Hahahah! Good show, old boys!
You Yankee fellows really are most amusing, as it would appear my sides have ruptured at terminal velocity - I shall surely be needing to see a general practitioner of the National Health Service with most haste!
Well, toodle-pip and tally ho and all that, eh wot?

Stackelberg, you mischaracterize the congressional waiver and waivers as a group. Individuals and families face the mandate now. They must comply by January 1, and have to buy qualifying plans between Oct 1 and January 1. Members of Congress and their staffs should face the same dislocation as everyday Americans who pay for their own insurance out of pocket. The fact that business received a one year delay, and that over 1,000 businesses, unions, and government employers received waivers that keep them from having to comply in any meaningful way is a clear example of corruption and cronyism. Your argument that it is a so-called "waiver" doesn't stand the smell test when compared to individual Americans. If any American has to change their health care to comply all Americans should have to pure and simple. Those employed by government and big corporations should feel the exact same pain and individuals and families who pay for their own care privately. No special treatment for anyone. We are all in the ACA together at the same time and under the same regulations or no one should be affected by it at all.

Cancerous, Sorry, but no one see a doctor in the NHS with "most haste." In fact people die in British hospitals are a significantly higher rate than in American hospitals and survive cancer at catastrophically lower rates in Britain.

I'm aware.
I was being a parody of Britishness for comedic effect.

Emac, I actually agree that the employer mandate should probably instead be repealed, although the administration's delay is obviously legal if they are taken at their word that they cannot enforce it now (a stretch for even me to believe, I concede). If Republicans in Congress would agree to a vote on simply repealing the employer mandate, most Democrats would likely agree -- unfortunately, Republicans will not agree to sensible fixes to Obamacare.

But Congress did not receive a "waiver" of any kind. Every other individual on the exchanges is eligible for subsidies, and no other large employer is going to be on the exchanges in 2017. The law as written does not give Congress better treatment, or even the same deal as the rest of America: it gives Congressional staffers a *much, much* worse deal if Congress is not allowed to continue to make the same contributions to their health care plans.

Calling this a waiver and special treatment implies that Congress is exempt from following some rule everyone in their situation has to follow... but that is nonsense because no one else is in the same situation as Congress by design. Graham's amendment was a poison pill for the law; Democrats swallowed it and have found a legal administrative solution.

Why should an American who owns a business and buys insurance in the private marketplace face the ACA mandate before a congressional staffer, a employee of a large corporation, a UAW member, or the member of a public employee union? They shouldn't!
As long as the Republicans tie their refusal to fund the government to a delay in the individual mandate and the end of waiver for members of Congress and congressional staffers they can't lose. Congress and staffers should feel the effects of the ACA at the same time any group of Americans do.

I don't think you understand the delay. Congress is facing the mandate before employers.

Stack, you make a completely unsubstantiated statement "Republicans will not agree to sensible fixes to Obamacare." You should realize that "sensible" if an ambiguous, value laden term that can mean virtually anything to anyone. If you want to make a point that isn't nonsense then make an explicit statement. For example the Republicans want to repeal tax on medical equipment and stated the publicly. Why is the tax still in place?

I do understand the delay. The point the Republicans keep making that I support is the individual mandate should get the same delay as the employer mandate.

By the way, you want an example of fucked up Obamacare? Try putting 5K into your FSA. you can't. HSA are worthless pieces of shit because the only plans eligible for them have *extremely* high deductibles and aren't feasible for middle aged Americans. FSAs work with lower deductibles but ACA dropped the allowed contribution to 2500 from 5000. In other words, People over 40 got fucked by Obama with Obamacare. And don't try to say that's a lie because eI am living proof of it. I wanted to up my contribution from 3K to 5K because we went through 3K by last September and I had to actually drop it to 2500. Now, I ran out in august instead of September and have to pay for medication and office visits after tax. No tax break for me.

So Obama said "Fuck you, over 40 workers who are the senior people. I don't care that you aren't all Officers at your corporations with 7 figure salaries. You don't deserve to get a tax break for medical expenses any more."

@Emac: IMO, with the individual mandate, exchanges, and subsidies in place, there simply should be no employer mandate. It's redundant and bad for employment. Plus, tying health care to employment was literally the worst policy choice anyone ever made.

