Well, I finally broke down and went to the web site last night, before midnight.
After all the horror stories I’d been hearing, I was shocked to get in immediately. It was surprisingly easy to navigate, just like Amazon or Kayak, just like the president promised. All the options were laid out clearly, and the prices were surprisingly affordable, even for the Gold Plan. I signed up, and I finally have the insurance I’ve been waiting for all these years, good in every state, and it allows me to keep all my doctors. It includes free fitted condoms, and I can finally get that hysterectomy I’ve been putting off all these years.
I was wrong, Mr. President, and you were right. I’m sorry I so foolishly listened to ignorant criticism of this wonderful new law these past four years, and so harshly and falsely criticized it myself. I don’t know what I can do to make amends, but I know that from here on out, I will be a Democrat right up until that day that the death panel makes what I’m sure will be the right decision for me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you Mr. President.
[Update a few minutes later]
I’m a little shocked to hear that some people think I would make jokes about something as serious as health care.
I only got through the first two sentences before I realized what day it was. ^_^
As soon as I got to “just like the president promised” I knew you had to be joking…
Hello ID theft. Or has our host’s identity just been stolen for this post?
It’s about time you listened carefully and obsequiously to Jim and obeyed the edicts. Jim knows what’s what and your endless resistance to his kindly effulgent, thoughtful logic was uncalled-for stubborness.
Did they hand out How to Serve Man as a helpful complementary tool?
snicker… đ
Awesome April Post.
Here’s an even better April Fool’s post, only they’re playing like it’s the truth.
Now that you’re a dead fish, wasn’t that easier? Go with the flow!!!
I’m happy to hear the administration hit the CBO target for enrollments, so that ACA will continue to be a financial boon to this country. Just think, before ACA roughly 40 million people were uninsured. There is still work to be done, but now there are 7 million less people uninsured.
Interesting, isn’t it, that the number of enrolees is close to the number who lost their insurance thanks to Obamacare.
I wonder what the net effect of Obamacare is; is the number of uninsured higher, or lower, than before?
According to a RAND study:
* “at least 9.5 million previously uninsured people have gained coverage”
* “Fewer than a million people who had health plans in 2013 are now uninsured because their plans were canceled for not meeting new standards set by the law”
It’s a decent start. It’d be better if more states had expanded Medicaid, and some of the exchanges and websites had been better run. The numbers should be better next year.
Almost half of the uninsured went on Medicaid. That means they are still not insured.
And if we’re going to consider Medicaid recipients as being “covered”, then every uninsured was covered prior to this mess by being able to show up in the ER.
Having Medicaid is very different from “being able to show up in the ER”. With Medicaid you can see a doctor, get glasses, have a surgical procedure, fill prescriptions, be admitted to a hospital, etc., even when it isn’t a matter of immediate life and death. Having Medicaid is like having private medical insurance, except that there’s generally little or no deductible or co-pay, it isn’t accepted by as many providers, and it covers some things that private insurance usually doesn’t (e.g. long term nursing home care, transportation to medical appointments, mental health care management, etc.).
I’m not sure what you mean by “they are still not insured”. They can get needed medical care without paying for it out of pocket. In practical terms, that’s the benefit of health insurance.
You have some funny definitions.
With Medicaid you can see a doctor, get glasses, have a surgical procedure, fill prescriptions, be admitted to a hospital, etc., even when it isnât a matter of immediate life and death.
For now. But a few months ago, I saw a Medicaid patent who was recovering from a serious infection get punted out of a hospital just like they were an ER freeloader. It’s just an anecdote, but I no longer buy that Medicaid is an adequate replacement for low end health insurance.
Itâs just an anecdote
Indeed. You can also find anecdotes of people with private insurance being denied care. But having Medicaid is a lot closer to having private insurance than it is to having no coverage at all.
Jim writes:
“With Medicaid you can see a doctor, get glasses, have a surgical procedure, fill prescriptions, be admitted to a hospital, etc., even when it isnât a matter of immediate life and death. Having Medicaid is like having private medical insurance, except that thereâs generally little or no deductible or co-pay, …..”
And the recipient of the coverage DOES NOT PAY A PREMIUM. therefore it is NOT insurance…it is a welfare benefit.
How dense can you be?
