Obamacare coverage wavers

[waitforufo]

Well, it looks like it’s not all smooth sailing for Obamacare.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2010-10-07-healthlaw07_ST_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

 

I wonder if they would have granted these wavers if the election was not less than a month away. Imagine the news reports about 116000 fast food workers and 351000 school teachers losing their insurance because of Obamacare. Notice that the story doesn’t say they won’t lose their insurance in the future. I just says there will be other options in 2014, when government-organized marketplaces will offer insurance subsidized by tax credits.

[Marat]

Capitalism is a jelly-fish, which always twists and turns to escape any regulations the society tries to impose on it to make it more humane if less profitable in its operations. Obama's current crazy-quilt patchwork of private-public healthcare, being administered largely through the vampires of the system, the health insurance companies, will never work effectively. What is needed is simply an increase in income taxes which would provide free healthcare for everyone: This would be administratively streamlined, universal in operation, and would finally trap the jelly-fish. It would also be less expensive, since countries with such a plan, like Canada, spend only about 10% of GNP on healthcare, in contrast to the U.S., which spends 17% of GNP.

 

Unfortunately, the fact that Obama's plan won't work well because it fails to go far enough toward socialized medicine will be interpreted by its enemies and the American public at large as proof that public healthcare is in general a bad idea, rather than that inadequate, hybridized approaches to public healthcare are a bad idea.

[iNow]

Much like the stimulus package. The fact that it was too small and did not fully achieve what it was supposed to will be mistakenly interpreted as a failure and used to argue against pushes to do it right the second time.

 

I also love how waitforufo is spinning this to make it look like they're a bunch of fuckups, when they actually stepped up and did the right thing for these people and for these companies.

 

 

Thirty companies and organizations, including McDonald's (MCD) and Jack in the Box (JACK), won't be required to raise the minimum annual benefit included in low-cost health plans, which are often used to cover part-time or low-wage employees.

 

The Department of Health and Human Services, which provided a list of exemptions, said it granted waivers in late September so workers with such plans wouldn't lose coverage from employers who might choose instead to drop health insurance altogether.

 

Without waivers, companies would have had to provide a minimum of $750,000 in coverage next year, increasing to $1.25 million in 2012, $2 million in 2013 and unlimited in 2014.

[waitforufo]

Just trying to hold President Obama to his promises. Don't you think that is fair?

 

"Here's a guarantee that I have made. If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance. If you've got a doctor that you like, you will be able to keep your doctor." - Obama

[Marat]

It would have been easy to write into the legislation a line saying, "Any corporation now offering a health plan to anyone is enjoined from dropping that plan," which would have avoided problems like the current threat by McDonalds. The problem is that the healthcare plan which will be criticized as the 'Obama Plan' is actually the vector product of what Obama wanted and what the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats were willing to let pass into law, and that will be full of flaws for which Obama shouldn't be blamed.

[Pangloss]

Just trying to hold President Obama to his promises. Don't you think that is fair?

 

Yes, although I would give it more time.

[jackson33]

The Obama administration has given one-year waivers from new rules in the healthcare reform law to about 30 insurance plans, including McDonald's, which had previously threatened to shut down its coverage, according to a report by the New York Times.

 

The administration acknowledged that the waivers, covering 1 million people, reflected attempts to avoid having people lose their current coverage before the full law goes into effect. Affected companies reported the rules would have doubled premiums in some cases.[/Quote]

 

http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/news-analysis/30-insurance-plans-receiving-1-year-waivers-from-reform-law.html

 

iNow; It's a ONE YEAR WAIVER, how can this apply to a 3 year plan. This is a political move for those million workers....IT WON'T WORK....the 39,970 HC plans for business are not getting a waiver!!!

