Obama made a factual error during his press conference today. It comes at the end of this snippet.
Now, I think the really interesting question is why it is that my friends in the other party have made the idea of preventing these people from getting health care their holy grail. Their number-one priority. The one unifying principle in the Republican Party at the moment is making sure that 30 million people don’t have health care; and presumably, repealing all those benefits I just mentioned — kids staying on their parents’ plan, seniors getting discounts on their prescription drugs, I guess a return to lifetime limits on insurance, people with pre-existing conditions continuing to be blocked from being able to get health insurance.
That’s hard to understand as a — an agenda that is going to strengthen our middle class. At least they used to say, well, we’re going to replace it with something better. There’s not even a pretense now that they’re going to replace it with something better.
The — the — the notion is simply that those 30 million people, or the 150 million who are benefiting from the other aspects of affordable care, will be better off without it. That’s their assertion, not backed by fact, not backed by any evidence.
It’s just become an ideological fixation.
It’s not correct that the Republicans think that people will be better off if they are medically un- or underinsured. The Republicans just don’t think they should have to pay for it.
That’s it.
It all comes back to the idea that everyone should just get a fucking job already and stop asking for handouts.
Would you like a visual aid?
¿Parle usted ingles?
You’re right that Republican office-holders don’t think that people will be better off if they are medically un- or underinsured. Republican office-holders think that Republican office-holders will be better off if they work to keep people un- or underinsured.
If they could get rich supporting single-payer, they’d do that, instead.
Nah.
They wouldn’t.
Because it isn’t about getting rich. Most Republicans haven’t got the slightest clue about how to get rich. But they’re basically comfortable. And they had to work for what they have. And, dammit, everyone else should be able to do what they’ve done.
Sure, that’s only most Republicans. There are the poor Republicans who actually would benefit, but are too concerned that coloreds will be getting a helping hand, too. Or they’re too proud to admit that they qualify for Medicaid.
And there’s the rich ones who really would support single payer if it would increase their wealth, but they only finance things. Numerically, they are insignificant.
I think the key thing that makes Republicans Republicans is an overriding sense that someone undeserving is getting a free ride, and voting for Republicans will create a system that makes that person fend for himself. To keep this ideology working smoothly involves inventing a constant stream of iconic undeserving people, like “welfare queens” and “union thugs,” no real-life version of which they will ever meet, who lead charmed lives funded by the hardworking people of America. Ever seen that bumper sticker “Work Harder: Millions on welfare depend on you”? That’s the keystone that keeps the whole party from collapsing.
More and more I’ve come to see the essence of the right wing as spite. It’s the engine that drives all else.
I was thinking about this today, just before you posted. How an entire party is coalescing around the notion of taking away people’s right to health insurance as their unifying principal. It left me thinking “Who the fuck are these monsters?”
Over time, I think it will slowly become common knowledge to the average person that these pieces of excrement who would sooner watch helpless people die than allow reform to happen are male offspring of female dogs.
People are confused about what Obamacare is. I know I am. It’s not just politicians feeding this. Health care providers are telling people that cuts in service and increases in costs are mandated by Obamacare. The fellow I mentioned that had the quadruple bypass was told by his surgeon that he is lucky that this didn’t happen next year because Obamacare would not pay for it because he is overweight. Similarly for the smoker with lung cancer. My lunch companion’s wife is a CNA at a nursing home and she tells him that management says there will be drastic cuts in service next year because of Obamacare. My one lung doctor spent most of last month’s visit re-entering all my data into a new Medicare form that he says is mandated by Obamacare. He is changing my diagnosis from COPD to Asthma because Obamacare says only smokers can get COPD. I told him that I smoked for 28 years, quitting 25 years ago, but it fell on deaf ears. He just kept saying, “How did this diagnosis get in here anyway?” I kept repeating that his colleague, the other lung specialist made the diagnosis, telling me that I have a problem with both the tubes (asthma) and the sacs (emphysema), but I might as well have been talking to the wall.
So are these people all screwed up or what? No wonder people are antsy. Our union rep tells us that premiums are going to go up 40% next year because of Obamacare. Is it any wonder that people tell their congressperson to vote for repeal? As for me, I’m waiting to see what happens, but not without trepidation. My guess is that Obamacare is good if you had an uncovered pre-existing condition or no insurance at all, but bad if you had good insurance.
It’s like Sarah Palin is whispering in your ear.
First of all, the law is great for all non-career postal workers. The doctor who performed a quadruple bypass lied to his patient. Your doctor is smoking crack.