“…..it isnât accepted by as many providers, and it covers some things that private insurance usually doesnât (e.g. long term nursing home care, transportation to medical appointments, mental health care management, etc.).
“I’m not sure what you mean by âthey are still not insuredâ.
They are NOT INSURED. They have a free medical benefit……. They are not paying into the system. They did not choose one of the insurance plans offered by Obamacare. IT. IS. NOT. INSURANCE.
But youve always had a problem with the definition of insurance.
“They can get needed medical care without paying for it out of pocket. In practical terms, thatâs the benefit of health insurance.”
Dolt. First off, part of that out of pocket costs they are not paying is a premium. Therefore it’s free health care..NOT insurance.
Putting people on Medicaid is not insuring them. It is providing free health care.
Secondly because its’ not insurance they are not supporting the payouts with premium payments. Who do you think will pay for all of that?
So DO NOT use the term “insured” and include Medicaid, when referring to how many people are insured by Obama-cide. I know you’d love to be able to do that to hide the fact that it’s a dismal failure, but anyone with two synapses to rub together knows you are playing a word game and not really talking reality.
You know damn good and well it was sold to be a replacement *INSURANCE* scheme and it has utterly failed at that.
No one has seen the RAND report except the LA Times and you are parroting the LA Times ragtime. DO NOT say what the RAND report says because you do not know what it says.
You only know the ragtime the LA Times is giving you.
the recipient of the coverage DOES NOT PAY A PREMIUM. therefore it is NOT insuranceâŚit is a welfare benefit
It isn’t insurance if you don’t pay for it? So if you’re covered on your spouse’s policy, that isn’t insurance, just a marital benefit? If your employer pays your premium it isn’t insurance, just an employment benefit? Does anyone actually say “I don’t have health insurance, I get coverage from work”?
“It isnât insurance if you donât pay for it? So if youâre covered on your spouseâs policy, that isnât insurance, just a marital benefit?”
A marriage is a partnership. One partner is paying for insurance for both.
“If your employer pays your premium it isnât insurance, just an employment benefit?”
It is insurance and a benefit, your employer is paying premiums on your behalf rather than give you more money to purchase your own insurance.
In both of these examples, someone is paying premiums for a good commonly referred to as health insurance. What you are talking about, Medicaid, is welfare. No one is paying premiums and the mechanisms behind Medicaid are different, but similar to, health insurance.
There are many differences between Medicaid and health insurance. The two are not the same. From your POV, more people on Medicaid is a benefit of Obamacare (even though that was not what the law was sold on) but that doesn’t mean you get to claim these people now have insurance.
You always take the English language very seriously right up until you don’t.
What you are talking about, Medicaid, is welfare. No one is paying premiums
Huh? In most states Medicaid is administered by private companies. The state pays a premium for each person enrolled, and the insurer pays claims. In what way is that not insurance?
that doesnât mean you get to claim these people now have insurance
So instead we should claim that they don’t have insurance? That’s ridiculous. Having millions of uninsured is a problem because when those people get hurt or sick they either don’t get care or the care providers don’t get paid. People on Medicaid aren’t part of that problem — they can get care, and the caregivers can get paid. Getting more people on Medicaid is one way to reduce the number of uninsured.
“Fewer than a million people who had health plans in 2013 are now uninsured because their plans were canceled for not meeting new standards set by the law”
Conveniently narrowing the definition of “lost their insurance due to Obamacare” in a way that supports your claim.
Are the *only* people who have lost their insurance due to Obamacare lost it because their plans were deemed non-compliant? How about the people who have lost their insurance because they could no longer afford it, due to the effects of Obamacare?
How about the people who have lost their insurance because they could no longer afford it, due to the effects of Obamacare?
I’m curious about what you mean here. If their insurance already met the standards of the law, how would “the effects of Obamacare” make it unaffordable?
If their insurance already met the standards of the law, how would âthe effects of Obamacareâ make it unaffordable?
By greatly raising the costs to the insurers of providing that insurance.
By greatly raising the costs to the insurers of providing that insurance.
Could you be more specific? Obamacare charges the insurers a per-customer fee of something like $60. To my mind that doesn’t qualify as “greatly”. On the other hand, Obamacare is giving insurers millions of new customers, which lowers the cost of their providing insurance by giving them more volume and more bargaining power with doctors, hospitals and drug companies.
