How do we clean up the American health care mess?

[quote=“Tigerman”]
[color=#0040FF]Another Liberal Obama Voter Sees the Light… And he is Pissed Off[/color]

[quote]I went to a friend and colleague—let’s call him Peter—for advice. He also had his individual medical policy cancelled because of Obamacare. “I’m stuck on the same question—income,” he told me. Peter does a little writing, a little farming, a little this and that to keep the ship afloat. “I got through to the exchange, and the woman there told me to just estimate what my income would be this year.” In other words: Make it up. If he overestimated, he’d be screwing himself out of a subsidy, Peter said. If he underestimated, he’d be hit with a big fat bill. He wasn’t sure he wouldn’t also be accused of fraud. So he called his accountant, who’s also a lawyer.

That only got him so far. At a certain point in the conversation, the accountant/lawyer had to get off the phone. “I have to stop answering your questions,” he told Peter. “I can’t ethically advise you, because honestly I don’t know the right thing to do. Nobody does. There are no answers. Right now [color=#FF0000]it’s a complete clusterfuck[/color].”[/quote]

These problems are not website glitch problems… Bad News Obama![/quote]

Really? Does “Peter” find it impossible to estimate his income when it comes to paying his estimated income tax, because he will have to be have doing that accurately for many years or face a fine as well. ANY self-employed person in the US knows that if more income comes in, more must be set aside to handle taxes. Duh. This is about as stupid an argument as I’ve ever heard. Has Peter ever applied for a loan? Oops, he had to show his last 3 years of income. Or maybe Peter doesn’t file taxes, and that’s his issue – that he can’t produce any documentation at all, and lives a cash economy to try to get out of paying tax?

[quote=“Tigerman”]
[color=#0040FF]Another Liberal Obama Voter Sees the Light… And he is Pissed Off[/color]

When the people who want you to do what they tell you can’t tell you what to do, we’ve got a major problem.

Whenever someone puts me in a double bind, I choose the option I prefer. When he objects, I present the evidence that he told me to do what I did. In public, if I can manage it.

Peter is doing the right thing here, appealing to the court of public opinion. Not that public opinion is always right, but he’s sure not going to get a fair trial with the IRS. So put the IRS on trial.

[quote=“rowland”][quote=“Tigerman”]
[color=#0040FF]Another Liberal Obama Voter Sees the Light… And he is Pissed Off[/color]

When the people who want you to do what they tell you can’t tell you what to do, we’ve got a major problem.

Whenever someone puts me in a double bind, I choose the option I prefer. When he objects, I present the evidence that he told me to do what I did. In public, if I can manage it.

Peter is doing the right thing here, appealing to the court of public opinion. Not that public opinion is always right, but he’s sure not going to get a fair trial with the IRS. So put the IRS on trial.[/quote]

Um, no. “Peter” is grasping at straws to prove something “Peter” wants to prove. If “Peter” even exists, of course. Most people who make up this sort of arguments aren’t self-employed and don’t know jack squat about what it means in terms of administrative stuff, just as most people in the US don’t know about work visa details and most people in Taiwan don’t know about their country’s work visa details. It doesn’t concern them, so they ignore it. Until they want to “make a point” using incorrect reasoning.

As a genuine self-employed person living in the US, I am telling “Peter” that this is BS. If he can’t estimate his own income, HE has a major problem, not “we”. It’s a basic operation of American financial life for the self-employed.

I’ve done the self emplyment thing. This estimating nonsense has always been a nuisance, but it used to be manageable. Now it’s getting a lot worse. There’s more to lose now when you guess wrong than there used to be.

Not good, and clearly the government’s fault. It’s like they hate small business or something.

Duh.

Peter does a little writing, a little farming, a little this and that to keep the ship afloat. How difficult is it to imagine that someone who does not have a steady monthly paycheck might not know precisely what income he expects?

I doubt you’ve ever done any farming.

