Friday, April 3, 2015

Obamacare - Building Jobs, Protecting the American Way



Muhammad Rasheed[shared link] The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) ended the corporatist cartel in the health insurance industry, opening up a Free Market for entrepreneurs, who immediately saw the potential and began creating new jobs, and new competition. That's a good thing.



Brett Barton - Oh, I've got all kinda of personal experience with this.

The affordable care act is good in theory.

The execution was very poor...it's getting "better"

Loads of "gray" area for businesses to exploit and states to ignore.

Government "call centers" that have little or no training and take about 3 hrs just to get simple questions answered, even still answered vary.

I have heard good things and smooth sailing for some people, but that just wasn't the case here.

It caused a lot of price change in the market, the plan I used to pay $210.00 a month for, barely changed at all and went to $440.00

Now, I signed up for nearly the exact same plan that covered me and my son before but I did it through the website $240.00 with my $200.00 a month credit. So basically I paid $30.00 more for nearly the exact same plan. Not that terrible, but wait, there's more.

Very 1st Dr. bill, my son wasn't covered, he wasn't even on the plan. Though the cars states family plan and pediatric dental and vision are right on the card.

Me: Well, I put him on it.

Gov: We ( the government) took him off...

Me: Wait, why?

Gov: your income wasn't high enough to cover him in a family plan.

Me: Wait, what?

Gov: Your child's insurance is the states problem, not yours.

Me: Wait, I can't put him on my private plan, and get the discount through the website?

Gov: Nope, you are now paying $240.00 a month for a plan that just covers you. (That plan used to cost $210.00 privately and cover you and your child.)

.....So I couldn't get him on my $240.00 plan, even though he was selected, he was removed without my knowledge or consent.

Me: Ok so what now

Gov: you'll have to talk to the insurance company.

Insurance company: Private plan $480.00 a month that covers me and my son. (Decent but not great plan, slightly better.)

Me: That's kinda high, I'm not rich you know.

Insurance company: thanks Obama 

In short, It took a long time to get things straight... 

We all have private plans and it's very difficult. I have more kids now.

A solution was supposed to be businesses provide "good" insurance.

Mine didn't, they offered the me a crap plan, I passed on, then later a government minimum at a $465.00 a month through the group plan. But since I passed in the the crap plan couldn't get dental or vision on my plan....

I could talk for days on this issue.

I literally spent over 100 hours on the phone with healthcare.gov, the state of Tennessee, and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows, there is a lot of horse shit also.

Brett Barton - Kudos to it creating jobs for people... Even if they can't do the job worth a damn.

I went through an independent agent that is a certified for (by?) onhealthcare.Gov 

I highly suggest that route. You can talk to them in person and just don't bother calling the center

Muhammad Rasheed - Brett Barton wrote: "The affordable care act is good in theory. The execution was very poor...it's getting 'better.' It's not all sunshine and rainbows, there is a lot of horse shit also."

There are a lot of strawmen arguments built into your post. Who proclaimed that ObamaCare was perfect? Who said that? I didn't. President didn't even say it. The Affordable Care Act was the President's Plan B on his effort to reform the health care industry. His Plan A was destroyed by the Republicans, and ObamaCare was approved by the Republicans and criticized by the President's Democratic base because they felt it compromised too much. If he hadn't compromised, but stubbornly stuck to his Plan A, we wouldn't have health care reform at all. But it is designed so that it can be improved upon; it isn't a closed concept. That's a good thing. What it does provide does work, and is better than the corporatist cartel that was in place before.

Muhammad Rasheed - The Republicans changed their mind about it when they realized it would help Obama look good and be a major piece of his legacy. Also their corporate handlers panicked when they saw it also had a part built into it that would remove the banks as middlemen in the college loan process.

Brett Barton - It's personal experience, not straw-man dude, I spent a year getting shit ironed out.

I think it's a good idea. I'm not arguing that at all.

But I literally know more about the internal system and how things are done than anyone I ever talked to that worked for healthcare.gov

Training is the key. They are getting better

Muhammad Rasheed - Brett Barton wrote: "It's personal experience, not straw-man dude..."

The strawman argument is when someone creates a position and argues against it while pretending that's what your actual position is. That's where your "It's not all sunshine and rainbows" part came in at.

