A tale of two Conservative parties
Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Photo: Embassy of Canada (U.S), Creative Commons, some rights reserved
Last week was a study in contrasts for North America’s two powerful right-tilting parties.
The irony is that the success stories are all on the side of the border where one would least expect to find them.
In Washington, the Republican Party is in full circular-firing-squad mode, with far-right fundamentalists demanding government shutdowns, debt defaults, and eagerly launching internal purges to root out and destroy moderates within their ranks.
The GOP hasn’t won a presidential election since 2004 and hasn’t controlled the US Senate since 2007. The party has been forced to lean on hardball electoral tactics — gerrymandering and voter suppression efforts — just to maintain control of the US House.
Speaking last week, during the bitter depths of the messy Republican retreat on Obamacare, former Florida governor Jeb Bush made the startling suggestion that his party might want to develop an actual agenda for governing the country.
“We just can’t be against what’s in front of Washington, D.C,” Bush pointed out, in an interview with MSNBC. He, like others in his party, have lamented the wholesale collapse of the GOP’s popularity among Hispanics, the young, and women.
The party of No has begun to look like the party of No Future.
In Ottawa, meanwhile, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has led his nation since 2006. His party has racked up so many center-right legislative victories, that it’s left many observers wondering if there’s much left of his original agenda worth doing.
Canada is arguably the most stable, prosperous and (gasp) well-managed western democracy, with a rapidly shrinking national deficit, lower corporate taxes, and a booming energy sector. The Great Recession that hobbled America barely registered north of the border.
Mr. Harper has also just inked a major new trade agreement with Europe that could push Canada ahead of the US in the global free-trade movement.
All this has been accomplished while boosting the Conservative Party’s electoral support, including strong growth among the nation’s immigrants and moderate suburban voters.
Along the way, Mr. Harper has angered and alienated some of his more hard-core supporters. Social conservatives, hard-line free-marketeers, and anti-environment factions want a tea-party like revolution in Canada.
Instead, the Conservative Party has chosen to build an actual governing movement. This from the Globe and Mail.
Mr. Harper has tempered his firebrand past in the interests of putting together the broadest possible coalition of conservative supporters, from New Brunswick Red Tories to 905 Sikhs to Prairie farmers.
That means he can only move the dial a bit to the right each time; sometimes he even has to dial it back. It also means, if breaches are not to be publicly exposed, imposing a smothering discipline on the caucus and the party machinery.
Mr. Harper has begun to face some of the discontents and challenges of a party that has been, for a very long time, comfortably in power. There are signs of drift and increased in-fighting.
But those are problems his counterparts in the US — Mitt Romney, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell — would very much like to experience.
The irony is that many American conservatives still view Canada with horror. They point to its government-run healthcare programs and lingering reputation as a more liberal society as the very future they are fighting to avoid.
The truth, meanwhile, is that Canadian conservatives probably have a great deal to teach their counterparts, not just in Washington but also in places like Texas and Georgia and Kansas.
“What is it about liberals that compels them to trash and demonize anyone who disagrees with them? Seem like there’s no chance anymore of agreeing to disagree and recognizing that the opposition are sincere, well-intentioned folks.”
First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. –Matthew 7:3-5
Republicans have called the ACA the “worst thing to happen to America since slavery” and “one of the most insidious laws ever created by man.” They have told outrageous lies about it from day one. Don’t talk to me about “recognizing that the opposition are sincere, well-intentioned folks.”
Paul, I simply use POTUS as a shorthand for President of the United States rather than taking what I consider the rather derogatory approach of simply calling him “Obama”. I wonder if you assume that all who curtly refer to him as “Obama” would do so in his presence or would the office of the most powerful individual on Earth refresh your mind and vocal chords to recall that he is the “President of the United States”? Someone might use the honorific mister when referring to you; however, the honorific used to reference the President of the United States when face to face with him is President and when introducing him formally it is “President of the United States”.
that’s right, larry. the word “nonsense” in isolation hardly has the effect of trashing or demonizing anyone.
it’s when you combine it with strident language like “liberals” (as, not just a subset, but all of them) and “spout,” with a kicker like “without even thinking if it makes sense” — that’s when you get something else.
your little “Most people understand the difference” dig is more of the same.
in the latest edition of What Walker Said, it’s all kind of the opposite of “recognizing that the opposition are sincere, well-intentioned folks.” that really seems to be a standard you apply to others, not to people you consider your allies or to yourself.
be the change you want to see in the world!
