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Statisticians Study Who Was Helped Most By Obamacare
HughPickens.com writes We know that about 10 million more people have insurance coverage this year as a result of the Affordable Care Act but until now it has been difficult to say much about who was getting that Obamacare coverage — where they live, their age, their income and other such details. Now Kevin Quealy and Margot Sanger-Katz report in the NYT that a new data set is providing a clearer picture of which people gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The data is the output of a statistical model based on a large survey of adults and shows that the law has done something rather unusual in the American economy this century: It has pushed back against inequality, essentially redistributing income — in the form of health insurance or insurance subsidies — to many of the groups that have fared poorly over the last few decades. The biggest winners from the law include people between the ages of 18 and 34; blacks; Hispanics; and people who live in rural areas. The areas with the largest increases in the health insurance rate, for example, include rural Arkansas and Nevada; southern Texas; large swaths of New Mexico, Kentucky and West Virginia; and much of inland California and Oregon.
Despite many Republican voters' disdain for the Affordable Care Act, parts of the country that lean the most heavily Republican (according to 2012 presidential election results) showed significantly more insurance gains than places where voters lean strongly Democratic. That partly reflects underlying rates of insurance. In liberal places, like Massachusetts and Hawaii, previous state policies had made insurance coverage much more widespread, leaving less room for improvement. But the correlation also reflects trends in wealth and poverty. Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians.
Despite many Republican voters' disdain for the Affordable Care Act, parts of the country that lean the most heavily Republican (according to 2012 presidential election results) showed significantly more insurance gains than places where voters lean strongly Democratic. That partly reflects underlying rates of insurance. In liberal places, like Massachusetts and Hawaii, previous state policies had made insurance coverage much more widespread, leaving less room for improvement. But the correlation also reflects trends in wealth and poverty. Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians.
A: the insurance companies.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Bullshit. There are many other factors to blame for it.
I'm watching the same thing happen in New Zealand right now, but it's because of right wing "I've got mine!" policies.
The wealthy are hoarding away their money, pay rates for the rest of us are dropping through the floor. It's only a matter of time until we can't afford to spend, and the economy will grind to a halt. That is, unless the wealthy suddenly drop their trillions back into the pockets of the people who actually do the hard work.
It has pushed back against inequality, essentially redistributing income ...
So it is an income redistribution plan. What we really need is a prosperity plan and other than getting out of the way, that is not something government can do.
Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians.
I've observed this myself. Quite baffling that those who would profit most from social reforms mostly advocated by the left are very often politically oriented towards the right.
And then you have the super rich, who are strongly favored by right-leaning policies, asking the government to tax them more...
Crazy world.
It must be nice to have the State-run Media on you side
For most visits, you should be paying in cash. A doctor's visit should not require a full time staffer processing insurance paperwork just for a visit and a prescription or two. Heck, even most basic hospital operations (like lab work, fixing broken bones and such) should be payable in cash by anyone who has been mildly responsible with their savings and paychecks.
Price gouging, fraud and EMTALA are the main culprits. My favorite example of price gouging here is a snake anti-venom that costs $100 to make and is sold to patients in hospitals for as much as $30k. If the state is going to prosecute people who charge a 100%-200% markup for a generator after a hurricane, what possible excuse do they not have to prosecute people for a 3000% markup on a drug that is absolutely necessary to the patient's immediate survival? Fraud? How about the trending practice of having one doctor in network and one out of network so that the in-network partner can use the out of network partner to deceptively rape the assets of the patient? Or drive by doctoring at hospitals?
This is a target-rich environment for massive law enforcement clean up. Enforcing the laws combined with efforts to increase access to medical school and some other subsidies on the supply side would force the market to act like a real market, not a state-protected industry.
By far the biggest impact from Obamacare has been the expansion of Medicaid. That could've been accomplished without messing with my private insurance.
The same number that Romneycare killed. remember, Obamacare is BASED ON good Ol' Mitt Romney, the GOP shining example's own Romney care that he put in place in his home state.
Are republicans so stupid that they can not see it's a Republican system? Because as a Democrat I wanted a system closer to Canadian Healthcare as it works.
Repubs made sure the insurance companies would be happy with it so they could get max profits. And that is what we got...... Romneycare.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
People hate Obama-care and like the Affordable Care Act.
are the insurance companies who are raking in tens of millions of free dollars from all the people who are forced to hand over their money to a private company or have the government reach into their bank account and forcibly extract the money.
This had nothing to do with getting insurance for people because it started with a Republican governor who saw a way to pay back his political supporters and what better way then to have the public hand over their money whether they want to or not.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
It's not the implementation that was the problem. It was the legal basis for implementing Romneycare on a Federal level. That states can individually create their own health care system is actually a selling point of States' rights proponents...the other point being that if you disagree with it (or were adversely affected), you can always move to another state more in-line with your ideology without renouncing your citizenship.
Are republicans so stupid that they can not see it's a Republican system?
Their memories are simply that short. That's how they forget that none of their interests have been served by their elected politicians, and proceed to re-elect them.
Here in California, however, we re-relected Jerry Brown. That's very like re-electing Marion Berry. Heh heh heh.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The rest of us are gobsmacked at how the political left is so determined that they know exactly what everybody else wants and should just follow their lead.
Those stupid motherfucker poor people. Don't they know we have their lives figured out for them?
Benjowler, when over half of the people decide to let others work and sweat to make the money and then use the political process to take it from them to support the ones who won't work, the nation is doomed to fall into poverty. This redistribution will probably convince many tired working people to just do as the majority and throw in the towel and get on the government dole too.
Show me a study that shows how much the health of people and the quality of health care has improved and what the price changes of said health care and I might find that interesting.
Just because they now have "health care" doesn't mean life got any better for them or those that have to pay for their health care.
you can always move to another state more in-line with your ideology without renouncing your citizenship.
In theory that works great, in practice it does not work at all.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
There *is* no more actual work to be done, we have high technology and everyone is so productive, remember?
Your fucking problem is that you still think like a 12th century lord in the 21st century. Why does everyone "need" to work? We work more hours now than they did in the 12th century precisely because our technology has uncoupled us from the natural rhythm of the seasons for example.
So what do you expect all these people to do all year long? There's nothing left to do!
They're driving us out
We're closing up shop
Lonely is the mom-and-pop
Where are the protestors?
Where are their slogans and signs?
This will be a swift decline
Actually, quite the opposite is happening. My best friends father is basically despises Obama to the core. He runs his own insurance resale shop. He complained that Obamacare was going to destroy him. Well, it didn't turn out that way. Because the law made the old policies illegal, the insurance companies had to create new policies and everyone had to re-sign up for their health insurance. He gets a commission on every single one of those changes and is making a fortune. He still doesn't like Obama but he certainly loves the government teat.
I've heard several economists say that what really skews our health system is the lack of direct payment. Since we don't pay for anything we don't know what it costs and it makes it easier to over consume health care because we're one or more steps removed from what things cost.
I totally agree with your criticisms of what really seems like fraudulent billing with in/out of network doctors and drive-by doctoring (I read those NY Times articles, too). It really seems like a deliberately dishonest way to screw patients, especially when it involves surgeries where you had no control over the "assisting" doctor or emergency rooms where, well, it's an emergency.
It's like buying stock and selling it only to be told by your broker that they had to use another clearinghouse to sell your stock and there will be an additional brokerage fee they didn't tell you about.
I'm afraid that these and other unsavory practices will become more common, not less, with ACA and insurance providers squeeze health care costs and doctors look for more ways to rake in fees.
Sadly, I think the "market solution" probably involves having the majority of people pay more out of pocket and either refuse to buy or not be able to buy medical services to force medicine to produce a lower-cost product. As long as they can get paid at current pricing levels they won't charge less.
It's not the implementation that was the problem. It was the legal basis for implementing Romneycare on a Federal level. That states can individually create their own health care system is actually a selling point of States' rights proponents...the other point being that if you disagree with it (or were adversely affected), you can always move to another state more in-line with your ideology without renouncing your citizenship.
I've seen this argument a few times, but didn't Republicans make a big stink because there is no interstate competition? There are new federal requirements, but it's entirely up to the insurance companies to set plans and prices for each state. It is staggeringly stupid that so many Republicans think this is socialized healthcare.
Anyway, in case we haven't figured it out by now, very few people will leave their home to protest their own state's or country's policies. Moving is expensive both in terms of money and time, so the vast majority of people literally can't afford to do anything other than try to change the offending policy. Saying, "if you don't like it, move" is just naive.
True if you ignore the 10 million that the old systems didn't cover but we all provided more expensive emergency care anyway and the new system does cover.
- one that was billed at $900 that I can buy on Amazon for $117. Reason? That's the Medicare "book" price and no one else is interested in spending the time to create a realistic price sheet. Of course their first excuse was that it took time to size and fit the device. When I pointed out that's a personnel/visit charge not a hardware charge, they came up with the "real" reason for charging so much.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
the republican party is incredibly successful at turning the victims of their legislation into their voter base. democrats SUCK at messaging.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I honestly don't care how you color code this to make it sound warm and fuzzy. The premise of this is redistribution of wealth. I work very hard long hours to make a comfortable living for me and my family. I shouldn’t have to work even harder to pay for the insurance of the “poor”. In most instances “poor” is a life choice. What you subsidize you will get more of. Redistribution of wealth is theft.
flapper chicks, woot!
