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HealthCare.gov Back-End Status: See You In September
theodp writes: "The consumer-facing parts of the Obamacare website may now work (most of the time) for people buying insurance, writes Politico, but beneath the surface, HealthCare.gov is still missing massive, critical pieces that are essential for key functions such as accurately paying insurers — and the deadline for finishing them keeps slipping. Without a fully built and operational system, federal officials can't determine how many of the 8 million Obamacare sign-ups announced last week will have actually paid their premiums. The Obama administration earlier this month indicated that insurers will continue to be paid through an 'interim' accounting process — pretty much a spreadsheet and some informed estimates — until at least September, when what is being called 'the mother of all reconciliations' will be conducted, which some fear could reveal the need for a massive correction and rate adjustments. Still, Oregon decided Friday to switch to Healthcare.gov from its own nothing-wrong-that-$78-million-couldn't-fix Cover Oregon online healthcare exchange."
At this point, what difference does it make?"
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
I'm honestly beginning to think that if you get money from the government you shouldn't be allowed to vote.
That would just result in a law being passed that somehow ends up with the government giving $0.01/year to all those people it thinks shouldn't be allowed to vote.
they know # of people that signed up, they just don't know how many people PAID.
Its not last year cause Obama every time he speaks on tv says "we signed up xxxxxxx people through health care exchange" but never says a word about how many paid for coverage if any have.
o yea and people like me that are just naturally healthy forced to pay MORE for coverage then i will or ever use. That is how obama expects to pay for his law, young healthy people supporting everyone else. So much for lowering costs.
But despite all of it, what the crack team of unsung IT gurus did in Nov 2013 is nothing less than heroic. How long did it take for the comparable services like Amazon, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL, gmail, eBay etc to create 3 million accounts? OK, that is an earlier generation. Take the current generation of Twitter, WhatsApp, SnapChat, FaceBook, how long did they take to ramp up to 3 million accounts?
Helathcare.gov is something like eBay for health insurance. How long did it take eBay to refer 32 billion dollars worth of business? (8 million accounts, 4 K a year premium per person). No body had done in two quarters. Even banking and mutual fund sites like Schwab, Vanguard, Fidelity do not do 32 billion dollars a year. Even if the do, they did not ramp up in 2 quarters.
They bungled the roll out. They probably squandered tons and tons of money to get it done. But despite all that, no body has ever created a web site that did what Healthcare.gov has done. It is easy to criticize and do Monday morning quarterbacking. But the task they failed to well was not some simple task any hack could do or something others have done before.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
they know # of people that signed up, they just don't know how many people PAID.
Good. Hopefully none. Hopefully no one will be fined. The whole damn thing is insurance company welfare anyway.
you missed the memo where administration claims 8 million plus subscribers, supposedly 2.7 million appeared out of nowhere after March to give us this 8M total. In short, it's lies and bullshit and the adminstration still can't prodce an accurate state breakdown supporting their rather incredible assertion
That MUST be why the Obama administration has yet to release the number of people who've actually PAID for the Obamacare plans they got.
I'm sure it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the fact that the last wave have until April 30th to pay...
True, clueless politicians made last minutes changes like, "don't show them raw premium, sticker shock, make them do subsidy calculation first" a week before roll out. True, dimwitted bureaucrats gave out contracts with idiotic levels of fragmentation and blame-dodgeability. Obama raised expectations insanely by saying "as easy as buying books in Amazon..".
Of course, these are the reasons government-run health care will be so much better: politicians can control it and tell you how much better off you are.
you missed the memo where administration claims 8 million plus subscribers, supposedly 2.7 million appeared out of nowhere after March to give us this 8M total
And apparently you both missed the memo where those weren't paid subscribers, either, but supposedly the number who applied.
So... Obama has decided to bypass even more of the law he helped shove down our throats and is now ignoring on a massive scale?
Hint, Mr. President: you aren't a King. When you sidestep laws passed by Congress, you're a criminal. Even if it's your own pet law.
(Or he would be, if the law were Constitutional in the first place. SCOTUS says it's a "tax"? Well, tax laws have to originate in the House. Obamacare didn't.)
...of our corporate-controlled government.
I'm sure the insurance companies have it set up so they make out like bandits no matter what happens.
Reality: the ultimate conservative talking point. If you thought that 'bugaboo' was done sucking, you know nothing of statist vampires.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
That MUST be why the Obama administration has yet to release the number of people who've actually PAID for the Obamacare plans they got.
