Your thoughts on what just passed…
I don’t know the details on it, to be honest.
But from what I read - you have to have health insurance or you face a fine?
And then what if I am unemployed and I can’t afford it?
Or what if I am self-employed and therefore am not under a large corporate policy to get a reasonable rate through my employer?
Granted our healthcare system needs MAJOR reform - I don’t know if this is what it needed. Though admittedly I am not educated enough on the subject.
You go to prison for tax evasion.
They couldn’t uphold it under the commerce clause, so they stuffed it into the tax clause.
In other words, SCOTUS just gave Congress a blank fucking check. Buy gold.
I’m just baffled that Roberts didn’t side with Scalia.
im all for it. even though i finally just got a job that offers health insurance benefits. I remember working as a full time IT tech and being helpless when I get ill because i can’t afford to go to the doctors. I find it funny that although majority of conservatives are “PRO-LIFE”- for them being healthy is optional at the same time. It seems that “Now that im rich I am all against helping the poor” way of thinking is an acceptable moral stand.
regarding the “If you do not have a job and you cant afford the Tax” issue. Medicare offers full health benefits for people who have no income ( i know it sounds unfair but SOME people really deserve this “Goverment hand out”.
We can’t afford to fund Medicare the way it is now…what’s going to happen when millions of people who don’t currently qualify suddenly have to be added on?
Taxes are going to SKYROCKET. Period. Maybe not income tax…but wherever they jack it up, it WILL affect everyone, and the less money you make, the worse it’s going to be.
I think this is crazy. It’s not like people could afford it and just didn’t want it. They couldn’t afford it and still can’t but they are now forced to have it. It’s a lame way of getting people health insurance.
Ya know what…I may just eat dem words. This is a VERY intradasting analysis. And it may be spot fucking on.
Had you had the coverage you have now, before all of this, you would have had much better coverage at a third of the price. Then you might begin to understand. The rest of your post is not worth acknowledging.
[QUOTE=armedferret;2264081]Ya know what…I may just eat dem words. This is a VERY intradasting analysis. And it may be spot fucking on.
http://www.ijreview.com/2012/06/9398-why-chief-justice-roberts-made-the-right-long-term-decision-with-obamacare/[/QUOTE]
That was a good read. It cleared things up for me. I think it ended up better than I thought. Thanks for the link.
I’ve worked in healthcare in some capacity for the last 12 years. When ObamaCare was first announced my then employer began to use it as an excuse to NOT pay for things like raises and much needed supplies. “Due to the predicted rise in operations costs due to the pending ObamaCare Legislation, OCP is now in a pay freeze”. It was ObamaCare’s fault that my former employer was strapped for cash not the fact that they paid $91 MILLION DOLLARS for the naming rights to the NY JETS practice field (the Jets then decided they wanted to practice in upstate NY instead of NJ I don’t know it they ever changed venues.) After the passing of ObamaCare was announced my current employer locked down the office supply room. “Due to the predicted rise in operations costs due to the passing of ObamaCare, a request must be filled out for all supplies.” I need to fill out a requisition form for a fucking highlighter. Some of the doctors suggested that everyone start looking for other career paths outside of healthcare. I don’t know how this is going to play out.
We can’t afford to provide doctors, nurses, and hospitals on the public dime, but somehow we can afford to provide all of them AND the massive bureaucracy to oversee it…
Hahaha…
Now that the Roberts Court has affirmed that the government has the power to mandate purchases of private goods and services as long as it’s structured as a tax, I propose that we put this new-found authority in the service of an explicit Constitutional right. For far too long, too many Americans have suffered from an inequal distribution of firearms, despite the Second Amendment’s express exhortation to “keep and bear arms,” in large part because income inequality in this nation has kept the poor and working classes from having the proper protection for themselves and their loved ones. We need to end this disparity now by applying the ObamaCare model immediately.
First, the government needs to issue a mandate that all households must own at least one firearm. We will need a federal agency to ensure that people aren’t just buying cheap BB guns or .22 pistols, even though that may be all they need or want. It has to be 9mm or above, with .44 magnums getting a one-time tax credit on their own. Let’s pick an agency known for its aptitude on firearms and home protection to issue required annual certifications each year, without which the government will have to levy hefty fines. Which agency would do the best job? Hmmmm … I know! How about TSA? With their track record of excellence, we should have no problems implementing this mandate.
Don’t want to own a gun? Hey, no worries. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says citizens have the right to refuse to comply with mandates. The government will just seize some of your cash in fines, that’s all. Isn’t choice great? Those fines will go toward federal credits that will fund firearm purchases for the less well off, so that they can protect their homes as adequately as those who can afford guns on their own. Since they generally live in neighborhoods where police response is appreciably worse than their higher-earning fellow Americans, they need them more anyway. Besides — gun ownership is actually mentioned in the Constitution, unlike health care, which isn’t. Obviously, that means that the federal government should be funding gun ownership.
