patrick.net

tr6 says

Healthcare prices are rising way above inflation and have been for a long time. You can't argue that.

Actually, I can.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/erp_2014_chapter_4.pdf

Health care is a can of worms but ACA takes on the big cost-driver, which is uninsured people presenting with conditions that would have been less expensive to treat earlier had they been in the system.

Hospital costs are the long pole in the tent here, and it's going to take decades to unfuck what it took decades to screw up in the first place.

You are starting to sound like Republicans did in 2003.

Obama did not run on leaving Afghanistan, quite the opposite. I thought it was a mistake going in as we did in late 2001, knew our successes there in 2002 were going to be ephemeral, and don't have anything intelligent to say about the theatre other than that. Well, well over my pay grade, yaknow?

The bailout was huge and you can't just point out that banks paid back TARP when they are being subsidized for over six years.

Obama is treated like he's some bomb-throwing Marxist by the right, when the truth is he's another conservative (center-right) Dem like all the others we've had since KennedyCarter.

I don't find much to criticize him about. Pointing the figure at him failing to clean up the Augean stables he was left with raises the question about how about first prosecuting the motherfuckers in 2002-2006 Bush Admin who allowed all this to happen in the first place?

These were the same operators who gave us the 1980s S&L Crisis, too.

Our political situation is not mature enough for us -- Obama especially -- to fix anything. Optics matter too much. Inaction is safer, and more politically beneficial, than action.

WTF we have been hearing about rising healthcare costs forever.

Your graph says they have been declining since 1980

This does not pass the smell test?

If this is true why did we need the ACA in the first place?

WTF?

indigenous says

WTF we have been hearing about rising healthcare costs forever.

Your graph says they have been declining since 1980

This does not pass the smell test?

If this is true why did we need the ACA in the first place?

WTF?

The rate of increase is declining not the cost. You have a lot of trouble with the whole rate of increase thing every time you run into it.

ACA was never sold as cost reduction, it was sold as getting people coverage. Didn't you pay any attention at all?

"If this is true why did we need the ACA in the first place?"

Because we had tens of millions of people who could not afford coverage, some at any price since their preexisting conditions made them radioactive to carriers.

I was one of those people in 2006, I applied to BlueShield for an individual plan but was denied since I had seen a knee doctor in 2004 (for a pain/tear that went away in a couple of weeks).

We needed to get rid of the preexisting exclusion thing, but that then opens up the system for people gaming the system by signing up just when they need treatment.

Thus the liberty-destroying "mandate" that everyone sign up for at least catastrophic coverage ($5000 deductible),

But that of course is a tough row for about half the country who don't have two nickels to rub together. Thus the subsidies that make it "affordable" for poor people, plus the Medicaid expansion that avoids indignents just sticking paying customers for their hospital care.

This all makes sense, which is why the Dems and Republicans in Massachusetts implemented this same approach first.

You know, that guy the GOP chose as its standard-bearer back in 1912 or whenever.

“The key factor that some of my libertarian friends forget is that today, everybody who doesn’t have insurance is getting free coverage from the government. And the question is, do we want people to pay what they can afford, or do we want people to ride free on everyone else. And when that is recognized as the choice, most conservatives come my way.”

bob2356 says

The rate of increase is declining not the cost. You have a lot of trouble with the whole rate of increase thing every time you run into it.

Don't sound so smug at least half the time I disprove your proselytizing or scolding.

bob2356 says

ACA was never sold as cost reduction, it was sold as getting people coverage. Didn't you pay any attention at all?

How does that work with a 6k deductible?

Bellingham Bill says

And the question is, do we want people to pay what they can afford, or do we want people to ride free on everyone else.

How is that going to work with a 6k deductible? It has not changed anything.

Bellingham Bill says

Actually, I can.

I love how you use statistics. For oil prices you chose 2006 as the start year. For healthcare costs 1960. Care to zoom in on 2008-2014? Care to add the total above CPI that healthcare costs rose in those years?

I've read the book that Patrick recommends on "How to lie with statistics". I am not saying you intent to lie, but your choices of starting points do not address my arguments.

Start oil in 2001 and all of the sudden oil prices during Obama administration look really high. Start healthcare CPI graph in 2008 and the rise of healthcare costs seem a lot more dramatic.

bob2356 says

ACA was never sold as cost reduction, it was sold as getting people coverage

Actually it was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66bgpRRSDD4

Bellingham Bill says

Obama is treated like he's some bomb-throwing Marxist by the right, when the truth is he's another conservative (center-right) Dem like all the others we've had since KennedyCarter.

I completely agree with you here. Notice that I never call Obama anything. I only criticize his policies and how they did not live up to expectations. I feel like Bush started his presidency with his advisers running the show and finished as his own man. It does not excuse all the bad things he did. Obama started as his own man but is now completely relying on advisers. It's funny when conservatives compare Obama to Carter. They are nothing alike.

