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Quote:Vicbow pretty much nailed it. I don't feel like arguing with FBT tonight, so I'll just say that the correct ruling was made. The alternative would have been to shut millions of Americans off from affordable healthcare.

 

 

Quote:When a literal interpretation would completely undermine the intent of the entire program, common sense dictates that no, they don't.

 

It certainly is a cautionary tale in the "we have to pass it to see what's in it" category, but in this case there is no doubt what the intent was, the Supreme Court has already found that there was nothing illegal or unconstitutional about that intent, and for that reason, upholding it was the right decision.

 

However, the job of a Supreme Court Justice is to interpret laws as written, regardless of what the outcome might cause.  If the law doesn't specifically state something, then it points to the law being poorly written.

 

In this case, the law was written in a way that stated something specific.  The ruling was that "even though that's how it's stated and written, what was meant was something else".

 

Here is a very basic idea of how I see that this was decided.  Say that a law was written that says that the color of the sky is grey.  The Supreme Court decided that what they "meant" to say is that "the color of the sky is grey when there is cloud cover".

That's a great analogy

Quote:Here is a very basic idea of how I see that this was decided.  Say that a law was written that says that the color of the sky is grey.  The Supreme Court decided that what they "meant" to say is that "the color of the sky is grey when there is cloud cover".

The dissent of Scalia is, to me, laughable. He's a very strong, long-time practitioner of the theory of "original intent". His view is that everything should be decided according to what the original intent of the writers of the Constitution (and each amendment thereof) wanted it to be. For him to argue that the Supreme Court was wrong to rule on intent vs. letter is, to me, utter hypocrisy. He's just a big sadcake because he didn't get his way, as is often the case (or, at least, was when I was taking pre-law courses back between 2004-2006) when he writes a dissenting opinion.

Quote:Vicbow pretty much nailed it. I don't feel like arguing with FBT ( Sean Hannity)tonight, so I'll just say that the correct ruling was made. The alternative would have been to shut millions of Americans off from affordable healthcare.

Quote:Vicbow pretty much nailed it. I don't feel like arguing with FBT tonight, so I'll just say that the correct ruling was made. The alternative would have been to shut millions of Americans off from affordable healthcare.

The fact that you're calling it affordable speaks volumes.  It's not affordable, and it's not making anything more accessible, but hey, at least it's free, right?   Oh, wait.

Quote:Vicbow pretty much nailed it. I don't feel like arguing with FBT tonight, so I'll just say that the correct ruling was made. The alternative would have been to shut millions of Americans off from affordable healthcare.

So, you believe SCOTUS should have the ability to rewrite law in order to make it palatable?  Because that's what they've now done twice with ObamaCare. 

 

No need to argue with me about it.  You want this country legislated to by the courts.  That's not what the intention was when the 3 branches were created, but hey, what did the founding fathers know, right?

Quote:The fact that you're calling it affordable speaks volumes.  It's not affordable, and it's not making anything more accessible, but hey, at least it's free, right?   Oh, wait.

Ok, time to throw examples out there.

 

I work with the ACA on a daily freaking basis. My job is to go to small businesses and help them analyze their current healthcare costs vs. what it would cost them (and their employees) to go on ACA plans. Want to know what my findings are 99% of the time? For companies with 101+ employees, forget it. The ACA is not an option for your company. For companies with 51-100, it could go either way depending on what your current plan protections are. For companies with 50 or fewer employees making average to above-average incomes for the area, the ACA is better almost 100% of the time. If the employees are making $100,000/year, then it's much cheaper for the employer to drop coverage and turn employees loose, but it screws the employee.


The ACA does not exist to help people with $100,000/yr. jobs who already have great benefits. Is that a design flaw? Maybe, maybe not. The ACA, as it exists today, is best-suited to help workers with income up to four times the national poverty level get better, cheaper insurance than what employers can offer for a group that size, and it's designed to--through subsidies--facilitate access to healthcare for those who couldn't otherwise get it. It's also designed to eliminate the ability of insurance companies to say, "Nope, you've got a history of depression, so we're not going to cover you." To borrow a line from Obama, pregnancy is not a pre-existing condition. That's what the ACA accomplishes. It's not the ultimate solution to healthcare reform, but it's a start, and that's more than any far-right legislator has proposed in the last 239 years.

