The joys of government + health care.

Albert's problem is that he wants a debate on government run healthcare, in order to make a point about ACA, which is a privatized healthcare system. He makes another blunder by presenting as the basis for his argument, a story about immigration policy in an entirely different country.

I am not questioning their right to control immigration, you pedantic fucking asshammer. It take some really strong wish magic to pretend a citizen couldn't be punished similarly. The moment you give the taxpayers a financial stake in your health, some fucking bureaucrat starts rationalizing ways that you should not be free to act. Could be any aspect of your health, running up against any aspect of your freedom, and it's fucking unacceptable.

I believe I will discuss whatever the fuck I like, and you may eat shit if you don't like it.

The connection is right up front and perfectly reasonable. Not that I expect someone who presents a program with massive tax-funded subsidies to be "privatized" anything to show any regard for honesty.

Demonstrate that they are refusing healthcare to fat ass citizens. The state is all powerful, there is always a risk for it to abuse this power. But has it done so? You can't make that case, so you instead grab a tangentially related immigration policy that says no fatties need apply. This has exactly shit and fuck to do with whether the state abuses the health services used by legal residents.

Yes, you have every right to make a fool of yourself. Please continue, it amuses many of us.

Show me the subsidy. I live in the one state that already has a fully effected ACA type system. I recently left my job, and instead of opting for COBRA, I selected one of the many private plans available to me through the Massachusetts Insurance Connector. The difference between the old system and the new, is that I had the option of not going with COBRA, and was therefore able to select a less expensive private insurance that suited my family's needs. Previously, I would have been stuck with the more expensive COBRA coverage.

Show me the subsidy, or shut the fuck up. ACA means more choice of private plans. You are confusing it with something like expanded Medicaid.

You're hanging your hat on the citizenship thing this time around because you imagine it serves your bullshit argument. It doesn't. How long was he there under "temporary" status, as a wage-earning taxpayer who probably contributed more than a lot of life-long citizens? It's not because of some jingoistic turf warfare bullshit that the "public services" argument comes up in immigration, and it's not some divine status conferred on you by citizenship paperwork. It's because of people benefitting from programs into which they do not contribute. Using a service you paid for is not a problem. Being deprived of a service you pay for because some goddamned bean counter decides you're too fat IS A FUCKING PROBLEM, and it doesn't start OR stop being a problem based on citizenship status. If you're gonna make me pay for something, you are by-GOD gonna give me what you promised in exchange. Otherwise, you need to let me opt out of paying.

And so the sensible mind does not grant the state any more power than is absolutely necessary for minimal functions.

Said more succinctly than what I said, and just as true.

Is this a "pass it to read it" thing, or did the final version really not have provisions for people who cannot afford to pay for private insurance on their own? Because I was pretty sure the deal was "You must have insurance, or you will pay a fine! If you can't afford it, we'll buy it for you."

You don't get what I'm saying. The state always has the power to abuse the citizenry. Whether it uses this power is an open question. The problem with your argument is that it implies the state only sometimes has this power, but will definitely use it when it has it. And to make such argument, you need to bring evidence to the table.

We already buy it for the people who can't afford it. That's called Medicaid. ACA didn't create a new subsidy.

Yeah, couldn't be that I just reject your bullshit argument. If I disagree with you, it's because I just don't understand.

You could stand to be a little less gleeful about being bent over.

So, we're back to "if the exact scenario you describe hasn't happened, it never ever can, no matter how many factors align to make it possible" again.

So, you're switching from "It's not subsidized!" to "We already subsidize other things, so this is OK!"

Weasely little fucking turd.

Didn't say that. But generally speaking, the state doesn't abuse the all encompassing power that it wields. So if there is no pattern of it happening, I'm not going to get so paranoid about it.

I said that ACA wasn't a subsidized system. It's not. The subsidized system, which is called Medicaid, was already in place, and remains in the post-ACA world. If your problem is subsidized healthcare, go after Medicaid. When you rail against ACA for the sins of another program, it makes you look rather ignorant.

You can take your leap of faith with your own money, then.

So, the provision in "ACA" to help people purchase private insurance is funded entirely by existing revenues collected for medicaid?

Somebody else want to explain the concept of "spreading the risk"...again?

*tappa tappa tappa*

It's subsidized purchase of private health insurance. I don't know why this is such a painful admission.

Because no one else here is responsible for your persistent delusion. We've tried to help you, but your resistance to facts is impermeable.

Clear it up for me in the simplest possible terms.

1) Does Obamacare offer some kind of voucher or benefit program for the purchase of private insurance? (this is a YES/NO question)

2) Where does the money for that come from?


Nowhere in #1 or #2 is an opening for someone to wail about how something else is subsidized or the money coming from a common source.

Albert, I already asked you to prove the existence of the subsidy you claim is there. It's not my job to do your research. And if you respond by pointing out that some Medicaid funds will now come under ACA administration, you fail, because that is not a new subsidy, just a modification of one that was already there.

Also, you seemed to have missed my post about my experience with the Mass Connector. Note, I purchased a private insurance plan, no subsidy. The people eligible for subsidies were already eligible for subsidies.

And it doesn't matter if this is an entirely new sink hole for existing funds.

Predictable response. If your complaint is that ACA didn't eliminate existing subsidies, then I'll agree to that declarative statement. But if you are complaining that it created new subsidies, then you are quite simply wrong.

1) No.

2) See 1).

If you're honestly curious about anything else, go here:

http://www.businessgrouphealth.org/toolkits/et_healthcarelaw.cfm

Every link on that page points to a login screen, bullshitter.

Let me just guess at the dishonest tactic you're employing now. You're refusing to apply the words "voucher" or "benefit program" to the tax funds that will be used to assist in the purchase of private insurance.

That's about all you're doing, isn't it? Sans any real knowledge of what you're talking about, and steadfast refusal to accept facts that don't fit your agenda...

Keep up, Hank. The game of the moment is pretending a "tax" is not a "tax".

Concerning which you're having to resort to asking questions, and guessing, rather than producing the information yourself...

I produce a link proving what I say, they start claiming they agreed with it all along because <dishonest fucking hair-split>. So, I'm skipping to the end of the trolling song and dance, where they pretend a tax is not a tax, an "exchange subsidy" is not a benefit program, fines are not coercion, etc.

There are no vouchers. If you have evidence to the contrary, feel free to supply it.

Albert still hasn't commented on my experience with what is essentially an ACA system, wherein I purchased through the market a private insurance plan, no subsidy received, no tax paid.