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
... I mean personally.
What could you buy before and what can you buy now?
Because I am not rich... before or after... and it is more expensive now then it was before. I mean... significantly.
Now do I think we should help people that have a hard time getting medical care afford said care? Yes. Is the best method to provide that care to just throw money into the air until it covers the earth like leaves after autumn? Obviously not.
Here someone is going to say "but single payer would be better!"... Maybe... but then like... anything would be better then this stupid law. the law is dumb. What we had before for all its flaws was better. My care was cheaper. I am not in some amazing stratospheric yacht class of people that sips expensive brandies while I talk about the little people. This law made my care more expensive. Full stop.
Now here is where someone says "Okay, what is your solution because we need a better policy!". Okay, look at the price of college education over time. Graph it against the inflation rate. Notice something? Now do the same thing with the cost of housing prior to the crash. Notice something? What is happening is cost inflation due to government subsidization.
Basically what you are looking at in many markets is the effect that unlimited subsidization has on free market systems when they are purely demand side. That is, if you just give everyone money that can only be spent on a given product or service... people buy that product or service in greater volumes. That then not only consumes the supply of those products or services but also increases what people ultimately can pay for them because not only do they have their own personal resources to draw upon but also this big government check. And so naturally, even if the supply is increased, because people have more money to spend... the costs go up. And the more subsidization you throw into the market the more the prices go up. And the faster you do it, the faster the prices go up. If your level of subsidization is percentage based and not even a flat amount then your subsidization rate can feed back into the supply/demand price loop in real time. Which can mean rapid uncontrolled price inflation.
We've seen this before. It has happened many times because this is a lesson government and certain ideologues have a very hard time dealing with because it contradicts some political positions that are simply verifiability wrong.
Where am I going with this? Well, medical costs have been going through the same cost inflation for YEARS. In fact, the very justification for obamacare was that cost inflation. And the cost inflation was caused in large part by government subsidization of healthcare. Look at the price of healthcare prior to the subsidization for something like mending a broken arm. Something that hasn't changed remarkably in a generation. And you'll see the costs were a great deal lower after factoring for inflation.
So what are my solutions to this problem? Well, rather then give people money so they can pay for increasingly expensive medical care, why not try to make medical care cheaper for EVERYONE. Not by giving people money but effecting the market so that prices go down.
There are a lot of ways to do this sort of thing. There is a hospital in Texas for example that has a completely different administrative structure. They basically did away with the three upper floors of most hospitals that are full of people that just do paper work. And instead they give shift nurses administrative control over their domain. That in and of itself lowers the cost hugely.
The price of that is that the hospital outright refuses to deal with complicated paperwork from the insurance companies. They offer various ways of managing that. You can for example deal with the paper work yourself and it is your responsibility to see that the hospital gets paid or that you get reimbursed after paying the hospital out of pocket. They also have sort of a medical plan that covers JUST that hospital.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Poor people are stupid, proud of their lack of knowledge, and threaten the very existence of everyone else.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians.
Many of the poorest, most rural states also feature a large minority population disenfranchised by Voter ID laws, early voting elimination, absentee ballot restrictions, and gerrymandered districts that favour a republican leadership. Most of these states like Kentucky, Georgia, and Louisiana also strip your voter rights if youve been convicted of a felony in the past, requiring a governors pardon to restore them. Stacking the desk means people like louie gomert can call for a ban on muslim immigrants, shariah law, and female contraception because they understand no matter how incendiary their comments, the chances of their unemployment are pretty low. a large plurality of residents in these states categorically do not care for republican politicians.
Good people go to bed earlier.
So we now have around 13% of people without insurance or around 1-2% below what we before. However around 70% of those have been into Medicaid; which has alot of problems because of the way that is paid for not to mention the increasly few doctors that are accepting it; it does give the liberals their single payer system.
According to the numbers insurance for young men has gone up close to 80% yet they said it has gone down, they need to look at the numbers vs what they put in words; they do cover that by saving prices will go down in the future.
This are still parts of the web sites that are not working or have been implemented, according to the governments own reports, yet according to the article everything is great.
However at least with from the article insurance cost for company provide insurance plans have leveled off and not increased. Then you see they ignored the past couple of months, focusing only the times of economic recession and the costs that people will have to pay for insurance next year.
How about some real number like the percent of people who got âoeif you like your policy, you can keep your policyâ or those on Obamacare who had "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." work for them?
Are republicans so stupid that they can not see it's a Republican system? Because as a Democrat I wanted a system closer to Canadian Healthcare as it works.
Because a single Republican governor implemented a similar system in a Democrat-controlled state, then automatically, this is a Republican plan that all (or even a majority of) Republicans across the nation supported? What a stupid statement! It completely flies in the face of actual facts.
Every single Republican in Congress opposed this plan. Republican voters overwhelmingly opposed (and still oppose) this plan.
The Democrats had complete control of Congress and the Executive Branch and they passed what they wanted to pass.
This clusterfuck is all on them. If it wasn't so terrible, it would be laughable that Democrats keep trying to pin the blame on the Republicans for this mess
Yes, even idiots can send letters to the NYT.
1) Don't blame the President for laws written by and enacted by Congress. President Obama is the chief executive, not a legislator.
2) Forcing everyone to get health care insurance was how Congress signed away your rights. Don't bitch to the NY Times, call your congressman.
3) Insurance companies used the confusion over healthcare as cover for dropping plans that were less profitable, and creating new plans that are more profitable. Don't blame Congress or the President for your insurance company's greed.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
That's the great thing about Obamacare, now those people pay for health insurance coverage and can't get care. Whereas before, they didn't pay for health insurance, but were able to get health care when they needed it. Isn't Obamacare great?
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Are republicans so stupid that they can not see it's a Republican system?
Their memories are simply that short.
It has nothing to do with short memories. The overwhelming majority of Republicans never supported this plan. A single Republican governor of a liberal state supported a state-local version of this plan.
You know, until very recently, a Democrat President opposed gay marriage. So, does that mean that Democrats are so stupid that they can not see it's a Democrat ideal?
Most developed countries recognize that health care is analogous to public security, not policing. The difference there is that you have an army of private, for-profit actors (like private security) and a public basic service. We expect companies to provide their own security, for example, because they have the wealth to do so and it lowers the cost on the general public. It is not acceptable to say "increase the police force 200% because Walmart and Target won't hire security staff to monitor such a large store full time." For the same reason, it's unacceptable to burden the public health care system with the middle and upper class when they have the wealth to pay private doctors.
This is a good example of why Social Security and Medicare are failing. They aren't means tested. You can have a fat pension and $2m in assets and still get the same maximum social security check as someone who was a skilled construction worker and entered old age with little more than a home and a small savings account to hopefully pass onto the kids. Should they both be entitled to these programs? Absolutely not.
And by "never supported", you mean were dictated their position following their party line after the GOP chose to make the ACA a wedge issue.
And Romney wasn't just some RINO rebel GOP governor in a backwater state that the GOP could write off as being a product of a liberal constituent... he was who the GOP chose to be the shining star and face of their party to combat the derivative of the very plan Romney pushed for in his home state.
You had to put some powerful spin to make that jive in your red worldview.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
1.36 trillion dollars over 10 years (http://obamacarefacts.com/costof-obamacare/). That is 136 billion dollars a year. For 10 million people to have insurance.
By my calculations, that is $13,600 per covered person, per year.
Hardly "affordable".
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
What about older people forced to pay for pregnancy coverage they'll never use? What about healthy 20-somethings whose affordable plans (called "junk plans" by liberals, but perfectly adequate coverage for a demographic that very rarely needs anything but coverage in case of catastrophic events) were cancelled even after Obama LIED and said "if you like your insurance, you can keep it?" You don't want to mention those things because it's more regressive taxation from so-called progressives. If you liberals are hell-bent on getting rid of every inequality you think you see, why do you insist on taking money from your fellow middle-class Americans to do it instead of from the big corps you claim to despise so much? THAT's why ObamaCare is so damn unpopular, and part of the reason the Democrats will get wiped out in next week's elections. People are sick of your bullshit.
They opposed it because they oppose everything that Obama does.
Whatever he does, they support the opposite. No one cared about Common Core originally, and it was implemented in 43 states. But as soon as Obama said it was a good idea, everyone on the started freaking out and saying it was the worst EVAH.
When he suggested bombing Syria they said no way.
When he was reluctant to bomb Russia/Ukraine they said we needed to.
If he said cyanide was toxic they would stand on the Capitol Steps and chug it just to spite him.
If he cured cancer they'd complain he was putting doctors out of work.
It's a Republican plan because they came up with it 20+ years ago.
Nearly every key aspect of it comes from the GOP plan that Heritage came up with around 1989.
Most everything in the plan is oriented around implementing and supporting a free market, ie existing insurance industry, based solution to expanding care. Even the mandate originates with Heritage, and is essential to preventing free riders so that the insurance based approach can work.
Further, the GOP HAS NO HEALTHCARE PLAN. They keep saying they want to repeal Obamacare, but when asked about what they'd replace it with, they have no answer. the few who actually give an answer, invariably end up describing something that resembles Obamacare.
Dems went with a Romneycare clone because they figured, hey, we're never going to get a nationalized healthcare system through congress, not yet. But they themselves implemented this thing up in Mass., and it's working pretty good, so lets do that. Let's compromise. Instead of pushing for a NHS, we'll push for increased access using the a market based approach thorugh the insurance companies. So thats what they did.