You could probably round up a bunch of Democrats that want to repeal the medical devices tax, too. But they won't because they no longer believe Republicans will agree to small changes to Obamacare - every demand is repeal Obamacare, cut tax rates in half, and also repeal Dodd-Frank while you're at it. Democrats in the Senate now believe that if they offered up the medical devices tax as a compromise, Republicans would pocket it, and then up their ante again - which I should add, is precisely what happened when they agreed to sequestration levels of funding: Republicans then demanded not only a $300 billion reduction from Obama's 2014 budget, but also Wall Street deregulation, the entire Romney-Ryan tax reform package, and a repeal of Obamacare. They got tired of Lucy always pulling the football out from under them. Obviously this is my opinion of how congressional Democrats feel, but it is supported by most of the analysis from progressive opinion leaders and is probably an accurate reflection of what the constant escalation of demands by Republicans has done to Democratic willingness to sacrifice their sacred cows in the spirit of compromise.

@Draugnar: It's true that that Obamacare reduced the tax benefits of using HSAs and FSAs, but the $2,500 limit (indexed to inflation) is still well above the average employee contribution of under $1500. I get that losing the benefits suck, but HSAs were being used widely not as a way of paying for health care, but for retirement savings. Those changes were made to ensure that they were only used for spending on medical expenses. I can't speak as to whether or not the $2,500 limit is high enough, but it was a truly fucked up flaw in the tax code that allow HSAs to be used as retirement vehicles and a policy change like this was warranted on the merits independence of the ACA.

Stacks, Edward Kennedy created the legislation that forced employers to offer HMO insurance back in the HMO Act of 1973.

As a matter of fact two members of the House of Representatives made a proposal to repeal the medical device tax. One was a Republican, Charlie Dent and one a Democrat Ron Kind. Here are links to their public statements of the bi-partisan proposal they put forth.
http://www.mcall.com/videogallery/77650441/VIDEO-Charlie-Dent-Offers-Shutdown-Compromise
http://kind.house.gov/latest-news/rep-ron-kind-dwi-and-rep-charlie-dent-rpa-lead-bipartisan-effort-to-end-government-shutdown/
The proposal was immediately rejected by democrats in the Senate who refused to negotiate any changes to the ACA until a clean resolution is passed. This won't happen because this democratic demand is in effect saying the republicans have no say in the continuing resolution, the republicans can only pass a clean one they cannot defund or underfund anything, and this is an absurd position because it is the constitutional duty of the House to appropriate. The Democrats want to eviscerate the power of the Republican House and this caused the shutdown. The Democrats want to break the House and the shutdown is clearly not on the fault of the Democrats but the outcome their policy desired.

The medical device lobby did wonders with that one

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114989/government-shutdown-2013-gerrymandering-isnt-blame

Gerrymander did not lead to shutdown.

@Stack - The problem is only HSA's cam be used for that purpose. FSAs are use it or lose it in that year so that claim is a lame bullshit liberal excuse to steal tax dollars from older Americans who need the better plans and higher contributions.

@Emac: yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Republican proposals will never be taken seriously under crisis conditions. It is highly regular to force a shutdown to define a law or program that you do not have the votes to repeal. If the situation were reversed and a Democratic house made a CR conditional (ie threatened a gov shutdown) on funding to confiscate all guns in America or some other Democratic priority that one chamber of congress alone cannot pass, you would not be making these same arguments.

@Draug, you're only, only HSAs roll over. The rationale, as I see it, is that $2500 is still well in excess of the average contribution and amount used, and that the high deductible plans they are meant to complement will generally no longer exist. It does seem like a bumpy transition though.

*highly irregular

Stack, Obama/Reid/Pelosi "NEVER" take Republican proposals seriously concerning the ACA. They didn't accept on Republican amendment when it was written. They didn't secure on Republican vote for passage. They haven't allowed on Republican change to the law since it was signed despite the fact they've made almost two dozen.
Your contention is false.

But those high deductible plans are the only ones eligible for HSAs. If they no longer exist, why have HSAs. and why punish those with FSAs in the meantime. There was no reason to drop the FSA from a 5K contribution *except* to tax people who might use that additional amount more. If someone has a serious illness, 2500 isn't worth crap. My wife spends over $100 in pills alone every month for her epilepsy and osteoporosis and I spend another $50+ for diabetes, thyroid, and blood pressure meds. So we spend $1800+ per year just on medications. Add in our $500 deductible and 20% copay and it doesn't take long for us to rack up $2500.

No, Obamacare did it to help fund it. They said "fuck middle aged people with aging diseases, we need their tax dollars" and that's exactly what they did - fuck us without even giving us a kiss.

