Obamacare Major FAIL In Contra Costa County

[Joe Guy]

I have a higher opinion of humanity myself than you do, obviously.

rubatospeak clarification....

[rubato]

That's debatable

Only if I include you in "humanity" otherwise it is irrefutable.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

I have a higher opinion of humanity myself than you do, obviously.

rubatospeak clarification....

So much effort, and no wit at all.


yrs,
rubato

[dales]

So much effort, and no wit at all.


yrs,
rubato

[Joe Guy]

rubato's one watt wit once again lights up like an old and dim bulb on a foggy dreary day in a sad little town on the west coast.

[Scooter]

The simple point I was trying to make is that without Obama care (created by Obama administration) there'd be no need for this call center in CoCoCo.

Clear?

Every action taken in government has its basis in one law or another. The fact that government employees will make mistakes and manage some things poorly reflects on them, not on the law they are tasked to implement.

Let's pretend that, instead of Obamacare, the Social Security Administration was hiring a whole bunch of people to to work in their call centres. Would the fact that the hiring process was botched lead you to say that "without Social Security, there'd be no need for this call centre, so this hiring screwup is the fault of whoever introduced Social Security."

Why would you think that making a completely analogous statement about the ACA would sound any less ridiculous?

[dales]

The irony here is that wages are so low that these poor schleps are offered nothing in the way of medical benefits even though represented by a union. They are supposed to be helping the uninsured finding their way around the byzantine morass of Obamacare. It will be the blind leading the blind.

[Scooter]

Which is a completely different claim that the one that was just quoted. But in any case:

Can sales clerks in a jewelry store afford to buy the diamonds sold there on their salary? Can maids afford to buy the houses they clean on what they are paid to work there? Do staff in hotels and resorts earn enough to afford a vacation where they work? How is there any more "irony" at play when the employer's business is insurance, than in any other business that sells things that some of its employees cannot afford.

If these "poor schleps" were misled into believing that all of the jobs were full-time, and they quit or turned down other full-time jobs as a result, then they are entitled to compensation to make up the difference for whatever period the law would consider adequate notice. They don't get to force an 25% increase in levels because someone discovered that a part-time unskilled job is not enough to pay the bills

[dales]

We're prolly just posting past each other, scooter.

Here's the main point I tried to make:

Now, with two months to go before the Concord operation opens to serve the public, information has surfaced that about half the jobs are part-time, with no health benefits -- a stinging disappointment to workers and local politicians who believed the positions would be full-time.

The irony being that the jobs are at a call center helping people with Obamacare.

Irony?

I believe so in a cruel way.

[Sue U]

Why is this "irony"? Would you expect a part-time jobs to offer healthcare benefits? Is there some mandate by either the state or federal government that healthcare benefits be offered to all call center employees? I don't see anything "ironic" about a call center opening with fewer full-time job positions than some would have hoped for. It may be disappointing -- in that it's always disappointing that there is not enough full-time work for people who want it -- but again, was there some mandate that all the positions be full time? And what does it have to do with "Obamacare" at all -- except that with the expansion of Medicaid under the statute, presumably some/most/all of the part-time employees will qualify for a Medicaid program rather than private health insurance?

Apparently, there are plenty of positions available in manufacturing outrage out of non-issues.

[dales]

Some are more irony-resistant than others.

[Lord Jim]

The irony seems pretty obvious to me...

You have people who's job it is to help other people find healthcare who aren't provided with healthcare themselves...

Sort of like if you had people hired to help folks get food who didn't have any food themselves...

[Sue U]

The irony seems pretty obvious to me...

You have people who's job it is to help other people find healthcare who aren't provided with healthcare themselves...

Sort of like if you had people hired to help folks get food who didn't have any food themselves...

No, not really. More like Scooter's examples:

Can sales clerks in a jewelry store afford to buy the diamonds sold there on their salary? Can maids afford to buy the houses they clean on what they are paid to work there? Do staff in hotels and resorts earn enough to afford a vacation where they work? How is there any more "irony" at play when the employer's business is insurance, than in any other business that sells things that some of its employees cannot afford.

