Yes, that is the correct number. So our rulers are telling us that 7 million out of 40 million is great.
Over a period of six months??? It's fucking fantastic!!! This is a problem that has been seemingly intractable for DECADES, and now we see an 18% reduction in SIX MONTHS!!!
In the first year of Obamacare we will still have more uninsured than in the last year of the Bush administration
Bullshit. Best estimate I've seen is that right now, today, the number of uninsured has been decreased by about 25%.
7.1 million sign ups out of over 300 million people for a "mandatory" participation program is truly pathetic regardless whether it is above or below what was expected. Yes yes, I know the number of uninsured was closer to 60 million, so basically you are getting adoption among the intended uninsured population of just 12%. Just 12% of uninsured people are choosing Obamacare/ACA, that is what is remarkable.
Your comment is complete fucking nonsense. 1) Of course, as you sort of admit, out of 330 million people, there are about 300 million with some form of health insurance. 2) There were 40 million without health insurance, not 60 million. 3) In addition to whatever fraction of the 7.1 million were previously uninsured, several million more have been added by the Medicaid expansion. 4) In addition to whatever fraction of the 7.1 million were previously uninsured, several million more have been added to employer-sponsored programs.
Sure, you can believe them that 7.5 million have enrolled. It comes down to how you define 'enrolled', which the government defines as "someone put an insurance choice in their electronic kart." That would be like CDW saying they sold 100,000 LaserJet printers, just because someone placed one into their basket. The reality is that that majority of the insurance plans placed into the insurance basket was never completed. And of those that did complete the process, many never paid their first premium, which ultimately gives us a much smaller number of ACTUALLY INSURED people via ObamaCare.
Many did not complete enrollment. Many did not pay. Responsible estimates--based on reports from the large insurance companies after the deadlines for coverage starting 1/1/2014--are around 20% - 25%. Not "the majority" by a wide margin.
And how many are actually paying and thus covered? Less than 1 million.
What about incorporating in order to move that tax burden off of your books and onto that of your business? Should help your subsidy eligibility. I'm not an accountant (and can't speak to the intricacies of an LLC vs an S-Corp), but I know that a lot of self employed people who recently made the jump from sole proprietorship to incorporation and they all wish they had done it years ago.
It actually doesn't help with health insurance premiums, since those have been 100% deductible for self-employed persons for a very long time now. But it does help with FICA and Medicare taxes if you make enough money.
Are you able to show us the terms of your plan? The reason I ask is that I was offered what turned out to be a "trash plan", and the sort of things that aren't being grandfathered are rejected because they don't meet a minimum standard of care. In my case, a catastrophic injury such as in an auto wreck would not have been covered significantly.
Common limits among these plans are 1) a $10,000 or $20,000 per year payout limit, 2) a $1,000 or $2,000 per day payout limit. So after the insurer pays that you're on the hook for everything else.
Other things I've heard of are very specific coverage exclusions that would shock you, example: no coverage for outpatient chemotherapy, which means that for many kinds of cancer you won't be covered until it's too late and you're terminal. Remember, there are about 13,000 ICD-9 diagnosis codes and 9,000 CPT-4 service codes. It is impossible for any single person on earth, much less an ordinary lay person, to understand which services should reasonably be allowed for which diagnoses.
Simply put, the people whining that they had "great" individual coverage for $150/month before ACA did not understand their coverage. They were at risk of being bankrupted by the holes in their coverage.
Obamacare (as well as Romneycare) does nothing to lower health costs...
Sure it does. There's way more to the ACA than health exchanges and elimination of denials for pre-existing conditions. Whether or not the provisions aimed at controlling costs actually work or not will take a long time to figure out. But ACOs and medical homes and and PCORI...
The problem is they would not tell me what the costs would be up front, and I had no way of shopping around for better prices at competing clinics.
This is a HUGE problem with our current system. Fortunately it is a recognized problem, and pressure is mounting to solve it. Between people like us who will more and more be demanding prices up front, and competitive pressure created by those health providers who are providing prices up front, (and web sites that gather and publish prices), I sincerely believe that within the next few years all providers will be forced to do this.
My own story: stubbed toe, x-ray to confirm no broken bone, nail jabbed with a cautery needle to relieve the pressure from pooled blood, $3,000 bill. The doctor was a decent guy and did the only thing he could do for me within the rules of his employer: made it completely go away by deleting the visit as though it had been a data entry error. That's right, he had to falsify my medical record in order to not have me gouged unconscionably.
