Supreme Court and the Individual Mandate

[PST]

That's my explanation. Scoop, how do you explain your assertion that $820 billion is a one-year price tag. Perhaps you would like to use real sources next time instead of putting your trust in a trickster and passing his misinformation on to us without looking to see how he derived it.

I'll ask you the same thing I asked Nate. Are you calling the Washington Examiner article a lie?

I don't plan to read or factcheck your second secondary source (a free tabloid for people who find the Washington Times too liberal) until you defend or repudiate your first secondary source. If that means we can put this thread to sleep, I'm okay with that.

[Sloop]

That's my explanation. Scoop, how do you explain your assertion that $820 billion is a one-year price tag. Perhaps you would like to use real sources next time instead of putting your trust in a trickster and passing his misinformation on to us without looking to see how he derived it.

I'll ask you the same thing I asked Nate. Are you calling the Washington Examiner article a lie?

I don't plan to read or factcheck your second secondary source (a free tabloid for people who find the Washington Times too liberal) until you defend or repudiate your first secondary source. If that means we can put this thread to sleep, I'm okay with that.

Putting this thread to sleep is not up to you, even though I am sure you'd like to. There are quite a few others here who are just as pissed over Obama and his minions as I am.
When I have time to research the numbers, I will do so. I am not afraid to call a spade a spade. And Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster to our deficit.

[The Choker]

And Obamacare is an unmitigated disaster to our deficit.

"The best government is the one that charges you the least blackmail for leaving you alone." – Thomas Rudmose-Brown

[Sloop]

OK PST
In this extremely complex CBO estimate, I have reviewed their March update:
http://cbo.gov/publication/43080
I will only state that the earlier assumptions on my part were too brief -- this thing is much more convoluted than meets the eye.
So -- to carry on from here, I would like to focus on a summary paragraph from CBO:

"Estimates Through Fiscal Year 2022
This report also presents estimates through fiscal year 2022, because the baseline projection period now extends through that additional year. The ACA’s provisions related to insurance coverage are now projected to have a net cost of $1,252 billion over the 2012-2022 period; that amount represents a gross cost to the federal government of $1,762 billion, offset in part by $510 billion in receipts and other budgetary effects (primarily revenues from penalties and other sources).

The addition of 2022 to the projection period has the effect of increasing the costs of the coverage provisions of the ACA relative to those projected in March 2011 for the 2012-2021 period because that change adds a year in which the expansion of eligibility for Medicaid and subsidies for health insurance purchased through the exchanges will be in effect. CBO and JCT have not estimated the budgetary effects in 2022 of the other provisions of the ACA; over the 2012-2021 period, those other provisions were previously estimated to reduce budget deficits."

To make sense of all this, I prefer to leave the painful in-depth analysis to others -- and so I present two reviews. Keep in mind that the OFFICIAL CBO report only offers their numbers, they DON'T explain the significance of those numbers. Therefore, outside sources must be relied upon for an analysis. I will not apologize for using such sources.

The first is from the Heritage Foundation.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/14/oba ... -says-cbo/

Secondly, I offer another evaluation:

"Now that we’re nearing 2014 and the 10-year window of cost projections has slid forward, you can see what this leviathan boondoggle really costs: $1.76 trillion, soon to top $2 trillion when the window slides forward another year in 2013 and the new projection reaches into 2023."

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/03/13/c ... -trillion/

[Kerr]

Sadly, everything I've seen is ignorance and naivety has sunk in and those who state that Obamacare will somehow save us money. I would like them to cite a single government agency that when created had a budget and managed to stick to it without ballooning out of control. Government agencies are designed and managed to operate at a loss requiring more and more next year. Management in these agencies know if they dont' spend every time allocated to them they will get less next year, so they have no incentive to save the taxpayers any money, quite the opposite, to spend everything given and ask for more next year.

In particular, one of the things even a simpleton should understand is that Obamacare requires that procedures and tests should be given to patients 'for free.' Any moron should know there is no such thing as a service or product given for free. There is always a cost associated. PERIOD. Either the cost is shifted to another procedure so people pay additional on those other procedures to cover the 'free service.' Or the medical services that are given free take time away from that health technician, so they have less time to spend on other services. There is always a cost. ALWAYS. There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. Learn it, live it.

Canada has a fine example of how services are rationed and people have to wait MONTHS for procedures: http://www.fraserinstitute.org/publicat ... 2147484001

[Ticman]

When Obama was selling this thing to everyone did he bring up this sliding window of rising cost? There's no way he didn't know about it up front.