Its not terrible.
Its not a cluster.
And GOP opposition is just smoke and mirrors.
The only one flying in the face of the facts is YOU.
You completely ignorant of the facts, of history, and the context.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
This right here is some willful ignorance. The law was not written by congress. Few in congress even read it. The administration peddled it through several House committees, but in the end, they gave up and just voted on the Senate version (which many Democratic senators admitted they had not read, either).
"In theory that works great, in practice it does not work at all."
Republican policies in a nutshell.
The first statement holds true for a lot of political ideologies. Welfare sounds like a great system to end hunger, and we assume that no one would want to live on government assistance. Some people are perfectly happy giving the minimum though.
Taxes and exemptions sound ideal too except you have people who are going to take every exemption to end up not paying a dime.
Place something witty here
That's interesting. I'm in the UK and some of what you talk of here is implemented (not perfectly, but...)
Being of a Certain Age, I get asked to come in for scans/get flu jabs/play Pooh Sticks etc. I don't have to do it, but they are asking - because it is cheaper to catch it early rather than treat some ancient old sod (eg me) when he's really off it.
And the NHS runs an internet site where you can look for advice (and read what others think about said advice)
And there is a phone number to call for advice - you get someone who does the first, basic questions and then, if relevant, you get a callback from a medic.
I have used that; once as an anxious father worried, reassured and told what to look out for. Another time to be told 'the parameds will be with you in 10 minutes' when my partner showed worrying symptoms.
The NHS is not free. It is 'free at the point of use' - and you can pay for private if you wish.
But the above techniques work really well if they are accessible by everyone.
Perhaps I'd better shut up or I'll rattle on as much as you have.....
Plenty of people honestly. Whether through cancellation of plans due to lack of mandated coverages, or in my own personal case, being forced to a plan with weaker benefits because my wife's employer was going to be penalized for offering a "Cadillac" plan to their employee's. For those that don't know what that is, it's a mandated 40% excise tax placed on plans that offer premium coverage.
So now we pay about the same amount as before and have a deductible and coinsurance that we didn't have before. Thanks ever so much for that. Considering now we have to be concerned for up to 4800 dollars more a year in expenses. In an environment with looming inflation, and stagnant income growth. Hurray for Obama. Thanks so much for causing millions of Americans into the threat of financial instability.
If the 10 million people now being covered are primarily from poor and rural areas, you could have easily covered them by modifying existing options like medicare to better suite the needs of those unable to properly insure themselves. And probably at a lesser expense.
So yeah, lots of people have reason to hate the ACA, and the people who shoved it down our throats.
under the old system people in jail / prison got better healthcare. People who where sick and had pre existing conditions used them as the last resort places.
So, which Republicans voted for the ACA? Which provisions were inserted into the ACA to garner those votes? For that matter, what Republican support was needed to overcome a filibuster? Which provisions were inserted into the ACA to get Republican support in order to overcome that filibuster? Geez, just own up to the responsibility for what your party has done.
That's the great thing about Obamacare, now those people pay for health insurance coverage and can't get care. Whereas before, they didn't pay for health insurance, but were able to get health care when they needed it. Isn't Obamacare great?
Yeah, cause emergency rooms are turning away people in droves.... try again...
Not only that, if the polls are to be believed, Romney is now the frontrunner for the GOP Prez candidate for 2016.
The basic problem is that the U.S. let the insurance companies into the health care system back in the 60's and didn't implement national health care under Teddy Roosevelt who wanted it.
Now we have death panels...not the panels the Republicans waxed wet dream like during the passage of the ACA but the ones the insurance companies run. Yes, those are indeed death panels just like the ones the Republicans warned us about.
Currently, Americans pay for health care through a company and individual tax. That allows the insurance companies to suck up as much as they can because they amortize risk, they do not amortize outcomes. So if your doctor schedules extra needless tests to protect against possible lawsuits, that cost has been built into the system if you have health insurance. The doctors are only too happy to order them because the insurance company will pay, it is built into their risk assessment of what your life is worth to them.
I see, so instead of constructively engaging to modify a plan built on a Republican plan, they decided to take their ball and go home. That's so mature of Republicans.
I agree that they should have expanded Medicare to cover everyone who wanted it - that's by far the most efficient system with the highest patient satisfaction. Much better than private insurance, so likely the competition would have forced insurers to become at least marginally efficient and improve coverage.
That being said, I don't follow your comment about your private insurance. The only thing that happened to your private insurance is that the worst abuses were now outlawed, so (for example) insurance companies aren't allowed to waste more than 20% of what you pay them, resulting in $billions in refunds being sent to customers who were previously being really ripped off. Well, and you also indirectly benefitted in that the exchanges are so competitive that private insurance rates are going up much more slowly than they have in the past, so you're probably having money paying a 2-3% annual increase (that's the average post-ACA) compared to the historical 7-9% annual increases.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
That could've been accomplished without messing with my private insurance.
I know this is a personal anecdote, but since I work for large aerospace corporations, this is a personal anecdote for a significant number of people. Before the provisions of Obamacare went into effect, my healthcare premiums rose 20% to 33% per year since 2008. From 2013 to 2014, when all the major provisions went into effect, my deductible went up 20%, but my premium stayed the same (and I never hit the old deductible limit anyway). I changed jobs this year, and in 2015, my premiums and coverage are both staying the same.
I have no idea if Obamacare is responsible for this state of affairs or if it's just coincidence, but it's a damn sight better than what was happening before it came along.
Really? It was the formal GOP healthcare reform plan for 30 years or so, since Nixon, then Clinton, pretty much whenever healthcare reform came up, they proposed the market/exchange plan. And when Romney implemented it, the Republicans *loved* it, and acclaimed it as proof that Republican policies worked. And they advocated expanding it at the Federal level.
Republicans didn't distance themselves from this plan, or come up with the "states rights" spin until Obama endorsed doing what the Republicans were planning.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
I disagree with the premise that "ObamaCare" and the ACA are the same thing. When Obama introduced his framework for health care reform, it included, among other things, a single-payer system. Controversial to be sure, but a key part of the plan. The republicans focused on that and the individual mandate as their two key talking points of opposition. The former was framed as a government takeover of healthcare, and the latter as unconstitutional. The democrats dropped the former to make it more palatable, presumably thinking something is better than nothing and perhaps it will be added in time. The republicans were quick to jump on board with that probably thinking without the single-payer element, the whole thing was dead. The latter was deemed constitutional by the supreme court, breathing new life into the legislation.
While the republicans termed the whole notion of healthcare reform as "ObamaCare" as a pejorative, in my mind the ACA is actually more of an inadvertent compromise between the democrats and the republicans. It wasn't the intention of the republicans to add things in and take things out as a means of compromise. What they did, they did to kill the legislation; but it didn't work out that way. In the end, the ACA is a democrat-led effort for healthcare reform with many compromises made to please, and at the behest of, republicans.
While the republicans didn't vote for the legislation; the legislation that passed has their fingerprints all over it.
But all of this is just political theater and bullshit. If any of you think your party is "right" or fighting for and representing your interests, you are deluded and probably of only average intelligence.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
Because a single Republican governor implemented a similar system in a Democrat-controlled state, then automatically, this is a Republican plan that all (or even a majority of) Republicans across the nation supported? What a stupid statement! It completely flies in the face of actual facts.
Feel free to read the original source of the Romneycare idea:
http://healthcarereform.procon.org/sourcefiles/1989_assuring_affordable_health_care_for_all_americans.pdf
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Another anecdote: I work at another large aerospace corporation (co-located, not as an employee). Everyone there is griping that their premiums, that used to rise by 10-15%, are now going up 20-30% or more. And the coverage is now less.
talk to teachers. this isnt D vs R, every last teacher I know (and I know quite a few in NY) HATES common core with a passion
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
if you want to be techincal hillary started all this mess when bill was president. or did you forget hillarycare??
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Costs have gone up and coverage down for a lot of people exactly because of the 'Affordable' Care Act. The only people who really benefit are those who get highly subsidized coverage now because they don't make much money.
My family insurance rates went from ~$400/mo for a PPO plan in 2012, to ~$750/mo in 2013, and now just under $1000/mo in 2014, all with declining levels of coverage. Thank you 'Affordable' Care Act. Even a modest 6-figure household income can't realistically afford $1000/mo for health insurance so we dropped it. It doesn't end there either. After $12k in premiums, i have exposure for another $6000 per year. So now we have a bare bones plan and contribute less to the system overall. Worst law in the history of the United States.
Scott
I see, so instead of constructively engaging to modify a plan built on a Republican plan, they decided to take their ball and go home. That's so mature of Republicans
The legislative agenda surrounding the 100% partisan ramming-through of the ACA precluded any Republican involvement. The Republicans put forth a constant barrage of their own ideas and (looking back on them) very accurate predictions about all of the wreckage that the ACA is now causing. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi ran the entire show, and shut down any involvement by Republicans. Those two leaders of the Democrat party, and the chief executive, actively and deliberately lied - over an over again - about the nature of the law and the fallout that would come from it. That's why more people opposed than supported it as it was being rammed through, and why even more people are opposed to it now. The way in which the Dems carried on at the time is about to cost them a lot of legislative seats, and the president who championed this new tax/entitlement redistribution plan is spiraling downward in terms of any public support for his priorities.