Bellingham Bill says

2002-2008 we gave China $2.3T of our money to buy oil with!

That's way simplifying what happened. The trade deficit with China is even higher now but that's not keeping oil prices up.

tr6 says

The trade deficit with China is even higher now but that's not keeping oil prices up.

my graph of China's consumption rise is an important part of the story of high oil prices.

as is Japan taking their nuclear fleet offline in 2011 and moving to bunker oil to power their country

I don't pretend to understand oil prices -- the swings of 2008-2009 show there's a lot of volatility and market manipulation going on at some level -- but if we had a GOP president now they'd certainly be taking credit for oil falling like it has recently.

>but that's not keeping oil prices up

what is then?

tr6 says

Actually it was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66bgpRRSDD4

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/23/us/23health.html

His words about lowering “premiums” by $2,500 for the average family of four have been fairly consistent. But the health policy advisers who formulated the figure say it actually represents the average family’s share of savings not only in premiums paid by individuals, but also in premiums paid by employers and in tax-supported health programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

“What we’re trying to do,” said one of the advisers, David M. Cutler, in explaining the gap between Mr. Obama’s words and his intent, “is find a way to talk to people in a way they understand.”

The memorandum attributed specific savings to several broad initiatives, with the numbers plucked from recent studies. Investments in computerized medical records would save $77 billion a year, the advisers wrote. Reducing administrative costs in the insurance industry would yield up to $46 billion. Improving prevention programs and chronic disease management would be worth $81 billion.

The total savings were then divided by the country’s population, multiplied for a family of four, and rounded down slightly to a number that was easy to grasp: $2,500. The average cost of family coverage bought through an employer was $12,106 in 2007, with workers paying $3,281 of that amount, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health research group.

~~

So it was (partially!) "sold" as cutting premiums, sure, even though the real argument was it would improve overall cost effectiveness of delivery (eventually!).

I don't see the problem here, people are indeed stupid and on the campaign trail you've got to package policy in terms people can understand and get behind.

most of the quotes of the video are Obama saying ". . . and if you've got healthcare, we're going to work with your employers to lower premiums by up to $2500 per family per year"

In 2008 there were 110M families in the US, so Obama's promise was on the order of $300B in cost savings of "his plan", 10% of total spending in 2012.

If it weren't a campaign promise, he could have added in addition to "up to", the qualifier ". . . eventually, assuming we get the added efficiencies we expect once the reforms are in effect".

But that's not how campaign promises work.

tr6 says

Obama started as his own man but is now completely relying on advisers.

I don't get that impression at all. He got weak-sauce advice in 2008-2009 and ran with it. From horrible people like Rahm.

I think he's wisened up more by now. He tried the bipartisan "Grand Bargain" let's-meet-in-the-middle approach, but luckily that failed when it did.

tr6 says

Obama is treated like he's some bomb-throwing Marxist by the right

He is a Marxist.

Still no answer to the 6k deductible problem.

indigenous says

bob2356 says

The rate of increase is declining not the cost. You have a lot of trouble with the whole rate of increase thing every time you run into it.

Don't sound so smug at least half the time I disprove your proselytizing or scolding.

Totally ignoring facts and continually changing the subject is not the same as disproving. You need to consult your websters more. Look up marxist while you are there also.

bob2356 says

Totally ignoring facts and continually changing the subject is not the same as disproving. You need to consult your websters more. Look up marxist while you are there also.

You mean like TR6 pointed out that the ACA was sold on cost reduction?

BTW in a United States form of Republic the government has no business entering in the market place. The complete disregard for this fact by Obama (a constitutional law professor, what a traitor) makes him not only a traitor but a comparative Marxist.

Bellingham Bill says

I don't pretend to understand oil prices -- the swings of 2008-2009 show there's a lot of volatility and market manipulation going on at some level -- but if we had a GOP president now they'd certainly be taking credit for oil falling like it has recently.

I agree with you. If oil prices fell because Obama made a deal with Saudis to take down Russia, then why did he take not take down oil sooner? If oil prices fell because of the investigations into banks' commodity trading, then why did he not do it sooner? My point is that it's too early to give credit to him for this as prices were relatively high during most of his presidency.

Do you think technology might have something to do with it?

tr6 says

bob2356 says

ACA was never sold as cost reduction, it was sold as getting people coverage

Actually it was. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66bgpRRSDD4

Lowering insurance premiums by subsidising them with tax money isn't the same as lowering the cost of health care by any stretch of the imagination. It's just taking the money out of a different pocket. It's ok indegienous doesn't understand that either.

bob2356 says

Lowering insurance premiums by subsidising them with tax money isn't the same as lowering the cost of health care by any stretch of the imagination. It's just taking the money out of a different pocket. It's ok indegienous doesn't understand that either.

