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October 30th, 2013
11:00 PM ET
Schakowsky: Obamacare is better coverage
Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Republican Rep. Tim Murphy of the House Energy and Commerce Committee join Newt Gingrich and Van Jones in the Crossfire to debate Obamacare.
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Posted by Crossfire staff Filed under: Health care • Jan Schakowsky • Tim Murphy |
Meet the Hosts
Author, documentary filmmaker, historian, Speaker of the House (1995-1999), and 2012 Republican presidential candidate
Fmr. Obama Deputy Campaign Mgr. and W.H. Sr. Adviser, founder of Precision Strategies, fmr. Sr. Adviser to Maj. Leader Reid and Sen. Kennedy
Conservative columnist for New York Daily News, contributing editor at Townhall Magazine, commentator and author
Former Special Adviser for Green Jobs under President Obama, co-founder of Rebuild the Dream, author and attorney
Health care has always been a sensitive topic on the minds of millions of average American family's which work two jobs to put food on the table,and their kids to school or college but what happens when we need health care the most if one of our son's or daughter needed a liver transplant because she was dying form cancer would we have to sell our houses and break into to our retirement fund to save our children. With Obama Care it's universal just like other countries where health care is a right, not a privilege for the rich who can afford it we should be glad that America has joined the rest of the countries that we can have free health care without the worry's on how we can pay for it. As American's we know our great nation has the ability to make great choice's from allowing our great military to have funding for the latest bombs to drop on terrorists to protect our freedom. When it comes to health care should we not as American's have the choice and the right to pick a system like Obama Care which will save millions of American's and children's lives across this great nation for years to come.
what type of government tells each individual taxpayer what they want or don't want????? the answer is our future and as a vet on veterans day--our freedom is at stake.
This idea that existing policies are substandard is just another strawman by the ACA supporters.
My existing policy lacks only two of the required 10 coverage areas: maternity/prenatal/neonatal and pediatric. As a retired single 59 year old male I consider the incurred risk to my life savings to be zero. Fortunately I can renew my existing policy in December for $300/mo, as the equivalent ACA policy from the same insurer would be $660/mo. I consider the extra $4000/yr to be simply a tax/wealth transfer/federal extortion.
Statistics show that conservatives are and have been more generous givers to charity.This is because we believe in helping others who have made poor life decisions or who have suffered bad luck. However, do not point a gun at us and take the rewards of our work in order to buy the vote of another.
I applied for insurance with Blue Cross 20 years ago - just major medical - not even close to that offered by ACA. The cost was well over 500 dollars a month just for myself with no preexisting condition. It is good that someone your age can get good health insurance for 300 dollars a month. It hasn't been my experience. Maybe there is a downward pressure on insurance rates while ACA is out there and viable, but it will go away quicky if ACA is not fully implemented.
If it was true that conservatives are more compassionate than others there is no better test of that conclusion than how they stand on the President's inititve to guarantee affordable healthcare to all Americans - not the second rate solutions dished out to the poor by under staffed and underfunded community clinics (that charitable conservatives prefer for the poor). Indeed, one can argue that no healthcare is better than second rate care - at least sick people know they have a condition that is undiagnosed instead of having in brushed aside with a false diagnoses because they are not insured.
Instead of supporting the ACA and helping to insure so many Americans we see Republicans unified at stopping it by any means while offering no solution, driving up the costs by inducing younger people to not sign up, refusing to set up state exchanges or expand medicaid even though it would cost their state nothing. These belligerant attitudes don't ring with compassion - they ring with a complete disregard for the true needs of millions of people. While they can rejoice today that the federal website has many problems it would hardly be an issue if they had tried to do their part.
Obamacare was sold to the public based on LIES.
Absloutely man. Everybody gets birth control and maternity leave, covered!
Obama is the biggest liar to ever sit in the white house. He LIED to everyone in the US.
Yes, Virginia - diamond rings w/quality 18K gold do indeed cost more than cubic zirconium trinkets that turn your finger green.
As is often the case, the devil is in the details. Unfortunately, far too many people prefer simplistic, non-nuanced, superficial explanations and analyses to complex issues.
Hence, the widespread dissemination within the right wing blogosphere about anecdotal accounts demonstrating the 'horrors of the ACA' ... even when it is the result of news stories which ignore cost/benefit analyses between health coverage plans available under the ACA vs. the POS pseudo-insurance plans that some folks have been relying upon.
Maybe you should pick up the cost difference for all these people who were lied to.
