So basically, these insurance companies sending out these cancellation notices were gaming the system so that they could both undermine the law and blame it for "forcing" their customers to buy more expensive coverage.
Insurance companies are greedy corporations; they don't leave billions of dollars on the table in order to make a political point. Most of these cancellations are required by ACA: the old plans don't satisfy the law's requirement; this was designed into the ACA.
If insurance companies "game the system" and choose to drop people they don't have to drop (by creating plan changes), it's for people who they know have to sign up for more expensive plans with them right away. That's also a fault of ACA, not of the insurance companies: they are profit maximizers, and Obama knew that when he designed ACA.
And, of course, none of this counts the many millions of people whose employment plans and medical are are changing in other radical ways, like doctors leaving their plans etc. The ACA trainwreck has just begun, and a malfunctioning web site is the least of our problems.
Yes,, yes, and no. Why do you think the US is stuck with overpriced and under-performing Internet connectivity?
It isn't, both in my personal experience, and according to the data. I get 60 Mbps (actual, not theoretical) for $30/month from my cable provider in a mid-size town, and I had the same kind of deal in the last couple of places I lived.
Have you ever lived with a public electrical provider rather than a corporate provider?
Yes: it was badly overpriced. Same with the municipal cable system I once had.
Private sector collusion and price gouging.
"Private sector collusion" is illegal and easily detected and prosecuted; rates are regulated. Whatever may be wrong with the private utilities where you live, it's the fault of public regulators. I'm not arguing for a completely laissez-faire approach to utilities, I'm saying regulators should adopt regulations that increase competition and increase the number of competitors; going to public utilities because your regulators are stupid is not the right solution.
I gave you a list of things that Obama could have easily accomplished, not a total fix for all the problems of the federal government. Nor is small government only about the deficit; many of those programs are harmful in other ways. Furthermore, Obama's bailouts, stimuli, and crony capitalism amount to much larger sums than you seem to think.
But what do you do if the South Koreans get invaded? Say "tough luck, enjoy working on a collective farm so Kim Jong-Un can build ski chalets?
Even as a percentage of GDP, South Korea spends only half of what the US is spending, and Japan less than a quarter. Given that they are next to an aggressive neighbor, they should be spending more than the US is spending. If they spent 4-6% of GDP on defense, we wouldn't have to do anything. And it's the same with Europe and the Middle East. US tax payers are effectively subsidizing those economies by providing defense for them, and that has got to stop.
Only if you don't actually listen. Both of these things take place, and both are bad. I was remarking on how the latter is even worse than the former.
Actually, neither of them takes place. Corporations simply do what any other group in society does: they participate in it.
The voters are incapable of deciding that if they don't have reliable sources of information, or are unaware of their existence, or don't realize that their existing sources (which include those ads) are unreliable.
And who decides what is reliable and truthful for them? The politburo? The central committee? The Ministry of Truth? A random set of rules? You don't seem to understand that in a democracy, it is voters, and only voters, that are the arbiters of truth.
The current state of American politics is all the evidence that anyone would need. Sapienti sat.
In different words, you don't actually have any evidence, you simply attribute your general unhappiness with US politics to whatever evil causes your favorite political ideology suggests is at fault.
Personally, I think the current state of US politics is a lot better than the current state of European politics, and I'd like to keep it that way. Yes, that's despite the fact that utter morons like Bush and Obama got elected. If I thought European politics were better, I'd be living there.
US politics really just needs be protected from the anti-democratic and totalitarian impulses of people like you.
Having lived in two other democratic countries, and one non-democratic one, I can tell that it's bullshit.
I suggest you go back to living in those countries then, because wrecking the US in the same way is not acceptable, and it's not going to happen either.
Do you mean the customers who want better service, better rates, and more responsive support? That lobby? Sorry, you're not going to get much sympathy.
Have you ever actually had to live with a municipal cable system? Or a government telecom monopoly. Do you believe in the tooth fairy?
How do you think Europe finally managed to pull out of the Internet dark ages and why they have good service now? It's because they aggressively privatized telecommunications.
What the US needs is more private competition, not a return to failed policies.
The problem with your argument is that you're not actually making an argument. You have told us what you want in principle (less federal government),
I didn't "make an argument" for anything, I explained why the system is working as it is
I find this is actually a fairly common problem when dealing with Conservatives.
I'm not a conservative. In fact, I used to be a Democrat and voted for Obama (big mistake that that was).
but have yet to tell us which major functions of government you want Obama to give up.
