Affordable Care Act for dummies version (Page 3)

If anyone still has any questions about the ACA I would recommend reading the regulations manual.  You will likely be dead by the time you finish it, but I'm sure the answer you're looking for is in there somewhere.  

11,588,500 Words: Obamacare Regs 30x as Long as Law

No wonder why not a single Member of Congress read it before they cast their vote.  Makes perfect sense.

I saw a comment the other night from an obvious partisan source, but I thought it was funny.  If the ACA is so good then why do you have to pass a law to force everyone to use it.  If it's good for you, wouldn't you just want to use it?

See that's just funny.  

I posted about this a few weeks back, but it was back in the news yesterday because the judge is letting the case proceed.

Judge Refuses to Dismiss Case Challenging Obamacare Subsidies

I'm not a lawyer, but from a pure verbiage of the law it seems as though the case is pretty tight and this may be a monumental oversight in the original law.  There's no question the intent of the law was to pay the subsidies no matter which exchange somebody signed up, and there's also no question the House would not approve modifying the language to reflect the original intent.

So, now it seems a matter of figuring out a loophole to pay subsidies to people in the Federal Exchanges.

Because this has nothing to do with health "insurance".... it has to do with supplying health "service". Insurance is a risk management tool to mitigate unforseen events. Health service is simply the act of providing health care.

Government regulations brought us HMOs. Regulations in Obamacare mandate heath care. Why in the world would anyone think that providing health care to 48 million people that had none was going to be a cost savings endeavour?

The government isn't the solution, it's the problem.

Any company will provide a need if there is a demand. If there is a demand for low cost health care, then let companies compete to provide the lowest cost for the best care. If there is a need to buy insurance to minimize risk from unforseen sickness or injury, then let companies compete to provide the lowest cost and provide the best protection. The government intervening in that and forcing the market to do what it wants, or providing a golden pot everyone wants to get a piece of regardless of the price or product it provides... does not accomplish what we want.

I just read this article on the National Review which spells out this exact "death spiral" in one of their points.

Top Ten Obamacare Disasters to Come

3. Attracting the sickest: Sicker Americans, with high health costs, are the ones most determined to get through the Healthcare.gov website to enroll. If they dominate enrollment, premiums will have to rise in 2015, discouraging even more young healthies from applying in the future. The industry calls this a “death spiral.”

We’ve already seen a preview: People enrolled in the temporary high-risk pools created under the health law have cost an average of about $28,994 a year, so much more than expected that the pool ran out of money and closed enrollment almost a year early.

I've heard that a lot, but I just don't see it happening.  Even with a "super majority" the ACA barely passed because even many Dem's didn't want to go down that road.  It also completely takes out the special interests, insurance companies, and kills the high paying medical jobs/clinics.

I do agree there will be those that try to push towards a single payer system, but I see the demand to rip the ACA out far out weighing diving into it deeper if it goes really bad in the next few years.

On the lighter side....

Jon Stewart had a nice discussion about how the ACA is going here...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qtx_ZcHOjw&feature=share

Oh, and don't forget to get your "Brosurance"  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/22/obamacare-ads_n_4145201.html
(btw, this is a real advertisement for the ACA in Colorado targeting college kids)

I think the part that's missing here is that people without healthcare don't come in at zero cost.  They use emergency services and tend to either cost the system even more that way than if they had primary care, or they die (yes, people without health insurance die at a much higher rate than those with it), which if they were a working individual, costs our country as well.  Every single dollar of healthcare the uninsured use get paid by us.  the ACA gets more people to pay into the system.  Which is why it has been the GOP answer to what the progressives have wanted for over 20 years (which is single-payer, medicare for all).  

and while, I'm sure that on breitbart.com, you'll find anectdotal cases of people paying a lot more;  from what I've been reading, overwhelmingly, insurance rates are going down.  Hannity had  3 people on yesterday that all claimed to be negatively impacted by the ACA.  When a newspaper reporter interviewed them afterwards, each and every one of them were just plain wrong.  One claimed he was going to lose his business and was going to need to fire people - yet he didn't employ 50 people so the ACA doesn't apply to him.  Another hated Obama so much, that he refused to go the web site and even find out how much it would cost... that sorta' thing.  There's way too much politically charged mis-information out there.

