Statisticians Study Who Was Helped Most By Obamacare 739
HughPickens.com writes We know that about 10 million more people have insurance coverage this year as a result of the Affordable Care Act but until now it has been difficult to say much about who was getting that Obamacare coverage — where they live, their age, their income and other such details. Now Kevin Quealy and Margot Sanger-Katz report in the NYT that a new data set is providing a clearer picture of which people gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The data is the output of a statistical model based on a large survey of adults and shows that the law has done something rather unusual in the American economy this century: It has pushed back against inequality, essentially redistributing income — in the form of health insurance or insurance subsidies — to many of the groups that have fared poorly over the last few decades. The biggest winners from the law include people between the ages of 18 and 34; blacks; Hispanics; and people who live in rural areas. The areas with the largest increases in the health insurance rate, for example, include rural Arkansas and Nevada; southern Texas; large swaths of New Mexico, Kentucky and West Virginia; and much of inland California and Oregon.
Despite many Republican voters' disdain for the Affordable Care Act, parts of the country that lean the most heavily Republican (according to 2012 presidential election results) showed significantly more insurance gains than places where voters lean strongly Democratic. That partly reflects underlying rates of insurance. In liberal places, like Massachusetts and Hawaii, previous state policies had made insurance coverage much more widespread, leaving less room for improvement. But the correlation also reflects trends in wealth and poverty. Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians.
Despite many Republican voters' disdain for the Affordable Care Act, parts of the country that lean the most heavily Republican (according to 2012 presidential election results) showed significantly more insurance gains than places where voters lean strongly Democratic. That partly reflects underlying rates of insurance. In liberal places, like Massachusetts and Hawaii, previous state policies had made insurance coverage much more widespread, leaving less room for improvement. But the correlation also reflects trends in wealth and poverty. Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians.
Lemme guess (Score:5, Insightful)
A: the insurance companies.
Re:Lemme guess (Score:4, Funny)
> RTFA
Not even once.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I stopped at the very first line of TFA.
"After a year fully in place, ..." I call BULLSHIT!! right there.
So, why bother? It's a sales pitch.
Re:Lemme guess (Score:5, Insightful)
Quite right. Obamacare won't be "fully in place" until all of those "temporary wavers" go away, and we are past the front loaded funding to see what it really costs.
There is still a lot of smoke and mirrors being used to obscure the real cost and ultimate impact of Obamacare. Why do you think that is?
I'm shocked (Score:3, Informative)
Who Gets an Exemption From Obamacare? [reason.com]
How About a National Obamacare Waiver? [askheritage.org]
To date, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has approved 1,372 Obamacare waivers, covering 3.1 million Americans. Yesterday, The Daily Caller reported that among HHS’s most recent round of 204 Obamacare waivers, “38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district.” That’s right: Nearly 20 percent of exemptions from Pelosi’s crowning health care achievement were doled out in her backyard.
If that’s not enough irony for you, try this waiver on for size: On Monday, the Las Vegas Sun reported that Nevada—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s home state—received a partial statewide Obamacare waiver, too. If you’re keeping score, Reid was Pelosi’s counterpart in the Senate fighting to get Obamacare passed into law. Now his state will be one of three to get a waiver from the law’s requirements, while the rest of America suffers.
ObamaCare's Secret Mandate Exemption [wsj.com]
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Reporting only the fact you like, ignoring the facts you don't on an incomplete process is factually inaccurate at BEST. I've always said, liberal bias isn't what is being reported as much as what is not being reported.
Case in point, Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol's Bruhahah has been reported on several times (as many as a dozen on one network), while the more serious charge of Cocaine possession caused him to be discharged by the Navy was not covered by most and only once by those that did.
What is the diff
Re:Lemme guess (Score:5, Informative)
Doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, patients and employers have only had unneeded and unwanted intrusion, regulation and control into all their interrelationships. None of them benefit. The Government (i.e., "the people of the government" or the ruling class) are the only winners. Everyone else pays and loses at their expense.
Seriously? Insurance companies are part of the problem in health care, interfering with doctors, patients, and hospitals in providing/receiving care. They need to be regulated to doing their job (providing averaged risk assessment policies) and stay out of the hospitals and doctors business.
Re:Lemme guess (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that cash price for surgery is $65,000 while insurance paid only $6200 is criminal.
That, and adding middlemen always increases prices. Insurance is middleman.
Redistribution (Score:3, Insightful)
It has pushed back against inequality, essentially redistributing income ...
So it is an income redistribution plan. What we really need is a prosperity plan and other than getting out of the way, that is not something government can do.
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Insightful)
People with health care should be more able to prosper because they are healthy and can work. People with untreated sickness are not going to prosper regardless if how incentivized they are to work harder.
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Interesting)
Bingo! I would not have been able to do multiple start-ups and freelance in banking and writing if tied to a job by health insurance given that I have had imperfect health.
Score one for the UK NHS, even though also imperfect, for giving me mobility.
Rgds
Damon
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ACA does not get "free" until you are pretty heavy out of pocket on expenses or have been unemployed for some time. Also thanks to the stipulations in the ACA if you move to another State guess what does NOT follow you there, that's right your insurance, because now you ha
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Not sure how well the mobile part works when you actually have to pay for the insurance. A lot of people I know don't leave a job not because of their health insurance but because of all the other debt payments and obligations. P>
ACA does not get "free" until you are pretty heavy out of pocket on expenses or have been unemployed for some time. Also thanks to the stipulations in the ACA if you move to another State guess what does NOT follow you there, that's right your insurance, because now you have to join an insurance provider in that State. Yours in most cases will not be waiting for you there.
