How much has Obamacare saved the American people?

[Oneuli]

the national debt was just under $10T when Bush left.......it was just under $20T when Obama left (in fact it passed $20T before Trump signed a budget)........I don't consider that improvement, or a hard question.......

Come now, little coward. Don't try to change the subject to dodge the questions. Man up and face them directly:

What was the deficit when Bush left office? What was it when Obama left office? Was that an improvement or not? These are not hard questions.

 

[Oneuli]

to any questions of Obama's economic "success".......

Do you think this thread was about whether or not Obama was an economic success?

 

[PostmodernProphet]

Come now, little coward. Don't try to change the subject to dodge the questions. Man up and face them directly:

What was the deficit when Bush left office? What was it when Obama left office? Was that an improvement or not? These are not hard questions.

ROFL......I'm a coward when you won't admit that Obama's deficits totaled $10T dollars?......the question isn't hard, but you seem to find the answer hard to admit.......

 

[PostmodernProphet]

Do you think this thread was about whether or not Obama was an economic success?

you mean the thread titled "How much has Obamacare saved the American people"?........yeah, the thought crossed my mind for some reason.......

 

[Althea]

That's why I focus on total healthcare costs, rather than focusing on just one aspect (e.g., premiums, deductibles, copays, out-of-pocket expenses, etc.) In an unregulated market you could theoretically offer a health insurance plan that has a $99 deductible and a provision that voids the policy once you've had $100 of healthcare expenses. You could charge $2 for the policy and still make money on it, since it will never pay out more than $1. And that $2 policy would greatly reduce the average premium, even though the policy would be worthless.

That's obviously an extreme case, but it's just to illustrate the principle. Before Obamacare, we had predatory insurers that offered up policies that were effectively worthless, once you read the fine print. Basically, they were the Trump University of policies: a discount cost for something that isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Obamacare set standards for insurance, which weeded out the snakeoil policies. That exerted upward pressure on average premiums. Yet, surprisingly, even with that, average premiums have risen slower than normal. But, more importantly, total healthcare costs have risen MUCH slower than normal.

I had one of those policies when I was in my 20's. A guy came into my shop, and showed me a list of my neighbors who purchased the same policy. What did I know?

I had knee surgery, and found that my policy covered nothing but X-rays.

That was when I began paying attention to the coverage I was paying for.

 

[Oneuli]

the doubling of the national debt can be said of two presidents........Bush and Obama.......the bad news is that Obama came after Bush so his fuck up compounds Bush's fuck up.......

You lost track of the question (or you're playing the coward again and dodging the question). The question was about which two-term president can it not be said that national debt went UP eight times in the eight years of his presidency. Can you locate your manhood long enough to answer?

Anyway, federal debt in Reagan's first month was $934 billion. In his last month it was 2,698 billion. That's much more than a doubling. Reagan's not the only example, either. Under FDR, national debt rose almost ten-fold. So, now that you know that you're wrong about the doubling of the national debt only happening under two presidents, Bush and Obama, does it change any of your political opinions? Again, I'm betting not, because I'm betting your opinion has nothing at all to do with the facts, and thus that finding out you were mistaken about the facts cannot alter your opinions. Am I right?

 

[Oneuli]

you always want to play with percentages.........health care costs went up when the promise was they would go down.......so the rate of increase in one year was a smaller increase than it was a previous year......that ignores the fact that the increase in the previous year was outrageous........stop playing games and admit that Obama care did NOT do what was promised.......

You lost track of the argument. This isn't about the rate of increase in any particular year being higher than in the previous year. It's about the FACT that healthcare inflation since Obamacare passed has been considerably lower than in ANY period of that length before Obamacare. We're not talking about a one-year blip. We're talking about a period of eight years and eight months that saw less healthcare inflation than any prior period of that length. So, would we have been better off if healthcare costs had risen at an average rate, rather than this record low rate?\

Look, I get it: You're said that the facts are so hostile to your emotionally committed opinions. So, you want to change the subject to something else, like whether those who sold Obamacare overpromised what it would do. But that's not the topic of this thread. Regardless of whether Obamacare fell short of the extravagant promises of some politicians, it was a big improvement.

 

[Oneuli]

the 80's had an average growth rate of over 3.5% only slightly less than the 3.7% of the 70s.......where does Obama fall compared to that growth?......

I'll be happy to move on to your question, but first I'd like you to answer mine. Now that you know you were wrong about the 80s having explosive economic growth, has it altered any of your political opinions?

 

[Oneuli]

The mid '80's did boom economically. We have 7.2% gdp growth in 1984, something we haven't come close to since

Yes, the 80s had huge economic volatility, with both very strong and very weak years. The net result was economic growth that was the second-worst of any 20th-century decade. Now one can, of course, play the usual conservative game of saying all the others don't count for whatever reason (the 40s don't count because of WWII, the 50s and 60s don't count because of the Baby Boom, the 70s don't count because of Vietnam, the 90s don't count because of the growth of the Internet, etc.). But what does it tell you that right-wing arguments nearly always need to take the form of "the evidence backs me up as long as you don't consider 90% of the evidence"?

You're trying to spin things to fit your partisan leanings, and it take a huge amount of spin. By comparison, as you see, I merely need to lay out the facts and they argue for themselves. That's the luxury of building my opinions around the facts, rather than embracing immutable opinions and trying to then square the facts with them.

