Affected by Obamacare?

[PsyOps]

Yes, If it weren't for greed he would keep all his work domestic and not outsourcing it overseas. He might not be quite as greedy as the hardware manufacturers who have shipped ALL their jobs overseas but, yes.
No, greed shouldn't be legislated but what should be is stronger legal protection for American workers. THEN maybe unions wouldn't be as necessary as they are today.

Because he shipped some of his jobs overseas makes him greedy? He still would have made billions if he had not. 99% of the computers out there have his products on it. What I’m talking about is… does his lifestyle, the way he carries himself, the way he handles his money look like a greedy man? Is the amount of money he earns the sole factor in defining greed? I mean you can’t forget he gives billions away to charity every year.

He produced a product everyone wanted. There was a huge demand for it. There was no avoiding the money flowing in. What was he to do when that happens, turn it away?

There are going to be those that find an idea, create that idea, take the personal risk of providing that product to the public, and as a result there are going to be winners and losers in the private market. What do you suggest the winners do with their winnings?

EDIT: And as a side consequence, thousands (if not millions) of investors became millionaires from this creation of Bill Gates. Why do Americans have such a hard time seeing this as a positive thing?

 

[Gilligan]

Sure, carry your money in a dump truck, just don't lay off the regular driver of the truck so you can save his cost to add to your load.

That made no sense..speaking as someone who has owned five different businesses. Sounds like nothing but a "support your local union" straw man talking point.

 

[Gilligan]

No, greed shouldn't be legislated but what should be is stronger legal protection for American workers. THEN maybe unions wouldn't be as necessary as they are today.

Yeah...necessary. So necessary that a mere 6% of the private workforce is organized and that number continues to drop. What "legislation", very specifically, do you believe is missing?

 

[Larry Gude]

Yeah, we've all seen how well the "Trickle Down" economic plan works.

Trickle down says if YOU have money, I might do well to make something you'd like to buy or do something you'd like to by.

Government does the same thing minus the work and behavior necessary to compete and earn a living in a consensual society and it does it via non consent.

 

[Chasey_Lane]

I'm not sure if this recent event is due to Crapcare, but it has never happened to me before. Anyhow, I get routine blood work every year as part of my annual physical. I've done this for YEARS. This is for my own peace of mind. My latest blood work ($650) has been denied for reason "pre-existing condition." I need to make some calls to my health insurance company to get more information but what a joke and a hassle.

 

[awpitt]

I'm not sure if this recent event is due to Crapcare, but it has never happened to me before. Anyhow, I get routine blood work every year as part of my annual physical. I've done this for YEARS. This is for my own peace of mind. My latest blood work ($650) has been denied for reason "pre-existing condition." I need to make some calls to my health insurance company to get more information but what a joke and a hassle.

I don't think that's an ObamaCare issue. I get blood work every year too. Just done recently with no problems. I think the denial might be because of how it might have been coded during billing.

 

[Chasey_Lane]

I don't think that's an ObamaCare issue. I get blood work every year too. Just done recently with no problems. I think the denial might be because of how it might have been coded during billing.

That's a thought also. I need to call my insurance to get further details.

 

[Lurk]

That's a thought also. I need to call my insurance to get further details.

Was this lab work to prove you're alive or to determine if you're ill? If it's to prove you're you are alive, THAT'S the pre-existing condition. You have been adjudicated by the non-medical, secret Death Panel.

 

[Chasey_Lane]

Was this lab work to prove you're alive or to determine if you're ill? If it's to prove you're you are alive, THAT'S the pre-existing condition. You have been adjudicated by the non-medical, secret Death Panel.

Just routine blood work to check all my levels.

Anyhow, I got in touch with the insurance company. They denied my claim because "they don't know what coverage I had before." So now it is MY responsibility to provide them with a letter of eligible coverage from my PAST provider.

 

[SamSpade]

I'm still amused at the whole point of it all.

To my understanding - the "Affordable" Care Act was intended to make health care affordable and to make it available to everyone regardless of pre-existing conditions.

As a side benefit - it was everywhere asserted that the result would be premium savings, lower healthcare costs and more jobs.

By and large it seems to me the only people who really benefited from it were kids living at home under 26 and people with pre-existing conditions - and we didn't need the ACA to do that at all. Every other benefit that I can think of is having the opposite effect.

 

[tom88]

How many of the people on these forums have been or will be directly affected by this Act? By directly I don't mean your ideas of constitutionality, taxes raising, your neighbors horror story or any other in-direct effects. I mean how many actually have to sign up and use it?

Everyone eventually will be affected. The union's who put Obama in and have the "Cadillac" plans will be forced to lose benefits or begin paying out of their own pocket when the trending costs for health care exceed the CPI, and in 2018 they have to begin paying the excise tax.

