Voting against your interests or Now I Need Obamacare

have you used the exchanges? I have not, but I understand that it's a relatively straightforward process, as far as buying insurance online can be.

What part is insanely complicated for the consumer?

Tom_Reingold said:

Let's look at what the ACA did fix and didn't fix. It did lower the rate of increases, but it didn't stop the increases. It put more people onto insurance, but there are still uninsured. It made insurance affordable to many but not to everyone. It did nothing to make navigating insurance and claims and forms, and that's a big deal. The system is insanely complicated, enough that it's a joke to call it a system at all. If you don't understand a good portion of it, it's not clear what the causes of your frustrations of it are, and it makes sense to say it's a disaster. Well, disaster is too strong a word, but there it is.

I think it's good that ACA was passed, and I was a beneficiary: I got more for less. But not everyone was. And some are left out in the cold. Some have to pay fines for not having insurance.

drummerboy said:

have you used the exchanges? I have not, but I understand that it's a relatively straightforward process, as far as buying insurance online can be.

What part is insanely complicated for the consumer?

Tom_Reingold said:

Let's look at what the ACA did fix and didn't fix. It did lower the rate of increases, but it didn't stop the increases. It put more people onto insurance, but there are still uninsured. It made insurance affordable to many but not to everyone. It did nothing to make navigating insurance and claims and forms, and that's a big deal. The system is insanely complicated, enough that it's a joke to call it a system at all. If you don't understand a good portion of it, it's not clear what the causes of your frustrations of it are, and it makes sense to say it's a disaster. Well, disaster is too strong a word, but there it is.

I think it's good that ACA was passed, and I was a beneficiary: I got more for less. But not everyone was. And some are left out in the cold. Some have to pay fines for not having insurance.

I think he was referring to the process of claims (especially when something goes wrong and needs to be straightened out.)

tjohn said:

Seems to me that Mencken was a bit of an a$$hole. He made a lot of very clever and cynical observations about human beings but seems to be a bit short of humanity.

That is a fairly close description of the character based on him in the play Inherit the Wind.

Using the exchange was far from straightforward, and my wife and I are smarter than average. We ended up using one of the state's navigators.

And yes, processing claims is enough to drive a person crazy. There is no need for any of that crap in single-payer places like the UK.

Tom_Reingold said:

Using the exchange was far from straightforward, and my wife and I are smarter than average. We ended up using one of the state's navigators.

And yes, processing claims is enough to drive a person crazy. There is no need for any of that crap in single-payer places like the UK.

In my experience, buying a plan through the exchange for two years, the exchange itself was perfectly straightforward and easy. What's complicated is understanding the various plan offerings and figuring out which option is best for your situation. That is insanely complicated, but that's a function of the health insurance industry and not the fault of the exchange.

I fear this may be another of those clear, simple solutions.

Tom_Reingold said:

Using the exchange was far from straightforward, and my wife and I are smarter than average. We ended up using one of the state's navigators.

And yes, processing claims is enough to drive a person crazy. There is no need for any of that crap in single-payer places like the UK.

It isn't the Democrats's fault that some people are just idiots. For example, my FIL was dropped from his employer's insurance because he asked to have his schedule cut back to half a year (he works for six months and then takes six months off every year). Since he is no longer full time they dropped him from their plan. He was pissed as hell because "Obama" made them drop him. He was adamant, it was Obama and Obamacare, he wouldn't listen to reason. I couldn't get it through his thick skull that they dropped him because he had asked to have his hours cut back, so there is no way any PSA's from the Democrats would have made him think any different either.

drummerboy said:

again, this just points to my assertion about the Dems failure at messaging.

eliz said:

There has been poll after poll that shows a large segment of people that when asked about individual pieces of Obamacare without "Obama" attached they approve of it.

Also a large number of people think the ACA is not Obamacare. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/upshot/one-third-dont-know-obamacare-and-affordable-care-act-are-the-same.html?_r=0

You aren't filing claims with "Obamacare", you file claims with the insurance company.

terp said:

I fear this may be another of those clear, simple solutions.

