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Color me critical, but it seems like, basically, the point of this article was to show off exactly how informed in her 'hard-nosed' critiques, and how that is p

by bmelton 14y ago

Color me critical, but it seems like, basically, the point of this article was to show off exactly how informed in her 'hard-nosed' critiques, and how that is proffered as justification for the obvious bias present in the article. I also find it interesting that despite the apparent mountains of reading, the author cannot determine any good reason why one might oppose the Affordable Care Act, which tells me that either her bias refused to allow her to accept posed oppositions as valid, or that she simply doesn't care that other people do object. I think there are plenty of valid reasons for opposing it, just as there are plenty of reasons to support it, and frankly, I think all of major justifications on either side of the argument fall into the category of fairly obvious. That said, kudos on choosing to provide health care immediately. It is a tough decision, and it will affect the company's bottom line, but despite that, if you're an employer who believes that everybody should have affordable health care, it is the obviously correct choice.

onli 14y ago
That was one of his points: There are no good reasons to be against the Act. I can't really judge if that is true, but basically, the idea that it is absolutely right to try to get as many people as possible insured is pretty powerful. And most of the opposition one noted was on the level of "that is socialism!" (which it isnt, and socialism isn't bad).
- niggler 14y ago
  There are many americans working at medical device companies that will be affected by the 2.3% medical device tax. Zimmer, for example, cited the medical device tax as the reason for firing a thousand workers a few years ago.
  - onli 14y ago
    I don't know that case. Normally, such claims are a lie (using an opportunity to reorganise the company to exploit the workers more) and it seems highly unlikely that 2,3% on anything could lead to that. So the margin before was that thin that the tax lead to thousand workers being more expensive than productive? That is highly unlikey, especially with medical device companies. And besides, it doesn't invalidate the ethical point that it is right to privide medical insurance, even if true.
    - niggler 14y ago
      To clarify: it is an excise tax and applies to the _gross sale price_, not the profits (so even if the division runs at a loss, they still have to pay). http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently-Asked-Questions http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently... I'd agree with your skepticism if it were affecting net (after employee salaries etc). > And besides, it doesn't invalidate the ethical point that it is right to privide medical insurance, even if true. Your original point was "There are no good reasons to be against the Act", so my response was pointing to a reason why someone would be against the act: I'm pretty sure that being laid off due to a regulation is a pretty good reason to be unhappy
      - cecilpl 14y ago
        > To clarify: it is an excise tax and applies to the _gross sale price_, not the profits (so even if the division runs at a loss, they still have to pay). http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently.. http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently.... I'd agree with your skepticism if it were affecting net (after employee salaries etc) AKA a sales tax. Which don't generally lead to broad-scale layoffs when they're imposed. Did California have massive layoffs when they raised their tax on everything in the entire economy in January? How about when Canada introduced a brand new 7% across the board sales tax in 1991? As a business, the standard way of responding to that kind of tax is to raise your prices correspondingly (to an appropriate level set by your supply/demand curves of course).
- dantheman 14y ago
