Employers Screwing Workers To Sidestep ObamaCare Mandates

Employers have to provide health coverage for those who work 30 hours a week. Guess what?

workers

In a move none could have predicted, employers are cutting hours rather than comply with a mandate to provide costly benefits for workers crossing the 30 hour threshold. Seriously, who could have seen this coming?

ThinkProgress (“Virginia Cuts State Employees’ Hours To Avoid Providing Obamacare Coverage“):

As part of his state’s new budget, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) and his administration are trying to force potentially tens of thousands of public sector employees in the state to work fewer hours so that the government can avoid providing them health care.

Under Obamacare, employers are required to offer health insurance options for any employee working 30 hours or more per week. So McDonnell and his team have slipped language into the state’s budget bill requiring that any hourly waged workers employed by the state put in no more than 29 hours a week.

[…]

Other public universities have made the same shift to lower hours for employees to avoid providing them with basic health benefits. But the anti-labor practice is more prevalent in the private sector, where huge number of businesses in the restaurant industry — including Applebee’sOlive Garden, and Denny’s — seeking to pass the cost of health care onto their low-wage employees by limiting their hours. Workers who don’t receive employer-based coverage will be able to find insurance through the public exchanges.

Is this a really lousy outcome? You bet. But, contrary to the snark in the post opener, it was of course not only entirely predictable but widely predicted.

Applebee’s and Denny’s work on very small margins. Paying workers a decent wage and generous benefits means that they’d have to substantially raise prices. Unless all of their competitors did the same thing, they’d quickly lose market share. And,  if the costs went up across the entire industry uniformly, fewer people would go out to eat and all the businesses would suffer.

Olive Garden offers all the soup, salad, and breadsticks you can eat for $6.95. That’s a pretty reasonable price for lunch for even a modestly paid hourly worker. If the price went up to, say, $11.95, a lot fewer people could afford to go to Olive Garden for lunch.

The Commonwealth of Virginia isn’t a for profit business. But it, too, operates in a state of fiscal reality. If it’s forced to provide—and I’m making these numbers up out of thin air—$6000 a year in healthcare benefits to workers who were previously making $18,000 a year, they’ve got three basic options, all of which suck. First, they can make sure workers who were previously going slightly over 30 hours a week stay under that threshold. Second, they can fire one worker in three. Third, they can raise taxes enough to cover a one-third increase in worker costs.

Alas, the ultimate answer is to sever the relationship between healthcare coverage and employers. Either individuals should be responsible for their own healthcare or, more realistically, we should follow the model of every other modern society on the planet and have publicly funded system. If employers are responsible for the burden, they’re likely to continue seeking ways not to pick it up, except in the cases of workers so valuable to them that it’s worth the cost. Even then, it’ll come out of the overall compensation package, resulting in much smaller take-home pay.

FILED UNDER: *FEATURED, Economics and Business, US Politics, , ,
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. Dave Schuler says:

    As you say, not surprising. It highlights the need, as present now as it was four years ago, for a distinctly different healthcare system than the one we’ve got, whether a single-payer system, a full-on national health system like Britain’s, or the like. However, make no mistake: there’s no solution to our healthcare system’s problems that doesn’t involve providers earning less money.

  2. Gold Star for Robot Boy says:

    The more that employers try this trick, the closer America comes to single-payer.

  3. Either individuals should be responsible for their own healthcare or, more realistically, we should follow the model of every other modern society on the planet and have publicly funded system.

    Bingo. The only real solution to this is to extend Medicare to everybody and pay for it with a VAT.

  4. michael reynolds says:

    The Medicaid expansion will catch some of these people. I believe that goes up to 138% of poverty. And Republican governors, once they get over their tedious pouting, will accept it.

    The businesses will pay a price. I used to manage a Denny’s. The idea that employees are interchangeable cogs is nonsense. I used to be ready to kill for a good morning waitress, let alone a good grill man. (Sorry for the sexist terminology, that was the breakdown in those days.)

    With immigration reform coming it will be harder for businesses to exploit scared undocumented workers, more will stand up for their rights, and more will become mobile – able to move to jobs where they aren’t treated like dirt by greedy millionaire executives.

    My guess is that this is a tantrum more than a trend. If you cut hours you raise turnover, you raise training costs, you reduce efficiency, you piss off customers. So prices will go up marginally at retail and restaurants.

  5. EddieInCA says:

    Shows again the moral bankruptcy of Americans.

    Healthcare?

    No way. Work part time instead.

    Because everyone knows that part-time workers are the most reliable, skilled, efficient workers around.

  6. mantis says:

    Employers Screwing Workers To Sidestep ObamaCare Mandates Save Money

    What else is new?

  7. PD Shaw says:

    There are long-term trends towards reduced hours, well before Obamacare. Latest BLS survey:

    Average Weekly Hours: 33.6 hours
    -Manufacturing: 41.6 hours
    -Service: 32.4 hours

    Placing significant regulatory consequences at the 30 hour level will likely further reduce the hours per week, but there are other trends: decreased manufacturing; leisure gap; lower fertility; two-income households sharing child-rearing, technology, etc. . .

  8. anjin-san says:

    As Applebees found out recently, treating your employees like crap can have consequences in the age of social media. Hopefully, history will repeat itself and businesses that show they care for their employees well being will be rewarded, just as those that show they don’t are penalized.

  9. john personna says:

    This is not actually the most intelligent way to approach the question. What you want is total health care enrollment, before and after ACA.

    If insurance coverage increases, and you are only naming corner cases, then you are a shill, sir.

    (You can throw in median working wages if you like, or total compensation to hourly employees, but those should be aggregates and not cherry picked examples, which may well be fliers.)

  10. 11B40 says:

    Greetings:

    Geez, where will this leave the 10-15% of workers that our Pied PIping President has helped remove from the workforce ???

  11. john personna says:

    @PD Shaw:

    That’s some good data. If the weekly hours for service are really 32.4, and ACA covers far far more than service, it may be cherry picking (duh) to go find a company cutting from 32 to 29.

  12. john personna says:

    @11B40:

    That is so astonishingly disconnected from reality that it is self-refuting. Not even the most arch conservative economist thinks “Obama!!!” removed jobs from the economy..

  13. Drew says:

    I wish you all good luck in attempting to force businesses to do diseconomic things, and also in perfecting those perpetual motion machines you are working on in the basement.

    Also, contact me when you are fed up with the law of gravity. I’ve got some plans, and they all involve government intervention.

  14. Gold Star for Robot Boy says:

    I wish you all good luck in attempting to force businesses to do diseconomic things…

    Hear that, everyone? We all are here to serve corporations, not the other way around.

  15. Rafer Janders says:

    Alas, the ultimate answer is to sever the relationship between healthcare coverage and employers.

    Why “alas”? That sounds like a great thing. It was always nonsensical to have health coverage provided by employers, rather than being available to all citizens as a matter of course.

  16. JKB says:

    Well, one way to lower health care costs and increase transparency is to outlaw the malpractice lawsuits. The lawyers are killing the much “loved” NHS in Britain and by impact creating hellholes where supposed hospitals were to be. And let’s not avoid the treat to the metric coming with government control of healthcare.

    And even in Britain, they tax the poor for the “free” healthcare. Just like here in the form of lower wages as the employer has to meet his side of the tax.

    BTW,

    Seriously, who could have seen this coming?

    Certainly not Ivy league educated technocrats in government. Does not support their “brilliant” idea so it cannot be reality. As I’ve said, bureaucracy is evil. And like all evil and dangerous things should be kept small, on a leash and with the means to put it down ready at hand.

  17. anjin-san says:

    As I’ve said, bureaucracy is evil.

    Really? Every major corporation in this country has a large bureaucracy. Are they “evil”?

  18. SoWhat says:

    Gee, I guess the Democrats should have actually read the bill before they rammed it through on Christmas Eve. Yeah, that’s radical, I know.

    John Roberts did the GOP a big favor by giving Obamacare the green light; the law of unintended (and intended) consequences of Obamacare will be prime GOP fodder in ’14.

    On the other hand, if all this results in the much loved and much desired (by Dems) Single Payer Utopia, then it will be worth it to them to lose some seats in congress.

  19. C. Clavin says:

    There is nothing new here. I worked for companies last century that kept workers below full-time to save benefits. Maybe the only thing new is that the hours changed from 35 to 30…or whatever. The trend to more part-time workers was recognized by the BLS back in ’06…I guess Obamacare is retro-active???

    What’s really fascinating that Virginia Gov. McDonnell doesn’t want to provide insurance to his employees…nor does he want to expand Medicaid or support the federally run health benefits exchange under the Affordable Care Act. I guess that’s what you call a compassionate conservative.
    Basically, the govenor of Virginia is an ass.
    If it’s not probing women with transvaginal ultrasounds he’s not particularly interested.

  20. scott says:

    I would think corporations would like to get out of the healthcare business. They can save money by getting rid of the HR people would manage those programs. Another impact is that the price differential between group rates and individual rates with decrease. Whether this good or bad depends on which side of the differential you’re on. The benefits (at least in healthcare) of being with a large firms will decrease.

  21. C. Clavin says:

    There’s a JKB comment above…but it’s probably about as accurate as his or her comments re: the NRA ad and armed guards at Sidwell Friends…which is to say not at all.
    And don’t expect him or her to have the spine to admit it when you confront him or her with the actual facts.
    Facts mean nothing to those suffering from the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

  22. C. Clavin says:

    “…before they rammed it through on Christmas Eve…”

    You realize that the reason it was passed on X-mas eve is because Republicans insisted it be voted on on X-mas Eve…right?
    In other words you are an enthusiast of kabuki theater…where the kool-aid is always cold and refreshing…take a big ol’ gulp.

  23. Mikey says:

    @Rafer Janders:

    It was always nonsensical to have health coverage provided by employers

    Indeed, one of the greatest policy mistakes of the 20th century. And the PPACA doesn’t fix it.

    We should have looked to the French model. It’s not perfect–it pays for too much stuff that’s not really healthcare–but it provides universal coverage and care in a publicly-funded, private-provider system. They pay taxes for it, of course, but it still ends up costing less than similar insurance here.

  24. Septimius says:

    But, but, but just wait until Obamacare is fully implemented. People are going to LOVE it!

  25. JKB says:

    @anjin-san: Every major corporation in this country has a large bureaucracy. Are they “evil”?

    Yes, if not controlled. But corporate bureaucracies have controls put upon them. They must produce a product the other will voluntarily buy and they are in conflict with other bureaucracies, corporate and government.

    Government bureaucracies, however, can easily get out of control and inflict their evil upon the populace. They have the near monopoly on force and can, since Congress and the Courts have abdicated their duties, use the law against the populace with little restraint. Government, i.e, the bureaucracy should therefore be limited, small and kept under tight control. It remains to be seen if the animal in the US can be recaptured. Sadly, bureaucracies tend to survive revolutions so the only real path is a long slow trudge to retake the ground in the face of the technocrats increasingly desperate fire.

  26. David M says:

    So do any of the “conservative” commenters here actually support Joyner’s statement “…realistically, we should follow the model of every other modern society on the planet and have publicly funded system”?

  27. C. Clavin says:

    “…Government bureaucracies, however, can easily get out of control and inflict their evil upon the populace…”

    How stupid can you be???
    Oooooo….bureaucratic evil….oooooo.
    Do you really believe this nonsense?
    Or do you just think it’s cool to say really stupid stuff on the internet?

  28. JKB says:

    @C. Clavin: I worked for companies last century that kept workers below full-time to save benefits.

    I did to, it was called the United States Government. It was quite the scandal and caused quite the impact on budgets when a guy died after 30 years of government service but had always been a temporary employee without health or pension benefits. That was way back in the early 1990s. So instead they went interns and contract employees as well as working someone 3 out of 5 years then laying them off.

    No organization is virtuous in this matter. Bureaucrats have budgets and benefits cost money better spent on lavish Las Vegas conventions for senior managers.

  29. michael reynolds says:

    @JKB:

    Drivel.

    The government of the United States has shown no sign of being a barely-caged beast ready to pounce on the populace. In fact, big business has filled that role. Big business rigged the interest rates and sold bogus securities and crashed the economy. Big business happily poisons the air, the water and the food if it earns them another fraction of a percentage in profit. Big business is far more invasive of our privacy than the government.

    The fact is we need government to rein in business. Which si not to say that government doesn’t behave badly as well. But this simplistic notion that business is somehow self-regulating is utter nonsense. Have you been asleep for the last decade?

  30. grumpy realist says:

    @JKB: I thought you libertarians wanted to leave everything up to contracts and tort law?

    By the way, all that stuff about tort lawyers driving up the costs of medical insurance? Total lie. Taxes rammed together limitations on medical malpractice awards, claiming it would help drive costs of health insurance down. Result? Health insurance costs went UP.

  31. michael reynolds says:

    Yes, obviously we should have looked at European models. And yes, it was obvious four years ago when they were working on the ACA. But there was zero chance of getting Republicans or red state Democrats to go along. Zero. None.

    First we had to prepare the battlefield. So step one was to establish the principal that Americans have a basic right to health care, regardless of income. That had to come first, because that was and is denied by conservatives. That’s what the ACA did.

    Now, with that right more-or-less established, we can start looking to an actual, rational solution.

    Will it take a decade or more longer than it should have? Of course. Again, we have these creatures called Republicans. They are the club foot of our system, and we have to drag them laboriously wherever we go. Other countries don’t have a political party devoted to paranoid fantasy or a party determined to return us to the 19th century. We are handicapped. It takes us longer than it should to do much of anything useful.

  32. Tsar Nicholas says:

    Cute headline. The other way to have headlined this story is as follows:

    Poorly Conceived and Rushed Obama Healthcare Law Invites Employers to Cut Hours and to Cut Benefits for Employees, employers accept the invitations

    Speaking of which, and also falling within the realm of the untoward consequences of leftism as public policy, and of Midnight laws enacted by fiat, here are a few other components of Obamacare of which our intellectual superiors in the chattering classes mostly are insouciant or about which they have cloudy thought processes:

    – Obamacare allows employers to pay as little as 60% of premium costs for the healthcare coverages they provide. Well, thing is, for decades the standard in all industries and sectors, public and private, has been that employers who provided healthcare benefits paid 80-90% of premium costs. But with premiums skyrocketing since Obamacare was enacted many employers will take Team Obama up on that offer and reduce their share of premiums. Meaning that many workers (and by “many” we’re talking millions of them) will have worse benefits packages post-Obamacare than they did pre-Obamacare, even if they’re still employed, still full-time, and still with plan-sponsored healthcare coverages.

