US Politics: Thread #hbar

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Here's a fun fact:

The new health care bill contains a buttload of new requirements for businesses, and that's before the administrative agencies start enacted their usual masses of rules to further complicate things. One of the new requirements is for all vending machine operators to put complete nutritional information for all products sold in that machine. As required by other law, the FDA was required to estimate the number of man-hours necessary for vending machine companies to comply with this new law:

In the Nov. 5 edition of the Federal Register, the FDA estimates “a total of 14,068,808 recurring hours, with nearly all of these for vending machine operators, including 31,408 recurring hours for recordkeeping and 14,037,400 recurring hours for third party disclosure” in conjunction with the regulation....The FDA says that time will have to be invested again each year, as the labels will likely “have a relatively short life and the mix of product in a machine will change over time.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/fda-says-it-will-take-vending-machine-ow

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

As a whole, ACA isn't a capital expenditure, but portions of it are. Some of the cost savings are based around improving efficiency of the system. Most of this will occur in the first few years, so such expenditures will go down after the initial costs. My example (new windows) also has continuing costs. I still have to pay energy bills, I'm just spending less to maintain the same temperature I was before. Now, I guess I could make my example better by saying that I'm adding a room in addition to getting new windows, so it might take me a little longer to break even.

Except that we're talking about increased taxes, over what would have been paid otherwise, and there is no point in the bill at which those increased taxes are scheduled to sunset or be repealed. So by the terms of the bill itself, it will never turn the corner and result in the need for less tax revenue than before.

To realistically address your concerns, I also have some doubts about whether this legislation will actually decrease the deficit. However, the best question to ask is whether the government will be spending more money on healthcare than it would have if nothing were changed. Also, how will our insurance rates change in comparison to what they would have been without reform. I admit we will never know with complete certainty, but I know how I would wager.

My concern isn't just with the deficit, but with the total amount of government spending, whether balanced by higher taxes or not. Why not toss out the bill, keep the hire taxes and Medicare cuts, and just lop a cool $1T off the deficit?

[C S]

Except that we're talking about increased taxes, over what would have been paid otherwise, and there is no point in the bill at which those increased taxes are scheduled to sunset or be repealed. So by the terms of the bill itself, it will never turn the corner and result in the need for less tax revenue than before.

I don't disagree with you. However, if the legislation does actually reduce the deficit, then interest payments will decrease over time, providing the opportunity for a tax cut. I'm not naive enough to believe this extra money won't be spent elsewhere, but the possibility is there.

I actually couldn't care less about the new taxes. As long as it didn't break my budget, I wouldn't even care if the taxes applied to my income bracket.

My concern isn't just with the deficit, but with the total amount of government spending, whether balanced by higher taxes or not. Why not toss out the bill, keep the hire taxes and Medicare cuts, and just lop a cool $1T off the deficit?

Because that option is not presently politically viable. Too many liberals (and even moderates and conservatives) get all fussy when people die or go bankrupt cause they can't pay their medical bills.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I don't disagree with you. However, if the legislation does actually reduce the deficit, then interest payments will decrease over time, providing the opportunity for a tax cut. I'm not naive enough to believe this extra money won't be spent elsewhere, but the possibility is there.

I actually couldn't care less about the new taxes. As long as it didn't break my budget, I wouldn't even care if the taxes applied to my income bracket.

Because that option is not presently politically viable. Too many liberals (and even moderates and conservatives) get all fussy when people die or go bankrupt cause they can't pay their medical bills.

Fair enough. People can disagree over whether or not the higher taxes, business mandates, and individual mandates are worth the improvement in health care they supposedly will provide. What bugs me is when people argue that the plan does not involve higher expenditures by the federal government.

[The Dude]

The Dude,

Why is a volatile electorate "obnoxious"? The House of Representatives is designed to allow for quick turn over. That's why every Representative is up for election every two years. I, for one, am not fond of life time politicians. Remember, I'm from the State that elected Strom Thurmond to the Senate for 40 years.

I said "obvious" not "obnoxious", and I agree that a volatile electorate should be both expected and welcomed. It would be even more improved if we saw more internal party turnover, and more frequently elected third party congressman. At the least to achieve a more true representation.