Since you ask, for starters... Stop bailing out banks, investors, and car companies. Stop pushing new federal social programs and leave medical care to the states. Stop engaging in crony capitalism in the guise of "economic stimuli". Leave marriage to the states. Force spy agencies only to operate overseas and cut them. Greatly cut the military and useless weapons programs. Withdraw most US troops from Europe and Asia. Leave education to the states and get rid of the department of education. Stop "investing" in green energy. Stop subsidizing farmers. Stop subsidizing oil companies. Stop bailing out cities and towns. Stop building intrastate railway lines. Stop the war on drugs. For starters, that would have saved a lot of his time, and a lot of money. And we haven't even gotten to any holy cows, like existing social programs or the EPA.
I very much doubt that you could demonstrate any evidence of this particular policy not enjoying wide popular support in Seattle.
It probably does. History is full of things that enjoy popular support that are a bad idea. That's why different interest groups should be able to make their case to the population.
"That's also nonsense. No matter how much corporations lobby or advertise, politicians are still elected by voters and votes, not dollars."
The real problem is that politicians get elected, and then take corporate money to implement the policies that their corporate sponsors (as opposed to people who voted for them) want.
You keep changing your story. First, you allege that corporate money buys votes, now it has some mysterious legal but corrupting influence after they get elected.
As for advertising, it still does affect the way votes are cast,
I should hope so.
and in particular the worst kind of political ads are the ones that mislead the voters.
Yes, and it is for voters to decide which of those ads are misleading.
his is still dollars influencing votes in a way that skews the results, which is precisely why the vast majority of democratic countries limit the amount of money that can be spend on campaigning to ensure fair ground for all candidates,
Having lived in several of those other "democratic countries", I can tell you from first hand experience that those systems are worse than the US system.
The end result is that, all other things being equal, the candidate with more money backing wins just because he can deliver a longer sustained barrage of mudslinging at the opponent.
Actually, most of the Autobahn has speed limits from 80 KPH to 130.
Actually, you're full of shit. Country roads in Germany have speed limits of 60 mph, and highways have speed limits of either 80 mph or are unlimited (about half of the total system). That means that German speed limits are always higher than American speed limits, yet fatality rates (both per capita and per vehicle mile) are significantly lower.
Also, going fast is very often reckless because it exceeds the capabilities of the car or more often, the driver.
And this is not a problem in Germany because... what?
So what you're trying to say here is that speed limits are in place to keep people safe.
No, what I am saying is that people who violate traffic rules are unsafe, and that has little to do with speed limits. I'm sorry if that concept is too complex for you to grasp.
The end result is a legislature that talks a whole bunch of shit about shit (which nobody will care about six months from now), and doesn't actually do anything, which allows the Executive branch to run wild.
If the executive branch stuck to what it's supposed to do, namely defense and interstate commerce, that wouldn't be a problem. Of course, the system isn't working when the federal government sticks its nose into everything from what we eat, to how we drive, to who we have sex with and how we die. But no form of government is up to those tasks; nations that can make these decisions more easily in a centralized way have even bigger problems.
On national issues it would be even worse. If you have a vote on gun control people aren't going to let you sit out of the gun control debate.
That's the way it's supposed to be: almost all of those issues should be decided at the state level. The federal government should only get involved in matters that absolutely cannot be addressed by individual states or voluntary cooperation among states.
Obama doesn't have time to over-see the Executive.
And a competent response for anybody in a management position is to reduce the size of the executive and pare down responsibilities until one can handle it. Obama is simply incompetent, and the fact that he has loaded more and more hard problems onto his plate is yet another indication of his incompetence.
Perhaps someone who can come up with some rational reason WHY it isn't a good idea?
I think municipal Internet access is a really bad idea, and so do a lot of other people. But the lobbies that favor municipalization are so powerful that people like me can't fight them.
The fact that the politicians in question got elected, on a platform that explicitly included the policy in question, indicate that this latter group of people is, in fact, a majority.
That's complete nonsense; voting for a politician isn't an endorsement of all of their policies.
So the only thing that corporate lobbying brings to the table here is replacing one person - one vote with one dollar - one vote.
That's also nonsense. No matter how much corporations lobby or advertise, politicians are still elected by voters and votes, not dollars.
"I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom. That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient," Obama said in 2007, adding that "the FISA court works."
It's not for Comcast to judge whether it is a good or a bad idea. It is for the people of Seattle to decide.
Comcast isn't deciding, they are supporting a candidate that reflects their views.