    – Obamacare requires minimum plan components of coverage for all full-time employees for which their employers provide health plans. Well, obviously, the attendant regulatory and compliance costs, along with the increased actuarial risks, have and will continue to cause healthcare premiums to skyrocket. Since Obamacare simultaneously is causing employers to convert people from full time to part time, to cut hours even for part timers, and to lay people off entirely, the end result inevitably will be that healhcare coverage ratios for the middle classes substantially will be worse post-Obamacare than they were pre-Obamacare.

    – Obamacare has no applicability whatsoever to employers with less than 50 total employees, counting part timers who average 30 hrs. per week. So let’s say you’re a company with 40-49 people on payroll. What are the odds that you’ll be adding to your ranks? Slim and none. And let’s say you’re a company with around 50-55 people on payroll. Yep, you’ll be firing people, merely because of Obamacare itself.

    Not exactly progressive utopia. More like regressive dystopia.

  33. David M says:

    @Tsar Nicholas:

    Again, to the subject of the current thread, do you support Joyner’s statement “…realistically, we should follow the model of every other modern society on the planet and have publicly funded system”?

  34. C. Clavin says:

    Turns out JKB is both spineless and a taker…sucking on the Government teet.
    I’m shocked, shocked.

  35. C. Clavin says:

    “…Well, one way to lower health care costs and increase transparency is to outlaw the malpractice lawsuits…”

    Seriously?
    Do Republicans think no one should ever be held accountable for their actions?

  36. Al says:

    Part timers and temps had it so good up till now too.

  37. Jack says:

    Michael,

    So step one was to establish the principal that Americans have a basic right to health care, regardless of income.

    All Americans had a basic right to health care regardless of income before ObamaCare. They had a right to seek out someone willing to accept what they could pay or go to an emergency room. As for this idea that someone has a right to force someone else to pay for their health care–there is no such right any more than the right to force someone to pay for the house they want or the car they want. How about that new TV and gaming system they want? You will respond with “but healthcare is different”. No it isn’t. It costs money. Nothing is free. If you can’t afford a knee replacement then ask a charity, ask a family member or three to chip in, ask a local church, but if you can’t scrape together the funds then get a crutch and suck it up. Harsh, you’re damn skippy. Reality, yes. Those few paying in can only support the many drawing out for a limited time, go take a look as Social Security. Meanwhile the European systems have implimented death panels, routinely planning a course of action for those with critical illnesses to die by “adopt[ing] the regime, which can involve the removal of hydration and nutrition from dying patients.”

    http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2012/11/02/nhs-paying-over-millions-to-hospitals-to-deny-food-and-fluids-to-end-of-life-patients/

    Yeah, that’s what I look to governemnt for–a pathway to death.

  38. Stan says:

    Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands have health care systems similar to the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare. All three have modern economies and all three control health care costs far more effectively than the US. I would like the US to adopt a single payer system because I think it might have enough bargaining power to control medical inflation, but the system we’ll soon have deserves an objective trial.

  39. edmondo says:

    so if someone works two 30 hours a week part-time jobs will they be able to afford the penalty for not being able to afford heathcare insurance?

  40. David M says:

    @Jack:

    As for this idea that someone has a right to force someone else to pay for their health care–there is no such right

    Perhaps you’ve been asleep for the last 30 years, as you are absolutely wrong here. This question was answered the other way when EMTLA/COBRA was signed into law by Ronald Reagan.

    Do you actually support ending Medicaid, giving no help to the poor and elderly?

  41. john personna says:

    @Drew:

    I wish you all good luck in attempting to force businesses to do diseconomic things, and also in perfecting those perpetual motion machines you are working on in the basement.

    It’s so much easier when you can lock workers in dorms, and work them 12 or 16 hours a day, Chinese style … or when you import those goods.

    Once you go down the road that workers are a resource to exploit, that’s where it leads.

  42. C. Clavin says:

    So Jack…

    “…All Americans had a basic right to health care regardless of income before ObamaCare. They had a right to seek out someone willing to accept what they could pay or go to an emergency room…”

    You think I should pay for free-riders?
    A study in Washington State showed that what you are suggesting is a good system costs all of us responsible people $900 a year in increased costs.
    Do you realize that Republicans originally proposed the mandate system as a way of forcing personal responsibility?
    Why is it that you do not think personal responsibility is important?

  43. john personna says:

    @C. Clavin:

    Jack doesn’t know where that money comes from, nor apparently that it is now a tax on us insured.

    I pay higher Kaiser rates because Kaiser must treat people who walk in, without reasonable expectation of payment.

    That is socialized medicine. It’s just really wasteful and disorganized socialized medicine.

  44. mantis says:

    @Jack:

    All Americans had a basic right to health care regardless of income before ObamaCare. They had a right to seek out someone willing to accept what they could pay or go to an emergency room.

    Yeah, people have a right to buy things they can’t afford. And we all end up paying for emergency room care, except it costs way more than normal health care and would be unnecessary if poorer folks had options other than the emergency room.

    As for this idea that someone has a right to force someone else to pay for their health care–there is no such right any more than the right to force someone to pay for the house they want or the car they want.

    We require that people with cars have insurance. We will now require that people with physical bodies have health insurance. The government does, in fact, have the “right” to implement this. The Supreme Court said so.

    How about that new TV and gaming system they want? You will respond with “but healthcare is different”. No it isn’t. It costs money. Nothing is free.

    Food costs money too, but we’ve agreed that it’s better to feed starving people than to let them die. So yes, healthcare is different. Nobody died from a lack of television or video games.

    Those few paying in can only support the many drawing out for a limited time, go take a look as Social Security.

    Actually, nearly everyone pays in. That’s the point. Anyway, I looked at Social Security. What’s your point?

    Meanwhile the European systems have implimented death panels, routinely planning a course of action for those with critical illnesses to die by “adopt[ing] the regime, which can involve the removal of hydration and nutrition from dying patients.”

    Sorry, I didn’t realize you were a complete moron. Carry on.

  45. cd6 says:

    Oh what a surprise – NOT!

    The Central Planners aka Communists here at OTB want the Politburo to dictate to the job creators (our most beloved and important Americans) how to run their businesses. And now they don’t like the consequences.

    The patriots who run Applebees and Papa John’s and Goldline are all just trying to make an honest buck, and save the economy from OBOWMA’s totalitarian attempts at destroying America. INSTEAD you godless LIEBRULS want to hand-cuff our job creators by forcing them to provide healthcare to their workers, instead of letting them go bankrupt and die in the streets like our founding fathers intended. FOR SHAME.

    Well, you guys own it now. I weep for America and also the pope.

  46. aquanerd says:

    Don’t you have to calculate in the part time employees too? I thought the law was set up by calculating all hours worked by full time and part time and multiplying by the fraction of hours worked also… for example:

    a firm has 35 full-time employees (30+ hours). In addition, the firm has 20 part-time employees who all work 24 hours per week (96 hours per month). These part-time employees’ hours would be treated as equivalent to 16 full-time employees, based on the following calculation:

    20 employees x 96 hours / 120 = 1920 / 120 = 16 workers

    35+16 = 51 employees

  47. anjin-san says:

    or go to an emergency room

    Sure. If they have cancer, they can go to the ER and say “I’m ready for my chemo”…

    Are you really this stupid? Don’t bother, the rest of your comment shows that you are.

  48. David M says:

    @cd6:

    Sadly, that’s basically indistinguishable from the earlier comments from the right wing puke funnel.

  49. anjin-san says:

    @ JKB

    But corporate bureaucracies have controls put upon them. They must produce a product the other will voluntarily buy

    You don’t have much business experience, do you? Corporate bureaucracies make rules. They enforce rules. They have meetings to talk about more rules. They don’t really enhance productivity, they actually tend to curb it.

  50. grumpy realist says:

    @Jack: What this simply does is takes the externality costs and brings them in house.

    Or are you happy with a society where people die from untreated teeth abscesses, untreated cancer, and all the other stuff?

    May you lose your health insurance, get a prior condition, and then go trying to purchase health insurance in the system prior to Obamacare.

  51. PD Shaw says:

    @aquanerd: I think there are two separate steps.

    If a business has 50 or more full-time employees (50 FTEs), then they are required to provide healthcare coverage to all employees that work 30 hours or more per week. A business that had 100 employees working “half-time” (50 FTEs) would be required to provide health care insurance to . . . nobody, assuming all employees work less than 30 hours per week.

  52. JKB says:

    @anjin-san:

    And they conspire with government and union bureaucrats to be bailed out by a large influx of government money rather than going through an orderly and fair bankruptcy.

    No doubt corporate bureaucracies do become so powerful they can achieve alliances with government bureaucracies to do evil together. All the while being cheered on by Democrats who yearn to be servants to big government and big corporation.

  53. anjin-san says:

    @ JKB

    Seek professional help. Seriously.

  54. aquanerd says:

    @PD Shaw:

    I got that example right off the Congressional Research Services document, page 2.

    http://www.ncsl.org/documents/health/EmployerPenalties.pdf

  55. scott says:

    @michael reynolds:

    So step one was to establish the principal that Americans have a basic right to health care, regardless of income

    With all due respect, I don’t think this principle was established at all. The principle that all people should have a right to healthcare is not established in large sections of our population. I don’t think I have ever seen a survey or poll that asks that basic question: “Do you believe there is a right to a minimum amount of healhcare, regardless of ability to pay?

    I suspect a lot of people will say no. Particularly those who already have healthcare.

    By the way, I believe healthcare is a right and the argument should be over the best way to deliver it.

  56. C. Clavin says:

    Once again JKB is full of shit.
    If you listen to the guy from FIAT the problem with Chrysler was not the Unions…they came to the table and helped save the company…the problem with Chrysler was the over-inflated executive bureaucracy. He actually shut down the floor the executives used to occupy and left it abandoned as a reminder.
    So much for the controls put upon corporate bureaucracy.

  57. john personna says:

    @scott:

    For what it’s worth, I think it’s OK to say “I believe healthcare [should be] a right and the argument should be over the best way to deliver it.”

    It’s OK for the idea of “basic” services to change with the affluence of a society.

    In fact, the richer a society the darker the idea that the poorest should be denied, in general.

  58. stonetools says:

    Will it take a decade or more longer than it should have? Of course. Again, we have these creatures called Republicans. They are the club foot of our system, and we have to drag them laboriously wherever we go. Other countries don’t have a political party devoted to paranoid fantasy or a party determined to return us to the 19th century. We are handicapped. It takes us longer than it should to do much of anything useful.

    Indeed. Speaking of the 19th century, the first universal health insurance sysyem was instituted in Germany in 1883 under Otto von Bismarck.-no one’s idea of a liberal. Think of the fact that modern American conservatives have not yet caught up to the thinking of Otto von frickin’ Bismarck.
    Its mind boggling, when you think of it. Conservative thinking in the US really hasn’t advanced beyond Herbert Spencer, the Social Darwinist.

  59. Jack says:

    @David M: David, As I said, people could do this before ObamaCare. There was a right to emergency service only.
    1.For any person who comes to a hospital emergency department, “the hospital must provide for an appropriate medical screening examination . . . to determine whether or not an emergency medical condition exists” (see 42 USC § 1395dd[a]).[3]
    2.If the screening examination reveals an emergency medical condition, the hospital must “stabilize the medical condition” before transferring or discharging the patient.

    That is all. If there was no “emergency” then the hospital had no obligation to treat the patient.

  60. Jack says:

    @mantis:

    The government does, in fact, have the “right” to implement this. The Supreme Court said so.

    No, the court said it was a tax and the government can has the power to levy taxes. They did not say that the government has a “right” to impliment healthcare. BTW, governments have powers not rights.

  61. PD Shaw says:

    @aquanerd: Looking at your chart on page 2:

    Step One: Is the employer a “large employer”? At this step, part-time employee hours are accumulated to make “full time equivalents” (FTE) as your initial comment indicated.

    Step Two: Which employees must a “large employer” supply insurance coverage or face penalty?

    Once an employer is determined to be a “large employer,” could the employer be subject to a penalty if this type of employee received a premium credit?

    Full-time: Yes

    Part-time: No

    For a large business, there is a strong incentive to reduce hours of its lowest paid employees, with the understanding that the government will pick them up and there will be no penalty as long as they keep the employee’s hours below 30 on average.

  62. Jack says:

    @anjin-san: So a smoker says I have lung cancer, treat me. So I’m supposed to pay for that? Bullshit. Let him die.

  63. C. Clavin says:

    @ Jack…
    You never explained why it is you feel personal responsibility is not important…and that free-riding the system is a perfectly acceptable approach to recieving health care…at the cost of others.
    Please enlighten us.

  64. mantis says:

    @Jack:

    No, the court said it was a tax and the government can has the power to levy taxes. They did not say that the government has a “right” to impliment healthcare. BTW, governments have powers not rights.

    That’s why I put the word in quotes, genius. But thank you for acknowledging what you denied earlier, the government does have the legal power to implement the individual mandate.

    And thank you for ignoring the rest of my reply to your comment. I’ll just assume you have no response because you realized how incorrect you are.

  65. Jack says:

    @mantis: No, I just looked at the most bogus of your claims and responed to it. There is still no established RIGHT to healthcare. I don’t have time to respond to every piece of garbage that spews for from your sticking maw throughout the day.

  66. mantis says:

    @Jack:

    I don’t have time to respond to every piece of garbage that spews for from your sticking maw throughout the day.

    Translation: My arguments are bogus and I know it, therefore I will not defend them.

  67. Jack says:

    @C. Clavin: Sorry, lung cancer is not an emergency. Just as every bowl movement from the sphincter you call a mouth is not worth responding to.

  68. anjin-san says:

    @ Jack

    Do you have a family? Let’s say you do, and that you love them. In this hypothetical, one of them is driving and texting. As a result, there is a terrible accident. Your loved one needs heroic measure to live, and will go though life as a quadriplegic.

    Unless you have a few million set aside for a rainy day, you are now a charity case. I will be one of the people picking up the tab.

    How do you feel about your “let them die” philosophy now? Or are you are true freebird conservative who will refuse government help and look for an ice floe to put your wife or child on to die?

  69. mantis says:

    Notice how libertarians like Jack really seem to get off on the idea of other people dying needlessly? That’s because they are sociopaths.

  70. Jack says:

    @mantis:

    My arguments are bogus and I know it, therefore I will not defend them.

