6 thoughts on “So, how IS that “hopey, changey thing” working out for us?”
Ask the good people of Clear Lake Houston who just had Nasa decimated.
Ask the good people at caterpillar who will take a 100 million dollar charge to subsidize healthcare and cut us jobs.
Ask all 33 of my employees who starting In 2011 will take a 6% pay cut to pay for the healthcare tax.
Nothing like killing jobs in a recession. Go Bama
Oh, I was sure you’d whine. But I’m more interested in the big picture, and what the HCR bill holds for the country as a whole.
FWIW, NASA will do just fine now that the administration has adjusted its POV on that. We’re tied to space spending as well, so that’s a relief to me personally.
Whining, come on now Chet you whined for 8 years, I’ve been good and quiet for over a year. As for NASA nah they are castrated, and Houston just lost a huge field of expertise. The giant sucking sound (thanks Ross) is the brain drain that will most certainly go out of country. What the hell, who needs missiles? The big picture for the HCR bill is about 1 trillion to the account deficit. Likely more. As for the inter-workings of insurance, I’d wager that costs won’t go down for you nor I. We have to pay for everyone else. See CC Interest Rates regulations for a preview of things to come.
Whine? Sure, I whined about civil rights. I whined about torture. I whined, first and foremost, about an election delivered by a 5-4 vote, and then I whined about a war based on fraud for which people should, but never will be, prosecuted.
What confuses me is what, exactly, you’re complaining about. The actual NASA cuts are, as you my have missed, in flux; it’s not at all clear his initial proposal will get implemented, since the WH has backtracked quite a bit on that.
The big picture for insurance is likely cost savings overall. It’s not as good as it would’ve been with a public option, and I’m pissed about that, but what we got is way better than what we have. Ask any diabetic. Ask any cancer patient. Will we have to pay for it? Sure. I’m glad it be in a bracket where I may even see a slight rise — but the best part of the whole last year is that income taxes for 95% of Americans are at their lowest ebb in 50 years.
So yeah, that hopey-changey thing? I like it.
There will be no cost savings in Health Care. The logic of adding 30-50 million to what amounts to a closed system and saying prices will fall is folly. The logic of adding the US government to stream line costs is beyond ridiculous. Were they serious in trimming costs, they would have regulated the hell out of Insurance, and allowed policies to be portable from state to state. This would of course make campaign contributions disappear. Looking at this logically, what they can do to cut costs is to deny services. So on the one hand doctors may not run every expensive test to diagnose and the crowd will cheer, but on the other, more expensive services for those needing specialized treatments will be denied whole sale. So then, the difference between those bastards cutting of women with breast cancer and the government denying services is the same thing in my mind.
My comments on NASA were momentary and not necessarily connected to health care. More along the lines of jobs, and how Obama has affected your back yard. The one you helped mobilize to vote for him. While the NASA thing is in flux, losing them is a GIANT blow to Houston and to the country. The fact this speech was given in Florida and never mentioned Houston speaks to the politics of it all.
The 6% tax increase for healthcare hits everyone not in a union (nice huh), and those working in companies with more than 30 employees. That my friend may not be 95% since the unemployment rate is at 10% , but you can do the math. So that is 3% on your pay check and 3% on your employers whether you take insurance or not. That is no spin 95% number that is fact.
The cost savings we hope to achieve is by keeping people covered so that they don’t seek routine care in the highest-cost venues, which is a huge problem for emergency care now, as well as by increasing the risk pool for insurance. The effects of a larger pool don’t require actuarial math to figure out.
It’s true that HCR in its current state doesn’t address some of the biggest cost aspects — most notably fee for service medicine vs. salaried providers — but that also wasn’t the biggest push for this particular bill. It’s more about regulating insurance (to reduce recission, and make it possible for people like my brother to keep insurance), and increasing the pool of insureds.
I completely agree that closing NASA in Houston would be a bad idea. However, I’m not aware of any plans to do so. Will some programs get trimmed? Yeah. Should they? Hell, probably. But NASA’s not that big a part of the budget, either.
I’m not sure of your math on the tax thing, but mostly because I don’t know exactly which figures you’re talking about. Pretty much everybody under $200K got a tax cut last year; that’s what I was talking about.