I'm sure it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the fact that the last wave have until April 30th to pay...
And there's no possible way to know how many have paid SO FAR until the deadline has passed? That doesn't seem to stop them when it comes to announcing how many have "enrolled" (whatever their definition of that is).
It's actually just as destructive now as it was last year, if not more so. So if you actually care about the country it would still be a bugaboo.
The administration has no idea :
1. how many have insurance now that did not a year ago
2. how many do not have insurance now that did a year ago
3. how many that have insurance through the federal exchange have paid for it
4. how many that have insurance through the federal exchange have a significantly higher rate and/or deductible than before
I guess I missed the memo, but isn't shitting on Obamacare last year's bugaboo?
No, it will continue until the mid-term elections on November 4th.
I'm sure it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the fact that the last wave have until April 30th to pay...
...nor does it consider shenanigans like signing up jail inmates whether they want it or not, counting medicaid enrollees as obamacare signups, and similar.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
One things for sure. They're going to push things back so the shit doesn't fully hit the fan until after the midterm elections...every wonder why? It's not because things are all wonderful. I don't know how bad it is but we'll find out down the road. The bill comes due eventually and the longer you put it off the worse it's going to be. It's not going to hurt the President any, he'll be winding up things by then getting ready for those lucrative speaking deals and such in his retirement years. I guess maybe it'll be Hillary's turn next. That should be interesting.
It's like, how much more dishonest could the #ObamaCare be? The answer is none. None more dishonest.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
(Or he would be, if the law were Constitutional in the first place. SCOTUS says it's a "tax"? Well, tax laws have to originate in the House. Obamacare didn't.)
"The Affordable Health Care for America Act (or HR 3962) was a bill that was crafted by the United States House of Representatives in November 2009."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Health_Care_for_America_Act
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
As a Libertarian, I am going to have to side with the republicans on this one. The ACA is complete and utter crap. The fact that the backend of the website doesn't work is just the tip of the iceberg. But by all means, go ahead and continue to follow your elites and their welfare state agenda.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
It doesn't really matter if the sign ups are people who otherwise lost insurance from some other means- even if it is due to obamacare. The number of people signed up or enrolled in the exchanges were never about the number of people uninsured who are now insured.
The point of needing a number of people was in order to make the exchange profitable for the insurance companies so the government wouldn't need to bail them out (which is built into the law if for some reason the insurance market place becomes a loss to the insurance companies for participating). If the participation pool wasn't large enough to absorb the costs of the sick we knew would use it, then the policies offered are unsustainable. So even if the pool ends up being 2 people who didn't have insurance plus 7 million who lost their coverage, it would still be a success as it would be self sustainable.
The government could pass a law saying that everyone making under $100k a year had to use the exchanges and the number would still not matter as long as the pool of insured is large enough. That is why the number of enrolled verses the number who purchased insurance is so important. It's like slashdot that has user id numbers in the millions but less the 20,000 comments by probably 10,000 people a day (I pulled that off my ass considering that most stories get less than 500 comments and believe it to be high). So a lot of people created accounts but don't actually participate often outside of viewing maybe. Or maybe a twitter analogy might be better, 10,000 followers means exactly what when they don't run out and purchase whatever you are promoting or vote the way you would like them to. There was something about paid followers a while back where companies employed drones and clone accounts in order to up their numbers. And yet they don't purchase or vote (that we know of). So right now, all we know is that people made accounts. We don't know how many purchased a product that would make the exchanges sustainable. Well, someone might know, but they will not tell us who ultimately flips the bill with taxation.
Every one of these hard radical Right talking points and phony anecdotes that has been investigated has proven to be false, most of the maliciously so. Every single one. But apparently we are supposed to just blindly swallow the latest from the breitbart propaganda machine ?
sPh
What is it with the hard radical right talking points infesting Slashdot of late? Is this a concerted effort to take over the site?
Your "help" made my insurance unaffordable. Stop calling yourselves progressive. You're really totalitarian fascists. Progressive is newspeak.
It is a FACT, admitted by the Obama admin in testimony under oath before congress that [1] the backend of the website is not yet written, [2] the Obama administration has no solid numbers on how many people have paid (heck, they even said under oath that they did not have a count of people who'd "signed up" about a month before the deadline) and [3] that they are using estimates to pay insurers for now and will need to "settle-up" at some point. It's also true that insurance companies have started issuing warnings to congress, the administration, and some employers that they forsee a large rate increase for next year.