Wow, a biblical admonition and a tongue lashing from ht. It’s a good thing I have a sense of humor. How can it be OK for some to use “Republicans” and “conservatives” as in all of them but not for me to use the word liberals? OK to categorize the Republican party as right wing, racist extremists? ht, your narrow minded criticism just doesn’t wash, it sounds more and more like desperate self-justification. On second thought, maybe the correct phrase is self-gratification.
you’ve missed the point, larry, which is: don’t be a hypocrite.
Part of the conservative’s appeal in Canada could actually be performance based, things have been better in Canada with them in charge.
I think in the US we seem to have lost that idea, its all about pure ideology, culture etc.
Its why I like Clinton even though I am a conservative, he got it done he was a good Executive Officer.
Lets face it does anyone liberal or conservative really believe that members who make up the tea party caucus in Congress, could run the government with the skill needed to have good outcomes for our country? I agreed with President W Bush on more issues politically than I agreed with Clinton, but W was simply incompetent and made bad decisions, regardless of his ideology.
We need to get back to people who know what they are doing regardless of ideology.
Ken, if you look at many of my comments I usually refer to him as “the president”. I was just curious why you were doing it that way. You might want to chill out. It is pretty common to refer to the president by his (and someday her) last name. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Obama. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with it. Certainly not derogatory.
Clinton would have not had this horrible role out of the ACA or this web site for example. This is pure incompetence across the board. So if they are this incompetent now, why would we think this administration is going to really be able to run a health care system?
Maybe defining something as nonsense is alright in some cases (here you should not do it since it is just folks opinions, if you don’t like them ignore them). But calling someone narrow minded is just wrong.
Mervel, I see where you are coming from. But the government is very capable at some things. Certainly would not want to have a private military. The government does an outstanding job in my opinion in this regard. You just have to get it right. Here they have dropped the ball and have admitted so.
But to get it right we have to spend a lot of money (look at what we do need to spend on the military to get it right, just how things work). Can we do that with the ACA I don’t see how. What are the new consultants adding to the bill? At some point it makes more sense to just give the folks the money and remove the middle man.
Paul, You said: ” I was just curious why you were doing it that way. You might want to chill out.”
In an attempt to satisfy your curiosity, I gave you my explanation for using POTUS (which I used with each of the past Presidents I referred to as well) in reply to your question directed toward me. Is it not ironic that you feel a need to tell me that I “might want to chill out” based upon, I assume, my reply and in your very next comment you state: “it is just folks opinions, if you don’t like them ignore them”.
I spent 27+ years working in the DoD, the majority of the time as an engineer and my opinion as to why the cost for military weapons systems is so incredibly high is precisely because the government is constrained to use private contractors to design and construct these weapons systems and thereby enrich upper management immensely in the process. Cost over runs abound in design and manufacture of these weapon systems.
Does it appear plausible that the government would be incapable of hiring the same scientists and engineers that the private contractors are able to hire? In the field of military weapons design many of the people hired by private contractors are ex-military. Why does not the government do in-house design and construction? The funneling of copious quantities of lucre into the coffers of the few, undeniably deserving folks, would experience a large decrease if that were to happen. These deserving folks would in turn make their displeasure undeniably clear to every congress man/woman on their gifts list.
Apparently the contractors who were paid, undoubtedly copious quantities of money to design the software for the “ObamaCare” roll out performed as admirably as the majority of those with whom I had contact.
I don’t believe the private sector could have rolled out a project of the size and scope of the ACA any better than the govt has. Show me a company that has had as many hits on the very first day its website was up.
i don’t agree with that, knuck. i think it’s true that as a rule of thumb, people tend to overestimate the competence of private companies and underestimate the competence of government. but the obamacare rollout has still been terrible! it should and could have been much much better.
Seriously khl? Yes, the ACA is a large, complex program but so are many business roll-outs and many are more complex. I can tell you from personal experience that this type of performance is unacceptable in the private sector. Any roll-out with these kindsof issues would have been postponed or cancelled rather than subject the company to this kind of embarrassment. It’s an epic fail and highlights the ineptitude of the Obama administration. At least nobody got killed because of it (see: Benghazi).