If anything it binds you even tighter to a job and location.
While insurance plans are still regulated state by state (this is a bigger problem with the industry) at least now they are available via one very similar channel (the insurance exchanges) so you can pick one up wherever you go. You may not see an advantage to this, but anyone with a family (or is interested in starting one) certainly does, and many DO stick to jobs that are inadequate just because the insurance benefits amount to several hundred dollars a month (and possibly several tens of thousands of d
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Informative)
"Not sure how well the mobile part works when you actually have to pay for the insurance"
ACA helps because when you switch jobs, you know that you can get reasonably priced insurance afterwards. And because the insurance companies can no longer use the job change to declare any current medical conditions "pre-existing" and deny you insurance.
Previously there are _many_ people trapped in jobs for the health insurance, because if they went to a startup or became an independent consultant they had to pay absurdly high rates for insurance. Or because they had any medical condition that the new insurance company didn't want to cover they'd be denied insurance completely if they change jobs.
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if you banned pre-existing condition exclusions without forcing folks to be insured, people wouldn't get insured until after they were sick.
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Insightful)
Every single government thing involving any money at all is an income redistribution plan.
Corporate tax benefits are income redistribution plans.
Military spending budgets are income redistribution plans.
Spectrum auctions are income redistribution plans.
This particular income redistribution plan is only different in that income is redistributed to the poor instead of the rich.
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Insightful)
This particular income redistribution plan is only different in that income is redistributed to the poor instead of the rich.
And it is no different in that income is redistributed from the middle class instead of the rich.
Re:Redistribution (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is why Republicans hate it so much.
Each party has a contingent that is acting against its personal interests. For Republicans it is the poor and for Democrats it is the rich.
Either way the middle class is screwed, which is why it is disappearing.
Re:Redistribution (Score:4, Insightful)
the people who cry about wealth redistribution never seem to cry about the last 30 years of American productivity re-distribution to the rich.
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Likewise, it's only class warfare when the lower classes fight back.
Re:Redistribution (Score:4, Insightful)
It is interesting, but not surprising, that the liberal talking points are heavily embedded, a clear flag that the study has an inherent bias. The "poorest states" being conservative sounds counter to only the picture that liberals try to paint of conservatives, not to reality for anyone who pays any attention. Hard working rural America has always been conservative. More often than not, it is the large urban populations that shift state's support bias to liberal, and it is those same urban areas that hold the most desperate and dependent populations of the truly underprivileged.
Polls can give you the result you intend. This is simply a poll result, not a sophisticated statistical analysis as the title would have you believe. Its not that hard to play with numbers to make any point you want. Those that want to believe the results will, those that don't won't.
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Informative)
Some of our previously insured patients seemed miffed because, just like before, medical care is expensive and the system is complicated. Some of them who used to blame the insurance companies now blame Obamacare.
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It is worth noting this article and effort was pushed forth by O-Care supporters. It fails to answer the most important questions.. has your healthcare improved or lowered in cost? Are you using it?
Let me give the experience of my best friend. He's probably in upper half of what one would call the Middle Class in the USA. I work for The Man so I've always had health insurance via my job. He is a small business owner. His business employees his wife and between 1 and 3 other employees at any given time, depending on a variety of factors. He does not offer health insurance to his employees. As a small business owner, he's had to get insurance on his own for himself, his wife and one child. He is
Re:Redistribution (Score:4, Informative)
...The fact that many of the (very optimistically estimated) number of those who were added to O-Care rolls did not want or feel they needed it should be considered as well.
I personally know several people who were able to get insurance under Obamacare but didn't have it before. Not one says that they "did not want or feel they needed" insurance. What they say is, "Thank God, this is saving my life."
However, even if what you said was true: what you are implying is that there is a body of people who previously were saying "I don't want or need insurance, because if I get sick I'll go to a hospital that is legally is not allowed to turn me away, and the taxpayers will pay for it," -and they are now paying for their own health care. That's a win for the taxpayers.
In other cases, such as ones I am very familiar with, previously covered spouses were forced to move to their own plan if their work provider had coverage available. This means that although a new health care subscriber can now be counted, that person was already covered
That's not the way the number of uninsured is counted. That would count as a wash: neither an addition nor a reduction to the number of uninsured.
... More often than not, it is the large urban populations that shift state's support bias to liberal, and it is those same urban areas that hold the most desperate and dependent populations of the truly underprivileged.
Sorry, the belief that poverty is an urban phenomenon is another myth. It's a myth that's pervasive among liberals and conservatives, but simply not true. There are actually more poor and underprivileged people in rural America. You're right about urban areas being liberal and rural conservative, but wrong about being able to attribute that to "dependent populations of truly underprivileged": the greatest use of food stamps, as a percentage of population, in poor rural areas, not urban areas.
.... Its not that hard to play with numbers to make any point you want.
But you don't have to do that, because it's even easier to simply say "Those numbers don't support my political bias, so they are wrong."
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Redistribution (Score:4, Insightful)
So it is an income redistribution plan. What we really need is a prosperity plan
I'd argue that there's certainly plenty of wealth in this country. Net national wealth [wikipedia.org] is $83.7T, so that's about $280k per person (or $301k per person according to a recent Credit Suisse Global Wealth report [cnn.com]); most people wouldn't be complaining if their net worth was $280k --- most Americans today have a net worth that is less than $45k. While more prosperity is always nice, it's somewhat unreasonable to make baseless claims that redistribution of wealth is less needed than prosperity. While I can sympathize with the fact that redistribution of wealth may not be compatible with your personal ideology, it would probably be better for everyone if we could discuss these issues in terms of numbers and facts, not political preferences.
