Fuck its silent in here.......

[Gilgamesh]

This is more for BC, but it's from one of my favorite blogs.  And before you jump on the political proclivities of the author, bear in mind that Orin Kerr clerked for Justice Kennedy and served as special counsel to Senate Republicans during the Sotomayor hearings.

http://volokh.com/2010/10/06/some-tentative-thoughts-on-the-constitutionality-of-the-individual-mandate-under-current-supreme-court-doctrine/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+volokh%2Fmainfeed+%28The+Volokh+Conspiracy%29

[J. Walter Weatherman]

This is more for BC, but it's from one of my favorite blogs.  And before you jump on the political proclivities of the author, bear in mind that Orin Kerr clerked for Justice Kennedy and served as special counsel to Senate Republicans during the Sotomayor hearings.

http://volokh.com/2010/10/06/some-tentative-thoughts-on-the-constitutionality-of-the-individual-mandate-under-current-supreme-court-doctrine/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+volokh%2Fmainfeed+%28The+Volokh+Conspiracy%29

This may be the first time I've read a comments thread at Volokh that hasn't given me some form of internet cancer or another.

[R-V]

Classic.

Lou Dobbs, the former CNN host who turned up this week as a client on The Good Wife, is in a real-life legal controversy. After he made a name for years with his crusade against illegal immigration, a year-long investigation by The Nation charges that Dobbs himself employed undocumented workers  to maintain his estate and horses. The progressive-politics magazine says it spoke with five undocumented workers, whose jobs included grooming $1 million "European Warmbloods" (you cannot make that breed name up) for Dobbs' daughter.

[morpheus]

Classic.

Lou Dobbs, the former CNN host who turned up this week as a client on The Good Wife, is in a real-life legal controversy. After he made a name for years with his crusade against illegal immigration, a year-long investigation by The Nation charges that Dobbs himself employed undocumented workers  to maintain his estate and horses. The progressive-politics magazine says it spoke with five undocumented workers, whose jobs included grooming $1 million "European Warmbloods" (you cannot make that breed name up) for Dobbs' daughter.

Is that ironic?

[Gilgamesh]

Classic.

Lou Dobbs, the former CNN host who turned up this week as a client on The Good Wife, is in a real-life legal controversy. After he made a name for years with his crusade against illegal immigration, a year-long investigation by The Nation charges that Dobbs himself employed undocumented workers  to maintain his estate and horses. The progressive-politics magazine says it spoke with five undocumented workers, whose jobs included grooming $1 million "European Warmbloods" (you cannot make that breed name up) for Dobbs' daughter.

Is that ironic?

I find it interesting that The Nation wasted one year looking into this.

[morpheus]

Classic.

Lou Dobbs, the former CNN host who turned up this week as a client on The Good Wife, is in a real-life legal controversy. After he made a name for years with his crusade against illegal immigration, a year-long investigation by The Nation charges that Dobbs himself employed undocumented workers  to maintain his estate and horses. The progressive-politics magazine says it spoke with five undocumented workers, whose jobs included grooming $1 million "European Warmbloods" (you cannot make that breed name up) for Dobbs' daughter.

Is that ironic?

I find it interesting that The Nation wasted one year looking into this.

Is *that* ironic?

[Eli]

Classic.

Lou Dobbs, the former CNN host who turned up this week as a client on The Good Wife, is in a real-life legal controversy. After he made a name for years with his crusade against illegal immigration, a year-long investigation by The Nation charges that Dobbs himself employed undocumented workers  to maintain his estate and horses. The progressive-politics magazine says it spoke with five undocumented workers, whose jobs included grooming $1 million "European Warmbloods" (you cannot make that breed name up) for Dobbs' daughter.

Is that ironic?

I find it interesting that The Nation wasted one year looking into this.

Is *that* ironic?

Yes. Literally.

[Bort]

Classic.

