We ARE the grass roots, and can help ACA succeed

[philosslayer]

This post is mainly aimed at the young people in our midst. We need the young and healthy to sign up for plans in the exchanges. Our President is counting on us. So I'm interested in the perspective of the younger DU'ers; particularly the ones currently without health insurance. Have you signed up yet? Do you plan to? Whats the discussion with your friends? How do we convince them? Are you helping convince them?

We put a lot on the shoulders of our President, but he needs us to help him. And whining and complaining about a web site rollout helps no one. So; how are we helping him? How do we make support (and signups) among the young go viral?

[hedda_foil]

1. knr for exposure.

[polichick]

2. He sure wasn't keen on our help when the thing was being written...

Single payer advocates who had worked their butts off to get him elected weren't even allowed at the table. Maybe those industry lobbyists can help the ACA succeed - they have a big profit motive.

I'll help write the next one.

[philosslayer]

3. Just what I was talking about

More whining. Are you going to whine? Or are you going to help? Single payer couldn't have passed in 2009-2010. Get over it. Maybe in 2 years, maybe in 4, maybe in 10. But for the meantime we have what President Obama got for us. I prefer to act and to make it successful. What do YOU plan to do?

[polichick]

4. I plan to vote for a liberal next time.

[FatBuddy]

5. yup

[TheKentuckian]

6. Most folks are excluded from subsidized plans on the exchanges, the ramping sucks

I don't really know what is expected, the idea is actually for as few people as possible to sign up in favor of employer plans. We can't fix that on our end, that is the design of the law which bitched about ad nauseum and was told "we'll fix it later". Well, time to get to fixing and we have no power to do so and apparently would at least need FDR/LBJ type majorities to even do that because we couldn't swing it with the generational majority we just had when we passed this.

All everyone wanted to cry about on both sides was single payer with one faction demanding it and the other talking about how impossible it is to get it and so both largely ignored the structure of the market based "reform" altogether.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

15. Pretty spot on

We can't fix that on our end, that is the design of the law which bitched about ad nauseum and was told "we'll fix it later".

Not to mention the fact that passage of the law is what got us our current congress. And now that everyone admits the law needs fixing the electorate isn't going to send in more Dems, they'll do just the opposite with unholy vengeance on their minds.

All everyone wanted to cry about on both sides was single payer with one faction demanding it and the other talking about how impossible it is to get it...

And then there are those poor deluded fools that think we're going to get single-payer now that we look like incompetent chumps. Not to mention the fact the entire ACA is predicated on guaranteeing insurance company profits so they may continue to offer the policies the ACA relies upon. If the companies go belly-up the ACA fails, if the ACA fails the electorate will not trust us with even more power to enact SP. This law is an insult to both single-payer prospects and market reforms.

[Yo_Mama]

16. Yes, the intent was to block people with employer insurance from the exchanges.

I think it won't work and that many small businesses will have to send their employees to the exchanges, but we'll see.

[NoOneMan]

29. Why do you act like the President is entitled to support?

He is entitled to nothing. No politicians are. They earn support.

If the president's past actions have not been perceived by the "grassroots" as enough to garner support, that burden lies on no one but himself.

You can't bully, scare or pep people into supporting someone; this isn't how the real world works. Either the president has done the work that appeals to the masses or he hasn't. Stop blaming individuals who don't have the bully pulpit and power to move the world. One man has, and either he gets it done or he doesnt

[pangaia]

26. You asked for feedback,

and you got some. Perhaps it is not wise to criticize her (I assume). That's maybe not the best way to win support.

[polichick]

32. Did you mean to reply to my post?

[pangaia]

33. OOpps. my mistake.

I intended to reply to philosslayer who was accusing you of whining.
My intent was to support your right to reply with your own opinion.
Apologies.

[polichick]

37. No worries - thanks for the support!

[philosslayer]

7. I'll bump this one more time... but a question...

Do we support the President or not? I'm a bit shocked that in a thread asking for help in signing people up, people are actually deriding the law. Isn't that what we have Republicans for? Are we for the ACA or not? And if so, what are we doing to help convince the young to enroll? There is not ONE example or person on this site who is advocating it with their friends?

[NoOneMan]

28. "Do we support the President or not"

I support good policy. I give a damn whose name is attached to it.

[Thinkingabout]

30. K & R

Before the ACA was passed there were not any exchanges to go to, college dependents could not stay on their parents insurance, insurance companies regularly canceled policies with the excuse of claims whatever condition was diagnosed it was pre-existing, there was limits placed on the insured and sometimes it did not take years to vet to the limit. I am for halting the whining, the GOP does a really good job of whining. If those who thinks a vote for a liberal is going to fix everything needs some reality. Take advantage of the meal place on the table for it is surely better than the lack of health insurance offering given by the GOP.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

8. "We need the young and healthy to sign up for plans in the exchanges."

