26 Replies to “This Is Awkward”

  1. Well that tears it.
    Walmart is an evil capitalist entity and will need to be regulated out of existence just like the coal plants.
    If they were to raise their employees wages to a minimum of $15.00/hr. and install unions we may be able to talk.
    It’s for the sake of equality don’t ya know.

  2. I have often thought that a married couple both working for Walmart full time with a combined income of about $50K living in Texas would be better off financially, including health care and other benefits, than a Canadian family making over $100K.

  3. Apparently a tripartite commission of the insane, criminal and inept created ObamaCare. The worst parts aren’t glitches, they’re Features.

  5. Never mistake the exterminator, for the veterinarian.
    One saves animals.
    The other gets rid of them.
    Obamacare only seems flawed if you presume it was intended to help people.

  6. That’s been one of the surprising things about Obamacare. The stories of people having their plans cancelled and premium increases has really opened my eyes to how cheap health insurance in the US was before Obama screwed it all up. It was much cheaper than what we ultimately pay! Heck in BC I pay ~$170 a month in MSP premiums alone.

  7. “Obamacare only seems flawed if you presume it was intended to help people.”
    How delusional do you have to be to actually believe the words you just typed? If I am wrong, then please show me a logical basis for such a ridiculous assertion.
    The irrationality many people experience because of this unproductive and hate-filled partisan civil war is mind-numbing. Obama is incompetent and a self-promoting partisan *sshole(like most every politician)but is NOT some anti-Christ.
    I find it both hilarious and telling that the hardcore left’s propaganda machine sold nearly the exact same irrational phobia and hatred of Bush. The only real difference is the media were there “in full honors’ to help with the blackballing of Bush. But, as with any partisan fools, they now conversely feel compelled to whitewash Obama’s incompetence and protect the “brand”.
    Sigh.

  9. The devil is in the details. Always is for insurance. What is and what is NOT covered, how much are the “co-pays”, and other details. The comparison made is meaningless without the details. I am definitely opposed to Obamacare but I am always in favor of impartial reporting.

  10. Yeah, everything done by people is for “the good” of the other people.Trouble is, most of these social engineer types are long on enthusiasm,and short on critical thinking.
    Add to the mix the delusion of nothing but best-case scenarios,and the sycophancy for which government bureaucracies are notorious,and you have a recipe for disaster.
    Some of the most discouraging conversations I’ve ever had were with activists who were out to save their particular corner of this imperfect world. They had all the zeal and good intentions of the disciple, and not a clue as to the downside of anything they proposed. Join a discussion with a few of today’s college students sometime, you’ll see what I mean.
    Obamacare is beautiful in the numbers; before O-care, 30 million people had no health care, after O-care, thirty million people have no health care.
    What an improvement!

  11. Canadian Observer at 12:24. “Obama is incompetent and a self-promoting partisan *sshole(like most every politician)but is NOT some anti-Christ.”
    The anti-Christ thing is a straw man and was intended to be, I imagine. Then I thought of the Little Sisters of the Poor and, well, maybe he is one kind of anti-Christ. Whether he is or isn’t, he’s a great deal worse than the average incompetent, self-promoting partisan. He is much closer to Lenin than he is to anything else in the broad American experience.

  12. Canadian Observer ridiculing Dystopian Optimist for this: “Obamacare only seems flawed if you presume it was intended to help people.”
    Sorry CO but I’m with DO. You delusion is listening to progs without reading between the lines and thinking Progressive leaders actually care about people when the truth is they care only about Power. Everything they say is intended to deceive and it obviously works.
    Obamacare was never intended to help people. Sure it was sold that way but lying is what progs do in order to gain Power. The people voting for the obomination never read the damn thing. Seriously, how could anyone believe it was actually intended to help when they didn’t even know what they were voting on. Coming soon is the next helpful progressive idea, raising the minimum wage. They want to “help” doncha know. You actually think they don’t know raising the minimmum wage will cost people jobs, particulary those with the least skills. They know so very well but it doesn’t matter because what is important is that their concern and intentions lead to more Power.
    Obamacare’s sole purpose was to help usher in “Single Payer” by destroying private insurers (financial losses and media PR) and creating the “crisis” needed to assume total control over the health care industry.
    What I find funny is that so-called rational people compare the media manufactured Bush hatred to those who think the government takeover of 1/6 of their economy is a calculated plan to usher in socialized medicine. Espescially after those individuals have correctly pointed out from the start that Obamacare couldn’t and wouldn’t work and they are now suffering the consequences they foretold.
    At the end of the day I think Dystopian Optimist has a much better read on Obama and progressives.

