CLASS Act Reversal By Obama Administration Vindicates Health Care Reform

The New Republic:

For these reasons, conservatives like Peter Suderman who criticized CLASS as unsustainable were right to raise alarms, while liberals like me were wrong to ignore them.

But does that mean the Affordable Care Act as a whole is full of gimmicks? Does it prove, as Thune and others have suggested, that Obamacare is fatally flawed? Hardly. If anything, it strengthens the case for the rest of the law, starting with the provision that conservatives claim to hate most: The individual mandate.

Read the whole story: The New Republic

Comments

[catzoned]

07:02 PM on 10/19/2011

Does HP expect us to read the flipping Freeper?. Bye HP This is too much!!!

[jakiew]

07:10 PM on 10/18/2011

No thanks hp, I don't read reight wing cr ap. and I'm not into fas cism , and if I keep seeing them here, I will go somewhere else.

[forgetdc]

10:18 AM on 10/18/2011

How many exemptions have been handed out to FriendsofObama? 1000?, 2000? What does this tell you. Its just plain wrong, the bill and how it was passed. Come on 2700 pages of nonsense that has little to do with covering every american with health insurance. Here's one, 3.5% real estate transfer tax. That's in the HC bill! How is that going to help the real estate market? How does that help people in a short sale situation? Government just makes everythign worse. We are in huge trouble here. Next, what will your electric bill be in 2 years with all the EPA rules coming down on us. GAsonline, heating oil, natural gas, are all going to shoot up and this will impact food, water, and everything. The ecnomoy is strained and the DEM/LIBS want to dump all these costs on us in addition to the additional costs of healt care.

[jakiew]

07:16 PM on 10/18/2011

yeah right, the epa needs to be strenghtened enormously. the only people who benefit from deregulation are as we've already seen, big coal, where 29 human beings were kil led, and big banks, who certainly can't regulate themselves . so take your faux news oligarch li es that don't help you one bit and you know what you can do with them. and protecting the rich? who spend millions to keep wages low and don't care if you drink dirty water breath dirty air. either you are getting paid to post li es or are brain dam aged.

[forgetdc]

09:26 AM on 10/19/2011

Our water and air were jsut fine under GWB, Clinton, GHB, Reagan, Carter, Ford etc. You failed to address how all the additional costs for energy and health care will impact the poor and middle class, You LIBS want to aim your regulatory hammer at the rich and you end up hurting everyone. You obviously have no real world life experience and name calling as you did here is what LIBS do when they can't win an argument.

[eaarth2]

08:06 AM on 10/18/2011

Repeal of the affordable health care act helps who? Not the 53 million Americans with health care, or the other 50 million with high premiums.

Considering that our economy will not be going anywhere in the near future- no matter who winds next year- we will see the hope of decent health care access destroyed. I am sure this will make the OWS all the more determined in their battle against wealth inequality- and blame those who do not even want people to have access to a basic human right.

[CynAnne]

04:18 AM on 10/18/2011

After reading some of the ill-willed vitriol our wingnutter­­­y has been posting about those who are without health-car­e (and/or the employment needed to purchase it), we'll leave it to Salon's Steve Kornacki to give a history lesson on the much-laude­­­­­d (but rarely practiced) 'compassio­­­­­nate conservati­­­­­ve': http://www.salon.com/news/politics/republican_party/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/06/03/compassionate_conservatism_medicare

[pghperson]

01:33 AM on 10/18/2011

It's unfortunate that this thread is rife with posters who don't understand anything about the ACA; and who also make no mention of the four precedents that will most likely define the debate by the supremes on this issue. Instead, I'm reading the standard "car insurance" comparison; which isn't likely to be a consideration. Can't Faux school their listeners better than this? Or would that be too fair and balanced?

[Hooponopono]

09:18 PM on 10/17/2011

You conservatives are pinning your hope on destroying the single greatest thing to ever happen to health care on the Supremes and the mandate. Let's take a closer look at that issue.

