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The public exchanges are a slap in the face. Companies like walmart expect the government to pay for healthcare. The poor wanted socialized healthcare to make W

The public exchanges are a slap in the face. Companies like walmart expect the government to pay for healthcare. The poor wanted socialized healthcare to make WalMart et al pay for it. The poor desire the destruction of the insurance industry, and what they got was what they already had only with IRS penalties.

M_Grey 10y ago
The irony is that we're all, WalMart included, going down the same chute into the same incinerator. Between costly wars and wasted money on Insurance and healthcare, we're just killing ourselves as a country.
- fowlerpower 10y ago
  That's not exactly how our economy works. Those expensive wars are fought with expensive weapons, which are mostly still made here by American companies. Those soldiers fighting those wars are citizens with full time jobs for many years. Healthcare is another thing that's made here and someone is getting paid when we pay an efficient amount or simply overpay. So killing ourselves is all a matter of perspective, some people are doing quite well.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Some people are, but when the whole organism dies, so does the infection.
    - bitJericho 10y ago
      The rich have their own doctors and they pay cash.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        That's utterly missing the point.
  - smokeyj 10y ago
    Look up the broken window fallacy. There's no way perpetual warfare is sustainable.
    - chii 10y ago
      It's not sustainable in perpetuity, but it's good profits for the next quarter.
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        It depends on your industry, and to be honest, and how well your expectations of victory match the reality of a lengthy and gruesome slog.
    - crdoconnor 10y ago
      The broken window fallacy simply demonstrates that there is an opportunity cost to going to war, not that it's unsustainable. Depressingly it actually is pretty sustainable for the American economy. There's also an enormous opportunity cost to not spending money on young men in the military too - and just dumping them on the street, with a job market that cannot absorb all of them. The US actually already did that once. In 2003. A large group of young, heavily armed men who have really only been trained how to kill were suddenly without income or purpose. That story demonstrated the opportunity cost of suddenly packing up the military and sending them all home without a job.
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  "We"? Part of the issue is that Americans seem peculiarly unwilling to point their pitchforks in the right direction.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    An engineered lack of education and decades of indoctrination in pointless party politics will do that.
    - mineshaftgap 10y ago
      Exactly, why fix healthcare when we can argue about trans bathrooms.
sharemywin 10y ago
poor? I work for a small company that offers horrible insurance because almost everyone 50-60+. We have 4 people in our family and we're about 20k over the median income line. Insurance companies want 15K a year plus 2.5k deductible before they pay dime 1. Exchange, insurance at work doesn't matter both are completely un-affordable.
- fowlerpower 10y ago
  Blaming the elderly for our problems is a bad move. Simply because the laws of the universe say we will become old too. Now I agree with you on your other points that the insurance companies took this law and said fuck it we will just raise prices. That is what happens with corporations they want to make money. The fact that the government thought they could just force these folks to do the right thing and cover people with pre-existing conditions and all this other stuff without a single consequence was a really bad oversight.
  - hkmurakami 10y ago
    I believe what parent means is that because the workforce is old, they would be expensive for the company to properly insure, so the company has opted to get poor health care coverage. It's more the company's fault.
  - riskable 10y ago
    I don't think he was blaming the older folks. He was just pointing out why their insurance plan was horribly expensive. There's no argument to be made, it's just a fact: Old(er) people have higher health care costs. Everyone here should know by now that older systems are more expensive to maintain!
  - sharemywin 10y ago
    It's a fact that older people on a small company plan will absolutely raise your rates. Same with smokers. My old company didn't hire smokers and I'm sure it had to do with healthcare costs. I'm not blaming them any more than I'm blaming the actuarial tables the rates are based on. Also, I'm not making any comment towards them as far as their work. They all are very good at their jobs and I like working with them.
fowlerpower 10y ago
I think you hit the nail in the head. Most poor people are worried about making ends meet the very last thing they are thinking about is their taxes and possible IRS penalties. They are expecting a refund and not to get hit with a fine. This is really just another burden on the middle class, it was for sure an unintended side effect by the folks who came up with his law.
- merpnderp 10y ago
  This law was written with input from the health insurance lobby. There was likely never any doubt how this would play out.
- wmccullough 10y ago
  An example of said burden on the middle class. I make a senior software engineers salary and my wife has Lupus. I'm beginning to have signs of having Lupus and RA myself. Her prescriptions alone barely have any coverage until we meet our out of pocket max, and by then, 10-15% of our income is gone paying just for drugs. This is on top of 25-30% taxes, plus the rising cost of food, and now they are telling me I may need the same drugs as her? So in this new found world, I could potentially lose up to 55% of my income in taxes and health coverage. Oh and for a laugh, Medicare won't cover her because I make too much. This is insane. Despite this, I'm of the mind that we can't return to the way things were before ACA, and ACA isn't the answer either. Something has to change or we may have to move to another country with better options. People huff about waiting lists, but neglect to realize that waiting lists are often for non-life threatening surgeries. They also forget to tell the part about how routine office visits don't have the same types of waits, and how prescription coverage is still free. All of my crying aside, I'm left with one thought. How in the actual fuck do poor people afford this shit? I grew up poor and I know what we did--we didn't have insurance and thankfully we were lucky enough not to have any chronic illnesses in my immediate family when I was growing up. On a lighter note, a small joke: I downloaded the GoodRx and it physically started emitting laughter from the speakers once I typed in the drug names.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    >All of my crying aside, I'm left with one thought. How in the actual fuck do poor people afford this shit? A unpopular thing to say is that there exists two types of poor in this country. The poor and the working poor. The poor are fine, they get Medicaid, Medicare and discounts at the exchange. The working poor are fucked they get to pay higher taxes because insurance is too expensive and when they lift themselves up to a point where they can afford it, it doesn't cover anything anyway. This sort of bullshit has chilling effects. Rig the game so obviously against low income Americans and they might just decide to stop playing. That is why you see the lowest labor participation rates since the 70's. It's better to be poor than working poor anymore.