First and foremost, Id like to see how many of these signups where actually Medicaid.
None. That's 7.1 million enrolled in marketplace plans, which has nothing to do with Medicaid. Medicaid enrollment increased by 5.9 million. Enrollment in employer-sponsored health coverage increased by 8.2 million.
(Please dont try to say they arent including the #s).
Well, I am saying it, because it's true;-)
Now, how many of the 7.1 were people who had some kind of insurance prior: not yet known. How many of the new enrollees in Medicaid previously had other insurance and lost it: unknown. Certainly the number of people with health insurance did not increase by 21.2 (7.1 + 5.9 + 8.2) million, so don't even think about responding to me using a strawman argument that I'm claiming so.
I did not check with the state before I rejected the trash plan, perhaps it wasn't legal.
That's certainly a thought. That's actually been a big problem in the past, sales of unapproved trash plans. In fact, a recurring fraud was to offer health insurance to individuals at impossibly low prices, collect premiums, delay payments as long as practical, then disappear with the premiums without ever paying out anything.
Or perhaps the regulator in CA had limited authority. Perhaps he could only require that the company prove sufficient means to pay on the coverage they were offering, but not put any requirements as to what coverage they had to offer.
I've been following the debate, and the projections of how much of a "surge" could be expected in the last weeks that were coming from conservative anti-ACA sources were all stupidly, shockingly, low. As though people do not put things off. Now that their utterly ridiculous estimates have been blown out of the water, they just cannot believe how wrong they were. Nothing surprising about that.
How many of these people are newly-insured, how many will actually pay, how many will keep paying the whole year, how many will actually be helped by having insurancee, whether the provisions in ACA intended to control health-care costs work at all--these are all questions that will take more time to answer. But one thing you can bet on, the guesses being thrown around by the rabid ACA opponents will turn out to be wildly wrong, again.
If you play with the definition of things then you can make the numbers be whatever you want. Read a report last week that more than 1/3 of those were people that were dropped at the beginning of the year (which means there's very little real gain in number of people insured), and 1/4 hadn't actually paid.
Nobody actually knows how many were people that cancelled--1/3 is just somebody's estimate, and most such estimates are coming from sources that are baldly ideological, one way or the other. As for the 1/4 who haven't paid, I believe the deadline for payment is 4/10, therefore the number of people who had paid by 4/1 is not really meaningful.
The best estimate (so far) out there of how many people have gotten insurance because of ACA is discussed here.
Basically, it was a "feel good about being insured until you try to use it" plan which had the main purpose of producing income for a fraudster.
You should be aware that whether or not such plans could even be sold varied from state to state. In some states, insurance regulators had the good sense (and statutory authority) to forbid the sale of such plans. Anyways...
Well, there's that. And they also have to provide some functionality that users actually want. Before the iPhone, I could imagine wanting a pocket-sized device with a decent address book synced to my computer, and full web access, and nice apps. (Note, I am certainly not claiming that I anticipated the actual design, just that I could imagine wanting those particular functions in my pocket.) I cannot imagine anything that I really want a smart watch to do.
A landlord can go into your apartment without your permission also.
Wrong. Except in cases of emergency, he needs your permission. Unlike what some people think, you do get a few rights when you pay for the use of the apartment...
I must be some of those lucky super-humans then because I can clearly see a difference between my old Galaxy S3 (305 PPI) and Nexus 5 (445 PPI).
I wonder if that has anything to do with PenTile, the odd way they count "pixels", and color fringing around text. Maybe when an RGBG quad is considered 2 pixels, you need twice as many (at least in one axis) for text to have a really clean appearance.
Slashdot Mirror
Weren't something like 6 million people kicked out of their existing health plans and had to enroll in a new one?
Probably more like 5 million. Then in addition to the 2.1 million, you need to add in the expansion in Medicaid coverage and in employer-sponsored programs.
Yes, that is the correct number. So our rulers are telling us that 7 million out of 40 million is great.
Over a period of six months??? It's fucking fantastic!!! This is a problem that has been seemingly intractable for DECADES, and now we see an 18% reduction in SIX MONTHS!!!
Also, it's probably more like 9 million out of 40 million. (Subtract from the 7.1 those who previously had insurance, then add in the newly-insured from Medicaid and employer-sponsored programs.)
In the first year of Obamacare we will still have more uninsured than in the last year of the Bush administration
Bullshit. Best estimate I've seen is that right now, today, the number of uninsured has been decreased by about 25%.