So, given these facts..... what insane act of childish Obama meatpuppet rage causes you to claim this is "republican propaganda" "by the in house radical conservative trolls"? Are you saying that the Obama administration is part of some "vast right-wing conspiracy" to help Republican trolls with their talking points? I am simply mystified by the sheer incomprehensible mental flatulence that must be occurring in your locale. Are you truly claiming that reality is, in itself, a Republican troll talking point? Wow..... just sayin' .... that's really - out there.
See you in November might be the more important question.
Because they can't do any calculations until enrollment is closed? They can't say, for example, as of Nov. 1st, Dec. 1st, Jan. 1st, Feb. 1st, Mar. 1st, or Apr. 1st how many people have paid their premiums? Are you really arguing that they can ONLY say as of May 1st how many people have paid their premiums?
Ken
Wikipedia is an authoritative source? Seriously?
The bill that passed in the house was an completely re-written bill that originated in the Senate and passed to the House for a reconciliation vote quick before Scott Brown was sworn into office. See, there wasn't enough time to properly pass a House bill though the Senate before Brown took office and messed up their party-line vote.
But hey, what do I know - I just paid attention while this train wreck occurred - it's not like I read it on Wikipedia.
Ken
Not so much profitable as viable - it was/is believed that a lower number might be indicative of a risk pool that is overly skewed toward the sick and elderly as opposed to the young and healthy.
Ken
The Democrats lost their super-majority in the Senate before they could ram-through Pelosi's house bill as the "Affordable Care Act" and since they were absolutely determined that no Republican input would be tolerated they needed a scheme to solve their dilemma. Harry Reid (Nevada Democrat who runs the Senate) used a tactic of taking another bill, stripping out all its content and then injecting in whatever language he wanted; Harry inserted the ACA language we ended-up (which could not perfectly match Nancy's language for complex legal reasons) into the hollow shell of a bill that had previously worked its way partially through the senate (the bill Harry used as a shell had already cleared the 60 vote "cloture" hurdle) and then THAT mess was handed over to Nancy Pelosi in the House where it should have had to go through reconcilliation (but couldn't because the resulting "reconciled" bill would have needed another Senate vote WITH that pesky 60 vote cloture) . Nancy's team however, could not pass it properly "as-is" because the Senate version had language some of her House democrats did not want to be held accountable for..... so she worked out a scheme to pass a separate resolution in the house that would "deem" the ACA to have passed rather than actually passing it, and that whole ball of wax was what Obama ultimately signed. The "affordable care act" written by the U.S. House of Representatives never actually went anywhere (no matter what a lazy wikipage editor may claim) ..... the Senate's verson is what went through (and, incidentally, this is one of the major reasons it is such a mess - all the normal committee work to unify house and senate bills into a joint bill, which usually cleans-up conflicts between sepearate parts of complex bills written by various interests, never happened).... all those shenanigans were done just to block any Republican input that WOULD have been enabled by the election of Scott Brown to Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat. Scott Brown campaigned to be the vote to stop the supermajority from passing the ACA, and he won that election, but Harry and Nancy simply manipulated the process to block the new Senator from interfering in their plans for a pure-Democrat health law.
When the Supreme Court took up the ACA in that big case Republicans believed they'd win and which Democrats still crow about to this day, they ruled that the thing could NOT be implemented using the "Commerce Clause" and with "penalties" but COULD stand if it was all really just a big tax scheme - so they declared it a big tax scheme and let it stand as Constitutional (shocking conservatives, who now see John Roberts as a traitor) ........ which brings us to the lawsuit "Sissel v. United States Department of Health & Human Services" which points out that the Constitution specifically and explicitly forbids any tax law from originating in the Senate, and given that the SCOTUS has already certified that this is exactly what Obamacare is..... the SCOTUS will be a pack of hypocrits if they let it win this suit. Oral arguments are scheduled for May 8, 2014.
Profitable is the correct term. If a risk pool pays too much out, it doesn't make a profit- it is unprofitable. If it breaks even, there is no profit and little motivation to participate. If it is skewed towards the young and healthy, it will be profitable. Companies do not typically stay in business when they are not making a profit or losing money. It's likely the number one reason why they discontinue products or close down.
So if anything, viable equals profitable. It seems to be one in the same, one sounds a little softer then the other but either could be used.
No one says that - they say the Health Care LAW (PPACA) is bad...
Ken
We also know that this bill won't increase the deficit by one thing dime... President Obama said he would never sign a bill that added one thin dime to our deficit in the next decade.
