I will say one good thing about ACA though, these high deductible plans are going to do wonders for keeping costs down. this is essentially what conservatives wanted, more cost sharing so consumers had skin in the game.
These “high deductibles” are much lower than the “high deductible” plans currently available in the individual insurance market.
I doubt that, but we’ll see how people react to the rates. If the deductible is lower, then the premium has to be higher.
When everyone is insured - and paying into the system - the costs per person are much less. The very low rates just announced for California are examples. It wouldn’t surprise me if their most expensive plan is cheaper and more comprehensive that the cheapest policy available to individuals under the pre-ACA system.
I would say most people with insurance are happy to have coverage, but are really pissed off at the bureaucratic reject-every-claim-opoly part that takes up 90% of patients’ time. The scene in The Incredibles where Bob Parr talks an elderly lady through how to get her claim paid - audiences applauded. The scene in As Good As It Gets where Helen Hunt’s character finally gets a coherent diagnosis and treatment plan for her son, and said “Goddamn fucking HMOs” - people cheered.
People in the US like having insurance, but they hate their insurer. Not because their insurer denies gold-plated nose jobs, but because their insurer denies life-saving treatments that are explicitly covered in the text of the plan.
If everyone in Congress leaves the average IQ will go up.
They’re happy with the insurance because the alternative is usually nothing.
And when you come from nothing, you might not even realize there are better ones out there.
For instance:
I just started a new job. Most people here are happy with their insurance. It’s a tech start-up, so lots of younger people who’ve only ever worked here, or maybe one other place before. But truth be told, it’s a shitty plan. It’s high deductible ($3000 for a single person,), medium-low premium ($65 per two-week paycheck,) and not good coverage…lots of “in-network” and “pre-approval” shit.
But again, lots of them are happy with it, because compared to no insurance, it’s a God-send. But I came from a job with some of the best health insurance I’ve ever seen. It was low-premium ($35 per paycheck,) no deductible, and super-low co-pays ($10 for regular office visit, $15 for specialist, no referral needed, $50 for ER visit, $200 per in-patient day, $300 for surgery, and there was a max out-of-pocket expense for those, too. No “max lifetime benefit” crap, either.)
So it’s a little mis-leading to say that most people are happy with their insurance when they both
- Don’t know any better
and 2) Are pretty much stuck with that insurance anyway because it’s tied to employer and you’re lucky if you actually have a choice in plans.
I find it sickening that the US doesn’t have UHC. From both a practical/economic standpoint, it makes sense, and from a moral standpoint it makes sense.
You can’t base the effectiveness of insurance based only how the majority feels about it. Most people don’t actually use their insurance for other than the occasional doctor visit. For these people a insurance plan that cost half as much but never made payment would put them ahead financially. In order to gauge the effectiveness of insurance you need to pay attention to the low minority for whom insurance is actually designed. Most people don’t actually know whether their insurance would pay if they actually got cancer, or whether instead they would lose their house.
It is also the case that the majority of people don’t have per-existing conditions that make them uninsurable, even though those are the people who need insurance the most. Leaving them out of the equation is like saying we don’t need to legalize gay marriage because the majority of Americans can get married just fine.
Your argument allows for the possibility of ACA supporters seeing the law as a success at the same time that voters reject it.
But I say that a truly successful health care program earns the loyalty of voters. ACA must end up either allowing the majority to keep their current insurance, or acquire better-valued insurance. If people either see a drop in quality, or an increase in prices, they will not regard the program as a success. Especially since cost drops were part of the sale of the bill.
We can talk about how the GOP has oversold the likely problems with the bill, but supporters also built up tremendous expectations. Since the bill has passed though, the Democrats have been furiously trying to lower expectations, which alone says that the GOP was right in many ways.
That is like the baseball Tigers claiming that since the Giants are lowering expectations it means that the Tigers were correct in many ways…
And then the Tigers call it a day, But that is why they play the games…
Well, yeah. In the end people will judge the law based on how it affects them. If they gain affordable insurance when they didn’t have access to it before, that’s a plus. If they lose their insurance or see their rates go up, that’s a minus.
Of course, and once again your early hyperbole is really silly, specially when most of Obamacare was once a Republican plan. The wrongness of the Republicans in this subject is asinine.
If it works, that means we can take credit for the idea. Duh.
Too late for that, most of the organizations that promoted that option in the 90’s now tell others that it is not a good idea now; as Romney could tell you, the only difference is that it is the Democrats (And a few more capable Republican governors) the ones that are working to follow the law now.
It is worse when the House Republicans show that they have time mostly to continue to do useless votes to repeal the law:
Adaher, what are you going to do now that the ACA is finally going to be widely promoted in a positive light?
From the article:
“Organizing for Action is launching its first television advertising campaign, highlighting the many [ways] the Affordable Care Act [is]already improving the quality of healthcare, driving down costs, and will provide coverage to millions of uninsured Americans,” Playbook’s Mike Allen reported, quoting a release. “Coupled with on the ground organizing, OFA is working on a major education campaign as the health care law moves towards full implementation.”
For years, the only widespread discussion of the ACA in the greater zeitgeist has been on behalf of the GOP, who has (for the most part, successfully) crafted this illusion of the ACA existing in some sort of abstract vacuum, paving the way for all of the asinine sky-is-falling predictions that we talked about earlier.
And honestly, I fault the administration and the Dems for running away from the ACA for three years just as much as I blame the Republicans for their dumbass fear-mongering. It’s a double-edged sword, really; the Democrats stupidly drafted the ACA to not even take effect until four fucking years after it passed, and that created the marketing issue in terms of how the administration could’ve possibly defended the law against GOP lies when most of the benefits were always years away from actualization.
And of course, the idiotic four-year implementation schedule afforded 37 pointless repeal votes, dozens of lawsuits, a Supreme Court decision, and a presidential election.
How will you react now that people are FINALLY going to be forcefully told about the ACA benefits?
That is actually false. The pharmaceutical companies spent $150 million promoting ACA:
Didn’t move the needle an inch.
I see that as smart, if not much effective advertisement, the smart part is how to get some giants to fight against other giants.
One has to remember that with the costs of healthcare headed to 20% or more of the USA GDP, the current irrational system was unsustainable, eventually the bubble that it is would burst and even big Pharma would lose a lot, so Obamacare was seen by them as insurance against that eventual failure.
However, I have to say that I’m impressed at the white house negotiators:
One thing I think one can get from this: One of the big reasons for the shortfall for big pharma is the states that are refusing to implement the changes, I do think that the giant here will get more active on telling those conservatives how bad for business they really are.
As I saw it before, eventually prices will have to be controlled better, but, one war a time, please.
Do you know what a pig in a poke is? That’s what I think.
Whether it proves to be a nice fat little piggy or some erysipelas-ridden runt remains to be seen.
I find this pending legal case against the ACA wildly entertaining.
From the article:
According to Adler and Cannon, the ACA’s authors intentionally chose to exclude subsidies for federal exchanges – an attempt to dangle a carrot for states to run their own exchanges, they contend. In their eyes, the IRS is acting illegally without congressional authorization.
Okie dokie. :dubious:
Still, keep an eye on it.
In related news, my state finally passed the Medicaid expansion a few days ago.
I think I’ve said it before, but if the ACA isn’t able to succeed in CA - where, by all accounts, the law has been the most aggressively implemented - then it really can’t work anywhere. Hell, I’ve never been the biggest fan of this state to begin with, but I’m happy that we’re actually pursuing the law here instead of trying to sabotage it.
If that’s what the law says, that subsidies only go to state exchanges, then it’s open and shut.
As usual, Republicans are not looking at the unintended consequences.