And as I noted, if the employees can't afford private health insurance, they should be able to get coverage through one of several Medicaid programs or through whatever subsidized plan the state's "insurance exchange" might provide.

But this is a failure of the stupid employment-based for-profit private health insurance system we have here -- which is far and away the worst in the industrialized world. If you want to blame someone for this failure, blame the Republicans in Congress who made a single-payer national health system -- and even a "public option" -- a political impossibility.

[Big RR]

Republicans? Sure, but let's blame the dems as well, especially obama, who couldn't get their fillibuster proof majority coalition (granted not all dems, but most) in order to include at least a public option. I expected no more from the republicans, but I did expect more from the dems, and especially from obama.

[dales]

Outside of the obvious irony, those crooks at SIEU share much of the blame.

[Sue U]

Republicans? Sure, but let's blame the dems as well, especially obama, who couldn't get their fillibuster proof majority coalition (granted not all dems, but most) in order to include at least a public option. I expected no more from the republicans, but I did expect more from the dems, and especially from obama.

Oh, on healthcare I have no love for Obama or the Dems (including my then-congressman, who I loved as a brother but would yell at about it every chance I got). We had an opportunity for actual reform and simplification of the system, but all we got was this half-assed mess.

[dales]

....but all we got was this half-assed mess.

Then it's politics as usual.

[rubato]

Republicans? Sure, but let's blame the dems as well, especially obama, who couldn't get their fillibuster proof majority coalition (granted not all dems, but most) in order to include at least a public option. I expected no more from the republicans, but I did expect more from the dems, and especially from obama.

Oh, on healthcare I have no love for Obama or the Dems (including my then-congressman, who I loved as a brother but would yell at about it every chance I got). We had an opportunity for actual reform and simplification of the system, but all we got was this half-assed mess.

I disagree that there was any actual opportunity for real reform. This was the only bill they were able to get passed. And while this is a half-assed mess it is a half-assed mess which moves us closer to real reform. First of all it increases the percentage who have access to preventive care. Second it pulls in a portion of the 'young and healthy' who paid nothing before and now will pay something. And finally, the large employers are so busy screwing up employer-paid health insurance that the major political impediment to real reform will soon be eroded. The writing was on the wall 6 years ago when large US corporations (GM, GE, Honeywell, IBM) all said that the Canadian system was better than ours and set out to change it by making their HC plans as unappealing as possible. My colleagues now all have HUGE deductables (partially offset by a medical savings plan) and when those are paid off they STILL owe 20% !!! Wait until a few thousand of them find out that 20% of a big number is a big number, and they can go bankrupt at 55. A colleague had a child 15 years ago with a lot of health problems requiring surgery (heart defects). Back then the company HC paid in full for over $1,000,000 worth of care. Now she would get a bill for $200,000, and lose her house.

The biggest political impediment to HC reform was the large group of people working for government and large corporations who had good HC (or thought so) and thus had no motive to promote change and a big motive to be afraid of losing what they had.

yrs,
rubato

[Big RR]

Well, we can differ on what sort of reform might have happened if Obama had used his political and persuasive skills to work to get the reform we really deserved; we'll never really know. However, we will eventually know if this is a positive or a negative "half-assed mess". I sincerely hope you are right, but what I predict is that people will perceive that they are paying more and more for less and less coverage (and without having any real power to control the costs, what else do you think will happen?) and push to repeal it. While you point out the problems of the current system, the fact is that most people (thankfully) don't have major problems necessitating large out of pocket payments that could bankrupt them, and they resent having to pay the expenses of those who do. As for the young and healthy, unless the "tax" is somewhere in the neighborhood of the cost of insurance coverage, many will forego coverage for the savings, resting assured they can always enroll if they develop health problems. And depending who runs congress and executive in the near future, I don't think repeal of the system is impossible.

We were promised more and we deserved more. Did we get the best we could have gotten at the time? I don't think so; and I hope the whole system doesn't implode and set back the idea of viable universal health coverage decades.

[Gob]

The irony that working people in "the greatest nation on god's godamn earth, Oh say can you seee......" do not have healthcare? Cultural thing I suppose...