    Translation: I’m a liberal piece of shit right up there with Michael Moore, Rosie O’Donnell, and Piers Morgan. I am superior in every way so my opinion is so much more valuable than that of anyone else.

  71. Jack says:

    @anjin-san: Let them die if family cannot cover the costs.

  72. anjin-san says:

    Well Jack, you are a perfect moden conservative. Ignorant, angry, and vile in general. Have a nice life.

  73. Jack says:

    @mantis: Notice how Mantice wants to save everyone at all costs but never opens his own damn wallet? F&**ing hypocrite.

  74. al-Ameda says:

    Single Payer is the only rational way to go. America is not however a particularly rational country these days so it’s not going to happen. The private sector, which gave us nearly two decades of annual increases in premium rates in excess of 3 times the rate of inflation, is clearly not the solution either.

    I’ve had to negotiate contracts for health insurance benefits, and the only way out of the sir along cost increases was to move to HSA based plans with higher deductibles – employers are looking for a way to get out of the benefits business – there is only one, Single Payer.

  75. Jack says:

    @anjin-san: More name calling. It’s what I expect from you anjin. No valid arguement, let’s throw something else at the wall and see if it sticks.

  76. anjin-san says:

    Guys, I suggest that Wack has already had all the attention he merits.

  77. Jack says:

    @al-Ameda: I agree, it’s time for all employers to get out of the health care business. If it’s not a job where serious injury/death are a likely result of the work (fireman, military, etc.) which are typically government jobs with low pay anyway, all healthcare should be purchased by the individual.

  78. al-Ameda says:

    @Jack: I suspect that Mantis pays taxes, so your attack was baseless bull****
    Also when has Mantis , unlike most conservatives, expressed a refuse ce to pay taxes for worthwhile social goods and benefits?

  79. Jack says:

    @anjin-san: Then shut the hell up ashole.

  80. stalingrad flagger says:

    I like the way you think, comrade Jack!

  81. anjin-san says:

    I still think the system those darned commies in Switzerland use rates a closer look.

  82. Jack says:

    @al-Ameda: I suspect he is like all libers that want’s everything paid for everyone but takes part in the same tax deductions and loopholes that are afforded those EVIL republicans like Romney. Besides thatt, I doubt mantis can hold down a job.

  83. David M says:

    @Jack:

    Let them die if family cannot cover the costs.

    You really do not have any understanding of medical costs do you?

  84. Jack says:

    @stalingrad flagger: I believe the communists took everything from the people and then gave them back only what they needed via rationing. I do not espouse those ideals. I espouse free market and libertarianism. Leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone

  85. Medusa says:

    @john personna

    That is so astonishingly disconnected from reality that it is self-refuting. Not even the most arch conservative economist thinks “Obama!!!” removed jobs from the economy..

    I think it’s pretty clear that what he means is Obama’s policies removed jobs from the workforce.
    They have. Because they aren’t creating jobs. The U6 unemployment number is currently 14.4%. Millions of people have literally left the workforce and are no longer counted in the unemployment numbers because they have been looking for a job for too long.

    Facts. Try them out sometime even when – and I know this is the real challenge you face – they don’t come out your way.

    Obama’s economic policies have been a 5 Trillion dollar lab experiment in economics with the middle class playing lab mice, running the maze that Obama created. Only there’s no cheese at the end of it. Just excuses…

  86. Jack says:

    @David M: Yes. I am. A CT scan can cost from $300 to $5000 dollars. Invasive life saving treatment upwards of $15000. It’s still not my responsibility to pay for someone else’s healthcare.

  87. Jack says:

    @Medusa: MY GOD! A voice of reason amongst all the wails of BS!

  88. @Jack:

    “So a smoker says I have lung cancer, treat me. So I’m supposed to pay for that? Bullshit. Let him die.”

    D’oh!

    Exposed yourself there, bud. Not only are you ignorant, but you’re also kind of a jerk. We were going to ask how you really felt, but then you told us and made us glad we didn’t ask.

    @michael reynolds: I think we’ve found today’s club foot….and his name is Jack.

    Oh, and James, great post, glad you’re coming around to the idea of universal healthcare.

    But this:

    “Applebee’s and Denny’s work on very small margins.”

    is only true because their business model demands they operate hundreds, if not thousands, of stores. Of course they work on very small margins. They have a lot of leases and light bills to pay.

    They’re not choosing the 30 hour work week because it’s the only option available to them. They’re choosing that route because it’s the only way they can maintain their aggressive expansion plans.

  89. Jack says:

    @James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):

    Not only are you ignorant, but you’re also kind of a jerk. We were going to ask how you really felt, but then you told us and made us glad we didn’t ask.

    OH Please take it back! I don’t think I could live another minute if you didn’t like me. Piss Off!

  90. Stan says:

    @Jack: You’re awfully sure of yourself. Are you certain that nobody you love will ever need help in paying for medical care? What if one of your children can’t afford an expensive operation and you aren’t in a position to help? Or if not your children, your brothers or sisters or your best friend? ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you’ makes sense. In fact, it’s the foundation of civilized society.

  91. Medusa says:

    @ C. Clavin

    How stupid can you be???
    Oooooo….bureaucratic evil….oooooo.
    Do you really believe this nonsense?

    History. Learn some.

    Italy.
    Japan.
    Germany.
    Russia.
    Every third African nation that has changed names in the last 40 years…

    Democracies and republics fall when government is allowed to gather power unchecked. This is exactly why our Constitution put in a system of checks and balances between the three branches.

    Your insults betray your ignorance.

  92. Jack says:

    @Stan: I love all my family memebers. Wife, daughter, father, mother, sisters, etc.. I would do what I can along with other family members to pay the cost up to and including 2nd mortgaging homes, or ask a charitible organization. I would never ask someone else to pay what I couldn’t. I would no more force a medical bill I could not afford upon my neighbor(s) than I would hold a gun to their head and force them to fork over their paycheck. The government doing it for me doesn’t make it right or easier to accept.

  93. @Jack:

    “It’s still not my responsibility to pay for someone else’s healthcare.”

    When you pay your insurance premium, you’re paying for your healthcare. If you’re offended that some of your premium may be pooled, sorry……that’s how insurance works.

  94. Jack says:

    @James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb): Only if I choose to participate in health insureance. If I pay for healthcare as I go nothing is pooled and it’s cheaper.

  95. wr says:

    @Jack: “Harsh, you’re damn skippy”

    Generally, it’s pretty easy to tell when you’re dealing with a complete moron even without the signature phrases that prove it…. but somehow they always feel compelled to include at least one.

    “You’re damn skippy.” Do you really have to read another word to know this guy is a clown?

  96. @Jack: If you don’t want to be ridiculed, don’t be ridiculous. If you think you are demonstrating some kind of self-reliant principle, you should know this: You are only demonstrating that you have no understanding of how these things work.

  97. Jack says:

    @wr: Yes. Let’s push ignore everthing else a person has said because I you damn skippy. GOD you are truely an elitist liberal hack!

  98. Tyrell says:

    I have talked to some business owners and they are worried about the requirements including the costs and administration of this program. Maybe Obama needs to listen to some of these people and make some changes in this program as worthwhile as it may be. Maybe this had some flaws in it and perhaps if there had been more input from doctors, hospitals administrators, insurance executives, and common working people then maybe there wouldn’t be this big mess. Instead this plan evidently was dreamed up by politicians, and we all know where that leads. A few years ago a doctor told me that people in this country are over doctored, over medicated, and over tested. Doctors will call patients in just to tell them that test results were fine! Since insurance or medicare will pay for it, who cares? Just go to a doctor and tell them you don’t have insurance: see how many tests they order – zero! All of this started years ago with the HMO’s that seemed to encourage people to visit the doctor very often for everything and anything from a hangnail to a cough.

  99. @Jack:

    “If I pay for healthcare as I go nothing is pooled and it’s cheaper.”

    Um…no…it’s not. Ask your doctor.

    Again, you seem to lack a basic understanding here. I’m not going to be the one to try and fix that problem. I’m just pointing it out.

  100. Jack says:

    @James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb): Why, because I espouse self reliance and the idea that it’s wrong to force me to pay for poor people’s health care, food, housing, Obama phone, child care, etc, etc, etc? That’s ridiculous? It is not the government’s job to do these things. There were less poor when charities took care of the poor. Now a large segment of society can sit and do nothing and get about what a military retiree gets after 20 years of service. It’s amazing to see what people can do without when someone else isn’t forced to pony up the money to pay for it.

  101. Stan says:

    @Jack: I understand your point of view, but I don’t think a society based on your beliefs could survive.

  102. Medusa says:

    @Mantis responding to @Jack

    Meanwhile the European systems have implimented death panels, routinely planning a course of action for those with critical illnesses to die by “adopt[ing] the regime, which can involve the removal of hydration and nutrition from dying patients.”

    Sorry, I didn’t realize you were a complete moron. Carry on.

    I’ll give Mantis the benefit of the doubt here and assume he’s just uninformed. Jack is being acurate here in his assessment of what is taking place in European systems even if you object to his use of the term “death panels.”

    The UK has what is called the “Liverpool Care Pathway” which is increasingly being abused. The accusation is that it is being used to hasten the death of those judged terminally ill. For pure expediency. With sometimes patients that are decidedly not quite as “terminal” as they first thought. The controversy has reached a point where official investigations are taking place

    Quote:
    The pathway is a system by which doctors identify patients who are dying, and, instead of trying to save them, concentrate on trying to ease their suffering.

    Doctors hostile to the pathway say it is impossible to predict accurately when patients may die, that death on the pathway becomes a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, and that the method is used to get rid of difficult patients and to free hospital beds.

    Medical critics say patients who could have lived for many months are effectively condemned to death by being put on the pathway.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2222702/Liverpool-Care-Pathway-Investigation-launched-controversial-guidelines-hastening-death.html#ixzz2KdH3e2i8

    The Pathway is a Government sponsored program.

  103. Jack says:

    @Stan: Stan, there was a time when charities jumped in during a time of need and aided people when medical bills became too much. What was wrong with that? Society survived just fine. Is this tax and spend on the poor solely so we can hold our heads up and say “we’re doing the best we can (with other people’s money)” while not giving a second thought to the homeless guy we just stepped over on the way to/from our job?

  104. wr says:

    @Jack:And you, my noisy little friend, are a troll. Not a libertarian, not a conservative, just a troll here to fling poo at the walls.

    My first guess would be you’re one of our regular trolls — Hi, Jay! — who’s gotten tired of pretending to be rational and wants to shriek like a howler monkey for a while . But you could also be someone new who is so lonely and pathetic that his only method of connecting with other humans is to annoy total strangers on the internet.

    Either way, you’re a waste of pixels. Bye!

  105. @Jack:

    Now a large segment of society can sit and do nothing and get about what a military retiree gets after 20 years of service.

    Who? Old people who didn’t do anything but work their whole damn lives?

    I think rather than arguing with me, you should familiarize yourself with the real world. Do that, and we’ll talk.

  106. michael reynolds says:

    @Jack:
    I for one am glad you’re here. Our usual right wing nitwits are getting dull. Same drivel every day. It’s good to have someone new and really creepy to play with.

  107. David M says:

    @Jack:

    I would do what I can along with other family members to pay the cost up to and including 2nd mortgaging homes, or ask a charitible organization.

    Why does this only apply to health care? Why doesn’t this apply to every other service the government provides?

  108. David M says:

    @Jack:

    there was a time when charities jumped in during a time of need and aided people when medical bills became too much…Society survived just fine.

    Most certainly not true or relevant to the current conversation.

  109. Dave Schuler says:

    @scott:

    I would think corporations would like to get out of the healthcare business.

    I think the answer to that is “it depends”. Most larger companies are self-insuring, i.e. they don’t purchase insurance. If they’ve got a relationship with an insurance company, the insurance company is acting as a claims processor, bearing no risk, and getting paid a percentage of the amount of claims they process.

    Self-insurers do so because they pay less that way than they would if they purchased insurance. If they’re compelled to purchase insurance, regardless of whether it’s from a private insurer or from the government, they’ll pay more.

  110. sam says:

    @grumpy realist:

    @JKB: I thought you libertarians wanted to leave everything up to contracts and tort law?

    Except that they despise trial lawyers…

  111. stonetools says:

    Jack is a typical example of the REAL Tea Party folks. When people berate Obama for not reaching out enough to Republicans, just have them come to here to read the offerings of Jenos, JB, Superdestroyer, and Jack. . They’ll finally realize that you can’t reason with people who live tin the rigfht wing bubble.
    Jack doesn’t even realize that through his taxes he has been paying for the medical treatment of those treated in emergency rooms. Its meanness combined with invincible ignorance.

  112. anjin-san says:

    @ Medusa

    History. Learn some.

    Italy.
    Japan.
    Germany.
    Russia.

    Democracies and republics fall when government is allowed to gather power unchecked.

    Good advice. You should take it yourself.

    Or, you could tell us about the thriving democracies in any of the above nations that fell as a result of it’s bureaucracy.

    A bureaucracy can certainly fall into the service of evil men – they attract more evil men, and the institution is corrupted. It has happened plenty of times. That say that bureaucracies are inherently evil however, is beyond the argument of a simpleton.

  113. sam says:

    In Jack’s defense, the impulses to charity that he’s referring to were real. Unfortunately, and largely because of the Schumperterian nature capitalism, we no longer live in the face-to-face societies that gave compass to those impulses. For better or worse, and that probably depends on the day of the week you’re thinking about it, modern capitalist societies through the creation of wealth and the consequent empowering of individuals have made the kind of communities that Jack looks back to impossible. What we’re stumbling around trying to do now is ameliorate the effects of that impossibility.

  114. David M says:

    @stonetools:

    Jack doesn’t even realize that through his taxes he has been paying for the medical treatment of those treated in emergency rooms. Its meanness combined with invincible ignorance.

    I’m not sure the ignorance part is correct, he’s clearly said he would rather let other people die than donate anything to help them. He’s perfectly willing to let other people suffer and die if it means his taxes are lower.

  115. Mikey says:

    @michael reynolds: I don’t solely blame the Republicans for this. Proponents of reform didn’t speak up loudly enough against misinformation. They allowed the GOP to assert that all European health insurance = Great Britain, when in fact there are great variations between the European nations. Reform advocates allowed their opponents far too much latitude to frame the debate.