 

It would have been easy to write into the legislation a line saying, "Any corporation now offering a health plan to anyone is enjoined from dropping that plan," which would have avoided problems like the current threat by McDonalds. The problem is that the healthcare plan which will be criticized as the 'Obama Plan' is actually the vector product of what Obama wanted and what the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats were willing to let pass into law, and that will be full of flaws for which Obama shouldn't be blamed. [/Quote]

 

Marat; Correct, except there is nothing preventing a 'Single Payer' or 'Government Choice' supplementing discrepancies written into the 2000+++ pages of the HCB. Obama got what he wanted, just not when he wanted an end product, signed the bill and thus responsible...IMO.

 

Pangloss; Waitforufo is correct, these statement were made after taking office, not campaigning and President of all the people. Other members of the Administration and/or Congress made many statements on what the benefits would be, also knowing absolutely nothing about how the bill was written. More time; The bill is now law, taking effect in 2014, yet daily we're learning just how simply it can be revised. Since the idiots that wrote the bill (staffers, no doubt) FORGOT to include the exclusion rule into the bill, the only hope is Obama loses in 2012, the Republicans holding Congress with a 60 seat majority in the Senate and repeals the entire thing, or SCOTUS rules one part unconstitutional (exclusion rule) which will kill the whole thing.

[waitforufo]

On a happier note, perhaps Obamacare doesn’t need to be repealed. Perhaps the whole country can just be wavered out of the program.

[Marat]

I think what was keeping Obama from writing better or more rational provisions into 'his' bill was his awareness of what that bill would have to face in a Congress owned by the health insurance industry as its branch office. The bill simply needed loopholes to keep the tax lawyers of big business and the insurance industry happy so that there would not be too much opposition to it.

[padren]

Capitalism is a jelly-fish, which always twists and turns to escape any regulations the society tries to impose on it to make it more humane if less profitable in its operations. Obama's current crazy-quilt patchwork of private-public healthcare, being administered largely through the vampires of the system, the health insurance companies, will never work effectively. What is needed is simply an increase in income taxes which would provide free healthcare for everyone: This would be administratively streamlined, universal in operation, and would finally trap the jelly-fish.

It's not capitalism, it's corruption, selfishness and/or apathy. No system can function with a higher degree of efficiency than the integrity of the people running it, and by the people running it I mean everyone from politicians to voters to doctors to patients.

[Mr Skeptic]

It's not capitalism, it's corruption, selfishness and/or apathy. No system can function with a higher degree of efficiency than the integrity of the people running it, and by the people running it I mean everyone from politicians to voters to doctors to patients.

 

Sure we can. That's what police systems are for, they "encourage" people not to do corrupt things like steal, kill and bribe. How about this for our moral integrity (in particular the jewelry store)?

[padren]

Much like the stimulus package. The fact that it was too small and did not fully achieve what it was supposed to will be mistakenly interpreted as a failure and used to argue against pushes to do it right the second time.

 

I also love how waitforufo is spinning this to make it look like they're a bunch of fuckups, when they actually stepped up and did the right thing for these people and for these companies.

 

As much as I agree with you that the bill did not go far enough, I disagree with you that it will be "mistakenly" interpreted as a failure. What do righties always say when their tax-breaks and deregulation laws don't net the results they want, and instead result in disaster? They always say their tax cuts and deregulation measures didn't go far enough, and blame the failure on having to compromise with bleeding heart liberals.

 

If the bill was too small to fully achieve the goals outlined as the basis for that bill - regardless of the cause - then the very basis for it's existence in question. Now, in this case, I think the rallying cry wasn't that the watered-down healthcare bill would solve all our healthcare problems, but was to fix more problems than it introduced.