[Commodore]

Here's a fun fact:

The new health care bill contains a buttload of new requirements for businesses, and that's before the administrative agencies start enacted their usual masses of rules to further complicate things. One of the new requirements is for all vending machine operators to put complete nutritional information for all products sold in that machine. As required by other law, the FDA was required to estimate the number of man-hours necessary for vending machine companies to comply with this new law:

In the Nov. 5 edition of the Federal Register, the FDA estimates “a total of 14,068,808 recurring hours, with nearly all of these for vending machine operators, including 31,408 recurring hours for recordkeeping and 14,037,400 recurring hours for third party disclosure” in conjunction with the regulation....The FDA says that time will have to be invested again each year, as the labels will likely “have a relatively short life and the mix of product in a machine will change over time.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/fda-says-it-will-take-vending-machine-ow

Stimulus

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

The Dude,

I agree. I'd love to see more non-major party members elected to the U.S. Congress and to State legislatures.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Anyone want to speculate about who lanched a sea based missile off of the coast of Los Angeles on Monday evening. I'd start a thread on this, but I can't.

[The Iceman of the North]

I'm not telling you.

[awesome possum]

Here's a fun fact:

The new health care bill contains a buttload of new requirements for businesses, and that's before the administrative agencies start enacted their usual masses of rules to further complicate things. One of the new requirements is for all vending machine operators to put complete nutritional information for all products sold in that machine. As required by other law, the FDA was required to estimate the number of man-hours necessary for vending machine companies to comply with this new law:

In the Nov. 5 edition of the Federal Register, the FDA estimates “a total of 14,068,808 recurring hours, with nearly all of these for vending machine operators, including 31,408 recurring hours for recordkeeping and 14,037,400 recurring hours for third party disclosure” in conjunction with the regulation....The FDA says that time will have to be invested again each year, as the labels will likely “have a relatively short life and the mix of product in a machine will change over time.”

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/fda-says-it-will-take-vending-machine-ow

Wait, so one of the results of the health care bill is that jobs will be created? And that's a bad thing why, exactly (besides Democrats getting credit for doing anything good or positive)?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Coco,

Where I don't see it?

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

Coco,

Where I don't see it?

No, "we did" launch the missile.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Coco,

Sorry totally misread your post. Why would we do that then lie about us being the group that launched the missile? Something smells very odd here.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Anyone want to speculate about who lanched a sea based missile off of the coast of Los Angeles on Monday evening. I'd start a thread on this, but I can't.

Copied from a knowledgeable sounding commenter on reddit:

Vandenberg routinely launches Minuteman IIIs at Kwajalein to test them - maybe 4-6 per year. That's most assuredly their track.

Their rough guesstimate as to launch site is a little north of San Nicolas, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, a mutherfucking missile launch site.

San Nicholas is, not to put too fine a point on it, a detachment of 200 or more airmen managed by the 30th space wing.

If you read between the lines, CBS asked the Navy if they launched anything and the Navy said "no" (because San Nicholas and the 30th space wing are Air Force territory). Then they asked Vandenberg if they launched anything and Vandenberg said "we haven't launched anything from Vandenberg since Friday" (because they launched something from San Nicholas).

Which is kind of exciting in its own right - Vandenberg doesn't give the first shit who shows up to watch their launches, they've got mutherfucking bleachers set up. The only reason I wasn't at the COSMO-Skymed 4 launch on Friday is it was supposed to be the COSMO-Skymed 4 launch last Sunday and they delayed that launch four separate times.

I disagree with the ICBM-submarine theory because sub-launched missiles are tin3. That rocket looked to be at least a Delta II or possibly a Minotaur IV, both of which are too big for submarines.

[The Iceman of the North]

From the LA Times article on the story:

Naval Base Ventura County spokeswoman Teri Reid said Tuesday that the contrail seen off the Southern California coast on Monday did not originate at Naval Air Station Point Mugu.

"It didn't happen here," she said. "There was no firing on the range yesterday."

Nor did it come from Vandenberg Air Force Base, officials there said, adding that the facility's last launch was to put a satellite into orbit on Friday.

ETA: Guess I didn't read your entire quote.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I don't disagree with you. However, if the legislation does actually reduce the deficit, then interest payments will decrease over time, providing the opportunity for a tax cut. I'm not naive enough to believe this extra money won't be spent elsewhere, but the possibility is there.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the ways this bill was supposed to be at least "deficit neutral" was that it was going to be financed by a few hundred billion in Medicare cuts. Guys like me expressed skepticism that those cuts would actually occur, but were assured by others that this plan was different, and that Congress really would end up being more responsible this time.

