The Affordable Care Act II - Because Mr. Obama Loves You All

[Azalin]

 

Now wait a minute...not even two years ago, the shift to part-time employment was portrayed as a good thing, because it eliminated "job lock" and let people not work if they didn't want to. Before that, of course, it was called "underemployment," and was a bad thing.

 

So now it's a bad thing again?

 

As if the majority of the public even remembers anything from two years ago.

[Keukasmallies]

Dear POTUS, thanks again for the coming year's increase in my health insurance premiums. Your thoughtful actions make it so much easier to quickly calculate the added expense when the premium goes up by twenty (20) percent per annum than when it only increased by 3.7% as was the case pre-ACA.

 

A quick thought: Why don't you just send me the name and address of a family in need of health care here in CONUS and I'll simply pay all their medical bills for them for the rest of their lives; no muss, no fuss, no bother?

 

All the very best to you and the family in sunny Hawaii.

[3rdnlng]

Dear POTUS, thanks again for the coming year's increase in my health insurance premiums. Your thoughtful actions make it so much easier to quickly calculate the added expense when the premium goes up by twenty (20) percent per annum than when it only increased by 3.7% as was the case pre-ACA.

 

A quick thought: Why don't you just send me the name and address of a family in need of health care here in CONUS and I'll simply pay all their medical bills for them for the rest of their lives; no muss, no fuss, no bother?

 

All the very best to you and the family in sunny Hawaii.

Quit complaining, don't you know that the premiums went down $2500 a year?

[Dorkington]

My health insurance costs went down for the second year in a row with the same level of coverage. Seems I'm the only one in the US that's had that luck!

[DC Tom]

My health insurance costs went down for the second year in a row with the same level of coverage. Seems I'm the only one in the US that's had that luck!

 

Mine stayed the same.

 

Quality of care has declined significantly, though.

[B-Man]

How Is Obamacare Doing?

by Michael Tanner

You know that Obamacare is having a really bad year when Paul Krugman starts to concede that it “has hit a few rough patches lately.” To be sure, Krugman still believes that Obamacare is working, but even he must acknowledge that it is “an imperfect system” and that “the run of unexpectedly good news for Obamacare has come to an end.” That’s one way to spin it.

 

For example, one of the few positive claims that Obamacare could make was that it had expanded coverage. And it is true that the number of Americans without insurance has fallen by about 12.6 million since 2010. However, a new study cited by Health Affairs suggests that the number of uninsured in 2010 was artificially inflated by the financial meltdown. Many people who lost their jobs (unemployment, you will recall, reached 9.6 percent) also lost their health insurance. While it is impossible to judge a counterfactual for certain, it is likely that many of those temporarily uninsured workers would have regained coverage as the unemployment rate dropped — even without Obamacare. The Health Affairs article shows that insurance coverage today is just 2.6 percentage points better than the pre-recession baseline. That means it is reasonable to presume that we’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars and disrupted the entire health-care system to expand insurance coverage to surprisingly few people.

Essentially, the people signing up for an Obamacare plan are the people getting it for free. A recent report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute looking at enrollment so far found that almost all Americans with incomes of between 100 and 150 percent of the poverty line (who receive the biggest subsidy) sign up for exchange plans, but less than a third of those with incomes between 200 and 300 percent of the poverty line do, and just 13 percent of those with incomes above 300 percent of the poverty line (who receive little or no subsidy).

I guess even lousy health insurance is okay if it’s free. If you have to pay for it, however, you might think twice.

There’s bad news on the cost front as well. Obamacare has benefited from a general slowdown in the growth of health-care costs that started in 2003. Lower overall health-care costs have helped keep both subsidy costs and premiums lower than they would otherwise be. Americans have complained about rising premiums, but it could have been worse.

And it might yet be. Last year, national health-care expenditures rose by 5.8 percent (4.5 percent per capita), the fastest rate of increase since 2008. That’s certainly not good news for something called the Affordable Care Act. (It’s also very bad news for the federal budget deficit, since it means higher costs for Medicare and Medicaid.)

Insurance premiums are already headed higher. Exchange-based premiums are expected to rise by about 13 percent on a weighted-average basis, although some states are likely to see much higher increases — as much as 41 percent in Minnesota, for example, 39 percent in Alaska, 28 percent in Tennessee, and 28 percent in North Carolina. In more than a dozen states, rate hikes will exceed 20 percent. According to a report from McKinsey & Company, which tracks premiums, 38 percent of consumers will see an increase of greater than 10 percent in the net premium of the lowest-priced plan. Krugman calls this “disappointing.” Most Americans would call it predictable.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428925/obamacare-report-card

Edited December 23, 2015 by B-Man

[keepthefaith]

My health insurance costs went down for the second year in a row with the same level of coverage. Seems I'm the only one in the US that's had that luck!

