Agree with you (not Romney).

I'd much prefer that we divert resources from our middle eastern problem and instead try to take care of our Mexico problem. Stabilize that government and then suddenly people won't head over here like it's a black friday sale. Plus they actually have resources we can obtain to offset the costs of our outlay. What are we getting from Afghanistan?

It does nothing to curb or reduce costs, reform the healthcare system and the way it's delivered, and make the hard decisions that need to be made.

The Newsroom - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore...(Restricted language) - YouTube

This says it all. America is not the greatest country in the world.

So what country is if not America?

I think think reduction of cost vs status quo is yet to be seen.
ObamaCare – Health Reform, Costs, Individual Mandate

I don't think there is a 'clear cut winner' - there are different countries who are better at different things, some are strong at commerce, some have fantastic medical care, some have high average standards of living, some have programs to ensure that everyone has a minimum standard of living, some have less crime, etc.

I don't think there is one country which is just 'better', to believe otherwise is simply to buy into propaganda imho.

Anything which tries to decide a 'winner' has to make arbitrary judgements about the importance of the various aspects of society, the importance of which will differ from individual to individual.

How can you already make those determinations if, in your words, it is far from being done? Your assumptions might be true in the short term, but not in the long term. The near term impacts that you say we will be seeing soon do not mean that the long term impacts would mirror the short term ones.

Example:

Health care costs for the past several years have been growing in the 8-10% range annually. If the ACA moves those growth rates in the short term to 7.5-9.5%, you would state that the ACA is a failure, it didn't do anything to control costs and should be abandoned. But things of this size and momentum do not change on a dime. If after 10 or so years the growth rate hasn't budged, then you would be correct. But if the rate slowly and continually drops so that after 10 years the growth rate drops in line with or a little above inflation, then that would be a success.

Say what you will about the speech, but we should all agree we've reached a high water mark for tie colors.

Put the following ideas together in a story, and you have.. well, I'm still not sure what you have, but it's funny/weird/sad.

Freedomworks.
Female interns
Hillary Clinton.
A Panda suit
Sex Tape.

Report: FreedomWorks made fake Hillary Clinton sex video - Kevin Robillard - POLITICO.com

From the NYTimes:


As it says, it's unclear what is driving the reduction, but there is a clear reduction in the growth of medical spending.

The transition in rhetoric from "Obamcare will reduce costs" to "Obamacare will reduce the growth of costs" has been very subtle.

I've always said it was about reducing the growth of medical expenses. The President has been clear on that as well. That's what is meant by bending the cost curve.

Can you elaborate on that a little?

EDIT: To be clear, I think the two get used interchangeably by people trying to simplify the issue, but I'm curious how you see a "transition" taking place.

I could post a bunch of links, but if you google things like "Obamacare will reduce health care spending" and "Obamacare will reduce health care costs", you get a ton of news reports from last year touting such things. I haven't seen that Obama promised as much, but that was the general rhetoric pushed by the media and liberal bloggers in support of Obamacare. At the time, the a lot of the opposition was, "c'mon, this isn't going to decrease costs and spending." I'm pretty sure that debate was had here - I'll look back later if i have a chance. (I remember one of the theories was that we'd end up spending a lot less on healthcare because there'd be, in theory, more preventive care.)

So after reading that little blurb from the New York Times and then reading part of an email from work:

So which is it? Is Obamacare responsible for an increase or decrease? Looks like an increase to me, unless someone is lying.

When it comes to projected deficits, reducing the growth of medical expenses is reducing expenses. I can't speak for the way the media presented things, but if you look at the people in the WH that drove the ACA the discussion has always been about ways to reduce the growth of costs. Just getting medical expense growth to the rate of inflation would largely eliminate fears of a long term deficit crisis.

Did your employer pay 100% of your premiums before? If the answer to that is no, then your employer will already be sharing a portion of any increase. When you elect benefits, most employers will show you how much of the premium your employer pays, and you can compare it to last year if you think they're lying.

They've never paid 100% and I've always had to contribute. What percentage? I have no idea.

I'm comparing the NYT article to the email I got, the two contradict each other. One says that costs are decreasing, the other says costs are increasing. Is the NYT article lying, is my company lying, are proponents of Obamacare lying? Which is it? I don't care who is lying, just stop the lying, if that is indeed what is happening.

The NYTimes isn't saying costs are decreasing. It says that the rate of increase is decreasing. Your premiums going up and the rate of increase overall going down are not mutually exclusive.

They are both right. Because you are confusing an actual decrease with reduced rate of increase. I have been getting rate increases in my healthcare costs for years and years now. Meaning that prior to the AHCA rates were going up. The NYT articles talks about the actual expected costs for right now were a year or two ago against what they actually are.

