Obamacare

Well, CitizenL, let me start by stating that I accept your challenge with reference to your poll question, limited Round 1 statements, and my original reply.Before we can engage in any serious debate, I must first discuss two important concepts: racism and sarcasm. The reader will see how these are relevant to your comments.1. Racism http://bit.ly...For the sensitivity-challenged, "racism" involves hatred, intolerance, the belief in racial superiority, and so forth. http://dictionary.reference.com...Why do I say that CitizenL is a racist? Well, there's his caricature of a black man as a freeloading illeterate who flaunts garish clothing. I wonder which racial group makes up the largest fraction of poor folks in the U.S. I checked around, and, wow, what alot of poor white folks (http://www.nccp.org...) Not that surprising, given that there are more of us to be poor. But when CitizenL is making his best argument against those freeloading poor folk, what does he use? Yes, that's right--a caricature of a black man.CitizenL is a racist, as evidinced by his racist post. He believes that, deep down, you're racist as well, which is why he thinks this caricature will connect with you.2. SarcasmI find myself facing the unenviable task of explaining the fairly intuitive concept of sarcasm. Let's start with my reply to CitizenL's racist post.http://bit.ly...Behold! Sarcasm! I ask you, fair reader, does my post claim that CitizenL is a wife beater and an embezzler? Or does it make the point that one loaded question is as good as another? I could, at present, comment that methinks the CitizenL doth protest too much, but, let's face it, it's unlikely that he's a wife beater or an embezzler, and we all know that. Because. Sarcasm.------------------------------------So, what's the point in all of that? Dear reader, I do wish you to understand that CitizenL most certainly is a racist. And that he doesn't understand sarcasm. Or logic. However, it's more than that. For, if I'm to assert that my dearest challenger has asked a loaded question, it's worth asking, how loaded is it? Is it as loaded as a loaded potatoe? That sounds good about right now. But I digress.Let's consider whether Obamacare has raised rates as our fair fellow claims. First of all, our friendly CitizenL is surely correct that premiums are on the rise. If fact, the pesky things have been on the rise for quite some time now, along with the price of pretty much everything else! http://bit.ly...;http://bit.ly...; What does this mean for dyed-in-the-wool communists such as myself (reference section 1, part 2, if you're a sad little man who writes books full of gibberish but thinks he's important enough to make Portraits of himself for not understanding sarcasm)? Surely, the fact that health insurance prices have been rising by 10% or so a year is absolutely devastating to anyone who thinks it's unfair to caricature blacks to make a point about health insurance premiums and the smudging of the inviolate precepts of bootstrapism!As it turns out, not so much. Premium increases have been cut in half.http://pwc.to...You don't say. So, health insurance premiums are rising less than they were before? And for that matter, health care costs?http://bit.ly...But what about all the discusssion of premiums that are soaring "as much as 78%"?http://bit.ly...Well, even that source observes that the study discussed focused on plans without much enrollment and restricted itself to an unrepresentative (did I just say "unrepresentative"?...that's not very fun...) sample: .So what's causing all the ruckus? As you might expect, dear reader, if you're still awake (and no, I wouldn't blame you), much of the problem is that the natural variation in the data gives people ample opportunity to cherry-pick. For instance, Florida's Republicans enacted a law that prevents the state government from carrying out its usual role of rejecting unmerited health insurance premiums, as part of an ongoing campaign to make the AHA look costly. And some states create false averages by failing to weight the averages based on the numbers of people actually purchasing a plan. http://bit.ly...;http://huff.to...; So, what's the validity of the idea that people are paying more in premiums because of Obamacare? Especially the $200 more that CitizenL claims (despite the fact that the average health care premium is too low, at less than $400, for this to make any sense at all, http://pwc.to...)? The answer's simple. It was a true loaded question. It had no validity at all.And, while I'm sad to become so serious, what of CitizenL's claim that the increase is due to paying for medicaid for lazy black men who dress in fake furs and sport dashing fedoras? Well, as it turns out the real fear was that the pre-existing conditions provisions would create an upsurge in premiums, so CitizenL probably should have posted a demeaning photograph of a cancer patient, or something more relevant, like that. In any case, it was still just so much hot air. http://huff.to...;-----------------------------------------------Thus could end my slightly cringing sally into the grotesqueness that is our dear challenger's menagerie of unscrupulous blacks, contorted facts, and warped logic. However, in his casting down his guantllet, we, unfortunate reader, must find that he has slipped in to this subject some assertions about various other things, all of which are American dreams. And it is my grudging duty to wake us from this nightmare.What is the American Dream? As poorly defined as it might be, I will accept our challenger's proposition that it is the idea that hard work has a payoff in terms of a better life. But the fact is that social mobility is just as bad as it's ever been, and economic inequality is worse than it's been in quite a while. People at the bottom are unlikely to rise to the top, and, more relevantly, unlikely to rise beyond where they are. People are likely to remain in the class they are born to, and more likely in the U.S. than in other comparable nations. That's a fact.http://nyr.kr...http://econ.st...http://huff.to...For a moment, let's challenge the notion that the American dream goes to the hard worker. I suggest that higher wages go to the individuals who are percieved to capture more wealth for the wealthy, not to the individuals who necessarily create more value. In fact, a highly compensated person might actually disrupt an industry, lowering the total value of the industry, just because that puts more absolute wealth in the hands of a few investors. (read Jaron Lanier's Who Owns the Future). Reader, challenge people who ask you to accept mantras. I will close by noting that there is no reason you, reader, should believe either contestant runs a business, even if he does. What you should consider is the likelihood that the well-off tell stories about themselves to justify their pleasant lot in life, which is what our challenger has done. Is this attitude reasonable? As established by mobility data, the luck of your birth (but please don't stop trying) is a big factor in your income status for life. In fact, luck is huge, because not everyone who works hard and smart can win the biggest rewards (again, see Who Owns the Future). The philosopher Rawls has proposed that we would have better policy preferences if we would adopt a "veil of ignorance" that would not allow us to assume our successful lot in life. Bringing this all home, studies have shown that people who are afforded wealth (whether in real life or in experiments, whether liberal or conservative), on average, seek to justify their status as deserved even when, intellectually, they know they did nothing to earn it (as in unfair dice in an experiment).http://to.pbs.org...So, why shouldn't we have Obamacare? Because my opponent is entitled to his fortune, while others are deserving of theirs.