[quote]“Somebody who’s making $25,500 would definitely qualify for a subsidy if he or she is purchasing coverage in the individual market,” Sebelius added.
Despite the secretary’s assurance, a 25-year-old living in Nashville, Tennessee, making $25,500 will not qualify for a subsidy, for example.[/quote]
Of course its going to vary from state to state. But your looking at higher premiums, pretty much across the board. 5 million cancellations, so far, more next year when the employer mandate runs out (10’s of millions?).
Has anyone mentioned the issue of hospitals and doctors opting out? Or supply and demand? You know, if you have 30 million new patients and the supply of doctors remains the same, something has to give, and then there is talk of immigration reform.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]Actually things seem to be already turning in favor of obamacare. It’s been obvious for a while that where health care exchange websites work people are signing up. Medicaid enrollment is working as planned in states that are taking advantage of it, and even the dreaded healthcare.gov is working okay these days.
As I predicted, when the usual suspects say something is a disaster (or conversely, no big deal) then you need to wait and see. These are, after all, people who were arguing that Iraq was no worse than New Orleans when it was descending into civil war.
Problems remain of course, but Rowland and others’ contention that in order to have an adult conversation one had to agree that the ACA was FUBAR is simply looking more and more premature if not hysterical.[/quote]
That’s an interesting perspective, MM.
I think we all expect that at some point in time, even the pathetically inept liberal bureaucrats will get the Obamacare website working. But, then what? Many people (essentially only conservatives) have been and now more people (including some Democrat politicians and Obama voters) are beginning to predict that once fully implemented, ObamaCare will be a disaster and the glitches in the website will be forgotten:
Maybe ObamaCare will turn out to be rainbows and unicorns… But, right now, I’m having difficulty seeing that version of reality?
You’ve been more reasonable than most, but the contention among many of these threads has been it will not work out, never, no how, and the only adult response was to admit it.
Not sure I get this. Medicaid expansion is going to cover a lot of people.
According to Forbes, 14% of covered Americans lose or change their plan every year. And even the CNN article said that many people won’t receive subsidies because their premiums are lower than expected.
You haven’t convinced me your numbers mean anything.
[quote]
Has anyone mentioned the issue of hospitals and doctors opting out? Or supply and demand? You know, if you have 30 million new patients and the supply of doctors remains the same, something has to give, and then there is talk of immigration reform.[/quote]
30 million new patients means an extra 10% presumably. Hardly an argument for inevitable gridlock.
Not sure I get this. Medicaid expansion is going to cover a lot of people. [/quote][/quote]
It will. That I think this is the goal, to move people away from private insurance to Medicaid/Medicare.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]According to Forbes, 14% of covered Americans lose or change their plan every year. And even the CNN article said that many people won’t receive subsidies because their premiums are lower than expected.
You haven’t convinced me your numbers mean anything. [/quote]
It just means private insurance is going up. Which means more people signing up to Medicaid/Medicare. The number of cancellations however I dont think can be or will be described as normal, although I am aware there are changes of plans all the time.
[quote=“Mucha Man”]
30 million new patients means an extra 10% presumably. Hardly an argument for inevitable gridlock.[/quote]
Yes, but it won’t be distributed evenly as the best hospitals will stick to people who buy private insurance from the insurance companies they like. Also, the states that are refusing to expand Medicare/Medicaid will leave a lot of people in deep shit. I am aware they are all Republican states.
[quote]The Obama administration is considering an extension of the president’s decision to let people keep their individual insurance policies even if they are not compliant with the health care overhaul, industry and government officials said Thursday.
Avalere Health CEO Dan Mendelson said Thursday that the administration may let policyholders keep that coverage for as long as an additional three years, stressing that no decision has been made. Policymakers are waiting to see what rate hikes health insurers plan for the insurance exchanges that are key to the overhaul’s coverage expansions.[/quote]
For the insured, the damage is done. It’s not practical to resinstate all the policies insurers were forced to cancelby government incompetence. But it’s all about politics now. Damage control.
[quote=“rowland”]
Not at all what we were promised.[/quote]
Agreed. RW scores a point on this one, and will get their reward during the midterms. And then America will reinflate the Teabaggers and regret it later.
