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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.
It must be nice to have the State-run Media on you side
And then you have a tiny minority of the super rich, who are strongly favored by right-leaning policies, asking the government to tax them more...
FTFY. For every Warren Buffet there's a hundred fucks who won't cough up a dime unless you punch them in the gut.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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
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
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
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.
Question: Not a single Republican voted for Obamacare, so exactly how does it make it their "wet dream"?
Answer: Because Obama adopted the Republican plan in an attempt to unify the parties in implementing healthcare reform. The Democratic plan was Single Payer, which was cheaper, simpler, and more effective. Obama agreed to the more expensive, complex and ineffective Republican plan in an attempt to get Republicans to engage in the reform.
Unfortunately, Republicans immediately turned against their own plan, because they cared more about preventing reform than in their own reform plans.
The shame is that the Democrats didn't then go back to their own plan and push that through. Unfortunately there were enough Democrats tied to the insurance industry (Lieberman....) that, combined with 100% Republican obstruction, they were able to force the country to waste $trillions on insurance company waste. Because what's waste to us is record profits for insurance companies.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
"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
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
Another anecdote: Heath care rates for me went down significantly, and I'm a small business owner.
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
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.
Not a single dime.
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.
I'm probably paying for some geriatric coverage that I'll never use until I'm 60. Just like I pay to maintain roads that I'll probably never use. Welcome to society.
It's true that part of the O-care strategy was to get younger, otherwise under-insured, people to subsidize the pool. It's reasonable to disagree with this, but young people got some benefits too. They can stay on their parents plan longer and medicaid was expanded.
I don't believe Obama purposely deceived you as you make it sound. It's true he said you could keep your plan, and he shouldn't have, but political speaches don't lend themselves to asterisks. What he should have said (and probably meant) was that if you like your plan you can keep it if:
A) The insurance company continues selling it (he can't control this)
B) It meets the new minimum coverage guidlines (most will)
Instead of getting so easily upset over progress you should take a look the problems and try to constructively shape the solution. O-care isn't *that* great, but nothing would have changed without it and we needed a change in our health care system.
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.
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
What about women paying to cover prostate exams?
What about men paying for pap smears?
It called "that's how insurance works".
And no, the junk plans you're talking about were little more than scams.
Like say paying 700$ a year for a plan that only pays out a maximum of 300$ in a year.
Your comments and position have no basis in reality.
But I doubt you care, since after all reality has a well known liberal bias.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
What about healthy 20-somethings whose affordable plans (called "junk plans" by liberals, but perfectly adequate coverage
You mean "liberals" like Consumer Reports?The junk plans, by definition were not perfectly adequate coverage. These were plans that had the victims giving money to insurance companies for basically no coverage at all. eg: hospitalization coverage with an annual limit of $2K a year. With typical visits costing 10's of thousands of dollars, that barely even qualifies as a coupon. The mini-meds, or "junk plans" were legitimate insurance in almost exactly the same that payday loans are legitimate loans. Essentially they were just scams aimed a poor people.
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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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.
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.
Unfortunately, Republicans immediately turned against their own plan, because they cared more about preventing reform than in their own reform plans.
To be fair, the Republicans simply care most about preventing *any* success by President Obama, quoting Senator Mitch McConnell, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." They're apparently willing to tank the entire country to see that Republicans get voted into office - Senate, House and White House.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
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.