this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2024
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You mean the term where the Dems passed the largest healthcare in 40 years with the passing of the ACA (Obamacare)? How is that not an achievement?
It was literally mitt Romneys Healthcare plan from Massachusetts. They didn't even get a public option. It was the bare minimum because dems didnt want to mess with the insurance companies that line there pockets.
I don't care who gets the credit for the original model. Most Americans had FAR less healthcare options before the ACA.
You're complaining about how it could be better. Do you not remember what life was like BEFORE the ACA?
Could it be better? Sure. Was it so much better than the NOTHING we had before? Absolutely!
bud, that was 16 years ago and the situation has only worsened. maybe its time to stop trotting it out as some grand thing the democrats did and focus on what they're doing today? which is essentially nothing.
You mean like the recovery of the country from COVID with the American Rescue Plan Act, or Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPs act, Student loan forgiveness? How about repeal of the homophobic "Defense of Marriage Act"? Maybe the Honoring our PACT Act which finally recognized the conditions we put our troops in and covering their health needs resulting from that exposure? Those kind of things?
Wow! and americans day to day finances havent improved at all! Imagine doing all that and still having people struggling... I wonder....
Lets go down the list shall we?
CHIPs act: surprise a bipartisan corporate give away.
American Rescue Plan Act: corporate give away mixed with one time stimulus for americans.
Inflation Reduction Act: I actually liked this bill mostly too bad it does nothing for the majority of americans w/ respect to inflation and cost of living.
Student loan forgiveness: oh you mean the thing biden has slow walked, only managing to clear 9% in 4 years, and is the direct architect of causing? oh you mean the man who also resumed payments for them despite record inflation?
Defense of Marriage Act: yup wonderful, good job dems! the only thing that doesn't negatively impact your corporate donors you got done!
Honoring our PACT Act: Oh you mean health care in america is fucking horrible? color me surprised, yet another excuse to not actually fix our health care system.
seriously man. think about these things before you post them. I'm not opposed to many of these bills but NONE of them improve the general well being of the american worker or their families.
Do people still need to worry about their health coverage if they lose their jobs? Yes? oh.
Do people still need to work multiple jobs to make ends meet in many areas? Yes? oh.
Do people still have no protections for medical, family, vacation? Yes? oh.
Do people still have to go into massive debt for an education? Yes? oh.
Do sexual orientations still have no protections within the workplace? yes? oh.
Until the democrats begin addressing these issues for working americans they won't have the support of myself or individuals like me. Don't even get me fucking started on the widespread genocidal support, moral bankruptcy, and graft within the party.
You have a very specific definition of any legislative success. You have a very defined view (regardless if I agree with it or not).
Can you tell me when the last time any level of legislation was passed by any party that would meet your version of success? The only thing I can think of that would meet your very high bar is FDR with the New Deal and other efforts FDR did with the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority). Do you have something more recent that 1939?
Not particularly, as I said I believe some of those bills were decent successes, but they wont win votes from working americans. When it comes to winning votes and enacting change you need to accomplish demonstrable improvements to our lives. And yes that list will continuously change as more and more things are improved. That's a good thing.
smile do you? do you see the problem with the fact you need to go back that far to find anything that helps American's that you think I'll accept. The list I mentioned above isn't some unattainable goal. many countries already have accomplished these things for their people.
I don't need to. I see lots of things, including the ACA, that helped working Americans. However, you say that doesn't by your measure. So I'm asking you to give an example of your measure to better understand your point of view. Thats how we learn about each other's views when they aren't apparent.
So it sounds like you're saying nothing has been passed in the USA in the last 85 years since FDR's New Deal that qualifies for your measure of "helping working Americans".
Okay, thank you. That informs me of your position. I appreciate the time you've taken to share your views.
I didnt say you needed to. I was asking if you could think of any. that was the point.
we clearly disagree on ACA. it, like many bills such as PACT, have limited impact on the american worker. its only real win was ending absolutely inhuman practices from the insurance industry, but even those practices only impacted a small minority. the insurance markets it set up are an absolute mess of overpriced trash and the resulting system it created where insurance companies benefit by paying hospitals/pharma more for care.
These type of bills shouldn't be hard to recognize which is why you having issues pointing to any is so damning. I would have put student loan forgiveness in the category if it actually got done, or a min wage increase, or anything from the list i mentioned. but you wont find anything remotely comparable for almost 80 years.
You're asking me about what passed legislation I believe meets your vague generalizations of approval? What kind of game is that? You still haven't answered the question and we're on the third time I would be asking it with me still only guessing the New Deal meets your measure.