    I believe the majority of Americans would accept universal health insurance modeled after the French or German systems, but honestly I do not recall a single instance of any proponent of reform giving wide voice to the specifics of those systems. Perhaps you do, and if so, I’m glad someone was trying to get the message out. But it doesn’t seem to have sunk in.

    So we’ve ended up with a huge, confusing mess that will probably result in all sorts of negative unintended consequences while not addressing the basic problem of the linkage of health insurance to employment.

    Perhaps this will all get straightened out over the next several years, but right now it looks a mess.

  116. stonetools says:

    @Medusa:

    First of all, your link is to the Daily Mail, a right wing rag thats no better than a print version of Fox News.
    Secondly, the Pathway amounts to something like hospice care. So offering hospice care is now considered a “death panel?”
    But you know what’s even better for conservatives than not offering hospice care? Why, not treating people at all because they lack health insurance. Then they just die at home without you having to waste money on hospital care . They die quicker too, cutting down on the need for “expensive” social services. Its a conservative win-win.

  117. stonetools says:

    @Mikey:

    Proponents of reform didn’t speak up loudly enough against misinformation.

    Indeed. Administration messaging on health care reform was simply abysmal. The Administration simply didn’t understand that the Republicans were out to stop HCR any way they could, and were in the grip of believing that if they treated the Republicans nicely and talked to them really slowly, they could coax them into coming along. We now know that was nonsense. They let the Republicans get away with controlling the message and the result was the Tea Party movement, endless foot-dragging, Scott Brown’s election, etc, etc.

    What’s amazing is that they did pass something, despite all their mistakes.

  118. @Mikey:

    “not addressing the basic problem of the linkage of health insurance to employment.”

    One thing at a time. The ACA was decried as a government takeover of healthcare, even though it wasn’t. Do you really think delinking insurance from employment would have gone over any better?

    We lefties could have told you all about the problems with the ACA years ago, but all our opponents could do was shout “Unconstitutional!” or “Death panels!”

    Like Michael said, we’ve got to drag that club foot around…

  119. Medusa says:

    Shorter @stone tools:

    So what if there is an investigation going on – your source is unreliable (according to me). And the pathway is like hospice care so if you don’t like that they are killing people intentionally that means you don’t like hospice care. Oh, and, also, killing people intentionally for expediency is better than not having any healthcare at all.

    Let me guess, the Telegraph will not meet your approval as a valid source either?

    The majority of NHS hospitals in England are being given financial rewards for placing terminally-ill patients on a controversial “pathway” to death, it can be disclosed.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9644287/NHS-millions-for-controversial-care-pathway.html

    And the best non-sequitur straw-man of all your responses was this; “But you know what’s even better for conservatives than not offering hospice care?. Why, not treating people at all because they lack health insurance”

    No, it’s the government that won’t treat people, even if they’re on its health care plan. That’s the point as illustrated from other news sources. Or maybe you “distrust” this bit from ABCNews.com? About an Oregon woman – on the state health care plan in an “assisted suicide” state – who talks about her experience with your idea of a compassionate care plan.

    The 64-year-old Oregon woman, whose lung cancer had been in remission, learned the disease had returned and would likely kill her. Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.

    What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.

    “It was horrible,” Wagner told ABCNews.com. “I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills, we will help you get that from the doctor and we will stand there and watch you die. But we won’t give you the medication to live.”

    http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5517492&page=1

    But, of course, it is conservatives that don’t care about people, right? Not socialistic government – driven, bureaucratic health care solutions.That would never happen…

  120. Andre Kenji says:

    @Jack:

    Why, because I espouse self reliance and the idea that it’s wrong to force me to pay for poor people’s health care, food, housing, Obama phone, child care, etc, etc, etc?

    It´s not so simple. Health care is a public problem, meaning that you should have a collective policy to prevent and treat diseases. Tropical diseases like West Nile, Malaria and Dengue Fever
    *requires* PUBLIC policies to curb mosquitoes infestations, diseases like variola and polio were only erradicated because there was mandatory vaccinations campaigns. A person that does not have access to healthcare is a RISK to all people in society. Someone that has influenza but has no access to doctors is endangering the LIFE of all people around him.

    Paying for Universal Healthcare means paying for the whole society to be safe from unnecessary health risks, not paying for other people´s healthcare.

  121. Andre Kenji says:

    @Mikey:

    I believe the majority of Americans would accept universal health insurance modeled after the French or German systems, but honestly I do not recall a single instance of any proponent of reform giving wide voice to the specifics of those systems.

    The Brazilian system has some good ideas that could have been implemented in the United States. I think that providing a limited universal healthcare coverage and providing tax exemption for expenses with healthcare on the same time would be a good idea.

  122. David M says:

    @Medusa:

    Your examples are irrelevant to the current topic. Nothing we’re discussing comes close to the NHS and clearly the Oregon woman would have been better off without insurance.

  123. Medusa says:

    @ anjin

    Good advice. You should take it yourself.

    Or, you could tell us about the thriving democracies in any of the above nations that fell as a result of it’s bureaucracy.

    Nice sleight of hand there anjin-stan. I mentioned both democracies and republics, not just democracies. Germany was a parliamentary democracy until Hitler’s government took absolute control over affairs and he became a dictator. Italy also was a parliamentary democracy until Mussolini took power in 1920.

    I kept it to modern history, but you can go all the way back to ancient Greece and see what happens to republics / democracies when government power is left to excercise self-restrait. It is always disastrous.

    If you need educating in any other areas anjin -stan, such as logic or math, I’ll be happy to oblige you. Time permitting, of course… I can’t be expected to go back over your entire high school education in a blog.

  124. Scott O says:

    @Medusa:
    Here’s a more honest version of Barbara Wagner’s case.

    “The OHP letter denying one ineffective treatment did not close the door on all care. It included a long list of appropriate end-of-life care that OHP would pay for, including hospice, medical equipment, palliative services and state-of-the-art pain and symptom management. Yes, the list included medication prescribed under the Oregon Death with Dignity Act.The media juxtaposed denial of Tarceva with coverage for aid in dying in a sensational, emotional manner, suggesting the two were related. Many stories ensued about supposedly callous bureaucrats refusing to prolong life but agreeing to shorten it. It made for a catchy story … but not truthful journalism.”

    http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2008/11/sensationalizing_a_sad_case_ch.html

  125. michael reynolds says:

    @Medusa:

    You’re equating fascist dictatorships with bloated bureaucracies? Or are you equating weak, short-lived democracies with bloated bureaucracies? And what in God’s name do either of them have to do with us?

    I don’t think you’ll be able to make the case that Weimar suffered primarily from being bloated. Kind of think world wide depression — which in large part began in the unregulated US economy of the time — the occupation and partial destruction of the Rhineland following the war, and huge foreign reparations to the Allied Powers played a part. Not sure it was because they had a really big housing department.

    As for Italy, their problem was not a bloated government, either, it was economic collapse following their ill-advised involvement in WW1 and their rather sad efforts at colonization. Again, I don’t think it was about their health plan. (And incidentally, it was a kingdom, not a republic. And just to make things extra confusing, it seems Victor E 3 supported the fascists.)

    If you can demonstrate that either Weimar or the Italian monarchy were particularly bloated bureaucracies, have at it. I love being educated.

  126. anjin-san says:

    Hitler’s government took absolute control over affairs and he became a dictator.

    Great. History 101 – impressive. Now tell us how did the bureaucracy cause this to happen…

    For extra credit, look up the word “thriving”

  127. Medusa says:

    @ Scott O

    @Medusa:
    Here’s a more honest version of Barbara Wagner’s case.

    Into “versions” of the story now, are we? And, naturally, your version of choice is more “honest” than the one by ABC news? So suddenly ABC news is what… dishonest? Or the simple facts laid out by the person denied coverage were, uhhhhh… what? Not vetted properly by ABC news as being accurate?

    Liberals just simply and absolutely cannot abide facts that don’t fit their narrative.

    This is called delusion.

  128. David M says:

    @Medusa:

    What’s your point with that story? Unless I’m misreading it, she was too poor to get any treatment on her own, and the state plan provided plenty of treatment options. How is that a bad thing?

  129. michael reynolds says:

    @Medusa:

    Really, the short version of why the Italian monarchy and the Weimar Republic fell was the same reason the Czar’s government fell: World War 1. The closest we’ve come to enduring anything like WW1 was the Civil War.

  130. anjin-san says:

    @ Medusa:

    Please flesh out your theory on the fall of the Weimar Republic. It’s fascinating – all this time we thought it was brownshirts, the Reichstag fire, and anger over the armistice and inflation.

    Now we find out that overreach by some German bureaucrats was behind the whole thing…

  131. Medusa says:

    @anjin
    For extra credit, look up the word “thriving”

    No need, it was your qualifying adjective not mine, injected into the conversation by yourself to try and bring the prospective pool of eligible governments down to some miniscule level (not to mention a lame attempt to cover your ass). Also not to mention the fact that the term “thriving” is completely subjective.

    This would be like me asking you to define metrics for when a government is not thriving. Your data points would be all over the map because it is a useless metric for objective observation.Which is why you asked for it.

    No offense meant so please don’t take this personally but I just wanted to ask, did you get your GED or high school diploma?

  132. Scott O says:

    @Medusa:
    Perhaps I should have said more detailed instead of more honest. In any event, the story as you presented it, an example of government run health care trying to kill the elderly to save money, doesn’t quite fit the facts of the case.

    FYI, some private insurers also refuse to cover Tarceva.

  133. anjin-san says:

    the term “thriving” is completely subjective.

    Here’s a hint – modern England has a thriving democracy. The Weimar Republic, an anemic bastard child of the armistice, was not – is that too abstract for you to follow?

    You still have not explained how bureaucracies played a role in the downfall of any of the governments you mentioned – which is sort of the point of our discussion.

    Or you can prattle on about data points, and hope no one notices you have not presented a coherent argument.

  134. michael reynolds says:

    @anjin-san:

    Dude, it was totally the Weimar Affordable Care Act that led to Hitler. Health insurance = Dachau. First they come to make sure your kids have all their shots, then they send them to a concentration camp.

    Jeez, don’t you know anything?

  135. Medusa says:

    Uh, oh! Looks like I’ve invoked the collective wrath of the chattering heads here on OTB!

    How can I possible face the combined intellect of so many thoughtfu individuals, and hope to survive with even a shred of my self-respect? Oh my!

    Delicious…

  136. Andre Kenji says:

    @Medusa:

    Germany was a parliamentary democracy until Hitler’s government took absolute control over affairs and he became a dictator. Italy also was a parliamentary democracy until Mussolini took power in 1920.

    Germany was a weak parliamentary democracy, as well as Italy.

  137. David M says:

    @Scott O:

    Perhaps I should have said more detailed instead of more honest. In any event, the story as you presented it, an example of government run health care trying to kill the elderly to save money, doesn’t quite fit the facts of the case.

    FYI, some private insurers also refuse to cover Tarceva.

    I don’t think they care beyond “government bad”.

  138. @Medusa: I guess there’s only one thing to do. Limp away as fast as your club foot can take ya.

  139. anjin-san says:

    @ James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb)

    Oh, I’m sure asking someone if they have finished high school is considered to be wonderfully droll wherever it is Medusa hails from.

    “I was killing, Jerry. Killing!”

  140. David M says:

    @James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb):

    @Medusa: I guess there’s only one thing to do. Limp away as fast as your club foot can take ya.

    No, I’m still waiting to hear how exactly Barbera Wagner would have been better off not having the Oregon Health Plan pay for years of her treatment?

  141. anjin-san says:

    Delicious…

    Don’t waste your time here dude. Maybe you can get Glenn Beck to work up “thriving democracy” on his magic chalkboard for you.

  142. Medusa says:

    Medusa speakes sotto voce, like a commentator on a Saturday morning nature show:

    And now, the wild and untamed creatures known as Sillius Liberalis are chattering amongst themselves, in ritualized play, pretending to converse with each other as if they are addressing me. This is so incredible, folks- so like actual conversation – that if you didn’t know any better, you would be hard pressed to understand that they’re only play-acting! It appears as though they actually believe that they are holding intelligent conversation with a third party that is not even there!

    Surely, with this level of imagination, there must be some rudiments of higher cognitive thought there…surely!

  143. anjin-san says:

    Well guys, we did not really need further evidence that conservatives should not attempt humor – but there it is.

  144. David M says:

    @Medusa:

    Is English your second language?

    Alternatively, in best Sam Jackson voice:

    English m*therf*cker, do you speak it?

  145. john personna says:

    @Medusa:

    Not even Mankiw believes that. As I say no serious economist, not even on the rightmost side, believes that Obama or his policies removed jobs. Sure, you can find crazy pundits who think that way, but that’s different.

    Also look up a U6 unemployment graph, it has been improving for years now.

  146. C. Clavin says:

    Jack and Medusa make J-Tea and Jan look brilliant by comparison.

  147. rudderpedals says:

    @Medusa:

    Democracies and republics fall when government is allowed to gather power unchecked. This is exactly why our Constitution put in a system of checks and balances between the three branches.

    This sounds so straightforward, simple, and easy. Doesn’t that concern you?

  148. @Medusa: We really don’t even have to go to thriving, just because there were elections in Wiemar Germany does not mean it was an actual democracy and it certainly does not mean that it was a case of a healthy democratic system (or, really healthy any kind of system) that fell apart because of bad bureaucracies or some design flaw that led to Nazi Germany.

    You speak of education and knowledge, but I would note that your understanding of the history in question and the dynamics of regime change (not to mention classification of regime types) is extremely simplistic.

  149. Medusa says:

    Et al:

    The concept that governments go bad and abuse their power if left unchecked is indisputable throughout history. Deal with it.

    Governmental run health care is ultimately disastrous for the weak: the elderly who are condsidered of no use to the state because they no longer can contribute to the state, and the infirm (i.e. handicapped), and the very young. This is already going on in healthcare and has been for some time. Since you all worship at the altar of “compassionate” governmental programs, you refuse to see that ObamaCare has done nothing but provide a way to de-personalize the economic decisions behind who receives expensive care and who does not. It takes the physician out of the equation which is why so many , many doctors are completely against it.

    You and others like you lie to yourselves and call it a compassionate approach when all it has been is a lie (it will save money) and a cheat (you will be able to keep your healthcare if you want). It robs money from the elderly currently have in Medicare / Medicaid even though you supposedly care for the elderly. You’re making it worse for them.