 

[Oneuli]

you never did indicate if your "statistics" included the federal subsidies paid to finance Obamacare.......do you know?.......

No clue what you're trying to say.

 

[Oneuli]

what can I say.......lib'ruls always win argument by saying "you're lying".......

No, as you can see, I won the argument without saying anything of the sort. I admitted the possibility that you were lying, or that you were telling the truth and your experience was atypical. Either way, the wider stats show what has been true for the average.

 

[Oneuli]

....I'm a coward ......

You are, indeed. But you have a choice about whether you want to remain a coward. You can always answer the questions:

What was the deficit when Bush left office? What was it when Obama left office? Was that an improvement or not?

 

[Oneuli]

you mean the thread titled "How much has Obamacare saved the American people"?........yeah, the thought crossed my mind for some reason.......

Then I'd recommend reading more carefully. Very honestly, the question of how much Obamacare saved the American people is different from the question of whether Obama was an economic success overall.

 

[Truth Detector]

the national debt doubled under Obama's failure to watch......that's the result of eight accumulated deficits averaging $1.25T a year......you can't be stupid enough to pretend that is good.....

Yes, Oneuli can, and then some!

 

[Truth Detector]

Picture speeding away from your home in a car.

I picture you stomping on the pedal and the car moving nowhere because the tank is empty.

 

[Truth Detector]

What was the deficit when Bush left office? What was it when Obama left office? Was that an improvement or not? These are not hard questions.

You love being a dishonest dumbfuck don't you?

President Bush added $5.849 trillion in debt.

Barrack Hussein Obama added $8.588 trillion. This 74 percent increase was the fifth-largest.

Deficit when Bush left office was $458.6 billion.

Deficit when Obama left office was $584.7 billion. Only a moron would call that an improvement.

 

[cawacko]

Yes, the 80s had huge economic volatility, with both very strong and very weak years. The net result was economic growth that was the second-worst of any 20th-century decade. Now one can, of course, play the usual conservative game of saying all the others don't count for whatever reason (the 40s don't count because of WWII, the 50s and 60s don't count because of the Baby Boom, the 70s don't count because of Vietnam, the 90s don't count because of the growth of the Internet, etc.). But what does it tell you that right-wing arguments nearly always need to take the form of "the evidence backs me up as long as you don't consider 90% of the evidence"?

You're trying to spin things to fit your partisan leanings, and it take a huge amount of spin. By comparison, as you see, I merely need to lay out the facts and they argue for themselves. That's the luxury of building my opinions around the facts, rather than embracing immutable opinions and trying to then square the facts with them.

The numbers are the numbers, you are correct. But building a story around the realities of the time is not wrong, any economist would do so. You can't look at GDP of years during the fighting of WWII and say it's comparing apples to apples with two non fighting years at some later point. And the geo-politics of the post war era had a very real effect on economic performance. There's nothing partisan about those statements, they're just facts. Technology, the rise of China, globalization all play, and played, a major role on the economy of the U.S. Our shift from an industrial economy to an information economy has played a major role and has had a major disruption.

 

[Truth Detector]

Here's real GDP growth by decade, in the 20th century, best to worst:

1940s 72.4%
1960s 54.3%
1950s 52.4%
1990s 42.4%
1970s 37.9%
1980s 35.8%
1930s 10.2%

You fucking moron; that wasn't the GDP growth rate. If these were factual, it would have be phenomenal.

Grow a fucking brain you clueless dumbfuck:

1900's = 3.9%
1910's = 2.9%
1920's = 3.4%
1930's = 1.0%
1940's = 5.6%
1950's = 4.2%
1960's = 4.5%
1970's = 3.2%
1980's = 3.1%
1990's = 3.2%
2000's = 1.8%
2010's = 2.1%
OBAMA =1.48%

https://www.crestmontresearch.com/docs/Economy-GDP-R-By-Decade.pdf

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017...resident-history-never-have-year-3-gdp-growth

 

[cawacko]

Yes, the 80s had huge economic volatility, with both very strong and very weak years. The net result was economic growth that was the second-worst of any 20th-century decade. Now one can, of course, play the usual conservative game of saying all the others don't count for whatever reason (the 40s don't count because of WWII, the 50s and 60s don't count because of the Baby Boom, the 70s don't count because of Vietnam, the 90s don't count because of the growth of the Internet, etc.). But what does it tell you that right-wing arguments nearly always need to take the form of "the evidence backs me up as long as you don't consider 90% of the evidence"?

You're trying to spin things to fit your partisan leanings, and it take a huge amount of spin. By comparison, as you see, I merely need to lay out the facts and they argue for themselves. That's the luxury of building my opinions around the facts, rather than embracing immutable opinions and trying to then square the facts with them.

And let's be clear no one is arguing these decades don't count, that's a strawman. What's being said is you can't look at the decades in a vacuum. In 2018 you can't say "the '50's were good let's implement the policies of those days" without taking into account the geo-political events of the day.

 

[Legion]

I had one of those policies when I was in my 20's. A guy came into my shop, and showed me a list of my neighbors who purchased the same policy. What did I know? I had knee surgery, and found that my policy covered nothing but X-rays. That was when I began paying attention to the coverage I was paying for.

Cool story.