  There are lot's of good reasons to be against the Act. How about it forcing the young and relatively poor to subsidize the old and relatively rich -- it's a giant intergenerational wealth transfer mechanism. Young adults will pay higher premiums under Obamacare because of its age rating system. The law stipulates that the maximum variation allowed in adult premiums is a cost ratio of 3 to 1. But as Heritage research shows, “The natural variation by age in medical costs is about 5 to 1—meaning that the oldest group of (non-Medicare) adults normally consumes about five times as much medical care as the youngest group.” Obamacare’s “rate compression” causes insurers to charge artificially low premiums for older adults and higher premiums for younger adults. Moreover, “Actuaries estimate that the effect will be to increase premiums for those ages 18–24 by 45 percent and those ages 25–29 by 35 percent while decreasing premiums for those ages 55–59 by 12 percent and those ages 60–64 by 13 percent.” http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/21/obamacares-2nd-anniversary-no-gift-for-young-americans/ http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/21/obamacares-2nd-anniversa...
  - cecilpl 14y ago
    Remember the perfect is the enemy of the good. Don't oppose the Act because it doesn't bring about the best possible world. Oppose it only if it's worse than the currently existing situation.
    - dantheman 14y ago
      I oppose it because I think it will make the situation much worse. I prefer working in the direction of freeing healthcare not regulating it further.
  - helmut_hed 14y ago
    The Heritage Foundation may be slightly biased on these issues...
  - nijk 14y ago
    When those young people get old, they will have paid their fair share. The transition is of relatively minor importance.
johndavidback 14y ago
I'm genuinely interested in your positions of opposition to the Affordable Care Act, if any. You're right in saying the OP did not provide any, and I'd be curious to hear some cohesive argument against it that doesn't necessarily tow a party line. As far as the general timbre of the article, I would say it's pretty plainly stating that 'whether to provide healthcare?' offers no moral gray area whatsoever, and that it's a plain obligation on behalf of the employer.
- bmelton 14y ago
  Since you asked for points of opposition, I'll assume you have arguments in support readily available. The most obvious ones I can think of are: 1) The health care system is really broken, very expensive, and should be fixed outright. Letting the government foot the bill isn't a fix, and is just a waste of citizen tax dollars. 2) It isn't the American way. Instead of taxing Americans for health care, cut taxes, give them more money back, and let them spend it how they want, whether on health care or on preventative care. Create legislation that puts reasonable caps on health care expenses instead, and actually make health care affordable. 3) The federal government is woefully inefficient at getting things done, and that is by design. Managing this at the federal level just makes it even more expensive than it already is, because now in addition to all the costs associated with the medicine, care, hospitals and doctors, you've also got to pay the government middle-men as well. 4) It's a further abuse of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The commerce clause allows the federal government to regulate interstate commerce, not dictate commands to citizens in states. Allow states to implement their own health care acts if they so choose, and let the money stay closer to the people who need it, which should lower the administration costs.
  - Cushman 14y ago
    It's pretty easy to see how these "criticisms" may seem less obvious (and less valid) to someone who a) is not deeply invested in American party politics and b) comes from a state with a well-functioning universal health care system. Or in other words, those work as reasons for a political enemy of health care to oppose the bill; they don't fly so well as reasons for a reasonable person to think everyone shouldn't have access to affordable health care.
pessimizer 14y ago
Every single objection you have to this article has nothing to do with either its content or form. Help me to understand why you would post a comment like this: >Color me critical, but it seems like, basically, the point of this article was to show off exactly how informed in her 'hard-nosed' critiques, and how that is proffered as justification for the obvious bias present in the article. I'm not sure how to translate this other than "He thinks she's so smart, so he's asserting that he has an opinion worth listening to." >I also find it interesting that despite the apparent mountains of reading, the author cannot determine any good reason why one might oppose ${THING_THAT_AUTHOR_SUPPORTS}, which tells me that either her bias refused to allow her