OBAMA/TRUMPCARE MEGATHREAD

[Iwritecode]

I’ve started going through the site and filling in some of the info. It’s pretty tedious and some of the questions seem superfluous.

 

For instance I entered an address for myself, my wife and all 3 of my kids. They are all the same address but it then it asked if my kids live with me. I had to answer this for each one of them.

 

I also had to go through this 3 times:

 

Does person X have any income? NO.

 

So person X’s monthly income is 0. Is this correct? Yes.

 

Person X’s yearly taxable income is 0. Click ok to continue.

 

[Balta1701]

I’ve started going through the site and filling in some of the info. It’s pretty tedious and some of the questions seem superfluous.

 

For instance I entered an address for myself, my wife and all 3 of my kids. They are all the same address but it then it asked if my kids live with me. I had to answer this for each one of them.

 

I also had to go through this 3 times:

 

Does person X have any income? NO.

 

So person X’s monthly income is 0. Is this correct? Yes.

 

Person X’s yearly taxable income is 0. Click ok to continue.

That sounds like a fairly normal health insurance application process to me.

[LittleHurt05]

I got a letter from Blue Cross that my plan is no longer being offered. Either switch to this similar plan with a 15% premium increase, or switch to a cheaper plan with much less benefits.

 

My wife's plan at work is getting blown up too, can't way to see the numbers on those.

[Jenksismyhero]

I got a letter from Blue Cross that my plan is no longer being offered. Either switch to this similar plan with a 15% premium increase, or switch to a cheaper plan with much less benefits.

 

My wife's plan at work is getting blown up too, can't way to see the numbers on those.

 

Hey man, just shop around.

[greg775]

Hey man, just shop around.

 

I always thought Blue Cross was the best when we had it at work. Coventry makes me sick just thinking about it. 15 percent increase though. Wow.

We definitely have a health care crisis in our land.

[southsider2k5]

 

 

The effect, seemingly, will be a large stimulus.

 

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-whats...s-chart-2013-10

 

The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza interviewed Jonathan Gruber, one of the key architects of the Affordable Care Act, trying to figure out what share of the population might be made worse off under the law. They came up with some numbers which economist Justin Wolfers turned into this pie chart. Everyone is passing it around.

 

Unfortunately, except the 80% largely unaffected, these numbers are garbage.

 

According to Lizza, Gruber marks 14% of the population as clear winners because they are uninsured now but gain access to affordable coverage. That would be about 45 million people as of 2016, when the Affordable Care Act is in full swing.

 

But according to the Congressional Budget Office, the law will only increase insurance coverage by about 26 million people through 2016, or 8% of the population. That's the group that can be called "clear winners"; 14% is too aggressive an estimate.

 

Another 30 million people in the U.S. (9%) will still be uninsured in 2016. This group of non-winners includes:

 

Unauthorized immigrants who aren't eligible for any part of Obamacare.

Low-income authorized immigrants present in the United States less than five years who aren't eligible for Medicaid.

People who decide they (for whatever reason) don't want to buy insurance coverage, who will still be uninsured and will have to pay a new penalty.

People with incomes under 100% of the poverty line who live in states that didn't expand Medicaid.

 

Gruber says 3% of the population will be left in about the same place because they're already insured through individual-market plans that meet Obamacare requirements. That's wrong, too. This group includes a lot of winners and losers.

 

While this group can keep similar coverage to what they had before, their plan premiums may change greatly — in either direction. Young and healthy people with high incomes will no longer benefit from "medical underwriting" that lets insurers sell them inexpensive plans on the grounds they're unlikely to get sick. People with low-incomes or high medical needs will likely see their net premiums fall.

 

Finally, about 3% will have to buy more comprehensive plans than they now get through the individual market. Lizza labels this group as "potential losers," but some of these people are actually winners: They'll get better coverage than they used to have, and it may be at a lower cost after federal subsidies. But some of these people will pay more for a costlier insurance plan they didn't want.

 

It's clear that Obamacare creates more winners than losers, but this chart and the analysis behind it don't shed much light on the ratios.