  13. If it wasn’t for the fact that the corporate Board of WalMart would wet their collective pants at the thought, a “Rollback Obama” campaign would probably resonate well with Americans right now.

  14. ACA was never meant to help people or give them better health care Just the opposite is true. Meant to destroy our health care system & destroy the middle class. Make everyone poor so they can control us better. Peoples health care is costing them more now
    than their mortgage & giving them far less benefits than they had before this monstrosity was implemented. WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!!!!

  15. What David in Michigan said above. The WalMart plan probably covers a lot less than the Obamacare plans, and likely has higher deductibles. Anyone who can chime in with how good the standard WalMart plan is?

  16. The article does provide some information regarding coverage & deductibles, it states that Obamacare has higher deductibles.

  17. “Obamacare’s sole purpose was to help usher in “Single Payer” by destroying private insurers (financial losses and media PR) and creating the “crisis” needed to assume total control over the health care industry.”
    That is an extremely bold statement but I am prepared to listen. Why has the Republican Party not sounded the alarm on this grand and grotesque conspiracy to assume total control over the health industry then? If Markon sees this plain as day, surely the Republicans must know everything about his evil plan! So, if what you are claiming is true, their quietness could only be because rather than save America, the Republican Party would rather see Obama take it down so they can regain power. There could be no other feasible explanation if your claim is accurate and as obvious to all as you claim….unless they’re in on it too.
    Can you supply any compelling evidence of this conspiracy other than a bigoted “progs” and the already known amount of utter incompetence displayed? Also, I believe it is only reasonable to demand extraordinary evidence for such an extraordinary claim. I will be looking forward to seeing the pertinent FACTS and details that prove your assertion which I am fully confident you will be happy to provide.

  18. How dare one suggest that the private sector could be a better provider than the government!
    The healthcare system in the US needed reforming. What Obama offered wasn’t reforming but utter ruin. Did anyone at all ask how this healthcare tax was going to be paid for? If no one asked that I daresay questions about premiums, ect never came up.

  19. Government rarely, if ever, provides goods and services for less cost than private enterprise; that’s the nature of the beast. That’s why government should only provide NEEDED services that the private sector cannot/will not provide because they can’t make money. These “pure public goods” are few and far between and must meet two criterion:
    1. Non excludable – if the person/household doesn’t pay for it, they get the service anyway.
    2. Non-rivalrous – if one person/household receives the service, others can still receive it.
    Think of national defence, firefighting, police, coast guard etc. Even they aren’t “pure,” in economic theory terms.
    Not, health care, car insurance, ferries, even prisons etc. Government decides to appropriate those for whatever reasons and must limit/prohibit competition.
    That’s why governments, in my view, must follow the Jeffersonian tenet – “the government that governs least governs best.” Governments will screw up/lose money at, even the best ideas or desired services.

  20. “Why has the Republican Party not sounded the alarm on this grand and grotesque conspiracy to assume total control over the health industry then?”
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P-tzm-4anM
    The above video(s) are 4 years old. The man in the video, speaking before the Tides Foundation, is Professor Jacob Hacker…a primary architect of ObamaCare.
    He openly admits that single payer is the goal.
    Many of us were well aware of this video when it came out 4 years ago and the answer as to ‘why the Repubs have not sounded the alarm’ is that some did, but the Legacy Media embargoed the story as they so often do.