7.1 million sign ups out of over 300 million people for a "mandatory" participation program is truly pathetic regardless whether it is above or below what was expected. Yes yes, I know the number of uninsured was closer to 60 million, so basically you are getting adoption among the intended uninsured population of just 12%. Just 12% of uninsured people are choosing Obamacare/ACA, that is what is remarkable.
Your comment is complete fucking nonsense. 1) Of course, as you sort of admit, out of 330 million people, there are about 300 million with some form of health insurance. 2) There were 40 million without health insurance, not 60 million. 3) In addition to whatever fraction of the 7.1 million were previously uninsured, several million more have been added by the Medicaid expansion. 4) In addition to whatever fraction of the 7.1 million were previously uninsured, several million more have been added to employer-sponsored programs.
Sure, you can believe them that 7.5 million have enrolled. It comes down to how you define 'enrolled', which the government defines as "someone put an insurance choice in their electronic kart." That would be like CDW saying they sold 100,000 LaserJet printers, just because someone placed one into their basket. The reality is that that majority of the insurance plans placed into the insurance basket was never completed. And of those that did complete the process, many never paid their first premium, which ultimately gives us a much smaller number of ACTUALLY INSURED people via ObamaCare.
Many did not complete enrollment. Many did not pay. Responsible estimates--based on reports from the large insurance companies after the deadlines for coverage starting 1/1/2014--are around 20% - 25%. Not "the majority" by a wide margin.
And how many are actually paying and thus covered? Less than 1 million.
Bull. Fucking. Shit.
What about incorporating in order to move that tax burden off of your books and onto that of your business? Should help your subsidy eligibility. I'm not an accountant (and can't speak to the intricacies of an LLC vs an S-Corp), but I know that a lot of self employed people who recently made the jump from sole proprietorship to incorporation and they all wish they had done it years ago.
It actually doesn't help with health insurance premiums, since those have been 100% deductible for self-employed persons for a very long time now. But it does help with FICA and Medicare taxes if you make enough money.
Are you able to show us the terms of your plan? The reason I ask is that I was offered what turned out to be a "trash plan", and the sort of things that aren't being grandfathered are rejected because they don't meet a minimum standard of care. In my case, a catastrophic injury such as in an auto wreck would not have been covered significantly.
Common limits among these plans are 1) a $10,000 or $20,000 per year payout limit, 2) a $1,000 or $2,000 per day payout limit. So after the insurer pays that you're on the hook for everything else.
Other things I've heard of are very specific coverage exclusions that would shock you, example: no coverage for outpatient chemotherapy, which means that for many kinds of cancer you won't be covered until it's too late and you're terminal. Remember, there are about 13,000 ICD-9 diagnosis codes and 9,000 CPT-4 service codes. It is impossible for any single person on earth, much less an ordinary lay person, to understand which services should reasonably be allowed for which diagnoses.
Simply put, the people whining that they had "great" individual coverage for $150/month before ACA did not understand their coverage. They were at risk of being bankrupted by the holes in their coverage.
Obamacare (as well as Romneycare) does nothing to lower health costs...
Sure it does. There's way more to the ACA than health exchanges and elimination of denials for pre-existing conditions. Whether or not the provisions aimed at controlling costs actually work or not will take a long time to figure out. But ACOs and medical homes and and PCORI...
The problem is they would not tell me what the costs would be up front, and I had no way of shopping around for better prices at competing clinics.
This is a HUGE problem with our current system. Fortunately it is a recognized problem, and pressure is mounting to solve it. Between people like us who will more and more be demanding prices up front, and competitive pressure created by those health providers who are providing prices up front, (and web sites that gather and publish prices), I sincerely believe that within the next few years all providers will be forced to do this.
My own story: stubbed toe, x-ray to confirm no broken bone, nail jabbed with a cautery needle to relieve the pressure from pooled blood, $3,000 bill. The doctor was a decent guy and did the only thing he could do for me within the rules of his employer: made it completely go away by deleting the visit as though it had been a data entry error. That's right, he had to falsify my medical record in order to not have me gouged unconscionably.
I've see what happens to people subjected to "preventative" care.
You'd be interested in this. Not that I'm suggesting you take time from your life to read the book, but the description is enough...
So....no preventative care, just reactionary care...
Actually, even with HSA + HDP there was always some basic preventative care covered at 100%, and the ACA now requires a bit more...
