MUCH More Obamacare TRUTH

it bothers the right wingers so much that ACA is saving money and lives - small wonder why they attempt to disrupt this thread with their hate and lies

but in the end, the patriotic TRUTH wins out



ACA = saving money and lives every day. Thank you Mr Obama!

 

Well, you tried a link. But like most of your posts it doesn't work.

 

more reason for the right wingers to get angry about ACA:



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...rcent-drop-in-charity-care-with-nbsp-Obamcare


The Cleveland Clininc, one of U.S. News & World Report's top four hospitals in the United States, says it spent 40 percent less on uncompensated care for the uninsured in just the past year. That's $70 million less spent in 2014 than in 2013. It's thanks, the hospital says, to expanded Medicaid coverage under Obamacare as well as expanded coverage on the exchange.
"The decrease in charity care is primarily attributable to the increase in Medicaid patients due to the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in the State of Ohio and the resulting decrease in the number of charity patients," the hospital's year-end financial statement reported.
That 40 percent drop spotlights a trend in how payments are changing for all providers since the health law rolled out the Medicaid expansion and subsidies that help some lower-income people purchase policies on the new insurance marketplaces, said John Palmer, spokesperson for Ohio Hospital Association.

"Now that you're starting to see that shift from uninsured or underserved on over into health care programs such as Medicaid and the exchange, that has had a good impact," he said. "And, obviously, it is reflective of what hospitals are experiencing with uncompensated care in the areas of charity care especially."

That's part of the total $2.6 billion saved by hospitals around the country, according to the administration. Contrast that with the hospital closures, particularly in rural areas in states that didn't expand Medicaid and can't afford to keep operating when they have to treat the uninsured.

Obamacare was intended to end the problem of uncompensated care, and Medicaid expansion was one of the ways it was supposed to do it. In order to pay for it, hospitals agreed to take reduced Medicare reimbursements and big cuts in Disproportionate Share Hospital, or DSH, funding, which the federal government pays to offset the costs of uncompensated care. Then in 2012 the Supreme Court intervened, and decided that states could reject the expansion. The cuts remained in place, and hospitals that treat uninsured patients in the non-expansion states have endured the consequences.






Saving money and lives every day with ACA - thank you Mr Obama!

 

Obamacare Opponents Are Making Racial Inequality Worse



http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/04/09/3644805/coverage-gap-people-color/



The ongoing political resistance to fully implementing the major provisions of Obamacare is serving to deepen racial inequality in the health care sector, according to a new analysis from researchers at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

There are already significant disparities in health outcomes that fall along racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines. Historically, people of color in the United States have been less likely to be insured and more likely to receive substandard health care. Racial gaps have contributed to the fact that black Americans are still dying younger than their white counterparts.


Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion represents a step forward in this area, largely because it was expected to help reduce the coverage disparity between non-white and white Americans. And in some parts of the country, it’s working as planned. But in the states where GOP politicians have continued to refuse to expand Medicaid, low-income people of color are paying the price.
Without Medicaid expansion, millions of impoverished Americans fall into what’s known as a “coverage gap” — making too much money to qualify for their state’s more restrictive Medicaid program, but too little money to qualify for the federal subsidies intended to help people purchase private insurance on Obamacare’s marketplaces. Ultimately, according to the Kaiser researchers, those people are disproportionately likely to be African American.


“The impact of the coverage gap varies by race and ethnicity, with poor uninsured Blacks most likely to fall into the gap, since they disproportionately reside in the southern region of the country where most states are not implementing the expansion,” the researchers conclude. “The continued disparities in access to health coverage will likely lead to widening racial and ethnic as well as geographic disparities in coverage and access to care.”

If every state accepted the expansion, Kaiser estimates that more than four in ten uninsured non-white adults would gain coverage. Instead, about 2.1 million people of color are being locked out of affordable insurance. Of the 2.9 million uninsured black Americans in the country, about 34 percent fall into the coverage gap created by anti-Obamacare lawmakers — who typically say the policy will be too expensive, even though the federal government will pick up nearly all of the costs of coverage.
Kaiser’s research confirms what previous analyses have also reported. Back in 2013, the New York Times crunched the numbers and found that the GOP resistance to Medicaid expansion was disproportionately harming the working poor: People of color who work as cashiers, cooks, nurses’ aides, waiters and waitresses, and janitors yet aren’t offered insurance benefits through their hourly jobs.