Now, I’m not naive; this kind of mandate system will be difficult to get through Congress. Even gun manufacturers might have some reservations about forcing everyone to buy their product, especially since we’ll also be imposing massive price controls on their products. Only 7% of their revenues can be spent on administrative costs and “profit,” whatever we decide that means. How else to make sure that we keep prices fair? We have an ace in the hole, though. We plan to get the ammunition industry on our side, running a $200 million ad campaign on behalf of the bill. They stand to make billions in the huge increase of target practice — which gun ranges will have to provide for free on at least one occasion a year per person, and for which the government will cover the range costs at, say, $5 per hour. (That’s a loss for gun ranges, but they’ll make it up in volume.)
We need to act now. Too many poor and working-class families face injury and death from lack of self-protection in areas of high rates of violent crime, so if you oppose this, you must hate the poor and hope they die. Since no one does that, we should expect to see everyone celebrating this effort to realize the vision of our Founders, which was obviously a top-down federal government that can order its citizens to do anything it wants.
For some reason, it seems like many people with opinions on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (STOP CALLING IT “OBAMACARE,” R-TARDS) don’t even really know what’s in it.
We live in a system where the majority of us have health insurance through our employers and would likely not be able to afford it if we had to shop on our own. It’s much more cost effective in our private system to do it this way. We all know the costs of health insurance are rising and the economy is falling, so many businesses have been reducing or eliminating health insurance benefits.
The PPACA mandates that companies with 50 or more employees provide health insurance or pay a $2,000 fine per employee. Yes, this is a “tax,” but so is the public cost of when people with no insurance get medical care from the emergency room. If you work for a small company with less than 50 employees or your company decides to pay the fine, you are eligible to receive a subsidy if you earn under 400% of the poverty level. If one still doesn’t purchase insurance, they face a $695 fine (if it’s even enforced). If your company already provided a health insurance plan, there are no fines to pay and any cost increases come from the insurance companies.
Other than allowing people to stay on their parents’ plan until age 26 and the requirement to cover people with pre-existing conditions (it doesn’t mean companies can’t charge out of the ass), that’s all the PPACA does to the public. It’s not some crazy takeover of health care. Personally, I would’ve gone much further if I were BHO, but we have to live within political reality (and he’s backed by insurance companies and their lobbyists).
In an ideal situation, I would have socialized health care like the members of our wonderful Congress and military. 
You stay classy, my friends.
[QUOTE=kNOwLedGe420;2264151]
We live in a system where the majority of us have health insurance through our employers and would likely not be able to afford it if we had to shop on our own. [/QUOTE]
I’ve been down this road and it isn’t fun. Can’t afford insurance, break my hand, er puts an ace on it and hands me a huge bill, othro surgeon (who in a bizarre twist of fate I end up working for at my current job) takes pity on me and eats the $11k he was going to charge for fixing my hand.
This is the part that is worrying me and my many of my co-workers. Much like our elected officials, I haven’t read a good portion of this bill. My employer is group of high end boutique doctors and specialists who decided, about 10 years ago, to run their own same day surgical office. The group employs about 70 nurses, techs, clerks and other health related individuals. They offer a choice of either an HMO or a PPO/POS and anyone who enrolls as a single gets free coverage (a stipulation of my hiring along with other performance based incentives and bonuses even before I knew they offered this). Some of my co-workers pay close to $1500/month for an employee + spouse + child(ren) medical/rx/dental/vision plan. If my employer decided to pay the $2000 fine 70x it might cost them less than what they pay for the current insurance plans (some of these guys are 1% of the 1% and could have the “fuck you Obama” mentality regardless of which option is less costly). Where does this leave me? I make more than 400% of the poverty Lower 48 poverty level based on my base pay rate alone. Will I have to fork over $20k/year to get a plan that the doctors I need to see will take? Will a plan that I can “afford” be a shitty plan on par with “charity care”? Will I need to flip burgers 32 hours a week to jump on a bare bones Burger King plan? Could my employer decide to insure everyone then cut hours or lay people off and blame it on insurance premium increases due to this act?
I get it the system as is isn’t great or “fair”, but there are alot of questions that with answers buried in thousands of pages of text or being incorrectly answered by left and right slanted media.
The members of Congress who PASSED the fucking thing in the first place don’t know what’s in it…
In an ideal situation, I would have socialized health care like the members of our wonderful Congress and military.
Only Congress is going to have free health care in the end. Obama wants the military to pay for doctors. The military that makes pennies on the dollar to Congressmen & Women…who get it free.
The Obama administration on Friday threatened to veto a defense appropriations bill in part because it does not include higher health care fees for members of the military.
“The Administration is disappointed that the Congress did not incorporate the requested TRICARE fee initiatives into either the appropriation or authorization legislation,” the White House wrote in an official policy statement expressing opposition to the bill, which the House approved in May.