Tom_Reingold said:

Using the exchange was far from straightforward, and my wife and I are smarter than average. We ended up using one of the state's navigators.

And yes, processing claims is enough to drive a person crazy. There is no need for any of that crap in single-payer places like the UK.

terp said:

Edited to Add: That's actually a really interesting post. I would agree that no one pure system works best and longest and there is no system that is going to please everyone. That is why I advocate decentralization. However, when decentralization is brought up in the United States there is a tendency for most to attack with an almost religious fervor.

You view decentralization - a movement towards more individualism and away from communism - as an opportunity for more people to be pleased.

I see it as an opportunity for fewer people to be pleased. Libertarianism, like communism on the opposite end, is probably best appreciated on smaller scales with voluntary participants, and would please fewer people than a system that includes elements of both.

For example:
Those who voluntarily join communes tend to seek the equal/shared aspects and the focus on fairness to others. Those upon who it is forced tend to see it as a repressive force against their individuality and any desire to try to better themselves, much less 'win'.

Vice-versa for libertarian society: Those who would join voluntarily tend to enjoy the competition and the focus on pleasing the self. Those upon who it is forced tend to see it as a chaotic and stressful society without a safety net should they consent to something that turns out to be of great benefit to someone else, while having a negative impact on themself.

The United States attempts to include elements of both: allowing for some individuality and competition, and some communal standardization and safety nets, with room to shift. We are currently shifting more towards the former, and farther away from the latter.

Thank you for the serious and well thought out post. It's been pretty rare lately.

I hear what you are saying. Here's the way I think about it. If you have a totalitarian society(say communism), everyone has to live under those rules. If you don't you are murdered or sent to the gulag and tortured and what not. It is difficult to impossible to set up a free society within that.

On the other hand, lets say we had a totally free society. People who found that chaotic would be free to set up communes within that free society. In fact, people would be free to set up subsets within that free society and organize things to their liking. What they wouldn't be able to do is use force to compel people to live in those subsets.

Also, I don't think the US consciously set up a mixed economy. I think its been an incremental evolution to where we are . I'm not sure anyone would start a society and model it after the current US organization. Just my opinion.

sprout said:

terp said:

Edited to Add: That's actually a really interesting post. I would agree that no one pure system works best and longest and there is no system that is going to please everyone. That is why I advocate decentralization. However, when decentralization is brought up in the United States there is a tendency for most to attack with an almost religious fervor.

You view decentralization - a movement towards more individualism and away from communism - as an opportunity for more people to be pleased.

I see it as an opportunity for fewer people to be pleased. Libertarianism, like communism on the opposite end, is probably best appreciated on smaller scales with voluntary participants, and would please fewer people than a system that includes elements of both.

For example:
Those who voluntarily join communes tend to seek the equal/shared aspects and the focus on fairness to others. Those upon who it is forced tend to see it as a repressive force against their individuality and any desire to try to better themselves, much less 'win'.

Vice-versa for libertarian society: Those who would join voluntarily tend to enjoy the competition and the focus on pleasing the self. Those upon who it is forced tend to see it as a chaotic and stressful society without a safety net should they consent to something that turns out to be of great benefit to someone else, while having a negative impact on themself.

The United States attempts to include elements of both: allowing for some individuality and competition, and some communal standardization and safety nets, with room to shift. We are currently shifting more towards the former, and farther away from the latter.

terp, you're mixing up a bunch of ideas. Communism is not on the same scale as totalitarianism. It's mostly coincidental that the biggest societies that called themselves communist were totalitarian.

"Totally free society" is an oxymoron to me, because there is no society without rules that we mostly agree upon. Without rules, there is no society, just a bunch of people killing and stealing from each other.

@spontaneous, I agree with your father. I think it's reasonable to be annoyed that the ACA didn't go far enough. If it had, it would have protected his insurance from being pulled away just from changing his hours (or months).