Much of the fate of the coverage gap, and the future of health disparities among people of color, rests with three key states that have particularly high rates of uninsurance. According to the new Kaiser report, more than half of the Americans who are locked out of Obamacare reside in Texas, Florida, and North Carolina.


Medicaid proponents were hopeful — and somewhat shocked — when Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) expressed support for expansion in 2013. But the state’s GOP-controlled legislature has fiercely resisted the policy, and just this week, the governor walked back his endorsement of this particular Obamacare provision. About 800,000 of Scott’s constituents fall into the coverage gap.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R), meanwhile, has firmly rejected the traditional Medicaid expansion as it’s laid out under the Affordable Care Act, but has recently suggested that perhaps the state could come up with an acceptable compromise. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has been steadfastly opposed to expanding Medicaid, and once compared the policy to “putting 1,000 more people on the Titanic.”





Right wingers hate the fact that ACA saves lives.

 

http://www.khi.org/news/article/study-medicaid-expansion-improving-some-states-budgets


Study: Medicaid expansion improving some states’ budgets
Researchers project expansion costs in Kentucky, Arkansas completely offset through 2021


As a legislative session focused on the Kansas budget problems winds to a close with no decision on Medicaid expansion, a new study says some states that have expanded eligibility have seen their budget situations improve.

The State Health Reform Assistance Network, a partnership of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Princeton University, studied the effects of Medicaid expansion on budgets in eight states.

Download the State Health Reform Assistance Network Study
The study found that those states realized about $1.8 billion in combined savings and new revenue from expanded Medicaid eligibility. The money came mostly from the federal government picking up a larger share of the health care costs for those newly eligible for comprehensive Medicaid coverage, which created state budget savings on programs that serve the uninsured, pregnant women and people with physical disabilities or mental health needs.

The states in the study — Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia — also gained new revenue by taxing insurance providers.

The study’s authors concluded that in Arkansas and Kentucky, budget savings are expected to offset the states’ share of expansion costs through at least fiscal year 2021.

Kansas is one of 22 states that so far have declined to expand Medicaid eligibility under the federal Affordable Care Act since the expansion went into effect in 2014.

Expanding Medicaid access to Americans who make up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line was one of the cornerstones of the ACA, which President Barack Obama signed in 2010. Federal tax dollars fund 100 percent of expansion from 2014 through 2016, before gradually stepping down to a 90-10 federal-state cost share. A 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed states to decide whether they will participate in the expansion.

Little movement after hearing

Advocates of Medicaid expansion in Kansas — led by the state’s hospital association — made their strongest push yet this session and succeeded in getting a legislative hearing on the issue last month.


Photo by Dave Ranney
Susan Mosier, acting secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, testified during a legislative hearing that Medicaid expansion would cost the state more than $100 million annually. But a recent study found that eight states where eligibility has been expanded have seen $1.8 billion in combined net savings and new revenue.
View larger photo

But there has been little movement since that hearing, where a member of Gov. Sam Brownback’s Cabinet said expansion could cost the state more than $100 million annually. Susan Mosier, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, also said the state should fully fund waiting lists for Kansans with disabilities seeking daily living support services before extending medical coverage to more low-income Kansans.

Brownback said at a recent news conference that he was still open to expansion and that talks with the Kansas Hospital Association continue.

But he said concerns remain about the disability waiting lists and the cost of expansion. He also said he wants any expansion agreement with the Obama administration to include a work or job training requirement for new Medicaid recipients, similar to one the state recently instituted for food stamp recipients.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has allowed for Medicaid expansion revisions such as cost-sharing and premium assistance in states like Arkansas. But it has yet to approve any work requirements.

Brownback said he’s looking for a plan that can “thread the needle” between what the hospitals want, what his administration wants and what the Obama administration is willing to negotiate.

“That’s why we continue to meet,” Brownback said. “I don’t know if the administration will show any more flexibility. I don’t know what we can come up with for resources to be able to get our wait list down so we have money to be able to do it. But if this is a possibility, let’s continue to see if it’s something that could work.”

Right now any plan the Brownback administration agrees to must be approved by the Legislature under state law. Time is running out to change that during the 2015 session, which is now down to a few final weeks that begin April 29.

During those weeks lawmakers will be focused on how to close a $667 million shortfall between the budget the Senate passed for the next fiscal year and what the state is projected to take in.