The Republicans had no ability to "constructively engage" in the creation and underhanded passage of the ACA. They could only shout out loud about how outrageous so much of it is, since their votes - in committee and generally in the house and senate - were incapable of impacting the law.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Yeah, cause emergency rooms are turning away people in droves.... try again...
No, they're not, of course. But people with modest income are no more "insured" than they were before. That's the whole point. What is a family who makes $45,000 a year (gross) supposed to do with a $12,000 deductible? Well, at least they're insured now, right? Right. Thanks, Pelosi, Reid, and a Obama! Oh, and of course millions of other people who DID have insurance they wanted and could use, no longer do, and that's about to happen to millions more when the illegally-delayed changes hit the employer-provided plans. After the election, of course.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Sure. Oh, never mind, that it doesn't apply to true small businesses AT ALL. Somehow it's still driving them bankrupt.
Don't blame the President for laws written by and enacted by Congress. President Obama is the chief executive, not a legislator.
The law was passed by not-veto-proof 100% partisan vote.If he wasn't in support of it, he could have stopped it cold or used his ability to kill it (by not signing it) to insist that changes were made. He did absolutely nothing along those lines. He is equally responsible, and don't kid yourself about the administration's direct involvement in the writing of the bill.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
This clusterfuck is all on them. If it wasn't so terrible...
How exactly is it "so terrible"; facts please, not campaign lies.
I find the meme about poor states = conservative to be a bit annoying and misleading. While it is true that conservative states, especially Southern states, tend to have lower median incomes, they also have significantly lower costs of living. "Studies" like this one never adjust for purchasing power parity, and that oversight always makes me question anything else they have to say.
For example, according to Wikipedia's article on household income in the United States (alas, the numbers are a couple of years old), strongly Democrat Hawaii, which is the 5th wealthiest state by income, is actually dead last adjusted for cost of living. New York ranks 44th once incomes are adjusted for purchasing power parity. Virginia and Utah are the two wealthiest states in the U.S. by PPP income. Of course, Mississippi and West Virginia are still poor no matter how you slice it, but the correlation between political orientation and real income among states is weak at best.
This should not be surprising - local government politics in the U.S. look decidedly different from national politics. This is especially true for conservatives - many Republicans are comfortable with giving powers to local or state governments that they would abhor giving to the federal government, and moreover local elections frequently come down to personal, rather than party, politics. So judging the results of a state's internal, local elections and policymaking by how its citizens voted in a national election doesn't make that much sense, because those two things are imperfectly correlated.
Sorry - that turned out to be a bit long and off topic, but I have a problem trusting articles like this that purport to investigate a fairly complicated and nuanced issue while also making such offhand implicit assumptions.
The final sentence of the summary is misleading.
Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians.
The link is to a 2011 article, which states the following:
Most of the 10 poorest states in the country are Republican. Mississippi is the poorest... followed by Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, Louisiana, Montana, South Carolina, Kentucky, Alabama and North Carolina.
The economics of a state is more impacted by what party holds the governorship and statehouse, not by what party they voted for for president. Looking at the governorship of each of those states
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...
you see that the parties of the governors of the states listed are, respectively, Republican, Democratic, Republican, Democratic, Republican, Democratic, Republican, Democratic, Republican, Republican.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Another anecdote: Heath care rates for me went down significantly, and I'm a small business owner.
The Democrats had complete control of Congress and the Executive Branch and they passed what they wanted to pass.
If that's true, then the Republicans never managed to block passing of the budget until the 11th hour.
You need to look to see how this bill was passed. The Republicans couldn't block it due to Harry Reid playing fast and loose with the rules.
Do you have ESP?
Partly, but they also don't want the Democrats to get the credit for something that could be very successful.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
That's only because Obama was proposing it. He was trying to be diplomatic by compromising, but Republicans systematically oppose anything that Obama does, because they want the country to suffer during his term. If Obama is liked by the population, Republicans have less of a chance of getting their extreme policies enacted. The ACA is basically Romneycare. It's a right-wing idea. The left wanted something different, but they settled for the Republican plan.
Lets look at the history of the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. Back in 2008, then-presidential nominee Barack Obama ran a campaign with healthcare reform as one of its central issues. He advocated for universal healthcare but opposed an individual mandate. However, after input from experts that claimed that government-guaranteed healthcare would encourage too many free-riders, Obama decided to include an individual mandate as a central part of his healthcare reform efforts.
The individual mandate is largely credited as an idea by the conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation as an alternative to a system in which the government pays for healthcare. It required each person to pay for their own healthcare and was proposed by Republicans during the Clinton era as a free-market solution that embodies the tenant of personal responsibility that Republicans claim to hold.
Once adopted by the Democrats and proposed in a bill on September 17, 2009, the Republicans staunchly opposed the measure. The Republicans, some of whom have been around long enough to have supported a similar bill during the Clinton administration, claimed that the individual mandate was an unconstitutional assault on freedom.
After 3 weeks of debate and town hall meetings, the bill passed through the House of Representatives and was sent to the Senate. The Democrats attempted to gain the support of moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe, Bob Bennet, Mike Enzi, and Chuck Grassley. However, the moderate Republicans found themselves subject to intense pressure by the party to fall in line and oppose any healthcare reform effots.
The bill continued to be opposed by conservatives in the Senate who claimed that the bill's "public option" was a deal-breaker. The public option was government-run healthcare insurance that would be available to people alongside private health insurance in the market. Conservatives claimed that the public option would put private insurance out of business because the government is under no pressure to compete or turn a profit. After over 3 months of debate, the public option was dropped from the bill. Senator Grassley was quoted as saying:
"No public option. No play-or-pay. No things that are going to lead to any rationing of health care. No interference with the doctor-patient relationship," says Grassley. "About the only place we haven't made progress along the lines of what Republicans are wanting on the bill is in tort reform."
Despite this, it still took several last-minute concessions for conservatives to get the bill passed through the Senate on December 24, 2009, with support from independents and conservative Democrats to overcome the Republican threat of fillibuster.
The bill languished in the House of Representatives for 3 more months. In order to gets the admendments made to the bill back in the House, the Democrats had to win support from pro-life Representatives who worried that the bill would allow federal funds to be used to pay for abortions. To assuage anti-abortion politicians' fears, Barack Obama signed an executive order on March 21, 2010 to affirm that no federal funds could or would be used to fund abortions. The amendments were finally passed through the House and signed into law by Obama on March 23, 2010 (over 6 months after being proposed).
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
The Republicans did implement it and test it in Massachusetts only about 15 years after Heritage proposed the idea.
Romeny's system was a state system. Implementing that is orders of magnitude simpler than a national system. They might be alike in some ways, but the problem of scale is fairly obvious with the national plan. The flaws of Romney's system are significantly amplified on the national level due to these complexities.
What would have really helped national health care is interstate competition between insurance providers, or some other mechanism to drive costs down, to create a truly national market for health insurance. Instead we got single-payer light, which doesn't work and benefits very few. The fundamental problem with health care is the cost; not the access.
Obamacare attempted to solve the health care problem in the worst possible way: forcing everyone to buy a product that almost no one actually wanted. This will naturally raise costs, which is the exact opposite of what will actually help health care in the country. What might have helped would have been allowing interstate competition, or specialized clinics. There's no good reason, for instance, that an MRI needs to cost $2k+ in the United States, or that a single aspirin tablet costs $18. These costs are insane because of hilariously bad capital structures in the medical care industry.
You're actually completely wrong.
The people who benefited the most from Obamacare are the rich corporate executives of the insurance companies. Now they have a product that they can charge whatever they want for and the government says you legally MUST buy it. Now people who previously ha d no insurance but at least could afford healthcare instead have to spend their money on insurance and can no longer afford healthcare.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Being forced to buy insurance is not "help." It's being forced to buy insurance. It may be a good idea for some, but calling it "help" is misleading. Most people with this insurance will see more of their money spent on premiums than they would receive in payments even when they do get sick and need medical care. The medical care savings accounts would have been much more helpful for most people in reducing their medical costs and in forcing them into long-term responsible behavior. But we couldn't do that. That would be too Republican an idea.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Obamacare is Romneycare is a system created by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
I just read an interesting article on how Mississippi tried to be ahead of the curve, create a Romneycare style insurance exchange way back in 2007, but when it became an Obama led initiative, they let politics come in and forced it to crash and burn, with huge amounts of collateral damage in unhealthy citizens and both lost and wasted money.
I know it's sometimes too easy to input racism in certain situations, but when it was espoused by a white think tank and rolled out by a white governor, it's OK. A black President says so, and now it's evil. The fact it hurts poor black folk more than it hurts poor white folk may or may not be intentional, but it is OK.
Let me see...In the past two years, almost every person on my street has started a side business. Two of them have quit thier jobs and now just work on their small business. I hope to quit in a few years when mine is built up enough, it's doing well so far, I've gotten an effective 20% raise for a few hours a week extra work. One neighbor's business has failed, but his idea was stupid.
The fact is that MOST small businesses fail in a few years. Blaming "Obamacare" is just covering for your stupidity.
They went about it the wrong way I think. We don't need another insurance plan. What we need is for the HealthCare system to undergo some regulation to reign in their astronomical pricing schemes.
We wouldn't NEED health insurance if they weren't allowed to charge what they currently get away with for tests, medication and procedures.
Bring the prices down to realistic levels and a National Health Care system becomes much easier to afford and implement for everyone.