Predictably, the very first time the new cuts were due to be implemented was June -- just three months after they passed the bill containing the cuts. But after telling us all that this was going to be part of the funding mechanism, the Administration that pushed the bill urged Congress to defer those exact same cuts, and Congress did exactly that. Well, sort of. Rather than implementing the 21.3% scheduled cut in reimbursement rates, they actually voted for a 2.1% increase. A nice bait and switch on an alleged "deficit reduction" plan.

http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/24/news/economy/doc_fix_vote/index.htm

The due date for the deferred cuts is now December, the AMA is saying they can't afford the cuts, and I heard today that the President is supporting another deferral.

So the question I'd love to ask the folks who voted for that bill is this: did they know when they passed the bill that these cuts were not sustainable, or did they so badly misread the state of health care that they only figured out after the bill was passed that the cuts could not be sustained?

[Swordfish]

Why is that so hard? Just compare drug prices in the US with drug prices in countries with single payer systems.

Uh... No. That doesn't prove that drug prices in country Y are cheaper than they were in country Y before single payer.

It does nothing to prove that single payer is the REASON costs have decreased and it isn't an indicator of the overall change in cost of the program.

Neither is per capita, which I'm sure will be the next thing someone brings up.

And none of this of course addresses the costs incurred by the private sector just to comply with the legislation, and any future legislation it enables.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Coco,

When did you start wearin a black suit with a black tie to work and why do you have on sunglasses?

[Ckrisz]

So the question I'd love to ask the folks who voted for that bill is this: did they know when they passed the bill that these cuts were not sustainable, or did they so badly misread the state of health care that they only figured out after the bill was passed that the cuts could not be sustained?

As your own link indicates, these cuts were not part of the ACA, but instead were part of Medicare reforms passed back in 1997.

I'll let CBPP handle this GOP talking point:

Despite claims that the pending health reform bills aren’t really paid for because Congress never lets Medicare savings take effect, Congress has allowed the vast majority of Medicare cuts that it enacted in the past two decades to take effect and produce significant savings, a new study shows.

The analysis, by James Horney and Paul Van de Water, former senior CBO officials now at the Center, examines the history of every significant Medicare cut that Congress has enacted in the past 20 years – specifically, cuts included in deficit reduction legislation enacted in 1990, 1993, 1997, and 2005.

The authors found that virtually 100 percent of the 1990 savings survived; virtually 100 percent of the 1993 savings survived; virtually 100 percent of the 2005 savings survived; and nearly 80 percent of the 1997 savings survived ...

In arguing that large Medicare cuts never “stick,” many critics focus on Congress’ repeated refusal to let the reductions in doctor reimbursement rates under Medicare’s “Sustainable Growth Rate” (SGR) mechanism to take full effect.

But, as the report explains, Congress didn’t intend the SGR to produce large savings. In fact, the SGR represented only 3 percent of the total ten-year Medicare savings in the 1997 deficit-reduction bill – only $12 billion of the $394 billion in total Medicare savings over ten years, as CBO estimated at the time.

Because it was badly designed, however, the SGR would actually have cut payments to physicians much more than had been anticipated and well below the level needed to keep pace with doctors’ costs. Congress’ decision to forestall these unintended cuts was therefore justified on policy grounds.

But, Congress did not simply cancel the SGR and let physician reimbursement rates grow willy-nilly. In fact, although Congress has since 2002 prevented the full SGR cuts from going into effect, it has cut physician reimbursement rates substantially below what was needed simply to keep pace with inflation. Even if Congress blocks the next scheduled SGR cut and freezes the rate at current levels, the rate next year will be 17 percent below the rate in effect in 2001, adjusted for medical inflation.

The Medicare savings provisions in the House and Senate health bills are very different from the poorly designed SGR cut. Instead, they are similar in both size and design to the past Medicare cuts that Congress has allowed to take effect.

[awesome possum]

Republicans show they're serious about reducing the deficit

“The goal of welfare programs should be to help people get back on their feet as quickly as possible rather than simply expanding dependence on government,” said Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-GA). “In addition to saving taxpayers $25 billion over the next 10 years, cutting the emergency fund from the President’s failed stimulus package will refocus temporary assistance on its rightful role.”

A worthy goal, saving taxpayers $25 billion dollars over the next 10 years... the only problem? The program expired back in March.

And these are the people who are going to be in charge of the House. Too busy swimming in their pool of shitty rhetoric to actually spend five minutes to see if what they're doing makes sense. I guess these days fact checking is just for those pansy liberals.