to accept posed oppositions as valid, or that she simply doesn't care that other people do object. Translation: "He has an opinion, and he thinks that there are no reasonable arguments against that opinion, so his opinion must be worthless." Remind me never to tell you what I think 3 times 5 equals, because my opinion will not pass this criterion. >I think there are plenty of valid reasons for opposing it, just as there are plenty of reasons to support it, and frankly, I think all of major justifications on either side of the argument fall into the category of fairly obvious. Now we know what you think - but you're not considering telling us why because it's "fairly obvious?" The author told us why he thought what he thought, and you attacked him for not telling us why everybody else thought what they thought, too. >That said, kudos on ${ACTION_OF_AUTHOR_SUPPORTING_THING}. It is a tough decision, and it will ${COST_OF_SUPPORTING_THING}, but despite that, if you're ${WHAT_AUTHOR_IS} who ${HAS_AUTHORS_OPINION}, it is the obviously correct choice. Do you think the author is searching for your vague tautological approval? Comments like this trouble me. I don't understand why people take the time to make them. Color me honestly troubled.
- bmelton 14y ago
  Sorry to have been so troubling. What I meant to point out, and admittedly did a bad job of, is that I sensed a pattern of "thoroughly investigating" both sides of an issue as merely justification for calling someone a dick. I don't think that holds muster, especially as the same thorough investigation into health care reform led to absolutely zero evidence of why anyone could think it's a bad idea? No matter which you you side on the issue of the Affordable Care Act, there are compelling arguments on both sides of the debate. I don't see how you can do thorough investigation and come up with the conclusion that it is wholly good, unless you're just happy to categorize everybody in opposition as either dumb, naive, uninformed or just wrong. As for what I think, I did post reasons against in another thread here, which you're of course welcomed to find and/or respond to, but that's just a few of the rather obvious reasons against, and don't necessarily reflect my stance. My real stance is that it's a complicated issue, and both sides have very compelling truths in support of their stance. The willingness to ignore those compelling truths, even after seeking them out, speaks to a greater bias, in my opinion. You're correct in that perhaps I was overly harsh. I didn't intend to come off as negatively as my re-reading of my statement affirms that I did, but as there are currently more detractors of Obamacare than supporters, the assertion that the majority simply doesn't have a point at all, smacks of arrogance to me. There is another argument at play, that I think more accurately reflects the author's viewpoint, which is that there are not any good arguments against universal health care as a concept, and has to ignore the specifics of the particular universal health care bill that's been introduced and enacted. As a vague example, I'm betting you'd get pretty high poll numbers for a question that asked "Would you support a bill that could eliminate crime?", but would almost certainly be against any particular bill that sought to do exactly that as it would almost certainly entail the restriction of many of our American freedoms. All that said, yes, I am sorry to have posted a response that didn't more accurately measure how I felt, or at least try to temper that response with more supporting evidence, but at the time I was in a hurry. I don't really see how your response is very different than mine either, so I'll just assume we both responded with too much knee-jerk response and hope to call it a day. For what it's worth, the proverbial straw that tipped me into a frenzy was the line about Reddit - asserting that Reddit has never been excellent, and that despite this one particular case in which it obviously delivered excellence, the author assures us that it will never reach those heights again. Reddit is a big place, and there are pockets of excellence hidden amongst the mass of everything else. One man's trash being another man's treasure, the likelihood of a particular subreddit being considered universally good is of course slim, but to assume that this one particular thread is the very best that Reddit ever has, ever can, or ever will do just smacked too much of bullshit to me to let the rest go.

