A survey by the RAND Corporation suggests that the number of uninsured has fallen by 9.3 million due largely to ObamaCare. http://www.rand.org/blog/2014/04/survey-estimates-net-gain-of-9-3-million-american-adults.html What about the "millions who lost their insurance", apparently that was way overblown, it was just propaganda designed to fool people into thinking ObamaCare was a failure. Was anyone actually fooled? Was anyone who thinks critically actually fooled?
Next time read what you post. "Although a total of 3.9 million people enrolled in marketplace plans, only 1.4 million of these individuals were previously uninsured." "Medicaid enrollment increased by 5.9 million. New enrollees are primarily drawn from those who were uninsured in 2013, or those who had other forms of insurance, including Medicare, retiree health insurance, and other government plans." And this right here is the most telling thing and frankly makes any of the numbers completely unreliable. "Given the strong interest in understanding the impact of the ACA, a variety of different organizations, including the Urban Institute, are conducting surveys to estimate the impact of the ACA on insurance enrollment. When making comparisons, it is important to keep in mind that there is always a margin of error. In this case, because we are extrapolating from a small survey to the entire U.S. population, the margin of error is relatively large. For example, while we estimate 9.3 million individuals become newly insured, the margin of error is 3.5 million people.
Oh for (*)(*)(*)(*)s sake. It might also mean that its 5.8 million people. If you can't see the problem with a survey that has an error range of + or - more than one third of its proposed numbers then you have no business posting about anything anywhere about any topic. Its like dealing with 6 year olds.
Read your damn link. 1.4 million were previously uninsured and went on the exchanges, the rest are put on Medicaid or through employer health care which has nothing to to with Obamacare. Why do you insist on playing the stupidity card? They could have just expanded medicaid and it would have been far less intrusive and less costly than the disaster that the ACA has been. The most obvious fact is that you post tripe with horrible margins of errors which shows you know absolutely nothing that you talk about. Stop posting unless you are actually informed.
Excuse me the Medicaid Expansion was a key component of the ACA (Obamacare) so those added in States that expanded were added because of Obamacare and that would have been a lot higher if all the States did the sensible thing and just Expand Medicaid. Even when States have to put in their share its still an awesome deal and if most or all States opted in they could pass legal changes to keep the funding going maybe even at 100% - forever. They would have enough clout in Congress to do anything they want at that point.
Uh no that part was actually struck down by the Supreme Court. Which is one of the several reasons why the ACA is doomed to catastrophic failure or at the very least a very slow and extremely expensive death. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/medicare-advantage-spending-cut-103797.html As you can see you can only push of the massive cuts required to compensate for Obamacare so long and the Democrats are asking the administration to delay it even further because they are to cowardly to own up to the (*)(*)(*)(*)ty bill that they all voted for. You already have fewer and fewer doctors willing to take Medicare and Medicaid patients and even fewer will take them after the rates are reduced even further. This is a fact and is undeniable. So what exactly does having insurance do for you if there are no physicians to see you? This (*)(*)(*)(*)ing retarded law is screwing over the 85% of the people who were already covered prior to cover a couple extra percent. This is by far the most inefficient and aninine way to address issues with health care in this country. I cannot wait to watch the Democrats that voted for this pile of crap choke on it and drown in their own stupidity.
According to ACA signups by Brainwrap which is pretty reliable data, today's number for new Medicaid enrollees is 3.6 million which is well below the 8 million that were eligible in the state expansion states. If you look up the income ranges at the IRS tables, there are 30 million people that earned under $15,000 a year which would qualify all of them for Medicaid if all states expanded. This is why California and Oregon were trying to get illegals to sign up to improve those numbers. In my opinion, the reason why they are so low is there are a higher number of part time workers in the age group of 45-64 years of age and they do not want to sign up because they will have to turn over over their house to the government as payment for insuring them after they are dead. As far as the exchanges are concerned, there are only 5 million that sign up and 2 million signed up directly with the insurance company and that is how they come to 7 million. I would assume that the 5.2 million that lost coverage did get new insurance so this leaves a possibility of 2 million new enrollees for coverage. As much money put into this, this is no way a success and it is the biggest extortion scam in the history of the U.s on its citizens. The ACA did not provide insurance for the millions caught in the income gap nor did it provide coverage for the millions who are unemployed. The same people that showed up at the emergency room will be the same people showing up now with no insurance. So really what did the ACA accomplish for its citizens? People that do have coverage now have a higher deductible and increased premiums which makes it more difficult to afford care.
