Excerpt: So the Supreme Court - defying many expectations - upheld the Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare. ... almost all of us stand to benefit from making America a kinder and more decent society."
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The Real Winners
29 June 12
So the Supreme Court — defying many expectations — upheld the Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare. There will, no doubt, be many headlines declaring this a big victory for President Obama, which it is. But the real winners are ordinary Americans — people like you.
How many people are we talking about? You might say 30 million, the number of additional people the Congressional Budget Office says will have health insurance thanks to Obamacare. But that vastly understates the true number of winners because millions of other Americans — including many who oppose the act — would have been at risk of being one of those 30 million.
So add in every American who currently works for a company that offers good health insurance but is at risk of losing that job (and who isn’t in this world of outsourcing and private equity buyouts?); every American who would have found health insurance unaffordable but will now receive crucial financial help; every American with a pre-existing condition who would have been flatly denied coverage in many states.
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www.healthcare.gov
Check it out.
I don't really understand this statement … nothing has really changed, except now by law you must buy healthcare.
I was for Obama and health CARE reform, but all we got was health insurance mandate.
Yes, there are some good or logical things in the bill, but absolutely nothing to keep costs down, or move to more people being covered.
The bottom line is that health insurance companies must sell us insurance, but if people cannot afford it - it does absolutely nothing to make it affordable or keep costs down.
Health insurance premiums are still rising faster than inflation.
I think this legislation was to bring new customers to the health insurance corporations all along.
This is what is needed now to do anything in American under this corporate structure, a big farcical political drama where the whole country watches this 3 ring tragi-sitcom of a country that is a pure facade, and that only exists to brainwash and confuse people into not making a big scene that would still be unmanageable for the ruling class.
The rich can still afford healthcare, the poor will get free or subsidized care.
The middle class that does not get it from their employers will have to decide if they can afford it or pay the new tax which will be cheaper!
If a family of 4 makes 50k a year their new tax will be 1,250 which is much cheaper than a health care policy.
If the government wants to subsidize their plan then our deficits will spiral even more out of control!
>> something that should drive decisions, rather than
>> making decisions that improves the economy; I give
>> them an immediate thumbs down.
Well said, hope you are not talking about me though.
The economy is like a trellis, an agreed framework that facilitates more or less fair interactions between people so we can get what we want and develop systems to do same. When that trellis framework gets old and starts to collapse, it's time for reset, not time to put even more of our energy into a system that does not work anymore.
Fortunately, Obamacare does address some of these problems. The tool of choice under Obamacare is a hammer. Insurance companies must offer a defined minimum coverage, they also must use 85% of what they collect in premiums on health care. The use of electronic records will also improve efficiency, but as anyone familiar with large computer integration projects can tell you; it will cost you a lot more, before it costs you a lot less.
Its better than what we had, saves some money especially when you count the overall cost of health care and protects individuals from some morally reprehensible practices.
And please not that what I described as the most inefficient health care delivery model; is exactly what the Republicans are advocating.
To paraphrase my friend Barbara K; NEVER VOTE REPUBLICAN. In their sick lust for power, truth just gets in the way.
These college costs were obtained from the 1963 and 2008 issues of the "World Almanac". Tuition for state universities reflects a resident's cost.
Tuition (per Year) 1960 1960Today 2008
UC, Berkeley $ 0 $ 0 $ 6,654
Columbia $ 1,460 $10,147 $33,906
University of Georgia $ 195 $ 1,355 $ 4,964
Harvard $ 1,520 $10,564 $33,709
MIT $ 1,500 $10,425 $33,600
Michigan State $ 279 $ 1,939 $ 8,843
Northwestern $ 1,200 $ 8,340 $33,559
Penn State $ 480 $ 3,336 $12,164
U of Texas $ 100 $ 695 $ 7,630
This is just another Right Wing myth supported by fudged numbers, not dissimilar to how Charter schools will save Public education by outsourcing it.
Everything doesn't increase in price along the same trajectory as inflation. As education becomes more valuable and the resources required to provide that education increase it is no surprise that the cost outpaces inflation. That is because inflation is an average of all items.
No one is saying, and including me, that health insurance companies should have to insure ONLY the sick, so your argument is made of straw here,
The insurance companies have been acting as if they only want to insure only the healthy, which is the whole dang problem now isn't it.
So, maybe you could do with some education on this issue or a bit more straightforward ness in your posts.
They are all in the pockets of the 1%.
CJ Roberts is a filthy skunk! P....U....!
Folks, Obamacare has been falsly ruled AS A TAX
I believe leading the parade will be Rush Limbaugh on his way to Costa Rica. Limbaugh did say he would go to Costa Rica if ACA was upheld by the Court. Adios.
I, for one, would chip in on a ticket, even though Rush is a gazillionaire.
What "Once-blessed country" would THAT be prithee?
You might ask the increasing amount of Citizens who have no access to healthcare at all -including the cannon-fodder veterans-, or those who are patrons of the rapidly-growing "Healthcare Tourism" industry which provides low-cost trips to other countries for better and cheaper treatment and medicines.
I know that this is main reason I've never become a US citizen and don't intend to grow much older here -but have already had issues with the mean-spirited for-profit non-system that the Rethuglican wanna-be dictators want to stick us with unchanged or even worse, and is the laughing-stock (in a sort of horrified way) of the so-called civilized world!
B.T.W., Costa Rica has a national health care system so may I suggest a better match for you, "Mush Limp-balls" and your ilk would be Paraguay, which just had an illegal coup of their first post-Stroessner lefty president and will soon be isolated from it's more progressive neighbors). You'll really feel at home there.
Just watch you don't get a dose of "Tropical-Tummy " down there though; -you might need some medical help~!
Check this out; it's as true if not more so, as when it was made in 1981.
http://youtu.be/_qHL0N9iHV4
A tax paid to private entities, that's called serfdom. or at least it was, in the Middle Ages. in Obamese, it's called Affordable Care. OK, serfdom was indeed affordable care.
However, in the Frankish empire, if a serf stayed away for a month, she, or he, was free of its obligation to pay tax to its (private) lord, forever. There is no such relief clause here. Just the opinion that tax can be paid to a for profit company, by law. Plutocracy supreme.
But let's not expect that vulgar American Supreme Court justices would know the history of the Middle Ages. However justice Roberts masters machiavellism, very clearly.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
What we call our GNP is really just more liabilities that we have to pay off in the future.
The whole economy is like a giant tax on Americans who have their better impulses thwarted and turned into negativity because that is what puts more money towards the corporatocracy and makes it stronger.
We need to resist. I think unplugging from the system, grow as much of our own food, take care of ourselves and turnabout is fair play - starve the corporatocracy to death like they starved and hijacked what should be OUR government.
God is obviously an FDR Democrat, but Her current representatives are not Delivering Her Message, or delivering much else. Admit it: We now have a FREELOADER PENALTY TAX.
If you try to force others to pay medical expenses that you can afford to pay, St.Obama will tax you to save others, who pay their way, from having their taxes raised to pay your bills. Independents LUV that, & so do I. A New Message a Day keeps the GOPers away. Mitt will need Nun of Thee Above for a running mate.
I believe the Republican lack of empathy, now inbred into at least three generations, will pay horrible personal dividends for such thinkers in the future. A lack of empathy and hatred for the less fortunate goes against every faith of goodness, and invites most hideous consequences. Karma, put simply, will be a vicious, lethal bitch.
This wasn't the best bill that could have been put forward but it's a start and just watching the apoplectic purple many of my rightwingnut pals are turning has made it worth the while.
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