Yeah, sure. What's a few more thousand dollars a year out of my household budget anyway? What else would I spend it on besides mortgage, gas, home heating, student loans, phone, cable, clothes.

It's time I stop thinking only of myself.

[HappyMe]

9. So you don't have any health insurance now?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

10. My husband's insurance rates are getting jacked and his employer may stop offering spousal coverage.

If that happens I will have to get a separate policy just for myself which will amount to an added expense in addition to my husband's already increasing rates. I have migrated from working outside our home full time to working part time (not ACA related) while being pretty much a full time homemaker. Because of family obligations -- which I am happy to assume -- returning to the full time workforce is not in my foreseeable future.

We were content with our family situation and making strides including paying off my student loans early. We are now having to endure setbacks.

[HappyMe]

12. Have you even tried to get any ACA insurance,

or at least looked into it?


I'm sorry about your situation. I guess because I'm 54, I kind of got used to dealing with whatever setbacks came my way.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

13. We already do not qualiy for subsidies. Damn my husband's luck but he has a good job.

The part that infuriates me is I shouldn't have to look for a new policy with its attending thousands of dollars a year in new expenses. That's money being taken from my family.

[HappyMe]

14. I had $150 taken from my family

yesterday because I paid a utility bill.

Is it pretty much a guaranteed thing that you will be dropped from your husband's insurance?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

17. He's in a supervisory position. For him it's "possible" for everyone else it's "probable."

We'll learn more in the next 6 weeks or so. The egalitarian side of us wants to accept whatever the workers endure but it would hurt.

I had $150 taken from my family yesterday because I paid a utility bill.

No. You paid for something you already used.

Now imagine your rate has an arbitrary 40% surcharge and then your spouse has to set up a separate account and pay for another entire month's usage even though you reside in the same household.

[HappyMe]

19. Yes, I paid for something I already used.

Backing up a few years, I had cancer to the tune of about 450k. We had been paying into the health insurance that we didn't use yet for quite a while. I'm glad as hell we put in a few thousand for insurance, as we only paid about 10k out of pocket.

I'm on my husband's insurance now, but I'm not sure if they will leave spouses on or not. I'll worry about that when the time comes. I wonder how much that will cost, but I sure as hell won't do without any insurance. You really never know what's around the corner. Young and healthy can turn into young and very ill pretty damn quick.

We barely got the ACA in, and they did everything they could to dump it. They are still working to get rid of it. I think we need to fight tooth and nail to keep the ACA and have it improved on.

[seveneyes]

11. how are we helping him?

The ACA is not about helping the President or anyone in politics. It's about helping those without medical care, and right now that means giving more money to the insurance companies. The young and healthy, struggling to get by, need to cough up a few thousand bucks per year.

[Yo_Mama]

18. I agree - the purpose of the law is to help individuals in trouble.

The purpose of this whole thing is not to make the president look good.

The plan will be a success if we can get it to work for most people, and the focus should be on doing that.

[philosslayer]

21. Yes.... how are we helping him

Lets be honest about it; our President is being hurt by this, and the grassroots who helped elect him (twice) should be helping him raise the number of young people who are applying for insurance at the exchanges. Yes, at the end of the day the ACA helps all Americans, but in the short term, helping OUR President helps our prospects in 2014.

[TheKentuckian]

22. You ignored the critical how and just keep trying the pep squad thing.

Most folks cannot get subsidized plans, the law was willfully designed to limit participation. There is no way to unscrew that pooch.

If success was always about participation then it is incumbent on the folks drafting the law to make participation plausible. They did not as a feature, not a bug.

They refused to let us help them. Now your answer is for already pushed folks to put themselves in even more dire straits to prop up a plan by taking a huge hit financially with the effects of the accompanying falling dominos? Seriously? At least be up front about what yo are asking here but you won't because folks will laugh at you.

It is bad enough that if I'm unfortunate with coverage but maintain my very much not rich by any measure income in the mid 30's that I'm mandated to fork over 3,100 a fucking year to the cartel for little or nothing out of my considerably less post tax income but to hell with anyone that thinks I would volunteer to do so to bandaid a boondoggle, willfully structured to maintain the current system and profit centers.

No, I won't and cannot morally promote folks putting themselves into a hole to pad the cartel's bottom line and to shine the legacy of a lame duck that worked all the scammy deals that made a tepid market based reform even fail within that feeble context much less actually advancing a sane system.

[Marr]

24. Oh, I see-- we're supposed to be making young people buy insurance.

Look, why don't you come back when you have a coherent idea on how to blame the president's latest problem on the left?