NOT SYRUCK DOWN its still there the only difference was the Court made it an "opt in" program where it was a mandate to do the expansion. Here is what I would do get the governors and legislatures of the opt out States do a compact they will all expand Medicaid but agree to combine their Congressional representation to keep the funding at 100% permanently for Medicaid. You get all the States on board this would be an easy win even able to override a veto. One change could be remove the top bracket for subsidies make it up to 300% of the poverty line to help fund this and taxing junk food and sugary drinks say 5%. Just putting that as an option that would make it more than palatable to states if it costs them nothing there goes the only argument not to expand.
Nearly 160 million people have employer-sponsored insurance (almost half the population), making it by far the largest source of coverage, not just for those with private insurance but for the entire population. If the ACA has "nothing to do with" ESI, then how intrusive for the average American can it really be?
Why are you arguing numbers? I asked a question, are we better off with 9.3 million or 7.2 million or 5.3 million or 1.4 million more people with health coverage? Are we better off with more people in the system, is the ideal, everyone in the system?
It was struck down. One of the two key pillars other than the mandate was the requirement that all states had to expand their Medicaid programs. It was struck down which is why some states opted out. You can't remove the subsidies because then the entire point of Obamacare was redistribution. It was specifically targeted to the uninsured and those are primarily either young people or sick people. By design and by its own admission Obamacare is set up to charge young people far more than they previously would have had to pay in order to cover the costs of all the new sick and older people. Last time I checked it wasn't really a good idea to jack up the price on something if you were trying to sell more of it. They could have made a 10 page bill that said you cannot deny people with preexisting conditions and the other more popular items that most people agreed on. Instead all I hear from ACA supporters is that apparently its takes 20,000 pages to say that and they just assume that is the only stuff in the bill. (*)(*)(*)(*), I still haven't encountered any supporters aware of the upcoming Medicare cuts and the tax on medical equipment. Repeal or neutralize that stupid law and start over. Even Democrats have said that should be done. They can only keep putting off these mandates for so long. What are they up to now, 7 different mandates that Obama has had to push off till next year because his own party demanded that they implement AFTER the elections since they know that voters will not like them? If the bill was so damn good then implement the whole thing on schedule and lets see what happens. - - - Updated - - - And I answered it in my first post. They could have simply expanded Medicaid and accompllished the same damn thing without wasting nearly a trillion dollars on this travesty. Ask yourself why do they keep pushing various mandates till after the election if it is such good law? His own party members are demanding that he put off various cuts to Medicare or various taxes or requirements. Why is that?
I guess you are correct from that approach. I was referring to going on the actual exchanges. The employer is the only one that would actually have to buy the insurance. Unless they changed it all I ever had to do for my employer insurance was sign on the dotted line and pick any options if they were available and initial them. Obamacare has had a negative effect in terms or more people being shifted to part time hours although that was relieved somewhat when Obama pushed yet another provision of the law off till after the 14 elections. Howerver, just as with the Medicare cuts you an only push off the cost mechanisms of the law for so long and the longer it gets kicked down the road the more its gonna hurt. If the law were so damn good then just let it run its course. This is why a lot of people were pissed at Cruz and his antics because anyone following this knows that the ACA is doomed to failure.
The exchanges (largely, at least right now) aren't about employers. Yes, the mandate that employers of a certain size have to offer coverage has been pushed off. But the point of the employer mandate was to prevent employers from dropping employees, not so much to get them to start offering coverage--and that's because something like 95% of employers who would be subject to the mandate already offer coverage (again, our private health insurance in this country is almost entirely through employer-sponsored insurance). And if the RAND survey results are to be believed, dumping--even in the absence of the employer mandate--isn't an issue as the amount of employer-sponsored coverage is expanding a lot more than at least the CBO expected.
