Posted by Tina
February, the love month, will open with the House voting for the fourth time to repeal Obamacare. This time the legislation will not be met by blocker Harry Reid in the Senate. Obama will veto but the process is at least back in place since the ousting of Democrats in last election. That means our representatives will have to show their colors and openly vote. Our liberal friends will scream and tear their hair accusing the Congress of wasting time when they know the President will not sign the legislation. Big whoop, its time they were taken down a peg or two and made to play openly, the little tyrants!
Looking forward to the debate in the Senate.
Great information. I was really unsure of what to get my girlfriend for Valentine’s Day this year. Glad to see Post Scripts has the answer: I’ll take away her health insurance! What could be more romantic?
Poor Chris can’t imagine a world without government subsidies and hand holding. What other options might your girlfriend have? Come on, think!. I know you can figure it out.
And gee Chris ,does it occur to you that a whole bunch of people had their insurance “taken away” under Obamacare.
The Valentine wasn’t for you or your girlfriend, anyway. It’s all very well and good for those receiving freebies at the expense and burdens of others.
No, this valentine is for all of the people in America that have been screwed by Obamacare whether by losing insurance and doctors they liked, having higher premiums and co-pays, or trying to shoulder the added time and expense that comes with compliance and taxes.
It’s for all of the people who think this is a very bad law and resent deeply the underhanded partisan manner in which it was passed.
It’s for all of those who are certain this program will add to the already horrendous debt!
It’s for those who would like to see it replaced with something that doesn’t require a team of expensive lawyers, CPA’s and interpreters and corrects the few problems that needed to be fixed.
It’s for everyone that wants to know just how his Senator or Representative will vote looking forward to 2016.
Freedom from the the chains and idiocy of a bill they had to pass to see what was in it would make February a very warm and fuzzy month, rather like the day(s) WWII ended in 1945 or the end of prohibition.
I see dancin’ in the streets!
No, because that didn’t happen.
From Forbes:
To find out just how many people have really been put into an insurance fix, the Urban Institute’s Health Reform Monitoring Survey, in December of 2013, asked people between the ages of 18 and 64 the following question:
“Did you receive a notice in the past few months from a health insurance company saying that your policy is cancelled or will no longer be offered at the end of 2013?”
The following bar published in Health Affairs provides the results—
Note that the number of people who saw their policy cancelled because it did not meet the Obamacare minimum requirements was 18.6 percent—dangerously close to the 17 percent of individual policyholders who were losing their individual market policies pre-Obamacare.
Also note that the 18.6 percent equates to roughly 2.6 million people whose plans were cancelled as a result of Obamacare—a number well below the estimates of 5 million or considerably more being tossed about by Obamacare opposition.
So, what happens to these folks who saw their health insurance policy cancelled?
According to the Urban Institute researchers :
“While our sample size of those with non-group health insurance who report that their plan was cancelled due to ACA compliance is small (N=123), we estimate that over half of this population is likely to be eligible for coverage assistance, mostly through Marketplace subsidies. Consistent with these findings, other work by Urban Institute researchers estimated that slightly more than half of adults with pre-reform, nongroup coverage would be eligible for Marketplace subsidies or Medicaid.”
So what does this data tell us?
As a result of at least half of those cancelled being able to either enroll in a Medicaid program or receive subsidies on the healthcare exchanges, many—if not most—will now find health care coverage at a price lower than previously paid while greatly improving the quality of coverage.
Still, roughly one million people will have to replace their cancelled policy with something that may cost them more. This is not a good thing but it is far, far less dramatic than what we’ve been hearing. It is also a part of the expected upheaval that has always—and will always—result from the passage of reforms designed to benefit the greatest number of people. Traditionally, those who are disadvantaged in this way find that things are sorted out in amendments to the initial legislation, amendments that can only result when Republicans in Congress stop playing politics and begin the serious work of making the law better for Americans.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2014/03/10/the-real-numbers-on-the-obamacare-effect-are-in-now-let-the-crow-eating-begin/2/
“If you like your plan, you can keep your plan was always a lie. It wasn’t true even before the passage of Obamacare; just as many people were losing their individual policies after a year or two in the previous system as lost their individual policies after the ACA was implemented.
The difference is now, the majority of those who lost their plans can easily get new plans that are cheaper and better. The horror!
Pressed submit too early. The line “No, because that didn’t happen” was in response to this:
Tina: “And gee Chris ,does it occur to you that a whole bunch of people had their insurance “taken away” under Obamacare.”