Show of hands. Who here thinks any of the following make sense:
The daily Hep C pill with a price tag of $1000 per pill
Cancer treatments that run $100,000 per year
Any hospital bill for a 30 day stay will all but bankrupt you
Seriously, take a look at a hospital bill and tell me you agree with the pricing. Go ahead.
The whole thing is so out of control that I would rather die from any injuries than go bankrupt and be a wage-slave the rest of my life to pay the bill off. ( Remember, in American hospitals you sign an agreement which states you will pay any costs the insurance does not pick up. Don't do so and they will harrass you for years. )
The only way this gets fixed is to regulate the industry. They're not going to do it on their own.
Facts: My insurance premiums went up 21% this year and18% last year. Pretty much the week that the SCOTUS decided that this was a tax (or was it a fine), my premiums went up 20%. My health is great and I'm not in any of the high-risk groups nor have I been since I started paying for my own insurance many years ago. I see ZERO benefit from this. None.
To those who thing the docs are making money off of this, think again. Most small practices are selling out to gigantic hospital corporate entities which means they are now all on salary dictated by some useless functionary who isn't a doctor. The docs have to use a thing called the ICD (International classification of diseases). In version 9 of this list, there were roughly 13,000 codes. Now in version 10, there are 68,000. So what? Well, if you inadvertently use the wrong code, you are assumed to be guilty of fraud. And who gets the blame? Not the useless functionaries, oh no. The doc is left holding this bag of excrement. This is one big reason why small practices sold out. The back office costs kill the practice.
But then consider this: my bro-in-law is a physician and head of the department. I asked him how many people work for the hospital. He said, "5000." So I asked him how many of those are actual doctors or nurses. He said, "Fewer than 1000 and of the rest I have no idea what these people do even being head of my department."
So, who is benefiting from Obamacare? The bureaucrats and paper pushers aka Ship B people.
In response to being modded FLAMEBAIT for simply recounting (relatively recent) history, I present to the mods a shit-ton of sources at this location: Tada and that quote by Grassley
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
How exactly is it "so terrible"; facts please, not campaign lies.
It's all terrible. Every last bit.
Except for the "pre-existing conditions" ban. And keeping kids on their parents' insurance until age 27. The new transparency of equivalent policies isn't really that bad. And you know, even Mitch McConnell likes the exchanges - he'd keep the web sites.
But everything else: the making people buy insurance, limiting the profit companies can make, forcing companies to care for their employees...bad, bad, bad. We've got to remove all of these bits that pay for the features that are actually kind of not terrible.
Obamacare doesn't redistribute from "the wealthy" to "the poor". For "the wealthy", health insurance is an insignificant expense. Obamacare, like most of those redistribution programs, redistributes from many above average income earners to many below average income earners. That is, people like software developers, engineers, and scientists tend to pay for it.
Furthermore, while the post seems to imply that this is helping people, that's doubtful. While the recipient of the redistribution enjoys a short-term benefit, long term, everybody loses. Contrary to what advocates of such programs say, redistributing money does't help people get out of poverty long term.
That perhaps also resolve the mystery why "Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians": many people want jobs and growth, not handouts and redistribution. The problem here is that wealthy liberal elites think people object to these programs because they hate the poor and are greedy, when the actual reason is that many people believe such programs to be an ineffective and potentially harmful waste of money. The record of redistributive programs and "the war on poverty" is not good.
Who Gets an Exemption From Obamacare?
How About a National Obamacare Waiver?
To date, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has approved 1,372 Obamacare waivers, covering 3.1 million Americans. Yesterday, The Daily Caller reported that among HHS’s most recent round of 204 Obamacare waivers, “38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district.” That’s right: Nearly 20 percent of exemptions from Pelosi’s crowning health care achievement were doled out in her backyard.
If that’s not enough irony for you, try this waiver on for size: On Monday, the Las Vegas Sun reported that Nevada—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s home state—received a partial statewide Obamacare waiver, too. If you’re keeping score, Reid was Pelosi’s counterpart in the Senate fighting to get Obamacare passed into law. Now his state will be one of three to get a waiver from the law’s requirements, while the rest of America suffers.
ObamaCare's Secret Mandate Exemption
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
How odd that today's Democrats (*) are perfectly aligned with Nixon on just about every issue conceivable:
http://www.salon.com/2013/10/2...
Who has actually benefited from ObamaCare? That would be the for-profit private insurance industry to which Obama sold out even while continuing to say he supported the public option.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
(*) not to be confused with people who are liberals.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Perhaps those of us in the middle or upper middle class will pay a little more for insurance. Oh woe is us with good paying jobs and good health care insurance should have to pay a little more. Let’s not sugar coat this – a great deal of anger over the affordable health care act is the idea that people on the lower rungs of society should have their health care subsidized at all. Better they all die without care for being stupid, lazy, or involved in self destructive habits like drugs. I mean the all deserve it after all don’t they?
Letter To Iran
Technically, we don't have Obamacare yet. The President has only implemented the 'good stuff' (insurance) and illegally delayed all the 'bad stuff' (paying for it.)
There's an argument to be made there, but in order to make that system (a welfare state) work in the long term you need to strictly control population growth in the welfare class, and maintain a productive middle class. High technology doesn't maintain itself.
Of course this is ignoring limited resources which demand eventual improvements in technology, or a decrease in population.
Making something affordable by making it more expensive for others isn't a sustainable solution, IMHO. The ACA (first part being 'Affordable'), did NOTHING to control out of control healthcare costs. But they did manage to pile it on to the middle class... Again.
"If you like your healthcare plan, you can...", oh what the hell. it doesn't actually matter what the man says - just pull that Blue Lever again.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I see, so instead of constructively engaging to modify a plan built on a Republican plan, they decided to take their ball and go home. That's so mature of Republicans
The legislative agenda surrounding the 100% partisan ramming-through of the ACA precluded any Republican involvement. The Republicans put forth a constant barrage of their own ideas and (looking back on them) very accurate predictions about all of the wreckage that the ACA is now causing. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi ran the entire show, and shut down any involvement by Republicans.
[...]
The Republicans had no ability to "constructively engage" in the creation and underhanded passage of the ACA. They could only shout out loud about how outrageous so much of it is, since their votes - in committee and generally in the house and senate - were incapable of impacting the law.
I guess this never happened. I quote:
A small group of key senators known as the Gang of Six was once looked at as the key to passing a bipartisan health care bill in the Senate.
But the group of Senate Finance Committee members has, instead, proved a time-sucking bust, with no compromise after months of negotiations and plenty of Senate Democrats peeved at the influence ceded to the gang's GOP members.
[...]
"No public option. No play-or-pay. No things that are going to lead to any rationing of health care. No interference with the doctor-patient relationship," says [Republican] Grassley. "About the only place we haven't made progress along the lines of what Republicans are wanting on the bill is in tort reform."
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
You appear to be suggesting that we keep the "pre-existing conditions" bit but eliminate the individual mandate. Do you have an explanation for why people would carry health insurance coverage while they're healthy instead of simply waiting to sign up until they need it?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
...live in rural areas." good. so. the people who actually needed it. got it. the system werked. nicely done president.
It is what it is.
my wife is a teacher. im not disputing that.
my point was that it didnt blow up, it didnt recieve massive amounts of attention, and most people didnt care until he said something.
and at that point it did sadly become somewhat of a R/L issue for a lot of folks.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Actually they did propose it. Several times. Especially in the 90s they would dust off their plan and push it as the alternative freemarket alternative to socialized medicine aka HillaryCare.
No, they're not embarrassed by the plan, some candidates in comeptitive disctricts trying to keep their jobs aside.
The website was a disaster, but for anyone familiar with government contracting, not surprising either. That's not a flaw with the law, but with governemtn contracting practices.
And what deleterious effects?
You're the one that needs to face reality.
The law is working. It is doing what it was supposed to do.
Not one GOP dire prediction has come true.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
This clusterfuck is all on them.
What clusterfuck? The fact that 10M more people (many in red states) have health insurance now than last year? That the economy continues to improve? That the world didn't explode? Or are you talking about the congressional clusterfuck due largely (but not entirely) to the GOP caucus deciding to spend the past 4 years refusing to try making any improvements, instead introducing 50+ bullshit repeal bills just so they can use it in their campaign ads?
I've been with Slashdot for a very long time and have appreciated the stories and discussions. Most stories that were political, fringe or flame bait would never be posted if only to keep the site technical and not political.
This story has no place on Slashdot, and throwing Statistician into the title doesn't make it anymore relevant to what Slashdot is supposed to be about. Please remove my user and all of my information.
Good by and good riddance.
The author of this article obviously doesn't understand how republicans think. Areas that vote republican these do so because they are trying to suppress the (often sizable) minority of poor black people who live in their area. So the republicans in Mississippi, for example, don't WANT the poor black people in Mississippi to have health insurance. Especially if there is any possibility that it will cost them a penny anywhere, ever. The results of this survey make perfect sense if you look at it from that perspective.
So, which Republicans voted for the ACA?...For that matter, what Republican support was needed to overcome a filibuster?
Apparently you don't know much about this history of what you are talking about. The answer to that question (which I think you suspected had no answer): the Republican Senator from Maine, Olympia Snow.
So, the Democrats created this whole crapload to satisfy one Republican Senator? Even though they didn't need her vote and she didn't wind up voting for it? And it's the Republicans' fault? Talk about delusional!