Shifting costs

The State Health Reform Assistance Network’s study suggests expansion could contain budget savings by shifting costs to the federal government. An Urban Institute study published last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation found similar results in Connecticut, Washington and New Mexico.

State officials there reported cost savings from expansion because of shifts in existing Medicaid-related expenses, and savings in the state’s behavioral health system and prisons system.

Those systems treat large numbers of people with mental illnesses. A study published this week by the American Mental Health Counselors Association found that population is better served in states that have expanded Medicaid.

The Urban Institute researchers also found that after expanding Medicaid, Connecticut, New Mexico and Washington reported less uncompensated care — a major issue for hospitals in Kansas.

Medicaid expansion was intended to offset reductions in federal payments for Medicare and for hospitals that treat large numbers of uninsured patients. Without expansion, some hospitals say they are now reaching a financial breaking point.

Conservative think tanks that oppose expansion have said states that expanded eligibility are besieged by hidden costs that make the program more expensive than projected — including a “woodwork effect” in which residents who were already eligible for Medicaid but had not enrolled begin to take advantage of it.

Expansion would extend coverage to individual Kansans who make $16,105 or less per year and families of four who make about $32,913 or less. KDHE estimates about 151,000 Kansans who were not previously eligible would sign up for Medicaid if eligibility as expanded to the level called for in the ACA.

Many of them now fall into a “coverage gap” within the ACA: They make too much to qualify for Medicaid under current Kansas income guidelines — some of the nation’s most restrictive — but too little to qualify for federal subsidies to help buy private insurance from an online exchange.

A study published earlier this month by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by the coverage gap.

The nonprofit KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute and a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor reporting collaboration. All stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online.






More money and lives saved via ACA!

 

50,000 lives saved due to ACA and counting:



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/15/1377978/-50-000-lives



The Affordable Care Act is certainly not perfect legislation. Many of us would love to have seen a public option at the least, or something stronger. A large subset of us (myself included) would prefer a single-payer system somewhere between the Canadian model and the UK's NHS. This being said, the ACA has saved many, many lives. Current estimates put the number at or above 50,000. This was fact-checked by Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post. And although he's not usually all that friendly to Democrats, he could not deny that the claim is true.

This should be cause for celebration. Electing Barack Obama and enough Democrats in Congress to pass the ACA has saved tens of thousands of lives. It is also proof positive that the Republican hysteria surrounding the law - "death panels", people losing their insurance plans, et cetera - was baseless. We should be able to use this data to undercut much of the fearmongering coming from right-wing politicians and entertainers.

So I was surprised to read the following in a highly-recommended diary here today:

Here is the only substantial difference I see between the Obama and Bush administrations: Instead of huge costly all out invasions of other countries, Obama favors backing local insurgents to attempt to achieve the same neocon goals.
If a Bush clone (i.e. John McCain) had been elected in 2008, there would be no Affordable Care Act. Republicans might prefer the ACA to a single-payer system, but they vastly prefer nothing to the ACA. Indeed, McCain's health care plan (detailed nicely here) was basically a death spiral waiting to happen. It contained the tired hobbyhorse of buying insurance across state lines (aka letting insurers sell junk plans in any state, not just theirs), and its tax credits would have led to about 10 million fewer people being insured.
So, in short: because Barack Obama and not John McCain was elected in 2008, 50,000 fewer people, and counting, are dead. Yet somehow this is not a "substantial difference" between the parties?

Criticism of Democrats is one thing. It's healthy. We need to do it. We should recognize that the Democratic party, and many Democratic politicians, are not as strong or as progressive as we want them to be. I completely agree with that statement and support pressure on these politicians. At the same time, we have to recognize that the two parties are not remotely the same. Although many of us lean more towards one of these ideas that the other, it is entirely possible - in fact it is vital - to keep both in mind at the same time.

As Paul Krugman says, there is a "huge, substantive gulf" between the Democratic and Republican parties. That gulf is big enough to fit many things, among them these 50,000 lives (and counting). So please don't tell me it's not substantial, or that the two parties are the same. And whatever you do... don't tell one of the 50,000 people in it.






While right wingers cry, real patriot rejoice.

