OBAMA/TRUMPCARE MEGATHREAD

[cabiness42]

 

Gallup? Really?

[StrangeSox]

What is wrong with Gallup?

[cabiness42]

What is wrong with Gallup?

 

Gallup (and any other private organization) is a dirty world in government statistical circles. We publish an awful lot of data that is a lot better than theirs.

[StrangeSox]

I would imagine that, even if the absolute numbers are different, the trend line would be the same in the government statistics.

[cabiness42]

I would imagine that, even if the absolute numbers are different, the trend line would be the same in the government statistics.

 

Yeah, the numbers are probably similar, but give your hard-working, tax-supported employees some props and use our data!

[StrangeSox]

:effort:

[bmags]

Is your data publicly available hickory?

[cabiness42]

Is your data publicly available hickory?

 

Yes, depending on the subject, data is released regularly on the websites of the Department of Labor, Department of Justice, Department of HHS, Department of Education and Census Bureau websites.

 

Health insurance data can be found here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/hlthins/

[StrangeSox]

Some were fearing that the results of the 2014 elections in Arkansas meant that the state would be eliminated it's privatized version of Medicaid expansion, but their governor is pressing hard on continuing to fund the program and even make improvements to it.

 

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archi...ow-poverty-line

[farmteam]

Some were fearing that the results of the 2014 elections in Arkansas meant that the state would be eliminated it's privatized version of Medicaid expansion, but their governor is pressing hard on continuing to fund the program and even make improvements to it.

 

http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archi...ow-poverty-line

That's a solid typo right there. I pictured Obama with a giant laser looking at a huge map of the country and blasting Arkansas into oblivion.

[StrangeSox]

Subconscious slip? And then the "it's" typo, ugh. Not on my game.

[Jenksismyhero]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-29...get-report.html

 

Obamacare now estimated to cost us 2 TRILLION dollars instead of the 900 BILLION Obama originally forecasted.

 

edit: that's just the government portion, not any private increase in premiums/out-of-pocket expenses. And 30 million Americans are still going to be uninsured. What a great program!

Edited January 27, 2015 by Jenksismybitch

[StrangeSox]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-29...get-report.html

 

Obamacare now estimated to cost us 2 TRILLION dollars instead of the 900 BILLION Obama originally forecasted.

 

edit: that's just the government portion, not any private increase in premiums/out-of-pocket expenses. And 30 million Americans are still going to be uninsured. What a great program!

lol daily mail

 

The numbers are daunting: It will take $1.993 trillion, a number that looks like $1,993,000,000,000,

 

crack journalism there!

 

Other news agencies have a slightly different headline:

 

The Hill: Budget office lowers ObamaCare price tag by 20 percent

Reuters: Obamacare To Cost Far Less Than Estimated, Budget Office Says

Bloomberg: Obamacare Will Cost 20% Less Than Initial Projections, CBO Says

 

Maybe that's because The Daily Mail is using a speech by Obama in 2009 about his proposal that didn't actually become a law instead of using the actual CBO forecasts of the actual law. It's almost as if an outfit owned by Rupert Murdoch isn't a legitimate news outlet at all.

 

As for the 29-30 million still uninsured by 2025, yes, that's awful. But again, the Daily Mail is portraying things one way while the actual CBO report stresses it very differently:

 

By CBO and JCT’s estimates, about 42 million non-elderly residents of the United States were uninsured in 2014, about 12 million fewer than would have been uninsured in the absence of the ACA. In 2015, the agencies estimate, 36 million nonelderly people will be uninsured—about 19 million fewer than would have been uninsured in the absence of the ACA. From 2016 through 2025, the annual number of uninsured is expected to decrease to between 29 million and 31 mil-lion—that is, between 24 million and 27 million fewer than would have been uninsured in the law’s absence (see TableB-2)

 

That's a greater-than-50% reduction in the number of uninsured people in this country. There are better, simpler ways to get that reduction or even better, but this was more or less the best thing that could pass the late 2010 Senate with 60 votes.

[StrangeSox]

Indiana will be expanding their Medicaid program:

 

Healthy Indiana Plan expansion gets green light from federal government

[Jenksismyhero]

lol daily mail

 

 

 

crack journalism there!

 

Other news agencies have a slightly different headline:

 

The Hill: Budget office lowers ObamaCare price tag by 20 percent

Reuters: Obamacare To Cost Far Less Than Estimated, Budget Office Says

Bloomberg: Obamacare Will Cost 20% Less Than Initial Projections, CBO Says

 

Maybe that's because The Daily Mail is using a speech by Obama in 2009 about his proposal that didn't actually become a law instead of using the actual CBO forecasts of the actual law. It's almost as if an outfit owned by Rupert Murdoch isn't a legitimate news outlet at all.

 

As for the 29-30 million still uninsured by 2025, yes, that's awful. But again, the Daily Mail is portraying things one way while the actual CBO report stresses it very differently:

 

 

 

That's a greater-than-50% reduction in the number of uninsured people in this country. There are better, simpler ways to get that reduction or even better, but this was more or less the best thing that could pass the late 2010 Senate with 60 votes.