    Since it has already actually made health care more expensive rather than less, Government-run healthcare will end up marginalizing the weak even further than a private health care plan would, because the govenment is not paying for just the relative few who are indigent, at the end of their days when care is the most expensive, it will be eating up resources servicing an additional 18 million, with not enough funds to cover the extra.

    Governmental run healthcare is part of governmental expansion of power into privacy. This will lead to far too much power being exercised over citizens. Already , look at some of the comments here about new “rights” that a select few decide they have the power to grant ( or subsequently, take away) Rights are not given by a government. A government can only infringe on rights, not grant them. The state is a construct, not an a priori entity. True rights are a birthright, such as freedom.

    There were better – far better ways – to approach the issue.

    You all weary me beyond measure. Chatter on…

  150. @Medusa: Since you are asserting that government run healthcare, as an example of unchecked power, leads to the collapse of democracy then you are going to have to explain how it is that the whole of the developed world has had universal health care for decades without the collapse of their democratic states.

  151. jukeboxgrad says:

    Jack, it takes an extraordinary lack of self-awareness to go from “more name calling” to “shut the hell up ashole” in exactly six minutes. Congratulations on being such a special person.

    Your comments make more sense when viewed as an argument you’re having with yourself. That first comment was essentially Jack predicting what we were going to be getting from Jack.

    I agree with Michael, our old trolls were getting worn out, it’s fun to have a new one.

  152. (You are, after all, the one clamoring for facts and decrying delusions).

  153. anjin-san says:

    You all weary me beyond measure. Chatter on…

    By all means then, mosey on back to Ballon Juice (or wherever) and treat the boys to a few dozen verses of “Hillary done took my guns” (sung to the tune of “Camptown Races”)…

  154. Dave Schuler says:

    @Andre Kenji:

    I think there’s a distinction we make here in the United States that you may not appreciate. We make a distinction between “public health”, things like spraying for mosquitoes or sewage treatment, and “healthcare”, things like treating patients with communicable diseases, trauma, or chronic illness.

    I don’t think there’s a huge disagreement here about the need to provide public health. The disagreement is over individual healthcare. How, for example, does an elderly person with arthritis put others at risk? We might believe that we should offer care for such people but the reason for doing it isn’t public risk.

  155. jukeboxgrad says:

    medusa:

    There were better – far better ways – to approach the issue.

    I recall that the GOP was in power for several years between Clinton and Obama, and this is what they did “to approach the issue:” nothing. So please explain why anyone should take the GOP seriously when they whine about someone else’s attempt to solve the problem.

  156. David M says:

    @Medusa:

    Governmental run health care is ultimately disastrous for the weak: the elderly who are condsidered of no use to the state because they no longer can contribute to the state, and the infirm (i.e. handicapped), and the very young….[Obamacare] robs money from the elderly currently have in Medicare / Medicaid

    Really? Government involvement in health care is bad because Medicare is good?

  157. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Rafer Janders: It’s “alas” because James’ team is opposed to the government providing health care AT ALL(!!!) but is now too cowardly to go to the Japanese model by saying the old people should hurry up and die to lower health care costs (for example).

    Remember all of those people cheering Ron Paul for saying that a person with cancer but no insurance should be allowed to die? James’ team!

  158. @Medusa:

    “Since it has already actually made health care more expensive rather than less, Government-run healthcare will end up marginalizing the weak even further than a private health care plan would”

    Weren’t you just complaining about the insurance plan that denied some lady her $4000 a month pills for terminal lung cancer?

    Sounds like you’re really confused….

  159. anjin-san says:

    True rights are a birthright, such as freedom.

    Interesting. “thriving” is so vague and nebulous a word that for me to use it in an argument without myriad data points and flow charts to define exactly what it means was decried as utterly bogus by Medusa.

    But “freedom” is apparently a word who’s definition is laser sharp and crystal clear. So much so that simply by uttering it, you can pretty much declare yourself champion O’ the tread and move on…

  160. michael reynolds says:

    @Medusa:

    Oh, man, come on, try harder. I thought we were going to have some fun with Jack but he ran away. Now you’re hiding behind your weariness and trotting out your pitiful version of the magisterial voice in preparation for fleeing back to the bubble.

    Resist the safety of the bubble! Come on, display that well-known right-wing grasp of history and logic. Dance for us! Put up a fight!

  161. Stan says:

    @Jack: Before Social Security and Medicare, if you were old you were poor, and the elderly spent their golden years living in cramped housing with their children and grandchildren. Charities helped, but they didn’t do that good a job in the best of times and they were ineffective during the Great Depression. Another thing that’s changed is the breakdown of traditional families, weakening the family support structure you talked about in one of your earlier posts, and the attenuation of ties between the individual and society that existed when more Americans lived in small towns and on farms. We live in a mass society, and purely voluntary charity is too hit and miss to rely on. I understand your objections to providing for people who should be able to provide for themselves. At times I share them. But I don’t think we can bring back the good old days. And from my memories of my childhood in the 40’s, they weren’t so good.

  162. An Interested Party says:

    Germany was a parliamentary democracy until Hitler’s government took absolute control over affairs and he became a dictator. Italy also was a parliamentary democracy until Mussolini took power in 1920.

    Who could have guessed that governmental efforts to expand health care coverage lead to fascist dictatorships…delicious indeed…

  163. Medusa says:

    @Steven Taylor

    Since you are asserting that government run healthcare, as an example of unchecked power, leads to the collapse of democracy then you are going to have to explain how it is that the whole of the developed world has had universal health care for decades without the collapse of their democratic states.

    Ok.. Last time tonight. What I said was quite simple and straightforward. Governmental power unchecked will never turn out well for the populace in general. It always, every time, without fail leads to disaster for future freedoms and democratic rule. I did not say something of the nature of “it will destroy our country within 20 years”.

    Governmental health care is a an example of a nameless, unaccountable, and coldly calculating bureaucracy taking over decisions about what treatments will be available to you because of cost, regardless of the efficacy of the treatment.

    And finally, I would be careful about making comparisons to decades of “successful” implementation of government health care systems without causing disastrous problems.

    I think that the core issue and the great difference between myself and the collective hive mind here on OTB is that we measure “thriving” – if you will – in entirely different ways. All of you measure success according to the comparitive health of the State. I measure it according to the level of freedom remaining to the citizens. When the state’s desire to “help” can only be accomplished by significant intrusion into, and restriction of, the freedoms of those it is pledged to serve, I would rather not have the “help” of the state.

    I believe that an objective person would agree that the following scenario would be extremely intrusive to personal freedom. When I get to 83 years old, after paying approximately 50 years into the State coffers for the right to own property (taxes), the priviledge of Social Security (taxes), and ObamaCare (taxes), – and then I might likelyl be told that the treatment which might keep me alive for 6 more months is too expensive and will not be covered under the “state” plan. And the state will decide that I will not live for 6 more months and it will tell me that that is a good thing.

    This is already happening. Health care is about as personal as it gets. Governmental control of this can easily, if not inevitably, lead to my idea of a failed government – one comprised of a slavish people beholden to the largesse of the state, ruled by unresponsive elitist leaders who refuse honesty as a tactic for governance.

    We measure “thriving” differently. China could be described as “thriving” today. Just don’t ask any young parents there to describe it that way when they face fines for their second child. Or -even better in light of this conversation – are refused the ability to register their second child for the Governmental medical plan because they violated the one-child policy.

    I’ll stay with my definition of “thriving” over your, thank you.

  164. David M says:

    @Medusa:

    Governmental health care is a an example of a nameless, unaccountable, and coldly calculating bureaucracy taking over decisions about what treatments will be available to you because of cost, regardless of the efficacy of the treatment.

    I think you’re basically afraid of a bogeyman that doesn’t exist.

  165. wr says:

    @Medusa: “Governmental health care is a an example of a nameless, unaccountable, and coldly calculating bureaucracy taking over decisions about what treatments will be available to you because of cost, regardless of the efficacy of the treatment.”

    Because this is absolutely not a description of the exact system we have right now, except with health insurance company bureaucrats in charge.

    Have you ever actually stepped outside that basement to see what’s happening in the world, or do you just repeat what you read on The Blaze?

  166. Stan says:

    @Medusa: “Governmental health care The private health insurance industry is a an example of a nameless, unaccountable, and coldly calculating bureaucracy taking over decisions about what treatments will be available to you because of cost, regardless of the efficacy of the treatment.”

    There, fixed that for you.

  167. Medusa says:

    @ Michael

    Put up a fight!

    I don’t pick on children… goodnight.

  168. wr says:

    @Medusa: “When I get to 83 years old, after paying approximately 50 years into the State coffers for the right to own property (taxes), the priviledge of Social Security (taxes), and ObamaCare (taxes), – and then I might likelyl be told that the treatment which might keep me alive for 6 more months is too expensive and will not be covered under the “state” plan. And the state will decide that I will not live for 6 more months and it will tell me that that is a good thing. ”

    And what do you think would happen to you under your private insurance plan? If you got some terminal and very rare cancer tomorrow, and the only treatment was a drug that costs $10,000 a day — which is far from unheard of — do you think your insurance company is going to start running wheelbarrows of cash to your physicians without a complaint?

    Oh, no, let me guess — you’re going to self-fund your own treatment. Because you’re “free” from that nasty government and you happen to be Larry Ellison.

    Oh, wait? You’re not Larry Ellison? You’re some loser internet troll? Then have fun with the insurance company. Be sure to come back here to tell us what freedom looks like.

  169. Andre Kenji says:

    @Dave Schuler:

    1-) Public Health and Health care are linked. Anyone that it´s sick and it´s not properly treated is a Public Health risk. Just take a look at the West Nile pandemic and the Flu Pandemic this year. That´s something that even Republicans should note.

    By the way, the United States is the only country where people refuses to take vaccines, a potential health risk, and people thinks that´s normal.

    2-) Any decent society has an obligation towards it´s weakest and most needy members, and that´s includes an elderly person with arthritis. But note that everyone in the working age that has to stop working due to a health condition is also detrimental to the society.

  170. David M says:

    The idea that government run health care is a negative if it doesn’t pay for every possible treatment is bizarre. No private insurance will cover everything, and even if the scary government plan doesn’t cover something, you’re still free to pay for it yourself, same as before, except you’ve probably got more money now after getting almost everything else covered. And yet some people think that some government somewhere not covering everything means all government involvement in health care is evil.

  171. michael reynolds says:

    @Medusa:

    Weenie.

    (Edited form an earlier term that implied women are uniquely wimpy.)

  172. Medusa says:

    @wr

    Because this is absolutely not a description of the exact system we have right now, except with health insurance company bureaucrats in charge.

    Nobody said the situation was ideal before, nobody. You all just made it worse that’s all. Instead of attacking costs, your party decided to make it more expensive so they could feel good about themselves. More expensive means less services for the same dollars. More customers plus more expensive means alot less services in the near future.

    Forgive me but, good grief… get a frickin’ clue!

    OK, really time to go now. Can’t argue with bricks.

  173. anjin-san says:

    Actually, if I am 83 and dying of cancer, that is a pretty good time to have some realistic end of life planning – you know – death panels.

    When my dad was 74, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. 6 months with treatment (expensive!) 6 weeks without. He told us he loved us and that he had had a great life, and declined treatment. I alway admired the way he handled himself at the end. He kept his chin up and never felt sorry for himself.

    The oncologist actually sounded angry when he said he did not want any treatment beyond hospice.

  174. anjin-san says:

    your party decided to make it more expensive

    And of course we won’t talk about health care costs more that doubled during the Bush years, and how the compensation of senior executives soared into the stratosphere.

  175. matt bernius says:

    @Medusa:

    When I get to 83 years old, after paying approximately 50 years into the State coffers for the right to own property (taxes), the priviledge of Social Security (taxes), and ObamaCare (taxes), – and then I might likelyl be told that the treatment which might keep me alive for 6 more months is too expensive and will not be covered under the “state” plan. And the state will decide that I will not live for 6 more months and it will tell me that that is a good thing.

    BTW, how do you feel about the fact that currently, 83 year olds are extracting more from the system than they paid in? And given the current trends in medical technology, I don’t see that changing any time soon.

    Everyone hates undeserving leeches until they become one.

  176. C. Clavin says:

    I realize this Medusa person is intellectually challenged, but to date the PPACA has saved seniors billions in donut hole prescription costs, extended Medicares viability by 10 years, insured a boatload of people with pre-existing conditions, and allowed a lot of young people to stay on their parents insurance.
    So how is that worse than what was the status quo? Because some fast food émigrés will get their insurance from the exchanges instead of their employers?
    Gimme a break.
    I’m a little sketchy on my mythology…but doesn’t it end badly for Medusa?

  177. C. Clavin says:

    Oh yeah…she is beheaded….clearly no loss.

  178. michael reynolds says:

    @C. Clavin:

    I know, what is the deal with these guys? You’ve got Tsar Nicholas naming himself after one of the most spectacular losers in modern history, the so-pathetic-it-makes-you-wince “superdestroyer”, and now Medusa? What’s keeping Pétain and Jeff Davis and Santa Anna?

  179. jukeboxgrad says:

    medusa:

    Instead of attacking costs, your party decided to make it more expensive so they could feel good about themselves.

    Tell me what your party did with regard to “attacking costs” when you were in power. Oh, that’s right, nothing. So tell us why you think anyone should take your complaints seriously?

    You’ve already ducked this question once, but I’m sure you’re capable of ducking it over and over again.

  180. anjin-san says:

    Governmental health care is a an example of a nameless, unaccountable, and coldly calculating bureaucracy taking over decisions about what treatments will be available to you because of cost, regardless of the efficacy of the treatment.

    Ah, so they will do what private insurers do now? And it will be evil, because, you know, government is alway evil.

  181. Argon says:

    Jack, someone said it more eloquently than you over a century ago…

    “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

    – from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

    Of course, unlike Jack, Dickens thought having people crawl of to die was a bug, not a feature of that system.

  182. C. Clavin says:

    Émigrés should have been employees.
    Damn auto correct

  183. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    As James noted, a lot of people predicted that just this would happen. I’m a bit fuzzy — what was the Obamacare backers’ response at the time?

  184. Medusa says:

    The last word. Which ever so delicately – from a “trusted source” even -, shows that the above last few posts offered by the hive mind are the product of fools. By the way- private insurance companies don’t coerce you into being their client under threat of goverment prosecution (IRS), accepting their terms. The government does, and will. Simpletons.

    Game. Set. Match.