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The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report is making an erroneous assumption that wealth is spread evenly in the US. Which it is not.
The statistic that I quoted from the report didn't make any claims about how wealth is distributed. It merely divided the total wealth by the total population, which yielded a figure for wealth per person that corresponds to how much wealth each person would have if wealth were distributed equally. Let's call this number the average wealth per person. It doesn't imply that any given person actually has this level of wealth, let alone that all people do.
I question your intelligence.
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't seem to realize it's the perverse notion that health insurance companies need to exist which has caused this situation. You should see what happens in civilized countries - people don't even have to think about health insurance (or, if they desire, they can spend up to $100 a month for some perks, but no improvement in treatments, as all treatments are available to everyone). If they need treatment, they go see a doctor. No money changes hands (except in some areas a token fee of ~$10), and people get treated. If a country has true universal healthcare, the amount of bargaining power the health service has means they can get drugs at a fraction of the cost, and in some countries the price for a prescription is the same regardless of what drugs are being prescribed (and usually free for 65s, and pregnant women). How does ~$10 for a prescription sound? Impossible to you, I'm sure. Here's another thing to think about: no-one goes bankrupt because of medical bills. No-one. Not a single person. And this costs less of a portion of the GDP, with comparable (and frequently better) outcomes.
People who live in these more civilized countries read this shit about the US and simply scratch their heads. The numbers alone are mind-boggling to people whose entire annual medical expenditure is usually under $100, and frequently 0.
Stop bitching about Obamacare and start bitching about your insurance overlords who simply should not exist, or should be in the business of topping-up an already good healthcare system with comfier pillows and colder sodas.
Re:Redistribution (Score:4, Insightful)
The second were the $150/month genuine catastrophic plans. Insured pays $150/month, and in exchange the obligation of paying the first $10K of the bill, the insurance company might actually cover the remaining $90K. (Also, the insurance company might be able to bargain the hospital down from $100K to $20K, so even if they refuse to cover it, the insured isn't bankrupt.) These are gone, and that kinda sucks.
Are these plans outlawed by the ACA, like the first set of plans you describe? Or have insurers merely stopped offering them of their own volition? I'm genuinely asking, as I don't know. I haven't heard of any limitations on deductibles imposed by the ACA.
What ACA proponents don't get is that YES, premiums *DO* have to rise, markedly, and that as long as insurance companies remain middlemen, everyone is going to pay $10K. Because that's your actual actuarial risk including the middlemen's 50% cut.
If premiums do have to rise (because of the ACA), why? What are the increasing costs? Most arguments I've heard boil down to "my premiums went up, my coverage went down", but something's not adding up. The ACA has capped insurers' profits (to what extent this is effective remains to be seen), so I'm comfortable assuming that the alleged difference in cost isn't simply being pocketed. So where is it going? I can't answer that. The conclusion this brings me to is that either premiums are not going up, or coverage is not going down.
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Redistribution (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you weren't around during the Great Depression. There is a reason so much of the country became solidly Democratic for a generation after that -- the people who were in it credited FDR for saving their butts when no one else cared. They certainly didn't see the invisible hand of "economic growth" putting food on the table anytime soon back then. You have to live through the hard times in order to be around when things get better through growth. So where are these places on the planet of fantastic prosperity where the government is less intrusive than in the USA now ('less intrusive' includes 'no government provided health care')?
Re: Redistribution (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really no it hasnt.
Know why our infrastructure sucks?
Cause a lot of it was built way back then, and then later in the 50s witht he Interstate expansion, and hasnt touched since.
We still need roads built and replaced. Bridges. Dams. Airports. Etc. Thats what hte WPA built, and that stuff will always be needful.
Camps mixed up (Score:2)
Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians.
I've observed this myself. Quite baffling that those who would profit most from social reforms mostly advocated by the left are very often politically oriented towards the right.
And then you have the super rich, who are strongly favored by right-leaning policies, asking the government to tax them more...
Crazy world.
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And then you have a tiny minority of the super rich, who are strongly favored by right-leaning policies, asking the government to tax them more...
FTFY. For every Warren Buffet there's a hundred fucks who won't cough up a dime unless you punch them in the gut.
Re:Camps mixed up (Score:4, Informative)
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Not a single Republican voted for Obamacare, so exactly how does it make it their "wet dream"? The Democrats are bought and paid for by the banking industry and Wallstreet. The insurance industry is just a sublet of the banking. The Republicans are bought and paid for by farming, energy, and military industries. At least try to get the group you want to blame right or you come off sounding like a moron.
Re:Camps mixed up (Score:5, Insightful)
Question: Not a single Republican voted for Obamacare, so exactly how does it make it their "wet dream"?
Answer: Because Obama adopted the Republican plan in an attempt to unify the parties in implementing healthcare reform. The Democratic plan was Single Payer, which was cheaper, simpler, and more effective. Obama agreed to the more expensive, complex and ineffective Republican plan in an attempt to get Republicans to engage in the reform.
Unfortunately, Republicans immediately turned against their own plan, because they cared more about preventing reform than in their own reform plans.
The shame is that the Democrats didn't then go back to their own plan and push that through. Unfortunately there were enough Democrats tied to the insurance industry (Lieberman....) that, combined with 100% Republican obstruction, they were able to force the country to waste $trillions on insurance company waste. Because what's waste to us is record profits for insurance companies.
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Unfortunately, Republicans immediately turned against their own plan, because they cared more about preventing reform than in their own reform plans.