Ken
They've been shown to be false by who? John Stewart or Stephen Colbert? The mainstream media that you probably insist isn't liberally biased? The White House?
Because the "phony anecdotes" I keep seeing are from people whose insurance got cancelled because of Obamacare, people whose hours got cut because of Obamacare, and people whose premiums shot up because of Obamacare.
You can keep insisting everyone who claims to have been hurt by this legislation is a liar, but that wears thin after the thousandth time.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Good recitation of the democrat party line talking points.
You get a cookie.
Prove it. Original cost and benefits and exact policy, your income, your state. Show us that we can't slot you right into the ACA at a reasonably similar cost and benefit.
Because so far, *everyone* who has made this claim just doesn't *want* to purchase insurance. Under the ACA, no one has to pay over 10% of their income. Period. If you failed to use the exchange and went galloping off to the local insurance broker, you may indeed be paying more, but that would be YOUR failure for not keeping yourself informed and for doing precisely the wrong thing, financially speaking.
If you had taken the trouble to be informed, instead of being glued to Faux Newz hysteria, you would have known approximately what your new insurance would be under the ACA, and you had almost *two years* to prepare yourself. Exact prices weren't known, but that ten percent limit was.
The only exception to this are those people who got fucked by their republican state legislatures when they refused the 3-year Medicaid expansion. Those people had a legitimate place under the ACA, and those state legislatures threw them under the bus. That's not a fault with the ACA, it's a fault with paid-off Koch-sucking republican sycophants.
People who refuse to buy insurance -- distinct from those who cannot -- will likely end up in the ER, running up huge bills, all of which end up coming out of everyone else's pockets anyway.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
More importantly, I got affordable insurance with excellent benefits, despite preexisting conditions. :)
You and yours, who don't bother to research what's actually going on, instead writing off the facts as "talking points", are now living in a world of butthurt. So sorry for your loss.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Someone might be naturally healthy, but the dumbass who ran the guy over with their humvee sadly wasn't informed of that. The scaffolding that fell on them wasn't informed either. The guy who prepared your hamburger with the same unwashed fingers he just wiped his ass with wasn't either, Mr. Healthy Guy.
Your problem is that you have no sense of your own mortality. The "I'm bulletproof" argument is one only put forth by idiots. You have no idea what will happen next. None whatsoever. It's all a matter of odds and happenstance. Your idea that the young and healthy people are going to pay for everyone else... our kids are paying a lot less money for a lot more insurance than we're getting... it just isn't so. In some states, young people can get by with just catastrophic. So please, drop the pretense.
And despite your presumption that you are "naturally healthy", eventually, the odds are very high that something will happen, and at that time you'll be expecting the rest of us to pay for it. We will. But you will too. Live with it. It's not really a bad thing, once you take reality into account.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Because they can't do any calculations until enrollment is closed? They can't say, for example, as of Nov. 1st, Dec. 1st, Jan. 1st, Feb. 1st, Mar. 1st, or Apr. 1st how many people have paid their premiums?
Information for prior periods is already available, albeit from insurers individually, not from the feds overall.
I think you might be too generous with your skepticism.
Congressional Budget Office projections on ObamaCare raise questions about future enrollment
What is it with the hard radical right talking points infesting Slashdot of late? Is this a concerted effort to take over the site?
Discussion instead of choir practice? What "hard radical right" would that be?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Strictly speaking, they may know some of those things, but the 'most transparent presidency of all time' is not telling us. I really wish Obama had kept his campaign promise to be more transparent, but at this point at least he hasn't started any multi-year wars.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Out of curiosity, how would have preferred they report this?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
My lab tests are covered, as are my prescriptions. My copay is less, too -- $5 if they're in our group, and $10 if not -- Sounds to me like you simply picked the wrong policy. Make sure you look into equivalent meds, too. For instance, my insurance won't pay for Ventolin HFA, but they will pay for PROAIR HFA. Either one addresses the asthma just fine. I pay less than 10% of my income. I consider that a great bargain.
Again, your choice of policy is not the fault of the ACA. This is very much a situation where consumer choice is part of the process.
My daughter in law chose a different policy than the one my son chose. This was because she takes (expensive) Victoza shots, so she needed to choose a policy that met her needs, which were quite different from my son's. Thanks to the ACA, you can research and choose something that best meets your needs. But you still have to *do* it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Of the things we force inmates to do whether they want to or not, signing up for health care is neither shocking nor problematic. I presume we'd have to pay for it anyway.
