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<p>This is really not an good argument, because schools are local, but I will answer it to address the bigger picture.</p>
<p>My kids’ school was not destroyed or diminished and made more expensive to open another school somewhere else. And most of all, I dictate the services that I want to purchase. If I do not like the services in my school, I can move or kick out the school board (which we did by the way). The ACA is just dictatorial one size fits all nonsense.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why San Francisco tenant laws are relevant to this conversation. (And if I were the Czar of the Bay Area, I’d get rid of rent control, up the density allowances the NIMBYs voted in, and get rid of all parking mandates and charge for government-provided parking. So this is not a matter of a liberal disagreeing about the SF law; I just think the tenant laws are irrelevant for what we are discussing.)</p>
<p>And you can vote out your Congressional representatives, too. Also, you can move out of the US. Feel free. I hear Somalia has low taxes and hardly any government regulations.</p>
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<p>And that is correct - I recall the House did change in 2010. There are many things that take time, but they do get done. </p>
<p>Dietz199, I am just reading the posts here and exact words seem to be very important to posters. :)</p>
<p>If the intent wasnt to provide subsidies to those people who live in states that are using the federal exchange, we wouldn’t be providing subsidies to those people who live in states using the federal exchange.</p>
<p>It is not that complicated. ;)</p>
<p>Edit: I want the supreme court to rule against the subsidies.</p>
<p>"Government should not be setting prices.</p>
<p>Why not? </p>
<p>Governments all over the world set the prices which is why everyone in other countries pay so much less for health care than people in the US. We are the dumbest people in the world. </p>
<p>Our system has been horribly ineffective and extremely costly.</p>
<p>I’m personally very happy to help pay for Fang’s and La Mas’s kid so they are able to afford to purchase health care. </p>
<p>I don’t understand how some people can be so miserly. </p>
<p>dietz and actingmt, My D is almost 23, and lives in a different state, so putting her on our plan wouldn’t do her much good except for maybe the Emergency Room. Also, she has a preexisting condition, which before ACA made her uninsurable. That’s right, she could not get insurance at any price. If insurers were required to accept her now, but set any price they wanted based on her medical history, and there were no subsidies – her income and mine and my husband’s combined would not be enough to pay the premium. We’re not talking about a couple of hundred bucks’ difference, or something that could be covered by a 2nd job.</p>
<p>CF: your right…I went off on a rather distant tangent…</p>
<p>LF, great link on 2015 proposed rate increases.</p>
<p>@dietz199 – I don’t understand why you would assume that parents in a financial position to help out their grown kids in buying insurance, whatever the cost or level of insurability. In my family, pre-ACA, the cash flow was going the other way. My kids’ father was borrowing money from my d. to try to keep his insurance in force – he could make the payments, d. was a year or so out of college with a job paying something in the high $30K range (in NYC). My ex has a long history of medical issues, so even when we were married we had separate policies because the rates for a family family with him on it would have been sky high. It ended up that even after borrowing money from d., my ex lost his coverage when Anthem jacked up the rates a few months down the line. So the borrowing for insurance shifted to borrowing to pay to see a doctor. Obviously it’s a huge relief to the whole family now that he can get good ACA coverage at a subsidized rate – his health problems meant that he was unable to work for several month. It’s not just a matter of one person’s finances - do you see what a huge burden that creates for his kids? </p>
<p>Whatever the cost of LasMa’s daughter’s insurance, it is not something that LasMa should be expected to pay for. </p>
<p><a href=“The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less - The New York Times”>The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less - The New York Times;
<p>One reason subsidies are necessary…</p>
<p>Your fellow citizens dont have much…</p>
<p>If you have a lot, feel good about it…</p>
<p>But you dont have much company…</p>
<p>“Government should not be setting prices.”</p>
<p>“Why not?”</p>
<p>LOL. Why am I not surprised that an employee of the govt receiving a health insurance plan that most Americans can only dream about, is in favor of govt-imposed price controls. Ask the citizens of Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea and a bunch of other countries how well that works.</p>
<p>This is in reply to poetgrl’s post 15140 in which she states we do not want IRS officials making law. The reality is that government officials make law every day because they are left to interpret statutes passed by legislative bodies.
