Not really. Your explanation is correct, but it’s not what ACA actually does. What ACA does is more akin to making people without houses pay to insure houses.
An even more accurate analogy is forcing people in the desert to pay the same flood insurance rates as people living in Key West, Florida. That’s not actually how insurance is supposed to work, and it’s not how it works.
Really? You think that since you “pay and pay and pay” for Obamacare, other taxes will go down? What amazing naivete.
No one could take his assurance to mean that no one would lose their insurance, just as no one could take his assurance to mean that no one would lose their job. Insurance companies get cancelled, jobs are lost(and created) for reasons that have nothing to do with ACA or any other law.
Where he was dishonest was in that he was responding to criticisms that the passage of ACA would result in people losing their insurance who otherwise would not lose their insurance. He compounded his dishonesty by accusing those who made that very valid prediction that THEY were the ones being dishonest.
This is why Internet discussion sucks. She was clearly talking about healthcare costs, not all taxes, and your comment only serves to confuse and complicate the already unwieldy topic.
edit:
OK, a fair criticism, IMO.
Prior to this, you didn’t have to buy that plan. You chose to, because it was still a better deal than the alternatives.
A lot of people who do not need maternity coverage and don’t have it now have to buy it.
How do you know it is going to be cheaper?
Quote: “Right now we pay for that through taxes.”
Trust me, no one can manage your finances for you. Which is essentially what making people buy health insurance is doing. You are being told that food comes second, health insurance comes first. Rent comes second, health insurance comes first. And even if you did decide that your budget should include health insurance, you have to have a plan that covers certain things in certain ways which you do not need.
It would be like the government mandating that everyone have a 401(k), and that this 401(k) MUST be 80% domestic large cap stocks. And defenders of this mandate would say things like, “Well, a 401(k) made up of too many small-caps is too speculative and thus irresponsible, and a 401(k) made up of Treasuries is too conservative. This is just right and will assure best outcomes for all.”
Honest question:
Obamacare (as per HHS) will not fine (oops tax) you if your plan is grandfathered in. So what is the process of grandfathering in an existing plan.
As much as I oppose the ACA in its current form, if your insurance company simply had to write a letter to Sec. Sibilius then you can blame Obama. If the administration made it de facto (as opposed to de jure) impossible to grandfather in an existing policy then yes Obama lied. If the law makes it impossible to grandfather in an existing policy then there’s plenty of blame to go around.
You’re aware that other people can go read my entire post, right?
Just checking.
Personally, I think the insurance mandate is kind of dumb, but it’s what we were left with after people bitched and complained about having a public option. So, congratulations, now there’s no public option and instead we have this insurance mandate. Which, IMO, is still better than the previous situation, in which we just let people be uninsured and rack up debilitating ER costs that the rest of us all end up paying for in the long term.
As I posted above, it is possible to “grandfather” a plan - if it is frozen - that is, if the benefits, the premiums and the deductibles do not ever change. Any change - no matter how little - and it is not “grandfathered” anymore.
Which make it de facto impossible to grandfather any plans.
That type of insurance is perfect for most young and healthy people. Very few young people are going to be using more than 3k per year and it keeps premiums low enough for young people just starting out to afford it. I wish I had that plan available when I was young and making little money.
No one is qualified to make decisions for millions of people they don’t know. These super geniuses who want picking your healthcare options don’t exist. You go to the store and there are 50 kinds of spaghetti sauce, and 20 kinds of pasta imagine someone tasked with picking out the right kind of sauce and pasta for everyone in america without having talked with anyone. Healthcare is infinetly more complex. The only way to find out what people want and can afford is dozens of different companies offering dozens of different plans and tweaking them each year as a response to customer demand.
While the average person does have final authorities over his or her finances, the average person is NOT a financial expert. Anyone investing for retirement is a damn fool if they don’t consult those more knowledgeable about the subject.
Do you work for an insurance company? Because that is one of the only ways this statement makes sense to me. Do you honestly believe that insurance companies are faithfully tweaking their plans every year in response to customer demand?
Here is the number of health insurance companies I am able to choose from via my husband’s current employer: One. Here is the number of plans they offer us: Two.
I am, shall we say, less than impressed with the wide variety of choices and options available to us on the glorious free market.
But if a policy is getting cancelled because it’s not ACA compliant and the insurance company’s suggested replacement is twice as much, then the effect is functionally the same from the user’s perspective – they had a policy, they liked it, now it’s gone (because of Obamacare) and they’re forced onto the exchanges. If this were happening to a few people I could forgive the administration for not advertising this side effect, but the numbers are massive (50-75% of individual policies), so it’s inexcusable IMO. It should have been sold differently.
It’s good to hear that the exchange websites are starting to work better; that’s certainly something that’s not getting a lot of news coverage. If the sites had worked flawlessly from day 1, the above complaint wouldn’t have been as big of a deal.
Do you think the insurance companies other than the one that is your choice at your employer’s refused to offer plans to you? Or was it your employer that decided that they could not?
I’m sure you think you’re making some kind of point with this, but I have decided not to try to figure it out and am carrying on with the rest of the discussion.
You aren’t the customer selecting the plans in that scenario. Your husband’s employer is.
If you looked at the market options available in 2009, you would have seen upto 50 (or less/more depending on your locale) plans that you could get instead of your husband’s employer’s options. It’s the same as saying “My husband’s employer only offers a coffee cup with the employer’s brand on it. The free market has failed coffee cups!”
Whether or not you decided to go with your husband’s employer’s provided options or not is entirely dependent on your needs, of course.
Or avail oneself of the extensive literature on investing issued by reputable sources not trying to sell you anything. Dun and Bradsteet issues an investing guide annually which is outstanding, and Motley Fool has been around for a long time giving sound investment advice.
But also, the average government official is not a financial expert, and I doubt many people in HHS are.
One guy who definitely is not is the President, yet he’s trying to tell young people that it’s a “good investment” for them, even though they are buying at a higher price than necessary, which violates Investment 101: