ACA gotta start somewhere.
Anything forced to be so complex to cooperate with the hyper-complex US health care system cannot possibly be perfect the first year. I suppose your company WAS perfect day one, right?
http://freebeacon.com/issues/harry-r...-the-internet/
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said the fault of struggling to sign up on the Obamacare exchanges didn’t lie with the faulty website, but with the people who weren’t “educated on how to use the Internet.”
In California, Asian-Americans Flock To Health Coverage
While Latino enrollment has lagged in California's insurance marketplace, Asian-Americans have signed up on Covered California in numbers outstripping their representation in the pool of eligible people.
According to the latest data from the exchange, the overwhelming majority of Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans and Vietnamese-Americans enrolling are doing so through certified insurance agents, as opposed to community groups or the Covered California website.
There is no charge to consumers who work with agents, whose commissions are paid by insurance companies.
Since January, Asian-Americans have been enrolling in strong numbers. People of Asian descent make up about 14 percent of eligible people, according to by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the University of California, Berkeley's Labor Center. Asian-Americans reached that target straight out of the gate, making up of all enrollees by January.
They have surged from there. In the most recent data from Covered California, which comprised enrollment from Oct. 1 to Feb. 28, Asian-Americans made up of all enrollees.
Licensed insurance brokers can sell customers plans on the Covered California marketplace, but they must first be certified to do so. Covered California says 40 percent of its total Covered California enrollments are coming via these certified insurance agents. But Covered California says that within certain Asian-American groups, the percentage of enrollments through agents is much higher:
- 57 percent for Chinese-Americans
- 65 percent of Vietnamese-Americans
- 70 percent of Korean-Americans
These numbers "suggest that the Asian agents are a driving force in helping Covered CA exceed our enrollment goal in Asian communities," Wendy McAnelly, a public information officer for Covered California, said in an email.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014...e?sc=17&f=1128
"Obviously Asians are better at navigating the internet than Latinos"- Harry Reid
Repug governance, wealth transfer from taxpayers to corporations:
New evidence that Medicare Advantage is an insurance industry scam
A big part of the argument made by enemies of the Affordable Care Act that the Act is hurting Medicare applies to a category of health plan known as Medicare Advantage.
New evidence has just come in showing that Medicare Advantage is a ripoff that fattens the health insurance industry while scarcely helping its enrollees, all at public expense.
Medicare Advantage plans differ from traditional Medicare by offering its enrollees ostensibly better care and sometimes broader services--free eyeglasses, even gym memberships--in return for reimbursements from the government that are 14% higher than traditional Medicare reimbursements, or more. And yes, the Affordable Care Act aims to pare the government's reimbursements for Advantage plans by a total of about $200 billion over 10 years.
These plans cover more than 15 million seniors, or about 30% of all Medicare members, so it's unsurprising that Republicans are playing the cuts for all they're worth.
"Democrats are about to awake and provoke a political giant -- senior citizens," wrote a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in February. (Several Democratic senators up for reelection obligingly, and cravenly, called for this year's Advantage reimbursement cuts to be suspended.)
Critics have long argued that the extra reimbursements for Advantage plans are a waste of money, just a handout to the insurance industry. A new paper by three Wharton School economists gives the critics powerful new ammunition.
The authors, Marc Duggan, Amanda Starc, and Boris Vabson, found that only about one-fifth of the extra reimbursement gets passed through to patients in the form of lower premiums, better care or more services. Where does the money go? Insurers pocket much of it as pure profit. Some they spend on advertising--to attract more Advantage members, so they can claim more of the enhanced reimbursement, which they use to advertise to get more members...you can get dizzy following this daisy chain.
The study used data from the government's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees those health programs, covering Medicare plan types, enrollee composition, pan quality measures, spending levels, and other quality measurements in more than 3,000 counties, then tracked changes in those measures as reimbursements changed.
The Wharton findings about how little of the Advantage reimbursements help enrollees are just devastating. The authors looked extremely hard for evidence that higher reimbursements showed up in more positives for patients. Here's how that turned out:
Are higher payments to the insurers associated with fewer restrictions on care or better outcomes? "No evidence of a significant relationship."