Probably so which means you were probably paying too much before .

[B-Man]

Obamacare plans put big dent in customers' wallets

 

 

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/24/obamacare-plans-put-big-dent-in-customers-wallets.html

.

Edited December 24, 2015 by B-Man

[Keukasmallies]

It appears that every proposal to moderate the impact of increasing premium costs merely shifts those ever-increasing costs to taxpayers in general. Duh, why didn't someone think of that five years ago...Oh wait a minute, almost everybody did think about that eventuality five years ago.

 

So health care costs continue to increase far beyond projections, and at the same time availability of health care services is declining. Oh those lucky people who had no health care five years ago: They got a taste of the system and can now see it slipping away from them.

[TPS]

It appears that every proposal to moderate the impact of increasing premium costs merely shifts those ever-increasing costs to taxpayers in general. Duh, why didn't someone think of that five years ago...Oh wait a minute, almost everybody did think about that eventuality five years ago.

 

So health care costs continue to increase far beyond projections, and at the same time availability of health care services is declining. Oh those lucky people who had no health care five years ago: They got a taste of the system and can now see it slipping away from them.

On the supply side, break up the medical monopolies run by the ama and drug companies. On the demand side maybe they should go back to no insurance, so their emergency room costs are pushed onto the rest of us....oh, wait....

[3rdnlng]

On the supply side, break up the medical monopolies run by the ama and drug companies. On the demand side maybe they should go back to no insurance, so their emergency room costs are pushed onto the rest of us....oh, wait....

Why do you let gator post for you?

[Doc]

On the supply side, break up the medical monopolies run by the ama and drug companies. On the demand side maybe they should go back to no insurance, so their emergency room costs are pushed onto the rest of us....oh, wait....

Emergency room utilization has actually increased under Obamacare. When we were assured it would disappear.

[Nanker]

On the supply side, break up the medical monopolies run by the ama and drug companies. On the demand side maybe they should go back to no insurance, so their emergency room costs are pushed onto the rest of us....oh, wait....

Brilliant! Like how the drug development costs are currently pushed onto the American consumers because the foreign government-run healthcare formularies arbitrarily set the prices that they will pay for pharmaceuticals at absurd lows?

[TakeYouToTasker]

Emergency room utilization has actually increased under Obamacare. When we were assured it would disappear.

Turns out subsidized health insurance doesn't increase personal responsibility after all.

[B-Large]

Exactly how did the ACA increase access to healthcare?

the Medicaid expansion alone has opened an avenue to many poor people to finally access medical care they were otherwise skipping on or unable to pay for. We've increased our primary care provider staff almost two fold and are currently setting up primary care practices in strategic places in the community to meet the need. We've also acquired systems in Fort Collins and Colorado Springs to begin to serve those areas that used to force many people to Denver for care. We have 2B cash stash currently that is earmarked for expanding current facilities both at the main campus and community clinics.

 

How have conservatives expanded access and care? Did their 50 repeal votes help?

Turns out subsidized health insurance doesn't increase personal responsibility after all.

I believe it's a messaging issue for slot of people. People sign up for insurance then never call to establish care with a PCP until they are acute, then can't be seen for weeks. I find a lot of people sign up for non managed care plan thinking they can just see specialist at thier whim but don't realize that alot of specialist won't see people who are self referred.

 

I'm still amazed how many Americans have no idea how Heathcare works. But then again the people I know with 500-600 car payments and 300 cable bills whine about 50 copays on their health policies, so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised.

 

People do need take more responsibility for their lives though, no doubt bout that my friend!

[unbillievable]

I whine at my $10 co-pay (because it used be free), but like my $60 cellphone bill (because it's 25% off).

[Pine Barrens Mafia]

I whine at my $10 co-pay (because it used be free), but like my $60 cellphone bill (because it's 25% off).

 

$10 copay? who has those?

[IDBillzFan]

 

$10 copay? who has those?

 

The people who wrote and passed ACA.

[DC Tom]

 

$10 copay? who has those?

 

Cadillac plans.

 

Place my wife used to work had that. Flu shot? $10 co-pay. Torn ACL? $10 co-pay. Skin grafts for third degree burns? $10 co-pay. Ebola? $10 co-pay. Heart-lung-liver transplant? $10 co-pay. It was awesome.

[Azalin]

 

The people who wrote and passed ACA.

 

Remember how the people who wrote and passed the ACA also exempted themselves from it?

 

And some people still stubbornly maintain that it was good legislation, despite that the majority of Americans were against it.