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Can the ObamaCare Enrollment Numbers Be Believed?
An anonymous reader writes "When the Obama administration announced on April 1 that an estimated 7.1 million had signed up for ObamaCare by the end of March, it seemed a nearly impossible achievement. To reach 7.1 million, sign-ups had to rocket up by 67% in just one month. That's astounding enough, but an IBD review of existing ObamaCare enrollment data shows that the mathematical challenge of reaching 7.1 million sign-ups was even tougher."
...if you like your 7.1 million sign-ups, you can keep your 7.1 million sign-ups.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
To reach the number of Christmas gifts said to be bought for Christmas, gift purchases would have had to rocket up by 67% in December alone...
I don't care how accurate the numbers are; I care about the sloppy language. What they mean is that 7.1 million people have applied for coverage through the Federally Facilitated Marketplace.
I'm really fed up with this lazy language. It's ended up confusing millions of people who are just looking for some healthcare coverage. A lot of people seem to think that "Obamacare" is now some federal version of Medicaid, or young-people version of Medicare--a government program that pays medical expenses.
I don't care whether the Republicrats or Democans started the confusing talk; let's all be part of stopping it.
You can set up a HSA instead of insurance, if you want.
Otherwise, I'll say how dare you expect the rest of us to pay for your health care because you don't want to.
I don't respond to AC's.
You are far from the first person to attempt what essentially amounts to tax evasion on allegedly legal grounds... let us know how that works out for you in a year or two.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You really expect to believe the numbers coming out of Washington? Gullible aren't we?
Sure, this is the worst administration for lies in our lifetime, but even before this one, they still fudged numbers. It's just the way the game is played out there.
define "lifetime."
also, i'm pretty sure THIS was the worst falsehood from a U.S. presidential administration in our relative lifespans: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/st...
for some, its about getting insurance AT ALL if you want it.
pre-existing bullshit was one thing that needed fixing and its fixed.
SOME discount if you are a single buyer (not group plan based) is also there. in fact, it can be lower than cobra payments.
so, there was some benefit.
I'm unlucky in that my cobra payment is about as bad as my pre-obamacare non-group policy. I was unemployed with single policy for a while, then went contract and had a better pkg, then went full time and had a pretty decent pkg, now I'm laid off, on cobra and its back to non-group level monthly premiums that I was doing before I had that last job.
the insurance companies are raping us again, and using this as an excuse. nothing I'm doing has anything to do with obamacare but my rates went up a lot over the last yr or two and the 'discounts' are not really discounts that I can see.
but still, they can't cancel you for having pre-existing stuff and they can't totally deny you, either. those were 2 major evils pre-obama.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
California's exchange is well capable of providing a mere 7 Million registrations and was not ever having problems while the Federal site was the subject of so much news controversy.
I am celebrating this event because This is the first time that Bruce Perens can get insurance coverage! I operate my own company and have previously only had access to insurance through my wife's employer. All of my family, my wife, my son, and I, have each individually been rejected by private insurers for what was esentially medical trivia. In my son's case, it was because he took a test they didn't like even though he passed it.
Not everyone understands the B.S. that private insurers were permitted to put people through.
Bruce Perens.
There was a deadline. People put stuff off to the deadline, especially when it means it's going to cost them money.
For comparison, this page has a graph of tax-related Google queries. Big shock: they spike right before deadlines in January and April. (That's a proxy for tax filings, for which I couldn't find a decent source. I suspect that tax filings are probably even more spread out, since many people get money back and would rather do it early.)
Combined with problems that would have caused people who tried earlier to fail, it doesn't seem at all likely that numbers would go up by a factor of 2/3. If you'd told me it was an order of magnitude, I might have been surprised. IBD has a history of a negative view of the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") and so I'm not especially inclined to see their incredulity is anything other than ideology.
To reach 7.1 million, sign-ups had to rocket up by 67% in just one month. That's astounding enough.
