Will Obamacare get its act together in time?

[giblets]

Sorry if I find it more acceptable to call 90% of the first world lazy or stupid than I find it to pick on somebody who's described his clinical depression and job travails to us honestly.

If he has clinical depression then it wouldn't be any surprise if he were a slacker. Not his fault, of course.

[KrazyHorse]

Lulz. Think it through, dick. I call all people who are upper middle class lazy or stupid and you go to an individual who's actually earning in the bottom half of income and call him lazy.

Which one is acceptable hyperbole and which one is being an ass?

[MrFun]

If he has clinical depression then it wouldn't be any surprise if he were a slacker. Not his fault, of course.

Again, I don't see how the fact that I work hard at the job I have makes me a slacker.

[giblets]

Lulz. Think it through, dick. I call all people who are upper middle class lazy or stupid and you go to an individual who's actually earning in the bottom half of income and call him lazy.

Which one is acceptable hyperbole and which one is being an ass?

Clearly only hyperbole on a massive scale is acceptable.

To be clear, I don't have any opinion on MrFun's work ethic, I just think citing his work history at Staples and the travails of helping customers is a really bad way to try to counter Ogie's claim that he is a slacker.

edit: It would be an excellent rebuttal if he were 16. His best evidence that he isn't a slacker is his degree.

[MrFun]

Clearly only hyperbole on a massive scale is acceptable.

To be clear, I don't have any opinion on MrFun's work ethic, I just think citing his work history at Staples and the travails of helping customers is a really bad way to try to counter Ogie's claim that he is a slacker.

edit: It would be an excellent rebuttal if he were 16. His best evidence that he isn't a slacker is his degree.

Should I have posted my entire work history then in rebutting Ogie?

I could have used the fact that I earned my Masters degree, but I was thinking of my current example of my work ethic.

[giblets]

Should I have posted my entire work history then in rebutting Ogie?

I could have used the fact that I earned my Masters degree, but I was thinking of my current example of my work ethic.

How about ignoring him?

[MrFun]

How about ignoring him?

I was going to, but I guess I just had to say something.

Anyway, if Ogie feels like he's a bigger/more important man for trying to knock down someone with clinical depression, more power to him ....

I guess.

[SlowwHand]

nm. Not worth it.

[Ben Kenobi]

Also, you're the one masturbating to the thought of how great colonizing other people against their will is.

Right, that's because Americans founded a colony in the Philippines and named it after themselves, and kept it for several hundred years. Oh wait, no they didn't. America granted the Philippines independence. The Americans are the liberators not the colonizers.

Just because you live somewhere doesn't mean you approve of the entire history of what has happened there. Unless by moving to Texas you are approving of slavery, polygamist compounds, assassinating JFK, and genocide against natives? (Ok, maybe a bad example ... since you likely have some ****ed-up convoluted reasoning why at least some of those things were good.)

That's all on you - bro. I like TX because it has amazing people and an excellent work climate.

You only used the Philippines as an analogy without noting the obvious differences that made your analogy rather pointless.

What obvious differences? Aside from being a French colony as opposed to being a Spanish colony.

No one is saying all intervention to help others is wrong, dumbass.

You just did in arguing that the Americans shouldn't have gone to war to try to save South Vietnam.

The Filipinos did declare independence and formed a Republic. Which was then promptly squashed by the US, yes.

And who granted you independence? Spain or the US?

We should have granted independence and not been such racially motivated hypocrits.

The Philippines did get their independence, and Americans died to free the Philippines from the Japanese.

Any benefit the Philippines received from the US in later years could more easily have been accomplished without the US fighting a war to subjugate them first.

No American interests in the Philippines - what if the Japanese don't attack Pearl? And America decides that fighting a war to free the Philippines isn't really in America's best interests?

[MrFun]

No. The US fought against the Filipinos and forced them to give up their new Republic. Just because Spanish Catholics did worse to the Filipinos doesn't make it right to destroy a fledgling democracy in favor of a few more decades of colonial aspirations.