M_Grey 10y ago

The irony is that we're all, WalMart included, going down the same chute into the same incinerator. Between costly wars and wasted money on Insurance and healthcare, we're just killing ourselves as a country.

fowlerpower 10y ago
That's not exactly how our economy works. Those expensive wars are fought with expensive weapons, which are mostly still made here by American companies. Those soldiers fighting those wars are citizens with full time jobs for many years. Healthcare is another thing that's made here and someone is getting paid when we pay an efficient amount or simply overpay. So killing ourselves is all a matter of perspective, some people are doing quite well.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  Some people are, but when the whole organism dies, so does the infection.
  - bitJericho 10y ago
    The rich have their own doctors and they pay cash.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      That's utterly missing the point.
- smokeyj 10y ago
  Look up the broken window fallacy. There's no way perpetual warfare is sustainable.
  - chii 10y ago
    It's not sustainable in perpetuity, but it's good profits for the next quarter.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      It depends on your industry, and to be honest, and how well your expectations of victory match the reality of a lengthy and gruesome slog.
  - crdoconnor 10y ago
    The broken window fallacy simply demonstrates that there is an opportunity cost to going to war, not that it's unsustainable. Depressingly it actually is pretty sustainable for the American economy. There's also an enormous opportunity cost to not spending money on young men in the military too - and just dumping them on the street, with a job market that cannot absorb all of them. The US actually already did that once. In 2003. A large group of young, heavily armed men who have really only been trained how to kill were suddenly without income or purpose. That story demonstrated the opportunity cost of suddenly packing up the military and sending them all home without a job.
crdoconnor 10y ago
"We"? Part of the issue is that Americans seem peculiarly unwilling to point their pitchforks in the right direction.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  An engineered lack of education and decades of indoctrination in pointless party politics will do that.
  - mineshaftgap 10y ago
    Exactly, why fix healthcare when we can argue about trans bathrooms.