If no-one but the broadband companies has an interest in not seeing it happen, then it's probably a good idea.
Lots of people have an interest in not seeing it happen, but they don't have the resources to fight politicians that want to waste tax dollars on providing "free services". The only groups who have the resources to fight this is the businesses that provide the service. If you silence them, you're already presuming that municipalization/nationalization is a good thing.
I'm claiming that the statement "speed limits are posted to keep the public safe" is wrong; that's not why speed limits were posted on US highways, and speed limits are not necessary to achieve lower death rates than the US currently has as the German example shows. Even within in the US, there is little evidence that speed limits actually have that effect.
Their is routinely traffic at a great variety of speeds so your example of how it is safe is also an example of why you claim it is reckless.
No, I claim that violating posted speed limits and expected behavioral norms is reckless. In the US, people going 65 MPH in the right lane don't expect others to pass them at 120 MPH. In Germany they do, and everybody behaves accordingly. But whether that explanation is right or wrong doesn't matter for my first point: Twocow's statement about the history and effect of speed limits was wrong.
Highway speed limits were introduced to save oil, not to keep people safe. Germany doesn't have speed limits on large stretches of its highways, and much higher speed limits where it does, and yet fewer people get killed per million vehicle miles.
It's far from obvious that providing broadband using public infrastructure is a good idea. Why shouldn't Comcast oppose it? If not companies who have an interest in not seeing it happen, then who is going to oppose it?
There should be only a single tax. Sales tax. It should apply to all sales equally. There should be no loopholes and it shout not be "progressive" (i.e. higher rate for the rich)
Actually, the best single tax would really be a tax on land. It has pretty much all of the properties you want a fair tax system to have, and it ensures that land is put to the best use.
Former directors: Wayne Gable (Koch Industries), Joseph Luby (Exxon), Pam Olson (Bush-Cheney campaign), current director Bill Archer (former Texas Republican congressman)
Nonpartisan means that they aren't affiliated with any political party; it doesn't mean that they agree equally with either party. In fact, given the level of crony capitalism and failures the current administration and Democrats are responsible for, it's rather hard to agree with anything Obama or the Democrats are doing unless you are completely blinded by partisanship.
"Krugman has also accused the Tax Foundation of "deliberate fraud" in connection with a report it issued concerning the American Jobs Act.[47]"
Krugman's accusation is based on the fact that the Tax Foundation compares the annual revenue from a 100% tax on the rich to the total debt (a reduction in 2-3%); he believes one should consider the long term effect. But the long term effect is obvious from the Tax Foundation analysis: that's not even sufficient to make a big dent in the deficit, let alone start paying down the debt. Or one simply needs to recall that US national debt increases an average of 9%/year anyway.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you are reducing the deficit by only 12-20%, you aren't going to be reducing the debt at all; even a Nobel-prize winning economist should be able to figure that one out, but I'm beginning to suspect that Krugman is simply getting senile.
Not true. At least for me here in Oregon, my insurance costs have gone down with the ACA. And that is without a dime of govt. assistance.
We pay an average of around $7000/person/year. That's "vastly inflated" and it keeps going up. Even if your personal rates have gone down, it doesn't change that. Since the average hasn't gone down, if you pay less, someone else must pay more. Probably someone else who is healthier and at less risk than you.
Which part of "And with ACA, Obama, the crony capitalist in chief, forces us to hand these corporations our money; we can't even opt out of that nonsense anymore by not buying." did you not understand?
After bailing out car companies and banks, paying off Wall Street, and making sure that people have to pay vastly inflated prices to health insurers under ACA, and after shoving many billions in the hands of energy companies (green and otherwise), I guess Obama is now turning his laser sharp crony-capitalist intellect towards screwing over the American people with another all time favorite: telecommunications.
Slashdot Mirror
Insurance companies are greedy corporations; they don't leave billions of dollars on the table in order to make a political point. Most of these cancellations are required by ACA: the old plans don't satisfy the law's requirement; this was designed into the ACA.
If insurance companies "game the system" and choose to drop people they don't have to drop (by creating plan changes), it's for people who they know have to sign up for more expensive plans with them right away. That's also a fault of ACA, not of the insurance companies: they are profit maximizers, and Obama knew that when he designed ACA.
And, of course, none of this counts the many millions of people whose employment plans and medical are are changing in other radical ways, like doctors leaving their plans etc. The ACA trainwreck has just begun, and a malfunctioning web site is the least of our problems.