There’s also elimination of pre-existing conditions, enlarging the services covered by health insurance (such as the mentioned birth control), and attempting to force people to buy health insurance via the individual mandate.
I see even more cost inflating features. Note that I just linked to a pro-Obamacare website (they even still have the “If you like your plan, you can keep it.” calumny). They list other cost inflating features of Obamacare such as insurance-paid preventive services and large insurance subsidies which scale with the cost of insurance (you only pay a fixed portion of your income no matter how expensive the insurance becomes). They claim falsely that Obamacare doesn’t “ration” healthcare (Medicaid being a good counterexample). If that were true, it’d be another cost inflating feature of the bill.
Finally, there’s your little $60 per customer fee for bailing out insurance companies which promise too much. I can already tell you that won’t be enough for the more exploitative insurance companies which fold due to insufficient capitalization to cover their insurance obligations.
elimination of pre-existing conditions, enlarging the services covered by health insurance
Those are “standards set by the new law”, i.e. you’re talking again about the “fewer than a million” who had their policies cancelled because they didn’t meet the law’s standards. I’m asking about the people T.L. James cited, whose policies met ACA standards but became unaffordable for other ACA-related reasons.
attempting to force people to buy health insurance via the individual mandate
As I noted earlier, that actually reduces the insurer’s cost of providing insurance, by increasing volume and insurer bargaining power.
insurance-paid preventive services
Again, T.L James was talking about policies that already had that.
large insurance subsidies
Subsidies don’t increase the insurers’ costs.
So again, T.L. James, who are these people who had insurance that met ACA standards but suddenly found it unaffordable because of other effects of the law? Do they exist?
The cost of a product will always rise to the minimum subsidy. All deductibles will rise to the out of pocket cap unless increases in premiums cover the difference. A mixture of this is already taking place and will continue to do so.
As costs get worse and people get more upset, they will demand action from politicians that control the health care system. In typical command economy fashion, price fixing will have significant negative effects. Look no further than what Obama’s buddy Maduro is doing.
How long it takes to destroy our medical system is in question. It depends a lot on the loyal opposition acting as a parachute while Democrats in the harness shoot holes in the parachute with a shotgun while screaming that the parachute wants everyone to die.
The cost of a product will always rise to the minimum subsidy
The minimum subsidy is zero.
Subsidies donât increase the insurersâ costs.
Subsidies increase demand. Note that a lot of these policies increase demand as well as increasing insurers’ costs directly. But you’ve heard most of this before. In one ear and out the other, I guess.
As to your “I’ll ignore your argument because I’ll pretend it’s off topic” game, I think you’re being dishonest here. I listed a bunch of stuff that raises the cost of providing insurance either directly or by increasing the demand for its medical care. Not all insurers in all states are prepared for that. For example, if I had a small presence in a state, then that becomes a big risk for me. I have to comply with unknown future state-specific regulation and costs for little gain. It’s reasonable to expect that in some places and states, insurers will cut their losses rather than take that on.
Subsidies increase demand.
How does increased demand raise the insurers’ costs? Doesn’t it lower them instead, by letting them amortize fixed costs over larger volume?
I have to comply with unknown future state-specific regulation and costs for little gain.
Insurers had to “comply with unknown future state-specific regulation and costs” before the ACA as well. The ACA increases demand, and thereby increases the “little gain” side of the equation.
The ACA does not “greatly” increase the cost of providing insurance that meets the law’s standards.
How does increased demand raise the insurersâ costs?
It results in higher medical care costs which past the deductible, the insurance company pays for.
Insurers had to âcomply with unknown future state-specific regulation and costsâ before the ACA as well.
They got bigger due to Obamacare which put a large amount of new uncertainty into these markets. Come on, Jim. It’s not hard to figure it out.
Um Jim, the LA Times story you quoted says: “at least 9.5 million previously uninsured people have gained coverage” RAND doesn’t actually make that statement.
To get to that number, you have to include 4.5 million that went on Medicaid and 3 million adult children getting care through their parents because they are under 26. Only 2 million on paying customers. All of those numbers come from just 3,300 people in an Opinion Survey. Seems odd to publish enrollment numbers from an opinion survey.