Increasing access to medicaid was part of the ACA initiative, so calling that "Obamacare" (a made up term that might as well be used to cover all increased insurance coverage that happened due to Obama) sounds reasonable.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
So, you can't prove your claims.
You are therefore dismissed.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Nope, I'm still right here, Buddy, in the same situation I was before. You can sit there in your church in Montana, and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist, but it does. I'm glad the law worked for you, but it still fucked me and a lot of others.
Not for lack of trying :)
The CBO's current estimate is that Obamacare has reduced the net number of uninsured persons by 12 million just this year, and is on track to get another 14 million insured within a couple more years. I would have preferred single payer, but Obamacare is a LOT better than what we had before, and it's the best we could have gotten in the face of Republican obstruction.
You can call it "complete and utter crap" all day, but we all know that that's just because you want it to fail. You already admitted you're a libertarian -- you're philosophically opposed to the very thing that Obamacare sets out to accomplish.
They have general ideas, not exact numbers. What more could you expect? The numbers will gain some precision after the Census releases its report later this year, but even then it's based on polling, so it won't be exactly right.
Holy shit, 10% of your income, for health insurance? Madness.
I am Audience.
No, I'm pretty sure you haven't. You've most likely confused me with someone else. Not a problem.
Well. I am required to pay for highways that I never drive upon. I am required to pay for fire extinguishing services and I have never had a house fire. I am required to pay for public schools, even though I never sent a child there. I am required to pay for corporate subsidies, even though I am not in favor of these. I am required to pay for various war efforts, even though I am not only not in favor, but vehemently opposed to same. The idea that I might have to pay to improve someone else's health strikes me a a breath of fresh air. In fact, in a purely selfish way, I don't want to have people, far sicker than they need to be, running around and sharing the bounty of their personal microbial crops with me and mine. Nor am I in favor of them being out of work for any more time than required.
Time for a little anecdote. Fairly recently, the lady and I went to McDonald's for a salad and some coffee. They took our order via the miked menu outside, then our money at window #1, and so we pulled up to window #2, where the food was to arrive. When they opened the window, those poor bastards (uninsured in any sense worth really talking about) collectively managed to do a marvelous impression of a final stage tuberculosis ward. I rolled up the winddow and we drove off without our food.
When you talk about "now" having to subsidize the medical costs of others, let me just point out to you that when these uninsured types zip right down to the emergency room and consume medical services at a premium, while not getting actual decent care but instead, just getting stabilized, you pay for that just as directly via increased costs to the hospital that were "covered" by government grants, increases in the cost of our own medical needs, and higher insurance premiums to pay those higher medical costs, which in turn, you (and I, and everyone else) pay for. There's no free lunch. When people are sick or injured, it's going to cost. It's expensive and it is unevenly distributed, and it is best done in a manner that works to control the costs (prophilactic care, etc.) by pooling our resources and then expending them on a per issue basis, and preventative ones, and in the context of completely addressing problems with an appropriate course of therapy instead of just doing the minimum, or nothing.
When you want to bitch about paying for everyone else's healthcare, to whatever extent that may be so, just remember, the better health the population is in, the better health you -- and yours, and the economy -- are are likely to be able to maintain. It's a fact, and there's no way around it.
Do you not understand that if you fall and break your leg, or catch something horrible, or develop chronic asthma, or cancer, or manage to detach a retina, or get burned really badly, that without insurance, your capital and wealth will evaporate like smoke on the windiest day you can imagine? I think you do, since you tell me you had insurance previously. Now I ask you: Would you want to have that happen to someone else? Seriously? When just by putting your shoulder to the same wheel the rest of us are trying to roll around, you can prevent it to some useful extent?
Ok. Delighted you're being forthcoming. Let's work it. If your new insurance is being delivered under the aegis of the ACA, then at $455/mo for your premium, you're paying $5460/year, and your income (after business deductions, if you're taking those) should be (at least) $54600, because under the ACA, no one has to pay more than 10% of their income unless t
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Madness? A colonoscopy -- a half hour, non surgical procedure involving light anesthesia -- with NO problematic results -- is seven grand. If you have NO other medical expenses in that year, your income has to exceed $70000 to make that cost "only" ten percent of your income. If something SERIOUS happens to you -- you need surgery, you get cancer, serious car accident, diabetes, etc., in order to hit or stay under that ten percent of income mark, your income will have to be much, much higher. And since you can't just magically make that happen, instead, you'll lose all your stuff and make everyone else pay more. Or, you can pay a few thousand for insurance and pretty much no matter what happens to you, you're going to be ok.