[Bluenorthwest]

20. The 'grassroots' for this law are Moderate Centrists and Blue Dogs who refused the Public Option

and every other aspect of the new law sought by the very people you are now begging for help. Obama had promised a Public Option as candidate, he also mocked mandates. That is what I voted for. What he actually did was not what I voted for.
I'm not an Insurance Salesman for anyone.

[JoePhilly]

23. Pouting will make it all better.

[Bluenorthwest]

34. Ah, the personal attack. Is that all you got, Joe? Characterizations?

So cute on your part, but as I said those of you who wanted a reform without a public option got their way and those who support those Mediocre Moderates should obviously be the most passionate and automatic defenders of this law, which exists as they wanted it to exist, not as Obama proposed it as candidate, not as liberals wanted it, the Moderate Centrists got what they wanted, Mandates, no Public Option, my State and others with better ideas prevented from correcting the problems with ACA until 2017. The Bauchus crowd got all that they wanted, stuffed into a stocking, hung on the mantle and called reform. So why the hell are they not out there doing the hard work of selling that which they created, why are they demanding that those of us who wanted better should do their work for them?
Expecting others to promote that which you insisted upon is daft thinking. Where are the folks who insited 'NO public option, lots of mandates!!!!!' now? They should be the leaders of this sales effort, it is that simple. Sorry if you don't like it Joe. And I'm sure you don't.

[JoePhilly]

39. Your first sentence is false. I wanted a reform with a public option.

The votes to obtain that did not exist. I'll repeat that.

I wanted a reform with a public option. I also was able to recognize that the votes to obtain that did not exist.

I can want the former, and understand the reality of the latter. You apparently can not. Which explains most of the rest of your nonsensical rant.

I'll comment on one particular sentence ...

So why the hell are they not out there doing the hard work of selling that which they created, why are they demanding that those of us who wanted better should do their work for them?

Us and them. Wow. That's how you see it. That's not how I see it.

I see us. And when I think about "them", I think about the GOP who actively work to prevent what we want, but to undo the little that we've obtained.

Help improve the ACA, or don't help ... sit there about pout. I don't think its an effective political strategy. But it is your choice.

You don't want to help. So don't help.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to work to obtain what I want (and what you claim you want), with or without your assistance.

[okaawhatever]

25. No, Obama never campaigned on single payer. Also, many Democrats such as myself

would favor single payer, but I also know the likelihood of getting it passed. If you think the folks on the right have given us a hard time about this bill and capping profit of insurance companies, how do you think they'd do if we tried to eliminate the insurance companies completely?
Also, the folks on the right are already screaming that the ACA is a way of getting to single payer and freaking everyone out.

From FactCheck.Org http://www.factcheck.org/2009/06/campaigning-on-single-payer/

On “Meet the Press” on June 28, former presidential candidate and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney falsely claimed that President Obama had called for a “single-payer” health care system on the campaign trail:
Romney: President Obama, when he was campaigning, said he wanted a single-payer system.

We debunked this falsehood when Sen. John McCain said it during the third presidential debate. McCain claimed that “as he said, his object is a single payer system.” But as a presidential candidate, Obama didn’t say that at all. And the plan he proposed wasn’t a single-payer system, one in which everyone is covered by health insurance through the government. As we said in our Oct. 16 article, Obama said at a town hall meeting in Albuquerque last summer that a single payer system would “probably” be his first choice “if” he were “designing a system from scratch.” But instead, he said, his “attitude is let’s build up the system we got, let’s make it more efficient, we may be over time – as we make the system more efficient and everybody’s covered – decide that there are other ways for us to provide care more effectively.”
Six years ago, Obama did say at an AFL-CIO forum that he was “a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program.” But that was 2003, and that’s not what he campaigned on as a presidential candidate. He has recently taken heat from single-payer advocates for not including them in discussions about overhauling the health care system.

[Dragonfli]

31. You are confusing PUBLIC OPTION with single-payer, putting those words in the poster's mouth is

bad form.

Reread the post you responded to, the President did indeed campaign on a public option and did actually mock mandates. You should apologize for lying about what the poster actually said. Only you said he "campaigned on single payer" while throwing your voice at someone you wanted to make up a reason to argue with, very bad form.

Now

Reread the post and respond to the words posted instead of making up your own words to place in his/her mouth just because you wanted a fight, thank you.

[Bluenorthwest]

36. I didn't say he campaigned on single payer and you know it. Public Option. Claro?

Putting words in my mouth for you to argue with is naff. Offensive.

[Adsos Letter]

38. "I'm not an insurance salesman for anyone."

I think you may be on to something.

[NoOneMan]

27. The grass roots should be fighting for a real health insurance system

Just my opinion. This was the establishment reform. Its in their interests that it succeeds

[JoePhilly]

40. So we should repeal it and start over, right?

If that's what you mean, say it.

[NCTraveler]

35. For some of us our priorities are to continually fight for healthcare for all.

For others, it is all about one man.