 

For a low-income family, yes, ACA plans after subsidies frequently are free, at least in the markets I deal with (Colorado, Dallas, Houston, and--you guessed it--Florida). Sometimes those plans are too expensive, and that's usually because the person applying for insurance is a 60-year-old lifelong smoker. The overwhelmingly vast majority of the time, in my experience, the ACA does exactly what it's intended to do. It lowers healthcare costs for the employer and employee while providing equivalent coverage. It's easy to look at the numbers you see on the first page of foxnews.com and parrot their crap about the ACA being a complete failure, but when you work with the ACA and you work with its numbers on a daily basis and see just how full of turd Fox News is on the topic, it changes your perspective a bit.

Quote:Ok, time to throw examples out there.

 

I work with the ACA on a daily freaking basis. My job is to go to small businesses and help them analyze their current healthcare costs vs. what it would cost them (and their employees) to go on ACA plans. Want to know what my findings are 99% of the time? For companies with 101+ employees, forget it. The ACA is not an option for your company. For companies with 51-100, it could go either way depending on what your current plan protections are. For companies with 50 or fewer employees making average to above-average incomes for the area, the ACA is better almost 100% of the time. If the employees are making $100,000/year, then it's much cheaper for the employer to drop coverage and turn employees loose, but it screws the employee.

The ACA does not exist to help people with $100,000/yr. jobs who already have great benefits. Is that a design flaw? Maybe, maybe not. The ACA, as it exists today, is best-suited to help workers with income up to four times the national poverty level get better, cheaper insurance than what employers can offer for a group that size, and it's designed to--through subsidies--facilitate access to healthcare for those who couldn't otherwise get it. It's also designed to eliminate the ability of insurance companies to say, "Nope, you've got a history of depression, so we're not going to cover you." To borrow a line from Obama, pregnancy is not a pre-existing condition. That's what the ACA accomplishes. It's not the ultimate solution to healthcare reform, but it's a start, and that's more than any far-right legislator has proposed in the last 239 years.

 

For a low-income family, yes, ACA plans after subsidies frequently are free, at least in the markets I deal with (Colorado, Dallas, Houston, and--you guessed it--Florida). Sometimes those plans are too expensive, and that's usually because the person applying for insurance is a 60-year-old lifelong smoker. The overwhelmingly vast majority of the time, in my experience, the ACA does exactly what it's intended to do. It lowers healthcare costs for the employer and employee while providing equivalent coverage. It's easy to look at the numbers you see on the first page of foxnews.com and parrot their crap about the ACA being a complete failure, but when you work with the ACA and you work with its numbers on a daily basis and see just how full of turd Fox News is on the topic, it changes your perspective a bit.

 

I work for one of the largest consulting firms in the world that deals with this and was actually involved in helping congress deal with the regulations once the law was passed.  I'm not parroting anything from any news network.  I deal with this on a daily basis.  Feel free to PM me if you'd like to know my qualifications. 

 

The costs were artificially low to begin with.  The insurance companies have pretty much all been promised bailouts once they start losing money.  You seem to be ignoring the double digit rate increases that are happening around the country as insurance companies submit their premiums to the states.  You also conveniently leave out a a few things about that more affordable coverage, including the ridiculously high deductibles that are attached to many of those low cost plans. 

 

That's just the tip of the iceberg, but hey, you're the expert.  I'm just getting my info from Fox News. 

Quote:I work for one of the largest consulting firms in the world that deals with this and was actually involved in helping congress deal with the regulations once the law was passed.  I'm not parroting anything from any news network.  I deal with this on a daily basis.  Feel free to PM me if you'd like to know my qualifications. 

 

The costs were artificially low to begin with.  The insurance companies have pretty much all been promised bailouts once they start losing money.  You seem to be ignoring the double digit rate increases that are happening around the country as insurance companies submit their premiums to the states.  You also conveniently leave out a a few things about that more affordable coverage, including the ridiculously high deductibles that are attached to many of those low cost plans. 

 

That's just the tip of the iceberg, but hey, you're the expert.  I'm just getting my info from Fox News. 