Now, what do you think the smartest course is?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Personally, I find it morally reprehensible that the richest nation on the planet chose to deny basic medical care to its citizens. Sorry, but your brand of libertarianism is too close to sociopathy in my book.
Table-ized A.I.
I wasn't dismissing you from slashdot, silly, I was dismissing your argument because of your non-informational response, not to mention the name-calling.
However, since you elected to actually provide data elsewhere, I've picked the discussion right up again.
If it's actually fucked you, I seriously want to know about it. You may have trouble believing that, but it's true. I'm going to give you every opportunity to make your case, if you so choose.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
So says a post that brings ZERO facts to the table, in criticism of one that brought many.
Anything wrong with this picture? Hello? Hello?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Those with fancy stuff who hate taxes probably already hate Democrats anyhow.
Table-ized A.I.
Just as an off-topic aside, this topic (not just my threads) is the most amusing peak event of "moderation as agree/disagree" that I've seen in my years here. Up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down.
Slashdot moderation. lol. Just lol.
Note to the powers that be: If you EVER thought anonymous moderation was a good idea, this topic alone should serve as the poster child come to completely disabuse you of that notion. Unless, of course, you're one of the ones abusing the moderation system, in which case, well, there you go. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The census is changing the way they are measuring the numbers, so we won't know after they release their report, either.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I can solve the colonoscopy cheaper - buy a USB camera off ebay for 5 bux, and a handheld shower conduit, and DIY. It may not be as comfortable as the hospital one, as it may be hard to find small enough size cameras for the task, plus the led light takes up extra space, but you get what you pay for, and if you get more than you pay for, it's a deal!
Holy shit, 10% of your income, for health insurance? Madness.
p>In my case, more like 15% before taxes, and with the new 10% floor for deduction of medical expenses, the deductible portion comes out less than the standard deduction. So the effective amount is 15% of gross and 20% of net. That is a lot of money. Medical insurance is my largest budget item. And this is for retiree's insurance, with my former employer paying about a third of the cost!
Can't say that this is recommended (i.e. don't do it!), but given the "diligence" of some medical practitioners who are more interested in maximum billing than patient care, the results could be similar :)
We won't know the exact delta, but we'll have a much better idea. According to the article you linked, the difference between the old and new questions was about 2% in the total uninsured rate. If the upcoming Census report shows the uninsured numbers dropping by less than that, then that would be evidence that Obamacare was ineffective.
they know # of people that signed up, they just don't know how many people PAID.
Maybe they could politely ask the NSA?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The insurance companies have been raising the rates before Obamacare too. Were you really satisfied with them before? Obamacare offers them a convenient excuse that you are willing to accept that is all. Anyway a single payer system would have been simpler and better. Given how good medicare/medicaid is and how much the seniors, veterans and federal employees like their plans, it would been better for all. But sadly fear mongering trumps logical analysis all the time.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
These are hyperinflated cost structures or fraudulent billings in the US. In other parts of the world, prices are much, much lower. In fact, overseas, one might skip the insurance altogether and medical costs are lower than your 20% deductible. Cash colonoscopy, $600-750. Diabetes, lots of very cheap treatments, going out of control is expensive. I pay for advanced stage IV cancer chemo treatments totally out of pocket - outside the US.
when govt changes its measurement in the middle of the experiment, it means its policy is failing...
What kills me is the supporters of this epically stupid law is that people don't see that problem is the fact that
A colonoscopy -- a half hour, non surgical procedure involving light anesthesia -- with NO problematic results -- is seven grand.
The problem is not that insurance is/was unaffordable, its that the actual care costs to much.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
So says a post that brings ZERO facts to the table
I brought several facts to the table, and you just provided a citation for one of them. You are a democrat and you immediately attacked the messenger. You guys are too shallow to not be easily predictable.
"His name was James Damore."
As a Libertarian, when have you NOT followed the Republicans? Seriously. You mention; "go ahead and continue to follow your elites and their welfare state agenda" which is exactly the kind of phrase that comes out of a think tank created by wealthy elites who get the government to look after the welfare of big business.
You do know that the ACA codifies money to insurance programs? It's the exact opposite of a welfare state. If they had expanded Medicare, it would be a lot cheaper. 54% of all medical expenses are paid for by tax dollars (filling a huge hole of not-profitable left by insurance companies). That money right there could pay for healthcare if we had no insurance companies at all. All the benefits you have right now and no premiums or co-pay -- if you had Germany running the system.