Ken, what is wrong with chillin?? It was just a suggestion. It is not derogatory to refer to the president by his surname. We have been doing it this way since we have had a president. As far as what someone would refer to him in person, of course they would use something else. With the exception of the military people don’t go around usually calling each other by the last name. When I have met the president (not this one but two others) I didn’t have the chance to call them anything. I shook their hands and said that it was a pleasure to meet them. And it was, it was really cool. I hope I get a chance to meet this one someday.
Look, on the ACA the important thing is not the website. They can fix that. If you can put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth in pretty short order we ought to be able to develop a website in three years that can handle what would obviously be lots of traffic. It will cost a ton of money but it will get done.
What matters is who signs up. Of the 500K who got into the system, how many bought insurance and how many of them were young and healthy? That will be the true measure of success.
Either way they are probably going to have to delay this given the problems. Too bad we didn’t delay it a few weeks ago and avoid the whole government shut down. But I understand we can’t give into those kinds of demands this is the law of the land. Just in case this doesn’t work out the democrats probably should work out how they will blame its failure on the GOP. I guess they can say that it was because the didn’t cheer lead for it? But I don’t think voters are that stupid. But you never know. I saw a guy outside the capital when I was in DC about a month ago he was alone with a sign that said something like “get rid of obamacare”. Maybe it is his fault?
Paul I am not so sure.
Yes our military is very strong, it is far far from efficient. It is one thing to have a military which is good at destroying the enemy, which we do have, quite another to have one that is efficient. We have the most expensive military in the world, there is reason we have $1000 toilet seats on our military airplanes and so forth.
Or consider a more recent example, Obama claims and probably believes that drone strikes are severely vetted and not targeting civilians, but we are now finding that is not true they have been randomly blowing up civilians, some simply working in the fields, not out of ill will or evilness, but simply out of incompetence.
We do need government and yes our government does some things well, but not all government is the same, some governments are far more efficient than others and some government leaders are far more efficient than others. Obama is ok, I would give him a solid C, but he is not the most competent of executive officers we have had. The problems with the roll out are very basic mistakes, simply incompetence.
So in this regard I think we need to look at the basic skill of our leaders in running governments.
Health care is a very complex area, I feel we have a president and more importantly a bunch of people who have been appointed by the President that do not have a clue about how to manage, run or implement the ACA, the problems are much deeper than simply a web site, they show a very basic lack of knowledge and competence.
Ken has a point.
There is this idea that if we subcontract everything it will be better, however military subcontractors are private companies in name only, yes they make profits; but most of them could sell nothing in the private sector, they rely totally on government money. They are just an extension of the government who make profits from the government. The coding errors in the ACA software were very very basic.
Mervel, I think we basically agree. On the drones I will wait for more information not just Amnesty’s take. War is always a mess. We randomly killed civilians in every war we have ever been engaged in. We have done a lot to try and stop it but it doesn’t surprise me that it still goes on to some extent. Probably way more people randomly killed in the US on any given month that we see killed by drones over the same period. Hopefully they can investigate and make it even less likely to happen.
Saw that movie Captain Phillips this weekend. As I understand it it is a pretty accurate account of that pirate incident off the coast of Somalia. When you see there how the navy handled the situation I will let them keep their 1000 dollar toilet seats. (But, yes, we should try and find a cheaper supplier also!)
Sometimes with good leaders and good people working with them we do get it right.
I also felt very bad for the pirates that they had to kill.
According to the director of HHS the problems with the website completely “blindsided” the president.
I saw this in Wired recently regarding the roll out of the iPhone
“It was a late morning in the fall of 2006. Almost a year earlier, Steve Jobs had tasked about 200 of Apple’s top engineers with creating the iPhone. Yet here, in Apple’s boardroom, it was clear that the prototype was still a disaster. It wasn’t just buggy, it flat-out didn’t work. The phone dropped calls constantly, the battery stopped charging before it was full, data and applications routinely became corrupted and unusable. The list of problems seemed endless. At the end of the demo, Jobs fixed the dozen or so people in the room with a level stare and said, “We don’t have a product yet.””
There is a lesson here for HHS. The scary part is that the ACA website was also demoed ahead of the roll out. With just a few hundred people signing on it crashed! They still went ahead and launched the site on October 1. Good thing these guys are working for the government or they would all be looking for a new job rather than getting a whole bunch of overtime pay.