1. I cannot understand the difference between the mandate to buy health insurance that 70% of us already do buy and the mandate to buy the two other insurances we've been mandated to buy for many years, Medicare and Social Security. Both of these have passed constitutional muster years ago.

2. I cannot understand the big deal with the mandate. 70% of us already have health insurance and are therefore in compliance with the mandate. Of the remaining 30%, most are the poor and many will qualify for subsidized health insurance. That just leaves a small sliver of malcontents between these two groups of people who would opt to skate on insurance and stick it to the taxpayer when their turn in the ER eventually comes. It's very hard to see that whether or not the mandate gets through the Supremes that it will make much difference. Furthermore, I cannot understand the conservative personal responsibility crowd standing with the irresponsible malcontents on this issue; especially so because the mandate was originally a conservative idea.

[Lemmiwinks99]

10:07 PM on 10/17/2011

1. Constitutionally the difference is that Medicare and SS are funded by taxes and the Mandate was specifically written as a non tax.
2. Not all of those 70% have qualifying plans. I have a plan which would not qualify when the mandate hits. Further, not everyone who fails to get insurance plans to "stick it" to the tax payers by free loading. Finally, many people would argue against the very idea of subsidizing the care of others.

[wdw808]

11:30 PM on 10/17/2011

1. paying yourself in dividends can get around both of those mandates

2. i disagree with subsidizing any of this for anyone.

but thanks for playing

[KevinFitzz]

08:31 PM on 10/17/2011

Medicare for all.

[wdw808]

11:30 PM on 10/17/2011

no thanks

[CePe]

08:31 PM on 10/17/2011

Too bad posts aren't limited to people who have at least a remote understanding of the topic being discussed. Please, you Rebags out there, bother to get yourself educated as to the facts concerning the health care issues in this country. And, no, getting the info from Rush, Sean, Bill, Greta, Sarah, or the host of other Faux "stars" in no way counts as an education. In fact, you have a lot of unlearning to do!

[Fogcatcher]

08:56 PM on 10/17/2011

As opposed to getting all of our "facts" from moveon....We understand Obamacare and we reject it..... If you have a problem with that then maybe it's time for you to move on....

[CATNIP1]

09:03 PM on 10/17/2011

Don't know who the "we" is, but as the article says, removing the "class" provision only strenghtens the entire bill , along with the individual mandate. You can get the facts from the goverment website and read the entire bill . I thought the right wing wanted everyone to cover their own insurance, and to not pay for those that refuse to cover themselves. The right wing just can't seam to make up their minds.

[media sux]

09:08 PM on 10/17/2011

and don't forget HP... all the news thats made fit to print!

[Bob Elkins]

01:19 AM on 10/18/2011

Yes indeed, CePe. F&F'd

[JDZSB]

08:20 PM on 10/17/2011

Look, the fact of the matter is that the federal government cannot manage any complex service cost effectively and always overruns cost estimates and anticipated cost growth. It is just not in the DNA of politicians and government employees to perform well in a competitive environment, never works. Look at the USPS, which is now in big trouble and may be sold to a private company to run to stay in operation. The AMTRAK has always operated in the red. Medicaid and Medicare are in huge financial trouble and have to be reformed, and it goes on and on. Obamacare is the single largest government entry into the healthcare insurance business and must be stopped. Would you give your lifesavings to a financial broker that has always lost money for his investors? No you wouldn't. So, why would we want the government to take over the private healthcare industry when they continue to prove they are cannot cost effectively do it? IT IS INSANE!

[rtx47]

08:16 PM on 10/17/2011

We need healthcare reform to do two things:

Insure all (or near-all) have access to healthcare

Bring cost of healthcare down for the individual, employer and the country.
In the latter case bring cost from 17% of GDP to a manageable 12% (still highest in the world).

That is not rocket science; if we can keep politics and politicians out of the solutions

[senator11]

08:03 PM on 10/17/2011

You lie. Repeal this piece of junk.