The ACA sucks, but it sucks slightly less than the Year Over Year increases in premiums for our lousy, stinking, healthcare system. Please don't sully socialism by attaching it to something that has nothing to do with socialism as a civilized nation might do it.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
" Sorry, but your brand of libertarianism is too close to sociopathy in my book."
Is there ANOTHER brand of libertarianism?
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Those with fancy stuff who hate taxes probably already hate Democrats anyhow.
Actually, the Cadillac plan tax is projected to mainly affect health plans run by unions. Unions, and in most unionized industries union members, overwhelmingly support Democrats.
if we help 1 person by screwing 100, im sorry but thats not how society should work
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
except for the facts that you leave out
SOMEONE is paying for it, even if it isnt you.
Also you need to take into account the huge deductibles that most plans have now. Why am i, a healthy young person going to pay 100 bucks a month* for a plan that doesnt cover anything until I spend 10K when I spend maybe 3-500 a year in health related expenses? it doesnt make sense to do that.
the ONLY people who are saying the ACA is going well are talking heads
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
except for the enrollment numbers are a lie, You know how I know? because I know a bunch of people who signed up a bunch of times, with no intention of actually getting health care in the end. You cant base things off front end numbers, you need to base things off back end numbers, and thats something we dont have, thats what this article is about!
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
it is fascinating how generally intelligent people can come up with the same common sense answers based on the data provided to them. "8 million people signed up!" yeah ok, and how many paid? how many got pushed into medicaid? without those numbers, the 1st number is pointless. Anyone with any shed of intelligence could tell you so
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
You have to just step back and realize, there are people out there who disagree with me. Their opinions are just as valid as mine, and the fact that someone is criticizing the government doesn't make them a troll. Go into timeout and think about this until you're ready to come back and play with the other children.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
no, but he did say he was going to end the wars in his first year, last I checked we are still over there
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Koch brothers, george soros, I guess its ok when the dems have rich donors, but if the repubs have rich donors they are evil... hypocrites
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
we had to vote for it before we could see it remember? thats what comrad nancy told us
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
right, they should have given up on those pesky civil rights after the first filibuster by the democrats, because why bother?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
CBO just figures the numbers that are given to them. If given shit number, you will get shit results
How many people lost their health insurance last year? Id say more than 10 million
and how many people signed up for obamacare? they say 8 million*
Now explain to me how a net loss of at least 2 million is the same as a net gain of 12 million??
* this is the number who have signed up, not the number who are enrolled/ paying for a plan
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
and I find it morally reprehensible that no one believes in personal responsibility and personal freedom any longer.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Interesting story. Do you have any links to confirm that's how it happened?
Social justice people consider "personal responsibility" a dirty word, a strong form of so-called "victim blaming." I never thought I would see the day that large groups of people would consider personal responsibility to be an evil immoral thing.
Government: meet your deadlines.
Populace: Don't be held to deadlines by a government that refuses to meet theirs.
When we were supposed to have registered and become insured again? With the key, critical, central piece of the equation critically broken? It won't stop them from trying to fine people for it, though.
Dictating law to people doesn't work. Levying fines for their own incompetence, it's all this is going to come down to.
A colonoscopy is paid for by "insurance." Laser eye surgery for BOTH EYES can be had for under $1000, or $4k on average for both eyes and all post-op care.
That's half a much as the number you're reporting for colonoscopy. The problem has always been that the way the industry is structured provides insufficient pressure to reduce prices and costs.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Madness? A colonoscopy -- a half hour, non surgical procedure involving light anesthesia -- with NO problematic results -- is seven grand.
Yes, that's exactly what madness is, as person from any other country will tell you.
Every one of these hard radical Right talking points and phony anecdotes that has been investigated has proven to be false, most of the maliciously so. Every single one. But apparently we are supposed to just blindly swallow the latest from the breitbart propaganda machine?
Sorry (not really), but WHOOSH again. I am not "right wing" at all, much less "hard right". I call it like I see it, not how somebody else tells me what to believe.
This article itself says that the Obama administration simply doesn't even HAVE the data to be saying that 8 million people are now "enjoying" Obamacare via this sign-up process. So the figure is bullshit on its very face, and I don't need anybody else to either prove or disprove it. One plus one still equals two, no matter how much you try to spin it.
If Obama were acting like a king, he'd put some heads on pikes and you know what? Most of the pointless bickering would end.
This "pointless bickering" is also known as "free speech" and "democracy".
