A shitty compromise that's expanded coverage to 16 million uninsured, stopped insurance companies from fucking over people who got sick or injured, and did so without exploding medical costs or insurance premiums. It's also proven itself to be resilient against all manner of legislative, administrative, and legal challenges. Oh, and not a single Republican voted for it and have in fact spent the last 6 years trying to dismantle it.

8/17/2016 12:10:35 PM

so who did they compromise with?


and if you haven't heard, premiums are skyrocketing and major insurance company are pulling out of the marketplace. obamacare is doomed because it's a failure.

[Edited on August 17, 2016 at 12:16 PM. Reason : u]

8/17/2016 12:14:58 PM

No they actually haven't. In the worst case, insurance premiums are rising at the exact same rate they were before the law was passed. In the best cases, they are actually decreasing, which has literally never happened in the history of private health insurance in this country. Yes, some insurers are pulling out of rural areas, mostly for reasons totally unrelated to the law but as a shakedown against federal government for blocking mergers. Thanks, but try again when you have actual facts to backup your bullshit.

8/17/2016 12:35:36 PM

Quote :

"Yes, some insurers are pulling out of rural areas, mostly for reasons totally unrelated to the law but as a shakedown against federal government for blocking mergers. "

LOL. The way the left frames it is laughable... If anyone is doing a "shakedown" it's the government. Insurance companies are desperate to merge because they are losing so much money thanks to Obamacare, even with the corporate welfare.

8/17/2016 1:38:45 PM

Quote :

"The way the left frames it is laughable"

It's not the left framing it that way. It's Aetna's own CEO: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/aetna-department-of-justice-letter

Aetna had a $2.39 billion Net Income in 2015

Quote :

"so who did they compromise with?"

funny you artfully dodged my comments on this on the first page. they compromised with themselves. even with the package, they didn't get the votes of some democrats who didn't want any federal healthcare. gets back to the whole "not every democrat has the exact same beliefs" thing I mentioned in that post

[Edited on August 17, 2016 at 2:15 PM. Reason : .]

8/17/2016 2:11:11 PM

Quote :

"Aetna had a $2.39 billion Net Income in 2015"

In other areas of their business that had nothing to do with Obamacare.

Quote :

"It's not the left framing it that way. It's Aetna's own CEO"

Where did the CEO frame it as Aetna "shaking down" the government? Obamacare doesn't work, they can't make money, if they can't merge they can't continue to lose money in that area. From a business perspective it is a very simple argument. Naturally though the left frames it as "greedy corporations".

8/17/2016 2:57:08 PM

How dare a corporation try to make as much money as possible.

It's insurance, not charity. The whole point is to make money and lots of it. Everyone's goal is to make as much money as humanly possible.

[Edited on August 17, 2016 at 3:19 PM. Reason : Tired of progressives thinking they should decide how much profit you should make]

8/17/2016 3:13:54 PM

^^anyone want to take bets on whether he read the link?

Quote :

"Everyone's goal is to make as much money as humanly possible."

lol no it's not. and it's sad you think so. but here's the fun twist to that: aetna is pulling out of states where they WERE profitable.

[Edited on August 17, 2016 at 3:23 PM. Reason : spite]

8/17/2016 3:19:17 PM

These things don't happen in a vacuum

Quote :

"Last week, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren suggested that Aetna's recent statement that it would evaluate its ACA involvement may have been prompted by the U.S. Department of Justice's move to block a proposed merger between Aetna and Humana. "Aetna says this change of tone about the Affordable Care Act has nothing to do with the merger — but some analysts have suggested that Aetna might 'use its future participation in the exchanges in bargaining over its purchase of Humana,'" Warren said."

8/17/2016 3:39:01 PM

Quote :

"How dare a corporation try to make as much money as possible. It's insurance, not charity. The whole point is to make money and lots of it. Everyone's goal is to make as much money as humanly possible. "

The left doesn't have a problem with people making money.

The problem is that health insurance companies make money by denying payment of peoples' healthcare. This is completely illogical. This is not how health care is supposed to work. Aetna could collapse into dust for all we should care. It's not the government's job to incentivize or allow them to pay $million bonuses for not paying for treatments, and I'd argue this should be illegal even.