Ask the good people of Clear Lake Houston who just had Nasa decimated. Ask the good people at caterpillar who will take a 100 million dollar charge to subsidize healthcare and cut us jobs. Ask all 33 of my employees who starting In 2011 will take a 6% pay cut to pay for the healthcare tax.
Nothing like killing jobs in a recession. Go Bama
Oh, I was sure you’d whine. But I’m more interested in the big picture, and what the HCR bill holds for the country as a whole.
FWIW, NASA will do just fine now that the administration has adjusted its POV on that. We’re tied to space spending as well, so that’s a relief to me personally.
Whining, come on now Chet you whined for 8 years, I’ve been good and quiet for over a year. As for NASA nah they are castrated, and Houston just lost a huge field of expertise. The giant sucking sound (thanks Ross) is the brain drain that will most certainly go out of country. What the hell, who needs missiles? The big picture for the HCR bill is about 1 trillion to the account deficit. Likely more. As for the inter-workings of insurance, I’d wager that costs won’t go down for you nor I. We have to pay for everyone else. See CC Interest Rates regulations for a preview of things to come.
Whine? Sure, I whined about civil rights. I whined about torture. I whined, first and foremost, about an election delivered by a 5-4 vote, and then I whined about a war based on fraud for which people should, but never will be, prosecuted.
What confuses me is what, exactly, you’re complaining about. The actual NASA cuts are, as you my have missed, in flux; it’s not at all clear his initial proposal will get implemented, since the WH has backtracked quite a bit on that.
The big picture for insurance is likely cost savings overall. It’s not as good as it would’ve been with a public option, and I’m pissed about that, but what we got is way better than what we have. Ask any diabetic. Ask any cancer patient. Will we have to pay for it? Sure. I’m glad it be in a bracket where I may even see a slight rise — but the best part of the whole last year is that income taxes for 95% of Americans are at their lowest ebb in 50 years.
So yeah, that hopey-changey thing? I like it.
There will be no cost savings in Health Care. The logic of adding 30-50 million to what amounts to a closed system and saying prices will fall is folly. The logic of adding the US government to stream line costs is beyond ridiculous. Were they serious in trimming costs, they would have regulated the hell out of Insurance, and allowed policies to be portable from state to state. This would of course make campaign contributions disappear. Looking at this logically, what they can do to cut costs is to deny services. So on the one hand doctors may not run every expensive test to diagnose and the crowd will cheer, but on the other, more expensive services for those needing specialized treatments will be denied whole sale. So then, the difference between those bastards cutting of women with breast cancer and the government denying services is the same thing in my mind.
My comments on NASA were momentary and not necessarily connected to health care. More along the lines of jobs, and how Obama has affected your back yard. The one you helped mobilize to vote for him. While the NASA thing is in flux, losing them is a GIANT blow to Houston and to the country. The fact this speech was given in Florida and never mentioned Houston speaks to the politics of it all.
The 6% tax increase for healthcare hits everyone not in a union (nice huh), and those working in companies with more than 30 employees. That my friend may not be 95% since the unemployment rate is at 10% , but you can do the math. So that is 3% on your pay check and 3% on your employers whether you take insurance or not. That is no spin 95% number that is fact.
The cost savings we hope to achieve is by keeping people covered so that they don’t seek routine care in the highest-cost venues, which is a huge problem for emergency care now, as well as by increasing the risk pool for insurance. The effects of a larger pool don’t require actuarial math to figure out.
It’s true that HCR in its current state doesn’t address some of the biggest cost aspects — most notably fee for service medicine vs. salaried providers — but that also wasn’t the biggest push for this particular bill. It’s more about regulating insurance (to reduce recission, and make it possible for people like my brother to keep insurance), and increasing the pool of insureds.
I completely agree that closing NASA in Houston would be a bad idea. However, I’m not aware of any plans to do so. Will some programs get trimmed? Yeah. Should they? Hell, probably. But NASA’s not that big a part of the budget, either.
I’m not sure of your math on the tax thing, but mostly because I don’t know exactly which figures you’re talking about. Pretty much everybody under $200K got a tax cut last year; that’s what I was talking about.