So here is an article that says much of the ACA’s Healthcare.gov was outsourced to a private company, GCI, who is the largest tech company in Canada. So much for private corporations doing it better.
http://admin.alternet.org/personal-health/how-out-control-private-contractors-botched-obamacare-rollout
Our government outsources way too much to private companies under the myth that it will save money. Most of it is the result of lobbying (paying off politicians) to get exclusive government contracts. Then the same politicians and their staff are later hired by the corporations as additional payback and to reinforce their lobbying efforts. We need to break this circle of political payola with campaign contribution restrictions and ending the revolving between government and corporations.
they know it won’t save money. That is just how it works. What are we supposed to have a federal web design team just sitting around waiting for some kind of project?
The problem here is not who did it. The problem was how it was done. I also think that politics got in the way. They had to launch the site even thought it was junk. If they didn’t they would have been caving to GOP demands to delay the roll out. (an idea that now looks like a smart move)
The company knew it wasn’t ready. Their test was a flop. Yet we rolled it out anyway.
Any technical experts being brought in now to help fix these problems will have to go through the normal government procurement process. That will probably take them past the deadline to sign up. Delay is inevitable. Failure to admit that at this point would just be another mistake. It sounds like the director of HHS and other cabinet members have decided that now would be a good time to spread out across the country on a campaign to try and get more people signed up. So I assume this will increase traffic to the site and compound the problem. Oh brother.
I know! It shows the disconnect between politics, promotion and actually getting things done.
I agree about the seals etc, no doubt we have the best military in the world, but its still a military.
The Canadian Conservative Party used to be a regional party and were in opposition for a long time. Even when they won power, it was with a minority government. But the Tories decided they wanted to be a national party representing all Canadians, not just westerners. In the current parliament, the majority of their seats come from Ontario and east. That’s why they now have a majority in parliament (if not the popular vote): they are a national party.
The Republicans, by contrast, are going in the opposite direction. The increasing influence of Tea Party fanatics will cripple their viability as a national party if left unchecked; my guess is it cost them the 2012 presidential election (I know a lot of people who didn’t care for Obama and thought Romney himself was ok, but were afraid of who else would populate his administration and were afraid of who he’d be beholden to). They may still control some state houses but Congress will be harder and harder to keep… gerrymandering can only do so much.
Ht and Larry: Facebook IPO.
Please show me an example of a website that has had more hits on the first day it was put on line. Businesses that have been around for years sometimes have trouble managing traffic on their website. Seems to me people are expecting much better performance from the govt than they expect from the private sector.
Knuck, that is a good point. But it looks like traffic isn’t the main problem with the site. A demo of the system done shortly before the launch with just several hundred users still crashed the site. I wonder how many hits the have at the Apple online store when a new iPhone hits the market? That might be a good analogy. Perhaps they should have set up the equivalent to Apple Stores in malls all over the country (ever see the lines at those puppies when they launch a new product? Kind of like ACA stores? The point here is that all of this should have been figured out ahead of time. Like the president said no one wants this to work more than him. They can work out the sign up thing. Hopefully they do it quickly. The answer to the critics will still come later. If everyone sick signs up and all the healthy people stay away (or at least too many of them do) then we will know how this will work, what it will really cost, and if it lowers costs for the 85% of us that had insurance as promised.
I see that some insurance companies that had upped their revenue forecasts to reflect new business from the ACA are taking a hit on the market due to the sign up problems.
Paul, Apple is a technology company that has rolled out products on a regular basis for decades. They have problems with their new roll outs too. I’m unhappy with several features of the iOS 7 upgrade on my iPad, just as an example. But I think the Facebook IPO is a good example to look at. Facebook is a technology company that had been around for several years and Nasdaq is basically the top technology exchange. Put the two of them together and you get a perfect rollout, right? Nor was anyone hurt by the healthcare rollout blunder. We still have many weeks to sign up and nobody can even get the product until January. No harm.
But consider EVERY single IPO on Wall Street – insiders get the first shot, ordinary people have practically zero chance at getting in on the deal and the effective date is instantaneous.
“But it looks like traffic isn’t the main problem with the site. A demo of the system done shortly before the launch with just several hundred users still crashed the site. I wonder how many hits the have at the Apple online store when a new iPhone hits the market? That might be a good analogy.”
Paul, it’s a terrible analogy. You just said the traffic isn’t the issue, and it’s not. This system has to interface with multiple government agencies’ databases and god only knows how many private insurance companies’ databases, and it has to enforce very complex rules. That’s way more complex than selling a new phone.
