Topic: The Daily Kos Thread That We Have Been Patiently Waiting For...(comedy gold)

[trapeze]

OMFG!!! My health insurance has just doubled! Holy f*cking sh*t! How could this be?!!!

Yes, it really is about as funny as you would expect.

Read the comments. The braindead libs just do NOT know what to make of this.

LINK

[Pandora]

Sow = reap.

[trapeze]

Thread author responds to countless accusations that he is a shill, a troll, just making it up, etc...

They literally have no plan at the rates
we have been paying and are telling me they are essentially mandated to use this new "medal" system.

The rep I just spoke to insisted this was due to health care reform.

Coincidentally, I had a meeting with my health insurance broker this morning to verify/confirm how totally hosed I was going to be. Turns out that just about everything that I thought about the law was correct with one exception:

I said that these were my conceptions about the law's impact...

1) That my existing plan was not going to meet the law's minimum requirements and that I was going to have to switch plans,

2) That if I didn't upgrade my plan that I would essentially be dropped from any coverage,

3) That I would then have to pay the fine/fee/tax/whatever,

4) That I could pay the fine/fee/tax/whatever and wait until I got sick to enroll with a pre-existing condition,

5) That I would not be able to afford the minimum plan unless I took a tax credit/subsidy.

The only thing I was not correct about was the part where I could enroll when I got sick. That turned out to be not exactly correct. It turns out that "open enrollment" is the only way to do that and it only happens between the first of October and the middle of December every year. So, if I get sick in January I am hosed.

So...what I was able to do was extend my existing plan through November of next year without having to pay the fine/fee/tax/whatever. So I did. I figured that a lot could happen in a year so it was to my advantage to do this. Plus I also found out that the minimum plan would cost me $1250/month and it had a $12,000 out of pocket so basically I would be paying close to triple what I am paying now for the privilege of then paying twelve grand before the "insurance" kicks in. Woo! Hoo! The broker said that they haven't had one meeting yet where a client didn't say that there was zero way that they could afford this BS. They also said that there were less than 200 signups in CO which is the only state where the website works since CO did their own exchange. That means that everyone else who has gone to the CO signup site has looked at the prices (with subsidies) and said, "forget it."

[LadyVirginia]

High deductible, catastrophic stuff. I think the poster can get better, more usable insurance from the exchange. Each circumstance is different, but they should check their California exchanges and see what's out there for them.

The reason is, your policy did not have
the minimum provisions required in Obamacare. Therefore, that particular policy will no longer exist under the new law.
You can't blame Obamacare because you selected substandard insurance. And remember, those who have no insurance at all will be getting a 100% premium increase. However, the vast majority of them are grateful they can finally get insurance.

If they're providing more benefits, then it makes 
sense that rates will increase

Healthcare reform will take some time to get right. It seems a small miracle to me that we have made it this far. And please, start directing all that angst at the people and companies that deserve it.

Big companies lie, it has been documented.

I suspect Kaiser will be lowering its rates next year as it watches its customers run elsewhere in droves.

you get sick and you hit the lifetime cap...or the sickness isn't covered...or the high deductible bankrupts you.
Then, do you know who pays?
THE TAXPAYERS.
Too many Americans have been coasting along with inadequate insurance. Consciously or not, they have been relying on the expectation that Taxpayer Charity will bail them out if they get sick. It is the individual version of Too Big To Fail.
The Diarist isn't paying extra. He's been using extra, and is now paying for something he used to get for free.

My house has never burned to the ground, so I don't buy homeowners insurance.
I've never killed anyone with my car, so I don't buy liability coverage.
I've never died, so I don't buy life insurance.
It sounds to me like you're not quite clear on the concept of insurance.


In fact, studies are showing a 33% premium decline due to the ACA. So reality rebuts this poster's claim.
" In the past two weeks, though, we seen evidence from Oregon, Maryland, and now California that premiums will be far below the doom-and-gloom levels predicted by the pessimists.

The ACA IS helping get more doctors
by setting up loan repayment programs for primary care doctors, advanced practice nurses and general surgeons.
4 new medical schools opened in 2009 in anticipation of the ACA and more since then. So the ACA Is helping with that.
Insurers are mandated to provide doctors in the areas needed. There are people in each state — probably with your insurance commission to help people with problems with their insurers.
Call, demand, and complain — until you get a doctor.

i currently have a cheapo high-deductible 
individual-market plan that is going away due to ACA. I know I'll be paying a lot more. But I also know that I'll be getting a much better product, and one that I can afford. I am also happy to know that I won't have to worry about pre-existing conditions or going bankrupt if something terrible happens. Overall, great trade. Don't expect me to go on dailykos and write a whiny, shtty diary on this.