A very very large number of people, myself included, tend to wait until the last minute to do things, especially if it's not something they particularly want to do. Especially if it's something they don't especially NEED right now, and will have to pay by the month for.
Just ask the IRS for a graph of how many people self-file their taxes in April as opposed to Jan/Feb. At least there there is the motivation for getting a refund earlier. There may be some people who have conditions that need to be treated now, but I'm willing to bet that the list of healthier people who never got insurance is much larger.
Casual observation suggests, Republicans would find it very hard to believe and the Democrats would find it totally within the realm of possibilities. My brother is consultant for PeopleSoft benefits management module. According to him, about 10% of the employees enroll as soon as the period opens. After that spike there is a lull, and about 50% of the employees enroll in the last week (of a typical 4 week open period), and about 25% enroll on the last day. About 1 in 1000 miss the deadline and send despo emails and come up with sob stories why they missed it and beg to change their options. About 1 in 10000 realize they have missed the enrollment period only when they show up at a doctors offices and the friendly receptionist tells them, "Sorry Mrs McGillacady, the card is not going through". Based on that, I would say the profile of surging enrollment in the last few days/weeks seems to be consistent.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Actual summary of article:
"It seems really unlikely the enrollment numbers got met because that would have meant a lot of last minute sign-ups *shrugs*"
"Oh and by the way even if the enrollment numbers got met, it probably doesn't count because if you haven't paid your first month's premium you don't count as an enrollment number for some reason because we said so"
If you play with the definition of things then you can make the numbers be whatever you want. Read a report last week that more than 1/3 of those were people that were dropped at the beginning of the year (which means there's very little real gain in number of people insured), and 1/4 hadn't actually paid. So the number is just a topical headline that they feed the media so they can pat their backs, but breaks down under serious scrutiny. Like "we've deported more illegal immigrants than the previous administration". Truth is they changed the definition of "deported" to count people who were stopped at the border and turned around, which had never been counted as a deportation before. Meanwhile the Border Patrolman's union is complaining that the administration and DHS/ICE are making their job nearly impossible, but the media won't cover them, and they actually kicked the leader of the union out of congressional hearings.
But they're the most transparent EVER!
"Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder."
If you're eligible for Medicaid, you are NOT eligible for the ACA subsidies for health insurance. Which means that if you CHOOSE to buy your own insurance when eligible for Medicaid, insurance will cost you five times what it costs someone who makes a bit more money (and is therefore eligible for subsidies).
That said, what they're not saying, so far, is how many of those 7.5 million (7.1 is sooo yesterday - today's number is 7.5) have actually paid a premium for this new insurance.
Note that many insurance companies aren't going to be accepting new clients after the close of "open enrollment" absent changes in life/employent/whatever. If you marry, divorce, get a job, lose a job, become a widow/widower, you can get insurance, but you can't just any old time.
Apparently the possibility that people might take advantage of the "no pre-existing condition" clause of the ACA to get insurance when something catastrophic happens disturbs the insurance companies' bottom line deeply.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Sure, this is the worst administration for lies in our lifetime
You're very well-spoken for a five year old.
This ALWAYS this you crybabies whine about right up until it is your ASS being left out front of the hospital. Then it is all about SAVE ME!
What you say could be 100% true and the ACA could still be unconstitutional. What you are doing here is attacking the person (an imaginary person) rather than attacking the argument. If you want to argue that it is constitutional your best bet would be to go to the constitution and find the parts that you think would allow for this legislation. For help you could read what the supreme court justices said about the legislation.
Plus a huge number of enrollees have not actually made an insurance premium payment so they are not really signed up and insured. What was the percentage being reported, something like 15% to 20%?
You can set up a HSA instead of insurance, if you want.
Nope. If you sign up for an HSA then you must also sign up for an HDHP (High Deductible Health Plan). But by getting an HSA+HDHP, you are conforming to Obamacare, not "opting out".