 

Excuses, excuses. The point remains - the program he sold to the American people and Congress is more expensive and not as effective as he predicted.

[StrangeSox]

Excuses, excuses. The point remains - the program he sold to the American people and Congress is more expensive and not as effective as he predicted.

 

Why is it at all important that a program Obama gave a speech about but which did not become law had some rough estimate that was less than what the actual law did? Obama deliberately did not go the route Clinton went and didn't craft a full-fledged program himself that he then presented to Congress--he left it up to Congress to come up with it.

 

There are no "excuses" there. The original CBO scores of the actual PPACA were 20% higher than their current cost projects. Every legitimate news agency points that out, but Daily Mail intentionally misleads its readers with this comparison. You got duped by a crappy article.

[ptatc]

Indiana will be expanding their Medicaid program:

 

Healthy Indiana Plan expansion gets green light from federal government

Indiana is in the black due to massive cuts in many areas in their current administration. Illinois cannot afford this as they refuse to cut spending. The latest figures I saw were 35 billion in revenues, 43 billion in projected spending and 12 billion in unpaid bills from last year.

[Balta1701]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-29...get-report.html

 

Obamacare now estimated to cost us 2 TRILLION dollars instead of the 900 BILLION Obama originally forecasted.

 

edit: that's just the government portion, not any private increase in premiums/out-of-pocket expenses. And 30 million Americans are still going to be uninsured. What a great program!

You are seriously this easily taken in? Really? I mean, no, seriously?

 

Cost estimate by the CBO of $900 billion = years 2010 through 2020.

 

Cost estimate by the CBO of $2 trillion = the 2016-2025 period.

 

You're seriously that easily taken in? I mean come on, put some effort into it. This was a good report. The program has already cut enough costs that its estimated cost went down another $100 billion this year compared to last year's estimate of the 2016-2025 window, and that number was already down from what the CBO predicted during that 10 year window in their initial projections.

[Jenksismyhero]

You are seriously this easily taken in? Really? I mean, no, seriously?

 

Cost estimate by the CBO of $900 billion = years 2010 through 2020.

 

Cost estimate by the CBO of $2 trillion = the 2016-2025 period.

 

You're seriously that easily taken in? I mean come on, put some effort into it. This was a good report. The program has already cut enough costs that its estimated cost went down another $100 billion this year compared to last year's estimate of the 2016-2025 window, and that number was already down from what the CBO predicted during that 10 year window in their initial projections.

 

I don't think it's really wrong to hold a politician accountable for what he says when trying to sell policy to Congress and the people. Yes, it was 2009, not 1989. Yes, the projections are for slightly different years, not 50 years. You're talking about a 50% mark-up on what he was telling people, even if that's not what was ultimately passed (as if any legislation that starts with one number EVER becomes smaller by the end of the process).

 

[StrangeSox]

I don't think it's really wrong to hold a politician accountable for what he says when trying to sell policy to Congress and the people. Yes, it was 2009, not 1989. Yes, the projections are for slightly different years, not 50 years. You're talking about a 50% mark-up on what he was telling people, even if that's not what was ultimately passed (as if any legislation that starts with one number EVER becomes smaller by the end of the process).

That's pretty damn critical. If you're looking at 2010-2020, you have a four whole years without federal exchange subsidies at all (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013) and several years without full Medicaid expansion. The period 2016-2025 has almost the entirety of the law in place and functioning. Those numbers were always very different, going back to the start. Think of it like this: the cost of the Iraq War from 1995-2005 would look a heck of a lot different than the cost from 2001-2011. The cost of WWII from 1930-1940 would look a lot different than 1935-1945. That's the sort of comparison you're trying to make here.

 

And this legislation has, in fact, become smaller since the original CBO projections for the period 2016-2025. 20% smaller, but the Daily Mail thinks so little of its readers that it didn't bother to report that.

 

edit: this article from 2012 explains what's wrong with these shenanigans ACA opponents have been trying to play for years:

 

In the this latest estimate, CBO extends its projection out one more year, to capture the expenses from 2012 to 2022, in order to capture a full decade. In 2022, CBO says, the gross cost of coverage expansion will be $265 billion. Add that to the $1.496 and you get (with rounding) the $1.76 trillion—the one in the press releases and the Fox story.

 

But there is nothing new or surprising about this. It’s only slightly more money than the previous year’s outlays. The ten-year number seems to jump only because the time frame for the estimate has moved, dropping one year, 2011, and adding another, 2022. Obamacare has virtually no outlays in 2011, because the Medicaid expansion and subsidies don’t start up until 2014, which means the shifting time frame drops a year of no implementation and adds one of full implementation.

...

Yes, you read that right: The real news of the CBO estimate is that, according to its models, health care reform is going to save even more taxpayer dollars than previously thought.

 

Conservative media outlets have been playing this same game of lying to their readers/viewers for years. Comparing CBO cost projections that cover different time periods with critical policy/program shifts that happen within those windows is fundamentally dishonest. You should feel insulted that the Daily Mail thinks so little of you.

 

edit: and just for a little clarity, if the estimate really did jump from $900B to $2000B over the same time window, it'd be an increase of 222%, not 50%.