Muhammad Rasheed - [From the article] "The health law, which took full effect in 2014, represents the most dramatic change to the U.S. health system in 50 years."

lol Brett, you sound as if you are mad and salty that this brand new reform isn't being manned by people with a perfectly ironed-out staff that hold 20+ years of ObamaCare experience.

Brett Barton - I feel that is true. It's my take on it anyway.

A great deal of problems, I experienced as well as many others did spawn from the act.... I feel that is true. It's my take on it anyway.

A great deal of problems, I experienced as well as many others did spawn from the act.

Now down the line when all the kinks get worked out or at least the majority of them and people can get on board and along it won't be so bad.

Muhammad Rasheed - Well, that's what happens at the beginning of every new and worthwhile endeavour. I know it was frustrating during the journey; I'm not trying to minimize that part for you.

Brett Barton - Funny you mention that....like I mentioned get an independent agent that is certified or approved to do the healthcare.gov stuff and stay away from the actual cronies that work for the system.

All talking to those "call center" employees will end up giving you a headache and probably not solving any issues l.

Muhammad Rasheed - Nobody said it was perfect. There's probably a million quotes from the president saying how it needs to be tweaked over time until it works closer to the ideal, but at least the foundation is in place for the reform we all needed. Despite any frustrations the new sign-up guinea pigs went through, arguing that the system isn't perfect out the gate is unreasonable. Has any new system ever been?

Was America itself perfect when it first began? Come on.

Muhammad Rasheed - Anybody can reasonably expect hitches and bumps when it first began. "The health law, which took full effect in 2014..." smh.

Muhammad Rasheed - Do you remember when 2014 was?

Brett Barton - I'm saying that also.  However it's been exceptionally flawed in my opinion, but then again I've had "a bad experience"

Brett Barton - It's been smooth, point and click for some

Muhammad Rasheed - Your bad experience wasn't with the system, but with the staff who were apparently struggling to help you meet your needs.


Brett Barton - I have issues with some system things as well.

Muhammad Rasheed - I fully expect them to work those bugs out with the help from data collected from people such as yourself. I suggest you take advantage of the part of the website that asks for suggestions as to how they can improve it.

Muhammad Rasheed - As a patriot.

Brett Barton - ^thanks Obama

Ken Peck - There are a lot of "personal experiences" with the system before the Affordable Care Act. Probably far more than those after ACA was implemented.

Ken Peck - Not to say, we wouldn't be better off with universal single payer which would provide everyone with better care at a lower cost.

Brett Barton - I had bad experiences before.

This was a whole new level. Conference calls between insurance companies and healthcare/gov each part not willing to admit a mistake or work something out or send me in the appropriate direction

Muhammad Rasheed - That's growing pains, Brett.

Dan DeLyon - You tend to grow and feel pains when strapped to the rack.

Muhammad Rasheed - People tend to not grow and feel pains when they deliberately confine their thinking to partisan rhetoric, too. It's comfy in there. No scary thoughts attempting to intrude on their tiny little mindsets.

Bar Barian - Here's a question: If you have health insurance now through the new "marketplace" (ha), and an unreasonably high deductible is imposed on any plan you can afford, such that you could never use it without taking a decade to pay it off, is it really insurance or a payout to the industry?

Muhammad Rasheed - It sounds like the answer to your question was what this lady was looking for. 


Can you phrase it in the form of a smear campaign story?

Bar Barian - Way to deflect the question.

Muhammad Rasheed - Your hypothetical question was a deflection from the thread topic.

Muhammad Rasheed - Your "new 'marketplace' (ha)" comment was also my biggest pet peeve from you folk. 

Aren't you supposed to be FOR the Free Market?

Bar Barian - Its not like its not related, and you wouldn't see any topic I posted.

Bar Barian - Marketplaces are free of imposed penalties for not buying.

Muhammad Rasheed - When the President does things like this that are pro-capitalism, what reason have you to be against it? Tell me.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bar Barian wrote: "Marketplaces are free of imposed penalties for not buying."

That's 100% not true. There is always a cost one way or another.

Bar Barian - I would not call it "pro capitalism". I mean look at it, "Buy this or that but only these choices here, oh yeah if you don't buy SOMETHING you pay a penalty/tax." Da.