These people are stupid.

To them Obamacare means they get more!  They don't understand what insurance is.

[trapeze]

Well, that's just it...health insurance isn't really insurance at all in the classical use of the word.

Insurance is all about making a bet. In the case of homeowner's insurance you are betting that your house is going to burn to the ground or suffer some other such catastrophic occurrence. The insurance company is betting that it won't. If you were in a casino the insurance company would represent "the house" and as everyone knows (or should know) the house always wins.

The insurance company wins by using a mathematical system, an actuarial table, that determines how much the company has to take in so that they will statistically come out ahead when it's all said and done.

Health "insurance" is different because in that case the house is not exactly in a position to "win." Not without severely rigging the game. That's because everyone needs medical care and they need it very frequently. And unlike homeowner's insurance (where the destruction of one's home is highly undesirable and neither party wants it to happen) health insurance isn't insuring something which is necessarily catastrophic. Sure, sometimes a health insurance claim is for a catastrophic occurrence but most of the time it is for extremely mundane things like, say, a wart removal or getting a deep cut stitched up or investigating a cough. So, most of the things that health insurance is covering, most of the time, are both commonplace and minor.

So...the health insurance companies are forced to rig the game in order to have even a slim chance at winning (and they have to win because if they don't they go broke). The rigging is in things like deductibles and out-of-pockets in order to prevent a "run on the bank." And it's also most definitely in not insuring people who are already sick with zero skin in the game.

But not anymore. Now, thanks to DumbassCare, the house has seen its edge eliminated in a lot of these areas, especially in the pre-existing condition area. And they are therefore (since they can't go broke) forced to raise the rates for everyone in order to keep winning.

It is only a matter of time before the DailyKos infants begin to figure this out. Or not. Some of them, perhaps the vast majority of them, are so naive...so unspeakably infantile...that they actually do believe that there is such as thing as a free lunch and that it's only been those rotten Tea Party conservatives who have been preventing them from getting it.

The fact is that this current mess (expensive health insurance and the high cost of health care in general) is the result of generational government interference with the free market. What is it about health care that makes it different from the rest of the free market? Medicare and Medicaid to name just two items. The whole mess could be solved with allowing the free market to just work without the intrusion of government into every aspect of it. Health "insurance" should only cover catastrophic care issues...those instances that are both rare and expensive. If you want a health maintenance plan you should be free to purchase one but I believe that most people wouldn't waste the money on one if they simply paid for most care out of pocket...that would make things much more competitive since people would have an incentive to 1) not pay for anything unnecessary and 2) to look for the best value.

Anyway...the Kos comments are both funny and predictable. It will be interesting to see if any of them change their minds when they find out that the thread author isn't the exception but more like the rule to this stupid ass new reality that their benighted leader has thrust upon all of us.

[trapeze]

More fun. This time with the DumbassCare chatline courtesy of AoS:

[10:41:37 pm]: Welcome! You're now connected to Health Insurance Marketplace Live Chat.

Thanks for contacting us. My name is Magnolia. To protect your privacy, please don't provide any personal information, like Social Security Number, or any other sensitive medical or personal information.

[10:41:49 pm]: Magnolia
Hello, before we begin can I please ask what state you're in and are you looking for information about health insurance in the state you live in, or a different state?

[10:42:31 pm]: Paul
My catastrophic insurance got canceled. Bronze plan DOUBLES my premiums. Obama said my premiums would go down. WHAT THE HELL??!!!

[10:44:39 pm]: Magnolia
Do you have any Marketplace questions that I can help you with?

[10:45:15 pm]: Paul
He said it would go down an average of $2500. Can you explain this?

[10:45:46 pm]: Magnolia
Have you filled out a Marketplace application?

[10:46:32 pm]: Paul
Yes. My premiums are going to go up. Whatever happened to "if you like your plan, you can keep it"? My plan got cancelled.

[10:48:27 pm]: Magnolia
If you liked your plan and it covered the minimum essential health benefits you could have kept it. It was the insurance company's decision to cancel it.

[10:49:07 pm]: Paul
Bullsh*t. They HAD to cancel it under Obamacare rules. Are you proud to be part of this sh*t?

[10:49:44 pm]: Magnolia
Do you have any other Marketplace questions that I can help you with?