    Later, ladies.

    http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/rising-health-costs-undermine-obama-pledge-to-curb-trend/

    Two new independent studies of health insurance premiums and health care spending indicate both are rising at an accelerated pace, despite President Obama’s 2008 promise to contain those costs and his pledge that his health care legislation would reduce premiums.

    Spending on health care rose 4.6 percent in 2011 — up $4,500 per person, on average — according to the nonpartisan Health Care Cost Institute. That’s up from a 3.8 growth rate in 2010.

    Health insurance premiums for individuals and families also climbed year-over-year, up 3 percent ($186) on average for an individual and 4 percent ($672) on average for a family, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

    During Obama’s term, between 2009 to 2012, premiums have climbed $2,370 for the average family with an employer-provided plan – a rate faster than the during the previous four years under President George W. Bush, according to Kaiser.

    Investor’s Business Daily’s John Merline was first to note the difference in premiums climbing faster under Obama than the previous four years under Bush.

    Experts point to rising health care costs as the driver of increased individual spending and higher premiums.

    During the 2008 campaign and health care reform debate in 2009, President Obama said repeatedly that his plan would bend the cost curve downward, ultimately saving the average family $2,500 per year.

  185. @Medusa:

    “You all just made it worse that’s all. Instead of attacking costs, your party decided to make it more expensive so they could feel good about themselves.”

    Not just a wimp….a shrink too!

    And still confused. Please tell us how the evil, cold government is going to “attack costs” with Clubfoots like you checking their power?

    Oh never mind….it’s pretty clear you’re still grappling with the limits of your own philosophy.

  186. @Medusa:

    “Game. Set. Match.”

    Oh, I see….we’re playing “Obama’s Broken Promises” again. Cute.

  187. jukeboxgrad says:

    Medusa, 20:47:

    You all weary me beyond measure. Chatter on…

    Medusa, 21:56:

    I don’t pick on children… goodnight.

    Medusa, 22:05:

    OK, really time to go now. Can’t argue with bricks.

    Medusa, 23:05:

    The last word.

    That’s a fairly steady rhythm, almost as good as a metronome. So I figure in about an hour it will be time, again, for you to come back to tell us that you’re not coming back. It makes perfect sense that these statements of yours have as much credibility as all your other statements: none.

  188. anjin-san says:

    Game. Set. Match.

    Don’t hurt anything patting yourself on the back Skippy… you might not be covered.

  189. wr says:

    @Medusa: “OK, really time to go now. Can’t argue with bricks. ”

    How many times have you announced you’re leaving the conversation and come sliming back right afterwards?

    Here’s a hint — you stop looking like an internet tough guy after the third or fourth time you don’t live up to your own declarations.

  190. wr says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: Oh, look, now Jenos is here under his “real” name. Maybe he’ll bring Hoot Gibson back next!

  191. Andre Kenji says:

    @michael reynolds:

    I know, what is the deal with these guys? You’ve got Tsar Nicholas naming himself after one of the most spectacular losers in modern history, the so-pathetic-it-makes-you-wince “superdestroyer”, and now Medusa? What’s keeping Pétain and Jeff Davis and Santa Anna?

    You forgot the best of all: Jeca Idanian, or something like that.

  192. C. Clavin says:

    Then there’s Jenos Indanian…er…I mean…Indiana Jones.
    That bullwhip looks so nice with your Cheeto stained onesy.

  193. David M says:

    @Medusa:

    health care costs rising, blah, blah, more nonsense

    So if I understand correctly, the fact that health care costs are rising before Obamacare is reason not to implement Obamacare? Obamacare can cause costs to rise in the past?

  194. Pharoah Narim says:

    Awwww no more Jack? I was going to tell him to stay the hell of the internets we helped fund and do the R&D for his own web–with his self-reliant a@@.

  195. wr says:

    @Pharoah Narim: I suspect Jack is still around… just under a different name. Or two.

  196. Dave says:

    Just a point to nitpick in that now young Chinese couples can have more than one child if they are both from single child homes. This was done to help young couples who are forced to care for their parents and a child since the chinese system doesn’t accommodate the elderly well. So a young working couple might have to afford the care of five individuals at any given time, which is a drain on their labor force.

  197. anjin-san says:

    You forgot the best of all: Jeca Idanian, or something like that.

    You mean that Jecoo Indiniaus dude?

  198. michael reynolds says:

    @Andre Kenji:

    I forget him a lot.

  199. john personna says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    The important thing to understand is that these are all peripheral attacks on Obamacare. The core issue is expanded coverage. If, when the data are in, insurance coverage has not increased, then you will have something. Until then, the plural of anecdote is not data. Particularly when your anecdote might be someone else’s grandstanding.

  200. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    Ah, thanks for the reminder… there wasn’t an answer. Just a lot of pathetic attempts at changing the subject.

  201. stalingrad flagger says:

    Yo Jack and Medusa… y’all down with the III Citadel?

  202. C. Clavin says:

    Way OT…
    But can someone tell me why the guy that let 9.11 happen on his watch and then invaded the wrong country based on fabricated evidence and then shot a hunting partner in the face and then outed a CIA covert operative is still being interviewed about anything at all?
    Seriously….

  203. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @C. Clavin: There’s so much wrong with your question (and you), it’s painful. But since you’ve forgotten, it was Richard Armitage who outed Plame’s identity.

  204. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @john personna: The important thing to understand is that these are all peripheral attacks on Obamacare. The core issue is expanded coverage.

    If the “core issue” is expanded coverage, then warnings that the plan would have just the opposite effect should have been addressed. Instead, they were dismissed. And now they’re coming true. Which makes me want to go back at the other predictions made by those who foresaw this and re-evaluate them — and trust the people who dismissed them even less.

  205. jukeboxgrad says:

    jenos:

    it was Richard Armitage who outed Plame’s identity

    One of your adorable qualities is the way you repeat a dishonest claim even after you’ve been shown that it’s dishonest. Link.

  206. @Jenos Idanian #13: You are forgetting that the policy has the following elements:

    1. Expansion of Medicaid.
    2. The individual mandate linked with exchanges, etc.

    This equates to universal coverage–albeit imperfectly and hence James’ noting the need for single-payer or the like to actually solve the problem.

    The fundamental problem with your “argument” is that you are essentially criticizing the PPACA for being too much like the status quo ante: it isn’t as if the people in question were getting health insurance to begin with.

    You are being intellectually dishonest to say: “See! Obamacare means part time employees will not get insurance” when the the fundamental system you are defending is one in which part time employees did not get insurance.

    I am not aware, by the way, of predictions that this would not happen (it is not a surprise that some employers are behaving as they are–but also as noted above, the trend in question is not new and therefore not as directly connected, writ large, to the PPACA). Perhaps you could cite examples instead of acting like you have won a point in this discussion via naught more than speculative assertion?

  207. john personna says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    If the “core issue” is expanded coverage, then warnings that the plan would have just the opposite effect should have been addressed.

    I certainly did, in my top comments. Anecdotes aren’t data. Servers are not the only jobs.

  208. john personna says:

    It is true that you’ll be able to find unfortunate individuals, right on the hour division, who have their hours cut rather than health care added. They’ll have the worse of both worlds. They’ll have still no health insurance, and less work too.

    But they aren’t’ the whole labor force. They are not the average outcome.

    The division was placed where it was in the hopes that this effect would be small.

  209. C. Clavin says:

    Jenos…
    In order to assert that there could be just one “leaker” you have to hold a very basic misunderstanding of how the real world works. Which is why you are asserting that there could be just one “leaker”.
    Ponder that while you read this:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

  210. C. Clavin says:

    If there is a problem with part-time workers and the PPACA it is that the PPACA does not come fully online until 2014. Part-timers won’t be able to access Medicaid expansion or the exchanges until then.
    Of couorse the other problem is a-holes like Gov. McDonnell in Virginia.

  211. stonetools says:

    Amazing. Conservatives fought tooth and nail against health care reform, including shooting down features like the public option, which would have helped with this very problem.Now they’re complaining that Obamacare, partially implemented, isn’t perfect.
    Their hypocrisy is like their stupidity-it knows no bounds!

    James at least drew the right conclusion-we should be moving toward single payer. Which leads me to ask , ” Why in the world is he still playing on the wilfully stupid team.?”

  212. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: “Single-payer” was not the stated objective of ObamaCare — in fact, it was explicitly against it. “If you like your current plan, you can keep it” was the explicit promise.

    I recall a lot of people said at the time that ObamaCare wasn’t intended as the solution, but only a step towards single-payer — that its true objective was to simply make it unaffordable for private companies to continue to provide insurance, so the only entity capable of providing it would be the federal government. I thought that was a bit paranoid — Obama et al were wrong, but were at least sincere in putting forward ObamaCare as a solution.

    From what I’m reading here, I was quite naive and the people I considered conspiracy-minded cynics were pretty much dead on.

  213. stonetools says:

    @C. Clavin:

    Of couorse the other problem is a-holes like Gov. McDonnell in Virginia

    Which is why the Democrats have to get serious about state and local elections. The Republicans are set to run an even bigger a$$hole to replace him- Ken Cuchinelli. The Repubs have an inifinite supply of such candidates, unfortunately. Its going to be a long war.

  214. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    “Single-payer” was not the stated objective of ObamaCare

    This is when we range into me having to sincerely ask as to what you have reading or what it is that you are responding to. I made no claim that it was, nor did anybody else.

    That people are noting the imperfections of the current system (yourself included, I would add) should not be a surprise. Nor should it be a surprise that based on comparative evidence that some are suggesting systems that appear to working elsewhere.

    Really: you are not making much of an argument. What is your point?

    Out of curiosity: from whence do you get your insurance?

  215. mattb says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:
    I think his entire point is that Obama’s real goal has always been to wreck the current system in order to put a single payer system in place. Or something like that…

  216. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    “From what I’m reading here, I was quite naive and the people I considered conspiracy-minded cynics were pretty much dead on. “

    People like….Fox Mulder?

    I have to say…I never get tired of people who oppose Obama crying about all his broken promises.

    Oh wait….I do.

  217. stonetools says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    Out of curiosity: from whence do you get your insurance?

    Since I highly suspect that Jenos is posting from his mother’s basement, I suspect that his mother is also where Jenos is getting his insurance.

    Don’t worry, Jenos. Thanks to Obamacare, you’re covered till 26. You’re welcome.

  218. @mattb:

    I think his entire point is that Obama’s real goal has always been to wreck the current system in order to put a single payer system in place. Or something like that…

    I think he is trying to make that point now. Earlier, however, he was trying to make some point about part-timers and health insurance that never added up.

  219. @stonetools: IN all honesty, I seem to recall references to disabilities, so I am actually assuming he get some kind of government benefits.

    I have never caught any hint of a profession, let alone one that would provide decent health insurance.

    But, perhaps I am wrong.

  220. stonetools says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    To be sure, Obama did tell liberals who were in despair about the loss of the public option, etc., that the PPACA was a starter home and not the finished dream HCR program. In other countries, single payer was often the end product of an evolutionary process.
    Indeed, the PPACA could be considered part of an evolutionary process of constructing a social safety net for the United States that started with the Social Security Act in 1935 and which will be completed at some point in the future.

  221. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: You seem intelligent, so I’m going to go with “naive” here. Here is my thought process:

    The initial article was about employers cutting workers’ hours to avoid the costs of ObamaCare — a move that is not only perfectly legal, but was predicted by a lot of critics of ObamaCare way back when. I tried to recall what the response of the ObamaCare backers was, but didn’t care enough to go digging through blog archives and whatnot to find out, so I asked the backers how they responded back then — and got no answers.

    My followup thought was this — if the critics (myself included) were dead right about this aspect of ObamaCare, what else might they be right about? That also went nowhere.

    Then I re-skimmed the comments above and saw a lot of talk about how the only true solution was Single Payer, with the federal government being the payer. That did jar some memories loose — most of the backers of ObamaCare specifically said that Single Payer was NOT the goal, that ObamaCare would work without going the Single Payer route. Some of the critics said that was BS, that ObamaCare was unworkable as a solution, but would work towards causing enough damage to the existing system (admittedly flawed) so that Single Payer would end up being the only solution.

    Which seems to be what a lot of people are saying above.

    I opposed ObamaCare. I supported less all-encompassing, more targeted fixes to the existing system, which was working all right for most people. My side lost that fight.

    However, it’s rather bitter to see that while I lost the fight, a lot of what I argued would happen is actually happening pretty much as I figured it would.

    As far as my own personal situation… three answers come to mind. First, it’s none of your business. Second, it would just give those who already don’t like me more things to attack me over, instead of staying on topic, and I don’t feel like aiding and abetting them in that way. (The first would be to accuse me of lying about however I answer, and demanding proof. No, thanks. Not even gonna start down that road.)

    Finally, wouldn’t my answer just be another anecdote? Why would you want an anecdote, a single datum, to add to the discussion? What the hell would that achieve?

  222. @Jenos Idanian #13: The fundamental point you keep missing is: the plight of part-time workers and lack of insurance pre-existed (if I may use the term) the PPACA.

    Moreover, I have no doubt that supporters of the legislation could have foreseen this problem. However, that is why you have some of the other provisions of the bill, such as the expansion of Medicaid, amongst other features.

    You are acting like you have found some amazing revelation about the bill, but you haven’t and, more significantly, you are missing the fact that you are ultimately arguing for a system that has the same problems, if not worse.

    Also again: from whence do you get your health insurance?

  223. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    First, it’s none of your business. Second, it would just give those who already don’t like me more things to attack me over, instead of staying on topic, and I don’t feel like aiding and abetting them in that way. (The first would be to accuse me of lying about however I answer, and demanding proof. No, thanks. Not even gonna start down that road.)

    Finally, wouldn’t my answer just be another anecdote? Why would you want an anecdote, a single datum, to add to the discussion? What the hell would that achieve?

    Well, first you are correct that I have no right to the information.

    However, second, it does go to the question of your credibility. I, like a lot of people here, write under my own name and with my profession clearly known, which allows you to know with near certainty that i get my health insurance from my employer (heck, it even allows you to make guesstimates about my income level and tax bracket, among other things). It allows you to know where I am coming from.

    Since it is unclear as to whether you are employed or not, let alone whether you receive any government assistance for your health care, it seems a relevant question to ask, especially since it seems to me that you yourself have suggested in the past that you are on some sort of disability (which is really the only reason the question comes to mind).

    Because, yes, hypocrisy matters in these kinds of arguments,

    It is one of the reasons I cannot take Paul Ryan seriously: he paid for his education with SS survivor’s benefits.