Even more odd that the LA times article links to all sorts of items, but the primary fail to link to RAND, which they instead quote heavily. 2 of the last 4 previous blog posts mention that the survey results are unstable with the post just prior to the March 22nd date (mentioned by the LA Times) stating that there was a steep decline in favorable opinion.
Really odd is that when you actually look at the data from the survey; all it says is people are very unhappy with ACA. Gee, its like the questions primarily deal with do you think you better today than yesterday, yet results in a break down of number of enrollees by type? They don’t actually state all the questions, but none of the questions they do state ask about coverage prior to 2014. And note the bold statement saying they are surveying the same people over time. But then they say they survey 5,500 people, while the LA Times says they survey 3,300 people?
It’s just me, but I wouldn’t claim an unstable opinion survey provides accurate results for millions of enrollments. Hell the variation for just the month of March is 4%, so before you even put a confidence interval on expanding 5,500 people (RAND’s number) to 9.5 million, you already have to allow for a minimum 4% variance. The overall variance for the 6 months is 7% for just the opinions that went from favorable to unfavorable.
Leland, don’t lead them off the narrative. Only a million people lost insurance due to Obamacare, so don’t mention that a those million could probably be found just in LA and San Francisco by California’s numbers. And a 20 something who went back to their parent’s coverage (because their employer dropped them) is now newly insured!
There were over 44 million uninsured in the US, and at least 6 or 7 million lost their insurance and many lost their jobs, so now they’re on Medicaid or Obamacare, living in poverty so that Ivy League graduates in DC can sit back and sip single malt scotch to celebrate their great victory for the masses.
The sad thing is, seeing how idiotically worshipful Democrats are of anyone who gets rich by driving poor people deeper into poverty and desperation, why didn’t Republicans do this themselves, just to conform to the stereotypes?
I assume it springs from the same idiocy that has the Democrats worshiping Woodrow Wilson, who was the most blatantly and destructively racist and class conscious American leader since Jefferson Davis (also a staunch racist Democrat, as are all).
“Um Jim, the LA Times story you quoted says: âat least 9.5 million previously uninsured people have gained coverageâ RAND doesnât actually make that statement.”
Leland, Jim almost always lies about what is is said in the sources he provides.
RAND doesnât actually make that statement
To be pedantic, it’s RAND that came up with the 9.5 million number, and the L.A. Times writer Noam N. Levey who came up with the specific series of words that ran in the article reporting RAND’s 9.5 million finding. Is that really the distinction you want to argue about?
As far as I know RAND is the only outfit that’s tried to put a number on the net effect of Obamacare on the total number of people with health insurance. Their survey is consistent with Gallup’s results. If you have a better source of data, by all means cite it.
Forbes also finds the numbers sketchy. I’m not making the distinction. I’m noting the facts you are careless in ignoring. If you don’t like being called on it, be more careful not to lie.
As for providing better numbers, that is the point made by many people over and over: the most transparent administration ever should easily provide the exact numbers, yet they do not. If the RAND study is the best numbers you have, you should be embarrassed that you can’t do better.
As far as I know RAND is the only outfit thatâs tried to put a number on the net effect of Obamacare on the total number of people with health insurance.
Once again, Jim goes with the first outfit that just puts a number out. Sometimes that first number is useless. The problem here is that just because someone says they got insurance doesn’t mean that they’ll pay for it.
Jim and I must have access to a different RAND study. The Evil RAND study reported in Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/03/31/rand-only-one-third-of-obamacare-exchange-sign-ups-were-from-the-previously-uninsured/
has only one quarter of exchange signups from the previously uninsured. Furthermore, there is evidence, agains from Evil sources, that the results from Medicaid expansion are ambiguous when you compare Expansion and non-Expansion states.
The worst part of this is not whether we spread the cost of healthcare around or not, whether the Democrats and the President go down in history as realizing Harry Truman’s dream or not.
The worst part of this is the descent into Chavezism, that the government is no longer transparent with respect to statistics and outcomes. One of the conservative knocks on “socialized medicine” is that what were market decisions and personal decisions become political decisions complete with spin and partisan politics, and yes, on both sides. This law has barely been implemented, and it is already hyper-political and hyper-spun, and hyper-obfuscated.