More intensive treatments? "No significant association."
Any change in the health profile of members? No "evidence of changes."
More access to specialists? More doctor visits? Better mental health status? "No evidence of a significant relationship."
The researchers tested the conjecture that these indicators might not have budged because the Advantage plans were attracting members in poorer health or more medically challenging demographics, therefore the improvements in services to most of the enrollees were harder to find because of the poorer health of the new members.
But no. "No evidence of changes" in selection or enrollee composition.
The new findings track very closely to previous studies of Medicare Advantage. A study by Austin Frakt of Boston University and colleagues placed the pass-through to patients even lower, at 14 cents of every dollar of additional reimbursement.
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare pointed the finger at unethical marketing of Advantage plans by insurers, and also debunked the industry's claim--cynically repeated by the GOP anti-ACA lobby--that cuts in Advantage reimbursements would fall hardest on low-income seniors.
You shouldn't be surprised that the health insurance industry is leading the charge against Advantage cuts, terming them "devastating for seniors."
Devastating to the insurers' bottom lines, they mean to say. It's important to remember that the money comes from premiums paid by non-Advantage enrollees in Medicare, and from taxpayers.
Republicans love to portray themselves as guardians of the public purse. Yet here they are, lining up to protect one of the most wasteful claims on government resources of all.
What could account for that?
http://www.latimes.com/business/hilt...#ixzz2x6ToSkna
dumb , CA has its own exchange, doesn't use the fixed healthcare.gov.
dumb , then why'd you post an article about covered CA in a thread about healthcare.gov
I post anywhere about anything I want, GFY
eg, this is an ACA thread, as you should have read in the thread le
Please don't encourage him to start new threads. They way you can spam up threads, I wouldn't be surprised if you were him.
I am now boutons and lumpkins.
Nah, when it comes down to it, I don't give you that much credit.
enrollment extension after March 31. just lie about having tried to:
http://www.thewire.com/national/2014...ension/359598/
They're trying to HELP the people, not SCREW them like the Repugs.
What's your ing point?
if you want to about lying on an "honor system", about "honorable" doctors, clinics, hospitals ripping off Medicare and Medicaid for $10Bs every year.
wash the sand out of your crack. the extension is newsworthy.
Last edited by Winehole23; 03-27-2014 at 12:58 PM.
The States That Are Expanding Medicaid Just Got Some Good News
A new study set to be published in the April issue of the journal Health Affairs finds that
Americans who are eligible for Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion — either because they’re newly eligible in a state expanding Medicaid, or because they were always eligible but never signed up — are in better physical and mental health and suffer from lower rates of expensive chronic medical conditions than those who were enrolled in Medicaid before the Affordable Care Act’s passage.
Essentially, that means the states currently on the fence about expanding Medicaid shouldn’t be worried about adding a large pool of sick and costly patients to the government program.
“Adults who were eligible for Medicaid but not enrolled before passage of the ACA and those in the income range for the ACA’s Medicaid expansion (“newly eligible”) had similar or better health than adults enrolled in Medicaid through a pathway other than disability before the ACA — in spite of the fact that the newly eligible were somewhat older than the currently enrolled,” wrote the study authors.
While more than 62 percent of Americans currently enrolled in Medicaid have at least one chronic illness, about 57 percent and 53 percent of newly-eligible people and previously-eligible but unenrolled people, respectively, had a chronic illness. That trend held true in both pro-expansion and anti-expansion states, meaning that states that choose to expand Medicaid in the future would be providing
affordable care to millions of people with medical needs without making the overall Medicaid risk pool relatively sicker.
“Twenty-five states have opted not to use the ACA to expand Medicaid eligibility. If these states reverse their decisions, their Medicaid programs might not enroll a population that is sicker than their pre-ACA enrollees,” the researchers noted. “By expanding Medicaid eligibility, states could provide coverage to millions of healthier adults as well as to millions who have chronic conditions and who need care.”
New Hampshire became the latest state to accept Medicaid expansion this week, passing a so-called “private option” alternative that gives newly eligible residents generous federal subsidies to buy private health plans through the state’s Obamacare marketplace. The same private option in Arkansas has proven wildly successful and, so far, has come in at exactly the expected cost.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014...ble-healthier/
red states refusing medicaid expansion aren't really worried about costs, that's their LIE.