It's all in how you word it but the media has gotten very loose with the uses of the words. Meanings have been construed and it all gets very confusing. It also allows for each news agency to spin articles for whatever preference they need.

India is more to the left of the US as well. During the Cold War, they flirted with both the US and the USSR because their economy was more state controlled.

Of course the question is what "left" do you mean?

This is what I was getting at. I was playing more of a devils advocate here, sorry. :)

This Reuters article does the same thing with costs and growth (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...84U05620120531)

To me:
Cost = How much for those services
Growth = How often those services are purchased

Maybe I'm over simplifying it, but, I agree with you and JPhillips.

Employers pay 0%. It's all a pass-through cost that is factored into your salary. No different than any other benefit or payroll tax.

Of course it's factored into your total compensation.

That was indeed my argument and I still believe that. I've also said that I expect that to happen in the long run because the effects of preventative care will take some time to come to fruition. As people overall get healthier and healthier, less expensive procedures will be needed. Also, with more people covered, hospitals will be giving away less free care, improving their overall bottom line and that of the cities/states forced to fund them. I've also argued that my main concern is more access, not necessarily reduced costs.

I could be wrong. I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again. But here you're picking and choosing different people who have said different things to claim that there's some kind of "subtle" shift in position here. Not all liberals agree 100% on Obamacare or the effects of Obamacare. It's a bit more complicated than that.

RA said US more left in a global context
RS said Obama is more right than some European countries

I contend that Obama is more left than leaders in China, Russia and India.

I assumed right = conversative, left = liberal but may have misinterpreted.

People keep saying this hurts employers. It doesn't. Overall compensation remains the same. Employees will just have less take home cash if premiums go up.

Obama is definitely not more left than leaders in India.

Then again, once again, which "liberal" do you mean? Economically or socially, because there are much different answers for each. India is far more left economically, but right socially.

In the 2012 Index of Economic Freedom (done by the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation), you find:

Index of Economic Freedom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

China: 138th
Russia: 144th
India: 123rd

USA: 10th

North Korea makes Zimbabwe look like a free market paradise, geez.

A little. What you call growth would more adequately be called utilization, or use (depending on how many syllables you have time for), and what you call cost would more adequately be called unit cost (as opposed to total cost, which is use times unit cost).

It's more like:
Cost = How much was spent
Growth = How much more was spent compared to last year

So when someone says Obamacare will reduce costs, it's ambiguous. It comes out like they're saying less money will be spent than the year before. But what they mean (whether they know it or not) is that Obamacare will reduce growth. Keep in mind we've seen increases of double-digit percentages in recent history. It's extremely unlikely that we'll see costs decreasing (i.e. negative growth), but as JPhillips said, we're just looking for growth to decrease so that it's the same as inflation. But you can see how the two terms as defined here are pretty similar. By reducing growth, we're reducing expected costs -- the costs are less than we projected them to be -- and that distinction gets lost in the shuffle.

I don't think it's wholly inappropriate to say "Obamacare will reduce costs" when you mean to say "Obamacare will reduce growth" though of course I see the potential for abuse. However, I'm not convinced there's been some conspiracy to do that.

While I did say that, it was more in parody mode than anything else.

Hey BHO, why don't you get these debt issues settled as opposed to taking away guns? You're fucking worthless. Submit your goddamn budget like the law says.

Hey Democrats, pass a fucking budget for once in five years. You're fucking worthless and who cares about gay marriage.

Hey Republicans, stop being obstructionists because you can and not because it's right. You're also fucking worthless and who cares if the gays want to be married.

I swear, if there were a box that I could check when I vote that says "FIRE EVERYONE" instead of Democrat or Republican ticket, I'd check that. The only time these worthless fuckers came together was for 9/11. We really need a common enemy to unite against or this country will fall further down the gutter.

"Taking away guns" is silly rhetoric. Any gun control measure that will be passed will almost certainly grandfather in existing purchases, so no guns will actually be taken away.


Kind of a silly statement. It's not like Congress is spending all this time focusing on Gay Marriage instead of the budget. And even if they were, downplaying bigotry against a group of people for their sexual orientation isn't the best way to frame your argument.


Well that led to both the Patriot Act and War in Iraq, so I don't think that's a very good example.

This is an article from today's LA Times on how Obamacare will look next year from a cost standpoint. As noted, it can be confusing.

States worry about rate shock during shift to new health law - latimes.com

I like your explanation better. :)

As flawed as I see this program, it's too early to say that it's a failure or not, plus, I think there's too many uncontrollable factors like people being fat, smoking, drinking too much, etc... that unless there is some kind aggressive preventative maintenance awareness campaign, I just don't see it working that well to bring down costs. It may bring it down some, but, not anywhere near what it could be. And of course all the administrative costs that seem to have no ceiling on their absurdity.

check what missouri is doing.

