And you expect to be taken seriously on political topics. It’s impossible to do, TB. It doesn’t get more blatantly foolish than this, and you are right there at the front protecting an inefficient, expensive system.

Obama’s 5 percent con job

On October 17, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services, represented by the Obama Justice Department, submitted a brief to the federal district court in Washington, opposing Priests for Life’s summary judgment motion. On page 27 of its brief, the Justice Department makes the following remarkable assertion:

The [ACA’s] grandfathering provision’s incremental transition does not undermine the government’s interests in a significant way. [Citing, among other sources, the Federal Register.] Even under the grandfathering provision, it is projected that more group health plans will transition to the requirements under the regulations as time goes on. Defendants have estimated that a majority of group health plans will have lost their grandfather status by the end of 2013.

HHS and the Justice Department cite the same section of the Federal Register referred to by John Hinderaker, as well as an annual survey on “Employer Health Benefits” compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2012.

So, while the president has been telling us that, under the vaunted grandfathering provision, all Americans who like their health-insurance plans will be able to keep them, “period,” his administration has been representing in federal court that most health plans would lose their “grandfather status” by the end of this year. Not just the “5 percent” of individual-market consumers, but close to all consumers — including well over 100 million American workers who get coverage through their jobs — have been expected by the president swiftly to “transition to the requirements under the [Obamacare] regulations.” That is, their health-insurance plans would be eliminated. They would be forced into Obamacare-compliant plans, with all the prohibitive price hikes and coercive mandates that “transition” portends.

One side has actual ammunition, and the other side is firing the same blanks over and over again.

Look at the “efficiency” chart that keeps being referenced. Seriously, is it really plausible that all the countries above us on that list have better health care than we do?

Seems like on the Zone it’s nothing but trench warfare when it comes to healthcare. We just keep firing mortars back and forth.

If we find a way to control costs we will be able to deal with healthcare insurance. I don’t see ACA solving the root problem.

Would you explain what they are?

TB, I know you won’t, you’ll either ignore this or tapdance around it but I’ve made my point. You attack the numbers “37th” or “48th” without having any repeat any rebuttal.

So tell me, why do you support such an expensive and relatively ineffective healthcare system? Would you support a military item which cost the most in the world and was outclassed by even 20 cheaper models from smaller countries?

A lot of people are selling the lie that the Democrats had some kind of “good” bill that was ruined by the Republicans and evil corporations.

I’ve seen texts of the ACA bill back to the earliest ones they put on line. It’s always been a couple of thousand pages long, and it’s always been full of unworkable crap.

Keep in mind that when the bill was written, passed, and signed, the Republicans had no power in either the House or the Senate, and the bill passed with no Republican votes at all. It passed with legislative tricks and by the skin of its teeth, and if any lobbying corruption was involved, it had to have been Democratic corruption.

The “37th,” “48th” and similar numbers are based on two specific studies, and their methodology blows goats. The only major outcome-related item in the methodologies was life expectancy. This has many factors other than health care, and it’s amazing how the numbers move when you just factor out violence and accident.

Most of the other “grades” were on how socialist the health care system was. I went over it in more detail in a similar thread a few weeks ago, so I’m not going to waste time on it again. The responses there are instructive.

Everything you see about how crummy American health care is for the price is based on this. Repetition doesn’t improve accuracy.

The attempt to nationalize health care has never been about the quality of the care.

And another thing I’m saying is that Conservatives are protecting the most expensive system in the country which ranks 37th in the healthcare it provides. Now, defend that stance. Rationalize that foolishness. After all, it is on record, can’t be denied, and has been fought for tooth and nail by Conservatives.

How smart is that? What are the priorities of people who would do that? (Don’t ask another question without answering those.)

This puts US at 48th, and 2nd in costs. All of the indices are remarkably similar, however.