:unamused:

[quote=“rowland”][quote=“ironlady”]Why would anyone accept two “facts” that are not facts?

Please.[/quote]

Off to a bad start here.[/quote]
Don’t think it’s going to get any better soon. :wink:

And i vote for giving rowland his own soap box thread

Dude, look at the IP forum! He’s already got like 20 of them!

(Or was your suggestion ironic?)

This might have something to do with it:

[quote] The five hospitals within a 15-mile radius of Mr. Charlap’s home here charge an average of about $5,200 for an echocardiogram, according to an analysis of Medicare’s database. The seven teaching hospitals in Boston, affiliated with Harvard, Tufts and Boston University, charge an average of about $1,300 for the same test. There are even wide variations within cities: In Philadelphia, prices range from $700 to $12,000.

…In other countries, regulators set what are deemed fair charges, which include built-in profit. In Belgium, the allowable charge for an echocardiogram is $80, and in Germany, it is $115. In Japan, the price ranges from $50 for an older version to $88 for the newest, Dr. Ikegami said. [/quote]

But of course, older people in those countries are dropping like flies. No, actually their life expectancy at 60 is slightly higher than that of Americans. However, in Belgium every echocardiogram adds a puny $80 to the GDP, while in the US it adds between $620 t0 11,920 more.

nytimes.com/2014/12/16/healt … v=top-news

For whatever it’s worth…

dailysignal.com/2016/06/22/ryan- … obamacare/

[quote]Among other provisions, the plan would:

End the “Cadillac tax” and otherwise equalize tax treatment of insurance plans.
Modernize Medicare for the elderly and reform Medicaid for the poor.
Loosen regulations on health savings accounts and encourage other innovations.
Protect doctors and nurses from being forced to perform abortions against their religious or moral convictions.

Dubbed “A Better Way to Fix Health Care,” the plan starts by abolishing the Affordable Care Act completely—repealing both the employer and individual mandates to purchase health insurance while tearing down the federal health insurance exchanges.
[/quote]

neoneocon.com/2016/06/25/the-hou … -about-it/

Let’s see good old Speaker Ryan agree to take on the health care plan he gives to the American people. Bet his proposal would change then.

They’re already exempt from Odammitcare. Socialized medicine is for the little people.

Duh. That’s the point.

Speaking of people free of the scourge of Odammitcare. Isn’t free enterprise medical care wonderful?
digbysblog.blogspot.tw/2016/07/j … al-in.html

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/11/09/501203831/trump-can-kill-obamacare-with-or-without-help-from-congress

A friend of my sister would be dead if it weren’t for Obamacare.

Trump: President of Death.

Yes. I personally know people who would not have insurance without the Affordable Care Act, and who would be dead as a result.

I find it a bit rich that you all sit in Taiwan with health insurance that is cheap and argue about how Americans shouldn’t have it.

1 Like

Must we start posting stories about people getting stiffed by Odammitcare? I thought this reality was well established.

Just because you think you have insurance doesn’t mean you actually have insurance. This is common knowledge by now. Which is one of the reasons the election turned out the way it did, by the way.

Well, old Gao Bohan (whatever happened to him?) started talking about Odammitcare here, and that’s the only reason for these threads. The political implications are vast; the international implications less so.

Anyway, it’s timely again. So let’s follow it.

[quote]Those mechanisms can’t be “amended” out of Obamacare; they are Obamacare. The mandate for guaranteed issue and the way in which the federal government forces insurers to handle that risk cannot exist without the other mandates. Eliminate the individual mandate, and especially the limitation requiring comprehensive policies, and you eliminate the wealth transfer necessary to subsidize older and less healthy consumers.
[/quote]

It got rammed down the country’s throat by a one-party government. Now we’ve got another one-party government. The Won is on the other foot. Elections have consequences.

Also - did they ever find a severability clause?

Oh. NOW they’re willing to talk?

Too little, too late.