Problem is, if this doesn't work- the next solution is 'medicare for all'.  Because how it has been isn't working.  

Yup.  Exactly.  I did recall reading about the amount of lobbying money the health insurance companies were putting in to push for a mandate based system rather than single-payer.  It would make the Iraq war look cheap in comparison.  (ok, I'm exaggerating for fun... but it was in the hundreds of millions)

the ACA was negotiated for a year, and for most of that time, the GOP was pushing for the mandate based system- against what Obama wanted, which was medicare for all.  the POTUS eventually caved, because he wanted to get something passed, and he adopted the GOP plan... at which point the 'pubs ran for the hills.  there was no way they were going to stick a feather in Obama's cap, even if it was their plan.

yes.  the ACA is the GOP plan.  how quickly we forget.

funny.  cute.  it was edited a bit of course.  

You really need to stay off those liberal websites.

I agree with you about people costing money that don't currently have healthcare because the Hospitals have to take care of those people.  In theory, you are absolutely correct that more people in the healthcare system equal more money into the system and lower premiums for all.  However, the ACA appears to be doing anything but that.  It appears to be driving more people off of insurance due to the addition of all the extra requirements such as pre-existing conditions and mandating all of these additional coverages that many insured do not want.  The net effect is the insurance rates are going up, not down.  Also, these same people who don't have insurance will have such high deductibles that they'll still likely continue to go to the emergency room.  If they couldn't afford a $200 doctor visit, how the heck are they going to afford a $12k family deductible.

You can pretend that the ACA has no effect on companies with less than 50 employees, but you're wrong.  Contrary to most liberal beliefs a large percentage of companies with less than 50 employees DO provide health insurance to their employees.  I am one of those companies and I only have 8 employees.  My existing healthcare plan that everyone LOVES was discontinued because it wasn't in compliance with the ACA.  I was just informed this week that a rough equivalent plan for 2014 is going to raise my rates by over 30% due to all of the mandatory additions (that nobody wants) they had to make.  My total insurance bill is approximately $5k per month this year.  If my rates increase by 30% that's an additional $1500/mo. for a company with 8 employees (2 of which don't partake in our insurance).  So, I either take the money away from my family,  my employees, or my customers.  So, I may not be "mandated" by the ACA to provide healthcare, but that doesn't mean I'm not effected.

I'm sorry, but I just have to laugh at your statement of "overwhelmingly insurance rates are going down".  I would love to see the source of that data because I have yet to talk to any middle class individuals who have a lower net cost of healthcare.  There may be a few plans here or there that may be a little cheaper from a monthly premium standpoint, but their deductibles are astronomical.

Just in case you think I'm the only one whose premium was canceled.  According to this article 85% of old plans are being canceled and replaced with mostly more expensive plans for the same reasons I lost mine.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/millions-americans-are-losing-their-health-plans-because-obamacare_764602.html

It's been all over mainstream news sources.  although, you might not find it on the weekly standard.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/25/news/economy/obamacare-premium-rates/

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57604498/

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130924/NEWS03/130929882/for-chicago-area-consumers-lower-rates-under-obamacare

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/stories/2013/september/25/federal-exchange-rates-lower-than-expected.aspx

(plenty more- you're welcome to google, and I haven't bothered to send you to the left wing sites, which are predicting huge government windfalls of hundreds of billions of dollars due to the lower premiums)

We all hear what we want to hear I guess.

So- the bronze level plans in obamacare are pretty poor.  70% coverage and high deductibles.  I'm curious- what are the specific coverage areas that you didn't cover, that now your insurance has to- that are driving up costs by 30%?