Fuck those teachers with their gold-plated Celicas. We should scrap their pensions so we can give more tax breaks to the job creators. They've been doing such a bangup job creating jobs with the last ten tax cuts we've given them.
Is it really a surprise that Obama is redistributng wealth as quickly as he can? He promised to do this in his original campaign and has continually worked to take as much money away from people who have it and pass it out to those who don't. He is working as hard as he can to kill the entrepreneurial spirit in America.
I don't agree that the biggest "winners" with Obamacare have been people between 18 and 35. Their insurance rates have increased more than any other group; they have to to subsidize people who use more healthcare than they do. Claiming that increased participation is a measure of Obamacare's goodness is a little hollow too, considering that it is now a legal requirement to have health insurance: buy it or pay a fine at income tax time. Many people, particularly young people, who would choose voluntarily to forego coverage entirely are forced to pay for it now.
We are free citizens of a democracy?
It is not the role of government to force people to buy things.
Furthermore, Obamacare has done NOTHING to make health care more affordable. It does not address health care at all. It's a gift to the health INSURANCE industry.
You are laboring under the bogus notion that "health insurance" == "health care"
Insurance rates have not gone down and insurance plans haven't gotten better. If anything, people's attempts to be responsible and self-reliant are being actively sabotaged.
AVOIDING insurance still remains the cheapest option in many cases.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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ok, so then blame the democrats as an entirety. mrs "we have to vote for it because we can find out whats in it" pelosi and the rest of the dems who voted for it.
obama rubberstamped it, it was his "biggest accomplishment" remember
stop trying to blame republicans for your peoples mess
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
so (for example) insurance companies aren't allowed to waste more than 20% of what you pay them, resulting in $billions in refunds being sent to customers who were previously being really ripped off.
I'm sure this is a consolation to those folks who lost their policies. Or those folks whose premiums doubled and deductibles quadrupled.
Fortunately, no one seems to mind the President arbitrarily, and unconstitutionally pushing the employer mandate back past successive elections, because once that kicks in, it will really hit the fan.
Must be nice, passing a big boondoggle like ACA, taking all the credit and making sure all the bad stuff happens when you're out of office, or almost out of office, and are regardless, wholly unaccountable.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I'm not saying they're right, but a lot of people who bought policies or even were enrolled in expanded Medicaid don't necessarily feel that they were "helped". They rather liked the old system where you get along with no insurance and minimal healthcare for much of your life, wait till you get a catastrophic illness in middle age, and then throw yourself on the mercy of the system, which is forced by law and tradition to provide care regardless of ability to pay. Then you just muddle along for a few years until Medicare kicks in. It was a chaotic, unfair, inefficient, expensive, and convoluted system that we all paid dearly for. But was it really that much worse than the Rube Goldberg contraption set up by ACA? Many people don't think so. And only the most deluded liberals ever thought there would be any political payoff from grateful enrollees.
my ron paul signs disappeared as well (and i had video of who did it) cops didnt wanna see it, said it was dumb kids, eventhough I personally knew the person doing it, and he was campaigning for obama....
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
AVOIDING insurance still remains the cheapest option in many cases.
As long as you remain healthy that may be true. If you happen to be one of the unlucky ones who develops cancer or multiple sclerosis or crashes your car uninsured then we all end up paying for you and the quality of care you get as an uninsured person is not as good as you otherwise would.
I agree with you that the ACA was a gift to the health insurance industry but it's still better than the situation before it was enacted. The evidence from all of the other comparable countries that have enacted universal health care is that you will get generally as good if not better care for half to two thirds of the cost we were paying. Yes, if you're young and healthy it's going to cost you more than you otherwise might pay but most people don't stay that way forever.
Another anecdote: my copays are going way up, though my deductibles are staying stable and my employer is incentivizing me to switch to a high-deductible plan (with a generous HSA contribution to offset.) Basically, some well-paid professionals who had a lot of income by way of cushy health coverage are going to see some of that slip away as the new regulations ("Cadillac Tax") essentially close that loophole.
If you were used to being well-paid via colonoscopies, yeah this change sucks. If you've been at all concerned with healthcare inflation (via Medicare) destroying the federal budget in your lifetime, then it seems an okay tradeoff.
Do you have any data which shows that it isn't working? Lots more people are covered and the rate of rise of health costs has been significantly and measurably slowed. The economy is doing great; any assertions about Obamacare destroying the economy are absurd on their face.
Do you mean the 10 million more people who have access to healthcare now? or the dramatic reduction in the rate of increase of healthcare costs?
I was excited for Obamacare, until I experienced Nevada's botched implementation, and found out it's not nearly as affordable as it's made out to be. On March 28th, I received a mass email from whitehouse.gov, purporting to be from a Mark D. Bearden, Ph.D., and how he's a "staunch Republican and self-proclaimed Fox News addict". The bulk of the email was how he was a chemotherapy patient, who was paying $428/mo for health coverage and it was cancelled, so he signed up for Obamacare and found a plan for $62 a month and it's the best healthcare he ever had. I was excited, but when I tried to find a comparable plan, there wasn't anything even close. How can a Ph.D. in North Carolina find a good plan for $62 a month, but the cheapest plan I could find was $160 with a $2000 deductable? If I wanted a "manageable" deductable, closer to $500, my monthly payments went up to $300. I even tried searching in North Carolina, where he is from, and couldn't even get close to $62, even if I set my income below minimum wage, there were 0 plans for $62 month, so where did this guy get his insurance? Does he *really* exist? Why can't I find a plan like this? I emailed whitehouse.gov to get answers to this, but all I got was an autoresponder.
My problem with the whole implementation of Obamacare is that it is supposed to be affordable, however, the only way to get the payments truly affordable is to have high deductables, which means if you go to the doctor a lot for small things (most of which won't exceed the deductable), then you are paying out of pocket for most of those. On top of already having to pay out of pocket for most of your care (which you would have to do if you didn't have insurance), you are also forced to pay for the insurance, so instead of costing people less, it's actually costing people more.
If you opt for reasonable deductables, then the plans are MUCH less affordable. Basically, it seems the insurance companies have managed to massage this whole thing into just a government mandated requirement for you to get and keep insurance.
They opposed it because they oppose everything that Obama does.
Whatever he does, they support the opposite. No one cared about Common Core originally, and it was implemented in 43 states. But as soon as Obama said it was a good idea, everyone on the started freaking out and saying it was the worst EVAH.
When he suggested bombing Syria they said no way.
When he was reluctant to bomb Russia/Ukraine they said we needed to.
If he said cyanide was toxic they would stand on the Capitol Steps and chug it just to spite him.
If he cured cancer they'd complain he was putting doctors out of work.
Yes, and here's a video reference of exactly this happening: http://www.cc.com/video-clips/...
The Democrats needed the vote of Olympia Snow to break the filibuster and get the bill passed in the Senate. It then went to the house where a modified bill was eventually passed. It then came back to the Senate and was passed using budget reconciliation rules requiring only a 50% vote and thus not needing the vote of any Republicans.
Please become better informed before calling people delusional.
We now have about 42 million uninsured and AT BEST, if everything Obamacare is supposed to do happens, we'll have about 30 million uninsured.
Probably due to ACA's Rate Review Provision. Insurance companies have to justify rate hikes of over 10% to the State. I was on BCBSNC at the time and they were prevented from raising their customary yearly increase that year.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
Romney was one of the least popular Republican nominees ever. He inspired no excitement at all in the ordinary people but only among the party elites....the one's that tried to shove Jack Kingston down our throats in the primary in Georgia and now refuse to fully support David Perdue because he's not "their boy." The last Republican candidate I actually voted for for President that I liked was Reagan. Romney was so bad I didn't even bother making a choice, I skipped that one and moved down to the state elections. I think I actually prefer President Obama to that dickhead.
You sound like you think you are a free and sovereign citizen of a republic founded on the inherent rights of the individual as bestowed upon by his Creator.
You have no place in the United States.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
As, yes, you can thank the "Getting Some" amendment that was slipped in the night before it was passed.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
To be fair, neither did the people who passed it.
It's mandated that people must have insurance. Must have it whether they want it or not. That's as un-American as it gets. It goes beyond the usual Democratic party socialism.
This particular income redistribution plan is only different in that income is redistributed to the poor instead of the rich.
In that respect, it's not at all different from Medicaid, food stamps, etc.
the law has done something rather unusual in the American economy this century: It has pushed back against inequality, essentially redistributing income
That's not at all unusual this century. In this century, Social Security is redistributing income from workers to non-workers at a faster rate than in the previous century. In addition, Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs are now redistributing income to the poor at a faster rate than they did in the 20th century.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
> In theory that works great, in practice it does not work at all.
Actually, it works just fine. The problem is that the people adversely affected by bad policies don't realize the bad policies are to blame and keep voting for them.
See Detroit.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Saying, "if you don't like it, move" is just naive.
I don't think anyone thinks this is socialized healthcare, but it is closer to socialized healthcare than it was before. The most important point is that it is not a free market. Not even close. So anyone expecting any of the benefits of a free market aren't going to find it. All that's happening is that the government is distorting the market in order to fix problems that were largely caused by the government distorting the free market. It's a vicious cycle of trying to fix the broken fixes with more broken fixes, with the same results.