QFT

[The Mad Monk]

Hey, check it out! Bipartisanship may be at hand!

Lawmakers push to keep Obama's health care pledge
Associated Press
By DAVID ESPO 17 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Little more than a week after millions of consumers received health care cancellation notices, lawmakers in both parties are pushing legislation to redeem President Barack Obama's long-ago pledge that anyone liking their coverage will be allowed to keep it under the nation's controversial new law.

The result is a stern new challenge for the White House as it struggles to fix website woes for the signup portal for those seeking to enroll under the law, and simultaneously copes with angry consumers who rightly or wrongly blame "Obamacare" for cancellation letters mailed by insurers.

Democratic officials said top administration aides got a close-up view of the cancellation controversy last week, when Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., said at a closed-door meeting of the party's rank and file that his son had received notice his coverage was being terminated.

In response, these officials said White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough referred to a speech Obama had made earlier in the week saying some of those losing coverage would qualify under Medicaid, some would receive federal subsidies for individual coverage, and others would have options in the so-called exchanges the law set up to allow individuals to shop for insurance. Donnelly's office declined several requests for comment. The officials who described the incident did so on condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to discuss a private meeting.

In the Republican-controlled House, officials say a vote is likely as early as next week on a bill to let insurers continue selling any individual policies that were in effect on Jan. 1, 2013, even if they provide coverage deemed insufficient under Obamacare.

The measure, drafted by Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., and backed by roughly 100 fellow Republicans, would remain in effect throughout 2014, after which the issue would presumably be reviewed.

"Despite the president's repeated promise of 'if you like your plan, you can keep it,' many Americans are now learning the sad reality that their current plan will no longer exist beginning on January 1," Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement when he announced his legislation last week.

"This legislation is about providing folks the peace of mind that they will be allowed to keep their current coverage if they so choose."

While Upton's legislation permits insurers to sell existing coverage plans that would otherwise be banned, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., introduced legislation during the day to go one step further by requiring it.

Aides said that under her measure, insurance companies would be obliged to continue offering existing paying customers continued coverage under any plans in effect at the end of 2013. No new consumers could enroll.

"A promise was made that if you like your health plan, you can keep it - and I will do everything I can to see that the promise is kept," said Landrieu, who is gearing up for what is expected to be a challenging re-election campaign next year.

In a statement, Landrieu added that "Many people may find better plans in the marketplaces that offer superior coverage for them at a good value and at a potentially lower cost. But if people want to keep their current plans, they should be able to do so."

Her measure also requires insurers to explain areas in which the coverage falls short of the law's requirements, and notify consumers they may be able to find an alternative plan that meets the requirements.

The White House declined comment on the two bills.

Both measures are designed to cut through a complicated system in which some plans for individuals that fall short of coverage standards are allowed to continue under Obamacare, while others are not.

In general, individual coverage plans in effect on the date the legislation was enacted, March 23, 2010, may continue to be sold, regardless of their coverage levels. There are exceptions, though, including plans that significantly increase costs to consumers through higher deductibles, copayments or other steps.

According to an explanation published by Families USA, an increase in deductibles above medical inflation plus 15 percentage points would disqualify a plan from continued sale, for example.

Under current law, plans that went into effect after March 23, 2010 and fall short of the law's coverage requirements may not be sold beyond the end of the year.

That means that insurance companies that began selling new policies later throughout much of 2010 or in the two following years did so presumably knowing they would have to be canceled.

The impetus to amend the law is particularly strong among Republicans, who have voted dozens of times to repeal, defund or dismantle a program they voted against unanimously.

Unlike other GOP proposals, Upton's bill could conceivably add to the overall number of individuals gaining coverage. In political terms, it allows lawmakers to recite Obama's pledge delivered before the American Medical Association in 2009. "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period," he said. "If you like your health-care plan, you'll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."

http://news.yahoo.com/lawmakers-push-keep-obamas-health-care-pledge-220513736.html

[Sava]

nm. Not worth it.

