Government Shutting Down

[Kellhound]

Yeah, the full raw untranscribed text of the PPACA was something like 2700 pages coming off the floor. That was large font, double and a half spacing, and large indents on all sides including top and bottom. 12 font single spacing it's closer to 700 pages. The fabled 10,000 pages is where someone did a search for all regulations applying to and in relation to Obamacare and printed them all out. The original hype was that it was 33,000 pages, but that was someone who claimed they were misspeaking when they called it 33,000 pages and then they were corrected (i.e. they were lying).

The medicare part D bill that Republicans pushed through, if you print out all of the related regulations just like the fabled Obamacare 10,000 pages scheme, counts in the multi tens of thousands of pages long.

That someone chooses to use the length as a talking point about Obamacare is completely asinine, and any conservative who criticizes it based on length has clearly never looked at medicare or just about any other bill for that matter. It's just like conservatives pointing to Obamacare as part of the budget problem, and then don't even mention medicare.

Most politicians are lawyers (or career politicians), so to expect short concise easy to read and understand laws is asking way too much. (Not to mention we are talking about laws for over 350 million people that are broad in scope and that will be challenged in court. They really have to be detailed to work....)

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Here's an idea for Boehner and the rest of the mainstream republicans: Grow a fucking spine and drop the lunatic tea party.

Easier said then done until the tea party has pushed the moderates enough to get them to vote in large numbers in the primaries.

[Kujako]

The ACA and all other bills are long because they have to be written like rules for children. It's not enough to say "don't open daddies gun cabinet". You have to say "don't open, or cause to be opened, or just be in the room when a gust of wind opens, or take your sisters teddy bear and not give it back till she opens,..." etc.

That being said, I read the ACA when it was first released (well, skimmed it). Not seeing what the big deal was frankly.

[Masark]

I wouldn't say it's a gain, he's replacing a Democrat Senator (Frank Lautenberg) that died back in June.

Yes, but it's been held by a republican stand-in since then.

[Kellhound]

Someone needs to tell me why they are against universal and affordable healthcare in the United States without using money as an excuse.

For me it is simple, my insurance is great, my health care is good, and I am not convinced the US knows how to run healthcare well in a grand scale seeing how many failures there are in the VA medical system (if you have to go to the ER you get great care, but god, don't try to see your doctor....). Selfish? Yes. Unchangable? No.

[Cthulhu 2020]

The ACA and all other bills are long because they have to be written like rules for children. It's not enough to say "don't open daddies gun cabinet". You have to say "don't open, or cause to be opened, or just be in the room when a gust of wind opens, or take your sisters teddy bear and not give it back till she opens,..." etc.

That being said, I read the ACA when it was first released (well, skimmed it). Not seeing what the big deal was frankly.

For the truly lazy, or inept at lawyerspeak, there's a greatly condensed version of Obamacare explained on Reddit.

I've gotten a lot of flak for this being "from Reddit" but I have yet to see anyone actually point out any inaccuracies of the summary.

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikei...did_it/c530lfx

[Payday]

I wouldn't say it's a gain, he's replacing a Democrat Senator (Frank Lautenberg) that died back in June.

You make it sound like he was appointed. It could have been a loss. By the way, Booker still has to win another election next year in the regular election to keep this seat. Lonegan ended up with a surprising 55%-45% finish somehow. For the record, I'm not a big Booker fan and don't think he is going to live up to the "foundation shaking" hype that has been going around, but needless to say I'm thrilled that the seat didn't go to another TP kook (Lonegan).

[Naxere]

Yes, but it's been held by a republican stand-in since then.

Whom Booker wasn't even running against, so his job was never anything but temporary.

[Unholyground]

Probebly unrelated, but Democrats gained another seat in the senate yesterday, Cory Booker. Due to special elections in NJ. AP alert, so no link yet...

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Yeah, we do and we pay more for healthcare as percentage of GDP than Canada does, without universal care. I think you misunderstood what I'm saying. Finances isn't an excuse to not have universal coverage, because we spend more than enough to have one like Canada... With free ice cream...

Even in Canada we need to have additional coverage for certain things, I pay 35$ (and 35$ paid by the company) a month for things that are not covered like, dental, vision, and a few other things that aren't covered by our medicare. So an additional 840$ a year, 420$ of which is paid by me. There are always additional costs and hooks, I agree it is BS.

Being born into a system in place is a lot different than adjusting to a new one I guess.

[Kellhound]

People are complaining about the high initial costs of Obamacare insurance, but that was insurance companies charging higher than normal rates as a cushion just in case. All of my friends have already received large refund checks (10-30% of their monthly payment) as there is a cap on the amount of profit insurance companies are allowed to make, and they must issue refund checks if they go over that cap. Once the full insurance market kicks in, competition will drive the prices down even further.

A lot of Republicans claim that insurance is costing them significantly more than it was before, but that's because their employer issued insurance was subsidizing a lot of the cost. The plans they were on probably already cost roughly four to five times as much as they were paying, and the insurer not only negotiated bulk rates but subsidized some of the cost for them anyway. 100% coverage no deductible with a high cap will cost well over $300 for anyone buying it on their own, but they were saying they were only paying in the range of $50 for it.

This coming year will be the telling year, not this one. It will depend on how many healthy young people sign up vs take the small penalty. If not enough sign up there is a good chance the insurers will see big hits from the influx of sick people using the policies right away. That would, in theory, allow the companies to ask for large rate hikes (and right about the time of the election). Granted it would drop once the penalties are high enough that people buy in, but short term it could lead to a big spike.