Every communist country has had to use torture, imprisonment and murder to implement the system. Many of the wild eyed anti-war socialists in the WWI era that emigrated to Russia to join the workers revolution were never heard from again. I can only assume that these pacifists didn't agree with the methods being used.

You cannot run a society under a communist system without massive amounts of coercion. It runs against human nature.

I'm sorry that you don't understand what a free society is. It does not mean "no rules". I've explained this to you dozens of times, yet you always seem to take it to absurd levels.

Tom_Reingold said:

terp, you're mixing up a bunch of ideas. Communism is not on the same scale as totalitarianism. It's mostly coincidental that the biggest societies that called themselves communist were totalitarian.

"Totally free society" is an oxymoron to me, because there is no society without rules that we mostly agree upon. Without rules, there is no society, just a bunch of people killing and stealing from each other.

@spontaneous, I agree with your father. I think it's reasonable to be annoyed that the ACA didn't go far enough. If it had, it would have protected his insurance from being pulled away just from changing his hours (or months).

OK right, large scale communism requires totalitarianism, but they are not the same. There is small scale communism. And there is totalitarianism without communism.

We need laws, and all people will be unhappy about some laws. The question is, are the laws we have working for us? Nowadays, I think the answer is no. A very few people are writing laws to suit the very few.

If you want to describe a free society as you envision it, I'll enjoy reading it. If you have examples where it works, even better.

Please provide an example of a communist country that didn't require massive amounts of coercion.

terp said:

Thank you for the serious and well thought out post. It's been pretty rare lately.

I hear what you are saying. Here's the way I think about it. If you have a totalitarian society(say communism), everyone has to live under those rules. If you don't you are murdered or sent to the gulag and tortured and what not. It is difficult to impossible to set up a free society within that.

On the other hand, lets say we had a totally free society. People who found that chaotic would be free to set up communes within that free society. In fact, people would be free to set up subsets within that free society and organize things to their liking. What they wouldn't be able to do is use force to compel people to live in those subsets.

FWIW: The pure form of communism is supposed to be egalitarian (power to all the people), not totalitarian (with a head of state or power class). However, human nature, organizational structures, and limitations of resources, tend to move communism toward a more totalitarian state when attempted on a large scale with involuntary members.

I'm fairly certain that I won't convince you, but being 'free to set up communes within a libertarian society' is pretending that "freedom", as defined by libertarians, is a sufficient condition for existing as one wishes within a libertarian society. However, what is not acknowledged is that when some people take more liberties, this does in fact create constraints (reducing "freedom") for other people in the vicinity.

For example: It might be like hanging out in a quiet closet with my sister to get out of the chaos of our boisterous family gathering with loud and rambunctious people existing throughout the rest of the house. While we are free to have our peace and quiet in the closet, the general level of chaos forces us to be constrained to this small space. We also have to go out to interact with the chaotic world to get some dessert. This is not "freedom", but an attempt to hide away in a small place of order within a system of chaos... a system which did not save a slice of the pumpkin pie for me.

Tom_Reingold said:



@spontaneous, I agree with your father. I think it's reasonable to be annoyed that the ACA didn't go far enough. If it had, it would have protected his insurance from being pulled away just from changing his hours (or months).

Not my father, my father in law. And he didn't say that the law didn't go far enough to protect him, he said the law forced his company to drop his coverage. He was adamant that he lost his coverage BECAUSE of Obamacare. He truly believed that had it not gone into effect that his employer would have happily kept covering him full time even though he was only working six months a year.

terp said:

I'm sorry that you don't understand what a free society is. It does not mean "no rules". I've explained this to you dozens of times, yet you always seem to take it to absurd levels.

What rules do you have then? And I mean aside from the easy ones like laws against murder and stealing. It seems to me that most of our governmental regulations came about in response to real problems that were hurting people - environmental regulations, labor practice regulation, etc.

the reason you don't get other "serious and well thought out posts" in response to your is because you write drivel like this.

You second paragraph portrays a land of unicorns and lavender smelling farts, where the bad parts of human nature don't exist and have no effect. Yay!!