I have a saying I use with lawyers and attorneys quite often. Legislators write the statues, tax administrators and tax professionals interpret those statutes and tax court makes the law when the administrators and tax professionals do not agree on the interpretation. Until the court rules the law is what the administrator determines it is. The vast majority of statutes are not challenged in court so in fact IRS and other government officials do make the law. You would be surprised how many statutes are not as clear in meaning as they should be.</p>
<p>Why should I ask people in third world countries? Instead, I’ll ask the citizens of Canada whether they’d rather have our system. Hahahaha. They’d rather have theirs. </p>
<p>@tom1944-- I’d add that is how it works at all levels of government, and how it is intended to the work. Legislatures pass broad laws; administrative agencies have the responsibility of developing regulations to enforce the laws; and the courts resolve disputes over the law’s interpretation, with broad deference given to the determination of administrative agencies. </p>
<p>This is how it works now and always has worked, whether the agency is the IRS, or the EPA, or the immigration department, or whether it’s a local state agency enforcing state laws, such as the state’s education or insurance departments. The agencies generally have a regulatory process that involves publishing a proposed regulation for comments, possibly conducting public hearings, and ultimately issuing final regulations. At times this process might be cut short when there is a need for issuance of emergency regulations – for example, you might imagine FEMA issuing emergency regulations governing processing of claims in the wake of an unanticipated large disaster. </p>
<p>But overall the process is designed to be transparent and open to direct citizen input. </p>
<p>It really isn’t possible for laws to be written in a way that avoids uncertainty, because even when the language of a statute seems very simple and clear, there are always fact situations that arise that don’t quite fit, or where application of a strict, literal interpretation of the statute would lead to absurd or unjust results. If there is no specific regulation, then the agencies can deal with those issues on an ad hoc basis – generally there is also some sort of framework where each agency essentially has its own system of administrative hearings or officers charged with making those sorts of decisions – but if an issue comes up frequently, then regulations will be developed to deal with them. </p>
<p>The situation on the border is a good example of that interplay in action. Congress passed a law a few years back to deal with the issue of human sex trafficking – criminals bringing underage children across the border for purposes of prostitution. So to protect the child victims of that crime, Congress established a system for immigration decisions that was tilted toward the interests of the children. But that legislation resulted in opening the door to another group of children: those who are intentionally leaving their countries of origin to escape from dangerous and/or impoverished environments. </p>
<p>So now we have a problem at the border that is imminent, and no short-term likelihood of legislation to address it. Following the law as written means to adhere to the statute designed with child victims of sex traffickers in mind. These kids cannot be summarily deported or turned away at the border because the law, as written, prohibits that. So on the administrative end, there’s an effort now to fill the legislative gap with appropriate regulations to meet a situation that has reached crisis proportions.</p>
<p>The legislature always has the power to act— but the administrative agencies and their regulatory authority is there to fill in the gap until that happens. And unlike legislatures, the administrative agencies can’t avoid deciding issues that are controversial or unpopular. </p>
<p>Canadians, and the rest of the world, think we’re stone crazy. No one would trade places with us. NO ONE.</p>
<p>Have you ever had a gall bladder attack? Let me tell you the pain is excruciating. About 10 years ago, I had my first such attack after Thanksgiving dinner. It is horrific pain that no painkiller will do anything for. I had another attack a few days later. I was driving and I thought I’d pass out. I could barely breathe. </p>
<p>By early December, I had seen the surgeon, scheduled the surgery and had the gall bladder out. </p>
<p>Now consider those poor Canadians and people in the UK. They wait 6 months to have a cholecystectomy. 6 months of enduring that kind of pain. 6 months of worrying whether the gall bladder will rupture. </p>
<p>There is no way I would ever, ever want to live under such a system. </p>
<p>LasMa thank you for explaining. Now, it’s quite clear you are just making up a worst possible case scenario in some imaginary land where health insurance without subsidies costs more than a family income. Good grief. As for no-one wanting to trade places with us, there is still no shortage of folks from other countries who want US citizenship for some reason. Probably not health care, though. The link in Post 15190 is my biggest concern and this is making that problem much worse. Sadly. </p>
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<p>Nor should another other parent be expected to pay for someone else’s kids. </p>
<p>Why are people raising kids who are not productive enough to pull their own weight? I would be embarrassed if my kids had to beg and live off of other people’s money.</p>
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<p>Not quite sure what you’re saying here. If you doubt what insurance would have cost her before ACA, consider that they declined to cover her at any price. But if they were forced to cover her, they would darn sure want to charge a high enough premium to cover what they think her costs might be. More, actually, since they have to make a profit after all. That’s how they’d get out of covering her. And yes, some peoples’ medical costs are more than a family’s income. You don’t know that?</p>
<p>Or are you simply accusing me of lying about my daughter’s health and insurance situation?</p>