Also, enacting ACA has just replaced, "If you don't like it, move to another state." with "If you don't like it, move to another country." I've moved between states (for job reasons, not policy reasons) and it wasn't any more effort than getting a new driver's license and figuring out a new state income tax form. People move all the time. It's really not a big deal.
However, I don't think leaving the U.S. is quite that simple. Plus it's the U.S. It's the country everyone in the world goes to to escape the crapholes they currently live in. I'd prefer we not ruin it.
So your argument is, if I my be so bold, just a little flawed.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
And Romney wasn't just some RINO rebel GOP governor in a backwater state that the GOP could write off as being a product of a liberal constituent... he was who the GOP chose to be the shining star and face of their party to combat the derivative of the very plan Romney pushed for in his home state.
You really don't understand the Republican Party if you think those things are mutually exclusive. Nominations are as much a smoke-filled back-room process as they ever were and the leadership of the GOP neither respects, nor is respected by, the majority of people who consider themselves Republican.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
What is worse, a million people with a 12k debt they cannot pay or a thousand with a 300k debt they cannot pay?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I think the moderators have adjusted your score because it's plus 5 informative now.
Also, a lot of those "last minute concessions" were nothing but naked bribes. Those "conservative" Democrats who voted for ACA were bought and sold.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Yeah, that ship has sailed. Now it's Federal Government uber alles and the states can, um, I guess they can still vote whether or not they use Daylight Saving Time.
What 10th Amendment?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
1. I see plenty of anecdotal stories that support many views.
Well, you were the one making up anecdotal stories-- I was just listing what I'd heard from people I know. Except you didn't even have actual anecdotes from real people-- you were just making up a hypothetical, "maybe people did not want or feel they needed health care." Yeah, right. Maybe some people do prefer to rely on emergency rooms, paid for by taxpayers, if they get catastrophically sick. I do not consider this an optimal solution.
People hear what they listen for. Numbers from objective studies are what I'd pay attention to.
To the contrary. When presented with numbers, your response was "Its not that hard to play with numbers to make any point you want. "
Translation: any time you see numbers that don't support what you already have decided, you say they're not 'objective'. Great strategy: ignore anything you don't like.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Are you actually consuming healthcare via ACA? My co-payment is $20 and my prescriptions are less than $5. My monthly insurance payment is 25% less than what it was with my last company. Perhaps my story is a bit of a unicorn but I did nothing special. I went to the website, picked a similar plan compared to the one I would be giving up and it just so happens that the fine print has really worked out in my favor. I have a few friends with similar experiences. We are tech workers, above average incomes. We're not eligible for some of the tax breaks. I don't *think* we are the ones people are upset about subsidizing. My payments is completely out of pocket with no incentives, but I'm saving $150 per month and paying far less for regular doctor visits (about 4-5 times a year).
You really are an ass-hole aren't you. What Doctor sees you without health insurance. Go make an appointment to see a doctor and then tell them you don't have health insurance.
Also, If everyone decides to move in to just a few states because they have great healthcare, those states will eventually be overburdened and then it will suck to live in those states too.
You mean like contraception coverage that was boycotted by the Churches because it got their panties in a twist...
Republican want to end flood insurance. Nice try Zippy.
Friend of mine was working for a company that dropped their health insurance plan, then a few months later laid off their employees. Since COBRA only covers whatever plan you had, that mean they couldn't get it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I have several friends who were keeping their old jobs for the insurance, and Obamacare has let them leave their jobs to do other things. One's a writer who was able to go full-time writing, and the usual software/computer consultants who are now on their own or starting startups. The lawyer who started a small partnership with a couple of friends could have done that anyway, but since she's got kids, the difference in insurance costs was significant.
Those aren't the heavily-subsidized plans - they're just the "you can buy an individual plan at similar rates to what a large company gets" plans, plus the "not denying your coverage for pre-existing conditions" effects.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
There are doctors who will see you without health insurance. Doctors who will arrange a payment plan.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Maybe Obama did something about this quietly, but I'd think one of the first things he should have done was worked to increase medical school capacities for training doctors and nurses, along with making it easier for immigrant doctors and nurses to get licensed here. Sure, it's a long-term activity that wouldn't significantly improve health care costs or availability during his two terms, and maybe the next batch of Republicans would take credit for it, but it's still critically important.
A lot of us baby boomers are going to be retiring, or even if we can't afford to retire we'll still be getting old and decrepit. And a lot of doctors are boomers, partly because everybody recognized that as a good job when we were growing up (both financial and social good), and it was before the tech booms turned everybody into software entrepreneurs, and also we had fewer kids than our parents' generation (the Millennials are catching up demographically, but with the economy and student loan problems, fewer of them can afford med school, and med school capacities are still limited.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I agree that they should have expanded Medicare to cover everyone who wanted it - that's by far the most efficient system with the highest patient satisfaction. Much better than private insurance, so likely the competition would have forced insurers to become at least marginally efficient and improve coverage.
I'm sure you understand why that didn't happen, right? And you do know that it will never happen while the voters keep reelecting lying carpetbaggers into office, right?
The old cliche, "Follow the money" could not be more important than it will be on Tuesday. Maybe people might start voting for *Medicare for all* instead of the insurance companies their regular politicians represent. And my Romex watch really is authentic. See, I have to believe that if I'm going to believe anything out of the ordinary is going to happen.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
the heritage foundation plans were never intended to be federal, hillary did that
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
First of all, please note what we have now is NOT full Obamacare. So many provisions have been pushed off beyond the next election that the actual results are not as bad as they will become - particularly next year when employers will begin throwing people off their plans in dead earnest as costs skyrocket. Tens of millions of people will find themselves in the same boat the self-employed are already trying to keep afloat, and they won't like it. And the pressure to trim full-time workers in favor of part-time will only get worse - FAR worse. Documented here:
http://www.conservativeblog.org/amyridenour/2014/10/25/what-obama-never-told-you-about-obamacare-costs-could-hurt-y.html
Most importantly, Obama deliberately made it difficult to tell who wins and who loses by changing how census data is collected (documented below) here are the untangled explanations:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/01/28/the-chart-that-could-sink-obamacare/
After 4 years:
http://www.conservativeblog.org/amyridenour/2014/3/24/obamacares-4th-anniversary-winners-and-losers-and-losers-and.html
Refuting Other points:
http://www.mediaite.com/online/census-bureau-changes-health-care-survey-questions-hiding-effects-of-obamacare/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/16/curl-we-completely-overhauled-american-health-care/?page=all#pagebreak
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/02/24/obamas-claim-that-7-million-got-access-to-health-care-for-the-first-time-because-of-obamacares-medicaid-expansion/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/11/04/49-state-analysis-obamacare-to-increase-individual-market-premiums-by-avg-of-41-subsidies-flow-to-elderly/ - please note "the elderly" control a greater proportion of the country's wealth than any other age segment.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/1.8-trillion-shock-obama-regs-cost-20-times-estimate/article/2508466
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2014/04/10/Two-Studies-Raise-Red-Flags-Obamacare-s-First-Round
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/04/02/fox-newser-on-obamacare-white-house-is-straight-up-lying-about-these-numbers/
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/04/29/Where-s-My-2-500-Just-8-Say-Obamacare-Lowered-Their-Health-Costs
If Obama comes out 100% for oxygen, and Republican leaders come out very strongly in favor of food, perhaps we can eliminate several million party fanatics and get back to governing.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The single biggest problem is that insurance is not a good fit for funding health care.
The purpose of insurance is to provide for unpredictable emergencies that financially cannot be mitigated any other way. Annual physicals, preventative medicine, and management of chronic (i.e. pre-existing) conditions are not a good fit for insurance.
and please show me where there is a 12k deductible...
Right over here, for my 6 person family where the deductible went up to 2k per person.
My wife and I, who are in our fifties, had a plan that cost us about $250/month, and which had a $2,500 annual deductible. Then came the affordable care plan. Now we have to buy insurance that covers babies we'll never be having, treatment for drug addictions and mental problems we don't have, and our monthly rates that have jumped to over $800, with a $12,000 deductible. We're also no longer able to use our familiar doctor unless we pay cash that doesn't count against that deductible. That is the least expensive plan available in our state's Obamacate-compliant regulated market. Yay!
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
You appear to be suggesting that we keep the "pre-existing conditions" bit but eliminate the individual mandate. Do you have an explanation for why people would carry health insurance coverage while they're healthy instead of simply waiting to sign up until they need it?
Read it more carefully. I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic and parodying some of the ridiculous right-wing arguments, and agreeing with you, albeit in a somewhat subtle non-obvious manner.
_So anyone expecting any of the benefits of a free market aren't going to find it._
You mean, you have to pay a premium to call it _free_? That's the most popular one I've seen... besides lowering costs for manufacturers by lowering wages. That one's a favourite!
....most favor them. That includes conservative Republican voters. Only when asked if folks like Obamacare they claim they loathe it despite agreeing with most of what it contains. Still, as one of the richest countries on the world it is disgusting that there are so many arguing against universal healthcare and instead make health as well as life and death a matter of income.
The biggest winners from the law include people between the ages of 18 and 34; blacks; Hispanics; and people who live in rural areas.
The article defines "winner" in an odd and deliberately deceptive way, as meaning anyone who did not have a medical insurance policy and now does. Under that definition, even someone who was coerced into something harmful to their self-interest is a "winner".
