Oh look, Obamacare is increasing coverage and flattening the cost curve. Congressional Budget Office Updated Estimates of the Effects of the Insurance Coverage Provisions of the Affordable Care Act, April 2014 CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have updated their estimates of the budgetary effects of the provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that relate to health insurance coverage. The new estimates, which are included in CBO’s latest baseline projections, reflect CBO’s most recent economic forecast, account for administrative actions taken and regulations issued through March 2014, and incorporate new data and various modeling updates. Relative to their previous projections made in February 2014, CBO and JCT now estimate that the ACA’s coverage provisions will result in lower net costs to the federal government: The agencies currently project a net cost of $36 billion for 2014, $5 billion less than the previous projection for the year; and $1,383 billion for the 2015–2024 period, $104 billion less than the previous projections... http://www.cbo.gov/publication/45231
You know what it is. A group employer plan is cheaper because it's a bunch of healthy people working - they aren't old or sick - or they wouldn't have gotten the job in the first place. On the individual market, you aren't subsidizing other relatively healthy workers, you are subsidizing everyone who doesn't have a full-time job. That's probably why you pay more and get less.
Been saying from day one, it's here, it's permanent, and it's going to be expanded, but let's hope the GOP Presidential candidate is stupid enough to run on "improving" (eliminating) it.
Found this write up interesting. There's a lot of ignorance about the law and I think it's obvious that has an effect on how the law is viewed. Obamacare Haters Aren't Mysterious http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-14/obamacare-haters-aren-t-mysterious?cmpid=yhoo By Jonathan Bernstein Paul Krugman is puzzled: The Affordable Care Act is one of the great comeback stories of public policy: after a terrible start, it has dramatically exceeded expectations. But hardly anyone seems to know that…. Over the weekend I had dinner in NYC with some very smart, sophisticated people; yes, all of them liberals. And almost everyone in the group was under the impression that Obamacare is still going badly — they wanted me to tell them whether it could still be turned around…. [H]ere we have smart, pro-reform people living in a state where reform is going really well. And they don’t know it! Krugman attributes this knowledge gap to a media bias against Obamacare. But that part of it is simply a function of media norms. The website fiasco in October was a much more dramatic and unexpected – newsy – story than the fixes in November, or the signup surges in December and March. The main explanation (sorry to beat this drum again) is more basic: The law is designed to do poorly in polling, at least once Republicans put up a united front against it. After all, I suspect that few of Krugman’s “smart sophisticated … liberals” signed up on the exchanges; odds are that most or all of them had employer-linked insurance (or, if they were older, Medicare). Even if some of them were in the exchanges, his dinner partners probably hadn’t been uninsured, and probably hadn’t qualified for subsidies. In other words, they probably had no personal experience with the exchanges. And even if if they did, they aren't the kind of people who were big winners in that part of the law. They might have noticed if they benefited from the closing of the Medicare doughnut hole or took advantage of free preventative-care doctor visits. Some might have post-college kids who were able to stay on their insurance. On the other hand, those who were in the private insurance market, employer-linked or not, probably have had their premiums go up over the last few years. Even if that increase wasn’t historically high, individuals have a hard time assessing that sort of thing and it's a lot easier for them to assume that any increase is related to the Affordable Care Act. I’m guessing that those in Krugman's crowd who signed up for the exchanges at least knew that getting insurance through “New York State of Health,” means the ACA (I still would love to see a study of how many in the exchanges know that they have “Obamacare”). On the other hand, being in New York, or another state where the website was functional, might have made members of this group less likely to follow the news of the improvements at Healthcare.gov. For most of us, Obamacare isn’t that visible, and the benefits often are the least visible part. The biggest winners are probably those on expanded Medicaid, and I’m confident many of them don’t know they were helped by Obamacare. Don’t expect it to get better; it’s going to be less and less likely that people will identify the benefits they are receiving with “Obamacare.” In five years, plenty of those in the exchanges won't realize that under the old system they would have had a pre-existing condition that would have barred them from being insured. Even if they realize that such a restriction once existed, they almost certainly won’t realize that their minor medical condition would have qualified. Given all that, once Republican opposition guaranteed that the ACA would be controversial it was likely that it would poll badly, even if it worked well -- and even if it worked so well it couldn't be repealed. This isn't the result of media bias, or the administration’s failure to win the spin; and it’s not even a sign that the law isn’t working as intended. It’s just the logical outcome of the way the law is set up.
The biggest problem with affordable care act is "AFFORDABLE". It have only addressed the cost issue on the edge. Should a brain surgery really be charged several hundred thousands? Should MRI cost thousands? The list goes on and on. Not sure how this can be addressed as it will take money away from doctors, hospitals, drug makers etc. Only way I can see is if there is a medicare style insurance for all and have a set of reimbursement rates for medical care.
Lets bear in mind that the ACA as it currently stands, is the product of a compromise between the 2 parties. This means that there are a number of things that each party wanted that was removed from the bill. I personally don't know if what you mentioned was even proposed and eventually struck down.
I understand all that. Why do we need ACA in the first place? Because healthcare cost have jumped through the the roof. If the cost keeps on going up at a rate significantly higher than inflation, eventually it will crash the economy as too much resources will be put into one sector of the economy. It is extremely hard to address the cost issue as AMA, drug makers, hospitals all have huge influence in congress, they would fight to protect their interests. But changes will have to come at some point, ACA is just the first step, the more people you get under the health care exchanges, the better chance you will have at passing a single payer system in the future.
Because the single payer system was struck down and something had to be done with our health care system. It is not perfect but it is a start.
I agree with that. I do not know why so many people in this country are against a single payer system, oh it is communist! oh it is against free market! Never mind that it worked well for so many other industrialized countries in the world. They complain about healthcare cost going up and up but will still vote for their "freedom" to pay more the next year. It is really comical.
