And you’re right. I’m following this discussion on another board (as we speak!) and as it turns out, some cities have been doing this wrong.
There’s so much misinformation out there. I’m sorry to have contributed to it here.
Right now where I live food shelves are asking for more help. People don’t have jobs.
What happens when more people live longer, are able to afford more children but are unable to find work?
I’ll ask again. How many young people are going to sign on for insurance they don’t feel they need to support all the Baby Boomers? It’s my understanding that in order for this to work that is going to have to happen.
I know a lot of good young people who are charity-minded but they are struggling to get by themselves.
No one has explained yet how this system will sustain itself.
You have to look at all the effects to determine if it’s a positive change. Yes, it is good that people are no longer denied for preexisting conditions. However, it’s bad that some people who had affordable insurance plans no longer have them because they’re forced to buy more coverage than they want. Now, you can certainly argue that the good outweighs the bad, but to do that you have to actually acknowledge the bad and consider it.
FWIW, I’m really in the middle on Obamacare. I can see it has some good bits, and some bad bits. It’s obviously having some issues at the current time, but I expect that most of them are short term and will be resolved. Mostly, I get the sense that it’s incredibly complicated and no one is really sure what it’s going to end up doing in the long run. Which should give us all pause. No one really predicted the short-term problems here. What’s going to happen in another few years?
That’s an interesting argument, but I’m not sure I buy it. If this is such a good idea, why would the trend of public opinion be going the other way?
This is a reasonable position and I’m disappointed people on both sides don’t see it. The law has good stuff and bad stuff. If you can’t admit that both ways then it’s not a good argument.
I think the trend is going down because:
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People forget the good stuff after they’ve had it for a while. See the protestors that had signs says “Keep the government out of my medicare!”. Many good parts of the law have already come into effect but people have short memories and are forgetting the problems that existed before.
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People are starting to have to pay for it, and nobody likes paying for things. I have seen, not here but elsewhere, suggestions that we drop the individual mandate but keep the coverage for preexisting conditions. People want the good parts without having to pay for it, and now that they’re required to get insurance, they have to pay for it.
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Anytime something has problems, people decide they don’t like it because they focus on the bad parts and forget the good parts. The exchange website has been in the news for sucking the big one recently, and people are focused on that instead of the refund checks some people are getting because they were overcharged for insurance.
One thing about “more coverage than you want” is that the deal with medical insurance is that you aren’t really sure when you are going to need coverage. Granted, the chance I’m going to need maternity care is pretty slim now a days. But I can’t say for sure I won’t need substance abuse or mental health treatment. And I certainly can’t say I won’t need ambulatory care, emergency care or hospitalization. In fact, the only things on that list that I’m pretty sure I won’t need is maternity care - wait a minute, I have a fourteen year old daughter on my insurance, there is nothing on that list that I can’t say for sure I won’t need.
Now, there are men and people without fourteen year old daughters that won’t need maternity care. And I suppose there are a few people whose risk of substance abuse is so low as to be non-existent - no one but themselves on their insurance and they don’t drink and aren’t likely to - but I’m thinking that is the minority of people. Even those people could find themselves addicted to prescription painkillers if they need to use the emergency and hospitalization services.
One of the purposes here was to pull off some of the cost of services you never thought you’d need that now bankrupt you, or force hospitals to cover you, or force the government to pick up the costs.
There have always been things in my coverage I didn’t think I was going to need. A lifelong non-smoker, I’m not likely to get lung cancer in the next few years, maybe I shouldn’t pay for that coverage until I’m 50. I don’t have a prostate, lets pull out prostate cancer - testicular cancer while we are at it. I’ll probably get diabetes at some point - type II runs in my Dad’s family, diet and exercise will postpone it until I’m 60, lets keep diabetes coverage off for a few years. I haven’t spent a day overweight in my life, don’t see why I need to pay for someone else’s gastric bypass. No one in my family has any birth defects - no spinal bifida or cleft palate. Both my kids are neurotypical, lets pull any coverage out for birth defects and autism - my kids don’t have it, don’t want to pay for it for someone else. But all of that has been in there all along - why have we excluded mental health/chemical dependency and maternity care? If we really want to have cafeteria plans, where you pick what you want and don’t want to be covered for - we need a LOT more flexibility. But its not going to happen because then you wouldn’t have insurance, you’d have a pay as you go plan.
