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We know that about 10 million more people have insurance coverage this year as a result of the Affordable Care Act but until now it has been difficult to say much about who was getting that Obamacare coverage — where they live, their age, their income and other such details. Now Kevin Quealy and Margot Sanger-Katz report in the NYT that a new data set is providing a clearer picture of which people gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The data is the output of a statistical model based on a large survey of adults and shows that the law has done something rather unusual in the American economy this century: It has pushed back against inequality, essentially redistributing income — in the form of health insurance or insurance subsidies — to many of the groups that have fared poorly over the last few decades. The biggest winners from the law include people between the ages of 18 and 34; blacks; Hispanics; and people who live in rural areas. The areas with the largest increases in the health insurance rate, for example, include rural Arkansas and Nevada; southern Texas; large swaths of New Mexico, Kentucky and West Virginia; and much of inland California and Oregon.
Despite many Republican voters’ disdain for the Affordable Care Act, parts of the country that lean the most heavily Republican (according to 2012 presidential election results) showed significantly more insurance gains than places where voters lean strongly Democratic. That partly reflects underlying rates of insurance. In liberal places, like Massachusetts and Hawaii, previous state policies had made insurance coverage much more widespread, leaving less room for improvement. But the correlation also reflects trends in wealth and poverty. Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Friday October 31 2014, @11:50PM
"its always been that way" doesn't mean its the best way, or even a good way. if you want to be a selfish prick and keep everything to yourself, saying fuck everyone else, then nobody is stopping you from moving away from everyone and living off in the wilderness by yourself, but if you want to participate in society then you have to follow society's rules, which includes following the laws and pitching in your fair share; if you won't pitch in your fair share then you're just a mooch, suckling off society's teats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 01 2014, @12:26AM
OK, I'll bite.
How much, precisely, is to be extracted from me, now and forevermore?
Go on, name your price.
Because I have found that however much people promise me, with their hands on their hearts and tears in their baby blue eyes, is all they want to take, it turns into a bigger number with more government debt which turns into more interest payments which I then have to pay for ....
In case you're having a hard time getting the hint: this is exactly why I, and many others, are getting sick of the ever-ratcheting government-sponsored level of financial strip-mining.
So give me a final, guaranteed figure or hunker down for implacable resistance.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday November 01 2014, @06:17AM
thats between you and the people in your area. as things like "inflation", "privatization", and "corruption" exist, and as everyone's needs and cost:benefit analyses are different, its impossible to give a single figure that will be valid for everyone, everywhere, forevermore.
the rest of your post reads like a strawman.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 02 2014, @03:26AM
OK. Great. It's a flexible number with no foreseeable cap. Got it. Thanks for clearing that up.
Implacable resistance to rising budgets shall therefore be the approach of choice.
Want something done? Find room in the budget, or learn to do without.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 01 2014, @11:19AM
I never said it's always been that way. I said it's been that way successfully in society for a long time; witness a society without taking money for charity at gunpoint. What we currently have is a small minority that through mass stupidity gained power and did something that society did not, and still does not, want.
Now YOU have a choice: to listen to the dictates of your collective society and vote for someone who is in favor of repealing the ACA or state plainly that you do value your own rights above those of society and vote for someone in favor of keeping it. You can't have it both ways.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Saturday November 01 2014, @05:37PM
no, thats not my responsibility, thats the responsibility of society's representatives, the responsibility of the government. its also the responsibility of government to provide the things which society needs to be prosperous regardless of that society's wishes. there's a lot of people who don't want their money going to pay for roads, but modern society can't function without them. there's a lot of people who don't want their money going to support the army, but a society has to be able to defend itself otherwise it will simply be conquered.
every other first-world country in the world and lots of 3rd-world countries have proven that universal healthcare is well worth the benefits and is significantly cheaper than the US "healthcare system" scam. when people who can't pay for it go to the ER, it comes out of the public's pocket at a significantly higher cost; i can't understand why people want to continue paying so much more for so little benefit when its possible to pay significantly less for a hell of a lot more benefit.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 02 2014, @12:04AM
End of discussion, tyrant wannabe.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Sunday November 02 2014, @12:47AM
end of discussion, since abusive ad hominem strawmen are the only things you seem able to use.