As the Forbes article shows, there is only a 1% increase in the number of people who lost coverage due to Obamacare and the number who were routinely losing their plans each year prior to the law. Furthermore, most of those who lost their plans are eligible for cheaper, better plans.
“It’s for all of those who are certain this program will add to the already horrendous debt!”
And yet you continue to cite the CBO, cherry-picking its conclusions when convenient, even though it explicitly says that the law reduces the debt! Your “certainty,” as usual, bears no relation to objective reality.
“I see dancin’ in the streets!”
You’re hallucinating. People may not like the term Obamacare, but they like what’s in it. Republicans will never succeed at repealing it.
Maybe you should check to see if your delusions are covered by Obamacare?
More from that Forbes article:
“The news just keeps on coming.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index is out this morning and reveals that 15.9 percent of American adults are now uninsured, down from 17.1 percent for the last three months of 2013 and has shown improvements in every major demographic group with the exception of Hispanics who did not advance.
That translates roughly to 3 million to 4 million people getting coverage who did not have it before.
According to Gallup, the number of Americans who still do not have health insurance coverage is on track to reach the lowest quarterly number since 2008.
This is one statistic that is going to be tough for Obamacare critics to overcome.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2014/03/10/the-real-numbers-on-the-obamacare-effect-are-in-now-let-the-crow-eating-begin/3/
Forbes is a great magazine and Steve Forbes is definitely in favor of free speech. Forbes publishes opinions and positions from the left and the right.
The Weekly Standard, “Administration Concedes: Obamacare Is Prohibitively Expensive”:
Forbes, “Double Down: Obamacare Will Increase Avg. Individual-Market Insurance Premiums By 99% For Men, 62% For Women”
Forbes, “49-State Analysis: Obamacare To Increase Individual-Market Premiums By Average Of 41%
CBS News, “Obamacare 2015: Higher costs, higher penalties”
Huffington Post, “Obamacare Will Cause Medical Claims Costs To Jump 32 Percent: Study”
Business Insider, “Your Money More: Barack Obama Affordable Care Act, “Some Things Really Are Less Affordable Under Obamacare”
Just read it!
Chris: “Survey, in December of 2013, asked people between the ages of 18 and 64 the following question:”
You really should use more up to date information than 2013.
I have an Obamacare question that I have asked of numerous people; Obamacare supporters and detractors alike. I believe I even asked this question as an open question on this forum some time ago. To this day I’ve never received a reasonable answer from anyone. I usually just get a puzzled look from the person I asked. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a real answer but I have yet to hear one. So, I’m going to ask the question again.
All the states that have implemented Obamacare have implemented (or attempted to implement) an online health insurance exchange. Even the Federal government implemented an exchange. The price tag for the Federal exchange is now being reported at over $2 Billion (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/389187/how-much-did-healthcaregov-really-cost-more-administration-tells-us-veronique-de-rugy). Each of the states that implemented their own websites spent hundreds of millions of dollars to do so. It is probably a reasonable estimate to say that these exchange websites cost around $20 Billion total. Now for my question; why did we need these websites? Why did we need to spend all this money?
I’m not a supporter of Obamacare but I’m not arguing that in this post. What I want to know is what were the goals of Obamacare that made it necessary to implement such a complex and elaborate system?
When you go to one of these exchanges you do so to buy subsidized insurance. If you don’t qualify for the subsidy you go to the insurance company’s website instead. The insurance you purchase from the government websites is not “government” insurance. It still comes from the insurance companies. Yes, people may be funneled from this website to government insurance programs if they qualify (like Medi-Cal) but these programs have their own websites. Yes, there has to be a way to determine if the applicant qualifies for a subsidy but the current websites determine that by stated income. The mechanism for cross checking IRS records is still not implemented. So why do we need these sites?
The Obamacare law determines what kind of policies an insurance company can sell. We don’t need a website for that. It makes sure preexisting conditions are covered; don’t need a website for that. Why didn’t the government just say, “Obamacare is law, go to your local health insurance broker or to an insurance company and you can get subsidized health insurance if you qualify”? The insurance companies know all the available plans. The applicant would state their income and receive a premium based on any applicable subsidy. The insurance company would receive the subsidy from the government. The applicant has their insurance and the insurance company gets paid. So what is to prevent the applicant from lying? If, when they file their tax return for that year, it is determined they understated their income and they did not qualify for the subsidy they received they would have to pay it back and pay a penalty, just like we do for estimated taxes. On the other hand if they didn’t make as much as they stated they might qualify for a larger subsidy so they would get a refund.