ObamaCare basically makes everyone insurable. If you have insurance, you are already insurable. You could pay more for your insurance under certain circumstances, but you’ll definitely be getting something of value for it in return if you do.
The law envisions a panel that will evaluate best practices for care, but it hasn’t even been formed yet and can’t possibly make a judgment on whether non-smokers can have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease:.
To answer your question, these people are all screwed up.
Thank you, sir, for posting that clip. One of the funnier scenes from a very, very funny movie.
As far as Obamacare, I am reminded of Mitch McConnell, when asked how the Rethugs would insure 30M people if Obamacare was repealed he looked flabbergasted and responded that that wasn’t the point! He just flatly didn’t care if people had heath care coverage or not. Far more important to destroy the ACA and defeat Obama.
The Thugs are putting out massive amounts of negative propaganda (i.e. COPD won’t be covered – say what?) because they know that once the act is fully implemented people are going to like it and repeal will be a thing of the distant past. Just listen to Ted Cruz’ rantings on it. He basically says that people benefiting from the ACA are moochers and will want all the free stuff just like they do with their Social Security and Medicare. These guys are shameless. They don’t care if people’s lives are shorter and less healthy without insurance coverage if they can use it as a club to bash Obama.
As far as premiums going up drastically – the 80%/85% rules are in effect and if the insurance companies don’t provide enough in the way of benefits they’ll have to refund the excess premiums. So that’s just another scare tactic too.
Just remember St. Ronnie bemoaning that Americans were no longer free because Medicare. Different era. Same song.
Not only that but they have to compete against each other on the exchanges. Now, every year, we can look at our plan and compare it to others. Benefits will be clear. Costs will be equally clear. Set your prices too high and you’ll lose market share.
Yes, yes.
But remember:
Transparency with objective analysis is just a slippery slope to Socialism, comrade.
Nostrovia, comrade!
Unions are going to be the one group that doesn’t fare so well under ObamaCare.
In the short term that is true but for years now unions have been trading away pay for benefits so I think it will help in the long run for there to be a much broader and more comprehensive base for benefits.
I believe that was the argument when the law was being argued. It’s actually an added benefit that I think union members that are in that situation will appreciate once their contracts are up for negotiation.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that there are actually two separate discussions going on here. One is over the propriety of the federal government having any involvement in health insurance at all, and the other is over the details. The Republican attack is kind of a bait-and-switch, because even when they are pointing to genuine flaws in the legislation–details–their solution isn’t to revise the legislation but to scrap the whole thing.
The dark and terrible secret that’s hiding in plain sight is that there’s no reason future Congresses can’t pass more bills that extend government involvement in healthcare even further. Maybe we didn’t get the public option the first time around, but that doesn’t mean we can never have the public option. So we need to fight to establish the principle that this is the kind of thing the government can do.
“We the people” means me too, motherfuckers. And I WANT socialized medicine.
Well, I’m a career Postal Worker not non-career. Still, I’m much more worried about the bi-partisan bill in the Senate to allow the Postmaster-General to take us off FEHB and throw us into some cheap postal only piece of crap, probably an HMO, the PMG has said as much.
Yes, it has occurred to me that most doctors are Republicans so they only hear nonsense. Doctors have to pass a long grueling educational trek. They then think they are geniuses and know everything. Thus, they have long been well-known as gullible marks for boiler rooms selling crap financial instruments. Their fanatic opposition to income taxes helps make them suckers for these financial and political con men too.
Worthless cheap McMedicine from United Healthcare. Ugh!
This is the shit they want to force on us and current/future retirees. I will drop my coverage, enroll in Medicare Part B, buy two BCBS Plan “F”s and two Medicare D’s. It will cost me more and the costs will escalate as we get older, but we will have real coverage.
Here’s Mrs. ID’s monthly Medicare cost for anyone who might be wondering. I’m still on the county government plan. Its cheap and better than no insurance at all, but the deductible keeps climbing every couple of years and the copays are murderous if if I have anything fairly significant done, like a colonoscopy or MRI. Mrs. ID has several medical issues so we switched her to Medicare back in January. Last year we had several thousand bucks in copays, have not paid a penny for doctors or tests under Medicare, just a couple of hundred for drug copays.
Medicare A (hospital inpatient) no cost
Medicare B (everything else eg: doctors, labs) 110.50
Medicare Supplement (pays the copays) 166.10
Medicare D (drugs) 15.00
Total monthly cost 291.60
Wow. As a self-employed individual in Massachusetts, I’m paying over $600 a month, with large deductibles and copays.
I turn 65 in February, and I can’t wait to switch over.
Unfortunately I think your story reveals that doctors can be breathless, uninformed political ideologues too.