 

Not factual, not true. Obama care has not saved 50k lives. If 50K lives have been saved they have been saved by medical providers. Too many "exchange" policies have denied those insured by these policies treatment. Too many of these plans have failed to "pay" anything toward the insured's medical costs due to high deductibles, high out of pocket and co-payments that are first deducted from insurance payments. And, failure to cover treatment provided by various hospitals, clinics, doctors and surgeons. There are still thousands of uninsured that use emergency rooms for their primary source of treatment. There are still thousands of individuals who are uninsured due to the
coverage loop holes" and their failure to qualify for State Medicaid insurance, which is pitiful at best. Obama care will end in few providers signing up as Medicare Providers and Medicaid Providers, choosing to require cash payment up front for treatment provided. But, this will also lead to competitive rates/fees for medical care. Much as Dentists fees where dental coverage basically covers only $1500.00/yr. and veterinary fees, where surgery on pets can be as much as $4000.00 where comparable human surgery pays the surgeon less than half that fee. Cash is where it will end up.

 

That is clearly implied in all this.

The imaginary Republican ''death panels'' did not materialize. Instead, Americans no longer die due to lack of health care as happened when Republicans controlled health care policy.

Right wingers delight in seeing poor Americans die. But we patriots applaud when they live. ACA is a patriotic life saver.

 

New poll shows turn-around on Obamacare popularity


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/...oll-shows-turn-around-on-Obamacare-popularity



For the first time, the Kaiser Family Foundation monthly tracking poll shows that more people are in favor of Obamacare than opposed. Barely, and within the margin of error, but a turn-around.
[T]he gap isn't large—43 percent see it favorably versus 42 percent unfavorably—and it falls within the survey's margin of sampling error.
Opinion still is sharply divided by party, with 70 percents of Democrats viewing the law favorably and 75 percent of Republicans viewing it unfavorably. Independents fall in the middle; 42 percent like it and 46 percent don't.

The "fix-it or repeal-it" numbers remain consistent: 46 percent combined say either improve it (24 percent) or leave it alone (22 percent) versus 41 percent who want it scaled back (12 percent) or repealed (29 percent).

Bar chart showing partisan breakdown in expand it, keep it, scale it back, or repeal it.attribution: Kaiser Family Foundaton [see link]


This all reflects the recent Bloomberg poll that showed more people believing the law should be left to work rather than repealed, and that the repeal crowd is the same group of dead-enders it's been from the beginning. That crowd—the base the Republicans continue to play to—isn't going to change. But it's also not the population that is most helped by Obamacare since it skews old enough to be on Medicare.

All of this should be weighing on the minds of at least two Supreme Court justices—Chief John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy—while they consider whether or not to gut subsidies to people buying health insurance on the federal exchanges. A decision to gut the law is not going to be popular, and it's not going to help their Republican friends in Congress one bit.





ACA approval going up as the number of lives and money saved goes ever upward!

 

And where does all the money for that expanded Medicaid come from?

 

Give it time, the Medical Advisory Board hasn't begun functioning yet. While I will go short of calling them a death panel, they will have far too much power to determine who gets what treatment based on cost effectiveness. That is the type of atmosphere which leads to deciding who receives costly care to extend their life and who does not. True, fact and there is no factual rebuttal.

 

And, when you read anything Mr_Truth posts, you are getting anything but the truth. He has no first hand knowledge as a medical care provider, medical administration, employee of the V.A. Hospital System, worker of Nursing Home, processor of Medicaid, Medicare or Private insurance medical claims. I hope people interested in the topic of Obama Care, health care exchanges and private health insurance takes the time to research the various important topics on their own. You should never put your full trust in anything reported on by the supposed Media, non-partisan and partisan researchers or State and Federal Government public statements. The information is out there ready to be accessed. It is up to you to make the most informed decision you possibly can on Every topic that is a major issue concerning your finances, rights and pursuit of your rightful happiness.

 

On the contrary, all the right wingers who post here have yet to provide a shred of evidence which disproves any of the TRUTH which I have posted via links that come from the CBO and other sources.


Funny how when the CBO initially showed there were serious flaws in the implementation of ACA, the right wingers seized on it. When the CBO showed that after those difficulties were corrected how ACA is working, now the right wingers refuse to acknowledge its truths.

This is typical of their lies and hypocrisy.

 

Click on comments to read what real Americans think of Obamacare.

https://m.facebook.com/Healthcare.gov?_rdr

 

or they can ask Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Ted Cruz whether ACA is working successfully

 

Why ask a politician when there are thousands of testimonials from American citizens on the official gov't fb site?

https://m.facebook.com/Healthcare.gov?_rdr

 

With the majority of Americans now approving of reform it is clear that ACA is working.