Why did we create these health insurance exchanges? I still don’t know. A friend of mine said he thought it was just a way of getting more potential Democrats registered to vote. All of the sites I looked at did have a “register to vote” link, however the links are quite small so I’m skeptical about that. It does raise the question what does health insurance have to do with registering to vote?
So, why do YOU think we needed the health insurance exchanges?
On a side note, I work in the computer software industry. I’m not an expert on large scale website development although I have created a number of websites. I’ve heard comments from people that are website experts indicating the website should have cost no more than $10 million. And, one website could have been created and provided to all the states. The states would just need to “personalize” it for their state by changing images and associated links. This could be done for a very low cost. As an example, look how many websites are in service using WordPress. Do you think development of WordPress cost anywhere near $10 million. Granted the sites it supports are less complicated but I think it is a good scaled example.
Why was $20 Billion spent on websites when it should have cost $10 million to $20 million?
As long as your ideology is based on other peoples efforts and not yours, why give up on the format that it is costing someone other than you, there for it works….
More Common Sense, my answer is follow the money and cronyism. Remember Democrats LOVE to spend other peoples money and help out their rich friends all of the time.
Obamacare Contractor Linked to 20 Troubled Government Projects:
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.Newsmax.com/Newsfront/cgi-obamacare-ams-mishandled/2013/11/15/id/536988/#ixzz3QKgpK8VE
Michelle Obama and CGI Federal:
http://www.factcheck.org/2013/12/michelle-obama-and-cgi-federal/
Did Jarrett And Michelle Pick Incompetent Website Firm?:
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-obama-care/102813-676947-jarrett-balkissoon-wedding-influenced-cgi-selection.htm#ixzz3QKiTHFoL
And it’s going to continue to get even worse.
Failing Up in ObamaCare:
“The IRS hires the contractor that built the health law website.
Only days after the Internal Revenue Service announced that it would throttle back tax-season customer service in retaliation for modest budget cuts, the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee discovered that the agency had an active $4.46 million contract with CGI Federal. You may recall that company as the same outside website-builder-for-hire that was the lead designer for the ObamaCare website rollout fiasco of 2013.
CGI’s ineptitude was too much even for the Health and Human Services Department, which defenestrated CGI in January 2014. Several states followed. In a letter to the IRS on Friday, Illinois Republican Pete Roskam deadpans, “I am concerned that just months after the HHS and Massachusetts firings, the IRS selected the same contractor to provide critical technology services related to the administration of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/failing-up-in-obamacare-1422490370
Off topic.
Did you guys see this bombshell.
Federal judge blasts DOJ lawyers in case of ATF whistle-blower:
“A federal judge angrily accused Justice Department attorneys in newly unsealed documents of “fraud upon the court” by intimidating a witness in a case involving a former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent who alleges the agency trashed his reputation.
Judge Francis Allegra, who was appointed to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in 1998 by President Bill Clinton, is presiding over a suit brought by former ATF agent Jay Dobyns against the government agency, which he claims retaliated against him and damaged his reputation. Dobyns infiltrated Hell’s Angels and worked on cases involving the Aryan Brotherhood and MS-13 during his law enforcement career.
In a newly unsealed, Dec. 1, 2014, court ruling that legal experts said was highly unusual, Allegra accused seven Justice Department lawyers of “fraud upon the court, banned them from making any further filings in the case and took the unusual step of directly notifying Attorney General Eric Holder.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/01/29/federal-judge-blasts-doj-lawyers-in-case-fast-furious-whistleblower/
More Common Sense the original plan was to have each state create its own exchange. Some states opted out stating as a reason that the new mandates for Medicaid would create a financial burden they couldn’t meet. That’s when it was decided that a federal exchange would be created. Poor planning…I guess they didn’t think this thing through.
My explanation for the exchanges, indeed the entire legislation, is that the final destination is a federal single payer system. The exchanges are great for data collection and categorizing citizens into groups according to their means and need. Government knows best. The government doesn’t want people getting insurance from private brokers they want them to think the government provides…they want citizens dependent and grateful. (Of course they need them ignorant and malleable as well, thus the dumbing down of curriculum in our schools.)
The radical Marxist/fascist left has loads of money so I don’t think the cronyism counts as much as the ideal…the cronyism is simply another means to an end.