“Jim and I must have access to a different RAND study. The Evil RAND study reported in Forbes http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/03/31/rand-only-one-third-of-obamacare-exchange-sign-ups-were-from-the-previously-uninsured/”
You DO NOT have access to the RAND study. You haven’t the faintest idea what it says nor how it says it.
You are doing worse than Jim – Jim referenced The LA Times article by Noam Levey. You are referencing an article that references the LA TImes article by Noam Levey.
You are quoting a 3rd hand reference to a 2nd hand reference to an original document that no one has seen besides the LA Times – looky here – this is from your 3rd hand reference:
“The RAND study hasnât yet been published, but its contents were made available to Noam Levey of the Los Angeles Times. RAND also estimates that 9 million individuals have purchased health plans directly from insurers, outside of the exchanges, but that âthe vast majority of these people were previously insured.â ”
Pathetic.
So basically what it’s saying is that they haven’t seen the document but they have a friend who has and that friend tells them thus and such.
Forgive us if we don’t believe the Obama rump swabs at the LA Times OR Forbes.
The LA Times is the second-to-last source I’d reject as giving a true account of a secret document no one else has seen.
The Administration is the first source I’d reject as giving a true accounting.
Forgive us if we donât believe the Obama rump swabs at the LA Times OR Forbes.
I love the idea that Avik Roy is an “Obama rump swab”!
I can see Baghdad Jim reading “My New Healthcare Plan” while sipping his morning Kool-Aid, and being so astonished he did a Danny Thomas style spit-take all over his footie pajamas.
What’s to be astonished by? Other than the bit about condoms and hysterectomies it matches my experience buying insurance at Healthcare.gov.
Indeed. I’m not astonished at all that you would be sitting in your footie pajamas sipping hot cocoa and laughing at the tens of millions of struggling people who just got fucked up the ass by big bureaucracy, having to pay more for less while you magically pay less for more because you’re a member of a special and protected class of rich lily white liberals.
because youâre a member of a special and protected class of rich lily white liberals
How exactly do you thing this works? Do you think I checked a “rich lily white liberal” box at Healthcare.gov, so they gave me a good premium?
The ACA is an immediately good deal for the poor (in Medicaid expanding states) and the medically risky who don’t get insurance from their employer. It’s an immediately bad deal for the not-poor, medically low-risk who can no longer buy cheap insurance based on their low risk (of course those people will be higher risk some day). So yes, to the degree that the poor tend to vote for Democrats, the ACA helps a Democratic constituency, at the expense of the young, another Democratic constituency. By banning gender discrimination it helps women (a Dem demo) at the expense of men (a GOP demo). But the way it helps me — by taking medical history out of the equation — doesn’t have anything to do with my politics. Bad medical history afflicts Democrats and Republicans alike.
“he ACA is an immediately good deal for the poor (in Medicaid expanding states) and the medically risky who donât get insurance from their employer.”
There you go again…Tell us Jim, how many “medically risky” did not get insurance from their employer?? What fraction of the insurable population?
You have NO CLUE how many…to you it’s just a handy talking point to bring tears to the eyes of the masses and try to justify an unjustifiable destruction of a great system
It would have been simpler, less destructive and FAR cheaper if the Feds just bought them insurance policies.
It would have been simpler, less destructive and FAR cheaper if the Feds just bought them insurance policies.
So would you support repealing Obamacare, and instead having the Federal government buy insurance policies for everyone who’s turned down on the individual insurance market (e.g. me)?
Jim, we call that Medicaid. From what you’re telling me, that’s what you should be on, assuming you can’t afford medical care for your family.
we call that Medicaid.
Most people turned down for individual insurance do not qualify for Medicaid (I certainly wouldn’t). Is your answer that they should pay out of pocket for all their medical care until they’re poor enough that they do qualify? Even that wouldn’t work (in most states childless working adults don’t qualify for Medicaid regardless of how low their income is).
So would you support repealing Obamacare, and instead having the Federal government buy insurance policies for everyone whoâs turned down on the individual insurance market (e.g. me)?
Texas pretty much had that before ACA, so why do you always opt for a federal solution? You don’t seem to care for a federal solution for using your insurance across state lines.
“But the way it helps me â by taking medical history out of the equation â doesnât have anything to do with my politics.”