Further, those two politicians know the names of those who are testifying in favor of ACA whereas those disaffected types like Tea Partyiers are just making up stories (while many of them are benefiting from the law).

 

Hmmmm. I didn't know that. You actually think we delight in seeing poor Americans die?

Those are some strange glasses you're viewing the world through. LOL.

 

"Those are some strange glasses you're viewing the world through".

I totally agree.

The imaginary Republican "death panels" did not materialize according to Mr. truth.

That is because the medical advisory board has not yet begun to function. Once it does, they will be the ones determining who gets treatment and who does not based on cost effectiveness. Read what "Emanuel" the father of the Legislation regarding this has to say in the many papers he as written and many speeches he has given on this subject. While this may not be a "death panel", the result of their findings and decisions may very well result in the premature death of older individuals. Fact and it is undisputable.

 

LOL! Not strange glasses, just youtube and other sources:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PepQF7G-It0



It is Republican death panels that caused the deaths of 45,000 Americans every year due to lack of health care. Too bad it saddens so many of you that these don't exist anymore.

 

ACA scores big on customer satisfaction



http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/aca-scores-big-customer-satisfaction?cid=eml_mra_20150425




When the Affordable Care Act’s Republican critics were making all kinds of dire predictions about the inevitable “failures” of “Obamacare,” one of the charges was that American consumers will end up hating the coverage they receive through the reform law.

And for those ACA detractors looking for something, anything, to bolster their contempt for the law, I’m afraid I have more bad news: Americans who received coverage through Obamacare tend to be quite pleased with the results.
Obamacare customers nationally also tended to be more satisfied with their plans bought in 2014 than people who primarily have traditional job-based health coverage – the majority of those with insurance – the study by the J.D. Power market research company found.

And those customers from last year were as happy with their coverage as other people who had multiple choices when it came to buying plans outside Obamacare markets from insurers or brokers, according to the J.D. Power report, which was released Thursday.
The full market-research report is available online here.

This is obviously just one study, and other analyses may draw other conclusions, but let’s not forget that this isn’t the first evidence we’ve seen pointing to high customer-satisfaction rates for those who buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act.

Politico reported back in November: “A majority of Americans give good reviews for insurance they recently acquired through government exchanges within the past year, a new poll shows. With the second round of Obamacare enrollment set to begin on Saturday, 71 percent said their coverage through the exchanges was good or excellent, according to a Gallup poll released Friday. Another 19 percent said the coverage was fair, while 9 percent rated it poorly.”

As for why ACA customers are pleased, Sarah Kliff had a good explanation.
The J.D. Power survey … shows that people with employer-sponsored coverage who have “multiple plan options” have the exact same satisfaction rating as the people on Obamacare. And this might actually circle back to the cost issue. People shopping on Obamacare have the option to decide whether they want a plan with a high premium or a low one. Shoppers have typically gravitated toward the lower-cost premium. The average monthly premium on Healthcare.gov is $374. For people getting coverage at work, the average premium is $464.

What this data suggests is that health-care shoppers seem to be okay with a trade-off: they like the idea of selecting a lower-premium plan, even if it might mean incurring higher out-of-pocket costs down the line – and are more satisfied customers as a result.
As for the ACA predictions Republicans got right, I still haven’t found one.






ACA success - Thank you President Obama!

 

Jessica Neveton

The Physicians Foundation made shockwaves last month when it released its 2014 Survey of America’s Physicians. The survey’s top-line finding: Of the 20,000 doctors surveyed, almost 50 percent stated that Obamacare deserves either a “D” or an “F.” Only a quarter of physicians graded it as either an “A” or a “B.”(*)
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/220715-why-doctors-give-obamacare-a-failing-grade

http://www.physiciansfoundation.org...ndation_Biennial_Physician_Survey_Report.pdf/

From healthcare.gov fb

 

Ask them if they prefer to see 45,000 Americans die every year from lack of health care insurance.

 

Old wives tale that's not true. Nobody ever died from a lack of insurance.

 

Quite the contrary, a Canadian doctor told Republicans in Congress right to their faces that 45,000 Americans died every year from lack of health care insurance and all of them froze with fear because they knew it was true.

It is so good to see this Republican created holocaust come to an end.

Further reform will save even more lives. Sad news for you on the right, good news for the more patriotic sort like me.