Quite the opposite -- it will in fact be more expensive despite having the same coverage and the same deductible, and by a large margin, too.
Bullshit.
First and foremost, Id like to see how many of these signups where actually Medicaid.
None. That's 7.1 million enrolled in marketplace plans, which has nothing to do with Medicaid. Medicaid enrollment increased by 5.9 million. Enrollment in employer-sponsored health coverage increased by 8.2 million.
(Please dont try to say they arent including the #s).
Well, I am saying it, because it's true ;-)
Now, how many of the 7.1 were people who had some kind of insurance prior: not yet known. How many of the new enrollees in Medicaid previously had other insurance and lost it: unknown. Certainly the number of people with health insurance did not increase by 21.2 (7.1 + 5.9 + 8.2) million, so don't even think about responding to me using a strawman argument that I'm claiming so.
more info here
A few have been able to enroll in Medicaid since the expansion, but that's really not ACA is it?
The Medicaid expansion is part of the Affordable Care Act. What exactly were you trying to say???
I did not check with the state before I rejected the trash plan, perhaps it wasn't legal.
That's certainly a thought. That's actually been a big problem in the past, sales of unapproved trash plans. In fact, a recurring fraud was to offer health insurance to individuals at impossibly low prices, collect premiums, delay payments as long as practical, then disappear with the premiums without ever paying out anything.
Or perhaps the regulator in CA had limited authority. Perhaps he could only require that the company prove sufficient means to pay on the coverage they were offering, but not put any requirements as to what coverage they had to offer.
I've been following the debate, and the projections of how much of a "surge" could be expected in the last weeks that were coming from conservative anti-ACA sources were all stupidly, shockingly, low. As though people do not put things off. Now that their utterly ridiculous estimates have been blown out of the water, they just cannot believe how wrong they were. Nothing surprising about that.
How many of these people are newly-insured, how many will actually pay, how many will keep paying the whole year, how many will actually be helped by having insurancee, whether the provisions in ACA intended to control health-care costs work at all--these are all questions that will take more time to answer. But one thing you can bet on, the guesses being thrown around by the rabid ACA opponents will turn out to be wildly wrong, again.
If you play with the definition of things then you can make the numbers be whatever you want. Read a report last week that more than 1/3 of those were people that were dropped at the beginning of the year (which means there's very little real gain in number of people insured), and 1/4 hadn't actually paid.
Nobody actually knows how many were people that cancelled--1/3 is just somebody's estimate, and most such estimates are coming from sources that are baldly ideological, one way or the other. As for the 1/4 who haven't paid, I believe the deadline for payment is 4/10, therefore the number of people who had paid by 4/1 is not really meaningful.
The best estimate (so far) out there of how many people have gotten insurance because of ACA is discussed here.
Basically, it was a "feel good about being insured until you try to use it" plan which had the main purpose of producing income for a fraudster.
You should be aware that whether or not such plans could even be sold varied from state to state. In some states, insurance regulators had the good sense (and statutory authority) to forbid the sale of such plans. Anyways...
But tipping them up on their ends, now THAT is hilarious!
Well, there's that. And they also have to provide some functionality that users actually want. Before the iPhone, I could imagine wanting a pocket-sized device with a decent address book synced to my computer, and full web access, and nice apps. (Note, I am certainly not claiming that I anticipated the actual design, just that I could imagine wanting those particular functions in my pocket.) I cannot imagine anything that I really want a smart watch to do.
Like the things that they announced last year, which have simply disappeared off the roadmap without mention. In other words, they are falling behind schedule, and trying desperately to spin this as ongoing progress.
Pretty much. I drive a car with a manual transmission...
Every once in a while, when I'm wearing winter boots, and go to push in the clutch, I get the brake too as a special bonus ;-)
Or, http://www.despair.com/ineptitude.html
A landlord can go into your apartment without your permission also.
Wrong. Except in cases of emergency, he needs your permission. Unlike what some people think, you do get a few rights when you pay for the use of the apartment...
A guarantee that all ship dates come from engineering, not marketing ;-)
I must be some of those lucky super-humans then because I can clearly see a difference between my old Galaxy S3 (305 PPI) and Nexus 5 (445 PPI).
I wonder if that has anything to do with PenTile, the odd way they count "pixels", and color fringing around text. Maybe when an RGBG quad is considered 2 pixels, you need twice as many (at least in one axis) for text to have a really clean appearance.
Creationism was discussed extensively by scientists, 100 years ago. I guess he missed those debates, and their conclusion.