 

Considering how bad health care has been, I don't think this is an especially hard claim to make - but Obama did settle on a small bill and if that fails to live up to the small expectations for it, that will be his failure. It's okay to blame the other side for why you had to scale back your solution as long as you stand by the goals and costs (even watered down ones) of the result. If scaling back introduces a risk of catastrophic failure or damages that needs to be disclosed as a factor in the watered down bill before it's law. Take nuclear power plant safety - if you introduce a bill for $300mil to do safety inspections due to a real risk of full scale meltdowns, and you end up settling on a $100mil program that just covers the worst risks, and you sign it into law you can't say "Well of course it made the problem worse, without that extra $200mil it couldn't do a damn thing" later on. Before getting the $100mil version through the unaddressed risks have to be disclosed and discussed to differentiate it from the $300mil version.

 

That's pretty fundamental for any collaborative effort where people disagree, and if it was a neocon policy during the Bush years I do suspect you'd hold them to that standard.

[iNow]

Considering how bad health care has been, I don't think this is an especially hard claim to make - but Obama did settle on a small bill and if that fails to live up to the small expectations for it, that will be his failure.

 

<...>

 

That's pretty fundamental for any collaborative effort where people disagree, and if it was a neocon policy during the Bush years I do suspect you'd hold them to that standard.

 

I think that's a very fair point. As I've articulated repeatedly before, I've always been a proponent of universal healthcare. I see no reason why an advanced civilization should make caring for health issues a privilege instead of a right. More to the point, I found myself being forced to "settle" for a public option. When not even the public option was realized, I discovered that my government and the people electing people into it were not aligned with my ideals, and in fact supported ideals directly counter to the core of my being. It has been a very sad and despairing several years for me to watch my country and the people within it magnify our ignorance and inhumanity.

 

Regardless of the little pity party I just threw for myself above... I must agree with the validity of your point. While Obama certainly helped to make things better with healthcare through passage of this bill, ultimately he failed at accomplishing the bigger objective which was required of him to make his country better. I just struggle to place blame entirely at his feet since he must play the hand he is dealt, and he's been forced to deal with a congress which is so very obviously full of little more than jokers and deuce seven off suits.

[padren]

Sure we can. That's what police systems are for, they "encourage" people not to do corrupt things like steal, kill and bribe. How about this for our moral integrity (in particular the jewelry store)?

I am not saying we can't police against corruption, I am saying the core failings in our capitalistic model arise from our willingness to accept morally compromised solutions out of self interest, and those failings would still be present regardless of whether the model is capitalistic or socialistic. I agree entirely with policing corruption, I just saying it's a completely separate issue from that of economic models.

 

I think that's a very fair point. As I've articulated repeatedly before, I've always been a proponent of universal healthcare. I see no reason why an advanced civilization should make caring for health issues a privilege instead of a right. More to the point, I found myself being forced to "settle" for a public option. When not even the public option was realized, I discovered that my government and the people electing people into it were not aligned with my ideals, and in fact supported ideals directly counter to the core of my being. It has been a very sad and despairing several years for me to watch my country and the people within it magnify our ignorance and inhumanity.

What upsets me, is it feels like we didn't even have a chance to find out if the people electing people into it were aligned with your ideals or not - the discussion never advanced to the point of debating universal coverage or even a public option, it was dominated by BS claims of death panels and scary pictures of Nazibama.

Regardless of the little pity party I just threw for myself above... I must agree with the validity of your point. While Obama certainly helped to make things better with healthcare through passage of this bill, ultimately he failed at accomplishing the bigger objective which was required of him to make his country better. I just struggle to place blame entirely at his feet since he must play the hand he is dealt, and he's been forced to deal with a congress which is so very obviously full of little more than jokers and deuce seven off suits.

The only part I blame him for, is he should have been clear what failings we should expect from the modified bill and what problems we should expect to continue to encounter. To oversell the modified bill just to get it pushed through is a pretty big deal to contend with in our leaders.

 

It's worth noting that a lot more happened than the above that I did blame him for, my critiques of him pale compared to my critiques of democrats and especially republicans, and even the voting public.