Well, for me personally.... ...I always felt that, if our society sought to really reform our general healthcare "system".... ...what that reform would look like would always be much more apt to be peddled (either "left" or "right") based on emotions rather than any sort of hard, correlated data. We are still human beings, after all. Well, most of the time, anyway. Healthcare reform was always, at least in this permutation, to me, about creating a "floor" of sorts, for healthcare services. Something that we really haven't had in this country before. Certainly not as potentially broad-based and far-reaching as the ACA, even with the litmus of Medicare and Social Security to draw from. We should have been past this notion of "frontier" medicine a long time ago. The Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act was more significant, to me, in what it implicitly said about addressing the health of the nation's people, if you let yourself get around the nastiness of the taxation arguments and commerce laws. For a long time, generally speaking, health and health care was largely seen as a privilege (or blessing), depending on your own insights or bank statements...which often times left the rendering of adequate care too often to chance. I don't think good fortune or ill fortune should have had as much sway over self-preservation in this arena as it has for America for so long, myself. Another avenue where the separation of "church" and "state", metaphorically at least, took its own sweet time to reach this crossroads. At the end, if we're all as in love with our finances as we often tout, we will have to decide between what something's worth and what something costs... ...and it seems, at least initially, we will eventually make the decision that makes the most sense...or at least isn't totally bats#!t crazy.
How's that repeal Obumbercare plan working for ya? Americans increasingly prefer Democrats on healthcare: Reuters/Ipsos poll WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans increasingly think Democrats have a better plan for healthcare than Republicans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the White House announced that more people than expected had signed up for the "Obamacare" health plan. Nearly one-third of respondents in the online survey released on Tuesday said they prefer Democrats' plan, policy or approach to healthcare, compared to just 18 percent for Republicans. This marks both an uptick in support for Democrats and a slide for Republicans since a similar poll in February.
You have a point there. But certainly, healthy is only temporary for EVERYONE. The risk of getting into major health problem might be less as a whole for the pool of employees through companies that provide health plans, but I'm not sure I really buy that without numbers. In addition, children are usually covered and the risk there would probably be the same, employed or not. There are also plenty of healthy part-time workers, self employed, workers for companies that do not provide health care. And you also have to consider that those that are too sick to work, probably qualify for some government benefits (medicare, medicaid,...) leaving less of them buying insurance in the individual market. I wonder how much the big corporations get to negotiate on the premium. That could also go a long way to lower costs.
So it turns out that states that tried to actually implement Obamacare got better results than those that resisted - stunning. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gallup-pro-obamacare-anti-obamacare-states-uninsured States that have embraced Obamacare have also seen a significantly larger drop in their uninsured population, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday. In states that expanded Medicaid and actively participated in their insurance marketplace under the law, the uninsured rate dropped 2.5 percentage points, from 16.1 percent in 2013 to 13.6 percent in the first quarter of 2014. But in states that did not expand Medicaid or participate in their insurance marketplace, the uninsured rate dropped only 0.8 percentage points, from 18.7 percent in 2013 to 17.9 percent in the first quarter of 2014. "The states that have implemented two of the law's core mechanisms ... are realizing a rate of decline that is substantively greater than what is found among the remaining states that have not done so," Gallop wrote. "Consequently, the gap that previously existed between the two groups has now expanded." Nationally, the uninsured rate has fallen from 18 percent before Obamacare enrollment launched in October to 15.6 percent in the first quarter of 2013. The 2013 figures are based on a yearlong survey of 178,068 U.S. adults. The 2014 figures are based on a survey, conducted from January through March, of 43,562 U.S. adults. Given all the recent success stories in everything from coverage to future rates to costs to goverment to expansion of competition next year, you have to wonder what the results could be like if everyone actually made the effort.
BOOM! There it is... Final count after enrollment closes 8 Million Americans Signed Up For Coverage Under Obamacare President Barack Obama announced Thursday that 8 million Americans had enrolled in private health coverage under Obamacare.
In all, according to a White House fact sheet: 8 million people signed up for private insurance in the Health Insurance Marketplace. For states that have Federally-Facilitated Marketplaces, 35 percent of those who signed up are under 35 years old and 28 percent are between 18 and 34 years old, virtually the same youth percentage that signed up in Massachusetts in their first year of health reform. 3 million young adults gained coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act by being able to stay on their parents plan. 3 million more people were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as of February, compared to before the Marketplaces opened. Medicaid and CHIP enrollment continues year-round. 5 million people are enrolled in plans that meet ACA standards outside the Marketplace, according to a CBO estimate. When insurers set premiums for next year, they are required to look at everyone who enrolled in plans that meet ACA standards, both on and off the Marketplace. 5.7 million people will be uninsured in 2016 because 24 States have not expanded Medicaid. someone do the math
8/318 million americans. Conclusion? We dont care about obamacare and they cant force something we dont want on us.
THE SECURITY OF HEALTH INSURANCE FOR MILLIONS OF MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES Up to 129 million Americans with pre-existing conditions – including up to 17 million children – no longer have to worry about being denied health coverage or charged higher premiums because of their health status. 71 million Americans with private insurance have gained coverage for at least one free preventive health care service such as mammograms, birth control, or immunizations in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, 37 million people with Medicare received at least one preventive service at no out of pocket cost. Approximately 60 million Americans have gained expanded mental health and substance use disorder benefits and/or federal parity protections. Since the health care law was enacted, almost 8 million seniors have saved nearly $10 billion on prescription drugs as the health care law closes Medicare’s “donut hole.” 105 million Americans no longer have to worry about having their health benefits cut off after they reach a lifetime limit. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/04/17/fact-sheet-affordable-care-act-numbers
