They’re calling it a “glitch.” Goodness gracious:
Some families could get priced out of health insurance due to what’s being called a glitch in President Barack Obama’s overhaul law. IRS regulations issued Wednesday failed to fix the problem as liberal backers of the president’s plan had hoped.
As a result, some families that can’t afford the employer coverage that they are offered on the job will not be able to get financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance on their own. How many people will be affected is unclear.
The Obama administration says its hands were tied by the way Congress wrote the law[*].
Essentially, it breaks down like this: the government is forcing everybody to buy health insurance. The government is also mandating the existence of health care exchanges. If somebody theoretically can’t afford the exchanges, then they theoretically can get subsidies. The rule of thumb for ‘affordability’ was capped at a level designed to keep people from simply dropping their employer coverage. But the rule of thumb was also capped assuming average costs for individual coverage, not average costs for family coverage. As a result, some families will be left in a bad situation: they don’t get family coverage from their employers, they aren’t able to afford the new exchange policies on their own, and they can’t get subsidized because they’re over a badly-designed arbitrary affordability level. And, of course, this is all disproportionally targeting lower-income families.
Well, as Nancy Pelosi (in her increasingly doddering way) said, they had to pass the law in order to find out what was in it.
Moe Lane (crosspost)
PS: The AP helpfully noted that House Republicans want to simply dump this law wholesale, instead of trying to ‘fix’ it. This is a true thing: the Republican party is against Obamacare, root and branch. We’re also against drinking rat poison, sticking forks into electrical outlets, and going up to bears and kicking them in the testicles. Normally I would assume that the Democratic party is against all of those things, too – but given their recent voting history, I can’t help but conclude that if any of those things were in the original Obamacare bill too then next week’s Meet The Press would feature Sen. Dick Durbin being dutifully mauled by a rightfully-confused grizzly bear.
*Full points for chutzpah here, by the way. As one of my colleagues noted privately, it’s flat-out unbelievable that the administration is throwing Congress under the bus on this; but then, Obama isn’t up for re-election, ever again.
Via
AP finds *another* glitch in Obamacare. Many families lose out on subsidies & won’t be able to afford coverage. wtop.com/289/3212723/Gl…
— Brian Faughnan (@BrianFaughnan) January 31, 2013
I’m literally giggling softly (but in a manly fashion!) in my cube here at work, envisioning that mauling.
.
PS: Bears make stuff funny/interesting. E.g. http://bearmageddon.com, from the makers of AXE COP.
Advantage of telecommuting, zamoose … I can cackle without scaring my co-workers.
.
Mew
I also loled softly.
Why did no one see this coming and warn our poor befuddled president!?! /s
Well of *course* it’s based on individual rates! Everybody knows poor people don’t get married!
.
.
.
.
(oops)
.
Mew
My company didn’t subsidize family rates a few years back (since changed) and I would have had to pay $1,400 a month to get family coverage through the group plan. So I went through the private market on my own, got blue cross blue shield with a $1,000 deductible for about $300 a month. But then we are young and healthy.
These are the same poor saps that Obamacare was supposedly passed to help. Now they’re being characterized as free-riders.
Umm, Robin?
.
They *are* free riders. They may be forgiven for not realizing it because they don’t look at how much (little) they pay in income tax.. but they are subsidized already.
.
Mew
They’re calling it a “glitch.”
.
Now cue Office Space: “We fixed the glitch so it will work itself out naturally.”
No, I’m thinking of the slightly more lethal glitch in Robocop: “You call that a GLITCH?!?!”
“They’re gonna love you, glitch and all” (Wreck-It Ralph)
.
.
.
Because, y’know, people only love a glitch when it’s in their favor and this isn’t .. and it’s also classic Hollywood-fantasy-wish-think.
.
Mew
I have a small amount of knowledge of chemistry, biochemistry, toxins, psychiatric pharmacy, medicinal chemistry, and nervous system malfunctions.
.
We only have one brain, as opposed to tending to have two hands, ten fingers and the like. Chemically speaking, the brain can be rather more delicate than many people appreciate.
.
As such, using certain substances recreationally is akin to sticking one’s hand in a blender for kicks. Or sometimes it is more like blending your own testicles.
.
My intuition is that some substances, often considered harmless by Democrats and many future politicians, fit said criteria.
.
These substances have experimentally verified effects impairing judgment. My intuition, again, suggests that there are also effects on mental functions that I think might be pretty difficult to measure.
.
I haven’t the sleep for more than druggies do stupid sometimes suicidal things; greater self preservation should not be expected from drug addled politicians and drug addled voters.
.
Democrats will be Democrats.
A large chunk of the people who are going to be hit by this are Union members. I find it funny that they supported the passage of Obamacare they supported O’bama re-election and now they are just beginning to figure out that they’re the ones who will be paying the price.
Who’s surprised that the democrats have made a crime of something (poverty) that they don’t like?
Nobody qixqatl but it’s not the poor who are going to suffer it’s the next rank up, the working class. The Left always says they support the working class but all their works and deeds fall hardest on them. That is why I’m no longer a Dem. I got tired of feeling the pain, plus I had kids. I got tired of not being able to look my kids in the eye when I came home from work. And that is the worst thing I can say about the MF Democrats. They will make you ashamed you voted for them.
Exactly my point. The democrats excel at passing unintelligent, unpopular and unenforceable laws and then clamoring for stricter laws when the original law fails to ‘fix the problem’. The innocent must be punished for the allowing crime to exist.