There. Fixed that for you.
Yeah, but not really great evidence. That is, our information could have been a lot better.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Obama uses the term "Obamacare".
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Perhaps, but they are not going to start backing Republicans. Democrats are still more union-friendly than Republicans. The down-side of a two-party system is that you often have to vote for the perceived least evil rather than vote for what you really want.
Table-ized A.I.
Now I'm sure I'll get attacked mercilessly for saying this, but the reason Health Care is so expensive in the U.S. is because of the government endlessly screwing with it, and the lawyers getting rich off it....
Murphy was an optimist
The new left, where if you make a single statement not encapsulated in the official narrative of the party turns you into a hard radical right wing extremist ignorant hayseed country bumpkin clinging to guns and religion is so old, so tired, so worn out, and so completely and utterly pointless....
Murphy was an optimist
Depends on how you look at it. I find the "moderate" republicans to be deplorable and spineless. but then again Im not a republican, im a libertarian. Call me fringe if you wish but id say that libertarians tend to be the most consistent people. We dont always say things people like, but we are consistent when it comes to matters of social justice and equality
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Wow - Obamabots get mod points and hate it when their lord and savior gets caught - pix at 11!
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Slashdot is great for getting my RDA of irony.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
"How many have paid? HOW MANY HAVE PAID"
Under the ACA - as designed by the Republican think tank Heritage Foundation - premiums are paid directly to private insurance companies. Not to HHS or healthcare.gov. The CEOs of all the major health billing firms (aka 'insurance companies') have expressed satisfaction with the new enrollees and their accounts. The vast majority of those enrollees don't have a premium due until July 1st in any case.
"How many have paid? HOW MANY HAVE PAID?".
Just made-up LIEberal lamestream disinformation of course.
sPh
Not to mention convincing their followers not to sign up for health insurance under the ACA, then (a) complaining that said people don't have health care (b) standing by while they die due to lack of health care.
sPh
A bit of Googling provides detailed data. As of 3/21 - well in advance of 1st premium deadline - 85% were fully paid. Paid in advance. Early. Before the deadline. About 5 million as of 3/21.
http://acasignups.net/14/03/21...
sPh
First it was "No one can get on the website!"
Then it was "OK, the site is loading but no one can create an account!"
Then "OK, you can create an account but no one can view the plans!"
Then "OK, you can view the plans but no one can fill out their application!"
Then "OK, you can apply but no one can actually enroll!"
Then "OK, it works now, but no one bothering to do so anymore!"
Then "OK, (a lot of) people are enrolling, but none of the data is being transferred to the insurance companies!"
And now that we've hit over 1.8 million private enrollments, the new attack is:
"FINE, a lot of people have ENROLLED, but how many have actually PAID???"
About 85% - several months in advance of the premium deadline. Sorry. Nice try though.
http://acasignups.net/graph
sPh
Next up: "LIEberal numbers! I have my own numbers right here!! You may end up with a different math, but you're entitled to your math. I'm entitled to THE math"
The old, tired lie that the ACA was cloned from the Heritage foundation plan, plus an unsubstantiated, source free quote from the CEO's of allegedly all the major insurance providers is not really worth much here.
In the real insurance business "enrolled" - for the last one hundred years - has meant an individual who paid their premium and is now eligible for service. Not signed up. Paid, and verified. Of course the Obama administration chose to redefine that term, in order to make themselves look better. And we are to believe that this whole business of insurance is so horribly complex that nobody, nobody at all, has any idea who has paid and who hasn't? Really? If a business operated this way you lefties would be screaming about an evil corporation covering up malfeasance, and the need for a special prosecutor to bring the alleged perpetrators to justice.
Murphy was an optimist
Perhaps, but they are not going to start backing Republicans. Democrats are still more union-friendly than Republicans.
Your first sentence is a red herring. Democrats enacted a plan that hurt the union members who helped elect them, and now they're being dicks about it. Calling the health insurance people use to take care of their family "fancy stuff" or even "Cadillac level" is tone deaf. Democrats are holding up the Keystone pipeline, which will be built with unionized labor. Private sector union jobs are very much down under this President, and further down still if you count back to when the Democrats took over the Senate in 2006. (Of course, private sector non-union jobs are also down, which also doesn't help matters.)
So I don't know that Democrats are better for rank and file union members. Certainly the Cadillac tax hurts union members almost exclusively. Whether Republicans can translate that into electoral success has nothing to do with the fact that Obamacare is bad for union members.