The Goat Pen

Hacksaw wrote:You're making way too much sense, puter.

Hacksaw wrote:I would guess the uncertainty of knowing how far it's going to go long-term, particularly in light of the fact that Obama is on-record saying that his eventual goal is "single payer" and acknowledging that it will have to be done incrementally in order to get it past the majority of people who don't want it. Future costs, contrary to what Obama has promised, are already being estimated to be exorbitant. And there's no way to know how high they will rise, or what effect it will have on the overall economy. The huge increase in the national debt since Obama was sworn-in doesn't seem to have phased him, so it's natural for people to wonder how much more he'll add to it and what effect it will have.

No one really can predict the cost to the government of providing for thes employees.

Hacksaw wrote:I would guess the uncertainty of knowing how far it's going to go long-term, particularly in light of the fact that Obama is on-record saying that his eventual goal is "single payer" and acknowledging that it will have to be done incrementally in order to get it past the majority of people who don't want it. Future costs, contrary to what Obama has promised, are already being estimated to be exorbitant. And there's no way to know how high they will rise, or what effect it will have on the overall economy. The huge increase in the national debt since Obama was sworn-in doesn't seem to have phased him, so it's natural for people to wonder how much more he'll add to it and what effect it will have.

Owlman wrote:

Hacksaw wrote:I would guess the uncertainty of knowing how far it's going to go long-term, particularly in light of the fact that Obama is on-record saying that his eventual goal is "single payer" and acknowledging that it will have to be done incrementally in order to get it past the majority of people who don't want it. Future costs, contrary to what Obama has promised, are already being estimated to be exorbitant. And there's no way to know how high they will rise, or what effect it will have on the overall economy. The huge increase in the national debt since Obama was sworn-in doesn't seem to have phased him, so it's natural for people to wonder how much more he'll add to it and what effect it will have.

Thank you for a serious response.
First, even if Obama wanted a "single payer" system, that has absolutely nothing to do with the current health care bill. Plus, regardless of what conservatives are saying, the Congressional Budget Office, has estimated that the costs of PPACA is cheaper than what the status quo was. This latter point therefore, really doesn't seem to effect longterm decision making by corporations more than many other decisions by the govt.

And third, none of that has anything to do with the current health care bill and so called uncertainty in hiring. And while I agree with you that some people wonder what it will do longterm, corporations don't as far as I can see. I actually have a student who just wrote a health law paper (still have to grade it) with the premise that it caused increased cost to corporations that were already providing health care to their employees and the only case he found it (at least in his draft) was where the corporation was providing minimum coverage.

Owlman wrote:

No one really can predict the cost to the government of providing for thes employees.

If the large company pays for the penalty, then that is less cost to the corporation, meaning the only uncertainty is a windfall for the corp. Otherwise, the costs remain the same. Also, if they don't pay for their employees, they don't go on any govt insurance (medicaid) because they make too much to qualify.

Hacksaw wrote:
Well, I'm not going to apologize for holding the man to his word. They were his words, after all, not mine. He said it. You know that I have the video to prove he said it, because I've posted it several times -- back when you guys acted like it was bullshit that he ever said it. So the video was posted and then your argument became, yeah, but he didn't really mean it or he changed his mind since then.

I'm sure that if there was a video from the early '90s that showed George W. Bush or Dick Cheney talking about how we needed to start a war with Iraq, but we would have to figure out a way to do it slowly, over time, because no one would go for it as the then-current situation stood -- I'm sure you guys would accept all assurances that they didn't really mean it. Go ahead and try to convince anyone here of that.

Obama is on record saying, in his own words, that his ultimate goal is single-payer -- and that he realizes that we will have to get there incrementally over time, in order to achieve that goal, since that's the only way he can sell it to the American people. Since then, he has done everything he can to steer health care towards that ultimate goal. The fact that you would characterize these facts as a "canard" speaks volumes.