That means that the next edition of the KHIP (warning, PDF) will make interesting reading indeed - for the 2013 edition, the “negative impact” rating for the survey went up from 2012…
It will bear watching as a case study won’t it?
It’ll also be interesting to see how Grimes views the situation. She’s got a real shot at McConnell and how she handles the health care issue will make a big difference.
Well, not for *some *of you, anyway.
The view from the Kentucky trenches:
Those who have been added to Medicaid via the expansion–the vast majority of the newly covered–obviously love it. The state made a mess of Medicaid a few years ago by handing it over to a trio of private companies, but it works when it needs to. I expect those numbers to keep rising, since a lot of the people signing up this way are doing so as they come into contact with the health care system.
The exchanges are trickier. Our plans are more expensive than the national average because we only have two major insurers and the competition just isn’t there. (This is one of the reasons we were able to set up such a successful exchange–we didn’t have that many insurers to plug in.) So I expect us to have a bigger holdout rate than most. But our individual insurance market was practically nonexistent before, and I know several people who just couldn’t get anything last year who can now and are grateful.
For the same reason, I suspect that the number of people in KY who had individual plans they liked that were canceled is vanishingly small. I have not personally encountered one.
The thing about Kentucky setting up its own exchange is that it puts some rhetorical distance between our system and “Obamacare”. The President is VERY unpopular here, and I think having its own branding and site has helped our system become the relative success that it has been. The problem is that it makes it hard for Democrats to take credit. I’m sure that there are plenty of people with new health insurance and very grateful for it who will nonetheless denounce “Obammycare” to anyone who asks and who will line up for the very turtle who will try to take it away from them.
I’ll be curious to see how Grimes plays it. I don’t understand what motivates someone to vote for Mitch McConnell in the first place, so I don’t really know how you’d go about convincing them not to.
McConnell spends a lot of taxpayer money buying votes in the state. You know, the kind of campaign spending campaign finance reformers think is okay. Minus the bacon, McConnell couldn’t win 25% of the vote.
Back to the subject of health care, why would it be hard for Democrats to take credit for Kentucky’s implementation of ACA? I would think that Kentucky’s success would vault Breashear into the Presidential mix. ACA will almost certainly still be having implementation problems as of 2016. Why not promote a guy who has proven he can manage it?
Jumping to another state, the LA Times has an article about Hawaii that provides an interesting contrast to most states. For forty years, there has been an employer mandate for coverage of all employees who work 20 or more hours per week. Nearly 90% of adults and 95% of children have coverage.
Unlike the vote last week in congress…
I’ve kind of been stewing over a sort of magnum opus analysis of the GOP anti-ACA assault writ large. I may or may not get it up here at some point, but in the meantime, here’s a great article that touches on a few of the things I’ve been thinking about.
Expect Medicare Advantage cuts to be the latest delay:
Will this law ever actually be implemented?
The story does not say there’s going to be a delay.
Oh, please. All of the administration’s delays are politically motivated. Cutting Medicare Advantage in an election year didn’t happen in 2012, it won’t happen in 2014.
If that’s true you shouldn’t have any trouble posting a cite that the administration is thinking about delaying the cuts. Maybe they are, but you posted a cite that says some Democrats are asking for delays. I did a search and was unable to find a current cite that says the cuts may be delayed.
There won’t be a cite until they do the delay. Until it happens, they’ll insist up and down that there is no thought of a delay. And then they might even deny the did a delay, just like they’ve done with the individual mandate and the Mar. 31 deadline to sign up.
They lawyer everything to death.
The one thing we’ve been able to count on is that unless they are taken by surprise, they will delay anything that will cause Democrats problems in the coming election. Or at least try, as they did with the announcements of premium increases, which they claimed would give insurance companies more time to assess their risk pools. How nice of them. Unortunately, the insurance companies are still going to announce their new premiums in the summer.
Another **adaher **prediction. Yippee.
We’ll know Monday:
BTW, your apologies to Republicans for calling their claims that Medicare Advantage would be cut “lies” are accepted.
And BTW, I do hope I’m wrong about this one. Medicare Advantage SHOULD be cut. My issue with the Democrats is that once again, they wouldn’t defend a good policy on the merits. Instead, they lied about it and furthermore slandered their opponents in the process.
So the President should cut Medicare Advantage as the law he signed and Democrats wrote directs. And they should then face the consequences of those cuts.
To back away from the cuts would be yet another cowardly pullback from the political consequences of the law they supported and continue to support.
You really do need to work harder at comprehension. The oft-told Republican lie, one which you have serially repeated here, no doubt out of sincere belief, is that those are cuts to benefits, not to overhead and bloat. Ryan proposes exactly the same thing, as you may also know.
Your apology for mischaracterizing the facts will be accepted once you show you recognize that you have done so.
Democrats in Congress want the cuts to stop precisely becuase they will lead to cuts in benefits.
Which Democrats?
The ones in the article.
**“The additional proposed cuts to the program released in February have raised grave concern from my constituents about their coverage and about the potential of having to pay more and having fewer benefits,” Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.) said.
**
**“We are here today because CMS … has proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage,” said Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). "Next week, CMS will publish its final rule.
“I urge CMS to not cut Medicare Advantage. These cuts will decrease choice, create uncertainty and undermine access to care for our seniors. I oppose these cuts.”
Other Democrats said that millions of people around the country rely on Medicare Advantage and thousands of people in their districts would be affected by the cuts.
“The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently proposed a 5.9 percent cut to this program, which could result in a reduction of benefits and increased premiums on Medicare beneficiaries by $35 to $75 a month,” Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.) said. "That’s an added cost that many seniors simply cannot afford to pay every single month.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/healthcare/202631-dems-plead-with-obama-not-to-cut-medicare-advantage#.Uz3y5vq3fb8.twitter#ixzz2yCoiG3LU
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**
Liars, the whole bunch, I guess.
See, the administration lawyered you on this one. Sure, benefits aren’t cut, because MEdicare Advantage PAYS no benefits. Neither does Medicare. By their definition, you could reduce payment rates to zero and no benefits would be cut whatsoever! At least not by the government. How insurers respond, and providers, well, they’d cut benefits. See, not the government’ fault.
Not necessarily liars, except in bowing to what so many of their misinformed constituents say during an election year, but wrong all the same.
You really ought to look into some facts. And then explain why there really isn’t even 3.55% worth of administrative bloat and executive bonuses available to cut.