Suppose that instead of calling it a fine for not buying insurance, they had simply described it differently. Suppose they decided to tax everyone by a fixed amount, and then offered a tax rebate to anyone who bought insurance. Would you still feel that was unconstitutional? The government has the right to levy taxes - no question about that. And they have the right to spend money however they want, including giving it out as tax rebates to encourage particular behaviors. Yet the two situations are completely identical as far as money is concerned. The only difference is how they describe it. What makes the first unconstitutional and the second not?
Anyway, your claim about the Supreme Court is simply wrong. They've ruled that choosing to spend money in particular ways in particular circumstances is protected free speech, but they've never made any blanket claim that money=speech. For example, they still allow lots of restrictions on donations to political campaigns. You can't donate more than a fixed amount to any one candidate, and while you're allowed to buy political advertisements on your own, you can't coordinate with the campaigns you intend to support. And much more relevantly: so far as I know, they have never ruled in any context that you have a right to refuse to pay taxes or fines levied by the government.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
In the first year of Obamacare we will still have more uninsured than in the last year of the Bush administration
7.1 million sign ups out of over 300 million people for a "mandatory" participation program is truly pathetic regardless whether it is above or below what was expected. Yes yes, I know the number of uninsured was closer to 60 million, so basically you are getting adoption among the intended uninsured population of just 12%. Just 12% of uninsured people are choosing Obamacare/ACA, that is what is remarkable.
Regardless of how you feel about the fact they decided to use a regressive fine on middle class taxpayers in order to force people to buy insurance... it simply ain't working.
Sure that meager adoption rate will go up over the next two years as the fines for not having insurance go up, but that is basically it. We are still left with millions and millions of uninsured.
Is the way it should be. No one should have to pay for your runny nose or whatever. Set aside the money like any normal and prudent person would do and use it for that. If the SHTF, the catastrophic insurance has you covered.
People will pay $60 to get their hair done once a month but think paying $60 for an office visit is robbery. Crazy. Have your hair dresser prescribe the antibiotics then.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Expanded Medicaid. Not Medicare.
And no, those numbers don't include that.
What those numbers don't show is two things:
1) how many of those people have actually PAID for their insurance. Which is what actually activates the insurance - signing up on the website does nothing but express intent.
2) how many of those people are actually formerly uninsured. Remember those people who lost their insurance plans? Well, if they get insurance under the ACA, they're counted as part of that 7.5 million, even though they had insurance before.
3) Okay, THREE things. how many of those people are in the demographic that the ACA needs to get insured to make the bookkeeping balance - if not enough of the "young invincibles" sign up, health insurance prices for NEXT year are going to be taking quite a jump....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
how dare you expect the rest of us to pay for your health care because you don't want to.
Such as the smokers, the obese, alcoholics and drug users who can continue with their merry lifestyles, safe and secure in the knowledge everyone else is forced to hand over their money so they don't have to take personal responsibility for their actions, right?
Obamacare (as well as Romneycare) does nothing to lower health costs or ease the burden on the system so long as people are not forced to live healthier lifestyles. All they are doing is extracting money from people simply for the sake of extracting money and giving it to insurance companies who have gotten a huge financial windfall.
Considering how people on here rant about big bad corporations, this point should have been obvious, but I guess when you can take money from people, simply because you can, that never enters into the equation.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The numbers turned out *much* higher than Fox News predicted, and I *know* that many people couldn't possibly want health insurance, because that brochure from the Heritage Foundation said so. It must be a conspiracy..."
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.c...
Like most numbers that come out of government, it takes a bit of creative license. Both major parties have mastered this deception. The real question is... Are we better off now that this law is in place? To which I have to think, probably not.
"Probably not?" You're going to have to explain that one. Maybe some people are worse off, but millions are MUCH better off by not being denied health care for pre-existing conditions, being able to stay on their parent's healthcare plans, etc.
Granted, this IS a right-wing change to health insurance (from the previous generation of right-wingers, not the Tea Party wacko set we have now). This is a gimme to health care insurers, with no single payer, etc. It's a single step, but it's a good one until the Tea Party flames out and we can get back to having a somewhat functional Congress again. That's going to be a long time in coming, I suspect, so for now, it seems as good as we're going to get.