But in the first paragraph, it only took you 3 sentences to get to murder by the state. Boo!! Bad state! Bad!

A ridiculous portrayal. But consistent with the pie in the sky version of reality favored by libertarians.

terp said:

Thank you for the serious and well thought out post. It's been pretty rare lately.

I hear what you are saying. Here's the way I think about it. If you have a totalitarian society(say communism), everyone has to live under those rules. If you don't you are murdered or sent to the gulag and tortured and what not. It is difficult to impossible to set up a free society within that.

On the other hand, lets say we had a totally free society. People who found that chaotic would be free to set up communes within that free society. In fact, people would be free to set up subsets within that free society and organize things to their liking. What they wouldn't be able to do is use force to compel people to live in those subsets.

Also, I don't think the US consciously set up a mixed economy. I think its been an incremental evolution to where we are . I'm not sure anyone would start a society and model it after the current US organization. Just my opinion.

sprout said:

terp said:

Edited to Add: That's actually a really interesting post. I would agree that no one pure system works best and longest and there is no system that is going to please everyone. That is why I advocate decentralization. However, when decentralization is brought up in the United States there is a tendency for most to attack with an almost religious fervor.

You view decentralization - a movement towards more individualism and away from communism - as an opportunity for more people to be pleased.

I see it as an opportunity for fewer people to be pleased. Libertarianism, like communism on the opposite end, is probably best appreciated on smaller scales with voluntary participants, and would please fewer people than a system that includes elements of both.

For example:
Those who voluntarily join communes tend to seek the equal/shared aspects and the focus on fairness to others. Those upon who it is forced tend to see it as a repressive force against their individuality and any desire to try to better themselves, much less 'win'.

Vice-versa for libertarian society: Those who would join voluntarily tend to enjoy the competition and the focus on pleasing the self. Those upon who it is forced tend to see it as a chaotic and stressful society without a safety net should they consent to something that turns out to be of great benefit to someone else, while having a negative impact on themself.

The United States attempts to include elements of both: allowing for some individuality and competition, and some communal standardization and safety nets, with room to shift. We are currently shifting more towards the former, and farther away from the latter.

We have not used the exchange and don't know how it works. In saying that, seems many find the area of choosing the best plan the most complicated. Like home and car insurance, are there independent agents available to help families make these choices?

Perhaps if I were to really apply myself, I could be like you and consistently come across as a complete jackass.

drummerboy said:

the reason you don't get other "serious and well thought out posts" in response to your is because you write drivel like this.

You second paragraph portrays a land of unicorns and lavender smelling farts, where the bad parts of human nature don't exist and have no effect. Yay!!

But in the first paragraph, it only took you 3 sentences to get to murder by the state. Boo!! Bad state! Bad!


A ridiculous portrayal. But consistent with the pie in the sky version of reality favored by libertarians.

kibbegirl said:

We have not used the exchange and don't know how it works. In saying that, seems many find the area of choosing the best plan the most complicated. Like home and car insurance, are there independent agents available to help families make these choices?

I think there are (the navigators), but I wasn't wholly sure how to find one. I got a plan using healthcare.gov after a little research and a few attempts. I had to wait until my company's severance pay period had run out and I was into unemployment insurance before I could get any subsidy. It's really tough to calculate, though, what would be the best plan. Do you learn this in school?

Here's the thing tjohn. We have a very complex set of rules. I think we could simplify things just a bit. Let's say you had a legal framework at the national level that protects everyone's liberty. Basically, you are free to worship, associate, say, do what you'd like up to the point where you start infringing on the rights of others.

At more local levels, you can apply other laws. Sprout seems concerned about noise ordinances. I don't know. My neighbors are pretty considerate. I'm not sure they don't bother me because they fear they are going to be penalized under some noise ordinance. So, for someone like me, I might choose to live somewhere that doesn't stress that. However, if I were, perhaps there were other localities that had such ordinances and they were strictly enforced.

I just don't think it is wise to try to centrally govern a populace as large and diverse as in the US. And from where I sit, I think we have too many rules and the federal government is too involved in our lives.

