Someone's got to pay for the free shit

Mark wrote "This was never billed as free shit, to begin with", speaking of Obamacare.  You are absolutely correct, Obamacare was never billed as a program which subsidized..........even though it does.  Like most Liberal programs, Obamacare is another wealth redistribution plan.  I've read that 10.4 million people are eligible for an Obamacare subsidy.

Actually - your posting history on this board suggests the exact oppositte.

The individual mandate did just that -      It made people pay for their own shit instead of you and me.   And that is a conservative principle.   And thats why the Heritage Foundation and Mitt Romney were the first people to concoct it.      

But then Obama embraced it too.   And thats all it took for the entire conservative Universe to suddenly believe "free shit" was preferable to "Ayn Rand" shit.    

Make no mistake, Boiler, the free shit now being handed out as a result of removing the individual mandate is massive compared to that which you started this thread.   And removing that mandate has been a massive position of yours on this board for years.    You might want to examine your own positions before being critical of others on the same principle.

Have a great day!

I've said that making one buy insurance is a travisty.  I said all along that many would be subsidized.  I'm correct on all counts.

"Government spending on Obamacare premiums has raced past its per-person spending on Medicaid expansion, and the gap is poised to increase—a trend that has some policy experts shaking their heads over the long-term economic picture and at least one major insurer questioning the sustainability of the individual market.

This year (2018), federal dollars going to exchange premium subsidies more than doubled from 2014 and the Congressional Budget Office projected they will nearly double again over the next decade." 

__ Obamacare Subsidies Cost More Per Person Than Medicaid

I would assume that Boilerman is fine with wealth distribution plans that take money out of the pockets of the middle class and give it to the rich, in the form of Trump's tax breaks for the rich. I also assume that redistributing Americans' wealth by using it to pay contractors $25 billion to build a stupid wall is fine with Boilerman. That's going to cost each and every taxpayer several hundred dollars, factoring in the cost of maintaining it. Now, that's wealth redistribution!!

Also, everybody threw a few bucks into the kitty (whether they wanted to or not) to help Ukraine fight off Russia. Trump stole that money and used it for his personal bribery fund. Now, that's wealth distribution!

You're merely pointing out the flaws in any private insurance market, and you're making a strong argument for single-payer healthcare plans. Unless you're positing that without Obamacare, private health insurance costs wouldn't have risen since 2014!!!! That would be a stupid thing to say, even for an ideology-fogged conservative.

Whatver is wrong with Obamacare, it's a result of Republicans trying to sabotage the program now, and Democrats' badly calculated plan to "include" Republicans in the decision process several years ago. When they held the House, Senate, and White House, they should have rammed through a solid single-payer system similar to that which most civilized countries have. Too bad!

See, here's the problem -    These two sentences run contrary to each other.    

"I think that able bodied Americans should pay for their own shit."

"I've said that making one buy insurance is a travisty."

Reflexively oppossing Obama on everything has frequently put conservatives in a paradoxical position on issues.   This is one example.

I'm not at all surprised.    Republicans removed the healthy people from the individual market by removing the mandate.    So now its just sick people in there.    And DonDiego is scratching his head as to why premiums are skyrocketing?

Wouldn't it be cool if you could buy auto-insurance after your car got totaled and have Allstate pay for it?  Thats what Republicans did with the individual market.

Oh, and uh, please dont reference that irresponsible modification as "Obamacare".   Obama did not sign that into law.   Nor did any Democrat in Congress.     

Have a great day!

1. Democrats propose health care reform.

2. Republicans scream that the reform will cause fewer members of the undesirable races to die, and other objections.

3. Democrats, in a spirit of cooperation that seems naive in restrospect, weaken the law before passing it--even though they could have told Republicans to go fuck themselves.

4. Republicans, over the course of the better part of a decade, relentlessly attack the law and when Trump oozes into office, succeed in crippling it.

5. Costs skyrocket as a direct result.

6. The Republicans scream, "SEE?"

The takeaway is that when Republicans have anything to do with America's healthcare, costs go WAY up, care gets worse, and the rich get richer. The conservative mindset is to run the country like a giant corporation. In that worldview, the poor and other undesirables should be allowed, even encouraged (or even, forced) to die off, leaving only a rich old white men's utopia. With none o'them darkies or Messkins.

DonDiego does not understand, or more likely, willfully ignores, the fact that REPUBLICAN modifications to Obamacare are what caused premiums to go up. He chooses to act as if the Republicans didn't make massive fundamental changes to it.

No, my point wasn't that the subsidies were free.  It was spelled out that the government would pay for them. Republicans said well we aren't going to comply intentionally trying to drive up premiums and out of pocket costs. They succeeded and now consumers and the government both have to pay more.