Back in the nineties, I broke my leg while I was between jobs. I was uninsured. A US Federal Government program (Medicaid) picked up the freight, paying to get my right knee rebuilt. I'd suffered a torn lateral meniscus, a broken tibia and a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament. I'd be crippled to this day had not an already existing Federal program been there to provide medical care for low-income people such as I was then.
Now, of course, I am required by law to buy insurance. The fact that the insurance premium is paid by a tax credit means nothing; except that now I'm at the mercy of an insurance company which feels that they are being forced to carry the burden of insuring me (I'm between jobs again - *sigh*). Incidentally, my deductable is over five thousand dollars.
Medicaid sure helped me a lot more than Affordable Healthcare does now; but with mandatory participation, I can certainly believe the numbers being reported. What I want to know is how many of us would have chosen AHCA over Medicaid, had we been given a choice?
Um.. most of US population is already covered though their employers/family plan. They're talking about the 40 million or so Americans who cannot get affordable coverage due to preexisting conditions, income restraints, and the like.
Otherwise, I'll say how dare you expect the rest of us to pay for your health care because you don't want to.
Not wanting to be forced to buy health insurance by a government that has no real constitutional authority to force you to buy what it tells you to is not he same as not expecting to have to pay for health care.
I just saw the nice new box on my W2 that shows "employer health insurance" payments. It was about five times what I would have paid out of my own pocket for my health care last year. Had my employer been legally allowed to hand me that money directly and allow me to pay as I go, I'd be several thousand dollars ahead of the game.
People who signed up in March won't even get their first bill until the end of April. It's not like employee coverage, where it gets deducted magically out of your paycheck.
Approximately 90% of the folks who signed up by the end of 2013 actually did, in fact, make their first payment on time. The remaining 10% either cancelled policy for some reason before payment (maybe they got a new job?) or just didn't pay (being poor sucks. No tax breaks for them.)
No reason to assume the numbers won't hold for the 2014 people, but it won't be until the summer until we know for sure.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
That the Fugitive Slave Act was deemed constitutional? But the 13th Amendment to the CONSTITUTION made that irrelevant, didn't it?
Are you sure these numbers don't include medicaid enrollees? I applied for enrollment in the exchange, was denied, and I was automatically enrolled in medicaid with no further actions on my part. I'm pretty sure I am included in that 7.1million.
Are you able to show us the terms of your plan? The reason I ask is that I was offered what turned out to be a "trash plan", and the sort of things that aren't being grandfathered are rejected because they don't meet a minimum standard of care. In my case, a catastrophic injury such as in an auto wreck would not have been covered significantly.
The lady who famously confronted Obama on this issue had a plan that limited its payout to a few hundred dollars.
Bruce Perens.
There was a legal challenge to the ACA already, and it was defeated in court. In other words: your views on the constitutionality of the ACA aren't shared by the current Supreme Court, and therefore they are pretty much irrelevant
You seem to not understand how the Supreme Court works. That's OK, it's arcane.
The particular ACA challenge you refer to was over the Constitutionality of the ACA as a fine. The Court said, "it's not a fine, it's a tax, and FedGov can levy taxes." The challenge was defeated.
Now other lawyers are back before the Court arguing that taxes must originate in the House, per the Constitution, while ACA is a Senate bill (with gut-and-replace not being a valid technique to avoid germaneness via-a-vis the Origination Clause). The Court will rule on that narrow point and then the next challenge will be heard.
SCOTUS will never come out and say, "All aspects of ACA are Constitutional".
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm just curious. Why is it that so many countries in the world have universal health care paid by the population (through taxes) yet one of the most prosperous and powerful countries in the world can't figure it out or refuses to implement it?
Is capitalist greed getting in the way or am I missing something?
Also, this is EXACTLY how car insurance works.