Edited January 27, 2015 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

I don't think it's really wrong to hold a politician accountable for what he says when trying to sell policy to Congress and the people. Yes, it was 2009, not 1989. Yes, the projections are for slightly different years, not 50 years. You're talking about a 50% mark-up on what he was telling people, even if that's not what was ultimately passed (as if any legislation that starts with one number EVER becomes smaller by the end of the process).

The Congressional Budget office was tasked with doing a 20 year projection by Congress prior to passage of the PPACA. That projection would have covered the years 2016-2025. There are numbers available that can be compared to these estimates.

 

The actual program cost is coming in hundreds of billions of dollars less than those projections.

 

The only reason why anyone would compare projections of 2010-2020 costs done in 2009 with projections of 2016-2025 costs done now when 2009-vintage projections of costs from 2016-2025 are available is that they are being willfully deceptive. There is no excuse for it whatsoever. It is flat out false and anyone peddling it should be embarrassed.

[Jenksismyhero]

That's pretty damn critical. If you're looking at 2010-2020, you have a four whole years without federal exchange subsidies at all (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013) and several years without full Medicaid expansion. The period 2016-2025 has almost the entirety of the law in place and functioning. Those numbers were always very different, going back to the start. Think of it like this: the cost of the Iraq War from 1995-2005 would look a heck of a lot different than the cost from 2001-2011. The cost of WWII from 1930-1940 would look a lot different than 1935-1945. That's the sort of comparison you're trying to make here.

 

And this legislation has, in fact, become smaller since the original CBO projections for the period 2016-2025. 20% smaller, but the Daily Mail thinks so little of its readers that it didn't bother to report that.

 

edit: this article from 2012 explains what's wrong with these shenanigans ACA opponents have been trying to play for years:

 

Obama in 2009: "Now, add it all up, and the plan I'm proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years -- less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration. (Applause.) Now, most of these costs will be paid for with money already being spent -- but spent badly -- in the existing health care system. The plan will not add to our deficit. The middle class will realize greater security, not higher taxes. And if we are able to slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth of 1 percent each year -- one-tenth of 1 percent -- it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the long term."

 

The CBO report in 2015: the program is costing 1.99 trillion from 2016-2025. How it that not anymore misleading than the Daily Mail? Obama is telling people, hey don't worry, this is a decent price, 900 billion over the next 10 years. I won't tell you that for the subsequent 10 years it'll be more than double that. Come on.

 

And the war comparisons are irrelevant. If in October 2011 Bush came out and said we need to invade Iraq and it's going to cost us 900 billion over 10 years to do it, and then 5 years later the projections are more than double that, you wouldn't say "oh well all sorts of things happened in the mean time and the President can't set budgets alone!" You'd nail him for misleading the public about a costly and expensive war that was now way off budget and costing us more and more into the future.

 

This wasn't a budget on a pre-existing program. He had to sell the program at a certain cost and it's now more than that. Yes, the Daily Mail was playing some games by going back to his original projection in 2009 and not including the full projection to 2025, but so what? That's what Obama said. I don't think it's taking it out of context anymore than Obama not telling people the costs would keep going up after those first 10 years.

 

edit: and just for a little clarity, if the estimate really did jump from $900B to $2000B over the same time window, it'd be an increase of 222%, not 50%.

 

That was a typo and should have been 150%, but yes obviously my guesstimate wasn't accurate.

Edited January 27, 2015 by Jenksismybitch

[Jenksismyhero]

The Congressional Budget office was tasked with doing a 20 year projection by Congress prior to passage of the PPACA. That projection would have covered the years 2016-2025. There are numbers available that can be compared to these estimates.

 

The actual program cost is coming in hundreds of billions of dollars less than those projections.

 

The only reason why anyone would compare projections of 2010-2020 costs done in 2009 with projections of 2016-2025 costs done now when 2009-vintage projections of costs from 2016-2025 are available is that they are being willfully deceptive. There is no excuse for it whatsoever. It is flat out false and anyone peddling it should be embarrassed.

 

Sure, but Obama didn't sell that 20 year number, he sold the 10.

[Balta1701]

I've said my part. No person with a shred of honesty would compare the 2016-2025 numbers predicted now to anything predicted covering that time period before the bill and think that the results are bad.

 

The PPACA is several hundred billion dollars below budget over the 2016-2025 period compared with what was projected in 2009. The PPACA has saved a huge amount of money compared to its initial projections. In no way, shape, or form is that a bad thing.

[Y2HH]

I've said my part. No person with a shred of honesty would compare the 2016-2025 numbers predicted now to anything predicted covering that time period before the bill and think that the results are bad.

 

The PPACA is several hundred billion dollars below budget over the 2016-2025 period compared with what was projected in 2009. The PPACA has saved a huge amount of money compared to its initial projections. In no way, shape, or form is that a bad thing.

 

Unless it was all front loaded savings, which ends up costing 50X that in the years beyond 2015, you mean. If that happens, then it's not a cost savings at all, but a cost shift from one administration to another...also known as kicking the can in political circles.