sharemywin 10y ago

poor? I work for a small company that offers horrible insurance because almost everyone 50-60+. We have 4 people in our family and we're about 20k over the median income line. Insurance companies want 15K a year plus 2.5k deductible before they pay dime 1. Exchange, insurance at work doesn't matter both are completely un-affordable.

fowlerpower 10y ago
Blaming the elderly for our problems is a bad move. Simply because the laws of the universe say we will become old too. Now I agree with you on your other points that the insurance companies took this law and said fuck it we will just raise prices. That is what happens with corporations they want to make money. The fact that the government thought they could just force these folks to do the right thing and cover people with pre-existing conditions and all this other stuff without a single consequence was a really bad oversight.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  I believe what parent means is that because the workforce is old, they would be expensive for the company to properly insure, so the company has opted to get poor health care coverage. It's more the company's fault.
- riskable 10y ago
  I don't think he was blaming the older folks. He was just pointing out why their insurance plan was horribly expensive. There's no argument to be made, it's just a fact: Old(er) people have higher health care costs. Everyone here should know by now that older systems are more expensive to maintain!
- sharemywin 10y ago
  It's a fact that older people on a small company plan will absolutely raise your rates. Same with smokers. My old company didn't hire smokers and I'm sure it had to do with healthcare costs. I'm not blaming them any more than I'm blaming the actuarial tables the rates are based on. Also, I'm not making any comment towards them as far as their work. They all are very good at their jobs and I like working with them.

fowlerpower 10y ago

I think you hit the nail in the head. Most poor people are worried about making ends meet the very last thing they are thinking about is their taxes and possible IRS penalties. They are expecting a refund and not to get hit with a fine. This is really just another burden on the middle class, it was for sure an unintended side effect by the folks who came up with his law.

merpnderp 10y ago
This law was written with input from the health insurance lobby. There was likely never any doubt how this would play out.
wmccullough 10y ago
An example of said burden on the middle class. I make a senior software engineers salary and my wife has Lupus. I'm beginning to have signs of having Lupus and RA myself. Her prescriptions alone barely have any coverage until we meet our out of pocket max, and by then, 10-15% of our income is gone paying just for drugs. This is on top of 25-30% taxes, plus the rising cost of food, and now they are telling me I may need the same drugs as her? So in this new found world, I could potentially lose up to 55% of my income in taxes and health coverage. Oh and for a laugh, Medicare won't cover her because I make too much. This is insane. Despite this, I'm of the mind that we can't return to the way things were before ACA, and ACA isn't the answer either. Something has to change or we may have to move to another country with better options. People huff about waiting lists, but neglect to realize that waiting lists are often for non-life threatening surgeries. They also forget to tell the part about how routine office visits don't have the same types of waits, and how prescription coverage is still free. All of my crying aside, I'm left with one thought. How in the actual fuck do poor people afford this shit? I grew up poor and I know what we did--we didn't have insurance and thankfully we were lucky enough not to have any chronic illnesses in my immediate family when I was growing up. On a lighter note, a small joke: I downloaded the GoodRx and it physically started emitting laughter from the speakers once I typed in the drug names.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  >All of my crying aside, I'm left with one thought. How in the actual fuck do poor people afford this shit? A unpopular thing to say is that there exists two types of poor in this country. The poor and the working poor. The poor are fine, they get Medicaid, Medicare and discounts at the exchange. The working poor are fucked they get to pay higher taxes because insurance is too expensive and when they lift themselves up to a point where they can afford it, it doesn't cover anything anyway. This sort of bullshit has chilling effects. Rig the game so obviously against low income Americans and they might just decide to stop playing. That is why you see the lowest labor participation rates since the 70's. It's better to be poor than working poor anymore.