False. Auto insurance makes no guarantee to pay car repairs for people who cannot afford auto insurance. There is not even a sliding scale. Auto insurance only pays for those who pay in and the amount you pay in is determined by their statistical assessment of how much they are likely to have to pay out for you personally.
Also, before auto insurance was made mandatory, it was also a lot cheaper. I pay more per month now than I paid per year when I was 16 years old, and the car I had when I was 16 was 8 years old, versus the 13 year old car I have been driving. I have had 0 accidents in my entire lifetime, 0 hail damage, 0 payouts of any kind. When I was 16, insurance wasn't mandatory, but now it is.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Actually, in the UK, it really does work like that. Even if you're only visiting the UK for a 2 hour period, and manage to become seriously ill in that time, you'll get free treatment there.
Over the last 10 years or so, all health insurance has gone to crap. Plans have gotten worse and costs increased at a staggering pace. Even if you have the best plan available, it's still crap. Liberals love to propagate this narrative that ignorant Republicans like to cling to "bad plans". But they're all "bad plans".
An HSA is a nice tax sheltered way to sock away your deductible. So you get to pay for medical expenses with non-taxed income.
Plus, it is a concept that fosters an adult level self reliance and personal responsibility.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Pre-tax deductions have not changed. I don't know what wacko changes have changed your taxes, but it ain't ACA.
Who is RTFM and when will he help me with Unix?
I'm between jobs again. I'm enrolled for insurance under the AHCA. I'm getting bills from my primary care physician's office because (despite what I was led to believe) I'm subject to a $5,200 individual deductable - and that was the BEST plan I saw offered under the AHCA. Incidentally, I'm not planning to pay that bill; at least, not until I find my next job.
(PERSONAL OPINION FOLLOWS)
I'll say this, though - as a mechanism to keep me in financial servitude, the AHCA is right up there with debtor's prison and serfdom as a model. I can reasonably foresee ending up a lifetime servant of the medical industry if I don't find myself a better way to pay for health care. Medicaid still exists, but there's no way to qualify for it now without facing a hefty fine. Either way, economic serfdom. Karl Marx would indeed be proud of the AHCA as a mechanism to propel a free enterprise society towards a socialist state.
Apparently the possibility that people might take advantage of the "no pre-existing condition" clause of the ACA to get insurance when something catastrophic happens disturbs the insurance companies' bottom line deeply.
This is precisely what's happening...it's called "adverse selection".
I personally know someone who switched plans during open enrollment to get a different carrier who would pay the $100k for her experimental treatment. She has to pay slightly higher premiums than the first plan she was on, but it's not a bad tradeoff when you're "buying" $100k of value for a few hundred a month. She can't be declined and her preexisting condition must be covered.
Everyone understands why you can't buy auto insurance coverage for a collision that already has happened. The same holds for health insurance—it's absolutely untenable otherwise. Not that there is any love lost between me and the scumbag health insurance industry. I'm just pointing out it literally actuarially/mathematically cannot work the way some people want it to. You simply can't let people wait until they have, say, cancer to sign up for insurance and then demand that insurance pay for the treatment.
What's the solution? Well, since we as a society have decided we do not want a free market in health care (a free market would necessarily entail leaving those who cannot pay to die outside the doors of the ER), then our next optimization is to save money. We spend more per capita and in total than every other nation, and we get worse average outcomes for our population.
To put it more plainly: a socialized medicine system like they have in the UK would COST LESS than what we have now.
Furthermore, the NHS public healthcare system in the UK works alongside a private, more "free market" type of healthcare system. We could mirror that here if we wanted to encourage the private industry innovation that appeals to our cultural sensibilities. We already have that in other realms: the USPS and FedEx operate side by side, there are private schools that operate alongside public schools, etc.
Finally, we need to realize that a huge percentage of the US population is ALREADY on socialized medicine (ie. governmental health care programs paid for by taxes): everyone who is over 65 (Medicare), the poor (Medicaid), the veterans (the VA), the Armed Forces (Tricare), all federal, state and local governmental employees (taxes pay their premiums). Does anyone believe we will ever elimated those programs, barring universal healthcare in this country? The "free market for healthcare" ship sailed a long time ago.