It also doesn’t have anything to do with how the old system operated in the rest of the country. The problems you had were not shared by all people in other states. In Washington the longest a person could be delayed from buying health insurance due to a pre-existing condition was one year. This was to prevent people from only getting insurance after they needed it.
From what I understand, NH only has one insurance company on the exchange. I don’t know if that is the only company operating in NH but it seems to me that a monopoly will not lead to lower prices in the long term and could have been a contributing factor in why your previous plan was more expensive.
Obamacare leaves in place and reinforces many of the factors that drive up health care and health insurance costs. It overlays a federal bureaucracy, dictating Democrat’s political ideology, onto state systems that are run differently than each other.
Mandating people buy health insurance and then letting them choose whatever they want as long as it meets their state regulations, would have been much better but still a major loss of freedom. The odious part are the dictates about what must be covered and how providers must operate because it removes choice from the state, individual, and provider. Politics and ideology have a large role in determining what gets covered and for who as well as how the system is run do to the doctor patient level, not what is the best way to care for an individual.
In Washington the longest a person could be delayed from buying health insurance due to a pre-existing condition was one year.
Good for WA. Would someone with a pre-existing condition have to pay more than someone without?
I haven’t reviewed every state’s laws, but my understanding is that in most states it was completely legal for insurers to turn away applications from individuals with pre-existing conditions.
From what I understand, NH only has one insurance company on the exchange.
Correct, Anthem.
I donât know if that is the only company operating in NH but it seems to me that a monopoly will not lead to lower prices in the long term and could have been a contributing factor in why your previous plan was more expensive.
There are a few other companies, but yes, the relative lack of competition was and is part of the problem. Two other insurers (beside Anthem) have announced plans to sell on the exchange for 2015, and I hope that degree of competition will help hold down future premium increases.
The odious part are the dictates about what must be covered and how providers must operate because it removes choice from the state, individual, and provider.
It removes some choices — e.g. the option to buy a policy that doesn’t cover maternity costs — and adds some choices — e.g. the ability to be insured regardless of health history, and (to a large extent) regardless of income. I think the choices it adds are much more important and more positive than the ones it takes away. The choice to buy a policy without maternity coverage is just an option to shift the costs of childbearing more completely onto the women who do the actual childbearing; it saves a few bucks for everyone else, but given that society in general has a strong interest in mothers getting good maternity care, it hurts the country at large. Lifetime limits are similar — they’re a false economy, a sort of negative lottery where you save a few bucks for the chance to get stuck with medical bills far beyond your ability to pay. How does preserving that option make ours a better country?
The most obvious reason for someone to oppose the ACA is if it raises their premiums. The main reason for that is that it favors the sick and the old, so if you aren’t sick or old (and don’t qualify for subsidies) your costs just went up. But of course the young and well will someday be sick and old, and the same people complaining about their 2014 premium hike will later be on the receiving end. Think of when Medicare was passed — overnight tens of millions of under-65 workers started paying a new tax that was of no immediate benefit to them. They far outnumbered the “winners”, the over-65s getting free insurance. But eventually virtually everyone turns 65 and gets the benefits of the program they’ve been supporting all those decades. Medicare is now such a popular program that even the Republicans try to position themselves as its strongest defenders.
Now the Koch Brothers are going to aim their cancer beam at you. Watch out!
And there’s this:
http://www.imao.us/index.php/2014/04/good-one/
Speaking of healthcare, I just received a notice in the mail from the White House. Apparently, for a small voluntary donation to the Democratic Party chest, they will send you a small piece of cloth from BO’s pajamas. Just hold it against the portion of your body that needs to be healed and YOU WILL BE HEALED.
Iâm curious about what you mean here. If their insurance already met the standards of the law, how would âthe effects of Obamacareâ make it unaffordable?
Hey, Jim, several of us on this forum have found health insurance unaffordable and are now uninsured. Why? Because Obamacare made our policies illegal.
Hello, Jim, we’re here! Yes, real, breathing people that have told you this ad nauseum!
Not worth the bother. Jim can pretend you don’t exist longer than you can try to get his attention.
Why? Because Obamacare made our policies illegal.