It isn't, both in my personal experience, and according to the data. I get 60 Mbps (actual, not theoretical) for $30/month from my cable provider in a mid-size town, and I had the same kind of deal in the last couple of places I lived.
Yes: it was badly overpriced. Same with the municipal cable system I once had.
"Private sector collusion" is illegal and easily detected and prosecuted; rates are regulated. Whatever may be wrong with the private utilities where you live, it's the fault of public regulators. I'm not arguing for a completely laissez-faire approach to utilities, I'm saying regulators should adopt regulations that increase competition and increase the number of competitors; going to public utilities because your regulators are stupid is not the right solution.
I gave you a list of things that Obama could have easily accomplished, not a total fix for all the problems of the federal government. Nor is small government only about the deficit; many of those programs are harmful in other ways. Furthermore, Obama's bailouts, stimuli, and crony capitalism amount to much larger sums than you seem to think.
Even as a percentage of GDP, South Korea spends only half of what the US is spending, and Japan less than a quarter. Given that they are next to an aggressive neighbor, they should be spending more than the US is spending. If they spent 4-6% of GDP on defense, we wouldn't have to do anything. And it's the same with Europe and the Middle East. US tax payers are effectively subsidizing those economies by providing defense for them, and that has got to stop.
Actually, neither of them takes place. Corporations simply do what any other group in society does: they participate in it.
And who decides what is reliable and truthful for them? The politburo? The central committee? The Ministry of Truth? A random set of rules? You don't seem to understand that in a democracy, it is voters, and only voters, that are the arbiters of truth.
In different words, you don't actually have any evidence, you simply attribute your general unhappiness with US politics to whatever evil causes your favorite political ideology suggests is at fault.
Personally, I think the current state of US politics is a lot better than the current state of European politics, and I'd like to keep it that way. Yes, that's despite the fact that utter morons like Bush and Obama got elected. If I thought European politics were better, I'd be living there.
US politics really just needs be protected from the anti-democratic and totalitarian impulses of people like you.
I suggest you go back to living in those countries then, because wrecking the US in the same way is not acceptable, and it's not going to happen either.
Have you ever actually had to live with a municipal cable system? Or a government telecom monopoly. Do you believe in the tooth fairy?
How do you think Europe finally managed to pull out of the Internet dark ages and why they have good service now? It's because they aggressively privatized telecommunications.
What the US needs is more private competition, not a return to failed policies.
I didn't "make an argument" for anything, I explained why the system is working as it is
I'm not a conservative. In fact, I used to be a Democrat and voted for Obama (big mistake that that was).
Since you ask, for starters... Stop bailing out banks, investors, and car companies. Stop pushing new federal social programs and leave medical care to the states. Stop engaging in crony capitalism in the guise of "economic stimuli". Leave marriage to the states. Force spy agencies only to operate overseas and cut them. Greatly cut the military and useless weapons programs. Withdraw most US troops from Europe and Asia. Leave education to the states and get rid of the department of education. Stop "investing" in green energy. Stop subsidizing farmers. Stop subsidizing oil companies. Stop bailing out cities and towns. Stop building intrastate railway lines. Stop the war on drugs. For starters, that would have saved a lot of his time, and a lot of money. And we haven't even gotten to any holy cows, like existing social programs or the EPA.
Yes, it would be wonderful if the federal government did those things, as opposed to the nonsense it actually does.
It probably does. History is full of things that enjoy popular support that are a bad idea. That's why different interest groups should be able to make their case to the population.
You keep changing your story. First, you allege that corporate money buys votes, now it has some mysterious legal but corrupting influence after they get elected.
I should hope so.
Yes, and it is for voters to decide which of those ads are misleading.
Having lived in several of those other "democratic countries", I can tell you from first hand experience that those systems are worse than the US system.
That's your belief; where is the evidence?
Actually, you're full of shit. Country roads in Germany have speed limits of 60 mph, and highways have speed limits of either 80 mph or are unlimited (about half of the total system). That means that German speed limits are always higher than American speed limits, yet fatality rates (both per capita and per vehicle mile) are significantly lower.
And this is not a problem in Germany because... what?
No, what I am saying is that people who violate traffic rules are unsafe, and that has little to do with speed limits. I'm sorry if that concept is too complex for you to grasp.
Yes, and that includes Obama and Feinstein, darlings of progressives that they are.
If the executive branch stuck to what it's supposed to do, namely defense and interstate commerce, that wouldn't be a problem. Of course, the system isn't working when the federal government sticks its nose into everything from what we eat, to how we drive, to who we have sex with and how we die. But no form of government is up to those tasks; nations that can make these decisions more easily in a centralized way have even bigger problems.