[10:50:13 pm]: Paul
I'd like you to admit that Obama lied, f**kface.

[10:52:02 pm]: Magnolia
Do you have any Marketplace questions that I can help you with?

[10:53:40 pm]: Paul
You proud of this?

[10:54:35 pm]: Magnolia
We cannot give our opinions.

[10:54:51 pm]: Paul
Explain to me how it is the insurance company's fault that Obama outlawed the plan I was on.

[10:54:54 pm]: Magnolia
Do you have any Marketplace questions that I can help you with?

[10:55:33 pm]: Paul
How do you get a job on this site? Just be willing to lie about sh*t?

[10:56:58 pm]: Magnolia
The law provides you with greater consumer protections, new coverage options, and increased consumer information.

[10:57:48 pm]: Paul
You forgot a doubling of premiums.

[11:00:24 pm]: Your chat session is over. Thanks for contacting us, and we hope we've answered your questions. Have a great day.

I have got to try this.

[Pandora]

Come to my house.  I can kick you in the head for the same result.   

[trapeze]

Kick me in the head?

Umm...no.

But...in the meantime, here is an FAQ page from healthcare.gov where at the bottom of every topic you can fill in a survey and post a comment anonymously.

Probably no one will read the comments but you just never know. I told them that I wished that they were all eaten by rats while their children watched.

Other fun things to do while we are waiting for the country to be destroyed:

Go to healthcare.gov and set up a fake account using email addresses from people who have sent you junk email or otherwise spammed you. The spammer gets the email confirmation and you get to help gum up the works more than they already are.

EDIT: Just tried that chat thing. Holy cow, is that fun or what? I told them that ObamaCare had ruined my life and I might as well end it all. They freaked out.

[RickZ]

Healthcare reform will take some time to get right.

I've heard this cupcake's lament before:  'Socialism Works!  It's just never been properly implemented before.  This time we'll get it right!'  In a gnat's @ss they will.  I wish stupidity had a shorter life expectancy, like prenatal.

[warpmine]

Healthcare reform will take some time to get right.

I've heard this cupcake's lament before:  'Socialism Works!  It's just never been properly implemented before.  This time we'll get it right!'  In a gnat's @ss they will.  I wish stupidity had a shorter life expectancy, like prenatal.

Take it all one step further down the road

Somewhere in America in a detention facility...
I voted for Lord Obama so why am I going tot a work/re-education camp?
I thought the death sentences were for stingy conservatives. I'm a loyal supporter/voter.
 

[RickZ]

Healthcare reform will take some time to get right.

I've heard this cupcake's lament before:  'Socialism Works!  It's just never been properly implemented before.  This time we'll get it right!'  In a gnat's @ss they will.  I wish stupidity had a shorter life expectancy, like prenatal.

Take it all one step further down the road

Somewhere in America in a detention facility...
I voted for Lord Obama so why am I going tot a work/re-education camp?
I thought the death sentences were for stingy conservatives. I'm a loyal supporter/voter.
 

That's exactly the stories Solzhenitsyn told in The Gulag Archipelago.  Some party apparachik sitting in the Lubyanka waiting for the day the bullet arrives, complaining about his incarceration and impending doom, 'If Comrade Stalin only knew!'  Same as it ever was:  When you place your political faith in a man (or woman), you will always be disappointed.  Oftentimes, terminally disappointed.

[Libertas]

We warned everybody that if they think healthcare was expensive now wait until it is free, and they blew us off as hysterical right-wing nuts...well, who's the hysterical left-wing dipsh*t crying because they got what they deserved now?!

Fukc them, I just want to rub their retarded faces in this every chance I get!

[Weisshaupt]

These people are stupid.

To them Obamacare means they get more!  They don't understand what insurance is.

Yeah. Don't by "substandard" insurance. You must buy what we think is good insurance. You may not make your own decisions. You are too stupid.  You get more our way. Of course you pay more, but you should thank us for it. You must be a troll if you don't appreciate the things your enlightened superiors have done for you.

In fact, studies are showing a 33% premium decline due to the ACA. So reality rebuts this poster's claim.
" In the past two weeks, though, we seen evidence from Oregon, Maryland, and now California that premiums will be far below the doom-and-gloom levels predicted by the pessimists.

What study? No link? Of course not. "Studies show" - it must be true.  If only they had put it all in caps.