Excellent point, labman. I do wish reporters would do their job and follow up these claims and compare exactly what the old plan was vs the new. I supppose there wouldn't be a hysterical claim against Obamacare then though.
318 million people in the US, Obamacare cost thus far 360 Million, would it not been cheaper to give everyone a million
here is your anecdote ass wipe.....just kicked off my coverage....535 month for a family...1500 deductible....100% coverage..........now to get a similar plan....it would cost me 1400 permonth....almost 3 times the cost........the rebate is 600....but that is in the form of a tax credit...BFD!!!!....how do I pay that now...........ok lets go to similar premium........680 per month 13750 deductible.........seriously????????......still more money per month and crap insurance.......but oh hey maternity coverage for my 50 year old wife is available!!!!!!!...........Obama is a liar....a big fat liar who lies to cover his lies and then lies about that too.........we as a nation have failed by giving this guy any chance ...let alone 2 chances
"it's really good" Obama 2013
If you like your health plan, you'll get to keep it. If you like your Dr, you'll get to keep them" Obama 2010
93,000,000 Americans will lose their current plan so Obama can sign up 6 of the 45,000,000 that don't have insurance?
"just a small percentage of Americans will lose their current plans" Obama 2013
95,000,000 is not an insignificant number. Maybe to politicians who like to spend trillions of dollars – but 95,000,000 is a significant number, especially when a MAJORITY of these will pay more.
Well, I know I'm rather easily manipulated by policies that have a direct positive effect on me and people I know.
I don't like subsidizing big "family" farms, oil companies and a host of federal and state institutions that primarily serve corporations. They don't really help me a lot. Deregulating energy future derivatives didn't really help me a lot. It made the price of fuel go through the roof and everything else followed suit. Tort reform didn't help me a lot. In Texas, the Republicans set the value of a human life at 500,000 dollars. Some of them own homes worth more than that. That didn't help me a lot. Iraq didn't have WMD after all. As Scott Ritter said on CNN in days leading up to the war "Weapons inspections work - there are no WMD in Iraq anymore." So that war may have paved the way for Halliburton to move its world headquarters to United Arab Emirates but it didn't help me a lot.
I don't like people having to work with diseases and illnesses that can be caught early and cured inexpensively if they just have decent healthcare. ACA will solve that problem. When 50,000 of our fellow Amercians die every year from the lack of insurance, I don't like it. That doesn't help me a lot.
I know that like others I'm supposed to value the opulence of the one percent over the needs of the many, but I don't. That doesn't help me a lot.
So I guess you are right. I'm very easily manipulated by policies that work for the vast majority of Americans.
You're dreaming if you think ACA will help people. Rationed care, death panels, and fewer doctors are the result of this socialist policy. Whenever you hear, "We're from the government and we're here to help" you know it's going to be messed up.
No. You need to review your sources on that. Those claims were debunked over a year ago and repeating lies over and over doesn't make them true. Just persistent lies. The death panels aready exist and they have for years - they are the busness staff at hospitals and care providers who refuse to see pateints if they don't have insurance and often send them home with a bottle or pills to die. Republicans need to start putting human life ahead of their lunacy and stop driving up the costs of the ACA/Obamacare.
Remember Pres.Kennedy's motto, ASK not what the country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Now the MOTTO of the DEMOCRATS is, ASK not what YOU can do for your country, but what the country can do for you.
President Kennedy was a New Deal Democrat. What you might call a "liberal". Today he would be firmly behind the Affordable Care Act. His stand was consistently for social justice. The minimum wage laws, increases in Social Security and civil rights. These stands led his opponents to demonize him in the same way President Obama is demonized today. On the day he was murdered a Dallas newspaper ran a full page right-wing rant ad accusing him of treason and socialism. In that environment it is little wonder a nut case like Oswald felt inspired to kill him. They would do the same now if the Secret Service wasn't so much better today.
I agree that a lot of people, corporations and Republicans especially should be asking what they can do for their country instead of what they are doing now.
"The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all."
John F. Kennedy
I think Obamacare is surely a bitter coverage! How can it be better when people are losing their coverage and when people have to pay more for existing coverage
Collectively it is much better – however you are correct – people that have been gambling with their health based upon if the get really sick they go bankrupt and let the government pay the whole tab – now have to pay their fair share. They can no longer use the government as a last chance insurance coverage. Basically if you have medicad and medicare – you have to have Obamacare – or else the government will go broke paying for the people that think they are getting something cheap but are actually using medicare as a backstop.