To be fair, the Republicans simply care most about preventing *any* success by President Obama, quoting Senator Mitch McConnell, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." They're apparently willing to tank the entire country to see that Republicans get voted into office - Senate, House and White House.
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Right after the Supreme Court's decision to lift limits on campaign contributions, Democrats and their left-wing supporters assaulted the decision as a boon to Republicans, "the party of the rich."
This of course is part of a far-wider narrative — slavishly repeated by largely unquestioning liberal media — that the GOP outspends Democrats on campaigns thanks to big-buck donors like the billionaire Koch brothers.
But, as it turns out, that's a lie — as big a lie, in fact, as "you can keep your insurance," "you can keep your doctor" and "ObamaCare will bend the cost curve down."
By almost every measure, in fact, it's the Democrats, not the Republicans, who are the party of the rich.
Start with Congress itself. Who are the wealthiest members? Well, there are 269 millionaires among Congress' 535 members. And most of them are Democrats.
And contrary to the hand-wringing on the left about the Supreme Court's 5-4 McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission ruling Wednesday, Democrats far outspend Republicans on elections. It isn't even close.
According to OpenSecrets.org, from 1989 to 2014 rich donors gave Democrats $1.15 billion — $416 million more than the $736 million given to the GOP. Among the top 10 donors to both parties, Democrat supporters outspent Republican supporters 2-to-1.
But what about the villainous Koch brothers, those conservative plutocrats supposedly seeking to control American politics? They rank 59th on the list of big givers — behind 18 unions and No. 1 Act Blue, the massive left-wing fund raiser that gives only to Democrats.
Indeed, a recent book, "The New Leviathan," says donations to Democrats outstrip those to Republicans 7-to-1. How can this be? Democrat support soars when you include unions, universities, superPACs, nonprofits, left-wing interest groups, and — ready for this? — Wall Street (which overwhelmingly favors Democrats).
So Democrats don't really want to restrain money in politics. Just the money that goes to Republicans.
Puff piece before the elections (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Doctors price gouge.
20 minute visit with 120 seconds of the doctors time, 18 minutes of sitting in a room with only yourself. $325.00 if you dont have insurance and pay cash. Sorry, that is a complete ripoff, Doctors should be ashamed of themselves for charging that.
The ripoff that is the american health system starts with the Greedy asshole doctors.
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THAT PROBLEM IS CREATED BY THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY
They don't have as much overhead and staff without it.
Re:You shouldn't need insurance for most things (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You shouldn't need insurance for most things (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't understand. Your visit to the doctor costs what it does because of the complexities of the insurance system, including both health insurance and malpractice insurance. Doctors have a lot of overhead to pay, and in hospitals, they are just employees with no control over their schedules. If the administrators put 40 people per day into their schedule, they see 40 people per day. People without insurance use the emergency room to fix problems after they occur, a very expensive way to deal with health problems - something which Obamacare was feebly attempting to address. Everyone else who uses the place has to pay more to cover those costs. Every time a doctor makes an error the patient calls a lawyer. Doctors order test after test to cover their asses against malpractice suits- they are told to do so in "risk management" seminars put on by insurance companies that they must attend every year to maintain their malpractice insurance. The system is full of waste at every level. Doctors are not the cause of the problem. They have been made to look that way by insurers and hospital administrators who want to deflect attention away from themselves.
When you look at Las Vegas, what do you see? You see huge luxury hotels, bright lights, excitement, partying, etc. Where does that money come from? From losers. Yet it's the winners who get the attention. Yeah, great, Vegas baby! Now look at insurance companies. Huge luxury office buildings, executives who make millions- it's a lot like Vegas. Where does the money come from? Losers like you and me who have to pay ridiculous premiums for minimal coverage. Yeah, Insurance baby!
My son has expressed an interest in studying medicine when he graduates from high school. My wife is a physician and I am a dentist. We have suggested that he get a degree in business and become a hospital administrator. Those people make $ millions with no special skill set and without the arduous training imposed on healthcare providers.
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look at insurance companies. Huge luxury office buildings, executives who make millions- it's a lot like Vegas. Where does the money come from? Losers like you and me who have to pay ridiculous premiums for minimal coverage. Yeah, Insurance baby!
That's how it has worked in the past, yes, but the affordable care act actually did something about that [whitehouse.gov]. Insurance companies' profits and overhead margins are now capped at either 20% or 15%, depending on the size of the company. If they don't pay out the rest in claims, they have to refund it.
It's not perfect and insurance companies will still make a lot of money, but it is a start.
Re:You shouldn't need insurance for most things (Score:5, Insightful)
That's like saying that rich people have to pay taxes shown in the tables that the IRS provides to everyone with their tax forms. There are so many accounting tricks and loop-holes in the laws that that 15-20% limit is NEVER going to be achieved. The real solution to the problem is universal healthcare funded directly by tax payers. The republican complaint against it is that you'll have to hire an army of people to administer it- BIG GOVERNMENT! What we have now is insurance companies with armies of administrators and lawyers working to prevent spending on health care because it is more profiable to collect premiums and not pay money out. With a single-payer system you have an army of people working to ensure spending is going to health care and not fraud. I know which I would rather fund.
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For most things maybe you just shouldn't be paying, at all denying treatment to those who happen not to have spare cash, eg students and young adults in general getting going in their jobs. I couldn't have paid anything much as a teenager for my epilepsy diagnosis and treatment; should I have just rotted before I even got to uni? I had left home, BTW.
(In the UK I do pay for a few things at point of use under the NHS, but often even then fairly small fixed/tiered charges.)