  224. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Finally, wouldn’t my answer just be another anecdote? Why would you want an anecdote, a single datum, to add to the discussion? What the hell would that achieve?

    It would make clear your intellectual honesty and consistency on the issue. It would not, of course, prove anything about the best type of health care policy.

    But it does matter if one is, for example, an anti-vaccine activist who nonetheless vaccinates one’s kids (Or is a loud pro-family conservative who visits prostitutes). These things matter as to the intellectual honestly of the interlocutors in question.

  225. matt bernius says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:
    Well, as you know by now, the real point of Jenos’ posts are to demonstrate how smart he is, how dumb and/or hypocritical his opponents are, and how wrong everything a democrat does is.

    As far as coherent arguments and/or actual evidence, he don’t need no stinking coherent arguments and/or evidence.

    To the larger point, I think those of us who have been advocating for Single Payer for quite a while (and this includes Dr. Joyner) felt that both the “old system” and the “new system” are ultimately unsustainable. At best, Obamacare was a band-aide on the present system and attempted to address some of its shortcomings.

  226. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: Yes, the plight of part-timers was bad before PPACA (much easier to type that). But PPACA is making it worse. That’s the core point I’m making.

    As far as the rest… you’re trying to have it both ways. You argue in favor of facts over anecdotes, then ask for anecdotes to back up your arguments. You say exposing hypocrisy is essential, but ignore that PPACA was passed with promises that it would not lead to single-payer, that it would help people in bad situations, and so on. You seem to grant credit to the backers for good faith, and don’t seem overly concerned with the actual results of their actions. Then you ask for proof of good faith from those on the other side.

    I don’t use personal anecdotes because I agree with you — they don’t prove much. I also don’t expect everything I say to be taken as gospel. (Hell, with quite a few here, it’s pretty much the opposite, which I accept.)

    Finally, I reiterate: back during the debate about PPACA, quite a few people on my side said that the flaws we noticed weren’t mistakes, but deliberate, and intended to cause such harm to the private insurance business that the only solution to the resulting mess would be single-payer. I thought that a bit paranoid, and gave credit to the PPACA backers for enough good faith that they were sincere in thinking that it would actually make things better. Wrong, but sincere.

    Now I’m seeing more and more indicators that those people might have been right.

    You asked a question, so I’ll ask one: do you think that PPACA can actually work, or is it going to lead to single-payer? And a followup: if the latter, do you think that might have been the original intent?

    I declined to answer yours, so you’re under no obligation to answer mine. But I will note that mine isn’t asking for any kind of personal information, just your informed and honest opinion — something you give away freely every single time you post.

  227. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    Yes, the plight of part-timers was bad before PPACA (much easier to type that). But PPACA is making it worse. That’s the core point I’m making.

    Yes, but then that hardly makes it all encompassing critique you are pretending that it is. You are further, fundamentally in denial about the degree to which the PPACA is naught but, as I argued at the time, the deeper institutionalization of the existing system.

  228. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: It would make clear your intellectual honesty and consistency on the issue. It would not, of course, prove anything about the best type of health care policy.

    But it does matter if one is, for example, an anti-vaccine activist who nonetheless vaccinates one’s kids (Or is a loud pro-family conservative who visits prostitutes). These things matter as to the intellectual honestly of the interlocutors in question.

    In fact, I’ll invite you to assume whatever you like about my personal circumstances. I make a point of NOT asserting any kind of authority or expertise on anything, so I don’t think it will really matter.

  229. C. Clavin says:

    “…But PPACA is making it worse….”
    Again…and again…until maybe you are able to grasp this…only until the entire PPACA is in place.
    You want to examine a car half-way down the assembly line then complain because it only has three wheels.

  230. stonetools says:

    When I did a search on ” Obamacare and part-time workers” , every result on the first page was a right wing blog entry lamenting ( or gloating about?) the plight of part-time workers under Obamacare, so this is a thing in right wing world, which is usually silent about the plight of those at the bottom of the ecomic pyramid.
    Washington Post’s Wonk blog is my go to on all things PPACA, and it provides an answer here:

    For those who do not receive employer-sponsored insurance, the health law creates new options. Beginning in 2014, new marketplaces called health exchanges will serve as a more organized and easier way to buy health insurance. Anyone who earns less than four times the federal poverty level, about $43,320 for an individual, will be eligible for tax credits to subsidize the purchase of insurance.

    “Assuming this is all up and running in 2014, the exchanges will be there, there won’t be preexisting conditions and there will be new subsidies,” said Paul Fronstin, director of the health research and education program at the Employee Benefits Research Institute. Part-time workers “will have something they don’t have. You could argue they don’t really need their employers anymore.”

    The law also includes provisions that advocates hope will drive down the cost of health insurance, including a more thorough review of some premium increases and requiring insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premiums on medical costs.

    “The new Affordable Insurance Exchanges and tax credits will give part-time workers quality, affordable insurance choices and the security they need and deserve,” said Erin Shields, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Department. “And the law includes aggressive steps to help control health-care costs.”

  231. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    you’re trying to have it both ways. You argue in favor of facts over anecdotes, then ask for anecdotes to back up your arguments. You say exposing hypocrisy is essential, but ignore that PPACA was passed with promises that it would not lead to single-payer,

    As is often the case, your are not very good at distinguishing between different aspect of an argument.

    1. I am not asking for an anecdote as proof of the efficacy of one system over the other. I am asking for specific information about a given person, the quality of whose position would be directly informed by their circumstances vis-a-vis their health care situation.

    2. The PPACA will not, in fact, lead to single payer. There is nothing in the current policy regime that will allow for such a transformation. If it is the case that the long-term lack of sustainability of out health insurance system leads to the adoption of single payer, it will be because a system of private insurance providers linked to employers as the main mode of distribution failed to work over the long haul.

    Part of what is wrong with your analysis is that it pretends like the PPACA is a massive paradigm shift when it isn’t.

    You asked a question, so I’ll ask one: do you think that PPACA can actually work, or is it going to lead to single-payer? And a followup: if the latter, do you think that might have been the original intent?

    The policy works insofar as it does, as john persona has noted, lead to an expansion of coverage. Also, the CBO is now repotring that it is reporting that it is helping with costs (link).

    It works for what it is: a practical political solution that solves some issues, leaves other unresolved, and creates other problems. Such are the exigencies of public policy in an imperfect world.

    Do I think that it is the best long-term solution? No.

    Do I think that single-payer or some similar program is around the corner? Heck no.

    I will be mildly shocked if there is an attempt to massively reform health care in this country for at least two decades.

    Also, I think that when the movement does come, it will be at the behest of corporate America.

  232. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    In fact, I’ll invite you to assume whatever you like about my personal circumstances.

    I fear you have only reinforces my assumptions.

    At a minimum, I find it more than curious that won;t even suggest what your line of work is.

    I make a point of NOT asserting any kind of authority or expertise on anything, so I don’t think it will really matter.

    A refreshing admission. Especially since none of your arguments ever seem to have much in way of foundation. Of course, it never seems to stop you from being rather confident in your positions–which is an odd combination: no claims of expertise or authority mixed with a great deal of certitude.

  233. mantis says:

    @Jay Tea still pretending to be Jenos Idanian #13:

    Yes, the plight of part-timers was bad before PPACA (much easier to type that). But PPACA is making it worse. That’s the core point I’m making.

    You may be trying to make the point, but you have failed. People currently working part-time who do not get health insurance from their employers will have nothing change for them at all. In fact, most of them will find healthcare coverage more affordable through the exchanges or expanded Medicaid coverage, as part-time workers tend to have incomes below the thresholds for such opportunities.

  234. matt bernius says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    I make a point of NOT asserting any kind of authority or expertise on anything, so I don’t think it will really matter.

    Ahhh… that really helps me to understand how you continue to believe in numerous “hard facts” that are so inaccurate — not to mention why you continue to parrot them if they are gospel long after many of us have posted links that disprove them.

    I guess this is more or less a tacit admission that don’t have the expertise to understand what you’re talking about (or understand why you continue to get certain facts wrong).

    So what exactly are you basing your arguments on?

  235. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: I am quite flattered, though. wr routinely says far stupider things than I ever have. jukeboxgrad is basically a mouthpiece for Media Matters for America (paid or unpaid, I don’t know). And yet I get your attention.

    @C. Clavin: So, the plan of PPACA is to make things worse for some people before it starts making them better? Nice deal, that.

  236. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    “In fact, I’ll invite you to assume whatever you like about my personal circumstances.”

    Okay, good. I assume you grew your ponytail back.

    PS…this statement:

    Now I’m seeing more and more indicators that those people might have been right.

    is dumber than usual.

    That’s the problem with conspiracy theories. They confirm themselves.

  237. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    And yet I get your attention.

    It is my incurable impulse to teach, no doubt.

    Your mode of “argumentation” is one that I find especially problematic, so it seems a worthwhile exercise to illuminate them. You make a mistake if you think you are my main target audience.

    Nice dodge, btw–another one of your ongoing techniques is to change the subject, especially when confronted with difficult claims or ones that do not have ready talking points.

  238. @Jenos Idanian #13: Also: I have no comment on wr, but will say, as I think I have noted before, you (and many others) could learn a lot from jukeboxgrad: he tried very hard to substantiate his claims. That is a useful and admirable trait in discussions such as these,

    Making confidence claims based in a lack of expertise is, however, far less impressive.

  239. C. Clavin says:

    The clearest indication we have of what the PPACA will mean is Massachusetts…where Romney instituted Obamacare thanks to massive federal funding (that’s right…every single tax payer in the US has already paid to fund Obamacare in Mass.)
    In MA employer-sponsored insurance increased by 3 percent. Why? Employers have been offering coverage for decades, with no threat of a penalty for not doing so…because they are competing for quality labor…to attract the best you need a good benefits package.
    Denny’s and Papa Johns aren’t competing…they take the bottom of the barrel…and they have always employed part-timers..and we can presume safely that many of those people are frre-riders…they don’t get care until it’s an emergency and then they cannot afford to pay for it.
    The major difference now is that Denny’s wait staff and bus boys will now be able to get insurance thru Medicaid and the exchanges in 2014.
    Only the obtuse would see that as worse.

  240. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: But it does matter if one is, for example, an anti-vaccine activist who nonetheless vaccinates one’s kids (Or is a loud pro-family conservative who visits prostitutes). These things matter as to the intellectual honestly of the interlocutors in question.

    To bring up something I’ve mentioned several times, like the hypocrisy of known tax cheats being left in a position to shape tax policy? Like Tim Geithner and Charlie Rangel? Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about?

    Or President Obama’s… convoluted stance on gay marriage? How he was for it before he was against it before he was for it? Or his stance on matters like the War Powers Resolution and raising the debt ceiling from when he was a Senator vs. how he stands now?

    Does all hypocrisy count, or only in select cases?

  241. @Steven L. Taylor:

    “At a minimum, I find it more than curious that won;t even suggest what your line of work is.”

    I think we can safely say it’s not the type of work where his employer is thinking about cutting his hours….

    His opposition to Obamacare was already baked in. He’s just latching onto further reasons to trash it.

  242. @Jenos Idanian #13: More dodging,

    I am not talking to Geither, Rangel, not to Obama at the moment.

    But then again, by your own personal code, their hypocrisy doesn’t matter anyway.

  243. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    “Does all hypocrisy count, or only in select cases?”

    In the cases where “hypocrisy” is in the eye of the beholder….it never counts.

  244. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @James Pearce (Formerly Known as Herb): His opposition to Obamacare was already baked in. He’s just latching onto further reasons to trash it.

    Actually, a slight correction: this isn’t a “further reason,” but affirmation of the validity of an original reason. The evolution is from “this will happen” to “this is happening, as we predicted.”

  245. David M says:

    @stonetools:

    ….wonkblog info about actual impact of PPACA….

    This bit of fake concern over part time workers reminds me of the misinformation in the debate of the mandate or waivers. The discussion is always over a small portion of the law, and any negative impact it may have, however small or temporary. The entirety of the health care reform is ignored, so they can twist something minor into a “scandal”. It’s all rather pathetic and sad that they hate Obama / health care reform so much they are willing to stoop to such transparent dishonesty.

  246. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: OK, then, let’s go back to the topic at hand: “Employers Screwing Workers To Sidestep ObamaCare Mandates.” The shortest answer to that is “no shinola, Sherlock. A bunch of us said that would be precisely the response to ObamaCare.”

    And you’re clearly more educated than I am — how is your singling me out and wanting to know the particulars of my circumstances different from the ad hominem rhetorical device?

  247. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    @David M: So, in order to make a health care omelet, we gotta break a few eggs? In order to make things better for some people, we gotta make it worse for some?

  248. David M says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    You actually think it’s possible to reform health care and not make it worse for anyone? You’re actually asking that question?

    (And still doing exactly what I said, ignoring the Medicaid expansion and exchange subsidies while pretending the other portions of the law don’t exist.)

  249. Rob in CT says:

    The solution to this problem is obvious: Medicare for all.

    We all know that wasn’t actually on the table, and why.

  250. stonetools says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    OK, then, let’s go back to the topic at hand: “Employers Screwing Workers To Sidestep ObamaCare Mandates.” The shortest answer to that is “no shinola, Sherlock. A bunch of us said that would be precisely the response to ObamaCare.”

    And as we have said several times now:

    1. The position of part time workers is no worse off than it was pre PPACA.
    2. There are other provisions in the PPACA that address the problem of the lack of health insurance options for part time workers

    Also too, the conservative answer to the problem of the lack of health insurance for part-time workers is…. NOTHING.

    How hypocritical can you be to pretend concern for the insurabce problems of part-time workers under Obama care, while offering no alternative whatsoever?

  251. David M says:

    @stonetools:

    Also too, the conservative answer to the problem of the lack of health insurance for part-time workers is…. NOTHING.

    How hypocritical can you be to pretend concern for the insurance problems of part-time workers under Obama care, while offering no alternative whatsoever?

    That’s actually being charitable, as they are actively working to make things worse by not signing up for the Medicaid expansion. So simply doing nothing might actually be an improvement when compared to actively sabotaging health care reform.

  252. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    “Actually, a slight correction: this isn’t a “further reason,” but affirmation of the validity of an original reason.”

    Ah yes, I remember all those “But what about part-timers?” comments. They were sandwiched in between the ones saying “If the government can tell you to get healthcare, what can’t they do?” and “I don’t wanna pay for someone else’s healthcare. That’s communism!”