 

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-whats...0#ixzz2jQTnsXH1

[CrimsonWeltall]

I successfully got into the HealthCare.gov website! Unfortunately, every option is far worse than what I currently have. I guess I'm just one of the "clear losers" and there ain't squat I can do about it.

 

The sad thing is that this has made me half-consider dropping coverage and just paying the penalty fee.

Edited November 1, 2013 by CrimsonWeltall

[Texsox]

I hope, and fully expect, that adjustments will be made as opportunities present themselves. For example, the website problems should mean a delay in deadlines.

[Balta1701]

I hope, and fully expect, that adjustments will be made as opportunities present themselves. For example, the website problems should mean a delay in deadlines.

This has already happened to some extent, the date at which purchases were required to be made before the mandate penalty kicked in has been moved back by IIRC 45 days.

[Balta1701]

http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-whats...s-chart-2013-10

Did you just post something which looks at the 10 million undocumented immigrants who are ineligible for the expanded coverage and considers that a bad thing? And which indicts the states which did not expand Medicaid as another bad thing?

[southsider2k5]

Did you just post something which looks at the 10 million undocumented immigrants who are ineligible for the expanded coverage and considers that a bad thing? And which indicts the states which did not expand Medicaid as another bad thing?

 

It means the numbers are full of s***. Both the uninsured and the number who will be covered. It is yet another lie in a program of lies to move this plan.

[Balta1701]

It means the numbers are full of s***. Both the uninsured and the number who will be covered. It is yet another lie in a program of lies to move this plan.

So...it's full of s*** because we should have provided coverage to the illegal immigrant community. I agree.

[southsider2k5]

So...it's full of s*** because we should have provided coverage to the illegal immigrant community. I agree.

 

When you are using it in the numbers, with no intent to ever cover a group, it is another bold faced lie. it doesn't get much clearer than that.

[Balta1701]

When you are using it in the numbers, with no intent to ever cover a group, it is another bold faced lie. it doesn't get much clearer than that.

So does what you just posted as an argument against it, unless you're ready to tell me why your state is better off screwing over its poor people by refusing the medicaid expansion.

 

But I guess that in your view they're somehow in the happy-go-lucky 80% there and not "excluded".

[southsider2k5]

So does what you just posted as an argument against it, unless you're ready to tell me why your state is better off screwing over its poor people by refusing the medicaid expansion.

 

But I guess that in your view they're somehow in the happy-go-lucky 80% there and not "excluded".

 

Spin it how you like. It doesn't change the inherent lies build into the ACA, starting right at the top. At the end of the day I am not the one including millions of people in a number to sell how great of a plan this is, with the full intention of never doing anything about it. I am sure the illegals really appreciate being your pawns though.

[Balta1701]

Spin it how you like. It doesn't change the inherent lies build into the ACA, starting right at the top. At the end of the day I am not the one including millions of people in a number to sell how great of a plan this is, with the full intention of never doing anything about it. I am sure the illegals really appreciate being your pawns though.

You're the one who brought them up.

[southsider2k5]

You're the one who brought them up.

 

Actually you did in your original pie chart, whether you knew it or not.

[Balta1701]

Actually you did in your original pie chart, whether you knew it or not.

So you do think that they should be covered. Finally we're in agreement that it's inhuman to have a large underclass of people in this country who can't get health care and this is a major problem.

[Balta1701]

About 80 percent of people, those who receive insurance through their employer or are already enrolled in a government program, won't experience any change at all, Gruber said. (The Kaiser Family Foundation puts the number at 79 percent).

 

Another 14 percent are currently uninsured people who will now be able to get covered because of the Affordable Care Act, Gruber said. (Kaiser pegs it at 16 percent uninsured). How many of those actually get covered depends on a few variables -- like whether Republicans states come around and expand Medicaid -- but that's the share that stands to gain.

 

So then you have 6 percent who might receive a cancelation letter (Kaiser says the individual market is 5 percent). Of those, Gruber argued, about half aren't really going to see a change: They'll technically enroll in a new plan, but it'll be very similar to what they already had.

