Anyone interested in a detailed analysis of this provision should read this article. It’s a year old, but I think it summarizes things very well.
Is anyone worried about the potential for job losses?
If a big bad insurance company currently has a medical loss ratio of 84%, what’s more likely: cutting executive compensation, or cutting low paid administrative staff?
And what happens when a smaller, yet still evil, insurance company has a ratio of 79% and decides it would rather not operate. So it pays out huge bonuses to the executives, and let’s its customers try to get new coverage elsewhere with their existing conditions.
Why does Obama hate us?
Call me cynical, but I would surmise any large insurance company would have the means to hire a whizbang accounting team to massage numbers, expenses and so forth so as to strictly adhere to the changes without in fact changing anything in the way the company runs, besides which dollars get filed under which column for which reason.
Yep. And if you read the article I linked to, above, you will note that any large insurance company is already operating under a system like this:
This is nothing new.
I don’t know quite how to Google this, so I’ll just ask my research staff. (For a research staff, a message board full of smart-asses is the best. Plus, they work for free!)
The money that comes in from premiums, it forms a pool of cash, yes? I’m betting they are permitted to invest such money, yes? And the returns on said investments are theirs?
What restrictions are in place regarding such investments?
This is called “float”, and a way that insurance companies make a huge amount of money. Each state regulates the amount of funds insurance companies have to have on hand to deal with a disaster, so that would probably be the type of restriction you are thinking of.
I agree that “Obamacare” is a loaded phrase and sounds a bit silly and is probably designed to “blame” Obama for something awful, but I’m not sure what the real name of the program is. The law that put it into place was the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” if I’m reading correctly… but that’s not the name of the program, right? What is the real name? Sorry if this is easily Googled. I tried but didn’t find it.
In case it matters, I’m in favor of a healthcare system similar to Canada’s or the UK’s personally. I haven’t done extensive studies into it so there could easily be things about it that would totally suck and I wouldn’t agree with, but from everything I’ve seen/read/experienced it’s a good system–far better than living in the US with no insurance, which I’ve done many times for years at a time. So I’m all for some kind of universal health coverage. I also admit to not really understanding the plan that Obama passed. I don’t know the details of how it will work. If anyone has a (nonpartisan, fair) link to a breakdown in simple terms of what the plan actual does, I’d be grateful for said link.
Does anyone know the real numbers for what kind of overhead insurance companies currently operate with? Is this going to cut it in any real way?
I posted an article that discusses that a few posts up.
I don’t really think “Obamacare” is a bad descriptor. No worse than “Bush Tax Cuts”. If you prefer something more technical, I usually call it the HCRB (Health Care Reform Bill).
What other name would it be called? “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” is the name. Obama himself has even endorsed Obamacare as an alternate name.
Post 6
The more analogous use would be the “Obama Health Care Law.”
If the Bush Tax Cuts were dealt with in as childish a way by the left they would be called, “Bushonomics.”
Well, and analogy isn’t meant to be a direct copy, so I stand by my post. Both assign ownership solely to the president. But if you want an exact comparison, why not “Reaganomics”? Maybe when the left stops using that term, the right will stop using Obamacare. Not that the use of the latter is solely by the right or the use of the former is solely by the left.
I would say that Reganomics refer to the overall realm of current economic thought on the right. Bushonomics would be specifically the tax-cuts.
In any case, I’m just saying that Obamacare is a conservative attempt to demonize the issue, because they’re tying it to the Kenyan-Muslim-Atheist-Crypto-Communist-AntiChrist himself. And Reganomics was, as far as I recall, a branding thing by conservatives. It didn’t start as a dig, it’s just some people see it as a dig today because it wasn’t a successful idea.
Yeah, those damn conservatives and right wingers!
Obviously it’s used by people on the left now. I’m talking about how it started. It has become the go-to term because of massive use.
If the company can get by with less staff, they should be cut. The money saved in premiums will partially add to the income of the public as as a whole, and to the bottom line of those companies paying the premiums, where the dollars can be used more efficiently. You might as well worry about the job impact of firing the window breakers.
As for not operating, you seem to forget that the shareowners, not the CEO, own the company, and throwing away the business would lead to some interesting lawsuits. Of course a company not led by a moron would buy the little insurance company, to the benefit of all, no doubt.
Then it’s no longer derogatory or childish, since it’s a commonly accepted term. As for how it started, do you have a cite? It seemed to be everywhere from the very beginning. The Democrats grew to dislike it as the conservatives used it more and more, but I’ve seen Democrats and left leaning commentators use it without batting an eye.
This part of Obamacare probably won’t make a difference in the short run. HHS will undoubtedly grant waivers to states, especially if a more conservative administration comes into the fore. Moreover the profit margins on for-profit health insurance are ridiculously huge; like 60-65% overhead. They could absorb that cost without being threatened, even the small ones.
It can lead to single-payer healthcare, but I don’t see that happening unless competition drives the health insurance company to bankruptcy/unprofitability. We’ll see what happens after we have a state exchanges set up.
Sweet, job creation! Even better if they count as medically related expenses.
What about the multiplier effect? Did you forget about the multiplier effect? Transferring money from the policy holders, and giving it to the employees, allows the employees to spend it at places the policy holders work. Then some magic happens, and we all end up with more money, right?
You’re assuming all companies are publicly traded. What about the mom and pop insurance companies?
Only if there continues to be as much profit as before, see post 2. For the company to be desirable means there is sufficient profit, which means this shiny new regulation does jack squat.
RE: “ObamaCare”
The actual origins of the term are obscure, or maybe merely mundane. This cite
claims to have searched the term on Nexus/Lexus and determined that it was first publicly used in an “…enthusiastically supportive article in the Salt Lake Tribune…”
Your correspondent hastens to advise that the website appears to offer an agenda broadcast from a very remote location.
Outside of unreliable, I got nothin’.
I don’t know how anyone can think that throwing the whole HCI industry into disarray will somehow be good for the country. It’s like the conservative who want to wreck the economy in order to discredit Obama. A devastated HCI industry could just as easily lead to a repeal of the HCRB (aka, Obamacare) as it could lead to a nationalization of said industry. In fact, I would put odds on Death to Obamacare over Hello Single Payer any day.