Let's say there is a bus line that goes in 2 directions. I could get on 1 that travels in the direction of more federal rules. Let's say there is another that goes in the direction of less federal rules. I'm going to get on the latter bus. I think I probably get off the bus before it reaches the end of the line. I'm not sure exactly how long I take that ride. But I know that is the direction I'd like to go in.

I hope that makes sense.

tjohn said:

terp said:

I'm sorry that you don't understand what a free society is. It does not mean "no rules". I've explained this to you dozens of times, yet you always seem to take it to absurd levels.

What rules do you have then? And I mean aside from the easy ones like laws against murder and stealing. It seems to me that most of our governmental regulations came about in response to real problems that were hurting people - environmental regulations, labor practice regulation, etc.

please tell us more stories about the mean murderous communists.

terp said:

Perhaps if I were to really apply myself, I could be like you and consistently come across as a complete jackass.

drummerboy said:

the reason you don't get other "serious and well thought out posts" in response to your is because you write drivel like this.

You second paragraph portrays a land of unicorns and lavender smelling farts, where the bad parts of human nature don't exist and have no effect. Yay!!

But in the first paragraph, it only took you 3 sentences to get to murder by the state. Boo!! Bad state! Bad!


A ridiculous portrayal. But consistent with the pie in the sky version of reality favored by libertarians.

Like a Kibbutz. In db's rainbow and unicorn bubble they don't exist.

drummerboy said:

the reason you don't get other "serious and well thought out posts" in response to your is because you write drivel like this.

You second paragraph portrays a land of unicorns and lavender smelling farts, where the bad parts of human nature don't exist and have no effect. Yay!!

But in the first paragraph, it only took you 3 sentences to get to murder by the state. Boo!! Bad state! Bad!


A ridiculous portrayal. But consistent with the pie in the sky version of reality favored by libertarians.

terp said:

Thank you for the serious and well thought out post. It's been pretty rare lately.

I hear what you are saying. Here's the way I think about it. If you have a totalitarian society(say communism), everyone has to live under those rules. If you don't you are murdered or sent to the gulag and tortured and what not. It is difficult to impossible to set up a free society within that.

On the other hand, lets say we had a totally free society. People who found that chaotic would be free to set up communes within that free society. In fact, people would be free to set up subsets within that free society and organize things to their liking. What they wouldn't be able to do is use force to compel people to live in those subsets.

Also, I don't think the US consciously set up a mixed economy. I think its been an incremental evolution to where we are . I'm not sure anyone would start a society and model it after the current US organization. Just my opinion.

sprout said:

terp said:

Edited to Add: That's actually a really interesting post. I would agree that no one pure system works best and longest and there is no system that is going to please everyone. That is why I advocate decentralization. However, when decentralization is brought up in the United States there is a tendency for most to attack with an almost religious fervor.

You view decentralization - a movement towards more individualism and away from communism - as an opportunity for more people to be pleased.

I see it as an opportunity for fewer people to be pleased. Libertarianism, like communism on the opposite end, is probably best appreciated on smaller scales with voluntary participants, and would please fewer people than a system that includes elements of both.

For example:
Those who voluntarily join communes tend to seek the equal/shared aspects and the focus on fairness to others. Those upon who it is forced tend to see it as a repressive force against their individuality and any desire to try to better themselves, much less 'win'.

Vice-versa for libertarian society: Those who would join voluntarily tend to enjoy the competition and the focus on pleasing the self. Those upon who it is forced tend to see it as a chaotic and stressful society without a safety net should they consent to something that turns out to be of great benefit to someone else, while having a negative impact on themself.

The United States attempts to include elements of both: allowing for some individuality and competition, and some communal standardization and safety nets, with room to shift. We are currently shifting more towards the former, and farther away from the latter.

For the record. My farts have that new car smell.

So there you have it. You and I can probably agree on what instances of too much regulation and on instances of insufficient regulation. It's the area in between these extremes combined with the rather difficult task of developing regulations for a nation of 300 millions that are workable.

