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Old 11-01-2013, 01:11 PM   #6
Jim in CT
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Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 20,428
Quote:
Originally Posted by spence View Post
http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2010pr...20100614e.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/he...1HhI8W1bg&_r=0


Considering how much difficulty Obama has had promoting the HCB it's par for the course.


Depends, but I'll bet that once the "I was booted off my coverage and premiums went up" stories are replaced with "I lost my job and no preexisting conditions means I get my cancer medication" stories come forth people may quickly forget a shaky launch.


There was a story about the economist who was advising Obama in 2008 who said Obama got the talking point wrong. The $2500 figure was total health related expenses rather than directly off the premium.

-spence
Here is the first line from your first link...

"The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor and Treasury today issued a new regulation that makes good on President Obama’s promise that Americans who like their health plan can keep it."

I think people could argue that Obama's promise, that we could keep the plans if we liked them, is a false promise. If Obama says that we can keep our existing plans, but upwards of 70% of those in individual plans cannot keep their plan, then Obama's statement is demonstrably false. All Obama had to do, was say "if your plan meets the new minimum standards, you can keep it. If not, you will move to a new plan that increases your coverage at an increased cost". I don't think his mis-statement was accidental. Because if people knew what the impact was going to be, I don't think the bill would have passed.

The ironic thing, again, is that I respect the goal of spreeading those long-term, chronic costs among people who are lucky enough to be healthy. But the way Obama went about it, may cost him.

"I'll bet that once the "I was booted off my coverage and premiums went up" stories are replaced with "I lost my job and no preexisting conditions means I get my cancer medication" stories come forth people may quickly forget a shaky launch."

You may well be right. But I'm sure that the number of healthy people whose premiums will skyrocket, dwarfs the number of sick people who will be better off.

"The $2500 figure was total health related expenses rather than directly off the premium. "

Fair enough. How is the average family saving $200 a month on healthcare expenses? That's very, very difficult for me to accept. Healthcare costs move in one direction, up. Maybe Obama assumed that we could all go work for the teachers unions, in which case I'd believe that my out-of-pocket healthcare expenses would go down by $200 a month!

Have a good weekend Spence, hope your kids enjoyed Halloween.
Jim in CT is offline