Lou Dobbs, the former CNN host who turned up this week as a client on The Good Wife, is in a real-life legal controversy. After he made a name for years with his crusade against illegal immigration, a year-long investigation by The Nation charges that Dobbs himself employed undocumented workers  to maintain his estate and horses. The progressive-politics magazine says it spoke with five undocumented workers, whose jobs included grooming $1 million "European Warmbloods" (you cannot make that breed name up) for Dobbs' daughter.

Is that ironic?

I find it interesting that The Nation wasted one year looking into this.

And what should they have spent that year doing?

[Gilgamesh]

Classic.

Lou Dobbs, the former CNN host who turned up this week as a client on The Good Wife, is in a real-life legal controversy. After he made a name for years with his crusade against illegal immigration, a year-long investigation by The Nation charges that Dobbs himself employed undocumented workers  to maintain his estate and horses. The progressive-politics magazine says it spoke with five undocumented workers, whose jobs included grooming $1 million "European Warmbloods" (you cannot make that breed name up) for Dobbs' daughter.

Is that ironic?

I find it interesting that The Nation wasted one year looking into this.

And what should they have spent that year doing?

Investigating why our Armed Forces hate the Constitution.

NOUN VERB UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!

[Yeti]

Many quick questions for you fhags who care about politics so much (SPOILER: Politics really fucking suck 99% of the time. The faces of each party should all die)

Are there STUDIES to show what Obamacare is going to do to healthcare costs? Are they mainly Lib STUDIES (that show it will save the world) and Conservative STUDIES (that show it will ruin everything middle America was founded on)? Have healthcare costs increased in the last year to raise insurance rates by 10%? Or would a company be increasing said rates based off of expected increases in rates? And if they are doing that, are they raising them by rates higher than the actual expected increase in costs (for example, if they expect costs to increase by 5-10%, then they're going to raise them by the high side of that estimate, so they can be 100% they'll cover all the cost increases and to be fucking assholes)

[PenPho]

Many quick questions for you fhags who care about politics so much (SPOILER: Politics really fucking suck 99% of the time. The faces of each party should all die)

Are there STUDIES to show what Obamacare is going to do to healthcare costs? Are they mainly Lib STUDIES (that show it will save the world) and Conservative STUDIES (that show it will ruin everything middle America was founded on)? Have healthcare costs increased in the last year to raise insurance rates by 10%? Or would a company be increasing said rates based off of expected increases in rates? And if they are doing that, are they raising them by rates higher than the actual expected increase in costs (for example, if they expect costs to increase by 5-10%, then they're going to raise them by the high side of that estimate, so they can be 100% they'll cover all the cost increases and to be fucking assholes)

I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to joke about the President dying without the Secret Service showing up.

[R-V]

Many quick questions for you fhags who care about politics so much (SPOILER: Politics really fucking suck 99% of the time. The faces of each party should all die)

Are there STUDIES to show what Obamacare is going to do to healthcare costs? Are they mainly Lib STUDIES (that show it will save the world) and Conservative STUDIES (that show it will ruin everything middle America was founded on)? Have healthcare costs increased in the last year to raise insurance rates by 10%? Or would a company be increasing said rates based off of expected increases in rates? And if they are doing that, are they raising them by rates higher than the actual expected increase in costs (for example, if they expect costs to increase by 5-10%, then they're going to raise them by the high side of that estimate, so they can be 100% they'll cover all the cost increases and to be fucking assholes)

Everyone has their beefs with the CBO, but it's probably your best bet for nonpartisan analysis. Short answer is if you get insurance from your employer, not much will change. Keep in mind the bulk of the law isn't implemented until 2014, so these estimates are what'll hai by about 2016, compared to where we'd be with no reform.

CBO says if you work for a big company, your premiums will do anything from stay the same, to go down by 3 percent.

If you work for a smaller company (fewer than 50 employees), premiums will decrease by 2 percent in the best case estimate, increase by 1 percent in the worst case estimate.

If you buy insurance individually, your costs will go down significantly due to subsidies, but I'm guessing that doesn't apply to you.

So there's your answer in the abstract.

