4 ms·

>I find myself wondering if youth support for the bill would drop somewhat if youth realized what was being done to them. Probably not since: a) The youth are

>I find myself wondering if youth support for the bill would drop somewhat if youth realized what was being done to them. Probably not since: a) The youth are the least likely to have insurance. b) The least likely to be able to afford it (they usually have jobs that make less money). c) Since they meet both a & b, they'll likely be eligible for the credit/handout that they can use to buy the insurance (if that's still in the plan, hard to keep track of and I don't feel like reading through 80 different versions of a 2000 page bill). Thus it's more a transfer of wealth into the insurance companies. Even with a public option (which I believe in the last rev of the bill, states could opt out of), most people will probably just end up with private insurance. > So it is possible this provision could be struck down, but leave the rest of the bill intact, committing to massive outlays with no way to pay for it. This is probably where this will be in 3-4 years. Which will give lots of opportunity then for the opposition to be able to point out how expensive this all is. sigh Not a really helpful attitude towards engineering a solution, but the GOP hasn't been on top of this issue at all in the last 30 years while every other industrialized country on Earth has at least given it a good go.

jerf 17y ago
It's not that hard for even a youth to get a job that gets you past the subsidy provisions... well, at least in a normal economy... but I hear what you're saying. Part of what I'm saying though is it is not just an instantaneous transfer; as "youth" move up into their 30s and 40s, they'll be transferring wealth up the chain, and in their 30s and 40s probably still not needing a lot of medical services on average. It's not just today, it's the next 30 years of your life that you'll be experiencing a high marginal tax rate. Which as we all know, under Democratic theories of economics, nobody ever considers the question of marginal tax rates when making decisions about their jobs, of course. "Not a really helpful attitude towards engineering a solution, but the GOP hasn't been on top of this issue at all in the last 30 years while every other industrialized country on Earth has at least given it a good go." Well, I've actually liked the GOP proposals that I've read. Yes, the ones that do in fact exist. (Claims that the GOP have offered no solutions are one of the most blatant lies of the entire process; it's simply objectively false. You may not like them but they exist. Another example of our media being either incredibly biased or totally unwilling to follow up on the statements of politicians.... reader's choice.) It's not particularly relevant because if they had to craft a bill that might actually pass in the real world it would get bogged down in all kinds of crap, but there's so much low hanging fruit in the system that the current bill still manages to fail to address in 2000 pages, such as tort reform.
- elblanco 17y ago
  >Well, I've actually liked the GOP proposals that I've read. Yes, the ones that do in fact exist. (Claims that the GOP have offered no solutions are one of the most blatant lies of the entire process; it's simply objectively false. You may not like them but they exist... It's funny, during these last few months of the debate, this topic has come up a large number of times among my social group (largely in a community and neighborhood messageboard startd as an alternative to my HOA board and in proper startup fashion now has advertisements). There certainly are many examples of work done by the GOP in this area in the last administration (mostly around medication pricing), but as to this particular case the GOP has been very late to the party and has brought substantially no ideas to the table until very recently -- generally running and obstructive tactic vs. an alternative tactic. I believe the alternative bill they presented a week or so ago was political theater mostly. There was no chance on it getting debated, voted on, or really seriously considered (particularly this late in the game), and the party knew that. That's why the opening portions of the bill didn't contain policy, but rather a stream of consciousness of party talking points. They simply wanted to be able to point to it and say "see? our ideas aren't even being considered!" knowing full well that most people won't have tracked the submission date of the bill. David Gergen offered a different but similarly minded analysis today. What I thought was interesting is that, when I asked people, and threw out ideas almost a year ago now, the right leaning members of my community generally came up with some very good, feasible plans that addressed the bulk of this particular issues (no recision, no denial of coverage, must accept people for coverage even with preexisting conditions, balanced by an open market place, all insurance is moved nationally, breeding open competition etc.). But these weren't offered up by the Party (capital P) until many months later. Instead the Party chose to run a scare campaign that had very little to do with the actual contents of any of the proposed bills (including doing a Godwin and interjecting Nazis, which was clearly the point knew they had no appropriate counter argument in the wings anymore). It was wholly disappointing.
  - jerf 17y ago
    "I believe the alternative bill they presented a week or so ago was political theater mostly." Consider http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.1099 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.1099: . Note the date. It may not run to 2000 pages, but I consider that a feature, not a bug. Again, the idea that Republicans did nothing but run an obstructionist campaign is pretty much objectively a lie. What is true is that only their obstructionism was reported in the press. That said, it's not like anything they wrote had a chance of getting passed, I am aware of that, and frankly at this point I'm not a fan of either party on this point as it's pretty clearly a choice between dumb and dumber (reader's choice as to which is which), but the putative "coverage" of Republicans has been blindingly biased. Not that the press has done much more than sit there and twitch feebly every once in a while. (Further, I'd point out that as a minority, "obstructionism" is pretty much their job. The idea that this is evil rather suspiciously dates to January of this year, for mysterious reasons.)

