP, despite their opposition, and worked together to make it work.
Why is that not happening now?
Maybe with help, we could improve on your 70% number.
I am struggling to understand why there is so much virulent opposition to this.
The plane goes down and you probably die. We would all vote for safety there, Joe.
A failed computer transaction not so dangerous but you seem to think the keyboard will send a lethal electric charge.
False analogy?
Now, let's take up Dave's question. Why do you want it to fail?
Ducky: "False analogy?"
Nope.
And once again, no answer...
Is the question too tough, or is there just an inability to fashion a straight black/white issue?
Ducky... I've found when there is no neat good guy/bad guy or America Lover/Commie Lover answer, many on the right just ignore the questions, change the discussion, call names, or yell [post] stupid pithy comments.
We'll see what happens here...
Craig and XO... taking the day off?
DM: "Why won't the GOP and conservatives join in and work to improve the ACA? For at least the next two years, we are going to have it, why not try and make it work?
"Can someone, anyone, answer that?"
In the first place, ACA was, is and always will be ill conceived. Secondly, every time any Republican has offered a suggestion he (she) has been labeled by the DMs of this world as crack-pots who know nothing. But the "crack-pots" were not the ones who designed and implemented this fiasco. Thirdly, we may have it for the next two years, but based on the work of the "brightest and best," we will never see it work because it is based on false logic and computer programs cannot alter what it does if it is built on false logic. It is impossible. The computer will do whatever logic it is fed, false or not. If it is fed false logic it will yield false results and that is what is happening.
You can fool stupid liberals, but you can't fool a computer. What a computer does is "compute" hence its name. That's all it can do. It will take its ONs and OFFs and string them together the way it is told.
Joe, can you name improvement to the ACA that any sitting GOP member of Congress has made to improve the law, as opposed to releasing it?
I don't recall hearing any, but given that you have the theory that DM's (I guess you mean people like me) ridicule them, I am sure you can cite them.
Personally...I wish Obama had gone socialist balls to the wall and forced through a Single Payer health care system like EVERY OTHER CIVILIZED, INDUSTRIALIZED NATION ON THE PLANET EARTH HAS!
But he didn't. He caved to the conservatives and embraced Romneycare because he thought they would find it more agreeable,
Because it is built on the foundation of two of the most cherished Conservative principles...the Free Market and Personal Responsibility.
Contrary to what these rabid, right wing nut jobs would have you believe, the Affordable Health Care Act is the EXACT OPPOSITE of a "government takeover" of our healthcare.
It is a complete corporate SELL OUT to the Insurance Industry!
The Affordable Healthcare Act does exactly 2 things:
It mandates that Healthcare Exchanges be established in every state where insurance companies licensed and regulated by the states can compete for the business of people within those states.
It requires uninsured individuals to take personal responsibility for their own health care by buying health insurance on the free market exchanges established by and in their own states.
The only time the federal government steps in, is if the states refuse the federal funding provided to create the exchanges.
This only happens in states where the Republican governors are trying to sabotage and abolish the Affordable Care Act by doing every thing they possibly can to deny affordable health care coverage to their citizens to appease their Tea Party base.
What right wing nut jobs deride as some sort of socialist "Obamacare", is nothing more than requiring individual American citizens to take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for their own health care by purchasing the health insurance plan that best suits their own individual health insurance needs on a FREE AND OPEN MARKET of state regulated insurance plans.
It just doesn't get any more Conservative or Republican than that!
DM: "improvement to the ACA that any sitting GOP member of Congress has made..."
Typical liberal deflection. Dems did something really, really bad, but since Reps didn't stop them it's the Rep's fault.
That is SO lame. But you, being liberal, cannot see it's lameness.
Joe, I am not deflecting anything. You said Republicans have offered suggestions. I asked you to tell me what suggestions the GOP has offered to improve the ACA, instead of repealing it.
You did not posit an answer.
How is that deflecting? I accept that the ACA has flaws. Most, if not all laws this sweeping do when they are first passed. Normally Congress then revisits the law a number of times to make those administrative fixes.
Again I ask, without deflecting anything, what fixes, short of repeal, are you saying the GOP has offered?
Joe, what is so lame? Millions of people will be protected from financial ruin and be able to access quality medical care on a regular basis because of this law.
It is not perfect, far from it. It is also not the plan us libs would have preferred. We would have preferred a single payer government sponsored plan, like the Medicare plan you have, but this was as good as we could get. So be it. No blame, just a fact.
This plan, giving consumers a choice of plans and companies from which to choose, and supporting private industry, will eventually work for many Americans.
Why is that bad for America? Can you or Glenn answer that?
DM: "...giving consumers a choice of plans and companies..."
A limited choice, at higher rates for less coverage in almost 1/2 of the cases.
Stop
Let me try to kick off the band, Joe.
You have had posts here from folks who have seen their quality of life improved by access to better medical coverage and you yourself are a "walking" example of the benefits of Medicare.
Why do you want the reform process to fail?
Why not "Medicare for all"?
Joe, with preexisting conditions, many of us had no choice at all before. Now I have three companies/co-ops competing in my state to offer me insurance.
In each of those cases, I could pay the bill before my government subsidy, and now, my wife and I have catastrophic coverage as well.