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Redistribution makes sense, up to a point. Most countries in the OECD do better than the US on most important measures on quality of life, and do it far more efficiently. Probably because there is a pragmatic understanding around the world that there are times where open markets make most sense, and there are times when markets don't make sense -- and some kind of redistribution is required. For instance, the British healthcare system shits all over the American system in every conceivable way (except for really, really high-end, experimental stuff -- and I'm sure I could get it in Harley Street anyway).
I blame the American tendency towards a blinkered belief that markets can never, ever fail, and that government, as a manifestation of the collective will of the people, can never do anything right -- an extremist POV everywhere else.
Are republicans so stupid that they can not see it's a Republican system?
Their memories are simply that short. That's how they forget that none of their interests have been served by their elected politicians, and proceed to re-elect them.
Here in California, however, we re-relected Jerry Brown. That's very like re-electing Marion Berry. Heh heh heh.
Being a republican means having no long term memory. Most of them don't even remember voting for Bush, and those that do vaguely remember how great things were when Bush was president and how much worse they are now.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
We are free citizens of a democracy?
It is not the role of government to force people to buy things.
Furthermore, Obamacare has done NOTHING to make health care more affordable. It does not address health care at all. It's a gift to the health INSURANCE industry.
You are laboring under the bogus notion that "health insurance" == "health care"
Insurance rates have not gone down and insurance plans haven't gotten better. If anything, people's attempts to be responsible and self-reliant are being actively sabotaged.
AVOIDING insurance still remains the cheapest option in many cases.
Absolutely, for the young and healthy, not getting insurance is always financially best. Of course, this just means they will pay more later, when they are old and sick. Which means they will not get insurance longer and longer. Which means the costs will be even higher when they do get it, when they are older and sicker. Which means they will not get insurance even longer. You see where this goes? Any competent engineer will tell you that if you want to eliminate an undesirable positive feedback, you need to damp it out. Like by requiring people to buy insurance. Or charging them a penalty if they don't. If people are responsible and self-reliant, they will buy insurance anyway, and they won't face either of those and won't be sabotaged, will they?
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
By far the biggest impact from Obamacare has been the expansion of Medicaid. That could've been accomplished without messing with my private insurance.
If your insurance is through your employer, then it's not really messed with. If your insurance was through individual plans or a small group employer, then it really needed to be messed with. Insuring small groups or individuals is a disaster area, and insurers behaved accordingly; by having a lot of people end up on Medicaid, fror example. If you happened to come out ahead of the game by accident, that doesn't make it a wonderful feature of American life
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Define 'efficient'?
Whole industries have been created because of lax oversight by Medicare - like, for instance, the personal 'scooter' (chair) industry.
The fraud in Medicare is staggering, it is a multiple of the 'fraud, waste, and abuse' of even the worst 'for profit' insurance company.
For example, two people, over 7 years, committed $258M in Medicare fraud - http://www.miamiherald.com/new...
Even Planned Parenthood was charged with Medicare fraud:
Texas - http://online.wsj.com/articles...
Ad Naseaum...
Ken
Before extrapolating long-term outcome of PPACA remember that the vast majority of Americans have yet to be impacted by the legislation - at best 'only' 10 million of the estimated 43 million uninsured Americans at the time bill was passed have coverage, and the employer mandate has been delayed severs, times now (and the vast majority of Ameticans get their coverage from their employers).
Only when all Ameticans are insured AND the Employer mandate is in effect can we tell the real impact of Obamacare - as it stands right now, less than 1/4th of Americans are impacted by the legislation.
I wonder if the folks that did this study included the 'benefit' of the uninsured penalty/fee/tax some 33 million uninsured Ameticans will pay April 15, 2015?
Ken
You have no idea how hard farmers work, getting up at the crack of dawn and finishing up the day well after 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening. Yes there's a lot of downtime in the winter time. But generally farmers also have live stock to take care of also and that is also hard work. Under communism Russian farmers didn't have it any easier than either some people know what hard work is some people just bitch that they don't get as much money as I'd like to. If you're unhappy with your lot in life perhaps you should have worked towards making yourself one of those CEO people I'm seeing lots of stories and CEO is coming up from nothing so it's not like you have to have a silver spoon in your mouth just have to go to school get your NBA and work your butt off to get to the top.
I just noticed a lot of typos in my previous post faulty speech to text
And even with all of that Medicare is vastly more efficient, and has higher patient satisfaction rates, than private healthcare.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Sure. Only mandatory insurance Nixon's proposal, and Romney's, and numerous other Republicans over the years, because only by making it mandatory does it work for the insurance companies. It only became "un-American" when Obama endorsed their proposal.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
Defend this assertion please.
Do you imagine the nebulously-defined 'middle class' is the exclusive providence if the Democrats, and that all the 'poor' and the '1%ers' are all Republicans? That seems to be what you are saying...
Ken
Costs haven't tripled, deductibles haven't quadrupled--that's completely absurd. You are just a stone-cold liar. Every study shows that Obamacare has bent the cost curve, dramatically.
Liar.
Indeed, on second read, the sarcasm is apparent. I feel especially stupid.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Indeed, on second read, the sarcasm is apparent. I feel especially stupid.
Sarcastic parody yes, but it really wasn't that far off from what the right wing was suggesting. It's not your fault that it has literally become difficult to distinguish between what Republicans are proposing vs parody ;-)
Approximately 100% of these Obamacare horror stories have collapsed on deeper inspection. It's possible that you fall into some gap that is disproportionately worse off if the planets aligned just right. That would require a number of conspiring factors (too high income to qualify for rebates, replacing junk insurance, not covered by an employer plan, no chronic medical problems, etc.). It's certainly possible, but factor in your irrational ranting about Obama and Pelosi and drug addicts and it smells very much to me like someone who has just read a lot of conservative blogs and has constructed a faux martyr persona.
> (which now requires us to buy things like no-deductible comprehensive child-bearing services despite no longer young enough to even have kids, and comprehensive no-deductible drug treatment coverage for addictions we don't have)
You also don't have Ebola, but your insurance covers that. That's the way insurance works. It covers you for things you don't have yet and things you might never need--that's how risk pools work.
You're over 55, self-employed. Two people. Fairly expensive area, probably on some sort of a Bronze plan. Given all that, your health care costs look pretty reasonable to me. I can understand if you feel screwed, but in all likelihood your previous insurance was crap and [thank god] you never had to use it enough to learn that. You are getting to an age where health problems are unpredictable and costs are high--perhaps you've been lucky until now but statistically this is what it costs to insure someone in your area at your age.
I think you have this vision that your rates have been jacked up to pay for welfare queens or something; that's just not true--most of your increase is due to the new requirements blocking predatory plans (low caps on lifetime expenses, exclusions for pre-existing conditions, etc.).
Moving is expensive both in terms of money and time, so the vast majority of people literally can't afford to do anything other than try to change the offending policy. Saying, "if you don't like it, move" is just naive.
Thank you. This argument drives me batshit crazy. It assumes resources that in all likelihood do not exist. There's also that little problem of finding a job in the new location. It's not easy to find a job out of state, most of the time when you apply they tell you to, "Call when you're in town and available." Moving a family is hard. Moving yourself without the family pretty much doubles your expenses. Then there's finding a new job without an address and getting a new place to live without a job. Yeah, you can always move.
Your side lost an election and elections have consequences. Democrats had a majority in the House and a super-majority in the Senate and a very popular new president. They passed sweeping health care reform which by any reasonable measure has been successful. You feel like you got the raw end of the deal and maybe you did--but that doesn't mean that there was anything nefarious going on.
Rate increases are essentially public right now and they look very reasonable. All this data is out there. ACA has been a godsend for many people, including people I know personally. The macro-economic effects are stunning.
You are just wildly lying about people losing their insurance. That *is not* happening. Look at the curves, millions and millions more people have insurance now than had it before--that's not a matter of opinion and not something I'm interested in debating because it can easily be resolved using Google. Sure, some people are paying more than they did before--generally people who had crap insurance before but were lucky enough to not have noticed it.
You hate the president and democrats and that has nothing to do with your health care costs. Let's be completely honest, if Mitt Romney had passed the exact same plan then you wouldn't have any problem with it.
Obamacare is the greatest legislative achievement in the last 50 years. I'm certainly not trying to pin it on the GOP--they fought against it tooth and nail every step of the way..,for the most part because it was proposed by an African-American democratic President.
Or we can stop with the anecdotes and look at a study: McKinsey Center for U.S. Health annual report
Some quotes from the Forbes article:
Any self-respecting conservative knows all too well that McKinsey is immune from attack as an organization committed to presenting a left leaning political slant as it remains a bastion of business advice and a company that simply cannot be painted with a blue brush.
When was the last time we saw insurance premiums experience an annual increase of less than 5 percent? I cannot remember such a time and doubt that you can either.
All in all, it is going to be quite a stretch for Obamacare opponents to turn this data into bad news. Increased competition among insurers means better prices and better policies. An increase in the number of policies one can choose from also means improvements in policy quality and premium costs.
I just went to https://www.coveroregon.com out of curiosity. I pretended to be a family of 4 with a 45,000 dollar income. There were a bunch of plans to choose from, including ones with 1,500 dollar deductibles. I think that one looked like it covered 35% of costs after the 1,500, but like all plans, caps the total amount you would ever have to spend per year to cover emergencies. Like, you would never get stuck with 35% of a 100,000 dollar bill. The cap is something like 10k or 12k.