jerf 17y ago

It's not that hard for even a youth to get a job that gets you past the subsidy provisions... well, at least in a normal economy... but I hear what you're saying. Part of what I'm saying though is it is not just an instantaneous transfer; as "youth" move up into their 30s and 40s, they'll be transferring wealth up the chain, and in their 30s and 40s probably still not needing a lot of medical services on average. It's not just today, it's the next 30 years of your life that you'll be experiencing a high marginal tax rate. Which as we all know, under Democratic theories of economics, nobody ever considers the question of marginal tax rates when making decisions about their jobs, of course. "Not a really helpful attitude towards engineering a solution, but the GOP hasn't been on top of this issue at all in the last 30 years while every other industrialized country on Earth has at least given it a good go." Well, I've actually liked the GOP proposals that I've read. Yes, the ones that do in fact exist. (Claims that the GOP have offered no solutions are one of the most blatant lies of the entire process; it's simply objectively false. You may not like them but they exist. Another example of our media being either incredibly biased or totally unwilling to follow up on the statements of politicians.... reader's choice.) It's not particularly relevant because if they had to craft a bill that might actually pass in the real world it would get bogged down in all kinds of crap, but there's so much low hanging fruit in the system that the current bill still manages to fail to address in 2000 pages, such as tort reform.

elblanco 17y ago
>Well, I've actually liked the GOP proposals that I've read. Yes, the ones that do in fact exist. (Claims that the GOP have offered no solutions are one of the most blatant lies of the entire process; it's simply objectively false. You may not like them but they exist... It's funny, during these last few months of the debate, this topic has come up a large number of times among my social group (largely in a community and neighborhood messageboard startd as an alternative to my HOA board and in proper startup fashion now has advertisements). There certainly are many examples of work done by the GOP in this area in the last administration (mostly around medication pricing), but as to this particular case the GOP has been very late to the party and has brought substantially no ideas to the table until very recently -- generally running and obstructive tactic vs. an alternative tactic. I believe the alternative bill they presented a week or so ago was political theater mostly. There was no chance on it getting debated, voted on, or really seriously considered (particularly this late in the game), and the party knew that. That's why the opening portions of the bill didn't contain policy, but rather a stream of consciousness of party talking points. They simply wanted to be able to point to it and say "see? our ideas aren't even being considered!" knowing full well that most people won't have tracked the submission date of the bill. David Gergen offered a different but similarly minded analysis today. What I thought was interesting is that, when I asked people, and threw out ideas almost a year ago now, the right leaning members of my community generally came up with some very good, feasible plans that addressed the bulk of this particular issues (no recision, no denial of coverage, must accept people for coverage even with preexisting conditions, balanced by an open market place, all insurance is moved nationally, breeding open competition etc.). But these weren't offered up by the Party (capital P) until many months later. Instead the Party chose to run a scare campaign that had very little to do with the actual contents of any of the proposed bills (including doing a Godwin and interjecting Nazis, which was clearly the point knew they had no appropriate counter argument in the wings anymore). It was wholly disappointing.
- jerf 17y ago
  "I believe the alternative bill they presented a week or so ago was political theater mostly." Consider http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.1099 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:S.1099: . Note the date. It may not run to 2000 pages, but I consider that a feature, not a bug. Again, the idea that Republicans did nothing but run an obstructionist campaign is pretty much objectively a lie. What is true is that only their obstructionism was reported in the press. That said, it's not like anything they wrote had a chance of getting passed, I am aware of that, and frankly at this point I'm not a fan of either party on this point as it's pretty clearly a choice between dumb and dumber (reader's choice as to which is which), but the putative "coverage" of Republicans has been blindingly biased. Not that the press has done much more than sit there and twitch feebly every once in a while. (Further, I'd point out that as a minority, "obstructionism" is pretty much their job. The idea that this is evil rather suspiciously dates to January of this year, for mysterious reasons.)