Rgds
Damon
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Yep, it made me the failure that I am today. %-P
Rgds
Damon
Re:You shouldn't need insurance for most things (Score:5, Insightful)
Direct payment reduces overconsumption (Score:3)
I've heard several economists say that what really skews our health system is the lack of direct payment. Since we don't pay for anything we don't know what it costs and it makes it easier to over consume health care because we're one or more steps removed from what things cost.
I totally agree with your criticisms of what really seems like fraudulent billing with in/out of network doctors and drive-by doctoring (I read those NY Times articles, too). It really seems like a deliberately dishonest way to scr
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Your claim needs to be statistically demonstrated, not just rambling anecdotes. When health care is 'free' costs go up. But people still don't like to go to the doctor. The notion that people, any time they are feeling out of sort, should surrender themselves to a doctor who will 'make it better' is just as wrong as the notion that people will delay health care until near death. People need to take responsibility for their own health.
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"When health care is 'free' costs go up. "
It turns out that when health care is free, costs go down. Yes, immediately after healthcare becomes free costs go up for due to pent-up healthcare needs that were unmet. But longer-term, costs go down because people go to the doctor sooner and get things taken care of when it's easier and less expensive to treat. For example, detecting diabetic trends and changing your diet is much cheaper than taking insulin for the rest of your life.
And if it's literally free, yo
This is what the polls say (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This is what the polls say (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest winners . . . (Score:3)
are the insurance companies who are raking in tens of millions of free dollars from all the people who are forced to hand over their money to a private company or have the government reach into their bank account and forcibly extract the money.
This had nothing to do with getting insurance for people because it started with a Republican governor who saw a way to pay back his political supporters and what better way then to have the public hand over their money whether they want to or not.
Let look at the actual data. (Score:3)
Show me a study that shows how much the health of people and the quality of health care has improved and what the price changes of said health care and I might find that interesting.
Just because they now have "health care" doesn't mean life got any better for them or those that have to pay for their health care.
republicans sucker the masses (Score:5, Insightful)
the republican party is incredibly successful at turning the victims of their legislation into their voter base. democrats SUCK at messaging.
Anyone actually compare before and after?... (Score:3)
... I mean personally.
What could you buy before and what can you buy now?
Because I am not rich... before or after... and it is more expensive now then it was before. I mean... significantly.
Now do I think we should help people that have a hard time getting medical care afford said care? Yes. Is the best method to provide that care to just throw money into the air until it covers the earth like leaves after autumn? Obviously not.
Here someone is going to say "but single payer would be better!"... Maybe... but then like... anything would be better then this stupid law. the law is dumb. What we had before for all its flaws was better. My care was cheaper. I am not in some amazing stratospheric yacht class of people that sips expensive brandies while I talk about the little people. This law made my care more expensive. Full stop.
Now here is where someone says "Okay, what is your solution because we need a better policy!". Okay, look at the price of college education over time. Graph it against the inflation rate. Notice something? Now do the same thing with the cost of housing prior to the crash. Notice something? What is happening is cost inflation due to government subsidization.
Basically what you are looking at in many markets is the effect that unlimited subsidization has on free market systems when they are purely demand side. That is, if you just give everyone money that can only be spent on a given product or service... people buy that product or service in greater volumes. That then not only consumes the supply of those products or services but also increases what people ultimately can pay for them because not only do they have their own personal resources to draw upon but also this big government check. And so naturally, even if the supply is increased, because people have more money to spend... the costs go up. And the more subsidization you throw into the market the more the prices go up. And the faster you do it, the faster the prices go up. If your level of subsidization is percentage based and not even a flat amount then your subsidization rate can feed back into the supply/demand price loop in real time. Which can mean rapid uncontrolled price inflation.
We've seen this before. It has happened many times because this is a lesson government and certain ideologues have a very hard time dealing with because it contradicts some political positions that are simply verifiability wrong.
Where am I going with this? Well, medical costs have been going through the same cost inflation for YEARS. In fact, the very justification for obamacare was that cost inflation. And the cost inflation was caused in large part by government subsidization of healthcare. Look at the price of healthcare prior to the subsidization for something like mending a broken arm. Something that hasn't changed remarkably in a generation. And you'll see the costs were a great deal lower after factoring for inflation.
So what are my solutions to this problem? Well, rather then give people money so they can pay for increasingly expensive medical care, why not try to make medical care cheaper for EVERYONE. Not by giving people money but effecting the market so that prices go down.
There are a lot of ways to do this sort of thing. There is a hospital in Texas for example that has a completely different administrative structure. They basically did away with the three upper floors of most hospitals that are full of people that just do paper work. And instead they give shift nurses administrative control over their domain. That in and of itself lowers the cost hugely.
The price of that is that the hospital outright refuses to deal with complicated paperwork from the insurance companies. They offer various ways of managing that. You can for example deal with the paper work yourself and it is your responsibility to see that the hospital gets paid or that you get reimbursed after paying the hospital out of pocket. They also have sort of a medical plan that covers JUST that hospital.
what is the true cost? (Score:3)
1.36 trillion dollars over 10 years (http://obamacarefacts.com/costof-obamacare/). That is 136 billion dollars a year. For 10 million people to have insurance.
By my calculations, that is $13,600 per covered person, per year.
Hardly "affordable".
Worst law in the history of the United States. (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4)
Poor Conservative States? (Score:5, Informative)
I find the meme about poor states = conservative to be a bit annoying and misleading. While it is true that conservative states, especially Southern states, tend to have lower median incomes, they also have significantly lower costs of living. "Studies" like this one never adjust for purchasing power parity, and that oversight always makes me question anything else they have to say.