[Tazirai]

08:34 PM on 10/17/2011

What is your solution? More Conservative common sense ones? lol

[gconners]

09:02 PM on 10/17/2011

And "replace" it with WHAT?....Right...Nothing!
Back to the 1970s and start over!!!
No thanks.

[lqw]

08:01 PM on 10/17/2011

Can Obama get any more incompetent ?

[OWSoros]

08:04 PM on 10/17/2011

Unfortunately, yes.

[GeorgieGirl9]

08:19 PM on 10/17/2011

Unfortunately, you're right.

[CATNIP1]

09:06 PM on 10/17/2011

Can the Republican/Tea party get any more incompetent? We Americans are still waiting for them to come up with a Jobs agenda and put people back to work. Yea... I know... they've been buzzzzzzzzzy.

[WondererofAges]

07:54 PM on 10/17/2011

Story on NBC News tonight - many are aware there's severe shortage of critical drugs these days, including live-saving cancer chemo meds. A Congressional investigation report just released says third party middle men are buying up crucial antibiotics and cancer drugs in bulk from drug manufacturers at the regular prices, then hugely inflating price they resell the drugs to hospitals and cancer treatment centers! An example: a chemo drug priced at $12 a vial by maker is being resold by middle men companies to hospitals for $900 per vial!! People are literally dying because they can't get the drugs they need. Well, here is primo example of how our fantastic "for profit" medical care system based on the type of brutal Capitalism practiced today is working so wonderfully. The third party middle men reselling these drugs are reaping huge sums of profits. They all REFUSED to comment on TV to the NBC news story.

[RUKidding0]

07:49 PM on 10/17/2011

The failure of the CLASS Act brings to light our movement toward an important set of unintended consequences that could very well come to rule America's destiny.

Sans the 40% "savings" calculated from this provision of ObamaCare - but never to materialize, combined with the rotting corpse of ObamaCare sans individual mandate, combined with the recent call to abandon debt by a lawyer on this very site, compounded by the left's current call for "forgiving" student loans, combined with all other such unintended consequences of further implementation of leftist prescriptions, creates perverse incentives even more destructive than the social democratic programs that spawned them.

The programs themselves, like ObamaCare, ALREADY seek to imbue a wholly unwarranted sense of entitlement to America's takers, while the perverse incentives of the associated unintended consequences render it more rational for EVERYONE to abandon his debts, his health insurance, and any financial obligation whatsoever.

The tipping point comes when this leftist incentive becomes so strong that it is more rational not only for our takers to indulge themselves, but for the productive to do so, as well.

When this point is reached, we will, indeed, live in interesting times.

Perhaps, this is the hope and change Obama and his Social Democrat Party intended.

[OWSoros]

07:51 PM on 10/17/2011

I'm thinking that qualifies as "fundamental transformation." Not exactly the change we Americans believe in.

[CATNIP1]

09:20 PM on 10/17/2011

How long did it take to come up with that one ? The Obama administration saw that it was not going to work, so they pull it out of Health Care reform, and ? What's wrong with forgiving student loans? Bush bailed out the banks on October 3rd of 2008, yea ...on his watch, so I think it would help. The unintended consequence of the hugh Tax cuts for the wealthy, is that the middle class is paying for them. To say that The Health Care Reform Bill gives people a sense of entitlement, is nonsense. The Reform bill give those that need insurance a chance to have it and to take care of themselves and their families. The Right Wing doesn't have a clue about what this country needs in order to be a productive society. To go back to the Guilded Age, when their were to class of individuals, the rich and the poor. That's the American dream that awaits all of us should the Republicans/Tea party get full power in Washington.

[RUKidding0]

09:33 PM on 10/17/2011

To answer just one part of your rambling apology for social democracy, "What's wrong with forgiving student loans?"

The answer is that government must extort the money to pay the cost from the productive to pay these loans off and its NOT your money to dispose of as your misbegotten ideology dictates.

IT IS OTHER PEOPLE"S MONEY !!!

[wdw808]

11:40 PM on 10/17/2011

all bailouts are wrong no matter who is president