Guys, take it easy. My point (which I didn’t apparently make) is that if they had been prepared for more volume perhaps it would have gone a little more smoothly. If they had something like the “stores” set up as an alternative to the web based system people could have gone there when they couldn’t connect online. I realize that it is harder than selling a phone.
Let me ask you two. Why do you think that they rolled it out when the clearly were not ready? Like you say Walker this is very complex, apparently three years was not sufficient time to prepare.
Brian, how dare you stay on topic!!
Walker, I don’t think volume is the main problem. But it is apparently a problem. Since you have to deal with all of what you describe when more people show up it does compound the issue.
Brian makes a good point I think about the Republican party becoming a regional party, probably in the future a small regional bunch, much like the westerners in Canada.
They rolled it out for political reasons when they knew they were not ready. I do understand the decision. You have Republicans saying hey lets delay this whole thing,, then if you come back and say we have to delay it because we are not ready, it is like caving in to their demands.
However to me it is a much more concerning than just a web site. It is kind of like they don’t understand the basic problem, how complex and how hard doing this is going to be. Why didn’t they have a call center set up for a back up? Who do you call about the ACA, who do you call if you have problems with your health insurance under the ACA? I mean this stuff is not easy and I think you have a bunch of people who don’t understand the problem lumbering around.
“But consider EVERY single IPO on Wall Street – insiders get the first shot, ordinary people have practically zero chance at getting in on the deal and the effective date is instantaneous.”
Lots of ordinary people make lots of money when companies go public. Lots of public sector workers pension benefit, lots of not-for-profit endowments (like universities, and private research institutes) benefit as they have access to investments that will generate good returns over time.
Ordinary people have more access and more money invested in the capital markets that ever before. The days of the private defined benefit pension are over. Ordinary people are not sitting on the sidelines they are neck deep in the markets. That is why a default was such a scary proposition for the ordinary folk.
They do have a call center. The president gave out the number in the press conference. When folks called it they either got a busy signal or a recording that directed them to the broken website.
The idea that Wall Street is for “insiders” and that “ordinary people” can’t profit from the market or from IPOs is no longer correct, if it ever was. As Paul correctly points out, ordinary people have more opportunity for participation than ever before through mutual funds, 401K investments and on-line trading. As far as the ACA website goes, any porn website probably gets more hits daily. There are surely several internet pornographers who could straighten out the ACA site in short order. Bad job by the government. Obama’s reach usually exceeds his grasp and this is no exception.
“Let me ask you two. Why do you think that they rolled it out when the clearly were not ready?”
I think they were over a barrel– if they had said “We need more time” Republicans would have pushed hard to make it a full year delay, which would get it past the 2014 elections. Obama needs people to see that the ACA really is going to work and save people money, and that Republicans have been lying about it from day one.
Incidentally, it looks like its going to save my wife $12,000 a year, without any subsidies. We already are thinking about how we’ll spend that windfall, which, multiplied by millions of others in similar situations, should help boost the economy.
Ha Paul I know what about the phone number, is there a group of trained people at the Dept of HHS that can answer questions about the ACA and how to get insurance and what to do after I have insurance about questions and problems I may have? I think the answer now is no, there is no supportive services for the ACA, they are going in blind.
Walker those are the kinds of results that will make a difference for this. In the end if people can save money by going on the exchange and it is actually good insurance products, the program will be a success regardless of the technical difficulties. $12,000 per year is a LOT for one person to pay for insurance, I mean that is $1000 per month in just savings, usually an entire policy is around $1000 a month.
You’re right, Mervel, it is a lot! We’ve been paying $1350 a month.
I just saw new figures, though, for the NY ACA rates– it looks like they’re actually going to be more like $440/month, so her savings will be more like $10,000 per year, a bit less if she uses more medical services in the next year than she usually does. Still a nice chunk of change.
“…usually an entire policy is around $1000 a month.”
Not when you’re paying as an individual in Franklin County. We could have paid a bit less, but then we’d have been be using a company that has a worse record of denying claims. Franklin County has very few choices of insurers.
“Republicans have been lying about it from day one.”
Where’s the hypocrisy police when you need them?