If everyone knew what the standards were, and the insurance companies continued selling policies that didn’t meet them in the lead up, or failed to explain to policy holders that the policy didn’t meet the requirements, shouldn’t the insurance companies be wearing the blame? They should have to make sure that all their policies meet the requirements, and where they don’t, raise them to the required level at no additional cost to the policy holder, so that people don’t have to cancel.
There should be a lot more anger toward the insurance companies. If the policies of millions don’t even reach a minimum standard, then what have they been paying for all those years? How many millions or billions of dollars have insurance companies made in profits on essentially worthless policies?
There should be a lot more anger toward the insurance companies. If the policies of millions don’t even reach a minimum standard, then what have they been paying for all those years? How many millions or billions of dollars have insurance companies made in profits on essentially worthless policies?[/quote]
Bingo. This is something the right will never admit: insurance companies add little to no value to health care.
[quote=“cfimages”]
There should be a lot more anger toward the insurance companies. If the policies of millions don’t even reach a minimum standard, then what have they been paying for all those years? How many millions or billions of dollars have insurance companies made in profits on essentially worthless policies?[/quote]
Thats if you believe that these policies were useless and if you think including maternity care for people in their 60’s is better. The Liberal spin is the price increases are because the new standard is better, therefore the new policies are more expensive than the useless old ones. Some may have been bare bones, some were pretty good, and cheap too. I heard quite a few complain about this.
Everything Obamacare required was in her plan , except maternity care, which at 58 she didnt need. I guess mens policies would have been cancelled for the same reason, now their new and better plans should have maternity care too. She was paying $300 a month, now apparently, will have to pay an additional $5000 a year, so she can have her “better” medical coverage, the same as before, but now with the useless maternity care included.
[quote=“Mick”][quote=“cfimages”]
There should be a lot more anger toward the insurance companies. If the policies of millions don’t even reach a minimum standard, then what have they been paying for all those years? How many millions or billions of dollars have insurance companies made in profits on essentially worthless policies?[/quote]
Thats if you believe that these policies were useless and if you think including maternity care for people in their 60’s is better. The Liberal spin is the price increases are because the new standard is better, therefore the new policies are more expensive than the useless old ones. Some may have been bare bones, some were pretty good, and cheap too. I heard quite a few complain about this.
[/quote]
But as I said 2 posts ago, if the existing policies cannot even meet a minimum standard, then the onus should be on the insurance company to make up the difference. Not the individual citizen. It’s not asking to meet the very best possible care, just a basic minimum.
They can easily include maternity coverage for someone in their 60’s at no extra cost. It will never be used so it’d cost nothing to include it if that’s the only thing stopping it meeting a minimum standard.
[quote=“Mick”][quote=“cfimages”]
There should be a lot more anger toward the insurance companies. If the policies of millions don’t even reach a minimum standard, then what have they been paying for all those years? How many millions or billions of dollars have insurance companies made in profits on essentially worthless policies?[/quote]
Thats if you believe that these policies were useless and if you think including maternity care for people in their 60’s is better. The Liberal spin is the price increases are because the new standard is better, therefore the new policies are more expensive than the useless old ones. Some may have been bare bones, some were pretty good, and cheap too. I heard quite a few complain about this.
Everything Obamacare required was in her plan , except maternity care, which at 58 she didnt need. I guess mens policies would have been cancelled for the same reason, now their new and better plans should have maternity care too. She was paying $300 a month, now apparently, will have to pay an additional $5000 a year, so she can have her “better” medical coverage, the same as before, but now with the useless maternity care included.[/quote]
Employer based policies have almost always covered maternity which means covering men too and post-menopausal women.That 58 year old would be co-paying for materniy coverage at work too so what is the problem?. Also individual policies rarely cover maternity but as the conservative Atlantic writes, most babies now are born to single mothers. Such mothers are less likely to have an employer based policy that coversmatermity. Seems prudent to ensure medical coverage for the majority of newborns. Yeah yeah don’t have babies says the wrong.
It doesn’t strike me as a valid argument that private policies are going to be more expensive because of maternity coverage for all when this is standard in employer based coverage.
I do like the way Republican talking points on the CBO report have spun in two days from “Obamacare will drive 2.5 million decent hard-working Americans from their jobs” to “Obamacare will allow 2.5 million lazy shiftless takers to go on welfare on my dime” .
