Suzanne Somers is now an "expert" on health care policy

[DallasApple]

I used to watch that show "3's company" ..I think she is a expert on nutrition because I heard she has sex every day at 66...That would splain it!

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Your rationale reminds me of something landlords tried in MI. Late fees charged to residential tenants must by law be reasonable. One attempt to assess higher fees than the law would allow was to charge a higher rent, but give a big discount for timely payment. Tenants would naturally expect to pay the discounted rent, so the landlord was at no competitive disadvantage to others who charged less rent, but had a late fee. The courts saw the discount scheme for what it was, ie, imposing a penalty.

That might be because rents were raised, therefore, the tenants who pay a little late had to pay more after the scheme was implemented compared to before it was implemented. Arguably, paying more is a "penalty". It would be interesting to see what the courts would have decided if the landlord offered a big discount for timely payment, but did not raise rents. Would that be a "penalty"?

That would certainly be a closer analogy to your CBS article, since the ACA gives the married couple a subsidy if they become single (i.e., using the tenant analogy, a discount for timely rent payment) but there is no indication the ACA has increased their premium (i.e., increased the tenants' rent).

I'm just defending the accuracy of my clarifications, here. I still admit that even though it's not exactly a "penalty", it does give an incentive for divorce which is screwy. This should be marked down in the "cons" column and weighed against the "pros" when evaluating the merits of the ACA. Again, I'd be interested in finding out what percentage of married couples this applies to; from the article it seemed like your income had to be just above the $60,000 threshold for this to work.

 

[Revoltingest]

That might be because rents were raised, therefore, the tenants who pay a little late had to pay more after the scheme was implemented compared to before it was implemented. Arguably, paying more is a "penalty". It would be interesting to see what the courts would have decided if the landlord offered a big discount for timely payment, but did not raise rents. Would that be a "penalty"?

Yes. The court doesn't weigh in on whether rents are above or below the market (in my experience).
That would be a can of worms they're loath to open.

That would certainly be a closer analogy to your CBS article, since the ACA gives the married couple a subsidy if they become single (i.e., using the tenant analogy, a discount for timely rent payment) but there is no indication the ACA has increased their premium (i.e., increased the tenants' rent).

The court looks at alternatives: 1) Cost to tenant if rent is paid on time. 2) Cost to tenant if rent is late.
The difference between #1 & #2 is the late fee. If the late fee is onerous, then it is legally a prohibited penalty.
I might quibble with them about what a reasonable late fee is, but their analysis on this is sound & perceptive.

I'm just defending the accuracy of my clarifications, here. I still admit that even though it's not exactly a "penalty", it does give an incentive for divorce which is screwy. This should be marked down in the "cons" column and weighed against the "pros" when evaluating the merits of the ACA. Again, I'd be interested in finding out what percentage of married couples this applies to; from the article it seemed like your income had to be just above the $60,000 threshold for this to work.

Woo hoo...detente!
As I've said before, Obamacare (whether it's right or wrong) is here to stay in one form or another.
It's shortcomings should be faced & handled.

An uninteresting aside:
After using "loath", I decided to check on this spelling & usage.
http://grammarist.com/spelling/loath-loathe-loth/

 

[Revoltingest]

I used to watch that show "3's company" ..I think she is a expert on nutrition because I heard she has sex every day at 66...That would splain it!

I'd demand proof, but I fear she might show us pix!

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Yes. The court doesn't weigh in on whether rents are above or below the market (in my experience).
That would be a can of worms they're loath to open.

The court looks at alternatives: 1) Cost to tenant if rent is paid on time. 2) Cost to tenant if rent is late.
The difference between #1 & #2 is the late fee. If the late fee is onerous, then it is legally a prohibited penalty.
I might quibble with them about what a reasonable late fee is, but their analysis on this is sound & perceptive.

I'm just not convinced, and I'll explain why. First, notice that if this logic were correct, it would essentially define out of existence the concept of a discount or subsidy or charity, and replace them all with "penalty". E.g. it would be impossible for subsidies to exist for the hungry, only "penalties" on the well-fed would be possible. Perhaps to some Libertarians that makes sense, to the rest of us, it's just silly. Again let's contrast the two situations: in the landlord case, the same party that is offering the "discount" for on-time payment is also in control of setting the base rent, and has an incentive to penalize late-payment. Therefore, the landlord has an incentive to raise the latter to make up (or more than make up) for the former, thereby disguising a penalty as if it were a credit. Whatever you claim Michigan courts think, their decision to forbid even just a credit for on-time payment is arguably sensible, on the grounds that if such credits were allowed, the imposition of penalties disguised as credits would be both the incentive for landlords and also difficult to detect. Otherwise, it would indeed be a credit for on-time payment, not a penalty for late payment.

In contrast, in the case of the ACA, the party offering the credit for singles (govt.) is not the same party charging premiums for insurance (company); moreover, there is no incentive (nor much of a mechanism) for the party offering the credit to use that as a way to disguise a penalty; finally, there is a reasonable expectation that the ACA lowers premiums for the married couple, not raises (nor does it raise their taxes AFAIK). The ACA just lowers costs for a single couple even more. I would call that a credit for singles, not a penalty on couples. Whatever you call it, it's not equivalent to the landlord situation.

 

[Revoltingest]

I'm just not convinced, and I'll explain why. First, notice that if this logic were correct, it would essentially define out of existence the concept of a discount or subsidy or charity, and replace them all with "penalty". That's just silly. Again let's contrast the two situations: in the landlord case, the same party that is offering the "discount" for on-time payment also has an incentive to penalizing late-payment, and is also in control of the base rent, and therefore has an incentive to raise the latter to make up (or more than make up) for the former, thereby disguising a penalty as if it were a credit. Whatever you claim Michigan courts think, their decision to forbid even just a credit for on-time payment is arguably sensible, on the grounds that if such credits were allowed, the imposition of penalties disguised as credits would be both the incentive for landlords and also difficult to detect. Otherwise, it would indeed be a credit for on-time payment, not a penalty for late payment.

In contrast, in the case of the ACA, the party offering the credit for singles (govt.) is not the same party charging premiums for insurance (company); moreover, there is no incentive (nor much of a mechanism) for the party offering the credit to use that as a way to disguise a penalty; finally, there is a reasonable expectation that the ACA lowers premiums for the married couple, not raises (nor does it raise their taxes AFAIK). The ACA just lowers costs for a single couple even more. I would call that a credit for singles, not a penalty on couples. Whatever you call it, it's not equivalent to the landlord situation.

This horse died yesterday.
I thought we finished beating it this morning.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

This horse died yesterday.
I thought we finished beating it this morning.

Perhaps you were beating it this morning; I can only speak for myself. I certainly hope you finished by now.