Bar Barian - The only cost for buying none of the above is saving money. If that means you end up spending more later, that was a CHOICE that you made, not the collective.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bar Barian wrote: "I would not call it 'pro capitalism.'"

Breaking up a monopoly/cartel is ALWAYS pro-capitalism. Why don't you know that?

Bar Barian wrote: "I mean look at it, 'Buy this or that but only these choices here...'"

You can purchase from any choice you want. Tell what reason you have to be against the president when he does things that are pro-capitalism, to the point where you literally just make up nonsense to support being against him? Why is that, Bar?

Muhammad Rasheed - Tell me.

Bar Barian - There is no monopoly here, only cartels which on their face I agree need some better management and transparency on prices and services. The Medical/Insurance/Regulation triad needs to be leashed.

Muhammad Rasheed - A cartel is when a group of companies form a collective monopoly, like the banking cartel that makes up the Federal Reserve. The Affordable Care Act broke up the healthcare insurance cartel enabling entrepreneurs to flood in and set up new businesses. A brand new free market has opened up.

Bar Barian - If there was a government based monopoly, all the lefties would be happy, tho the patients would not be.

Muhammad Rasheed - The gov didn't set up a monopoly. It's merely protecting the new marketplace, which is the government's actual job. Why don't you know THAT part?

Bar Barian - Well you can go to the equivalent of McDonald or Burger King. If you have real money you can go to a first class place. Poor people should have the option of comparison shopping and local deals. In my town there is a clinic that takes no insurance at all, the prices are way cheaper (xrays $50 etc.) and nobody is turned away. They make individual payment plans.and so far are doing a good business.

Bar Barian - The players the govt. uses are all in the game already, they are just working their way into the system.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bar Barian wrote: "Poor people should have the option of comparison shopping and local deals." 

That's what people have now, Bar. They didn't have that under the old cartel system.

Bar Barian - The local clinic I told you about has no govt. imposed mandate, they are a free enterprise operation.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bar Barian wrote: "The players the govt. uses are all in the game already, they are just working their way into the system."

The important part is that, now that the cartel has broken up, anyone can jump in there and compete with those guys. Monopolies and cartels are designed to keep out competition, stifling the market.

Muhammad Rasheed - Why don't you KNOW that???

Bar Barian - I don't recognize it as being equivalent to say, AT&T or Standard Oil. There wasn't a well known monopoly, and Hilarycare never got off the ground.

Muhammad Rasheed - Breaking the hold of a cartel is THE pro-capitalism act the government can do, and Obama has been ALL about that. 

But you guys keep attacking him. Why?

Bar Barian - If he didn't try to manage any replacement, it would have gone better for him. Trust the free enterprise system once you guard against fraud.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bar Barian wrote: "I don't recognize it as being equivalent to say, AT&T or Standard Oil."

There were definitely major powerplayers in that industry on that level in their own way. Big brand names.

Bar Barian wrote: "There wasn't a well known monopoly, and Hilarycare never got off the ground."

Why is that relevant to anything?

Bar Barian - She advocated a govt. monopoly, just as bad, different problems.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bar Barian wrote: "If he didn't try to manage any replacement, it would have gone better for him. Trust the free enterprise system once you guard against fraud."

What replacement? The whole point of that system is to enable you to shop around. The free market is being guarded; anyone can jump in there and start a new business. Only the big boy corporations were trying to stop that, not the gov.

Bar Barian - The "marketplace" is under the auspices of govt. control and not as free as it claims.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bar Barian wrote: "She advocated a govt. monopoly, just as bad, different problems."

"Just as bad" as what was already going on back under the cartel? How do you know?

Bar Barian - Ask Canada, the UK and many others.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bar Barian wrote: "The 'marketplace' is under the auspices of govt. control and not as free and it claims."

It's free enabling new job growth in the classic free market way. The gov is using it's force to protect it in the way Free Markets NEED to be protected.

Bar Barian - so you say, I disagree, lets leave it at that.

Muhammad Rasheed - I know, that's what y'all always do when you are challenged on the things you simply make up out of thin air about the president. You prefer to believe that craziness even when he is performing in the way you claim you want from a properly functioning government. 

It's insane.

Muhammad Rasheed - I think some of it may be partisan related, but there's something a little different about this president, isn't there?

