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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
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.
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.
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.
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);
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.
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"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 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.
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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!
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
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
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.
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
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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