As I posted early on.......any study or poll with a margin of error literally plus or minus 1/3 is just absurd and should be tossed aside. There is no law requiring employers to actually provide insurance no matter the size for part time workers so this is going to shove millions of low income workers on the exchanges making taxpayers subsidize their health care costs instead of the company itself. This alone is going to cost hundred of billions of extra dollars to taxpayers. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/will-your-employer-drop-coverage-under-obamacare/ Last month, the consulting firm Towers Watson released a survey in which 98 percent of employers reported they will keep “active medical plans for 2014 and 2015.” But as the conservative Heritage Foundation points out, the same study found that 92 percent of employers said they would likely change their health insurance options by 2018, the year the law’s “Cadillac” tax on high-cost plans takes effect, with 47 percent saying they “anticipated significant or transformative change.” Meanwhile, a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers found that in Massachusetts — where the model for the federal plan was enacted seven years ago — employer-sponsored coverage rose rather than fell. “The number of people covered by insurance through the workplace increased by about 1 percentage point, running counter to the rest of the nation, which saw employer-based insurance decline by 5.7 percentage points,” the report said. But will that hold true on a national scale? Maybe not. Many companies are heavily considering forcing retirees and part-time workers onto the exchanges after the ACA kicks in, according to a survey by the National Business Group on Health. And just last month, UPS announced that it will stop offering coverage to the spouses of 15,000 workers because they will be able to find coverage elsewhere. The company wrote in a memo to employees that rising medical costs “combined with the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act, have made it increasingly difficult to continue providing the same level of health care benefits to our employees at an affordable cost.” As I said they keep kicking the can down the road but once the companies do have to start paying for all the new costs associated with the ACA then they are going to shift it onto the workers by either making them pay for more of their healthcare or dropping them on the exchanges if they are part time or full time.
I'm not sure exactly what point you're trying to make. You quote numbers showing the MA reforms (precursors to the ACA) increased employer-sponsored insurance coverage, very much contrary to the nationwide trend of employer-sponsored coverage eroding. But then you dismiss RAND's survey showing the ACA having exactly the same effect as MA's reforms. Then you suggest new costs (which ones?) companies will have to pay. If it's benefits, understand that most employer-sponsored coverage is self-insured and thus doesn't have to offer the ACA's essential health benefits, though most already do anyway. As do most fully insured small employers (which will be subject to those requirements), due to the way the essential health benefits have been defined on a state-by-state basis. If you're talking about the Cadillac tax, that's on family plans that cost $27,500 or individual plans that cost $10,500. The average cost of employer-sponsored coverage last year was $16,351 for a family plan and $5,884 for an individual plan. So we're talking about fairly comprehensive plans. I won't shed too many tears if folks with plans like that are asked to share a little more in their own medical expenses.
MA is was the outlier. It said that the rest of the country say a larger drop. I don't know why people keep referring to MA for any reason. Before the ACA MA already had a 94 percent rate of insurance as it is one of the wealthiest and most educated states in the union. The national average was 85% and that is a huge difference. Bumping up 1% in a wealthy state that was already virtually covered isn't any sort of success. I used to work for a company that did this and it was excellent. My copays were all $5 to $15 max. They had bonuses if you had gym memberships as well. That is how healthcare should be done not all this government intervention crap. According to various articles self insurance is going to explode in popularity and if any attempts by the Democrats to squash it are foibled in the future then I applaud it as it will be another nail in the ACA coffin. They have already attempted to screw over people yet again but fortunately nothing has passed yet. How long though do you think that a state like CA with a supermajority of Dems in power will take before they eventually do limit it and (*)(*)(*)(*) over small businesses even more. Its not like CA is known for their friendly business climate. The RAND survey I dismiss because it was extremely sloppy. There margin of error for 9.3 million people estimate was plus or minus 3.5 million people. If you cannot see what is wrong with that then that is entirely on you. http://healthjournalism.org/resources-tips-details.php?id=659 Large employers those with 500 or more workers have self-insured for decades. Theyll continue to do so. But this year legislatures in California, Rhode Island, Minnesota and elsewhere considered limiting self-insurance for very small firms by raising the stop-loss triggers, known as attachment points. I dont believe any of them passed. Californias proposal to allow stop-loss triggers no lower than $95,000 or so would effectively end small companies ability to self-insure. The Self Insurance Institute of America is a good source on what states are doing. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has considered raising attachment points in their model state law, but it hasnt gone anywhere. The Department of Health & Human Services and the Department of Labor put out a request for information last year on stop loss and got lots of feedback. Some thought that was a prelude to federal regulation, but the ERISA statute and related case law would seem to bar the feds from messing with self-insurance. Observers dont expect states to get serious about raising attachment points unless small-business exchanges run into trouble. But by then, ACA backers warn, it could be too late, as exchanges will have already fallen into a cycle of soaring costs and decreasing affordability. Nobody systematically tracks how many small businesses are self-covered. But if anecdotes and news reports are an indication, aggressive marketing of self-insurance is another challenge to the health act. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/u...s-concern-over-costs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Employer-sponsored insurance in MA was declining before they passed their reforms (just like almost everywhere else); then they passed an employer mandate and it started to rise. Preliminary indications are that this is now becoming the case nationwide since the ACA passed. Employer-sponsored coverage with those kinds of wellness incentives are a key part of the ACA. As for the quotes about failed legislation regarding self-insurance, I'm again unsure what point you're trying to make.