by bmelton 14y ago

onli 14y ago

That was one of his points: There are no good reasons to be against the Act. I can't really judge if that is true, but basically, the idea that it is absolutely right to try to get as many people as possible insured is pretty powerful. And most of the opposition one noted was on the level of "that is socialism!" (which it isnt, and socialism isn't bad).

niggler 14y ago
There are many americans working at medical device companies that will be affected by the 2.3% medical device tax. Zimmer, for example, cited the medical device tax as the reason for firing a thousand workers a few years ago.
- onli 14y ago
  I don't know that case. Normally, such claims are a lie (using an opportunity to reorganise the company to exploit the workers more) and it seems highly unlikely that 2,3% on anything could lead to that. So the margin before was that thin that the tax lead to thousand workers being more expensive than productive? That is highly unlikey, especially with medical device companies. And besides, it doesn't invalidate the ethical point that it is right to privide medical insurance, even if true.
  - niggler 14y ago
    To clarify: it is an excise tax and applies to the _gross sale price_, not the profits (so even if the division runs at a loss, they still have to pay). http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently-Asked-Questions http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently... I'd agree with your skepticism if it were affecting net (after employee salaries etc). > And besides, it doesn't invalidate the ethical point that it is right to privide medical insurance, even if true. Your original point was "There are no good reasons to be against the Act", so my response was pointing to a reason why someone would be against the act: I'm pretty sure that being laid off due to a regulation is a pretty good reason to be unhappy
    - cecilpl 14y ago
      > To clarify: it is an excise tax and applies to the _gross sale price_, not the profits (so even if the division runs at a loss, they still have to pay). http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently.. http://www.irs.gov/uac/Medical-Device-Excise-Tax:-Frequently.... I'd agree with your skepticism if it were affecting net (after employee salaries etc) AKA a sales tax. Which don't generally lead to broad-scale layoffs when they're imposed. Did California have massive layoffs when they raised their tax on everything in the entire economy in January? How about when Canada introduced a brand new 7% across the board sales tax in 1991? As a business, the standard way of responding to that kind of tax is to raise your prices correspondingly (to an appropriate level set by your supply/demand curves of course).
dantheman 14y ago
There are lot's of good reasons to be against the Act. How about it forcing the young and relatively poor to subsidize the old and relatively rich -- it's a giant intergenerational wealth transfer mechanism. Young adults will pay higher premiums under Obamacare because of its age rating system. The law stipulates that the maximum variation allowed in adult premiums is a cost ratio of 3 to 1. But as Heritage research shows, “The natural variation by age in medical costs is about 5 to 1—meaning that the oldest group of (non-Medicare) adults normally consumes about five times as much medical care as the youngest group.” Obamacare’s “rate compression” causes insurers to charge artificially low premiums for older adults and higher premiums for younger adults. Moreover, “Actuaries estimate that the effect will be to increase premiums for those ages 18–24 by 45 percent and those ages 25–29 by 35 percent while decreasing premiums for those ages 55–59 by 12 percent and those ages 60–64 by 13 percent.” http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/21/obamacares-2nd-anniversary-no-gift-for-young-americans/ http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/21/obamacares-2nd-anniversa...
- cecilpl 14y ago
  Remember the perfect is the enemy of the good. Don't oppose the Act because it doesn't bring about the best possible world. Oppose it only if it's worse than the currently existing situation.
  - dantheman 14y ago
    I oppose it because I think it will make the situation much worse. I prefer working in the direction of freeing healthcare not regulating it further.
- helmut_hed 14y ago
  The Heritage Foundation may be slightly biased on these issues...
- nijk 14y ago
  When those young people get old, they will have paid their fair share. The transition is of relatively minor importance.

johndavidback 14y ago

I'm genuinely interested in your positions of opposition to the Affordable Care Act, if any. You're right in saying the OP did not provide any, and I'd be curious to hear some cohesive argument against it that doesn't necessarily tow a party line. As far as the general timbre of the article, I would say it's pretty plainly stating that 'whether to provide healthcare?' offers no moral gray area whatsoever, and that it's a plain obligation on behalf of the employer.

bmelton 14y ago
Since you asked for points of opposition, I'll assume you have arguments in support readily available. The most obvious ones I can think of are: 1) The health care system is really broken, very expensive, and should be fixed outright. Letting the government foot the bill isn't a fix, and is just a waste of citizen tax dollars. 2) It isn't the American way. Instead of taxing Americans for health care, cut taxes, give them more money back, and let them spend it how they want, whether on health care or on preventative care. Create legislation that puts reasonable caps on health care expenses instead, and actually make health care affordable. 3) The federal government is woefully inefficient at getting things done, and that is by design. Managing this at the federal level just makes it even more expensive than it already is, because now in addition to all the costs associated with the medicine, care, hospitals and doctors, you've also got to pay the government middle-men as well. 4) It's a further abuse of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The commerce clause allows the federal government to regulate interstate commerce, not dictate commands to citizens in states. Allow states to implement their own health care acts if they so choose, and let the money stay closer to the people who need it, which should lower the administration costs.
- Cushman 14y ago
  It's pretty easy to see how these "criticisms" may seem less obvious (and less valid) to someone who a) is not deeply invested in American party politics and b) comes from a state with a well-functioning universal health care system. Or in other words, those work as reasons for a political enemy of health care to oppose the bill; they don't fly so well as reasons for a reasonable person to think everyone shouldn't have access to affordable health care.