That's the way it's supposed to be: almost all of those issues should be decided at the state level. The federal government should only get involved in matters that absolutely cannot be addressed by individual states or voluntary cooperation among states.
And a competent response for anybody in a management position is to reduce the size of the executive and pare down responsibilities until one can handle it. Obama is simply incompetent, and the fact that he has loaded more and more hard problems onto his plate is yet another indication of his incompetence.
I think municipal Internet access is a really bad idea, and so do a lot of other people. But the lobbies that favor municipalization are so powerful that people like me can't fight them.
That's complete nonsense; voting for a politician isn't an endorsement of all of their policies.
That's also nonsense. No matter how much corporations lobby or advertise, politicians are still elected by voters and votes, not dollars.
"I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our freedom. That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens. No more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient," Obama said in 2007, adding that "the FISA court works."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/jun/13/barack-obama-surveillance-then-and-now/
Comcast isn't deciding, they are supporting a candidate that reflects their views.
Lots of people have an interest in not seeing it happen, but they don't have the resources to fight politicians that want to waste tax dollars on providing "free services". The only groups who have the resources to fight this is the businesses that provide the service. If you silence them, you're already presuming that municipalization/nationalization is a good thing.
I'm claiming that the statement "speed limits are posted to keep the public safe" is wrong; that's not why speed limits were posted on US highways, and speed limits are not necessary to achieve lower death rates than the US currently has as the German example shows. Even within in the US, there is little evidence that speed limits actually have that effect.
No, I claim that violating posted speed limits and expected behavioral norms is reckless. In the US, people going 65 MPH in the right lane don't expect others to pass them at 120 MPH. In Germany they do, and everybody behaves accordingly. But whether that explanation is right or wrong doesn't matter for my first point: Twocow's statement about the history and effect of speed limits was wrong.
Highway speed limits were introduced to save oil, not to keep people safe. Germany doesn't have speed limits on large stretches of its highways, and much higher speed limits where it does, and yet fewer people get killed per million vehicle miles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
What this guy did was clearly reckless, but that's because he was driving at different speeds from the rest of traffic, not because he was going fast.
It's far from obvious that providing broadband using public infrastructure is a good idea. Why shouldn't Comcast oppose it? If not companies who have an interest in not seeing it happen, then who is going to oppose it?
Actually, the best single tax would really be a tax on land. It has pretty much all of the properties you want a fair tax system to have, and it ensures that land is put to the best use.
Half of us want to turn us into a European-style country, the other half prefers a loose federation of states.
Europe and the EU haven't gotten this sorted out either.
Nonpartisan means that they aren't affiliated with any political party; it doesn't mean that they agree equally with either party. In fact, given the level of crony capitalism and failures the current administration and Democrats are responsible for, it's rather hard to agree with anything Obama or the Democrats are doing unless you are completely blinded by partisanship.
Krugman's accusation is based on the fact that the Tax Foundation compares the annual revenue from a 100% tax on the rich to the total debt (a reduction in 2-3%); he believes one should consider the long term effect. But the long term effect is obvious from the Tax Foundation analysis: that's not even sufficient to make a big dent in the deficit, let alone start paying down the debt. Or one simply needs to recall that US national debt increases an average of 9%/year anyway.
http://taxfoundation.org/blog/warren-buffetts-proposed-tax-hikes-would-provide-insignificant-revenue-0
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you are reducing the deficit by only 12-20%, you aren't going to be reducing the debt at all; even a Nobel-prize winning economist should be able to figure that one out, but I'm beginning to suspect that Krugman is simply getting senile.
We pay an average of around $7000/person/year. That's "vastly inflated" and it keeps going up. Even if your personal rates have gone down, it doesn't change that. Since the average hasn't gone down, if you pay less, someone else must pay more. Probably someone else who is healthier and at less risk than you.
Which part of "And with ACA, Obama, the crony capitalist in chief, forces us to hand these corporations our money; we can't even opt out of that nonsense anymore by not buying." did you not understand?
They are perfectly avoidable, "numbnuts", namely by banning them.
After bailing out car companies and banks, paying off Wall Street, and making sure that people have to pay vastly inflated prices to health insurers under ACA, and after shoving many billions in the hands of energy companies (green and otherwise), I guess Obama is now turning his laser sharp crony-capitalist intellect towards screwing over the American people with another all time favorite: telecommunications.