Bullshit, O clearly states what he states.

When you're caught in a LIE, it's best to just reframe what you said.
And it becomes extra easy, when you're already going in, thinking your audience is a bunch of fucking idiots, morons and bafoons.

Which one is indigenous and I Bob?

I'm not the one Gruber was talking about. He was talking squarely about you Stool Cricket.

sbh,

I really wish you're stop with the eating shit images. It kind of kills the thread for everyone. Which may be the point. But that's not cool.

Marcus doesn't like SBH's selfie...

indigenous says

bob2356 says

Lowering insurance premiums by subsidising them with tax money isn't the same as lowering the cost of health care by any stretch of the imagination. It's just taking the money out of a different pocket. It's ok indegienous doesn't understand that either.

Bullshit, O clearly states what he states.

CaptainShuddup says

When you're caught in a LIE, it's best to just reframe what you said.

And it becomes extra easy, when you're already going in, thinking your audience is a bunch of fucking idiots, morons and bafoons.

Which one is indigenous and I Bob?

Well captain I guess I have to add you to the list of people who can't grasp the concept. No wonder it was to easy to Obama to sell the steaming pile of crap called aca.

bob2356 says

Well captain I guess I have to add you to the list of people who can't grasp the concept. No wonder it was to easy to Obama to sell the steaming pile of crap called aca.

And you cannot get the concept that the ACA WAS sold on reducing costs.

The concept you are trying to hide behind is not rocket science.

The ACA HAS reduced medical costs.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-05/obamacare-effect-linked-to-lower-medical-cost-estimates.html

Way too early to say that...

No amount of time will prove anything to republicans. The republican talking points will always be that the medical costs would be lower without O-care, regardless of new information.

Yeah, costs estimates under Obamacare have been revised downward. Cost estimates during Bushes term were revised upward.

Here's what you missed or ignored from the same article,

“When the CBO goes back and revises their baseline, historically they’ve adjusted upwards,” said Tricia Neuman, director of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Program on Medicare Policy. “So the fact that there’s been year-after-year downward adjustments is fairly remarkable since they occurred after the ACA” was signed into law.

Call it Crazy says

Obamacare Effect Linked to Lower Medical Cost Estimates

You know what traditionally happens with "estimates"?

Yes: wait and see.

In contrast, any confirmation of the law's bad consequences is to be shouted immediately from the rooftops, even if such "confirmation" was discovered before the law went into effect.

Time for you to shake your head sadly over the biased behavior of those awful partisans out there.

YesYNot says

When the CBO

Google what the CBO estimated medicare to cost by 1990...

Call it Crazy says

Yes, because we have no history to go by regarding the CBO and estimates....

Given your track record on probabilities and mathematics here, don't you think it would be better if you went off and joined a My Little Pony forum, or maybe got into Justin Bieber fanfiction?

Call it Crazy says

Given your track record of keyboard diarrhea here, why don't you disprove my chart instead of your normal useless posts..

You must be the king of comebacks.

It's going fine......we are still hoping for change.

"Unemployment - went from 10% just after crisis to below 6%." - Fantasy land, head in sand statement. Consider the record low labor force participation rate and declining wages. If there were no jobs, and folks stopped looking for work, the unemployment rate would be zero and yet no one would be employed.

"Tarp ended up being profitable. Helped save banks and auto companies without costing a dime." - Con game accounting at best. Here is virtually free money criminals, i.e., a money machine. And we won't jail you. Now go and record socialism-for-the-rich profits and we'll con the masses into thinking it was a fair game.

And what money to banks did pay was by jacking up fees on customers, particularly ordinary retail customers.

The one itty bitty tepid reform that was emplaced after 2008 just got nixed by the Cromnibus Bill. Obama signs, of course.

thunderlips11 says

Obama signs, of course.

Analyzer says

we are still hoping for change.

No "change" was possible after the 2010 midterms and further losses in 2012.

Given the non-desire of the Dems to do the GOP's dirty work for them of discarding the filibuster in the Senate, no "change" was possible after Scott Brown took over Kennedy's 60th seat in Feb 2010.

Going to be (GOP) business as usual in DC through 2018 unless another 2006 anti-GOP wave happens in 2016. (Don't see that happening of course). The GOP only needs one arm of power to block "change" -- they control 3 out of 4 starting next year, 4 out of 5 if you count the popular media establishment.

An Obama presidency with Dem majorities like FDR enjoyed 1933-38 and LBJ had in '64 would have looked a lot different, with a lot more progress on everything.

But this is not the hand the electorate dealt him. Quite the opposite!