Friday, December 13, 2013

Criticism on "Affordable Care Act"

Mr.Corpus writes about the "Affordable Care Act" how its one of the most promient concerns right now in our National Government  and says if its something americans really need.I dont need it im insured but alot of americans are not,being in there shoes and with thier Perspectives, i would think the ACA is essential for americans who are not insured and have health problems,they need to be insured so they are covered when something happens to them pretaing to there health problems or any other occurence.Most people are insured with there jobs and careers,the people who dont work probaly dont have insurance, what befudles me is that if your not insured you are going to be penalized,so how are they going to be able to pay to get insured if they dont even have a job and also in addition get penalized.People who cant work because they have health problems,will they get disability benefits,which if they have they can pay for the insuranse.The americans who probaly wont be able to pay for the insurance rates are the ones who have no health problems and just dont work at all.I belive the republicans wanted to defund obamcare so badly because they were afraid the nation will get even more in debt.The irony of that is that the government shutdown which the republicans wanted,put the U.S into some more debt than what it already was. 

I cocur with Mr.Corpus that they are too many many variables and factors that can swing one's beliefs and Political Ideology.If it starts to affect to many americans,then there needs to be a solution and something got to change for better or worse.

Health Care Website Recovering

The Obama adminstration says it has made big improvements in its website for enrolling in new health insurance plans.The website is still not perfect, but the strides made raise the prospects that the website will be able to help millions of Americans buy policies from private insurers on new insurance exchanges either by December 23, the deadline for policies that will take effect on Januray 1, or by March 31, the deadline for taking out coverage without being fined. There will be federal subsidies to help those on modest incomes pay the premiums. The website, HealthCare.gov, was supposed to be ready on October 1 which has been about two months already, but an array of technical problems made it impossible for all but a small numer trickle of customers to compare policies and enroll in a plan. For some weeks in October, the site was down 60 percent of the time. That dire situation at the front end of the process has been largely corrected through a frantic repair effort over the past five weeks, but it won’t be enough unless the final back-end stage of enrollment is fixed as well.The administration issued a progress report asserting that the system was running smoothly for a vast majority of users, that the site was now working more than 90 percent of the time, and that consumers were getting much better feedback from the site than before. Thanks to the computer nerds and the software and hardware improvements, the average page is loading way faster than it did before, and the number of frustrating error messages that block people from using the site has fallen too.

 The administration estimated that the site could support 50,000 users at the same time, that users spend an average of 20 to 30 minutes a day on it which is not too long, and that the site can support 800,000 visits a day. We won’t know how accurate those projections are until that many users try to use it. The website serves 36 states, but many other states have set up their own exchanges, several of which are working better than the federal exchanges.The next challenge ahead is to upgrade the back-end systems that transmit information to insurance companies so that they can complete the enrollment process. Consumers have until December 23 to sign up for policies which are effective on Januray 1, leaving only three weeks to solve the back-end problem. In some cases, insurers have no record of some people who think they have enrolled or have received inaccurate or incomplete information for some enrollees.Its good to hear that the website is progressing and not at a bad plateau like it was a couple a months ago,im pretty sure the democrats are tired of the republicans scolding them about all the problems with the website,well its working better than what it did before,i hope it stays that way so uninsured people could get insured.

A Budget Deal Made

Most of this year,The Brutal cuts have wreaked havoc on vital programs,cutting off hundreds of thousands from Head Start programs like the Department Of Health and Human Services and low-income housing assistance,setting back scientific research and environmental protection,and costing more than a million jobs.Passing a budget bill that reduces the defict was a high priority for House and Senate budget negotiators, they achieved much of what they wanted,the budget deal was reached on tuesday Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and Senator Patty Murray of Washington, chairwoman of the Senate budget committee were the ones to make the budget deal,that would raise military and domestic spending over the next two years, shifting the pain of across-the-board cuts to other programs over the coming decade and raising fees on airline tickets to pay for airport security. The deal reduces the defrict by 23 billion dollars and paul ryan said to it will not raise taxes either.Cuts for nondefense discretionary domestic programs this fiscal year, adding back $31.5 billion over the next two years to be divided among departments like transportation, education, and health and human services which in my opinion are indispensable programs.Patty Murray, the Senate negotiator, resisted Republican demands for new cuts to safety-net programs. As a result, money will soon start flowing to programs that have been not doing good all year.But the details of the agreement show that Republican loathing of taxes and domestic spending continue to dominate the budget debate.To save money for those at the very top, new federal workers will have to pay more for their pension plan. The cost-of-living increase on pensions for military retirees younger than 62 will be reduced. And the security fee built into every airline ticket will rise by as much as $5 a ticket, making travel more expensive for all
passengers,personally that does not affect me too much because i dont travel by airplane,well not yet.