Draugnar is absolutely correct, the ASA destroyed the fiscal viability of having an HSA.

'Sorry, but no one see a doctor in the NHS with "most haste." In fact people die in British hospitals are a significantly higher rate than in American hospitals ' - you make it sound like the Brits put people who are at risk of dying in hospital, but the yanks let them die at home or on the street.

Are you refering to a report which wasn't peer-reviewed?

The guy who also happened to point out that the US spends twice as much per person, yet has a lower life expectancy than the UK? (and higher infant mortality rates)

So, infact, the socialist system gets better value for money for the British, odd considering the free market dogma... (this : http://www.nhs.uk/news/2013/09September/Pages/death-risk-much-higher-in-English-than-US-hospitals.aspx )

We shall see what Obama's health care market which includes everyone will do to these stats.

@ora - Anyone in the US who dies on the street from a malady is a moron. Hospitals have always treated patients first and have been required to care for anyone regardless of ability to pay for decades. They have funds and receive taxpayer money for this service, so not going to the hospital is stupid. Always has been.

@Draug, that does not change the life expectancy statistics, nor the infant mortality ones - nor indeed the average paid on health care per person.

The study above does seem to indicate the US hospitals are better than UK hospitals - and if the chance of dying is 45% higher in a UK hospital (for a given condition, averaged) then does this not seem to suggest that those americans who do go to hospital are better off, but other die without healthcare (and are bringing down the life expectancy?) Or am i actually mis-understanding these stats...

perhaps Americans come into hospital with far worse conditions, and die more often (hence the lower life expectancy) but when all other things are the same - ie arriving at a hospital with any specific set of conditions - they get better treatment?

this has nothing to do with obama. this is the federal governments doing. do you really think he makes the important decisions?

news on this - a bill was just passed paying the furloughed workers! so... they are being paid to sit at home. as i have said before it is just extortion of the american people to get them to agree to the government putting debt on their heads and their childrens heads while giving them nothing in return for that debt.

i would not be surprised if the government shutdown ended up costing more money than if the shutdown had not happened. but if they can get the public to go along with it they can borrow trillions more and pile it on the people. or raise taxes, or anything else. if people start to fight back against it, shut down their services again. it may cost money to do it, but it costs organized criminals money to break someones legs. a small price to pay, in their eyes, to keep the extortion racket going. they are thinking long-term.

Yes, the federal government is just the same as organised crime. And if you don't want to support them then give up your citizenship and try to find another nation to take you (or find some null terris and claim it as your own) Lots of countries will take you if youcan get a job, adding skills to their economy!

"Yes, the federal government is just the same as organised crime. And if you don't want to support them then give up your citizenship and try to find another nation to take you (or find some null terris and claim it as your own) Lots of countries will take you if youcan get a job, adding skills to their economy!"

Or I could stay where I am and try and reform the government so it is no longer a de facto mafia.

yeah, youre right i guess it is kind of the same. you run a bar in your local town and you get fed up with organized criminals saying you have to pay them 10% of your profits or get your legs broken you can always move somewhere else and hope you can start a new business there and hope that you do not have organized criminals running that town.

but at least with organized crime, they usually are not everywhere, so you have some hope of finding a place. and even different cities may have different ones. or different neighborhoods. so you might have thousands of places to choose from.

if you want to move to an english speaking country you might have the choice of ten countries or something. all of which are kind of controlled by the same world elite. so... the situation is a little bit different.

First, life expectancy rates are influenced by far more than illness. there is accidental deaths from automotive accidents and lifestyle issues that cause heart attacks and a plethora of other causes of illness and death at an early age, mch of which is brought about by our life style choices.

Infant mortality rates *are* generally a result of poor single moms not going to the hospital because they think they can't afford it as well as not having proper prenatal care or health and wellness care for the babies. Hospitals only help you after you are sick. Infants (and children and adults of all ages) need preventartive care and that isn't what hospitals are for.

Our average spent is two fold: One, uber rich superstars and their psychosomatic ailments and two, prescription drug costs for new therapies that the UK hospitals and doctors don't use.

But I'd rather have my present leg ailment in a hospital here (where I just came back from) than in the UK. It'll heal up here, while over there I'd probably lose the leg in the long run.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/07/all-about-power-and-leverage-feds-shut-down-major-roadway-block-access-to/

The latest in asshole behavior from the Federal government during the shutdown. A major thoroughfare in a rural county is shut down because it passes through a Federal park, and kids in school are cut off from their route home.