There’s pretty much NO chance that anyone is getting that Silver Plan for $255 a month right now, so I have to call BULLSHIT on these claims of a 72% increase.
No, but neither would the insurance. Back when i started working insurance was paid for by the company and there were no copays or deductible. The insurance was what it was supposed to be. Today’s insurance companies are out to make money and nothing else. If i have to come up with the first $15,000 of a hospital bill that is not insurance to me.
Yeah, I used to have low cost insurance that paid most stuff up front. I lost it because the medical bills it was paying kept increasing at a ridiculous rate every year, and the company I worked for was self-insured. Their costs for medical kept going up, so we had to start chipping in and paying for it. Not the company’s fault, they have to make a profit and covering medical bills eats into that. Of course, the other way they held down costs was to fire anyone that got sick too often and missed too much work. Which is why I no longer work for them.
And I have to say, your employer’s insurance was really, really bad. The only one I have heard of where it would be better to not have insurance. But I have a friend who is employed part time, single mother of 3 girls, that has to pay $500 a month for her insurance. And she is actually looking forward to the ACA, despite being a very conservative fundamentalist. Because it will cut her premiums despite her diabetes and back problems.
Yes, but not quite that simple. In Minnesota, when a prospective client applies for MNsure coverage (our response to the Affordable Care Act), electronic ‘pings’ will be sent to various federal hubs that will provide information about last year’s tax returns, amon other things. So if an application is received claiming income of $10K, but we receive information that verifes $50K, that is considered inconsistent information, and will be followed up on accordingly. The only time we will not act is if client discloses $10k, income is actually $50k, but household composition (say, two adults and 5 dependents), would not impact eligibility anyway.
That’s Minnesota. Where the federal government is managing the exchanges, they are opening themselves up to the actual sabotage that they claim. Red states can on the sly, encourage people to apply for maximum subsidies and bankrupt the system in short order.
I don’t care how many people get attached to it, if the first year price tag is 5x more than projected the program is getting repealed or severely cut back.
Yes, it is Minnesota. But we are following the same Federal eligibility rules that other States will be instituting. I can’t imagine that any would allow for self-attestation without having some rules in place for verifying inconsistent information. The technology is there. The Feds gave states the option of coming up with their own eligibility engines with 90% funding, or use the federal exchange. Minnesota was one state that chose the 90% match, and we are being scrupulously audited by the Feds to ensure compliance in all areas (deadlines, policy implementation, etc). A lot of people confuse self-attestation with “we’ll just take your word for it.” This is highly unlikely.
Problem is, they are doing it because they won’t have the systems in place to verify eligibility. They won’t catch very many fraudsters if they don’t have the systems in place.
As Megan McCardle pointed out, ACA implementation is going to go just fine, as long as they don’t implement key parts of it.
I love this. When I think about the ACA in general terms, I kind of envision it as the singular policy that just got away from the GOP. I mean, the entire thing was cooked up by a conservative think tank, was supported by the Republican Party for twenty fucking years, and yet suddenly when Obama embraces the idea it instantly becomes the epitome of socialistic government tyranny. Eh, that’s all just one more reason why I can’t stand the lying hypocritical cowards that constitute the GOP.
But in any case, the party obviously wants the public to remain as ambivalent about the law as possible, and so they’ve been trying to subvert and sabotage ACA educational outreach efforts for the past several weeks. Now that there’s a whole slew of popular celebrities and personalities on board to help inform the public about the law, I can only imagine that GOP officials are fuming even more.
You’re living in the conservative bubble if you think this is even remotely a possibility. Did Medicare Part D get “repealed or severely cut back” when the true (read: hidden) costs of that law were revealed? Fuck no, same deal here.
Also, the ACA is actually paid for, unlike Medicare Part D. It’s kind of funny how Dem policies are fiscally responsible while GOP policies add to the national debt.
Of course, the response to that fact from ANY GOPer basically amounts to the idiot jamming his or her fingers into the ears and screaming “la la la la la la!”
Since the public is divided on the law, kinda like they are about things like abortion, then any group that promotes the law is taking a controversial stand. They can live with the risks that entails, I’m sure.
No. The heath insurance system in the US was broken. Every year costs were rising out of control, the percentage of uninsured was increasing further driving up costs of health care and worsening outcomes. Without PPACA in a decade or two the US health insurance market would have consisted of two segments: 300 million+ uninsured, and Bill
Gates. (OK, Gates and a handful of billionaires.)
There might be better alternatives than Obamacare as passed, but the GOP has yet to propose anything.
Not the whole history there, so one only gets a misleading point there.
When one looks at the basis of economical activity, like the best or worst cities for small business, one can see that the top 5 cities are from blue states with democratic mayors all, of course many of the worst ones are also commanded by democrats; but one of the bad, San Diego, was led by a Republican until December of 2012. One has to blame the economy then, and the larger changes in manufacturing taking place in the USA regarding cases like Detroit.
The Hlthcare industry isnt the only one to blame. Rampant torts have been instrumental in the costs of health care
PPACA wont fix it because it doesnt address a major factor, Torts.
This is true as well. The end result is PPACA didnt fix a thing, in fact, it made it worse. Throwing gasoline on a fire might extinguish some flame, but other flames will burn much brighter.
One thing the PPACA will do is increase tax revenue. Guess who will have to pay?