[PST]

Scoop,

Okay, I feel like we're speaking the same language now: same facts, different opinions, with those opinions not likely to change. Commentaries like that in the Examiner that acknowledge that the change in estimates is a result of the "moving window" are playing the game fairly, in my opinion. I disagree with the claim that the original 10-year estimate based on a program not substantially implemented until 2014 was an accounting trick, because there were legitimate reasons putting together a program like this this takes time, but there was nothing wrong with pointing out loudly and often that the cost for 10 years of full implementation would be much higher than 10 years that included three with expenditures of approximately $0. Everyone paying attention in 2009 and 2010 understood this, which is why it didn't seem like a trick to me. The CBO does 10-year projections, that's just what it does, it isn't a dodge to talk about those estimates. However, I see nothing wrong with critics like the Examiner guy pointing to the late year projections now and saying we told you so -- this thing is mighty expensive. What got my goat was the critics who ignored the moving window and said, "First they said $900 billion, now they say $1.8 trillion, they were lying, estimates have doubled in one year, heaven knows what we can expect next." The estimate of the gross cost of coverage provisions (which is the number everyone is talking about) has stayed pretty much the same on a year-by-year basis. For example, the original estimate for 2019 (then the last year) was $214 billion, the current estimate for 2019 is $212 billion. Whether it is worth spending this money this way is a matter of opinion, I concede; I just don't like seeing the nature of the change in estimates misrepresented. It is also worth pointing out that this is the gross cost only, and that the CBO continues to say that when revenue and other aspects of the PPACA are taken into account, not just the gross cost of coverage provisions, it continues to be a deficit reducer out into the end years of the new estimate.

[Sloop]

What bothers the hell out of me is this so-called "revenue neutral" malarkey. It makes it sound as if Obamacare is not costing the American public anything. But in fact, in order to get to "revenue neutral" much has to be cut (such as $500+ Billion from Medicare) along with HUGE tax increases on the public). There ain't no free lunch. So, when the number of $1.7 Trillion in COSTS is layed out there -- that is a REAL number in terms of the effect on the economy. By that I mean -- that is the number that WOULDN'T have been there had we kept the status quo and not passed ObamaCare.

[ChicagoGranny]

[Goofproof]

What bothers the hell out of me is this so-called "revenue neutral" malarkey. It makes it sound as if Obamacare is not costing the American public anything. But in fact, in order to get to "revenue neutral" much has to be cut (such as $500+ Billion from Medicare) along with HUGE tax increases on the public). There ain't no free lunch. So, when the number of $1.7 Trillion in COSTS is layed out there -- that is a REAL number in terms of the effect on the economy. By that I mean -- that is the number that WOULDN'T have been there had we kept the status quo and not passed ObamaCare.

It won't cost the American Public a thing, it's people who work for a living and pay taxes, and or buy products, that will pay for it all. that along with flushing the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution, down the toilet. Jim

[Kerr]

When Obama was selling this thing to everyone did he bring up this sliding window of rising cost? There's no way he didn't know about it up front.

Of course he did. It was just part of the parlor tricks he used to sell it to people too stupid to understand how badly he was going to screw people.

[LinkC]

But at least it won't raise taxes!

That's what the Resident said early on...before he had to call it a tax to slide it past the Supremes.

Now, just today, I heard him saying it's not raising taxes.

Dumb, deceitful or dishonest? (It's a multiple choice...)

[DreamStalker]

It's called an exponential function ... but most people are too ignorant to know what that means ... and yet, that is the trend of the global debt, not just the US debt.

Don't you people see?

The whole thing is unsustainable and that's why this thread topic is nonsense divisive distraction from the real issues. It's meant to keep us away from realizing the real TRUTH!

Bunch of political zombies is what is wrong with this country!

[akcpapguy]

So a little of the topic, but an important question to people more informed on this subject than I am. Talking to my father yesterday, the subject of this mandate comes up and he says “We got a letter in the mail yesterday from the insurance company informing us they have changed their coverage regarding preexisting conditions”. According to the letter he received, new policy holders with preexisting conditions will be subject to a 60/40 in-network and 50/50 out-of-network payment option instead of the current 90/10 in and 80/20 out.

My question to our resident experts (no pun intended guys and I mean that to folks on both sides of the fence) on the mandate. Is this practice legal under the mandate and has anyone else heard of similar policy changes being made?

My take on it from what I have read is that it will be perfectly legal for insurance companies to do this since the mandate on prohibits companies from denying coverage, not stating that the coverage has to be the same as non-preexisting conditions. I am basing the ASSUMPTION on what I have read here and from various sources on the web from both sides of the fence. I have not read the actual mandate myself!

[DreamStalker]

So a little of the topic, but an important question to people more informed on this subject than I am. Talking to my father yesterday, the subject of this mandate comes up and he says “We got a letter in the mail yesterday from the insurance company informing us they have changed their coverage regarding preexisting conditions”. According to the letter he received, new policy holders with preexisting conditions will be subject to a 60/40 in-network and 50/50 out-of-network payment option instead of the current 90/10 in and 80/20 out.

My question to our resident experts (no pun intended guys and I mean that to folks on both sides of the fence) on the mandate. Is this practice legal under the mandate and has anyone else heard of similar policy changes being made?

My take on it from what I have read is that it will be perfectly legal for insurance companies to do this since the mandate on prohibits companies from denying coverage, not stating that the coverage has to be the same as non-preexisting conditions. I am basing the ASSUMPTION on what I have read here and from various sources on the web from both sides of the fence. I have not read the actual mandate myself!

It is legal because corporations have taken complete command and control of our government. Welcome to the Fascist States of America, prepare yourselves for the great harvest.