Larry, would you care to defend claims that the ACA involves “death panels”? Is it truly the worst thing in the US since slavery, or the most insidious law ever written? How about claims that it will dramatically increase the cost of insurance for individuals? Does it bother you at all that Fox News trotted out four people who claimed that it was going to cost them more or force them to lay off employees, only to have it turn out that none of their claims were true? How do you like Jim DeMint’s editorial in the Wall St. Journal? Interesting to see the Heritage Foundation attacking the plan that they came up with in 1989 as an alternative to single-payer health care. (See Wikipedia: Obamacare)
So let’s hear it– where are the lies to equal those?
Oh, wait, I left out the “Obamacare constitutes a complete government takeover of health care.”
Care to fact check that Larry?
I’m sure there are others I’ve missed…
Walker, I am glad this will save you guys some money. 1350 a month for catastrophic coverage is crazy! That is what type of insurance she had right? (I say that based on your comment the other day).
Here, where I work, where I don’t get my insurance (luckily), the costs for our premiums based on the ACA (minus the usually rising cost, this according to the HR dept and our insurance company) will be up 30%. Hopefully over time that will drop. But right now the promise is not being kept for some. We are considering switching to a much higher deductible plan to get the premium back down. So keeping the coverage we had is not going to happen for folks here. The insurance company would not tell us what our premiums were going to be until just this week. Not sure what they were waiting for?
But at least it is working out for some. Hopefully it will be a good deal for all as is predicted by some.
I assume our HR dept (run by a really nice woman from Canada) and our insurance company (Blue Cross of some version) are just a bunch of lying republicans?
Paul, which flavor of the Kool Aid are you drinking?
Certainly there are many ordinary people who are “neck deep” in the stock market through pension plans, 401k’s, personal investing, etc. Many of those people started out ankle deep and they are sinking. For the vast majority of ordinary people the market is best avoided. Remember the giant losses virtually everyone with any money in the markets suffered a few years ago? Many people won’t recover their losses in their lifetime, and that is on top of all the fees they have paid to have their funds managed.
Check the news today about Bank of America selling shoddy mortgage investments in what they called “hustle” and it looks like one or two people will actually take a fall on this one – unusual for most fraud schemes cooked up by major banks and investment firms. JP Morgan is facing a $6 billion investor lawsuit on top of $13 billion settlement with the govt, but ordinary people aren’t going to recover much of that money. In fact JP Morgan will likely take a TAX DEDUCTION on the settlement effectively paying only $9 billion – so in essence you and I and every single person in the country will be paying about $10 for JP Morgan to commit fraud.
But there are some ordinary people who will do okay, like Jamie Dimon, ordinary guy, who will likely still get paid something like $20 million this year even though he has a history of presiding over the London Whale scandal which cost, what?, $6 billion and they have had to put aside $23 billion for likely legal expenses. And JP Morgan is supposed to be one of the good guys – they aren’t even considered to be the crooks and swindlers like Bernie Madoff or the many hundreds or thousands who are using insider information to trade. And that isn’t even considering computerized algorithmic trades that happen in a fraction of a blink of an eye that can return profits for what greater good?
Ordinary people should be finding ways to get their money the hell out of Wall Street.
Oh no, now the democrats (as reported by the partisan Reuters news service in the UK) are starting to give us misinformation about the ACA:
“Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking House Democrat, criticized the website for forcing consumers to provide private information before deciding what kind of health insurance plan they want to buy.
“I’ve talked to too many people who tell me before they ever get around to figuring out what it is they want to buy, they’re having to answer questions that they don’t feel they should be answering,” Clyburn said.”
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/24/us-usa-healthcare-idUKBRE99M0VD20131024
This isn’t good for the administration. A delay being suggested by democrats is a problem they can’t pan off on the GOP.
No, unfortunately Paul it wasn’t catastrophic coverage– Excellus doesn’t currently offer a high deductible policy in Franklin County for individuals, except for the Medicare supplemental policy that I use. My wife is too young for Medicare.
So you’re saying that your costs would be up 30% for coverage that is identical to coverage you have now? Have you shopped around any?
No, I don’t assume your HR department is lying to you. But that is the first tale I’ve heard from Real People (as opposed to politicians) talking about rising costs. If the coverage is otherwise identical, it doesn’t make any sense to me– the ACA’s 80/20 policy should pretty much insure that the company isn’t gouging. I’d be interested in hearing what you could find out from your HR people as to why the costs are going up. I’m guessing the coverage is better, because of the ACA mandated standards.