Jeff – Unnlike others on this site, you have hit the nail right on the head. When only 60% of people who go to the hospital for any length of stay, and CAN'T PAY THEIR BILLS, who do you think picks up the tab? WE do. Those of us with insurance whos premeiums go up year after year pay for it is who. Thank you President Obama for doing something to improve our healthcare system.
The group of people that use the emergency room as their hospital and never pay their bills are not going to buy a policy now just like they didn't do then. Even if they do, the way the system is set up, they are low income and will pay little or nothing. The healthy young people that don't use these services now will be the ones paying for them. Once again Gen Y is paying the credit bills that the baby boomers are maxing out.
The only good coverage of Obama Care Virus is the funeral home, medical negligence, expensive, a fraud, a monopoly, a violation of the freedom of choice, a threat to privacy, a cover for a KGB(American style). for identity theft etc.,
I think this depends on your situation – some people choose to have minimum coverage and pay the least – for those it would probably benefit, but not someone who already has semi-decent coverage but their plan doesn't qualify under the Obama plan.
Perhaps it's better for those that were just doing nothing to be good providers, but for those that have been good providers and have been happy with what they had, well the Democrats are just saying that's to bad if you were happy, you can't keep what you had because the law was written so that the insurance companies would have to drop you and the affordable plan you were on. Now take what the Democrats have and you will like it. So much if you like your plan you can keep it.
Within a few years, after all the bugs are fixed, and the doctors realize what a cash cow Obamacare is, they will join all the greedy Grey Hairs who are fussing about Obamacare today; and threaten all government entities to keep their hands off of their Federally subsidized health care.
This entire argument is a joke. Corporations get tax kickbacks, Farmers are paid to not grow crops, Government Contractors get sweetheart deals, Banks get Infinate bad loan protection, and the only ones who get the shaft is the retarded voters who keep voting the same yahoos into Office.
We need to stop complaining about welfare mothers, because they are taking such a small piece of the overall welfare pie.
Hahahahaha! Your post is funneee!
this is a lie from hell itself--the "better insurance" is how obamacare is getting people kicked out of their present coverage so they can get the numbers--and they knew this years ago and hide it. When do you impeach a president???? Nixon hid watergate by protecting his people but this chicago style adminl had done 10 times the damage.
the insurance is horrible the worst I have ever seen every time you see a doctor 60 dls copay that is insane by the time you get labs and xray and then meds that doctor visit is going to be 200 dls it is cheaper to go into the er
Why don't you learn sentence structure and learn to spell.
Thank God you're here! I was really wondering when the grammar police were going to show up!
Is that a question? Shouldn't there be a question mark at the end instead of a period?
YOU can have anything in an insurance contract, go to Loyds of London. No preexisting conditions, buy then a real insurance company would want to give you a physical first and determine their risk before entering into a contract with you...otherwise they would have no means to establish a legal contract with you...so, this means since we can't ask care providers to treat you for free we can't reduce the cost of treating you...so to call the program The Affordable Health Care Act is in it's self manipulation, a lie. So, why would your govt, those in power who can force you into this program have to lie and manipulate you to FORCE you into their plan? Why would you trust them? Why would you vote for them? Since medicare and medicaid is raft with fraud and mismanagement why would you think these leftist would do a better job..because some former community organizer, second rate college lecturer, and junior senator with a shady past tells you so?
It's called the Affordable Healthcare Act because it will reduce the profiteering in the healthcare system that is literally killing thousands of Americans every year. It should have been unthinkable from the start but when so many in our country value wealth even over the very lives of their neighbors that model becomes acceptable even to those who deem themselves "Christian." Making profits from sick and dying people should be reserved for medical staff if it is to exist at all - it should never have been farmed out to investors. So far as lying is concerned: If Republicans hadn't spent billions of dollars lying to people about the "Government run healthcare system" Obama wouldn't have had reason to foreswear himself. A better example of lying is lying about the facts to drive up support for two unnecessary wars while demonizing those who were vocal in opposing it.
Every year thousands of people find the insurance they have been paying for isn't in network or is worthless at the time they are admitted to hospitals with major health issues. It is better that they find out before they need it.
They can blame and falsely accuse Obama, but many people who demonize the ACA today will have their lives saved by it. Some will not even know the difference and others won't have the intellectual honesty to admit they were wrong.
Obamacare is about Democrats' large easily manipulated voting boc goal of 19 million Happy Subsidy Voters and 16 Million Happy Medicaid Voters funded by phasing out the biggest tax deduction on IRS books- Employer Health Premiums at $250 billion per year.