Let's just try to save some money and get better health for our population instead of trying to pretend a mathematically-broken insurance approach is ever going to be a good idea.
Other important questions: how many of those 7.1 million have actually paid for the policies, and how many just went through the web site? Also, how many of these policies are insuring the previously uninsured, and how many are insuring people who lost their previous insurance due to the ACA?
I don't have those numbers. Nobody seems to have those numbers... Kathleen Sebelius has said "we don't know that" (see YouTube link below).
I have a suspicion that if the numbers were good, somehow they would have the numbers.
The DailyMail article says that a RAND Corporation study estimates that the number of previously uninsured people who have actually paid for their policies is: 858,000 (well under a million!). I haven't found a source for this. I believe they computed this number themselves, by reading the RAND report and by using the percentages in that report.
Avik Roy read the same report, and reports the number as 1.4 million +/- 0.7 million, i.e. 700,000 people to 2.1 million people, 95% confidence.
I believe this is the RAND Corporation study being discussed: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR600/RR656/RAND_RR656.pdf
References:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2594309/President-plans-victory-lap-strong-Obamacare-enrollment-Sebelius-faces-unpopular-law-blank-stare-tough-questions-remain-whos-signing-up.html
http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/30/news/economy/obamacare-premiums/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXDdmRaJy2c
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/04/09/rand-comes-clean-obamacares-exchanges-enrolled-only-1-4-million-previously-uninsured-individuals/
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Fact 1) 7.1 million were the number that signed up using exchange. NOT all the people that got insurance, just the number that signed up.
Fact 2) It did not include the people that were told they were approved for Medicaid.
Fact 3) It did not include the people that picked their own insurance not on the exchanges.
Fact 4)It did not included the young people now signed up on their parents plans.
You need to compare apples to apples. That is, 60 million without insurance before hand vs ??? million without insurance after hand. Trying to do 7.1/60 just demonstrates your complete inability to do honest math.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
It's not capitalist greed, it's anti-free-market greed. Note that non-essential medical services such as plastic surgery and laser eye surgery continuously get better and cheaper over time. That is, I could get the same laser eye surgery today for cheaper, or pay a similar amount for higher-quality laser eye surgery. It's much the same as with computing hardware or any other relatively unregulated market, and quite the opposite of what's happening with healthcare, namely that it gets worse and way more expensive over time. I don't know why forcing everybody in the United States to buy managed healthcare plans would improve the situation at all.
They should be covered under medicaid. It is amazing how people complain and don't even understand the law!
But don't go blaming the Affordable Health Care Act for the problems you have getting Medicaid.
If you are employed, the AHCA simply prevented a bunch of liars from selling you expensive wallpaper and pretending it was healthcare.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
That right there takes balls.
Article clearly states that the 1.7 trillion dollar number (Which is not "Trillions") is the GLOBAL military spending.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
BS - You pay unless your a college student, a citizen from another European Union country that signed an agreement with the NHS, or other select cases
From the NHS - http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/10...
Seriously, grasping at straws. What's the new talking point going to be when less than 1% fail to make their first payment?
I know an Obamacare success is a disaster for some people, but the administration set modest and realistic goals and largely met them.
A bunch of the really bad abuses perpetrated by insurance companies are now illegal, and many more people have access to affordable preventative care. Insurance company profit margins are effectively capped if they can't find ways to be exceptionally creative with the accounting. What a disaster.
I read the internet for the articles.
Obamacare (as well as Romneycare) does nothing to lower health costs...
Sure it does. There's way more to the ACA than health exchanges and elimination of denials for pre-existing conditions. Whether or not the provisions aimed at controlling costs actually work or not will take a long time to figure out. But ACOs and medical homes and and PCORI...