I don't really care to engage in a game of "who's bigger" over qualifications, I'll just presume I'm dealing with someone as educated on the topic as I am.

 

The costs were artificially low, you won't get any argument from me there, but I'm not seeing the same double-digit increases, particularly in Texas. Florida is getting a little pricier, but again, not enough to slaughter the market, and Denver was a crap ACA market from the start due to the state's reliance on Medicaid.

 

Lots of bronze-level plans have $3,000-6,000 deductibles, sometimes even as high as $12,000. My work is based upon the existing insurance offered by the company in the case of a conversion to ACA, or upon common coverage levels in the market if it's a company that hadn't previously offered insurance. I have never presented a quote with a deductible higher than $6,000, and that was in a case where the employer's existing plan was so awful that their group deductible was $10k. As a matter of practice, I won't recommend a higher-deductible plan than what is currently in place unless the premium difference makes up the deductible. For example, if the employer currently has a plan with an employee share of $200/month and a $2,000 deductible, one of the options I look at might be a plan that costs $125 per month with a $3,000 deductible. Ultimately, the employees get to choose their own plans. I'm only there to present them with options. Typically, I end up in silver-tier plans with a deductible between $2,000 and $3,000. Based upon personal experience with the ACA, I'm not seeing the type of disaster-level cost overruns and rate hikes that are being talked about.

This debate ought to be good.

Quote:I don't really care to engage in a game of "who's bigger" over qualifications, I'll just presume I'm dealing with someone as educated on the topic as I am.

 

The costs were artificially low, you won't get any argument from me there, but I'm not seeing the same double-digit increases, particularly in Texas. Florida is getting a little pricier, but again, not enough to slaughter the market, and Denver was a crap ACA market from the start due to the state's reliance on Medicaid.

 

Lots of bronze-level plans have $3,000-6,000 deductibles, sometimes even as high as $12,000. My work is based upon the existing insurance offered by the company in the case of a conversion to ACA, or upon common coverage levels in the market if it's a company that hadn't previously offered insurance. I have never presented a quote with a deductible higher than $6,000, and that was in a case where the employer's existing plan was so awful that their group deductible was $10k. As a matter of practice, I won't recommend a higher-deductible plan than what is currently in place unless the premium difference makes up the deductible. For example, if the employer currently has a plan with an employee share of $200/month and a $2,000 deductible, one of the options I look at might be a plan that costs $125 per month with a $3,000 deductible. Ultimately, the employees get to choose their own plans. I'm only there to present them with options. Typically, I end up in silver-tier plans with a deductible between $2,000 and $3,000. Based upon personal experience with the ACA, I'm not seeing the type of disaster-level cost overruns and rate hikes that are being talked about.

 

When the employer mandate, which has been postponed and delayed, kicks in next year, the system is going to explode.  That's one thing you're not taking into account.  What we're seeing right now is nothing.  Once companies start dumping people into these exchanges, the flood gates will be open, and people may wind up in plans that have similar premiums, but they won't offer similar coverage, or deductibles.  Out of pocket expenses are things many people don't take into account when they're shopping.  They focus on premiums first because that's what they deal with out of each paycheck. 

 

Those artificially low prices are already starting to rise, slowly right now, but that's going to change.  Last I saw, there were a few states where the proposed rate increases were up to 20% this year, and that this may pale in comparison to what they'll come back with for 2017.  You've already seen exchanges starting to struggle in some states as companies pull out because they're losing money.  That's not a trend yet, but it will be.  Maybe not in 2016, but by 2017?  There's trouble coming.  If you're in the industry and you're following the developments, you should be aware of that. 

If the insurance companies choose to bait-and-switch for the employer mandate, then isn't that more about the insurance company boards being loaded with pieces of poo than it is a fault in the ACA itself?

 

The employer mandate will only screw employers that seek to screw their employees. Employers with 51 or more employees generally offer insurance anyway, and if those employers do decide to cut their group plans and send everyone to the exchanges, the fees they face will be mind-boggling. I don't think companies will be dumping people onto the exchanges to the extent that you do, nor do I see the employer mandate as the self-destruct button for the entire ACA.

 

And I'll say this: I have absolutely seen companies pull off of state exchanges. I have also not had a single employee that I've been unable to find a suitable plan for when writing up sample quotes for client businesses.