I think The deal is too small to affect long-term growth because Republicans wouldn’t consider big investments needed to improve education and training. It will not provide enough for cities and states to undertake major infrastructure repair, putting people back to work. And because it does not provide for the extension of jobless benefits that expire on Jan. 1 for 1.3 million people, it fails to fulfill a basic responsibility to the long-term unemployed.The agreement will extend cuts to Medicare providers for two extra years, 2022 and 2023.
 

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Impeaching Obama?

Its a fair and unbiased assumption to say that President Obama has not been a good President.
His approval ratings has dropped down to 42%, with a record 55% disapproving down significantly from October, and slightly worse than his low point of 54% disapproval in late 2011. Only a third of Americans approve of Obama's implementation of the new health care law, while 63% disapprove. I believe the main reason why his approval ratings has dropped is because of his signature plan Obama Care. Back in 2010 when he had this affordable care act plan signed and layed out for the future he visioned that it will cover 32 million uninsured Americans beginning in 2014 of next year, its not right that uninsured people who don't have insurance, will start to get fined the president is basically making it mandatory for us Americans to be insured.

I'm Pretty sure that turned off a lot of Americans who are not insured with the affordable care act, and the ones who went to the website and tried to get insured weren't too pleased to see that the website had problems of its own with all the errors and glitches, But that is fixed now, should have not been messed up in the first place.

I agree with Christina  that Obama hasn't made the promises he promised, yes he has helped with the unemployment rate by passing the stimulus and getting more Americans jobs but the downside of that is that its putting the US more in debt than what it already is. This is the 21 century and Obama needs to do a better job.




Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Health Site’s Debut



On Monday, October 21,2013, The New York Times, published an editorial article titled "The Health's Site's Chaotic Debut." The Editorial board talks about how botched is the opening of the federal web site, the purpose for the website is for Americans to get insurance from the affordable care act,but are having trouble getting insurance because of the glitches and errors of the web site. The author's intended audience  is of course the people who were trying to get insured but couldn't because of the problems the website is having. The problems with the site have frustrated millions of people trying to get information and coverage. In response, the administration has put forward a two-part approach to coping with Web site failures. It has added information technology experts from inside and outside the government to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week to try to overcome the technical glitches.

 The author's gives great credibility,claim and explains that the administration attributes the problems partly to unexpectedly high demand from people eager to compare insurance policies available in their states and partly to technical glitches that blocked or slowed people from submitting application.Mr. Obama also made an important pledge to all consumers who tried to apply through the federal Web site and  had trouble somewhere in the process. The authors also points out that the health exchanges in several states appear to be working better than the federal site. And even with the federal site’s problems, some half-million Americans have successfully submitted applications through state and federal exchanges, the first step in the enrollment process. I Agree with the point the author is trying to make about the flaws of this website but we got to take this to consider that we were in a government shutdown and the president and republicans were at a stalemate to come to an agreement  and that the website importance of being made prefect was not as essential as reopening  the government.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

International Fallout

On Monday, October 7 the New York Times Published an editorial titled The International Fallout

The Editorial board talks about how the shutdown is being a burden on the U.S government, that this stalemate between the president and congress which is still going on is not only affecting the U.S government, but countries like Asia, which president Obama was supposed to go visit last week to discuss about the foreign policy  but didn't because of the shutdown. The author’s intended audience I believe is from a democratic point of view because they are still at a stalemate between congress which are essentially the republican members. The flaws of our government is that we don't have our problems solved and that doesn't only hurt us but the countries we are partner up with. The point I believe the author is trying to make is that our problems our making us look like we cant be strong, long lasting partners with other countries because other financial leaders in other countries  also felt compelled to speak out about the problems we have with the government shutdown, this shutdown is hurting especially those workers who are still furloughed and  I cant over emphasize that.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Republicans Strategy for Obamacare

                            Not Ted Cruz's base.  (Mark Wilson / GETTY IMAGES)

On Tuesday September, 24 ,2013 the Washington Post published an article titled What Republicans don’t understand about the politics of Obamacare. My thoughts about this article is that the republican party is trying to put a stop to Obamacare by the next two years. Speaker John Boehner says that by threatening to breach the debt ceiling he can convince Democrats to delay it. If that fails, top Republicans quietly think they may be able to get Democrats to compromise on delaying the individual mandate.