Uh....no they are not. Read the links I gave you. In fact self insured companies are seen as a major obstacle to the ACA because they circumvent all the rules since employers don't have to include all the extra ACA crap that insurance does. They specifically state that the more popular these become that the more it will hurt the Obamacare exchanges because that is money that doesn't go into the insurance pool since the companies are basically just paying costs out of pocket. Assuming that legislators are unable to limit this this will end up helping to destroy Obamacare. You are confusing employer sponsored insurance which is just the company paying most of the health care insurance costs with self insurance which is just the company paying out of pocket. Self insurance is on the rise I don't know where you are getting this employee sponsored is on the rise it specifically stated that nationwide it fell by over 5%.
The law won't be repealed because the GOP hasn't been able to come up with anything better, and they have had years, and they can't come up with a serious proposal. Your 10 page bill wouldn't work in the real world, the popular parts need the unpopular parts to work. Next we need to add the public option and we're on our way to single payer.
What serious proposal is needed. We have had it all along, its called concierge medicine and it is expanding. Medicine didn't become obscenely expensive until government and the insurance industries got involved. Everyone not working for a self insured company should have a direct concierge system with their physician where they either pay a fixed about per month or every visit. They can pay for all the little mundane stuff out of pocket and then utilize insurance only for the very expensive items.........you know like how insurace works in every other single area. You don't use your car insurance to get a car wash and a vacuum do you? This should be the future of medicine not this catastrophic pile of (*)(*)(*)(*) that your side has forced on this country agaisnt their will. Keep your (*)(*)(*)(*)ing hands off my health care and butt out and mind your own damn business. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-29/is-concierge-medicine-the-future-of-health-care Those guys charge $50 a month for unlimited visits and offer low cost prescription plans and some of their tests are included in the fee. You pay that much for just one visit with insurance and you pay extra for pills and tests as well.
ESI has grown in Massachusetts since their reforms passed in 2006, even as it has declined in the rest of the country. Prior to that, ESI was eroding in MA, as well. The introduction of the employer mandate reversed the trend in that state. RAND's polling results are preliminary but it's hardly unbelievable that a similar policy change under the ACA will have a similar effect. As for the "threat" self-insured plans pose to fully insured plans, it's no different under the ACA than under prior law. Self-insured plans are a form of employer-sponsored insurance (the dominant form, actually). Last year 61% of all covered workers (i.e., anyone with employer-sponsored insurance) were in a self-insured plan, with the rest in fully insured plans. They may not be required to offer the "extra crap" fully insured plans must, but they generally do anyway--on average, self-insured plans actually have marginally higher premiums than fully uninsured plans. Will the trend of the last 10+ years toward more self-insured plans continue? Maybe, though that trend has been driven by employers with 200 or more employees--the bigger the firm, the larger the trend. So, for instance, we went from 62% of covered folks in the largest employers (5,000 or more employees) being in self-insured plans in 1999 to 94% last year. But over the same time period, the change for smaller employers (3-199 employees) was only 13% to 16%. Not a very big jump. And those are the very firms in the small group market that you're talking about--those who will be eligible to use the SHOP exchanges (though the SHOPs can be opened to larger employers in a few years). So it's not quite as destabilizing for the small group market as you may think.
As anyone can readily see from the posts on this forum, right wingers have lower rational thinking faculties compared to the more patriotic progressives. This is why so many of them succumbed to the lies from the Koch brothers and their paid stooges in the Tea Party. The fact remains that MILLIONS more now have insurance coverage. This saves billions of dollars and thousands of lives every year. Every REAL American will applaud that.