For example, according to Wikipedia's article on household income in the United States (alas, the numbers are a couple of years old), strongly Democrat Hawaii, which is the 5th wealthiest state by income, is actually dead last adjusted for cost of living. New York ranks 44th once incomes are adjusted for purchasing power parity. Virginia and Utah are the two wealthiest states in the U.S. by PPP income. Of course, Mississippi and West Virginia are still poor no matter how you slice it, but the correlation between political orientation and real income among states is weak at best.
This should not be surprising - local government politics in the U.S. look decidedly different from national politics. This is especially true for conservatives - many Republicans are comfortable with giving powers to local or state governments that they would abhor giving to the federal government, and moreover local elections frequently come down to personal, rather than party, politics. So judging the results of a state's internal, local elections and policymaking by how its citizens voted in a national election doesn't make that much sense, because those two things are imperfectly correlated.
Sorry - that turned out to be a bit long and off topic, but I have a problem trusting articles like this that purport to investigate a fairly complicated and nuanced issue while also making such offhand implicit assumptions.
not "helped" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bullshit. There are many other factors to blame for it.
I'm watching the same thing happen in New Zealand right now, but it's because of right wing "I've got mine!" policies.
The wealthy are hoarding away their money, pay rates for the rest of us are dropping through the floor. It's only a matter of time until we can't afford to spend, and the economy will grind to a halt. That is, unless the wealthy suddenly drop their trillions back into the pockets of the people who actually do the hard work.
Re: how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Insightful)
By far the biggest impact from Obamacare has been the expansion of Medicaid. That could've been accomplished without messing with my private insurance.
Re: how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Funny)
I agree that they should have expanded Medicare to cover everyone who wanted it - that's by far the most efficient system with the highest patient satisfaction. Much better than private insurance, so likely the competition would have forced insurers to become at least marginally efficient and improve coverage.
That being said, I don't follow your comment about your private insurance. The only thing that happened to your private insurance is that the worst abuses were now outlawed, so (for example) insurance companies aren't allowed to waste more than 20% of what you pay them, resulting in $billions in refunds being sent to customers who were previously being really ripped off. Well, and you also indirectly benefitted in that the exchanges are so competitive that private insurance rates are going up much more slowly than they have in the past, so you're probably having money paying a 2-3% annual increase (that's the average post-ACA) compared to the historical 7-9% annual increases.
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AVOIDING insurance still remains the cheapest option in many cases.
As long as you remain healthy that may be true. If you happen to be one of the unlucky ones who develops cancer or multiple sclerosis or crashes your car uninsured then we all end up paying for you and the quality of care you get as an uninsured person is not as good as you otherwise would.
I agree with you that the ACA was a gift to the health insurance industry but it's still better than the situation before it was enacted. The evidence from all of the other comparable countries that have enacted univers
Re: how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:4, Interesting)
That could've been accomplished without messing with my private insurance.
I know this is a personal anecdote, but since I work for large aerospace corporations, this is a personal anecdote for a significant number of people. Before the provisions of Obamacare went into effect, my healthcare premiums rose 20% to 33% per year since 2008. From 2013 to 2014, when all the major provisions went into effect, my deductible went up 20%, but my premium stayed the same (and I never hit the old deductible limit anyway). I changed jobs this year, and in 2015, my premiums and coverage are both staying the same.
I have no idea if Obamacare is responsible for this state of affairs or if it's just coincidence, but it's a damn sight better than what was happening before it came along.
Re: how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Informative)
The same number that Romneycare killed. remember, Obamacare is BASED ON good Ol' Mitt Romney, the GOP shining example's own Romney care that he put in place in his home state.
Are republicans so stupid that they can not see it's a Republican system? Because as a Democrat I wanted a system closer to Canadian Healthcare as it works.
Repubs made sure the insurance companies would be happy with it so they could get max profits. And that is what we got...... Romneycare.
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Are republicans so stupid that they can not see it's a Republican system?
Their memories are simply that short. That's how they forget that none of their interests have been served by their elected politicians, and proceed to re-elect them.
Here in California, however, we re-relected Jerry Brown. That's very like re-electing Marion Berry. Heh heh heh.
Re: how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Interesting)
And Romney wasn't just some RINO rebel GOP governor in a backwater state that the GOP could write off as being a product of a liberal constituent... he was who the GOP chose to be the shining star and face of their party to combat the derivative of the very plan Romney pushed for in his home state.
You had to put some powerful spin to make that jive in your red worldview.
Re: how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, if the polls are to be believed, Romney is now the frontrunner for the GOP Prez candidate for 2016.
The basic problem is that the U.S. let the insurance companies into the health care system back in the 60's and didn't implement national health care under Teddy Roosevelt who wanted it.
Now we have death panels...not the panels the Republicans waxed wet dream like during the passage of the ACA but the ones the insurance companies run. Yes, those are indeed death panels just like the ones the Republicans warned us about.
Currently, Americans pay for health care through a company and individual tax. That allows the insurance companies to suck up as much as they can because they amortize risk, they do not amortize outcomes. So if your doctor schedules extra needless tests to protect against possible lawsuits, that cost has been built into the system if you have health insurance. The doctors are only too happy to order them because the insurance company will pay, it is built into their risk assessment of what your life is worth to them.
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:4, Informative)
Really? It was the formal GOP healthcare reform plan for 30 years or so, since Nixon, then Clinton, pretty much whenever healthcare reform came up, they proposed the market/exchange plan. And when Romney implemented it, the Republicans *loved* it, and acclaimed it as proof that Republican policies worked. And they advocated expanding it at the Federal level.