Situation 1) No law requiring people to buy healthcare, no law blocking insurance companies from denying you healthcare for pre-existing situations. They can even deny you healthcare for brain cancer because you have diabetes. (or worse, accept you, then deny coverage because you failed to disclose you had diabetes). People that get screwed: a) anyone that is not 100% healthy and also b) anyone that risks going without insurance but ends up needing it.
Situations 2) Law requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions, but no law requiring people to buy insurance. People that get screwed: Insurance companies, as people wait till after they get sick to buy insurance. Then after insurance companies all go bankrupt, everyone gets screwed.
Situation 3) Law requiring coverage of pre-existing conditions and also a law requiring people to buy insurance. People that get screwed: Anyone that wanted to risk going without good insurance and would have been lucky enough not to need it.
The first situation was what we used to have. The second situation is what we tried to avoid. The third situation is what we have now. Please note it only screw up assholes that tried to take ridiculous gambles and happened to be lucky enough to win the gamble.
We had a choice - screw over the sick, screw over insurance companies (which would have eventually led to a truly government controlled healthcare), or require everyone to buy insurance. We wisely made the best possible decision.
P.S.I am employed and have good healthcare - which I desperately need because I got sick (nasty virus) in college and my kidneys have slowly been dying over the past 20 years, despite the fact that I don't drink, etc. I have maybe 5 more years till I need a transplant and am clearly one of the people that will very much benefit from Obamacare.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
It's a multilayered thing. I'd say that the U.S. population is made up of the misfits and cast-offs from other countries, and as a result has very different cultural leanings than other countries. Those leanings are wonderful tools for the sociopaths that run our corporations. "Supporting others is welfare/socialism, and that's (dun dun DUN) Communism!". Or maybe "The government is taking away your right to free choice! Isn't that why you left [country of origin]?!"
People with power and influence play the rest of the population like fiddles. Those in power decided that (at least in the short term) government-controlled health care would be bad for profits, so they play on the unique insecurities inherent to American culture to achieve their goals.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
It does not include Medicaid.
Of the 40.7 million who were uninsured in 2013, 14.5 million gained coverage, but 5.2 million of the insured lost coverage, for a net gain in coverage of approximately 9.3 million.
This represents a drop in the share of the population that is uninsured from 20.5 percent to 15.8 percent.
The 9.3 million person increase in insurance is driven not only by enrollment in marketplace plans, but also by gains in employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) and Medicaid.
Enrollment in ESI increased by 8.2 million.
Medicaid enrollment increased by 5.9 million. New enrollees are primarily drawn from those who were uninsured in 2013, or those who had âoeotherâ forms of insurance, including Medicare, retiree health insurance, and other government plans.
http://thehealthcareblog.com/b...
As a Canadian, I can tell you that most provinces have a few months wait between the time you take up residence and the time you can get health insurance.
In the first year of Obamacare we will still have more uninsured than in the last year of the Bush administration
Bullshit. Best estimate I've seen is that right now, today, the number of uninsured has been decreased by about 25%.
7.1 million sign ups out of over 300 million people for a "mandatory" participation program is truly pathetic regardless whether it is above or below what was expected. Yes yes, I know the number of uninsured was closer to 60 million, so basically you are getting adoption among the intended uninsured population of just 12%. Just 12% of uninsured people are choosing Obamacare/ACA, that is what is remarkable.
Your comment is complete fucking nonsense. 1) Of course, as you sort of admit, out of 330 million people, there are about 300 million with some form of health insurance. 2) There were 40 million without health insurance, not 60 million. 3) In addition to whatever fraction of the 7.1 million were previously uninsured, several million more have been added by the Medicaid expansion. 4) In addition to whatever fraction of the 7.1 million were previously uninsured, several million more have been added to employer-sponsored programs.
One important reason for that is that consumers can tell the producers of non-essential goods and services to get lost if they don't like the price. Essential goods and services, pretty much by definition, don't have that property.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
I am just curious why the US is willing to pay 50-100% more than the rest of the world for health care per person for outcomes that aren't any better and in some cases worse than the rest of the world.