“Can’t afford”
Until the very first time they have medical issues, when they’re completely boned if they don’t have it.
Have more people signed up for coverage or lost coverage?
Define “lost coverage.” Lost coverage and are unable to get any more? Or lost the particular coverage that they want? Because the latter used to happen every year anyway, it’s just that Obamacare wasn’t around to blame it on.
They had coverage. Now they don’t.
At least one person on this board argued that that wouldn’t happen: young, healthy people, he said, would realize they have to shoulder their “fair share” of the load and pay so that we can take care of older folks and the people who need subsidizing.
That’s hilarious!
Just because Tethered Kite knows some young people that aren’t going to participate, doesn’t prove whoever you’re talking about is wrong. They might be, but this doesn’t prove it.
So what’s with Obama’s recently announced “fix”? Are the insurance companies allowed to undo all the changes that Obamacare required?
Have any announced that they will do it…it might be a little late now don’t you think?
That’s a stupid definition. Suppose I choose to drop coverage and pay the individual mandate fine. I had coverage, now I don’t. Have I “lost coverage”? Suppose my insurance company no longer offers the plan I used to be on, but I can go on the exchanges and get something similar for a similar (subsidized) price. Have I “lost coverage”? Suppose my employer changes the insurance offerings for this year (which actually happened to me). I used to have coverage under Cigna, now I don’t (I have it under BCBS). Have I “lost coverage”?
There’s a big difference between losing coverage but being able to get other coverage, and losing coverage without being able to replace it. Even without Obamacare, people lost coverage every year. Whether through being priced out of the market, through recission, through losing a job, or through an insurance company canceling a plan.
Granted, there’s now a new wrinkle in the fourth scenario: the insurance company cancels a plan specifically because it doesn’t comply with the EHB requirements of Obamacare, rather than for some other inscrutable reason. But in any case, it’s now much, much more likely that if you lose coverage for one of those reasons that you can find a suitable replacement. In years past, people would lose coverage and just be SOL.
People seem to have convinced themselves that the individual and small-group insurance market was a world of unicorns and rainbows until that dastardly Obamacare came along and upended it. That’s just not true.
No. They’re allowed to keep offering old products to people that already had them. Essentially, this changes the date of grandfathering from March 23rd, 2010 to now.
Are there any such people?
I don’t know what all the “cancellation” letters said, but I know what the one I read said, and it said that the existing policy no longer existed, and that there were three things you could do:
- Do nothing and be signed up for the policy that replaced it (possibly at a different premium – likely higher)
- Go onto the exchange and buy coverage there.
- Contact them for other options.
The way I read it, that letter says that the insured person is still insured, they’ve just been defaulted into another plan (which, granted, may be much more expensive and they may not like it).
Are you sure that’s wise? Premiums for a PPO easily exceed $5,000 per year, usually. You’d be better off taking the nearly-free offer and paying the $5,000 out of pocket, tax deductible. Then, of course, there’s always the (more likely) chance that you won’t need insurance at all, and you can pocket the savings.
Maybe you did the math correctly, but at $5,000 for a cheap plan, it sounds unlikely.
Have any (or any significant number of) insurance companies cancelled policies already, before the ACA coverage kicks in, or are they all canceling it effective 1/1/2014 or later? Because I thought it was the latter but my mom insists that people have already lost coverage before they have any option to get a new plan.
You get your wish: it does work badly.
I guess I could have phrased that better.