90 days to surrender your weapons or destroy them

They are also doing this:

Mo. Bill Would Criminalize Lawmakers Who Introduce Gun Control Legislation

Just because a lawmaker submits a bill doesn't mean much.

So despite all of the rhetoric and the commissions that talked about the need to make significant cuts, they were not serious about?

Based on surveys of the Stockholm International Peace Institute of the 128 nations for which there are data, the U.S. now accounts for 41 percent of all military expenditures on the planet. In fact, it spends more than the next 16 nations combined.

But even if sequestration were too occur, defense spending would fall back only as far as it was in 2007, again adjusted for inflation.

The result [of proposed budget cuts] says Ronald Reagan’s former assistant Secretary of Defense Larry Korb, would be a defense budget leaving the United States “still spending more than the next 14 nations in the world combined, most of whom are allies.” In historical terms, he says, “spending would still be higher in inflation-adjusted dollars than the Cold War average.”

We also spend more per capita and as a % of GDP on healthcare than anyone else. The gap isn't quite as large (but it's closer than you'd think if you look at per captia/per GDP instead of gross military spending), but we're a clear #1 there too. Is that an argument to cut health care spending?

I do wish we were more efficient at both. What the hell is everyone else spending their money on if not military and healthcare? Bridges and shit? We could use bridges.

I know its not really Obama's fault but this surge on gas really sucks. I have to work 21-22 days per 4 weeks at this point to make what I cleared for 20 last month. I should get some surcharge help next week but going from 3.19 to 3.79 with quickness really hurts. Especially when winter mileage is already lower than spring/summer

Tha gas price complaints really seem silly to me. While yes, its annoying that the prices are rising and its , IMO, only happening due to pure greed from the oil companies who see their futures getting bleaker by the day. The fact remains that gas for your car is a commodity, like electricity and heater fuel. You can't survive in the USA without it, so why all the stress?

On top of which we still have the cheapest cost per gallon of pretty much anywhere outside the countries that supply the Oil in bulk.

Have you looked at Gasoline costs in Europe? Or even Canada? They're ridiculous compared to our measely 4 bucks a gallon.

Does that make it ok? no, but its certainly not something to get so wound up about.

my nickel.

And think how much better the price would be if we removed the excessive taxes placed upon it.

I would agree with you, but.....

Unfortunately the woeful excuse of public transportation here in the US compared to those other countries, leaves a lot of americans with very little choice and we have to drive and put gas in our cars. Plus, the way our communities are set up, you usually have to drive to get to the grocery store, work, etc. Not a lot is very local or convenient to get to without a car. If there were viable alternatives, then yes, I would agree with you. :)

It does suck for the people that have to bear the brunt of it this minute, but shouldn't more expensive gas in theory lead to greater demand for public transportation, and more demand for walkable cities and pedestrian-friendly city planning? (not to mention the positive environmental impact of less driving). Part of the reason I bought the house I did was I got tired of commuting and having my paycheck essentially tied to gas prices, and having to drive a couple of miles just to go to supermarket or the movies - a million individual decisions like that can add up.

The costs in the UK are huge compared to the US HOWEVER society is setup totally differently, its rare anyone in the UK drives for more than 20 miles in a day and frequently people won't use a car at all if they commute by train (which a lot of people do).

UK cities and villages are largely setup around the novel concept of people walking or using public transport to get around rather than their own vehicles - this is especially visible after a night out when you see the local fast food places supplying the drunks with virtually inedible substances to keep them warm during their walk home (I regularly used to eat Chilli (think wings hot sauce) Burgers before walking home drunk at 1am - you'd never even consider them otherwise ;) ).

Its also worth considering that the vehicles in Europe are far more efficient than those available in the US on average ... but then again thats largely because they have smaller engines and less weight ... because they're driven over shorter distances and luxury/size isn't such a big deal.

This is america we're talking about. Any time something changes from how things used to be 'in the good old days', old ladies clutch their pearls and moms hide their children in the basement and we have rallying cries about our freedoms being taken away.

On a serious note...Our communities just aren't set up for it, plain and simple. The costs of getting everything to be in sync with each other is probably so cost prohibitive, that we will more than likely never really see anything close to what we see in Europe. It will be even worse if government (local, state, fed) are the ones that try to implement it. I think it will have to take an enterprising few private companies to do it, but, I'm not holding my breath.

I'm with you. I try to live as close to work as possible. Yes, I could live further away and not pay as much in rent, but, the amount I would then spend in gas, would easily equal, if not surpass any savings in rent.

How would you pay for the roads? There's already a significant gap between tax income and needed maintenance.