Republicans didn't distance themselves from this plan, or come up with the "states rights" spin until Obama endorsed doing what the Republicans were planning.
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Insightful)
you can always move to another state more in-line with your ideology without renouncing your citizenship.
In theory that works great, in practice it does not work at all.
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Insightful)
"In theory that works great, in practice it does not work at all."
Republican policies in a nutshell.
The first statement holds true for a lot of political ideologies. Welfare sounds like a great system to end hunger, and we assume that no one would want to live on government assistance. Some people are perfectly happy giving the minimum though.
Taxes and exemptions sound ideal too except you have people who are going to take every exemption to end up not paying a dime.
Re: (Score:3)
Saying, "if you don't like it, move" is just naive.
I don't think anyone thinks this is socialized healthcare, but it is closer to socialized healthcare than it was before. The most important point is that it is not a free market. Not even close. So anyone expecting any of the benefits of a free market aren't going to find it. All that's happening is that the government is distorting the market in order to fix problems that were largely caused by the government distorting the free market. It's a vicious
Re: how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:3)
True if you ignore the 10 million that the old systems didn't cover but we all provided more expensive emergency care anyway and the new system does cover.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, cause emergency rooms are turning away people in droves.... try again...
No, they're not, of course. But people with modest income are no more "insured" than they were before. That's the whole point. What is a family who makes $45,000 a year (gross) supposed to do with a $12,000 deductible? Well, at least they're insured now, right? Right. Thanks, Pelosi, Reid, and a Obama! Oh, and of course millions of other people who DID have insurance they wanted and could use, no longer do, and that's about to happen to millions more when the illegally-delayed changes hit the employer-provided plans. After the election, of course.
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Insightful)
They opposed it because they oppose everything that Obama does.
Whatever he does, they support the opposite. No one cared about Common Core originally, and it was implemented in 43 states. But as soon as Obama said it was a good idea, everyone on the started freaking out and saying it was the worst EVAH.
When he suggested bombing Syria they said no way.
When he was reluctant to bomb Russia/Ukraine they said we needed to.
If he said cyanide was toxic they would stand on the Capitol Steps and chug it just to spite him.
If he cured cancer they'd complain he was putting doctors out of work.
It's a Republican plan because they came up with it 20+ years ago.
Nearly every key aspect of it comes from the GOP plan that Heritage came up with around 1989.
Most everything in the plan is oriented around implementing and supporting a free market, ie existing insurance industry, based solution to expanding care. Even the mandate originates with Heritage, and is essential to preventing free riders so that the insurance based approach can work.
Further, the GOP HAS NO HEALTHCARE PLAN. They keep saying they want to repeal Obamacare, but when asked about what they'd replace it with, they have no answer. the few who actually give an answer, invariably end up describing something that resembles Obamacare.
Dems went with a Romneycare clone because they figured, hey, we're never going to get a nationalized healthcare system through congress, not yet. But they themselves implemented this thing up in Mass., and it's working pretty good, so lets do that. Let's compromise. Instead of pushing for a NHS, we'll push for increased access using the a market based approach thorugh the insurance companies. So thats what they did.
Its not terrible.
Its not a cluster.
And GOP opposition is just smoke and mirrors.
The only one flying in the face of the facts is YOU.
You completely ignorant of the facts, of history, and the context.
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually they did propose it. Several times. Especially in the 90s they would dust off their plan and push it as the alternative freemarket alternative to socialized medicine aka HillaryCare.
No, they're not embarrassed by the plan, some candidates in comeptitive disctricts trying to keep their jobs aside.
The website was a disaster, but for anyone familiar with government contracting, not surprising either. That's not a flaw with the law, but with governemtn contracting practices.
And what deleterious effects?
You're the one that needs to face reality.
The law is working. It is doing what it was supposed to do.
Not one GOP dire prediction has come true.
Re: (Score:3)
I see, so instead of constructively engaging to modify a plan built on a Republican plan, they decided to take their ball and go home. That's so mature of Republicans.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I see, so instead of constructively engaging to modify a plan built on a Republican plan, they decided to take their ball and go home. That's so mature of Republicans
The legislative agenda surrounding the 100% partisan ramming-through of the ACA precluded any Republican involvement. The Republicans put forth a constant barrage of their own ideas and (looking back on them) very accurate predictions about all of the wreckage that the ACA is now causing. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi ran the entire show, and shut down any involvement by Republicans. Those two leaders of the Democrat party, and the chief executive, actively and deliberately lied - over an over again - about
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree with the premise that "ObamaCare" and the ACA are the same thing. When Obama introduced his framework for health care reform, it included, among other things, a single-payer system. Controversial to be sure, but a key part of the plan. The republicans focused on that and the individual mandate as their two key talking points of opposition. The former was framed as a government takeover of healthcare, and the latter as unconstitutional. The democrats dropped the former to make it more palatable, presumably thinking something is better than nothing and perhaps it will be added in time. The republicans were quick to jump on board with that probably thinking without the single-payer element, the whole thing was dead. The latter was deemed constitutional by the supreme court, breathing new life into the legislation.
While the republicans termed the whole notion of healthcare reform as "ObamaCare" as a pejorative, in my mind the ACA is actually more of an inadvertent compromise between the democrats and the republicans. It wasn't the intention of the republicans to add things in and take things out as a means of compromise. What they did, they did to kill the legislation; but it didn't work out that way. In the end, the ACA is a democrat-led effort for healthcare reform with many compromises made to please, and at the behest of, republicans.