pessimizer 14y ago

Every single objection you have to this article has nothing to do with either its content or form. Help me to understand why you would post a comment like this: >Color me critical, but it seems like, basically, the point of this article was to show off exactly how informed in her 'hard-nosed' critiques, and how that is proffered as justification for the obvious bias present in the article. I'm not sure how to translate this other than "He thinks she's so smart, so he's asserting that he has an opinion worth listening to." >I also find it interesting that despite the apparent mountains of reading, the author cannot determine any good reason why one might oppose ${THING_THAT_AUTHOR_SUPPORTS}, which tells me that either her bias refused to allow her to accept posed oppositions as valid, or that she simply doesn't care that other people do object. Translation: "He has an opinion, and he thinks that there are no reasonable arguments against that opinion, so his opinion must be worthless." Remind me never to tell you what I think 3 times 5 equals, because my opinion will not pass this criterion. >I think there are plenty of valid reasons for opposing it, just as there are plenty of reasons to support it, and frankly, I think all of major justifications on either side of the argument fall into the category of fairly obvious. Now we know what you think - but you're not considering telling us why because it's "fairly obvious?" The author told us why he thought what he thought, and you attacked him for not telling us why everybody else thought what they thought, too. >That said, kudos on ${ACTION_OF_AUTHOR_SUPPORTING_THING}. It is a tough decision, and it will ${COST_OF_SUPPORTING_THING}, but despite that, if you're ${WHAT_AUTHOR_IS} who ${HAS_AUTHORS_OPINION}, it is the obviously correct choice. Do you think the author is searching for your vague tautological approval? Comments like this trouble me. I don't understand why people take the time to make them. Color me honestly troubled.

bmelton 14y ago
Sorry to have been so troubling. What I meant to point out, and admittedly did a bad job of, is that I sensed a pattern of "thoroughly investigating" both sides of an issue as merely justification for calling someone a dick. I don't think that holds muster, especially as the same thorough investigation into health care reform led to absolutely zero evidence of why anyone could think it's a bad idea? No matter which you you side on the issue of the Affordable Care Act, there are compelling arguments on both sides of the debate. I don't see how you can do thorough investigation and come up with the conclusion that it is wholly good, unless you're just happy to categorize everybody in opposition as either dumb, naive, uninformed or just wrong. As for what I think, I did post reasons against in another thread here, which you're of course welcomed to find and/or respond to, but that's just a few of the rather obvious reasons against, and don't necessarily reflect my stance. My real stance is that it's a complicated issue, and both sides have very compelling truths in support of their stance. The willingness to ignore those compelling truths, even after seeking them out, speaks to a greater bias, in my opinion. You're correct in that perhaps I was overly harsh. I didn't intend to come off as negatively as my re-reading of my statement affirms that I did, but as there are currently more detractors of Obamacare than supporters, the assertion that the majority simply doesn't have a point at all, smacks of arrogance to me. There is another argument at play, that I think more accurately reflects the author's viewpoint, which is that there are not any good arguments against universal health care as a concept, and has to ignore the specifics of the particular universal health care bill that's been introduced and enacted. As a vague example, I'm betting you'd get pretty high poll numbers for a question that asked "Would you support a bill that could eliminate crime?", but would almost certainly be against any particular bill that sought to do exactly that as it would almost certainly entail the restriction of many of our American freedoms. All that said, yes, I am sorry to have posted a response that didn't more accurately measure how I felt, or at least try to temper that response with more supporting evidence, but at the time I was in a hurry. I don't really see how your response is very different than mine either, so I'll just assume we both responded with too much knee-jerk response and hope to call it a day. For what it's worth, the proverbial straw that tipped me into a frenzy was the line about Reddit - asserting that Reddit has never been excellent, and that despite this one particular case in which it obviously delivered excellence, the author assures us that it will never reach those heights again. Reddit is a big place, and there are pockets of excellence hidden amongst the mass of everything else. One man's trash being another man's treasure, the likelihood of a particular subreddit being considered universally good is of course slim, but to assume that this one particular thread is the very best that Reddit ever has, ever can, or ever will do just smacked too much of bullshit to me to let the rest go.