This one law, combined with other social dependency programs, will just about kill off all sense of individual liberty Americans ever had. The fundamental transformation of America will be complete within a decade or two unless Americans wise up and realize what all this free stuff will cost them.
Did I answer your question? If not ask again.
Alternate explanation for the push to single payer: it’s cheaper and it works better, as proven by every industrialized Western country other than America.
Such a lie.
20 Myths About single-payer healthcare
Five Strikes Against Single Payer Healthcare
If Single Payer Can’t Work in Vermont
Sweden’s Single Payer Health System Provides a Warning to Other Nations
Single Payer: Why Government-Run Health Care Will Harm Both Patients and Doctors
A free Market Remedy for Healthcare
“What I want to know is what were the goals of Obamacare that made it necessary to implement such a complex and elaborate system?”
The answer is: we didn’t need such an expensive or complex system at all. The ACA “Obamacare” was bought and paid for by the big hospitals, insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It’s corporate welfare. Both the Republicans and Democrats are fully controlled by the large corporations and serve their needs before the needs of us common folks.
A much simpler, easier and less expensive option would be Single Payer. However that kind of shuts out the insurance companies and they weren’t going to give up those profits so easily.
Jim you’re right we didn’t need an expensive complex system. And I agree companies involved in healthcare were either complicit in the formation of this idea or were railroaded into it. But the idea was originated by the radical far left wingers who control the Democrat Party. In fact the push for single payer can be traced to the 1800’s.
Businesses do not make laws but they can benefit from them OR be harmed by them.
The big boys that were on board due to shared ideology were promised bigger profits from increases in their customer base. Those who were against it were told to go along or their companies would be left out in the cold.
If you think a single payer system wouldn’t involve the same cronyism and deal making for “preferred companies” you’re wrong. The money would still be shoveled into companies that go along, friends of progressive government, but all competition would be eliminated and so would our choices. We’d get to pay for healthcare and the big bloated bureaucracy to manage it.
I continue to be amazed hat people think putting government in charge will remove profit…nope, sorry, it simply consolidates and controls who profits…and who doesn’t.
A much smarter, simpler and less costly model would be getting government out of the healthcare industry completely! Make companies, hospitals and doctors compete for our healthcare dollars and they will find ways to deliver the product better at a better cost.
Profits are used for many things including investor returns, repayment and interest on loans, paying employees, buying equipment and supplies, renovation and expansion, and the creation of new products.
What is your problem with profits?
Tina, RE: Affordable Care Act “But the idea was originated by the radical far left wingers who control the Democrat Party.”
Well kind of. The original concept that became Obamacare goes back to the Heritage Foundation. First proposed in congress by Republican Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island in 1993. The ACA has some differences, however it’s the same concept, which is corporate control medical care.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/15/ellen-qualls/aca-gop-health-care-plan-1993/
Medicare is a good example of Single Payer. It is so much simpler, and has been very effective in providing health care to senior citizens. Yes, Medicare has been corrupted by privatization, however it still gets very high approval ratings from the public.
Back to the question from “More Common Sense” A much simpler and less expensive solution would have been to simply expand Medicare to cover younger people. It could have been rolled out slowly to make the transition easier.
The good news is, it can still be done! The Republican congress can introduce this simple proposal any time they want as a replacement for Obamacare.
Jim the Heritage Foundation did come up with a plan during the debate over Hillarycare. But liberal political spin about it distorts and deceives.
Scott Lemieux of American Prospect refutes the oft repeated lie that Heritage is the originator of Obamacare:
Stuart Butler, one of the architects of the Heritage plan, explains differences in the “mandate” in a USA Today article:
Democrats always put power and control in the hands of a few in Washington and then impose taxes, regulations and mandates that only add greatly to the overall cost of our healthcare.
Republicans encourage people through tax incentives and vouchers and seek to put more power into individual hands.
But I wasn’t talking about the ACA or the Heritage plan. I was talking about single payer which the socialist radicals of the Democrat Party have wanted since the 1930’s.
Your notion that there can ever be “corporate control” of our healthcare system, without the big big hammer of government legislation making it so, is simply ridiculous. No one can force you to buy a particular insurance or use a particular doctor or hospital…except a tyrannical government through an oppressive law. The more freedom we citizens have to choose and the more choices we have to choose from, the less we will pay for healthcare and insurance. Government intrusion has created mini fiefdoms and that has pushed prices higher.
We have legal means to discourage and prevent monopolies in the private sector…who will be there to protect us from a government monopoly and it’s high prices, fraud, waste and abuse? That’s what we’d have with a single payer government plan, a monopoly.