 

[Gilligan]

Of course not all things related to Obamacare are bad. Check out these great jobs it created.....

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/14/obamacare-contractor-pays-employees-to-do-nothing-whistleblower-says/

 

[Lurk]

Of course not all things related to Obamacare are bad. Check out these great jobs it created.....

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/14/obamacare-contractor-pays-employees-to-do-nothing-whistleblower-says/

Hell. Too bad they're contractors. If they worked for the IRS they could at least be watching porn all day.

 

[Chris0nllyn]

Our open enrollment is coming up.

We just got a letter that says the company's healthcare costs will INCREASE buy an estimated 20%.

We have the choise of a high deductible plan (lord only knows how much those deductibles are), or a traditional PPO plan with "substantially higher employee contributions, will require employees to pay a deductible and have higher maximum out-of-pocket expenses than our current PPO."

 

[Chasey_Lane]

Our open enrollment is coming up.

We just got a letter that says the company's healthcare costs will INCREASE buy an estimated 20%.

We have the choise of a high deductible plan (lord only knows how much those deductibles are), or a traditional PPO plan with "substantially higher employee contributions, will require employees to pay a deductible and have higher maximum out-of-pocket expenses than our current PPO."

I wonder if that's an average increase. My company's medical premiums went up about 17%.

 

[Larry Gude]

I wonder if that's an average increase. My company's medical premiums went up about 17%.

It's crazy.

Health care is already over 17% of GDP and if 1/6 goes up another 5th, that's another $600 billion plus, nation wide and puts health care on course to be a larger cost than the federal government in a year or two.

Crazy.

 

[Chris0nllyn]

I wonder if that's an average increase. My company's medical premiums went up about 17%.

That's the number our medical insurance broker gave the company, so the 20% is how much extra my company will be paying to give healthcare to it's employees.

I'll find out soon enough how much more it'll cost me.

Not my idea of trickle-down economics.

 

[Larry Gude]

Not my idea of trickle-down economics.

AH, yes, but, it is. We hear all the time how little income has improved, in general but, it leaves out health costs. What is it now, nearly $2,000 a month employees are getting in coverage. $24,000 a YEAR for something they'd need to gross about $36,000 more for and would in no way, shape or form pay that much for were they handed $36,000 a year and told "go buy all the insurance you like. Or not."

This is so ####ed up.

 

[Lurk]

That's the number our medical insurance broker gave the company, so the 20% is how much extra my company will be paying to give healthcare to it's employees.

I'll find out soon enough how much more it'll cost me.

Not my idea of trickle-down economics.

You must make it easier on yourself. Just keep repeating "It's the AFFORDABLE Care Act,"

"It's the AFFORDABLE Care Act,"

"It's the AFFORDABLE Care Act,"

"It's the AFFORDABLE Care Act,"​

 

[GURPS]

The Hidden Costs of Obamacare


Obamacare is a tax that is costly to businesses and individuals in a lot of obvious ways. Many of those, though – the penalties, the fees, the increased costs of coverage, the loss of doctors and health plans – have already been covered ad nauseam. One aspect of the law’s cost to the American economy that has received comparatively little attention has been the compliance costs imposed on the healthcare sector by the law. And last week, those costs got much worse.

One of the most pernicious ways in which the Federal Government taxes businesses is by requiring them to prepare and turn in reams of paperwork that probably no one will ever read in order to comply with regulations that were neither passed nor approved by Congress. In addition to the absolute material/shipping costs associated with complying with these regulations, there are also the costs associated with paying employees for the time required to comply with these requirements. Businesses - which are overwhelmingly small businesses in this particular field – lay out money that is completely uncompensated by the government just for the privilege of jumping through these hoops.

The healthcare field already has a lot of hoops to jump through, in terms of compliance with federal regulations. And the regulations passed by HHS and the Treasury department last week in connection with Obamacare just added to those hoops in both a kind and quantity that are sui generis, even within the rubric of healthcare legislation. And the end result of this may be negatively impacted patient care:

Now four years old, ObamaCare imposes 159 million hours of paperwork a year on the public. That’s the administration’s own estimate, undoubtedly a lowball.

Even so, it’s up by 48 million hours over last year, when fewer regulations had been rolled out. And there’s more to come.

Among the July 3 rules is one that compels doctors who take Medicare to report 18 different clinical measurements on their patients, such as whether they are overweight and have been counseled about weight control.

Doctors who fail to do it will get whacked with lower payments starting in 2015.

The regulators estimate that this single report could take as long as 108 minutes per patient and consume 5.4 million hours a year nationwide. That’s time that could be spent treating patients or calling them to remind them to take their meds.​