But I think your underlying question is: "Why am I, Yeti, seeing an increase in my health insurance costs?" I don't know, man. Depends on a lot of things like you're employer's financial situation, their insurance provider, the provider's reaction to current & expected changes due to health care reform, where you live, how many tubs of Country Crock you eat a day, etc.

[Yeti]

Many quick questions for you fhags who care about politics so much (SPOILER: Politics really fucking suck 99% of the time. The faces of each party should all die)

Are there STUDIES to show what Obamacare is going to do to healthcare costs? Are they mainly Lib STUDIES (that show it will save the world) and Conservative STUDIES (that show it will ruin everything middle America was founded on)? Have healthcare costs increased in the last year to raise insurance rates by 10%? Or would a company be increasing said rates based off of expected increases in rates? And if they are doing that, are they raising them by rates higher than the actual expected increase in costs (for example, if they expect costs to increase by 5-10%, then they're going to raise them by the high side of that estimate, so they can be 100% they'll cover all the cost increases and to be fucking assholes)

I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to joke about the President dying without the Secret Service showing up.

Who said I was joking?

And, RV, thanks. I'll read through that later tonight at home. Part of my issue is this dialogue I had with my maternal birthparent today

Starting the first of the year, we are going to be paying $50 for insurance

Not surprising. Gotta love Obamacare.

I blame it on the insurance companies. How about they see if they prices are going to go up before they jack up rates

(bear in mind I was just assuming that)

Yes but they are only anticipating Obamacare changes. And they already have to cover preventative things that fell under most deductibles before - such as mammograms, routine lab work, etc. That just took effect recently. The insurance companies are to blame as well - they are going to get as much as they can before their premiums are capped or the government runs them out of business which could also be the case.

It's more of the first part that she said. Just quickly blaming it on him. I admit that I haven't followed everything. It's just obnoxious and exhausting for me (so is getting the remote from underneath the seat cushion under 5 layers of lardbutter). It just seems that everytime anyone in my family mentions it they mention how Obama is ruining this "wonderful" country we have. Once when I questioned my stepdad, he had claimed he read the 1400-page bill. I'm just a little tired of mentioning anything to them and all of a sudden it's "OBAMA IS RUINING EVERYTHING". I don't know if they're right or wrong. I'm compelled to believe they're wrong because it sounds like the information they receive is nothing but fear-mongering from the likes of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh. I'm definitely looking for what you gave me, the best non-partisan analysis.

Basically, I'm impartial to Obama. Like I said in the shoutbox, I just want him to keep my taxes the same as last year (or this year).

[Brownie]

The problem with health insurance is that you're not the customer. Your employer is. Therefore, the insurance companies will have to only keep them happy. Your employer is basing its decisions primarily on cost as there is no shortage of labor out there to attract. Paying just $50 a month for insurance ($50 pretax) is pretty good in these parts. Thus, the employer will pass any increase on to the employee. At some point, when you're paying $300/mth for single coverage, the employer will begin offering shittier and shittier coverage as much as the law will allow. And then you'll continue to pay more.

Until your insurance carrier is not dependent on who your employer is, you'll continue to see a shitshow no matter what crap the Dems or Repubs come up with.

But yes, eliminating high deductible insurance and requiring insurance policies to cover certain things will necessarily increase costs as requiring everyone to buy insurance will necessarily decrease costs.

[R-V]

The problem with health insurance is that you're not the customer. Your employer is. Therefore, the insurance companies will have to only keep them happy. Your employer is basing its decisions primarily on cost as there is no shortage of labor out there to attract. Paying just $50 a month for insurance ($50 pretax) is pretty good in these parts. Thus, the employer will pass any increase on to the employee. At some point, when you're paying $300/mth for single coverage, the employer will begin offering shittier and shittier coverage as much as the law will allow. And then you'll continue to pay more.

Until your insurance carrier is not dependent on who your employer is, you'll continue to see a shitshow no matter what crap the Dems or Repubs come up with.

But yes, eliminating high deductible insurance and requiring insurance policies to cover certain things will necessarily increase costs as requiring everyone to buy insurance will necessarily decrease costs.

....that?