It's sad they are even able to make money with this model, if anything demonstrates the failure of ACA, it's that Aetna is still profitable.

Use this to build more hospitals, train more doctors, develop new treatments, etc., but just pure profit-taking from health premiums is immoral and illogical for a mortal species.

[Edited on August 17, 2016 at 4:10 PM. Reason : ]

8/17/2016 4:08:57 PM

if the government would quit monkeying with the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, the free market would provide the most value possible for our dollar.

hell, simply letting us buy a policy across state lines would be a huge step.

8/17/2016 5:25:10 PM

lol, you're adorable

8/17/2016 6:15:50 PM

8/17/2016 6:29:38 PM

deregulation of the financial industry completely fucked us all, but healthcare companies surely wouldn't do that

8/17/2016 10:26:15 PM

please name the repealed regulation(s) that caused the financial crisis

8/17/2016 10:31:01 PM

look, there's no one thing that caused the financial crisis. the glass-steagall act repeal/lapse didn't cause it. but it helped exacerbate it. but you have to go back way further than 97 to get to the roots of our fucked up financial industry

like getting rid of Regulation Q way back in the early 80's. that opened the door for more competition for deposits. which in and of itself helped open the door for the S&L crisis in the 80's.

it did that by leading to the Garn-St. Germain Act, which allowed S&L's to get in to the financial services side of things. so then the banks pushed the fed to smudge the G-S to get their first 5% of business from investing and whatnot. so a piece of regulation lead to deregulation. funny.

anyway, it started cascading from there. the fed upped the 5% to 25% in 1987 - another relaxing, not repealing (if you want to be pedantic about it). yadda yadda, financial crisis.

but like I said, there wasn't one thing that drove it. the zero regulation over the slicing and dicing of mortgages that fucked non-financial services institutes like bear stearns and the numerous "shadow banks" that were involved with mortgage risk.

so maybe I would have been better served to say "the combination of deregulation and no regulation...."

the end.

[Edited on August 17, 2016 at 11:29 PM. Reason : .]

8/17/2016 11:28:46 PM

There was a clear inflection point in the 80s:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialization

This goes through some of the things that caused this:
http://scholarship.law.unc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1365&context=ncbi

Basically when making money becomes the same thing as manipulating numbers on a computer, it gets treated like any video game where people win by finding exploits instead of just playing the game how it was meant to be played.

despite the economy being a man-made technology, the people who have been exploiting the game have succeeded in stopping us from applying patches, and we get growing inequality and stagnant wages.

8/17/2016 11:32:44 PM

Sounds like we can all agree that central economic planning is the root of it all

8/18/2016 12:03:17 AM

lol [no]

8/18/2016 8:41:16 AM

lol [no]

You can read about the various causes here if you're actually curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Recession

[Edited on August 18, 2016 at 10:44 AM. Reason : shits way more complex than little one liners on TWW ]

8/18/2016 10:40:40 AM

but guyz, if it weren't for government the banks would be small and fair and my pa says them there banks are good people and want to help small businesses if it weren't for the federal government

8/18/2016 11:18:54 AM

Yet the response to the crisis was making the big banks even bigger and more of a risk if they were to fail

8/18/2016 11:38:05 AM

Quote :

"gets back to the whole "not every democrat has the exact same beliefs" thing I mentioned in that post"

Yes and I've been over this. They don't have the same beliefs because a lot of them are the same as republicans. Thats the whole point I'm making.

Quote :

"How dare a corporation try to make as much money as possible. It's insurance, not charity. The whole point is to make money and lots of it. Everyone's goal is to make as much money as humanly possible. [Edited on August 17, 2016 at 3:19 PM. Reason : Tired of progressives thinking they should decide how much profit you should make] "

This is true of capitalism which is why we need socialism to provide the basic necessities. I'm fine with people jacking up prices on designer clothes, sports cars, and yachts but we can't let that happen with food, water, shelter and basic health.

8/20/2016 2:18:56 PM