They are only concerned about screwing Obama/Dems, and any screwed bycatch, including 1000s of dead, of their own residents is ignored.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottgot...rtner=yahootix
Obamacare is still struggling to sign up young people. In order to offset the high cost of the older, and probably less healthy people who are joining Obamacare plans, the White House must coerce a sufficient number of thirty-somethings to also join. Problem is, the health plans are too pricey to make economic sense for many young adults.
Just how costly are the Obamacare plans for young beneficiaries?
We ran the numbers. Here are our results:
Overall, the Federal government reports that 32% of on-exchange enrollees as of March 1st are under the age of 34. And many of these are teenagers who are part of family policies, not the young yuppies that Obamacare is fervently targeting. Earlier estimates showed only 20% of enrollees were between the ages 18 and 34.
The final number of young enrollees is well below the required cohort. Premiums will rise next year as a result of the adverse selection of older, and probably less healthy consumers. Why are young adults staying away? In one word, economics.
Obamacare is asking young adults to effectively subsidize the healthcare costs of older Americans. So far, Millennials are resisting this age-based transfer of wealth. Many are clearly opting instead to remain uninsured, or else they are buying cheaper health plans that don’t conform to Obamacare’s regulatory dictates.
My AEI colleague Kelly Funderburk and I looked at four states: Arizona, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Texas. We then looked at a typical 30-year old at one of six different annual income brackets: $20,000 in annual income, $25K, $30K, $35K, $40K, and $45K. For each of the four states, we computed how much an Aetna Classic Silver plan would cost the same 30 year old at each of these six income bands. We looked at monthly premiums, deductibles, and out of pocket limits. We chose the Aetna plan because it is generally considered a higher quality insurance, operated across all of these markets, and represented a median price point among the offerings.
Look at our numbers (laid out in the charts below) and you’ll see why so many Millennials have Obamacare sticker shock. Someone, for example, earning $25K annually in Arizona will pay $2,424 in total monthly premiums for Obamacare (10% of their annual income) and still be stuck with a $4,000 deductible and a $5,200 cap on their out of pocket costs. The same person in Illinois will pay $3,576 in annual premiums, and in low cost Texas $2,460.
What about the same 30 year old who now earns $30,000 annually – the average salary for a pre-school teacher according to census data? In Arizona, their annual cost for carrying the Obamacare plan runs $2,772 and their deductible is $5,000. In Illinois, the same person will spend $4,092 for the same health plan, and also have a $5,000 deductible before their full health coverage kicks in.
Even someone earning $20K a year (the average salary for a full-time cashier) and eligible for Obamacare’s rich “cost sharing subsidies” is still going to find coverage pricey. In Pennsylvania, which was the lowest cost of the four states, the annual premium will run $1,620 for a plan that still leaves them with a $600 deductible. In Illinois, that same plan will cost $2,868 annually with the same $600 deductible. Premiums alone will eat up a whopping 14% of their annual income.
See the accompanying charts for a more detailed breakdown of our data. The numbers show why Obamacare has been such a tough sell among the young. These high prices are a direct consequence of the way the law was designed.
The health plans intentionally keep prices higher for young adults to subsidize older beneficiaries. Now, the White House is wringing its collective hands that the pool of applicants is skewing to older Americans. But this demographic distortion shouldn’t come as a surprise. It begs the question whether anyone in Washington did any market research before they launched this scheme, to see whether Millennials would show up?
yes, about 10-15% of ACA people missed their first payment, but not 100%.
Repug reachout continues so successfully:
Rick Santorum: Uninsured people are deadbeats and ‘won’t make a payment’ for Obamacare
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/30/rick-santorum-uninsured-obamacare-enrolees-are-deadbeats-and-wont-make-a-payment/
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...#ixzz2xYAxVoo3President Obama's healthcare law, despite a rocky rollout and determined opposition from critics, already has spurred the largest expansion in health coverage in America in half a century, nationalsurveysand enrollment data show.