I don't actually care about trying to tease your answer out of you anymore. The best I can tell is that you haven't liked anything in the last 85 years. Its too much effort to try to figure out more from you on that. Its enough to tell me everything I needed to know about your position. You're welcome to your opinion and position. I'm not interested in learning any more about about it though. You're welcome to continue to reply to this, but I'm I won't be engaging anymore. Have a great day!
Its a way for you to demonstrate your position and for me to critique it. exactly the way I did your original list. If you can't point to anything that only demonstrates the point I was making and why the democrats have continued to lose elections to fucking fascists.
Remember its not my job to defend the your position. My point in its entirety is that you can't point to any bill within my life time that actually substantially improved the quality of life for workers at large. ACA didn't do that, We havent had labor or work reforms in my entire life.
And its not a lack of power, I'd be willing to accept state level labor reforms too!
A safe assumption w/ respect to american workers quality of life! Do you consider this a problem? I certainly do. And there are plenty of bills I'm supportive of over my life as 'better than we had' or 'good economically as a whole' but none that improve american workers quality of life or economic well being. Hell we just saw the biden administration break a union strike.
This is why the democrats keep losing, add in a little genocidal support, imprisoning Palestinian protesting students, and shocked pikachu who would have guessed the result.
Because the Dems let the GOP gut it to get it to pass. The ACA as it is now, and as it was passed back then, was not what we were promised, and we still haven't gotten the ACA we were promised.
In fact, Harris dropped support for M4A and didn't campaign on it, so is that an achievement too? The Dems giving up the fight before it even started? Like they did during this administration, literally bending over any time the GOP put up any kind of resistance to any of the Dems legislation?
The Dems let the Dems gut it. There wasn't a Republican that supported it. The massive partisan wall that created is a huge reason why things are so fucked now.
I don't disagree. The original had more stuff in it that I liked.
True. The GOP rejected it for many stupid reasons.
This statement confuses me. Are you suggesting the Dems should have let the GOP gut it MORE? Are you suggesting the Dems should have dropped the legislation altogether to "keep the peace"? What are you saying the Dems could have done so "things are so fucked now"?
Yes the Dems should have got some gop votes. It may have made the bill slightly worse, but not by much. In return the Democrats would have had far more negotiating power with there own members if there were a couple of the more purple Republicans that they could count on instead. It also would have prevented the bill from being a great campaign piece for Republicans, and it might not have resulted in one of the largest midterm swings ever.
Getting 95% of the ACA and a Congress that wasn't deadlocked for the next 6 years would have been much better overall. A split government that functioned more like under Clinton or Bush would have been much better than what ended up happening. The decision to stonewall when they had power unsurprisingly backfired.
uhhhh, literally the bill was designed and discussed with the GOP they just refused to support it after they basically got it watered down. then there was the ol' whats his face dem that refused to vote for it without removing the public option.
...and...
The GOP were looking to deny any Obama passage of positive legislation. Are you not remembering "make him a one term President" message from the GOP?
There was ZERO amount of cooperate the GOP were willing to have on any bill that would give Obama a healthcare win.
"make him a one term President"
There's always rhetoric, but completely shutting out the opposition for major legislation was just not done.
History doesn't support your statement.
Feel free to show me legislation that was later signed during the first quarter of the Obama administration that wasn't passed on nearly party lines. I took a look and couldn't find any.
There wasn't any, because of the move to block Republicans from the ACA. It's just like when the Democrats used the nuclear option for judges, it also bit them in the ass the second they were the minority party.
Wait, are you saying the the GOP only after the ACA passing on Democrat party line vote decided they would vote party line for every substantive legislative action?
Yes that was the original point. The ACA was the beginning of the extreme partisanship we've seen. It wouldn't be sunshine and rainbows if they had got some republicans on board, but it would have been less partisan.
The ACA was signed over a year after Obama had been in office. You should look at signed legislation from before the ACA. The hard GOP opposition was already there well before the ACA.
The negotiation started almost immediately though and the Republicans were told to fuck off. It was introduced in September of his first year, there wasn't anything else major in those first 8 months.
Please look up Newt Gingrich and his impact on politics and then come back and read what you wrote
I'm not saying there was never partisanship. Clinton made progress despite Gingrich, Bush managed just fine with a democratic majority. Obama forgot losing elections was possible.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
What Obama signed with the ACA was far better than the situation before it.
Right, must be why I don't have health insurance via the ACA because it's unaffordable.
I make too much to qualify for actual help, but not enough to actually afford their awful health insurance plans with deductibles that negate the entire point of insurance to begin with.
And it's all about to be undone anyway, so let's keep singing the praises of the Democrat's least-failure in the last decade.
Which must be why the DNC has adopted "Progress is the enemy of our money."