Also, Medicare is not a single payer plan:
Medicare has two payers, not one, the patient and the government. If an individual also purchases supplemental insurance to cover his co-pays and deductables a third payer is involved.
Additionally, Medicare is one of the main drivers of our burgeoning debt!
Obamacare will add significantly to that already troublesome debt. It was $10 trillion when he took office; it is over $18 trillion now.
The latest CBO report notes that “healthcare costs will continue to rise” and “that increase, combined with new federal subsidies for healthcare under Obamacare,” will create “new financial burdens on the government that will lead to more debt”:
(All emphasis mine)
Government has no magic pill. It takes money from private citizens to deliver the “free” programs it proposes. In the process trillions of dollars are spent to collect money, process forms, and redistribute services. There’s no way government can deliver a better product at a cheaper price. The reason Medicare shouldn’t be expanded to include young people is that it’s already unsustainable. If anything it should be drastically reformed.
A good article about government involvement in healthcare, “Government and Health Care: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly,” from CATO highlights the limited roll government should have and points the way to less costly care that is more accessible.
Tina: Boy your pundits (talking heads) are long winded.
Ok, you are so correct, technically there are three payers in Medicare.
However Medicare is the kind of system people are talking about when they use the term “single payer” Simpler, lower cost, higher user satisfaction then what us pre-Medicare folks have access to, now and before Obmacare.
Jim I think most Americans are on the same page in terms of what they want: affordable, accessible, and definitely simpler.
Medicare is not a good model it only looks good from the outside. The debt to future generations is really bad news and there are those who show that when the third party payer, Medicare, was introduced in the costs began to rise significantly. Some of it was due to tech advances but most of t was due to the red tape and expense of the bureaucracy and the lack of a competing force.
I’m not concerned so much with “most people.” Most people are reasonable, willing to learn, and they’re tired of being jerked around by federal laws that pick winners and losers.
I am concerned with the very radical elements that now control the Democrat Party. When they talk about single payer they want total government control over all of it.
The Heritage article, “Buyer Beware: The Failure of Single-Payer Health Care” features an international panel of experts who express the problems of single payer in their respective countries. Just in case you’re interested in another long winded conservative view. 😉
I sincerely hope the Congress, both Republicans and moderate Democrats, can come up with a simple plan to replace Obamacare that is affordable, accessible and designed to offer real choices to the American people for insurance coverage. I hope they design a plan that encourages young people to go into medicine again and offers patients and doctors flexibility and freedom with respect to treatments. I hope they design a plan that offers certainty to the private sector so we can get people back to work again.
Got all my fingers and toes crossed!
Holy cow! For you guys under 60 your fiscal future looks really bad.
CBO Director Predicts Unsustainable Debt, ‘Heightening the Risk of Fiscal Crisis’:
“CBO Director Douglas Elmdorf testified that debt will exceed 100% of GDP within 25 years and continue to rise, a “trend that could not be sustained” and would eventually heighten “the risk of a fiscal crisis” before the House Budget Committee on Tuesday.
“Although the deficits in our baseline projections remain roughly stable as a percentage of GDP through 2018, as I noted, they rise after that. The deficit in 2025 is projected to be $1.1 trillion, or 4% of GDP, and cumulative deficits over the 2016 to 2025 period are projected to total $7.6 trillion. We expect that federal debt held by the public will amount to 74% of GDP at the end of this fiscal year, more than twice what it was at the end of 2007, and higher than in any year since 1950. By 2025, in our baseline projections, federal debt rises to nearly 79% of GDP. When CBO last issued long-term budget projections in the summer, we projected that, under current law, debt would exceed 100 percent of GDP 25 years from now, and would continue on an upward trajectory thereafter. That trend that could not be sustained. Such large and growing federal debt would have serious negative consequences, including increasing federal spending for interest payments, restraining economic growth in the long term, giving policymakers less flexibility to respond to unexpected challenges, and eventually heightening the risk of a fiscal crisis” he stated.
According to a copy of his prepared remarks released by the CBO, the revised economic projections “do not materially change” predictions that debt will exceed 100% of GDP in 25 years and “CBO’s current projection of debt as a percentage of GDP in 2024 is quite close to that used as the starting point for the projections in The 2014 Long-Term Budget Outlook [where the CBO also predicted that debt will be 100% of GDP in 25 years.]”
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/01/27/cbo-director-predicts-unsustainable-debt-heightening-the-risk-of-fiscal-crisis/