 

That leaves 3 percent who will have to buy significantly different plans, some of whom might have to pay more for them (at least before the law's tax credits and other financial assistance kick in).

 

That also more or less lines up with the figures from the NBC News report that started the firestorm this week, which said that the Obama administration knew that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million people in the individual market would receive a cancelation notice.

 

But those numbers require some historical context. According to the federal rule that birthed this controversy, research suggested that 40 to 67 percent of plans purchased on the individual market were in effect for one year or less. That's a lot of turnover that already existed before the ACA.

 

Alright, so those 3 percent of people who are going to have to purchase significantly different coverage: What are they going to get?

 

Nobody's disputing that they're going to get better coverage. The reason that plans are being canceled in the first place is that they don't comply with Obamacare's requirement that they cover 10 categories of care known as essential health benefits.

 

The administration released a report in December 2011 that explained how well the individual insurance market covered those essential benefits. It found: 62 percent didn't cover maternity care; 34 percent didn't cover substance abuse services, 18 percent didn't cover mental health services; and 9 percent didn't cover prescription drugs. There are also no annual caps and no lifetime limits under the ACA, which almost eliminates the risk of going bankrupt because of medical costs in a way that didn't exist before the law.

 

That's why experts have routinely said that you can't make an "apples-to-apples" comparison between 2013 and 2014 insurance premiums, because the plans being offered now are much more robust.

 

And speaking of premiums, the numbers suggest that many of these people who might receive a cancelation letter will have access to the substantial financial help that Obamacare offers.

 

To be clear, nobody has done an analysis yet of what people who have received a cancelation notice are going to pay for coverage under the ACA. There's just no way to do that. But we can take a pretty educated guess by looking at the breakdown of the health insurance market provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

 

People making less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level qualify for either tax credits or expanded Medicaid (which, to be clear, has to cover the same set of 10 benefits that private plans have to cover). According to Kaiser, about 60 percent people in the individual insurance market (more than 10 million) have an income within that range, which leaves the other 40 percent (about 4.4 million) who don't and won't qualify for help.

 

So mash this all up -- it's an imperfect science -- and Gruber's prediction that about 3 percent of Americans are actually at risk of 'losing' under Obamacare holds up pretty well.

 

So yeah, it forgets 1. illegal immigrants, and 2. people who live in states that hate their poor.

[southsider2k5]

So you do think that they should be covered. Finally we're in agreement that it's inhuman to have a large underclass of people in this country who can't get health care and this is a major problem.

 

What I think is immaterial. I'm not the one utilizing them as a person in one aspect, but not in another. Talk to the Dems who wrote those lies about their exploitations of illegal immigrants.

[Balta1701]

What I think is immaterial. I'm not the one utilizing them as a person in one aspect, but not in another. Talk to the Dems who wrote those lies about their exploitations of illegal immigrants.

If calling "It doesn't include illegal immigrants so they're liars!" is the best argument against this bill you have left, that leaves me pretty content.

[southsider2k5]

If calling "It doesn't include illegal immigrants so they're liars!" is the best argument against this bill you have left, that leaves me pretty content.

 

That doesn't surprise me at all honestly.

[NorthSideSox72]

ObamaCare is like corn ethanol, policy-wise.

 

[Balta1701]

ObamaCare is like corn ethanol, policy-wise.

WTF?

 

I mean, I can guess where you're going here, maybe with "trying to solve a problem but has too many handouts to big business" or something like that, but seriously, WTF? I can't even get close.

[DukeNukeEm]

While I've been gone I surely hope the board consensus, even from the Obama shills, is that that this thing is an absolutely collosal failure. Like, I cannot think of a bigger boondoggle in my lifetime...

 

And to preempt the argument that comes from anyone delusional enough to defend it. It is not "too early" to give up on it. When a trains running off the rails the engineer doesnt just throttle up hoping it jumps back on the tracks.

Edited November 2, 2013 by DukeNukeEm