Are you possibly living in a state where your GOP leadership refused to extend Medicaid which was part of the ACA? If so, you can't complain about what the ACA doesn't do for you if your state chose not to use it.
I live in a blue state in the Northeast, we went to Harris, and we've had a Democratic governor since at least the mid-2000s.
So am I allowed to complain?
Did you miss the "if so" in my post?
You're communicating you're making over $61k/year and saying you can't afford an ACA approved healthcare policy, correct?
I'm communicating I cannot afford ACA healthcare, you all keep throwing out the $61k/year salary. I did the math, even if I hadn't lost however much unpaid time off to depression this last year, the most I would have made between my salary and my disability was $58k.
When I put all of this information into my states ACA marketplace back in August of this year at the behest of my therapist, I was told I qualified for plans via subsidies, but made too much to just qualify for the state's plan.
The first plan I found that I felt was reasonable, reasonable, not good, just reasonable, was just under $400/month with the subsidy, didn't have my therapist in network, and still had a $6k+ deductible. The cheapest plan had a deductible over $10k, and cost around $260ish a month.
I can't afford that, I'm sorry, between my mortgage, my car, insurance, utilities, bills, food, gas, credit card debt, etc, I don't have an extra $260-$400 a month for health insurance. I just don't, I'm sorry, wish I was as financially astute as everyone else on here seems to be, so I guess just fuck me.
But I'm not, hence why I think the ACA being held aloft like some grand triumph is a joke, especially considering John Oliver even has a segment on the Medicaid gap, and how people who should be covered aren't due to a myriad of reasons.
Best health insurance I ever had was Tricare, which is literally what America should have, and is arguably one of the largest socialist programs in the US. We did single payer already, for the military, and it's amazing. The ACA are the crumbs the liberal elite felt we deserved, and I will never not be pissed about it when I've seen we know how to do it right.
I keep throwing that number out there because I don't have your specific info, and from the general info it looks like under $61k you should get subsidized, but you'd communicated you weren't. I'm also not asking you to disclose your private information on the public internet. I respect your privacy.
$10k deductible is usually considered "catastrophic" coverage. Its not supposed to be use to cover day to day health needs. It is designed for the young and generally healthy that don't consume lots of health care, but want to be covered if they have a catastrophic event that would otherwise cost them hundreds of thousands or millions in medical bills.
I'm sorry you are not benefiting from directly, but do you understand for many it has been a game changer for the better? Not every change is going to benefit each person equally. I'll be the first one to say the ACA is FAR from perfect, but compared to what we had before it was better and a step in the right direction.
I have only a little bit of knowledge of Tricare, but everyone I know that has it loves it. I'd be on board for that for everyone too. Does this mean you were in the military? I'm really beyond my knowledge now, but does that mean you would have VA health coverage (which I know has its own flaws)?
I didn't downvote you above, idk why anyone would, I didn't think you were being rude or anything.
I understand where you're coming from, and I don't disagree that the ACA helped a lot of people. But it also left a lot of people out in the cold, and after over a decade of being told we should be happy we have it when it doesn't help us... It gets old, it's not what we were promised, and it hasn't been improved on, only ever on the chopping block.
A lot of my resentment comes from my disgust and utter disappointment with the DNC, which you can find plenty of examples of in my comment history (I did vote for Harris, begrudgingly, for harm reduction).
I don't remember every number, but that's another big part of the problem: I have an associates degree and have worked mostly blue collar jobs outside of the military. I'm not stupid, but I also don't have the energy or bandwidth to be a sudo-expert in everything society expects us to be: health insurance, retirement accounts, investing, budgeting, the law, etc.
I'm not a health insurance guru, I shouldn't need a degree in health coverage to work my way through these government websites and try to decipher all the jargon and legalese and what they mean by this and that. I understand there are services to assist people, but I've never had luck with my state outside of the DMV (and that's a nightmare too), and they're usually only offered during working hours with varying wait times.
And then not to add, I need to work, so when I do qualify for the state's insurance, I have it for a month at most because I can't afford to not work much longer than that. So it's dealing with every headache above, for assistance that you'll have to give up in a few weeks.
Again, I agree and am glad the ACA is helping people, but it's not the Progressive-Win that people online like to parade it around as. I was frustrated earlier (lots of that going around lately) and took some of it out on you, so for that, I apologize.
As for Tricare: it's amazing. You show up, and if the doctor says you need this med, you get that med, and it's free. If the doctor says you need a specialist, you're referred to the specialist. There's no middleman insurer bullshit who have a doctor who's going to "thoroughly" review your claim and medical history in 7 minutes and deny you. And it's free, it's paid for via our taxes, when you leave the doctor/pharmacy/hospital, there's no bill. No letter 8 months later saying you owe $9k cause the anesthesiologist was out of network, none of that.