Obama' definition of "rich" for tax hike purposes is $47,100 single $94,200 family, since those people will get big tax hikes if they get dumped into the exchanges. They will fund their neighbor's subsidies. The most nauseating aspect of this is that REVENUE from this massive tax hike was included in original ACA budget as Obama was earnestly "promising" "If you make less than $250k your taxes won't go up."
"The Affordable Care Act addresses income maldistribution in America."
-Democratic Senator Max Baucus, March 2010
Architect of Obamacare
Retiring rather than face re election in Montana
I don't like the incentive for folks to make less money to qualify for the gov subsidy! It's counter productive to growing our way out! 25,000+ pages of new regulations and new Fed government to follow isn't simple enough either! I know, I must be racist and heartless huh?
I don't want to pay for a family plan. I am not a family. There is no choice for millions of men and single women. We are being forced to give up 10% of our pay or more for things we will not need for 30 years or more if ever. funny I never expected the democrats to demand my compliance by force and slander. I guess we are all wrong about those crazy bible thumping republicans making us comply with their morality. The DNC is cracking the whip of compliance or you are evil.
Most of us baby boomers self insured during our 20s and 30s when we were healthy-beat the cost of self insuring will ya?
The only way the IRS can collect the individual mandate tax is by withholding it from refunds.
If you change your W4 at work to zero withholding, you can buy a super cheap catastrophic non Obamacare compliant plan in private exchanges. This means of course that you write a check for tax owed, if any, based on your actual W2, and send it in before 4/15/2014.
See Affordable Care Act Section 1501(g)(2).
You believed all the crap being spewed on CNN/MSNBC and the rest of them. I don't blame you. I did too for a long time. Now I see the light. I wasn't registered Democrat, but I voted for Democrats for a long time. But now I see that the liberal agenda is very destructive to this country and what we stand for.
Wish I had more time to make my post flow, but I had to comment as I watched this, so here goes my many thoughts...Please stop bringing up how Democrats are helping women! "Being a woman is a pre-existing condition." Dear Lord, where do these people come up with these things!! Too many Americans have me-itis, sue-itis, and entitlement-itis!! As much as I want smaller government, I could agree that some tweaks needed to be made to our current health insurance problems and perhaps the government could have made those tweaks. But taking it over and making it mandatory for everyone (except those whom the government decides to exempt, including the government bodies themselves)? Listen, Medicaid patients already receive free healthcare, right? Shouldn't they go to the doctor for preventative care since it doesn't cost them anything for the insurance and often times it does not cost them anything for the visit? Why then are many of them also paid to see the doctor? Really!! MHS gives Medicaid patients money on a debit card for taking their kids to the doctor. They can "earn" over $100 a year (I assume per child) for taking them to the doctor with insurance paid for by the tax payers. They were telling patients about it and signing them up right in the doctor's waiting room (along with cake and ice cream-only for those who were with MHS-sorry you children who don't have MHS). I pay a hefty insurance premium; I pay a copay and out of pocket costs; I care enough to take my children to the doctor; no one pays me to take care of my children or to take them to the doctor. How much more do these people want?? I'm not positive it was Anthem insurance, but a Medicaid patient brought a card to the doctor and wanted it filled out so they could get a $50 gift card. If they saw the doctor between Jan. and Dec of this year they could get a $50 gift card! Where's mine? I'm fed up with the leeches of our society. There are plenty of deserving people we need to help, but oh so many leeches feeding off the system. Look at disability. It's my understanding that it started to help out truly disabled people, those who were paralyzed and couldn't work. Now the number of people receiving disability is staggering and for "ailments" as simple as alcoholism, drug abuse, back aches, mental illnesses not truly incapacitating. The insanity must stop!
Just wanted to let the Ms. Schawowsky that I have recieved the same letter from Blue Cross Blue Sheild of
Il but when I called to get rates they where tripple the prices and higher deductable. Example My son who has
a plan who pays with Dental 141.63 a month for the same plan will be 283.00 a month plus dental
and a higher deductable. My son does not fit the criteria for Obama Care since he make too much
money according the them. How much is too much when he make 700.00 a week and has car payments
and etc.. I wish the president would reconcider this law and leave every one as is and have the goverment
work with insurance companies to help get people with no insurance and pre-exsisiting conditions at a good rate
so everyone can have insurance.
And in other news Schakowsky received million dollar gift from The White House.
Crony capitalism is alive and well! GM cost us 10 Billion. How much for Detroit? The next bank?