Muhammad Rasheed - smh

Bar Barian - You are pretty deluded, its that flavor of Kool Aid you are drinking.

Muhammad Rasheed - Yes, let's agree to disagree. I don't care to be swayed to the darkside of crazytown. Y'all drive me crazy with that trash. I can't pretend to have the power to cure you of it.

Muhammad Rasheed - Right. I'm the one that's deluded. Sure.

Muhammad Rasheed - You complain about welfare, and the president attacks free welfare subsidies... the LARGEST part by far of the welfare pie... and you STILL attack him. But I'M the one that's delusional.

Muhammad Rasheed - You complain about "socialism," and the president throws his weight behind breaking up cartels and monopolies, and even preventing them from forming anew, but you STILL attack him. Yet I'M the one that's delusional.

Muhammad Rasheed - Enjoy living in your little hate-filled, partisan bubble of craziness, Bar. I cannot join you there.

Bar Barian - You cherry pick your arguments and ignore the wrong decisions, yet I'm delusional.

Muhammad Rasheed - Protecting our capitalistic society and keeping the markets open for American enterprise is one of the most important things he CAN do as POTUS. What are you complaining about NOW?

Muhammad Rasheed - Yes, you ARE delusional. All of your complaints are utter nonsense.

Muhammad Rasheed - There is no pleasing you because you have this brick of hate-filled crazy blocking your vision at all times. Only someone from your EXACT demographic in that position will do.

Bar Barian - You know nothing of my demographic, I'm not rich, I am white but don't factor race into it, northeast, underemployed. I should be a Obama cheerleader I suppose, but I have a brain.

Muhammad Rasheed - I know everything of your demographic. Am I not plugged in to "mainstream" popular culture where every aspect of your demographics’ diaspora is shoved down my fucking throat as "default normal?"

Muhammad Rasheed - It's YOU who don't know my demographic. You have zero interest in my people's stories; you prefer to make them up yourselves based on the "jokes" you tell in your bars and barbershops.

Bar Barian - Hardly. You cannot blame the majority for any issues you may have, only your desire to be a victim. Racism shouldn't be an issue in the 21st century. In the last one, it existed in more strength sure, but what do you think you need to have to feel better? I'd work more on you and succeed on your merits, overcome obstacles to your best ability and try and merge with the culture, which is changing all the time.

Bar Barian - I don't go to bars and barbershops any more than you hang out in whatever demographically linked place you choose.

Muhammad Rasheed - Bar Barian wrote: "Hardly."

Really? Here's an example of it right here. Your entire rant is based on the stereotype that all blacks are in the economically poor class and are all "thugs." Isn't that you demonstrating you think you know all about my demographic, while weirdly unaware of the black middle and upper classes?

Bar Barian wrote: "I don't go to bars and barbershops any more that you hang out in whatever demographically linked place you choose."

Sure, you don't. Right. Am I supposed to believe that when you refuse to acknowledge the facts of Obama's presidency? You've demonstrated numerous items of intellectual dishonesty, yet I'm supposed to believe a white American guy who hates Obama doesn't go to a bar?

Muhammad Rasheed - Gimme a break.

Muhammad Rasheed - While you are calling him the n-word, and saying he doesn't want to admit he's a Muslim, and calling him a socialist, and everything else you're fond of saying, but now you don't drink at your local watering hole, eh?

Bar Barian - I don't care what you believe. Express yourself in lots of places, it will give you more perspective

Bar Barian - Don't blame me for the actions/words of others, I'm not even a GOP guy. They act stupid as well.

Muhammad Rasheed - You realize you're not in my FB Friend List, right?

Muhammad Rasheed - OBVIOUSLY you care what I believe since you're hanging out on my posts.

Bar Barian - Yep. Probably saves me dozens of points on the BP meter. You too I imagine.

Bar Barian - I'll relent, it was amusing.

Muhammad Rasheed - What's a "BP?"

Bar Barian - Blood Pressure, a joke.

Muhammad Rasheed - Oh.

Muhammad Rasheed - Yeah, I should probably start paying more attention to that ole BP meter anyway.

Muhammad Rasheed - A cartoonist my age just had a stroke this week. And he's not even black.

Bar Barian - Don't stroke out, Mr. Murphy is counting on you.  :)

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