While the republicans didn't vote for the legislation; the legislation that passed has their fingerprints all over it.
But all of this is just political theater and bullshit. If any of you think your party is "right" or fighting for and representing your interests, you are deluded and probably of only average intelligence.
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Informative)
Because a single Republican governor implemented a similar system in a Democrat-controlled state, then automatically, this is a Republican plan that all (or even a majority of) Republicans across the nation supported? What a stupid statement! It completely flies in the face of actual facts.
Feel free to read the original source of the Romneycare idea:
http://healthcarereform.procon.org/sourcefiles/1989_assuring_affordable_health_care_for_all_americans.pdf [procon.org]
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Informative)
Lets look at the history of the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare. Back in 2008, then-presidential nominee Barack Obama ran a campaign with healthcare reform as one of its central issues. He advocated for universal healthcare but opposed an individual mandate. However, after input from experts that claimed that government-guaranteed healthcare would encourage too many free-riders, Obama decided to include an individual mandate as a central part of his healthcare reform efforts.
The individual mandate is largely credited as an idea by the conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation as an alternative to a system in which the government pays for healthcare. It required each person to pay for their own healthcare and was proposed by Republicans during the Clinton era as a free-market solution that embodies the tenant of personal responsibility that Republicans claim to hold.
Once adopted by the Democrats and proposed in a bill on September 17, 2009, the Republicans staunchly opposed the measure. The Republicans, some of whom have been around long enough to have supported a similar bill during the Clinton administration, claimed that the individual mandate was an unconstitutional assault on freedom.
After 3 weeks of debate and town hall meetings, the bill passed through the House of Representatives and was sent to the Senate. The Democrats attempted to gain the support of moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe, Bob Bennet, Mike Enzi, and Chuck Grassley. However, the moderate Republicans found themselves subject to intense pressure by the party to fall in line and oppose any healthcare reform effots.
The bill continued to be opposed by conservatives in the Senate who claimed that the bill's "public option" was a deal-breaker. The public option was government-run healthcare insurance that would be available to people alongside private health insurance in the market. Conservatives claimed that the public option would put private insurance out of business because the government is under no pressure to compete or turn a profit. After over 3 months of debate, the public option was dropped from the bill. Senator Grassley was quoted as saying:
"No public option. No play-or-pay. No things that are going to lead to any rationing of health care. No interference with the doctor-patient relationship," says Grassley. "About the only place we haven't made progress along the lines of what Republicans are wanting on the bill is in tort reform."
Despite this, it still took several last-minute concessions for conservatives to get the bill passed through the Senate on December 24, 2009, with support from independents and conservative Democrats to overcome the Republican threat of fillibuster.
The bill languished in the House of Representatives for 3 more months. In order to gets the admendments made to the bill back in the House, the Democrats had to win support from pro-life Representatives who worried that the bill would allow federal funds to be used to pay for abortions. To assuage anti-abortion politicians' fears, Barack Obama signed an executive order on March 21, 2010 to affirm that no federal funds could or would be used to fund abortions. The amendments were finally passed through the House and signed into law by Obama on March 23, 2010 (over 6 months after being proposed).
Re:how many small businesses has Obama killed? (Score:5, Interesting)
They're driving us out
We're closing up shop
Lonely is the mom-and-pop
Where are the protestors?
Where are their slogans and signs?
This will be a swift decline
Actually, quite the opposite is happening. My best friends father is basically despises Obama to the core. He runs his own insurance resale shop. He complained that Obamacare was going to destroy him. Well, it didn't turn out that way. Because the law made the old policies illegal, the insurance companies had to create new policies and everyone had to re-sign up for their health insurance. He gets a commission on every single one of those changes and is making a fortune. He still doesn't like Obama but he certainly loves the government teat.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What a partisan, biased summary (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm probably paying for some geriatric coverage that I'll never use until I'm 60. Just like I pay to maintain roads that I'll probably never use. Welcome to society.
It's true that part of the O-care strategy was to get younger, otherwise under-insured, people to subsidize the pool. It's reasonable to disagree with this, but young people got some benefits too. They can stay on their parents plan longer and medicaid was expanded.
I don't believe Obama purposely deceived you as you make it sound. It's true he said you could keep your plan, and he shouldn't have, but political speaches don't lend themselves to asterisks. What he should have said (and probably meant) was that if you like your plan you can keep it if:
A) The insurance company continues selling it (he can't control this)
B) It meets the new minimum coverage guidlines (most will)
Instead of getting so easily upset over progress you should take a look the problems and try to constructively shape the solution. O-care isn't *that* great, but nothing would have changed without it and we needed a change in our health care system.
Re: (Score:3)
What about women paying to cover prostate exams?
What about men paying for pap smears?
It called "that's how insurance works".
And no, the junk plans you're talking about were little more than scams.
Like say paying 700$ a year for a plan that only pays out a maximum of 300$ in a year.
Your comments and position have no basis in reality.
But I doubt you care, since after all reality has a well known liberal bias.
Re: (Score:3)
What about healthy 20-somethings whose affordable plans (called "junk plans" by liberals, but perfectly adequate coverage
You mean "liberals" like Consumer Reports [consumerreports.org]?The junk plans, by definition were not perfectly adequate coverage. These were plans that had the victims giving money to insurance companies for basically no coverage at all. eg: hospitalization coverage with an annual limit of $2K a year. With typical visits costing 10's of thousands of dollars, that barely even qualifies as a coupon. The mini-meds, or "junk plans" were legitimate insurance in almost exactly the same that payday loans are legitimate loans. Essenti