And- as far as your statement " It appears to be driving more people off of insurance due to the addition of all the extra requirements such as pre-existing conditions and mandating all of these additional coverages that many insured do not want."

How can including coverage for pre-existing conditions drive people off?  what are these additional coverages that many insured don't want?  Really- my left wing sources haven't educated me about this.

See, here is where you have to do your diligence.  You link a CNN article showing massive savings in premiums.  I'll just pick one and look at Missouri.  Your chart shows a reduction from $798 to $220 a month.  Wow, who couldn't love that.  Then you look two links down on the google search and find this little nugget:
http://watchdog.org/112281/report-missourians-will-see-sharp-rise-in-premiums-under-obamacare/

The average premium for a 50-year-old Missourian will rise from $299 to $416, said the Heritage Foundation, with that 39.1 percent increase ranking the state 21^st.
A family of four can expect to pay $824 in monthly premiums on the exchange, up from $744, with that 10.8 percent boost the 20^th highest in the country.

So, we have the CNN data released by the Obama administration and the other with data from the actual state exchange policies.  You can certainly argue that it's from Heritage so it's bunk, but they support their numbers a lot more than the Obama administration does.

Go read the OP in this thread for yet another real world example of rates going up.   You can pretend that it's not happening and tell people that it's not happening,  but reality is telling most of us something quite different.

The biggest ones are covering pre-existing conditions, maternity, kids until age 25, contraceptives, no lifetime limits, preventative care without copays/deductibles, and I'm sure I'm missing a few.

I'm not going to argue that these are good things or bad things.  However, every single one of them results in increased payouts by the insurance company.  So they either have to have new younger/healthier people (and a lot of them) or they raise the rates.  So far, they've only been raising the rates on me and my business.

btw, I shouldn't really have to sell or convince you why my rates are going up because they simply ARE going up.  It's one thing to argue hypotheticals, but reality is what it is.  The ACA was supposed to make it cheaper for everyone and we could keep our plans if we wanted right?  Lie and Lie, and that's a fact.

People are being driven off because of the increased premiums that you seem to think don't exist.  If somebody is barely able to afford healthcare today and their premium goes up $50, $100, $200 a month they may have no choice but to not buy insurance next year.

It's not that people don't want extra coverages.  Heck, I'd love to have zero deductibles and 100% coverage, but it's way too expensive (if it even exists) so I don't buy it. 

Every single new "benefit" or mandated coverage they put in the ACA raises the payout by the insurance companies.  The only realistic thing that I've seen mentioned is the addition of younger healthier people to the pool in order to offset those costs.  That's where the proof is in the pudding so to speak and I've yet to see very much excitement by the young and healthy to fork out money for something they don't want or need right now.

If I'm completely wrong then you can certainly call me on it in a year or two, but I base my responses on what I see happening, not the rainbows and unicorns that the administration and the media have been pumping down our throats the last two years.

No, that isn't the intent, but that is what will happen. The government tied health insurance to work. the Government tied us to HMO and PPOs and insurance based healthcare instead of simple family practice I had growing up. All that regulation led us to ACA... why... because healthcare costs are sky rocketing and we will go broke if we don't do something.

So you really think, this legislation is going to get us to a place we don't want single payer? No, government regulation should have got us to a place where we didn't want anymore government regulation... what did it get us, Obamacare. Down the road, the government will do what it does best... pass more legislation to fix the problems legislation created in the first place... but promise... we will really fix it this time.

No, the CNN chart is not showing any reductions or savings.  It shows that a 27 year old individual would pay $220/month and a family of 4 would pay $798/month.  Which is somewhat inline with the Heritage Foundation's numbers of a 27 year old individual paying $244/month and a family of 4 paying $824/month.  

Thanks, I misread the chart.  

I was thinking that even seemed a lot more aggressive than anything I'd heard before.  lol