For about $520.00 a month [after the subsidy] we will have a $400.00 month family deductable with an annual family max of $4000.00. And this includes prescriptions.
That is a net family savings to me and my wife of about $3000.00 annually, if we never get sick.
What choices did I have before? None.
Tell me how this is bad?
DM: "Tell me how this is bad?"
It's good for you and that absolutely all that matters.
No Joe, it's good for many people just like me...
How is your response any different from me saying this...
Let's balance the budget and cut medicare out. It's a government program, it's wasteful and besides, it's socialistic.
Joe, go buy your own health care with no government help and if you cannot cover the costs, so what? You should have saved more, or you should get another job.
How are those attitudes different? We can't afford medicare...
DM"...we can't afford Medicare."
That's very, very true.
Except Joe. we can, and should. We can take the money from a defense fund that seems to believe we must be every countries international police force and that we must stockpile enough military hardware to defeat every other army combined at the same time.
I am pretty sure we'd both agree there is plenty of bloat in the system, but I'm guessing my savings would come from places most conservatives would never dream of looking... because in those departments, somehow, there is no waste, or corruption...
DM: "...to believe we must be every countries international police force..."
We agree on this principle. We probably do not agree on how to stop doing it...but maybe.......
"...we must stockpile enough military hardware to defeat every other army combined at the same time..."
The next Hitleresque despot who gets control of as many countries as the former Soviet Union will eventually materialize. Eventually, it will have, and will be willing to use weapons of mass destruction. It will form a coalition of countries that will represent more than half the world. Then we will wish we had those weapons, but it will be too late.
You might think that time will never come, but it will. Trust me (or not).
Joe - "The next Hitleresque despot who gets control of as many countries as the former Soviet Union will eventually materialize. Eventually, it will have, and will be willing to use weapons of mass destruction. It will form a coalition of countries that will represent more than half the world."
That all sounds very appropriately Biblical and "Revalationsry".
But here is what you and folks like you fail to comprehend:
1: All of the information needed to build nukes, nerve gas and biological weapons is already out there and available for anyone who wants it FOR FREE!
2: We can't stop anyone from building those weapons.
There is no amount of cruise missile strikes, boots on the ground, aircraft carrier task groups or no-fly zones that will keep that from happening.
Only sanctions and diplomacy can convince a foreign government that giving up the pursuit of such weapons is in their best interests.
3. The reason other countries feel like they need such weapons is because we have them and we stride the world stage like the most aggressive and well armed bully the world has ever known! Maybe if we toned things down a notch or two and started trying to lead the world by the examples set forth in our founding documents, perhaps then they would take our aspirations seriously and WANT to follow us.
DM"...we can't afford Medicare."
That's very, very true.
Not really. Medicare withholding is 1.45% of your pay. Being self employed, mine is 2.9%. It's a bargain. At current funding levels, Medicare Hospital Ins. (HI) trust fund is solvent, can pay 100%, until 2026. After that, it can pay 87%. Tweeking the payroll tax or raising the cap would not be a burden. Parts B & D can never become insolvent since 25% are paid through premiums.
HI was projected to be insolvent in 2017. 9 years of solvency were added thanks to cost saving measures in the ACA. Repeal ACA and you'll be picking up that 13% if you, God forbid, find yourself in the ICU a couple years from now.
A limited choice, at higher rates for less coverage in almost 1/2 of the cases
Nonsense. I told you about my situation. I will be getting coverage through MnShare, our state exchange. I have 71 plans (bronze, silver and gold) to choose from. People got cancellation letters because their plan didn't meet the minimum requirements of ACA. How could they be getting less coverage from a compliant plan? Most are junk plans that would leave anyone who needed them to cover a major illness or injury would wind up bankrupt.
The co.s sending letters would offer compliant plans, often at twice the cost, without telling the recipient about shopping on the exchange. They try to push people into more expensive plans when there are much better deals on the exchange. It's fraudulent.
The figures you use stink. Most likely because they were pulled directly from your, or someones, backside.
Craig, no amount of evidence to the contrary of preconceived ideas is going to sway people.
71 options, all from private companies is a government takeover of the health insurance industry.
If that type of logic was tenable, why are the private insurance companies so in favor of the ACA?
Joe has stated that that he gives his opinion. Our mistake has been to think he is basing it in fact. he is basing it on his own empirical wisdom, outside evidence be damned.
His logic follows no discernible consistent path, which would not be a problem if he would just say that, rather than claiming to sit atop a high horse and always be right.
Libs, like you, me and Ducky, have frequently been critical of Obama and some of his policies. In spite of the beliefs of Joe and Glenn, we do see where libs have erred. And we have pointed it out publicly many times at this blog and others.
The issue for conservatives is this... are they ever wrong? Do their leaders ever screw up? Are the extremists in the conservative movement? And if there are, what views do they hold.
Joe, let me join the chorus.
My youngest niece recently had a serious mental health episode. She was hospitalized for several days and is now in an outpatient program.
She's doing fairly well and is on a leave of absence from her job and has kept up with her studies at the local junior college. All things considered, the family is relieved.
I was worried about the cost and figured I could swing most of it for her but behold, thanks to MassHealth she's covered. There will be a few thousand dollar deductible which we will cover together and a cost for medication but manageable.
Damn that Romneycare, uh?
Post a Comment