Perry Nullifies Obamacare in Texas!

[DinoDoc]

I quoted the Associated Press, you dullard, and they reported the exact opposite of your opinion piece. You're getting more pathetic by the minute.

It isn't an opinion piece you ****.

[Dinner]

You calling anyone a **** is a joke.

[Dinner]

Incidentally, if the health care law does take effect and is not repealed, I plan to go uninsured. Nothing else makes sense since I will be paying a massively higher premium due to limits on how much more they can charge old people and women, and pre-existing conditions can't be excluded. As a young white male, my premiums should be pretty low, but they won't be thanks to obamacare.

Free loaders like you are why the penalty should be much higher. I agree that Universal Care is a far more intelligent solution, especially if it cuts out the useless middlemen, but for now this is a huge improvement over the unsustainable status quo. Also, I shall enjoy the schadenfreude if you get hit by a bus.

[DaShi]

Incidentally, if the health care law does take effect and is not repealed, I plan to go uninsured. Nothing else makes sense since I will be paying a massively higher premium due to limits on how much more they can charge old people and women, and pre-existing conditions can't be excluded. As a young white male, my premiums should be pretty low, but they won't be thanks to obamacare.

Not likely. Your premiums would be about the same assuming there is nothing grossly abnormal about you.

[regexcellent]

Free loaders like you are why the penalty should be much higher.

If you read John Roberts' opinion, the only reason the individual mandate stood is because it's not sufficiently high to be actually coercive. Yes, it should be higher, given all else. No, the law shouldn't exist at all.

I agree that Universal Care is a far more intelligent solution, especially if it cuts out the useless middlemen

I disagree; universal care is even worse. This, at least for the most part, leaves things as they are. The 1-2% of the market consisting of individual insurance plans will simply disappear and people will only be able to get health care through their employers (and good luck with that, since unemployment will go through the roof once the tax on employees hits). But fortunately, the majority of people will be relatively unaffected since very few people have individual plans. As long as nobody takes the medicaid money, we're mostly in the clear, save for the horrible new regulations and taxes that prevent job creation.

but for now this is a huge improvement over the unsustainable status quo.

It is significantly less sustainable than the status quo. The status quo is unsustainable only thanks to medicare and medicaid, which are being expanded.

Also, I shall enjoy the schadenfreude if you get hit by a bus.

I drive everywhere and I live in the suburbs. What bus?

Not likely. Your premiums would be about the same assuming there is nothing grossly abnormal about you.

Patently false. Old people currently have high premiums. Women have higher premiums than men. Soon insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate prices that way; there's an upper limit to the factor difference there can be between my premium and an 60 year old woman's. Since the cost of insuring me right now is very very low, it will have to go up to subsidize the expensive health insurance of those people.

[Dinner]

Not likely. Your premiums would be about the same assuming there is nothing grossly abnormal about you.

Especially since the over all size of the insurance pool has been increased so the per person costs should either be the same or slightly lower. Of course, expanding the insurance pool to it's logical largest extent, the whole population of an entire country, would have the widest possible distribution of risk resulting in the lowest possible cost per person. Dozens of countries manage to do this well so I refuse to believe the US is uniquely unable to do so; it's just a matter of getting the greedy and useless middle men out of their rent seeking positions.

[regexcellent]

Increasing demand is not going to reduce prices.

[DaShi]

Patently false. Old people currently have high premiums. Women have higher premiums than men. Soon insurance companies will no longer be able to discriminate prices that way; there's an upper limit to the factor difference there can be between my premium and an 60 year old woman's. Since the cost of insuring me right now is very very low, it will have to go up to subsidize the expensive health insurance of those people.

Most people have higher premiums that what their healthcare would actually cost. Or at least in a more efficient system, they should. This is not something you can complain about. I suggest you educate yourself on how health insurance (or any insurance, for that matter) works before continuing this conversation.

[Tupac Shakur]

Health "insurance" in America already doesn't work like other types of insurance, and the divergence will be even greater once the PPACA takes effect and everyone is required to purchase relatively comprehensive health plans.

[Tupac Shakur]

Adding some necessary context to this thread...

Now that the Court has upheld the individual mandate, these insurance exchanges constitute the key to the success or failure of the law. They are also its Achilles' heel.

How's that? Well, as the Cato Institute's Michael Cannon succinctly puts it, "Without these bureaucracies, Obamacare cannot work." And, oddly enough, the law doesn't actually require states to set up these "marketplaces." Moreover, there is no rational incentive for them to do so. If a state sets up an exchange, it then must pay for it, which won't be cheap. Cannon writes, "States that opt to create an exchange can expect to pay anywhere from $10 million to $100 million per year to run it." This is a burden that the states, most of which are already in deep financial trouble, are not likely to embrace with enthusiasm.

The federal government can set up its own exchanges, in theory, but Obamacare stipulates that Washington would then be required to pick up the tab as well. And, as Cannon goes on to point out, "The Obama administration has admitted it doesn't have the money -- and good luck getting any such funding through the GOP-controlled House." And it gets worse. If the federal government is forced to set up an exchange, it faces yet another huge problem. As Sally Pipes and Hal Scherz write, "The text of the law stipulates that only state-based exchanges -- not federally run ones -- may distribute credits and subsidies."

Thus, if a state refuses to set up an exchange, the feds have no real ability to do so either. The states have an opportunity, therefore, to shoot a poison arrow directly into Obamacare's Achilles' heel.

The States Can Still Kill Obamacare

This isn't completely accurate as the IRS has issued rules to allow federal exchanges to distribute credits and subsidies despite the text of the PPACA, but those rules can be changed if the GOP wins the presidency in November.

[SlowwHand]

Why don't you non-Texans go worry about where you live? Oerdin, you would be an example of this observation.

[Ben Kenobi]

These statements make no sense together. People under 18 have no choice; they do not purchase insurance and, if insured, are carried on their parents' policies.

It makes just as much sense as saying that 26 percent of Texans are without coverage because they cannot get it.

[Ben Kenobi]

You're stupid. No exchange means most people in Texas will still buy health insurance but they're likely to pay more for that insurance.

Bull****. It means that they will be able to keep their current plans without getting dumped by their workplace.

Health care exchanges are a way for people and companies to go to one place, say exactly what type of coverage they want, and then receive a bid from every insurance company which is part of the exchange. This means one stop shopping and a reverse auction where insurance companies try to outbid each other so consumers end up paying less.

In practice it means private companies that provide insurance no longer do so (as it's cheaper), and everyone on a corporate plan loses their insurance.

they result in lower prices for consumers and increased competition.

Can Dinner be anymore wrong?

[Ben Kenobi]

those rules can be changed if the GOP wins the presidency in November.

Not with Mitt Romney at the helm. They can do it if they win the Senate. The presidency is irrelevant since both Obama and Mitt are pushing Obamacare.

[Dinner]

Increasing demand is not going to reduce prices.

Increasing the insurance pool (the number of people costs are divided between) may very well mean lower costs even with increases demand. It demands on the number of new people in the insurance pool, the amount of increased demand, and the relative health of the new people added. This is the basic facts which all insurance companies use to make a profit.