I have access to the VA, but not all veterans do. You need to be rated a certain disability percentage (I think it's a minimum of 30%-60%) to have access to all VA healthcare, otherwise, you can really only be seen for your service connected disabilities. I am fortunate that I do qualify based on my percentage.
But like you said, there are downsides: many VA facilities are understaffed, under budgeted, and overburdened. The staff do great work for the most part, but they're approach can be more... Institutional. For example, I have depression, but I don't go to the VA for mental health and pay for a private therapist instead because I hate the VA mental health approach. They seemed entirely focused on you just not killing yourself: take this pill so you won't kill yourself, try this job so you won't kill yourself, here's a group to meet with so you won't kill yourself, we're committing you so you don't kill yourself, have you thought about killing yourself with all of this talk about killing yourself? Like, I have suicidal thoughts and a lot of veterans commit suicide so it's kinda their big PR focus, but for fuck's sake, it just bugs me...
There were no real decorations, just stone beige walls with maybe a plant here or there. You can't get at the root causes of the issue or build a rapport and a history with a therapist whose sole goal is to just keep you alive and make sure the meds are still working during a 30 minute appointment every 4+ months. All via telehealth (my therapist at least paints the walls behind her desk and has plants and it's bright and welcoming), so imagine how depressing it would feel in person. And that's not the individual doctor's fault, it's the VA not being staffed and funded properly with probably anti-fun decoration policies.
The VA also doesn't cover everything: I have VA healthcare, but I don't have access to their dental care because I'm not rated a high enough percentage and/or lack a dental disability. It's also not health insurance, so outside of certain ER visits, if you go to a private doctor without a VA referral, you're paying out of pocket.
So the VA is like the ACA: it helps a lot of people, but it's definitely nowhere near what we need. Tricare should be the end goal, single payer, and we shouldn't accept less than that next time (I'm assuming Trump and the GOP are going to repeal it finally, and I don't want excuses from the Dems next time that we have to reintroduce it as it is now and build from there).
No, this happens in states like MA/NY/Cali too.
"Who is eligible for health insurance subsidies?" source
Household size
If thats the case then @[email protected] is saying they make more than $61k/year and can't afford $264/month with a $6300 annual deductible?
Maybe you should look into what that bronze plan actually covers. if you have any real medical issues you're definitely losing of a minimum 15% of your income in just medical expenses. Never mind taxes, food, housing, transport, clothing, saving for retirement (which this hypothetical person almost certainly can't do on 61k). Never mind the idea of having your own place, a family, etc.
But I guess you think people should just work just so they can pay medical bills. :shrug:
Really? I haven't been rude to you yet in this conversation. Are you interested continuing in conversing together on the topic or your the strawman a requirement?
Never said you were rude. does pointing out the logical conclusion of the information you linked and how it related to my point upset you? it certainly should. it upsets me. Its why I pointed it out to you to begin with.
So exactly what were you trying to discuss with me in this thread. I was simply informing you that ACA is no legislative success even in wealthy and cooperative blue states.
I'm so thankful my premiums doubled, now someone with a preexisting condition can pay $500 a month for a 50k deductible! So much hope and change!
I don't think drumpf has killed a citizen without due process yet, but when he does he can thank Obama for paving the way.
Obama fucking sucked, but he was a charismatic media darling and liberals ate that shit up just like the cons do with drumpf.
Are you a guy? If so you many not know that men like us were paying FAR LESS for healthcare than women of our exact same age. I learned this when my woman co-worker (same age) and I were comparing pay stubs many years ago (and many years prior to the ACA). As a young 20 year old man I was paying $30/paycheck. She was paying $124/paycheck simply because she was a woman.
This is one of the things the ACA fixed, and I agree with it. Men pay the same as women under the ACA.
Another thing that the ACA fixed was "swiss cheese" insurance. Insurance policies were filled with tons of tiny exclusions where you would be paying for premiums for months or years and when you finally needed it for something big, they'd point out fine print and you'd have no coverage. The ACA stopped that and made all insurance plans have a basic level of coverage they couldn't weasel out of. So you may have been paying cheap premiums before for insurance that would give you the finger when you needed it. The ACA fixed this. You're paying now for coverage that actually covers what it says.
I don't know how much you know about chronic health problems that were previously called "pre-existing conditions". $500 a month for a 50k deductible would a godsend for many prior to the ACA. Treatment can cost literally millions of dollars, and if $50k covers that, its amazing.
You may not have a condition that needs this today, but you may in the future. You'd be thankful you would be covered by the ACA rules.