  21. Some of the comments here lead me to think that many still don’t understand what Obamacare really is.
    It is not the website, That was never supposed to exist. Every state was supposed to set up their own exchange. Most decided not to, so the feds had to build their own system.
    Obamacare was about doing two things:
    1) Setting a new base for insurance – things like getting rid of pre-existing conditions limitations and lifetime maximums. Those were the two things screwing too many people.
    2) Creating the exchanges, which were supposed to have the buying power of large corporations to get very competitive pricing for exchange members.
    Done with care, these could actually have been good. Individuals getting prices similar to employees of large corps. (even if they do have to pay the full premium) and the sickest people not being essentially abandoned.
    The the horse trading began. Insurance companies wanted to safeguard their margins, which meant forcing people to buy insurance … well, even this is not really that bad, same principle as many other countries (Canada, UK, France).
    But where it really started to fall apart was that the exchanges didn’t work like a big buyer, but simply became a (the one and only really) marketplace for insurance companies to sell. The insurance companies played safe, assumed the worst, and priced accordingly. Even the (high) premium prices are not the whole story. I looked at prices for myself. Worked out about $700 (US) per month for reasonable coverage, but with a $6k “deductible”. This varied by company, but in worst cases the insurance would pay out NOTHING until the deductible was completed. So the price should really be stated as “From $8,400 per year if you are healthy, to $14,400 per year if you get sick”.
    Of course, when you are sick, you still have to find the money to pay the premium, plus the first $6k of treatment … fine if you have a large nest-egg to fall back on, but probably unworkable for most, who would STILL find themselves abandoned when they fell seriously ill.
    Obamacare is either too little or too much interference in the current US syste, depending on your point of view, and as with all half-measure, destined to fail miserably.

  22. Obamacare is either too little or too much interference in the current US system, depending on your point of view, and as with all half-measure, destined to fail miserably
    Philip, your analysis is interesting but your conclusion is stellar.
    On the too-much-interference side, only lefty arrogance (and naiveté) would allow anyone to believe that an act of federal legislation could “reset” a system comprising 300 million citizens in a free country.
    On the too-little-interference side, lefties know nothing of little interference.
    So whatever understanding the commenters on this site have of Obamacare, they probably agree with your conclusion that it’s destined to fail.

  23. How is it probable that the Walmart plan covers less than any Obamacare plan? In case you didn’t notice, Obamacare is the law, and any plan that doesn’t comply with the ACA is illegal. So how could this company get away with providing health insurance plans that don’t compy with the law, without being dragged into court by the Obama administration? How is that in any way probable?
    I’ll tell you what’s probable: the websites for the states and the federal website are such a Charlie Foxtrot that hardly anybody has actually paid premiums on the new plans. On the other hand Walmart has 1.4 million American employees, and therefore actually has bulk buying power compared to the ACA websites.

  24. What Philip said plus:
    The incentive for the working poor to work less to reduce income to fall under the Medicaid income threshold is now much increased and threatens to overwhelm State Medicaid budgets (Planned, I suspect, by Obama’s brain-trust).
    Walmart’s Health care plan will be gone by the Fall as it is part of the Employer Mandate that Obama has deferred for obvious political considerations. Perhaps if they unionize, they could become exempt.
    Medicare’s future, unless revised by means-testing is hopelessly bankrupt. The per capita cost of US public-funded health care (alone) exceeds that of Canada already. The “private” sector (closer to economic fascism model) costs are all incremental.
    As the torch of US power is handed from Obama back to Clinton the nation will be more amenable to a Medicaid-for-all single payer system, which, due to bankruptcy and a well nurtured and swollen underclass will make Canadian Provincial systems appear first class by comparison, marking the end of Medicare and jacked-up and mandated private insurance. The full cost of collusion with the progressives will be their own demise.

  25. It is possible because the employer mandate hasnt kicked in yet. When it does late this year, the Walmart insurance will be deemed inadequate and their employees will be kicked into the exchanges. It will be cheaper for Walmart to do this and pay the penalty than to provide the mandated coverage.

  26. barrycare has massive deductibles. I do not think the average Canadian would be prepared to come up with 10 to 12 thousand dollars before his/her insurance kicked in. the whole thing is a massive fraud that is designed to move the u.s. to a Canadian style healthcare system. I think this has the potential to bankrupt America and destroy the country. if any businessman proposed such a ridiculous system to his company he would be laughed out of the boardroom. American’s, losing their freedom one unconstitutional law after another. for all those who say the scotus said it was constitutional, the scotus has made many unconstitutional decisions in my lifetime.

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