Hey, calling all toasters, what’s the warning about? Reporting true conversations? Better to live in a dream world where the population is 110% behind Obamacare, instead of being nervous about it? Watch out that you don’t wake up in 2014 with a Republican Senate. That could happen if you ignore public fears and don’t address them.
At this point I don’t think that even the “get a job” attitude really captures what is going on with the republican party. I think it’s much graver than that. There is obviously a passionately cultivated need to feel superior to others, to look on misfortune and poverty not as a social problem but as an opportunity to stand in judgement of others, which is one of the great America passions. But even calling it barely sublimated racial animus or magical thinking are almost too rationalistic to describe what’s going on. I can’t really get my mind around it but I find Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash to be a relevant reference. Specifically the cult of the raft people and their trance inducing broadcasts of mind control gibberish.
On the one hand I do like this but when he said it at the time it actually made things difficult for those of us who were working on health care reform.
Do you really think Republicans would have been more open to health care reform if Alan Grayson had been nicer to them?
It isn’t about the Republicans; it’s about the undecideds.
Sort of like improving American’s image in the Muslim world isn’t about convincing al Qaeda members. It’s about convincing everyone else in the Muslim world not to sympathize with them.
What undecideds? Seriously, Grayson’s speech is not one that most undecideds would ever have seen. He was part of a chorus that was pushing the line that Republicans don’t care about the health of uninsured Americans. But they were doing a pretty good job of branding themselves with their “chickens for checkups” comments and support for insurance plans that barred coverage of pre-existing conditions, including pregnancy.
You know who doesn’t believe in undecided?
People who get 37% in an election.
That Grayson stunt made me laugh, but it resulted in toxic news coverage of Grayson that sank his reelection effort. Particularly on CNN, he was excoriated by nodding know-betters.
A politician has to keep in mind what makes them effective, and getting reelected is part of it.
Grayson lost during the Republican surge in 2010. Unless you can point to similar offenses committed by the dozens of other Democrats who lost that year, I don’t think this line of reasoning holds up.
I didn’t say that I didn’t believe in undecideds. I said, I didn’t believe that most undecideds new or cared about what some random Congressman said on the floor of the House.
Early in my fire-rescue career, a co-worker and I were riding back to our station after working a car accident. He leaned over and said, do you know why some people slow down and gawk at traffic accidents? They’ve finally found someone more miserable than they are.
Republicans just want to bask in the greater misery of others.
Really, there’s only one sensible response to all of these paranoid, obstructionist, reality-challenged Republicans:
“This will not stand.”
Republicans absolutely make the argument that people can be better off without health insurance. It’s behind their anger at the mandatory coverage clauses in the new health care law.
Why shouldn’t a young, healthy person be allowed to buy an insurance plan with a huge deductible, that doesn’t cover pre-existing conditions and has a life-time cap?
Republicans fought against all these rules to the law, typically arguing that young, healthy people will be economically better off if they stay uninsured or buy only “catastrophic” coverage.
To the point. This is what FreedomWorks is pushing:
Whether they believe it or not, FreedomWorks are explicitly pushing the idea that many of the uninsured are better off without it.
Boy… for all the supposed Luntzian branding brilliance of the GOP, running with that was a serious cock-up.
The reality for the GOP is that their collective racism leads to terrible errors of strategic judgement. Right wing media isn’t proselytizing, it’s a daily affirmation.
I understand that El Rushbo was ranting and raving the other day about how bad elimination of the pre-existing condition exclusion is. In other words, it’s bad public policy that insurance companies are deprived of a way to screw people out of benefits. http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/08/08/limbaugh-requiring-coverage-of-pre-existing-con/195297
The Lunatic Right’s mindset really is that people who are powerless in the marketplace deserve to be hurt because of it.
I’m a supporter of both Obama and Obamacare. I do, however, have a question/concern that the Booman community may be able to help me with.
I am a teacher with a 7 year old daughter and a wife who has a number of health problems. She is unable to have a job that provides insurance and therefore my insurance needs to provide for all of my family. Because of incessant budgetary cutbacks in my rural Virginia school district, I am forced to get expensive, high deductible insurance. That means @ $650/month out of my paycheck for insurance that never reimburses me for anything. It’s crap insurance.
I checked the Kaiser Foundation’s Obamacare calculator on how much I would pay on the exchange and it was significantly less than I’m paying now. However, since health insurance is provided by my job, I can’t use the plans on the exchange.
We are going to explore the possibility of utilizing SCHIP. Are there any other possibilities that I’m not thinking of? Is there anyone else in my situation?
Thanks for your kind attention to this.