Fun isn't going to be your boyfriend either.

[DinoDoc]

Will Obamacare get its act together in time?

It's not looking too good:

The Obamacare Rollout––Week Five
Enrollments continue to trickle in. Health plans, with the kind of market share that would have to sign-up 100,000 to 200,000 people for the administration to hit its goal of 7 million people, are generally reporting they have enrolled only about 100 - 200 people over the first 35 days via Healthcare.gov.

Does this mean no one wants to sign-up? No. People can argue about whether we will see the administration hit their goal of seven million or we will end up getting two or three million relatively sicker people for all of the problems Obamacare has faced. But, undoubtedly millions of people, including all of those people who just got cancellation notices, do want to see what they can get for what cost and make a decision about signing up. But they can't because they aren't able get through the entire Healthcare.gov website.

As I have said before, Healthcare.gov, because of its many problems, is in de facto shutdown because virtually no one is able to really use it.

Why doesn't the administration just tell people the site is still too frustrating for people to waste their time on until it is fixed? Instead, the administration says it is getting better and people should keep trying to make it through the gauntlet. More, they are telling them to call the 800 number to fill out a paper application.

If it is better, it is still not better enough for more than a very small trickle to make it through each day.

Many states have literally dozens of complex health plan choices on the federal exchange––each insurance company on the various exchanges is likely offering the four different plans. I find it hard to understand how a consumer can get any real sense of the options over the phone much more be able to understand which plans cover which doctors and hospitals. People really need to see the options on their computer or on the computer of a navigator or an insurance agent to understand what is available and how it fits their needs.

And, as ABC and NBC reported yesterday evening, the paper applications ultimately have to go through the Healthcare.gov system anyway. One thing is crystal clear from the health plans meager enrollment to date; the insurance companies are not getting these "thousands" of paper applications. Where are they sitting?

Health plans are separately enrolling more people on their own sites and through their call centers in great part because of all of the cancellation letters they have recently sent out. Existing customers worried about facing a lapse in coverage are calling in. Many health plans are offering the "early renewal option" to these cancelled customers, which lets people keep their plan but only until December of 2014. I continue to hear that an overwhelming number of existing customers are opting to keep their current plan versus taking an Obamacare compliant plan from the carrier––an interesting outcome given that so many of these plans are said to be "substandard."

The most urgent need is for the government to fix the back-end enrollment transactions between the government and the health insurance plans (the 834 problem). It will be impossible to conduct any kind of high volume enrollment through the health portal's front door so long as the data being transmitted to the insurance companies is unreliable.

Has the government made progress in fixing the large variety of detailed 834 transaction issues?

Yes. But the progress so far is incremental and nowhere near enough to be able to go to high volume processing.

The Obama administration finally seems to have a strong group of experienced managers in charge of fixing Healthcare.gov. I don't mean to pile anymore bad news on them then they already have. But I also have to report that the confidence that this can all get fixed by December 1 is not high among the people on the other end of those 834 transactions.

[MrFun]

It helps to maintain a reasonable perspective on the rollout of Affordable Care Act.

[Hauldren Collider]

The only reasonable perspective is that this law is causing millions of people to lose their health insurance, millions more to pay more for their healthcare, and tens of millions to have less wealth due to higher taxes and unemployment brought about by the regulations and costs to businesses. If you still like this law, you're either an idiot, aren't paying attention, or just enjoy ****ing over poor people.

The truly horrible part is that the administration knew that all of these things were going to happen. That the economics of the law were fundamentally flawed was a foregone conclusion, something that anyone not a shill for the administration understood immediately. That the website would fail was evident to everyone inside the white house, who charged ahead with it anyway.

They're going to delay the individual mandate. That's pretty much guaranteed at this point. It'll be interesting to see how they spin it given that they shut down the government to prevent the republicans from doing just that.