President Obama’s most recent budget proposal includes billions of dollars in higher fees for members of TRICARE, the military health care system
Man this is just another step toward a communistic socialist society where government controls more of our lives if you ask me… I am an independent self employed IT consultant, and can count my trips to the doctor in the last 10 years on 1 hand…
Granted due to a slip up with substance abuse 5 years ago I am considered as having “Pre Existing” condition which disqualifies me for most insurances without paying out the neck, But I believe in our choice to be able to choose if we do or do not want to pay into insurance… Now I will have to pay by necessity or be fined a ridiculous amount by 2016…
As far as the fines go it is written into the law that these fines cannot be levied or imprisoned for. It is my understanding they can penalize you for the $$$ amount but cannot enforce collection of the amount. Granted it will only be a matter of time until (just like with income taxes) some ass says “Hey look at all this uncollected money” and grant government even more authority to seize a person’s assets & potentially put a struggling hard working individual out on the street. ( I have seen this happen to several people who have been suffering hard times… missed tax payment then a month later their banks were drained and they lost everything)
BY allowing the government to assert control of social programs like healthcare we can expect to see a greater impact on small and medium businesses and the self employed creating fewer jobs where most jobs are being created these days, thus forcing another economic slowdown which will lead to a greater tax burden on the general population in coming years when the beauraucrats decide that the money isn’t balancing itself anymore.
Like I said this is just taking one more step towards a socialist nation ruled by the governing class… People scream about unfairness blah blah blah… I’m a convicted felon, who despite all myset back works in financial sector IT companies. the only thing that is unfair is that our government caters more to illegal immigrants than it’s own middle class… it would choose to coddle the less responsible in favor of spending the money to actually stimulate the economy. I think the obamacare is going to be about as big a flop as all those stimulus packages the big corporatins collected on that we paid for that did nothing.
haven’t you heard? we’re still paying for them. the nearly $1 TRILLION in TARP funds that was supposedly a 1-time deal? been spending it every year since.
I would disagree. Strongly.
This is a corporatist nation ruled by those who OWN the governing class. Ask anyone from a truly socialist country about the US and they’ll laugh in your face.
The bottom line: PPACA was just enough reform of our (private, for-profit) health insurance system to please those who sought change in the system while maintaining the enormously wealthy/powerful corporate system of insurance companies acting as middlemen. After all, the mandate forces Americans to purchase products from private companies, most of which profit from spending only $0.75 for every dollar on actual health care. They profit from taking your money and denying you care.
I find it funny that longshot Democratic Party candidate, Senator Barack Obama preached about the need for single-payer (medicare) insurance for all. Then we had surprise Democratic Nominee Barack Obama preaching that we need to maintain the private system, but offer a public option for those who couldn’t afford private insuracnce. Of course, we ended up with President Barack Obama, who after being heavily backed by the for-profit health insurace industry, magically endorsed a plan that 100% maintained the private system with VERY MINOR reforms and an individual madate (which was the plan endorsed by Republicans in 1993 in opposition to socialized “Hillarycare” as well as the plan executed in MA by Governor Willard Mitt Romney)
This whole process has been bullshit from the very start…
[QUOTE=djzachtyler;2264165]Man this is just another step toward a communistic socialist society where government controls more of our lives if you ask me… I am an independent self employed IT consultant, and can count my trips to the doctor in the last 10 years on 1 hand…
Granted due to a slip up with substance abuse 5 years ago I am considered as having “Pre Existing” condition which disqualifies me for most insurances without paying out the neck, But I believe in our choice to be able to choose if we do or do not want to pay into insurance… Now I will have to pay by necessity or be fined a ridiculous amount by 2016…
As far as the fines go it is written into the law that these fines cannot be levied or imprisoned for. It is my understanding they can penalize you for the $$$ amount but cannot enforce collection of the amount. Granted it will only be a matter of time until (just like with income taxes) some ass says “Hey look at all this uncollected money” and grant government even more authority to seize a person’s assets & potentially put a struggling hard working individual out on the street. ( I have seen this happen to several people who have been suffering hard times… missed tax payment then a month later their banks were drained and they lost everything)
BY allowing the government to assert control of social programs like healthcare we can expect to see a greater impact on small and medium businesses and the self employed creating fewer jobs where most jobs are being created these days, thus forcing another economic slowdown which will lead to a greater tax burden on the general population in coming years when the beauraucrats decide that the money isn’t balancing itself anymore.
Like I said this is just taking one more step towards a socialist nation ruled by the governing class… People scream about unfairness blah blah blah… I’m a convicted felon, who despite all myset back works in financial sector IT companies. the only thing that is unfair is that our government caters more to illegal immigrants than it’s own middle class… it would choose to coddle the less responsible in favor of spending the money to actually stimulate the economy. I think the obamacare is going to be about as big a flop as all those stimulus packages the big corporatins collected on that we paid for that did nothing.[/QUOTE]
Have you ever lived in a socialist country? If not then you should try it out before you knock it. I lived in Sweden for over 8 years and that is a socialist country and I can tell you that it’s a whole lot better than what is told to Americans. I noticed the way of life is easier and the people are a whole lot happier there. I didn’t feel like I was taxed much more than I am here. I just think people are fed the worst information here. I just don’t think people in the states are not fully aware of how things are in other countries.