For example, there are regulations in place for the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay which require management of agricultural runoff into the Susquehanna River. Unavoidably, these regulations are pretty burdensome on farmers, but what is the alternative short of letting the Chesapeake Bay die?

terp said:

Here's the thing tjohn. We have a very complex set of rules. I think we could simplify things just a bit. Let's say you had a legal framework at the national level that protects everyone's liberty. Basically, you are free to worship, associate, say, do what you'd like up to the point where you start infringing on the rights of others.

At more local levels, you can apply other laws. Sprout seems concerned about noise ordinances. I don't know. My neighbors are pretty considerate. I'm not sure they don't bother me because they fear they are going to be penalized under some noise ordinance. So, for someone like me, I might choose to live somewhere that doesn't stress that. However, if I were, perhaps there were other localities that had such ordinances and they were strictly enforced.

I just don't think it is wise to try to centrally govern a populace as large and diverse as in the US. And from where I sit, I think we have too many rules and the federal government is too involved in our lives.

Let's say there is a bus line that goes in 2 directions. I could get on 1 that travels in the direction of more federal rules. Let's say there is another that goes in the direction of less federal rules. I'm going to get on the latter bus. I think I probably get off the bus before it reaches the end of the line. I'm not sure exactly how long I take that ride. But I know that is the direction I'd like to go in.

I hope that makes sense.

tjohn said:

terp said:

I'm sorry that you don't understand what a free society is. It does not mean "no rules". I've explained this to you dozens of times, yet you always seem to take it to absurd levels.

What rules do you have then? And I mean aside from the easy ones like laws against murder and stealing. It seems to me that most of our governmental regulations came about in response to real problems that were hurting people - environmental regulations, labor practice regulation, etc.

Seems like the ACA and the IRS suffer from the same ails. It is within the interests of CPA's, lawyers, healthcare, etc. to have these two entities remain complicated. In simple, clear lay terms, both ACA and the IRS could be navigated by most w/out having a JD or ChFC after your name.

Good think DeVos will fix those schools and bring back religion to the classroom.

terp said:

Ha! They're stupid! I fear the public schools have failed them.

terp said:

At more local levels, you can apply other laws. Sprout seems concerned about noise ordinances. I don't know. My neighbors are pretty considerate. I'm not sure they don't bother me because they fear they are going to be penalized under some noise ordinance. So, for someone like me, I might choose to live somewhere that doesn't stress that. However, if I were, perhaps there were other localities that had such ordinances and they were strictly enforced.

I just don't think it is wise to try to centrally govern a populace as large and diverse as in the US. And from where I sit, I think we have too many rules and the federal government is too involved in our lives.

Um -- that had nothing to do with noise ordinances. Sprout was trying to provide an example of how a society that was not exhibiting any problems enjoying their freedoms can result in higher level of chaos than some enjoy. The example was demonstrating the fallacy of saying: "but you're free to make rules that reduce the chaos... but you can't force them on others". This is not really more "freedom". The level of decision-making about life's different constraints is shifted, and while you think that greater variations would make more people pleased, the resulting chaos from the greater variations would actually result in many people not being pleased.

In other words, Libertarianism also doesn't please everyone.

I'm going to try another example: My youth in the Bronx in the 1970's was much more libertarian than in current Maplewood. Maplewood has rules about everything: fences, leaf blowers, recycling.... and crazy high property taxation. Why would a libertarian even consider living here?

Now the Bronx.... we had free markets abounding for so many things, and they were run tax-free. There were contracts between parties to keep these free markets from interfering with each other. Those who worked in the free markets didn't pay income tax, social security, but also had no work hazard protections (no workman's comp, unemployment, leave pay, vacation time, insurance, etc). Property tax was barely noticeable, and one could pretty much do as they wished with their property, as well as within it. Most laws that were annoying to libertarians were not enforced, as priorities for enforcement were elsewhere.

I'm guessing present-day Newark is similar, and could be much closer to a libertarian's paradise than SOMA.