    Even now, the most useful thing you can inject into the discussion is “No shinola, Sherlock.”

    I mean, seriously….it’s no surprise government workers under Republican governors get the shaft. It’s no surprise that chain restaurants (who don’t pay their people squat anyway) are cutting their hours to avoid fully compensating their employees.

    You just seem all too eager to put the blame on the law. As if there is no choice in this world, as if that outcome is ordained by God, or more ridiculously, as if that was the whole point all along.

    Meanwhile, outside the politically infantile and the industrially stupid, this is not really a problem. I, for one, am in no danger of having my hours reduced. The company I work for isn’t that dumb. They need the work I do, and sometimes they’ll even pay extra if they need more of it. Maybe they’re just being nice.

    Or maybe they understand the concept of trade.

  253. mantis says:

    It is important for Jay Tea’s puppet Jenos to continue to ignore the exchanges, exchange subsidies, and Medicaid expansion, despite the fact that it has been pointed out by many of us here, because acknowledging those would force him to confront the fact that he is entirely full of shit. When’s the last time you saw someone do that, let alone an inveterate liar like Jay Tea?

  254. C. Clavin says:

    While we are talking about it…I’m still waiting on my appointment to the Death Panel.

  255. Pharoah Narim says:

    Sooooo right wing hacks are deeply offended by the corporate response to Obamacare for Part time workers but haven’t an ounce of indignation for corporate policies that created so many underemployed workers in the first place. Does it ever get cramped in the clown car? Ever?!?!?

  256. anjin-san says:

    we gotta make it worse for some?

    Obmacare is not “making it worse”. The problem here is businesses that have screwing their employees baked into their business plans.

    Look no further than Papa John’s, and it’s founder/CEO John Schnatter. He can find budget for national TV commercials that feature him mugging with famous athletes. But there just does not seem to be any budget to get his workers health insurance.

    So, John has a big picture of himself with Peyton Manning in his office, and he can pepper his conversations with references to Manning and Jerome Bettis, so people will know he is a big shot. A single mother with a sick kid who works for him is screwed. Welcome to tea party America.

    BTW, not so long ago I was the marketing director for a company that is much smaller than Papa John’s. We managed to have professional athletes, including HOF level guys, in our marketing mix, AND provide health care for every employee.

  257. Dave says:

    @Steven L. Taylor: Absolutely correct about Jukebox. This blog generally has outstanding commenters (you know who you are), but Jukebox’s links are both very informative and buttress his arguments nicely.

  258. john personna says:

    @Pharoah Narim:

    Indeed. And let’s not forget the implied promise. Those businesses have all been operating at the Bush trickle-down tax rates. They were the jobs creators. Presumably of good, full time, jobs.

    Instead, the Walmart styled business plan of part time workers who also receive government benefits was invented during those years, and not as a response to Obama.

  259. jukeboxgrad says:

    steven (addressing jenos):

    Your mode of “argumentation” is one that I find especially problematic, so it seems a worthwhile exercise to illuminate them. You make a mistake if you think you are my main target audience.

    Watching you and others deconstruct his baloney is illuminating, and I’m sure I’m not the only one learning from it. I’m also sure he has no idea that he’s providing an inadvertent public service.

    Also, thanks to you and Dave for the kind words.

  260. anjin-san says:
  261. KansasMom says:

    As if this blog weren’t enough of a time sucker, jukebox has to go all ninja on the fools at NRO too. Over winter break I wasted a solid 3 hours one night while he and some guy named blsdaniel slapped those people silly.

    And Michael Reynolds, I’ve read the first 2 Gone books and am waiting for the next one on library loan. Fun stuff.

  262. jukeboxgrad says:

    blsdaniel is an interesting character. I invited him to stop by here, but I guess so far he hasn’t.

    NR is fun because they have folks like Hanson and Krauthammer who are telling brazen lies on practically a daily basis, and a bunch of readers who react in all sorts of entertaining ways when they are shown that NR is lying to them. Our clowns here are fun, but the NR clown car is much bigger, so I like to visit both places. Today I’m having fun here: link.

  263. bill says:

    when was the last time the gov’t outsmarted the private sector? everyone saw this coming aside from the blind idiots who actually believed they were gonna get more free stuff.
    maybe making ins. companies actually compete and dismantling the uber-powerful medical “union” would help? how many industries get to regulate how many more professional they’ll allow to practice in their field? you wonder why lawyers hate doctors!

  264. anjin-san says:

    Jenos “outrage” that workers are getting screwed out of benefits is almost interesting.

    Until you remember that he is the guy who will cry crocodile tears tears for Mexicans who allegedly died as a result of Fast & Furious on one thread, while cheering for a plan calling for the US to build a wall on our southern border and opening fire on anyone who approaches it on another.

  265. john personna says:

    @bill:

    When did government “outsmart” the medical “union?”

    Slower Growth of Health Costs Eases Budget Deficit

    You’ll be happy about that, right?

    A sharp and surprisingly persistent slowdown in the growth of health care costs is helping to narrow the federal deficit, leaving budget experts trying to figure out whether the trend will last and how much the slower growth could help alleviate the country’s long-term fiscal problems.

    Good news for all of us.

  266. Pharoah Narim says:

    @Bill: What did gov’t do to outsmart the private sector? You’re commenting about it. The plan is to de-link employment from health insurance. The corporate lemmings are jumping off the cliff as we figured they would. Now back to your checkers game in the clown car–with armpit, elbow, and ball sacks mashed in your face.

  267. bill says:

    @Pharoah Narim: they did nothing, read and comprehend before you try to make a funny.

  268. Jenos Idanian #13 says:

    Let’s haul this way-too-long diversion back to the original topic.

    “Employers Screwing Workers To Sidestep ObamaCare Mandates.”

    No, employers are complying with PPACA mandates. They are adapting to the conditions imposed by the PPACA.

    The purpose of employers is NOT to take care of their employees, it’s to make a profit. They make a profit by providing goods and services to people at a price the people are willing to pay. The government has dictated that the cost of labor go up to a significant degree; businesses are responding by cutting those labor costs.

    Which a lot of critics of the PPACA predicted would happen.

    Let’s look at a few other problems we’re having with the PPACA — which, again, a lot of us predicted.

    State exchanges. Half the 50 states have chosen to ignore the federal mandate to set up the required exchanges, as the law mandating them has no enforcement mechanism.

    Medical device tax: The tax is on sales, not profits, so this will likely cripple the medical device industry.

    Plan minimum standards. Young, healthy people just starting out (often with hefty college loan debt) often opt for catastrophic health coverage only. Under the PPACA, that is no longer an option — they have to pay for “Cadillac” plans, which cover far more things than they wish to pay for. The options are basically how much of a deductible they want to accept. This is necessary because PPACA needs a large pool of people to pay more than they consume, and young, healthy people are the chosen suckers.

    The pre-existing conditions rule. A lot of people are running the numbers of paying all year for coverage vs. paying the penalty, then suddenly buying insurance when they get ill. It makes a lot of sense, financially, to do so. At least for the individual — it sucks for the insurance provider. If enough people do this (and the financial incentives make it quite tempting for a significant number of people), then the insurance providers will start losing huge amounts of money — to the point where they simply might stop offering health insurance. We’ve already seen it in companies bailing out of the child-insurance business.

    In brief, the success of PPACA is based on expecting people and organizations to voluntarily act in ways contrary to their best interests. And just how likely is that to work?

  269. john personna says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    The purpose of employers is NOT to take care of their employees, it’s to make a profit.

    This is a dangerous line of thinking. You see, it is what led to the rise of worker protection and government intervention.

    Only if you say that workers will do well by their workers that you can avoid it.

    (I mean, those Chinese factory bosses with workers locked in dorms would agree with your line above, right?)

  270. john personna says:

    (Only if you say [businesses] will do well by their workers ..)

  271. C. Clavin says:

    “…The purpose of employers is NOT to take care of their employees, it’s to make a profit…”
    Two views…Jenos Indiana Jones…or Henry Ford…which do you think is the best model for corporate America?
    Business does better when it attracts and retains the best workers. It’s called efficiency. Turnover costs money…lots of money. Maintaining knowledge and expertise saves money.
    My guess is that what Indiana Jones knows about business would fit in his cute little Fedora. What he/she is really advocating is a race to the bottom…let’s outdo China and the other third world countries at slave-labor. Nice vision of America, that.

  272. jukeboxgrad says:

    Henry Ford

    Without a strong middle class, the ship sinks. That wacky Marxist Henry Ford understood this:

    I have learned through the years a good deal about wages. I believe in the first place that, all other considerations aside, our own sales depend in a measure upon the wages we pay. If we can distribute high wages, then that money is going to be spent and it will serve to make storekeepers and distributors and manufacturers and workers in other lines more prosperous and their prosperity will be reflected in our sales. Country-wide high wages spell country-wide prosperity…

    From “My Life and Work.”

  273. @Jenos Idanian #13:

    “The purpose of employers is NOT to take care of their employees, it’s to make a profit.”

    Not to pile on….

    But you don’t own a business, do you? It’s funny. Companies that “take care of their employees” find themselves who are not only motivated towards making more profits, they almost feel obligated to do so. See Google.

    Companies that treat their employees like dirt find themselves having to negotiate with a union or going out of business. See Hostess.

  274. anjin-san says:

    The purpose of employers is NOT to take care of their employees, it’s to make a profit.

    Like Jenos, the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory understood this vital concept.

  275. mantis says:

    @Jay Tea’s puppet Jenos Idanian #13:

    Let’s look at a few other problems we’re having with the PPACA — which, again, a lot of us predicted.

    Why don’t you link to those predictions of yours?

    State exchanges. Half the 50 states have chosen to ignore the federal mandate to set up the required exchanges, as the law mandating them has no enforcement mechanism.

    There is no federal mandate to establish a state exchange. The state can opt-out and accept the federal exchange if they don’t want to establish one. You sure don’t know much about the law you have so many problems with, do you?

    Medical device tax: The tax is on sales, not profits, so this will likely cripple the medical device industry.

    A 2.3% excise tax will cripple the industry? Good thing no one trusts you with any economic decisions.

    Plan minimum standards. Young, healthy people just starting out (often with hefty college loan debt) often opt for catastrophic health coverage only. Under the PPACA, that is no longer an option — they have to pay for “Cadillac” plans, which cover far more things than they wish to pay for.

    You’re lying, yet again, and quite transparently. Young people will be forced into Cadillac plans? Where do you get this crap? Oh, I see you pulling it right from your ass.

    This is necessary because PPACA needs a large pool of people to pay more than they consume, and young, healthy people are the chosen suckers.

    You realize you are railing against the very concept of insurance, right? All insurance requires that most people pay in more than they take out. That’s how it works.

    The pre-existing conditions rule. A lot of people are running the numbers of paying all year for coverage vs. paying the penalty, then suddenly buying insurance when they get ill. It makes a lot of sense, financially, to do so. At least for the individual — it sucks for the insurance provider. If enough people do this (and the financial incentives make it quite tempting for a significant number of people), then the insurance providers will start losing huge amounts of money — to the point where they simply might stop offering health insurance.

    First of all, people who would do that are overwhelmingly people who already don’t have health insurance, so their continued lack of insurance won’t harm the insurance industry one bit, and they have millions of new customers at the same time, so your line of reasoning is, as usual, stupid. In addition, you provide no evidence that such a tactic would be employed by “a significant number of people.”

    You do at least offer a unique critique of the PPACA. While it will create millions of new customers for health insurance companies, you assert that they will go out of business due to lack of customers. You sure can find the dumbest possible argument and run with it. I’ll give you that.

  276. David M says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13:

    You tried to make a couple points, but the were a little off the mark.

    States not setting up state exchanges

    Not a problem with the law, as it allowed for federal exchanges. Secondly, when Republicans try and sabotage the laws implementation, they are the problem, not Obamacare.

    Medical device tax

    GOP scaremongering, not worth taking seriously enough to even point out why it’s wrong.

    Plan minimum standards…The pre-existing conditions rule.

    That was kind of the point of health care reform, make sure insurance plans actually cover things and that people that need coverage can get it.

  277. josh says:

    @KansasMom: Used to go at it (alongside) juke on volokh.com until that site got too wacky for me. good to see him (her?) keeping up the fight, though. the nro comment section is HIGHlarious.

  278. bill says:

    obamacare is a disaster, reason #1 why the American people didn’t support it and he had to railroad it through. everyone with a 3 digit iq knew that when ins.co’s, healthcare unions, lawyers & doctors all agree on something then “somebody” (namely us) is gonna pay for it. ross perot had a saying, something like this -“i never got hit by a train i saw coming 3 miles away”. crazy guy but he had some funny sayings.
    on the bright side for the obama camp these people will have to start working 2-3 jobs and it’ll look like unemployment went down. brilliant.

  279. jukeboxgrad says:

    Hi josh. Yes, for years I was mostly at VC but then they started using Disqus, which makes me want to puke. So now I generally stay away.

    NR also uses Disqus, but I’m willing to put up with it because it’s almost impossible to find a high-traffic hard-core conservative site that doesn’t block comments from people like me. And like you said, I find that some of the clowns there really crack me up.

  280. anjin-san says:

    @ bill

    obamacare is a disaster,

    Do you have anything to support that beyond “a really hot chick on Fox in a short skirt said so?”

    Meanwhile, here on planet Earth, there is more good news on the deficit.

    Health care cost curve flattening

  281. matt says:

    @anjin-san: What a wonderful view on life your dad had. When mine was diagnosed with ALS he kept his chin up about things. He was much younger then your dad though (mid 40s).

    His favorite quote even when he couldn’t speak himself (he used a computer voice) was “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”.

  282. matt says:

    @Jenos Idanian #13: My response was to state that we need to decouple health care coverage from the employers via something like a single payer.

  283. Pris says:

    @Dave Schuler:
    I agree that decoupling health care responsibility from employers is the direction to go. Also, I see that no one ever talks about the moral hazard inherent in any funding for health care. People who work too much and don’t have time to prepare food or exercise regularly; people who smoke ciggies or party on the weekends, or do reckless deeds that make them accident prone — all these add to the cost of health care. While those who are fastidious about cleaning their own teeth, eating organic, not having more than their fair share of kids, etc., get no reward from the system. In effect, the latter subsidize the donut eaters. The system needs to be more fair, and to keep responsibility squarely on individuals, and distinguish exceptions of no-fault accidents and bad luck genes that cause unusual sickness.