Right, your policies did not meet the standards of the law (putting you among the “fewer than a million” in that category, according to the RAND survey). T.L. James asserted (above) that there were many other people whose policies did meet the standards of the law, who lost insurance because Obamacare made their policies unaffordable. I am curious about that, about the specific mechanism that made those already ACA-compliant policies unaffordable.
It’s called actuarial science. Here is Wapo trying to help LIVs like Jim.
“Right, your policies did not meet the standards of the law …”
and just where does the federal government get the power to dictate what a policy can contain?
You lie just like Obama lied: that crap you spout is the smoke screen to hide the fact that in order to have a prayer of working, the Obama-cide system had to force people to buy coverage they neither wanted nor needed.
And of course, human beings being what they are, the masses didn’t react the way the Central Planners thought they would.
Quelle Surprise.
And now Obama-cide is floundering.
human beings being what they are, the masses didnât react the way the Central Planners thought they would
In what way? The original CBO forecast was that 7 million would sign up for private plans on the ACA exchanges for coverage in 2014. After the website rollout fiasco they revised that down to 6 million. The number turned out to be about 7.1 million. The masses seem to have reacted pretty much as forecast.
“Right, your policies did not meet the standards of the law (putting you among the âfewer than a millionâ”
That is total BS. IIRC, it was over a million in my state alone. I didn’t lose my old plan because it lacked any standards, I lost it because it didn’t have maternity care for my wife and dental for my kids neither of which do I have.
“I am curious about that, about the specific mechanism that made those already ACA-compliant policies unaffordable.”
The President is jerking the entire system around every time he opens his mouth and dictates what must be covered, who qualifies for subsidies, retroactively ordering plans to be reinstated, insurers to make pay outs to people who may or may not have insurance, providers to treat people who may or may not have insurance, and continuously changing timelines and deadlines. Why wouldn’t any of that drive up costs as insurers, providers, businesses, and individuals scramble to keep up with the constant changes?
IIRC, it was over a million in my state alone.
Over a million “are now uninsured because their plans were canceled for not meeting new standards set by the lawâ? That would be news to the RAND researchers.
I didnât lose my old plan because it lacked any standards, I lost it because it didnât have maternity care for my wife and dental for my kids neither of which do I have.
Those are exactly the sort of standards we’re talking about.
Why wouldnât any of that drive up costs as insurers, providers, businesses, and individuals scramble to keep up with the constant changes?
“Why wouldn’t” isn’t an answer, it’s hand waving. Be specific — why would (say) letting insurers keep selling some plans that don’t meet ACA standards greatly raise the insurers’ costs?
As a number of commenters have pointed out, if the administration wanted to know and publicize exactly what the numbers are, they could easily get those numbers and publicize them. The rest of us cannot ask the hundreds of insurance companies for that information, but they could do it easily and get exact numbers.
They have not done that; they are continuing to rely on and publicize squishy nonsense like “how many people came to the web site” and “how many people filled out the form”.
I presume they would publicize the real numbers if they were favorable.
“They have not done that; they are continuing to rely on and publicize squishy nonsense”
I am confused as to why anyone would look upon this administration with distrust. Obama and his crack team of brain commandos have never been anything less than honest, trustworthy, and competent.
Good one. At first I was afraid that you posted this April 2, but I see you got it in with plenty of time to spare.
He got in with plenty of time. Obama appreciation day is still 13 days out!
More useless debate with Baghdad Jim. The Stockholm Syndrome is strong in this one. If part of Obamacare involved IRS goons holding him down while Sebelius gives him some dildo action up the wazoo, Jim would probably be signing in here to tell you how wonderful it was.
How is it not insurance Jim? Simple, let’s unmuddy the waters…
Insurance is a business. A very simple business. Government isn’t a business because of it’s coercive powers. No matter how much you quack, it isn’t a duck.
It’s a business based on probability and actuarial tables. It profits the insurer and lowers risk for the insured. It does not require any government involvement. It does require the buyer beware and it would be helpful if the press did their job of reporting the bad actors. It’s no more complicated than that.
Preexisting conditions can not be insured if you understood my last paragraph. Something other than insurance must deal with that. Charities have been the historical method although insuring before they become preexisting is called responsibility. Often a parents responsibility before a child is born. Only idiots and the evil destroy what works. Only demagogues use it for purposes other than insurance.