Quote:If the insurance companies choose to bait-and-switch for the employer mandate, then isn't that more about the insurance company boards being loaded with pieces of poo than it is a fault in the ACA itself?


The employer mandate will only screw employers that seek to screw their employees. Employers with 51 or more employees generally offer insurance anyway, and if those employers do decide to cut their group plans and send everyone to the exchanges, the fees they face will be mind-boggling. I don't think companies will be dumping people onto the exchanges to the extent that you do, nor do I see the employer mandate as the self-destruct button for the entire ACA.


And I'll say this: I have absolutely seen companies pull off of state exchanges. I have also not had a single employee that I've been unable to find a suitable plan for when writing up sample quotes for client businesses.

Insurance companies were bought and paid for by the administration. They were promised a bailout.


The fines will be less than the cost of the insurance. Employers will weigh their options and take the path that impacts the bottom line the least. To think that won't happen is naive. It's already begun and the mandate hasn't kicked in.

Quote:Insurance companies were bought and paid for by the administration. They were promised a bailout.


The fines will be less than the cost of the insurance. Employers will weigh their options and take the path that impacts the bottom line the least. To think that won't happen is naive. It's already begun and the mandate hasn't kicked in.

It seems like your data has you convinced that the apocalypse is coming. My data leaves me feeling decidedly less hemorrhoidal about the whole thing. I don't know that there's anywhere to go from here, so I'll step out of the argument now and reply to this thread in ten years to point and laugh at you when universal healthcare is a stunning success.

Quote:All this ruling did was verify that there is no difference between the two sides in this argument. Both parties serve the same dark agenda that has enslaved mankind since the beginning of recorded history.

 

What? Are you saying that just because we are ruled by nine Ivy League lawyers, a majority of whom all graduated from the same university?

Quote:When a literal interpretation would completely undermine the intent of the entire program, common sense dictates that no, they don't.

 

It certainly is a cautionary tale in the "we have to pass it to see what's in it" category, but in this case there is no doubt what the intent was, the Supreme Court has already found that there was nothing illegal or unconstitutional about that intent, and for that reason, upholding it was the right decision.

 

But it was not misworded. The intent was to only compensate those states that created their own exchanges. The main author of the ACA, Jonathan Gruber, stated that multiple times.

Quote:Pretty interesting ruling.  I would like to hear thoughts regarding the ruling specifically, not about the good/bad of Obamacare.

 

In my mind the ruling is wrong.  It is my understanding that the ruling was made by what the Justice's thought Congress "meant" when they wrote the law, rather than what is actually written.

 

This is a consequence of "passing a bill to see what is in it".

 

 

 In addition to what you said,  this is a consequence of election results and the political correctness that contributed to the horrific results.  

Whether or not the ACA is good or bad for the citizens or economic wellbeing of the US is completely irrelevant to the scotus decision. 



Time for a basic civics lesson-  

the Founding Fathers established three branches of government to ensure that no one person or group of people could amass too much power.  The legislative branch writes laws, the executive branch signs or vetos laws, and the judicial branch interprets laws, not re-write them as was done in this case
.  

Quote:Whether or not the ACA is good or bad for the citizens or economic wellbeing of the US is completely irrelevant to the scotus decision. 



Time for a basic civics lesson-  

the Founding Fathers established three branches of government to ensure that no one person or group of people could amass too much power.  The legislative branch writes laws, the executive branch signs or vetos laws, and the judicial branch interprets laws, not re-write them as was done in this case
.  

 

Thank you.  That was my point when I started this thread.

 

The judicial branch is supposed to come up with a ruling on law(s) as written, not what they "think" the law "meant".  The outcome of said ruling should not even be a factor when making a decision.

Quote:It seems like your data has you convinced that the apocalypse is coming. My data leaves me feeling decidedly less hemorrhoidal about the whole thing. I don't know that there's anywhere to go from here, so I'll step out of the argument now and reply to this thread in ten years to point and laugh at you when universal healthcare is a stunning success.

 

Wait, wait, wait...

 

you mean this was all just a ruse to get us to plead for government-run universal healthcare financing?

 

YOU DON'T SAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

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