If you truly cannot afford it, the federal credit kicks in to defray the monthly cost. You can be compliant with the law at basically no cost to yourself if all you take is a Catastrophic or Bronze-level plan. After the credit, I'm paying $30/mo for low deductible/out of pocket health ins. with no co-insurance, for example.
And hospitals having to write off expenses from uninsured ER visits costs many billions of dollars each year -- which get passed on to the premiums of everyone who does pay for insurance. Isn't that a bit unfair?
My daughter-in-law attempted to sign up for Obamacare. She is in school and makes no money. Between her and my stepson, they make maybe $4-$5k per year, about $10,000 of which goes to pay for school. Yes, I know that doesn't add up. Anyway, she tried to sign up for Obamacare, and the cheapest plan she could get would have cost her $143 a month. She can't afford that, so she didn't sign up. She asked about the penalty and they said since she didn't make much money, she doesn't have to pay the penalty. So what does that mean? It means Obamacare did nothing. Poor people still don't have insurance. They don't have to pay the penalty either. They just go to the emergency room like they used to. Nothing has changed except that the people who already HAD insurance now pay twice as much.
They should be eligible for Medicaid.
I'm sure if my stepson and daughter-in-law were to drop out of school have a kid and sit at home all day THEN Obamacare would kick in and pay for them. After all, that is what Obama really wants, is for people to sit at home and make babies, not waste their time on education.
Well, at least they're trying to better themselves, rather than growing up to be a fucking ignorant bitter racist troll like yourself.
"This shit is so unconstitutional"
please point to me where the constitution say we can't have mandatory insurance?
Perhaps you mean to say "I don't like it, so I'm going to say it' unconstitutional because I have no clue what the Constitution says?"
" How dare you fine me for not buying your services."
It's a fee, not a fine. If it was a fine it would be assigned after you failed to buy insurance on a case by case basis. IT's an amount set in the bill, hence fine. An important distinction. Which isn't to say you have to like it., only that you sound like an idiot when you scream at the wind and the term you use is incorrect.
It's a service you will use, sooner or later.
"Money is speech according to the Supreme Court, and so I say no to Obama care."
Supreme Court said no such thing.
"I'm making use of my first amendment by not giving my money to this system."
That has nothing to do with the first Amendment
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If there was a way to guarantee that you'd pay cash up front for all of your medical care or go off and die without bothering the rest of us, I'd be all for allowing adults to opt out of having health insurance. But there isn't. If you go to an emergency room and don't pay, the rest of us get stuck with the bill. If you get major surgery done and declare bankruptcy, the rest of us end up eating it. Somehow, we have to deal with those people. Right now, we deal with them by letting it slide and making responsible people cough up the difference.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
They also said that the 2nd amendment guaranteed the right of private citizen's to own and carry firearms. That good enough for you that you will demand that your politicians stop trying to pass laws contrary to that opinion?
I have no idea how you could have gotten that from reading my post and the link I provided. Supply and demand work perfectly well in healthcare. But for lifesaving health care, the demand curve is basically vertical where supply and demand meet in the real world. The demand curve for essential goods approaches infinity as quantity approaches zero and drops off rapidly after your essential needs are met. That means that you're almost completely insensitive to price until the supply increases beyond that point.
If we ever get to the point where there are a bunch of heart surgeons milling around for every one person who needs heart surgery, we'll be way down at the same point on the demand curve as we are for rice and fresh water. But that's not where we are.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
"This shit is so unconstitutional" please point to me where the constitution say we can't have mandatory insurance?
That's not how the Constitution works. See the 10th Amendment, which reads in full, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Meaning, broadly speaking, that the federal government gets ONLY those powers enumerated in the Constitution, and if you want to say that something is constitutional, the burden is on YOU to prove it so. To my reading, nowhere does it mention forcing citizens to purchase anything from another privately-owned entity.
If you want to try to coerce the citizens to buy insurance using the power of taxation... go for it. But don't expect everyone to like it and don't call it constitutional unless you can show that it is so.