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Comment count is 10
SolRo - 2013-09-29

You try explaining it with twerking, the harlem shake, cats and whichever teen celebrity you can book.


Xenocide - 2013-09-29

Cats are already doing their part.

http://adorablecareact.tumblr.com/image/61647483423


kingofthenothing - 2013-09-30

What does any of this mean if you're dead-ass broke, as in homeless or about to be homeless?


Raggamuffin - 2013-09-30

Depending on your income or lack thereof, you'll likely qualify for free or cheaper coverage through medicaid.


Gmork - 2013-09-30

So has obamacare actually been gutted? Will it be worth pursuing? I currently don't have any health insurance.


memedumpster - 2013-09-30

Considering the state I live in has hospitals that literally seek to allow the uninsured to die, that could give a slight advantage to inspiring the staff to not end you because they hate your lack of money jumping from your illness directly into their pockets, but I doubt it. Insurance companies will now try and step in and proclaim "Don't kill this person out of disdain and boredom, I swear to Satan we can still make cash on this piece of worthless shit!" Keep in mind they're inexperienced at such things so will do them poorly.

I'm kidding, of course. Really, no one knows what this shit will do, the forces of money are still trying to figure out how to revenge murder us for it, and they too are uncertain.

I'm sure someone else will respond in a way that sounds better with less jokes, but is equally guesswork.


StanleyPain - 2013-09-30

Health care exchanges are not legally allowed to reveal the plans until Oct. 1st so no-one knows exactly what the plans will be like or for what price, but every state should be ready to start the program on Oct. 1st. There are a lot of good things about Obamacare, it hasn't really been "gutted" per se, but the fact that Obama foolishly compromised by getting rid of the single-payer, nationally subsidized health-care option seriously weakens the entire point of the program. The insurance industry, which has been fucking people over for decades and shitting all over this country, is basically now being rewarded and we're all being told "Yes we know they suck, but we waggled our finger at them and passed some laws, so now you can trust them!" which I don't think is going to go down well with a lot of people. I don't have health insurance either (my job offers it, but at this prohibitive cost to my pay) so I'm curious about all this, but I'm not entirely comfortable being forced to pay an insurance company money for some shit they should have been doing the right way anyway.


Bort - 2013-09-30

"but the fact that Obama foolishly compromised by getting rid of the single-payer"

You are officially not allowed to talk about this ever again. There is so much wrong with what you just said I'm not sure where to start, but I'll try:

1) Obama didn't write any version of the ACA. There were two versions, one drafted by the House, and one drafted by the Senate. That's because that's what Congress's job is: to draft and pass bills. Obama didn't come up with an Obamacare plan and tell Congress to pass it (probably because that was the approach they tried with Hillarycare, and it failed disastrously). So saying Obama got rid of single payer is like saying that YOU got rid of single payer -- you weren't in any position to provide it or not, and neither was Obama.

2) The problem with getting single payer is that you need a Congress willing to pass it. How willing was this Congress? Well, we couldn't even get a public option to pass. We came close; we were one vote short in the Senate. 60 votes were needed to beat a Republican filibuster, and the 60th vote was Joe Lieberman -- an Independent who disliked Obama so much that he campaigned against him. Lieberman's condition for overriding the filibuster was that there couldn't be any public option, period; if you want to know why we almost had a public option but didn't, blame Lieberman. Now if we couldn't get the votes for a public option, how were you expecting to get single payer? And more importantly, how is it Obama's fault?

3) Even as is, Obamacare passed both chambers with the narrowest of margins. That's because the Democrats and Independents hammered out the thing that could pass, and it took a hell of a lot of wrangling especially on Pelosi's part to get the Democrats to agree to a best compromise. What passed was the one thing that wouldn't piss off too many conservative Democrats and wouldn't piss off too many progressive Democrats. Single payer would have appealed to the progressive Democrats but that's it; it would have gone down to quick defeat.

"but I'm not entirely comfortable being forced to pay an insurance company money for some shit they should have been doing the right way anyway"

... because single payer would be free and you wouldn't have to pay any taxes for it or anything, amirite?


memedumpster - 2013-09-30

I would be out of character for the poeRPG if memedumpster didn't say "But Bort, I thought once we voted out all the Republicans, Democrats would be seen as 100% clean burning progress!" In actuality, I don't think it has anything to do with government.

I think the whole issue ignores the crimes against humanity the AMA perpetuates for its profits, and that insurance companies are, in fact, the lesser, higher profile, symptom of evil in the system. We're damning the people who profit off of building poor quality bridges over holes dug on purpose to make sure we don't pass at all. We blame government for not filling in the holes under the rickety bridges, but we never asked why the holes were dug to begin with, or why a bunch of people had to build the bridges when they obviously didn't want to.


Bort - 2013-10-01

Yeah, the for-profit nature of medical care is another problem. Hospitals too. Remember all those old hospitals with names like "St. Michael's" and "St. Andrew's"? The names are a clue to their origins: they were non-profit institutions set up by the Catholic Church. But most hospitals are for-profit these days, and call me crazy, but I think that may have something to do with them becoming increasingly profitable.

And, insurance. It used to be that almost all insurance companies operated in non-profit mode because there were substantial tax advantages for doing so, and insurance companies served the public pretty well. Then Reagan came along, removed those tax advantages, and companies started shifting to for-profit mode. And once they figured out how to control risk -- mostly by making "pre-existing conditions" a thing -- that's when they completed their transformation from "bureaucratic fiscal managers" to "parasites".

In its way, Obamacare undoes what Reagan wrought, by capping profits and eliminating the concept of pre-existing conditions. And, insurance exchanges mean putting some actual competition into the mix for once, where non-profits with low overhead stand a chance of dominating. Amazing how much conservatives hate the free market, isn't it.


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