I have said it before and I will say it again. Their battle is with reality. They just hate us for speaking the truth about that reality.  But as a recent Big Bang pointed out, Indiana Jones is an irrelevant character  in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  If he hadn't been there, the Nazis would have still found the Ark, Still opened it and still had their faces melted off.  Likewise, if we weren't here to speak the truth, nothing would change other than the left would have to find a new scape-goat to blame their failures on.

[LadyVirginia]

EDIT: Just tried that chat thing. Holy cow, is that fun or what? I told them that ObamaCare had ruined my life and I might as well end it all. They freaked out.

that's funny

[BigAlSouth]

Trap, don't you think tripling the existing rates was the plan all along?

Honestly, the sheeple who believed that the government could require all this new coverage without any premium increase are morons.

[Weisshaupt]

Trap, don't you think tripling the existing rates was the plan all along?

Honestly, the sheeple who believed that the government could require all this new coverage without any premium increase are morons.

Yes the plan was to drive everyone onto to the exchanges is the "cheapest' option (because they are the only options that can be subsidized with taxpayer money) , and then convert the entire thing to single payer because the "free-market model didn't work" - Meanwhile millions just aren't getting insurance (so even more people in emergency rooms) so they don't need the '"extra" doctors  and the penalty provides extra cash revenue to help kick the can.

The left can only advance by creating a crisis and then presenting the "solution" which always invovled even more dramatic and despotic control of others.

[Alphabet Soup]

Trap, don't you think tripling the existing rates was the plan all along?

Honestly, the sheeple who believed that the government could require all this new coverage without any premium increase are morons.

The plan all along was/is single payer. They're no longer even coy about it like they once were. Since enacting single payer has zero chance of success through traditional legislative means they know they need to resort to manipulation in order to advance it.

The easiest way is to simply overwhelm and collapse the current schema. Then use the menacing power of government to force their replacement on us. They've been working this plan for a long time and the end is in sight. Cloward Piven it into oblivion. Weight it down so heavily in regulations that they starve it for air. And the coup de gras - Øbongocare where they stand in a circle and bludgeon the body beyond recognition.

Their calculations depended on squishy GOP'rs playing go along to get along and "Gee, this aint so bad!" - morons like mccain and grahamnasty and mcconnel and cornyn. What they didn't count on was upstarts like Cruz and Gohmert (sp?) and the TEA Party. And they didn't factor in people like me who say "If you insist on "F'ing" up everything that made our nation worth living in then be prepared to reap the whirlwind MoFo's!"

I'm ready to ride this right into the ground. And I plan on taking a crapload of them with me.

mol?n labé

[LadyVirginia]

Many of those commenting were yelling go to the exchanges! They really believe that's going to be more fair than the evil insurance companies.

According to them the government is not corrupt but evil corporations are.

[IronDioPriest]

Many of those commenting were yelling go to the exchanges! They really believe that's going to be more fair than the evil insurance companies.

According to them the government is not corrupt but evil corporations are.

I've thought for some time now, that their next move will be to demonize the insurance companies for raising the rates.

No, the evil insurance companies couldn't just adjust to Obamacare and make less profit, they had to go and raise their rates. Their multi-millionaire fat-cat CEOs couldn't take a pay cut or forego their bonuses, so instead they raised the rates and deductibles.

You know damn well that's where they're going, and the low-info voters will swallow it whole.

[Glock32]

Many of those commenting were yelling go to the exchanges! They really believe that's going to be more fair than the evil insurance companies.

According to them the government is not corrupt but evil corporations are.

I've thought for some time now, that their next move will be to demonize the insurance companies for raising the rates.

No, the evil insurance companies couldn't just adjust to Obamacare and make less profit, they had to go and raise their rates. Their multi-millionaire fat-cat CEOs couldn't take a pay cut or forego their bonuses, so instead they raised the rates and deductibles.

You know damn well that's where they're going, and the low-info voters will swallow it whole.

Of course that's where they're going, which makes you wonder what in the world the insurance companies were thinking by being boosters of this? Yeah, in the short term it uses the force of government to make every American become a new customer, but in the long term it's designed to make it impossible to meet all the requirements and remain solvent. They must have been promised something that has yet to materialize, it's just too weird that the insurance companies were some of the biggest advocates of this mess. I guess it gets back to the reality of fascist economics: if you're not at the table then you're most certainly on the table.

I didn't read any of the KosKids. I know who and what they are. They genuinely believe that 50.00001% have the moral authority to plunder 49.99999%, that things are "settled" in that fashion. Things are going to be settled alright. In ways they can scarcely imagine.