As the law's initial enrollment period closes, at least 9.5 million previously uninsured people have gained coverage. Some have done so through marketplaces created by the law, some through other private insurance and others through Medicaid, which has expanded under the law in about half the states.
The tally draws from a review of state and federal enrollment reports, surveys and interviews with insurance executives and government officials nationwide.
The Affordable Care Act still faces major challenges, particularly the risk of premium hikes next year that could drive away newly insured customers. But the increased coverage so far amounts to substantial progress toward one of the law's principal goals and is the most significant expansion since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.
The millions of newly insured also create a politically important cons uency that may complicate any future Republican repeal efforts.
Precise figures on national health coverage will not be available for months. But available data indicate:
• At least 6 million people have signed up for health coverage on the new marketplaces, about one-third of whom were previously uninsured.
• A February survey by consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found 27% of new enrollees were previously uninsured, but newer survey data from the nonprofit Rand Corp. and reports from marketplace officials in several states suggest that share increased in March.
• At least 4.5 million previously uninsured adults have signed up for state Medicaid programs, according to Rand's unpublished survey data, which were shared with The Times. That tracks with estimates from Avalere Health, a consulting firm that is closely following the law's implementation.
• An additional 3 million young adults have gained coverage in recent years through a provision of the law that enables dependent children to remain on their parents' health plans until they turn 26, according to national health insurance surveys from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• About 9 million people have bought health plans directly from insurers, instead of using the marketplaces, Rand found. The vast majority of these people were previously insured.
• Fewer than a million people who had health plans in 2013 are now uninsured because their plans were canceled for not meeting new standards set by the law, the Rand survey indicates.
Repugs have really screwed their own citizens, who are mostly too stupid or "single social issue" assholes to know better.
I read where some people in red states think it's ILLEGAL to sign up for ACA.
There's a lot more work and fixing to go, but at least a huge PROGRESSIVE step has been taken.
Judging Obamacare: How Do We Know If It’s a Success or Failure?
http://www.propublica.org/article/ju...ailynewsletter
Thanks to Scott Galupo of The American Conservative for making a larger point about Obamacare that often gets lost (and that I forget to make also): In this country, at least, universal health care seems like a social prerequisite for more freedom and market-driven flexibility, not a precursor of less. It’s one thing to take huge risks in a volatile market economy if the downside is you lose your money. It’s another if the downside is you lose your life. People who are secure about preserving the latter are more likely to tolerate big risks regarding the former. That applies not only to swashbuckling entrepreneurs but also to regular workers who are now regularly expected to switch jobsand cities and skills as various industries and enterprises rise and fall. It’s true even if you don’t put a premium the American virtue of social equality–being “equal in the eyes of each other” [Reagan*]–which is itself a type of security that enables risk taking,** and which is powerfully reinforced in a health system (like Medicare) that treats rich and poor with equal respect and competence.***
Galupo:
Universal healthcare is not a limit on capitalism so much as it’s a tradeoff for more capitalism. The process of deregulation and global economic connectivity that began in the late 1970s, which historian Edward Luttwak later dubbed “Turbo-capitalism,” exposed workers to the vicissitudes of market
… universal healthcare is the tribute the new cosmopolitan elite must pay to fellow citizens who have become radically less secure.
.http://www.theamericanconservative.c...er-of-justice/If there’s anything remotely distinctive about my blogging here and at U.S. News since ’10, I hope it’s been a counterweight to the despair of both moral traditionalists like Deneen and Dreher and market purists-slash-declinists like Kevin Williamson. My gravamen, my conceit, my shtick is this: Government has grown alongside our continental economy. There is not a hydraulic relationship (one goes up, the other goes down) between markets and government. If our capitalists were smart, they’d favor effective social insurance alongside free enterprise
"If our capitalists were smart, they’d favor effective social insurance alongside free enterprise"
how typically idealistic, and unrealistic.
The health care providers and insurers aren't primarily capitalists. They are cartelized profit/rent seekers, not "free enterprisers".
Their INVESTORS (including mgmt paid with stock) are capitalists who would lose a bundle, would lose investment opportunities, if for-profit health and insurance were replaced with no-profit health care and insurance as public utilities.
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