[Marat]

The very fact that Obama went around the country painstakingly and pedantically explaining and re-explaining the reality of his healthcare proposal, while the Republicans were going around trying to strike irrational hysteria into the public with fears of non-existent 'death panels,' shows which party in this struggle knew that it was acting in the true best interests of the general public and which was not. Bush II, Reagan, Palin, Quayle, and O'Donnell were not only all morons who have done their best to infect the public with hysterical fears and irrational hopes, but they were also all Republicans. Is that just a coincidence, or is it because what the Republicans are really trying to impose on the country are policies they know would not stand up to rational examination, since they are only in the best interests of the richest 5% of the population?

 

Perhaps the truly lasting legacy of Obama's inadequate healthcare reform is that it shall have finally opened the door to government intervention in the private healthcare industry to redesign it in the interests of the people rather than to continue to let it operate solely in service of the profit motives of the providers. Once the idea of government intervention has been established, making incremental improvements over the coming generations will be possible, until finally America may have an administratively streamlined system in which higher income taxes provide universal healthcare for everyone according to medical need rather than ability to pay.

[iNow]

Republicans were going around trying to strike irrational hysteria into the public with fears of non-existent 'death panels,' shows which party in this struggle knew that it was acting in the true best interests of the general public and which was not. Bush II, Reagan, Palin, Quayle, and O'Donnell were not only all morons who have done their best to infect the public with hysterical fears and irrational hopes, but they were also all Republicans. Is that just a coincidence, or is it because what the Republicans are really trying to impose on the country are policies they know would not stand up to rational examination, since they are only in the best interests of the richest 5% of the population?

You just reminded me of a thread we had before the bill passed. I think you'd appreciate it given your post above.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/41301-republican-fear-mongering-about-medicare-changes-is-working-despite-being-lies/

[waitforufo]

The very fact that Obama went around the country painstakingly and pedantically explaining and re-explaining the reality of his healthcare proposal, while the Republicans were going around trying to strike irrational hysteria into the public with fears of non-existent 'death panels,' shows which party in this struggle knew that it was acting in the true best interests of the general public and which was not. Bush II, Reagan, Palin, Quayle, and O'Donnell were not only all morons who have done their best to infect the public with hysterical fears and irrational hopes, but they were also all Republicans. Is that just a coincidence, or is it because what the Republicans are really trying to impose on the country are policies they know would not stand up to rational examination, since they are only in the best interests of the richest 5% of the population?

 

This bashing of Republicans is just silly. Democrats control both houses of congress. They have 60 votes in the Senate. This is there law and theirs alone. If it was a bad bill Obama should have vetoed it and sent it back to his own party to fix.

 

 

I also love how waitforufo is spinning this to make it look like they're a bunch of fuckups, when they actually stepped up and did the right thing for these people and for these companies.

 

Glad to see you admit that exempting people from this bad law is the right thing to do. Can we all get an exemption?

[Mr Skeptic]

This bashing of Republicans is just silly. Democrats control both houses of congress. They have 60 votes in the Senate. This is there law and theirs alone. If it was a bad bill Obama should have vetoed it and sent it back to his own party to fix.

 

No, not even close. Go get a 100% agreement from a group of 60 people about a complex topic, and then come back and say that. For extra fun, try doing it while 40 people in the same room are trying to prevent said agreement by any means necessary.

[Pangloss]

This bashing of Republicans is just silly. Democrats control both houses of congress. They have 60 votes in the Senate. This is there law and theirs alone. If it was a bad bill Obama should have vetoed it and sent it back to his own party to fix.

 

Democrats have 59 votes in the Senate.

[Marat]

I should have bashed not the Republicans but the American Right, which includes many Democrats of the so-called 'Blue Dog' variety. Since Obamacare was a left-wing policy, in that it defended the interests of the medically and economically disadvantaged against the interests of those advantaged by wealth, health, and their control of the insurance industry, the proper context for assessing Obamacare's political struggles is on the left-right political axis, not the Democratic-Republican opposition.