Initial attempts to sign up for ObamaCare go about as well as expected [Archive] - Page 5

boutons_deux

03-26-2014, 03:34 PM

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/2014/03/26/293882552/in-california-asian-americans-flock-to-health-coverage?sc=17&f=1128

TSA

03-26-2014, 03:37 PM

boutons_deux

03-26-2014, 03:43 PM

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 (http://www.latimes.com/topic/health/healthcare-laws/affordable-care-act-%28obamacare%29-EVGAP00039.topic) that the Act is hurting Medicare (http://www.latimes.com/topic/health/government-health-care/medicare-HEPRG00002.topic) 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 (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/parties-movements/republican-party-ORGOV0000004.topic) are playing the cuts for all they're worth.

"Democrats are about to awake (http://www.nrsc.org/blog/democrats-are-about-to-awake-a-political-giant) and provoke a political giant -- senior citizens," wrote a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in February. (Several Democratic senators (http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/198651-dems-side-with-gop-on-medicare-cuts) 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 (http://www.nber.org/papers/w19989).

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 (http://theincidentaleconomist.com/medicare-advantage-cuts-once-more-with-feeling/) of additional reimbursement.

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare pointed the finger at unethical marketing of Advantage plans (http://www.ncpssm.org/Document/ArticleID/754) 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." (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/20/us-usa-healthcare-medicare-idUSBREA1J0AB20140220)

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/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-medicare-advantage-20140326,0,4015039.story#ixzz2x6ToSkna

boutons_deux

03-26-2014, 03:46 PM

"Obviously Asians are better at navigating the internet than Latinos"- Harry Reid

dumbfuck, CA has its own exchange, doesn't use the fixed healthcare.gov.

TSA

03-26-2014, 04:06 PM

dumbfuck, CA has its own exchange, doesn't use the fixed healthcare.gov.

dumbfuck, then why'd you post an article about covered CA in a thread about healthcare.gov

boutons_deux

03-26-2014, 04:17 PM

dumbfuck, 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 title

FuzzyLumpkins

03-26-2014, 04:25 PM

dumbfuck, then why'd you post an article about covered CA in a thread about healthcare.gov

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.

TSA

03-26-2014, 04:50 PM

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.

FuzzyLumpkins

03-26-2014, 05:56 PM

I am now boutons and lumpkins.

Nah, when it comes down to it, I don't give you that much credit.

Winehole23

03-27-2014, 11:13 AM

enrollment extension after March 31. just lie about having tried to:

http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/03/obamacare-enrollees-get-post-deadline-special-enrollment-period-extension/359598/

boutons_deux

03-27-2014, 11:39 AM

enrollment extension after March 31. just lie about having tried to:

http://www.thewire.com/national/2014/03/obamacare-enrollees-get-post-deadline-special-enrollment-period-extension/359598/

They're trying to HELP the people, not SCREW them like the Repugs.

What's your fucking point?

if you want to bitch about lying on an "honor system", bitch about "honorable" doctors, clinics, hospitals ripping off Medicare and Medicaid for $10Bs every year.

Winehole23

03-27-2014, 11:47 AM

wash the sand out of your crack. the extension is newsworthy.

boutons_deux

03-27-2014, 12:50 PM

The States That Are Expanding Medicaid Just Got Some Good News (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/27/3419586/obamacare-medicaid-eligible-healthier/)

A new study (http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/early/2014/03/17/hlthaff.2013.0743.full.pdf) 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 (http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/early/2014/03/17/hlthaff.2013.0743.full.pdf) 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 (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/25/3418896/scott-brown-dodges-obamacare-medicaid-question/) 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://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2014/01/16/costs-for-private-option-for-medicaid-expansion-coming-in-on-target-dhs-preparing-request-for-hsas).

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/27/3419586/obamacare-medicaid-eligible-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.

TSA

03-28-2014, 04:04 PM

PzRwc5Y8c6g

TSA

03-28-2014, 05:08 PM

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottgottlieb/2014/03/28/how-much-does-obamacare-rip-off-generation-x-we-ran-the-numbers-here-are-the-results/?partner=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?

boutons_deux

03-30-2014, 01:09 PM

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 Obamacarehttp://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/30/rick-santorum-uninsured-obamacare-enrolees-are-deadbeats-and-wont-make-a-payment/

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 09:27 AM

President Obama (http://www.latimes.com/topic/politics/government/barack-obama-PEPLT007408.topic)'s healthcare law (http://www.latimes.com/topic/health/healthcare-laws/affordable-care-act-%28obamacare%29-EVGAP00039.topic), 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 (http://www.latimes.com/topic/health/government-health-care/medicaid-HEPRG00001.topic), 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 constituency 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 (http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/healthcare_systems_and_services/latest_thinking) 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 (http://avalerehealth.net/expertise/managed-care/insights/observations-as-aca-open-enrollment-closes) 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 (http://http//www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur201403.pdf) 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.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obamacare-uninsured-national-20140331,0,5472960.story#ixzz2xYAxVoo3

boutons_deux

03-31-2014, 10:16 AM

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.

boutons_deux

03-31-2014, 10:28 AM

Judging Obamacare: How Do We Know If It’s a Success or Failure?
http://www.propublica.org/article/judging-obamacare-how-do-we-know-if-its-a-success-or-failure?utm_source=et&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 12:15 PM

Thanks to Scott Galupo of The American Conservative for making a larger point about Obamacare (http://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-old-mickey-kaus-argument-in-favor-of-universal-healthcare/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-old-mickey-kaus-argument-in-favor-of-universal-healthcare) 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 jobshttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png (http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/01/the-larger-point-about-obamacare-and-capitalism/#) and 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 (http://www.amazon.com/Turbo-Capitalism-Winners-Losers-Global-Economy/dp/006093137X/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1340979982&sr=8-6&keywords=edward+luttwak),” exposed workers to the vicissitudes of markethttp://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png (http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/01/the-larger-point-about-obamacare-and-capitalism/#) capitalism more than they’d ever been throughout the 20th century.

… universal healthcare is the tribute the new cosmopolitan elite must pay to fellow citizens who have become radically less secure.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/01/the-larger-point-about-obamacare-and-capitalism/#ixzz2xYsSLB1f

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 12:16 PM

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 (http://www.nationalreview.com/article/374528/which-side-are-you-kevin-d-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 (http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/01/the-larger-point-about-obamacare-and-capitalism).http://www.theamericanconservative.com/hobby-lobby-vs-the-order-of-justice/

boutons_deux

03-31-2014, 12:26 PM

"If our capitalists were smart, they’d favor effective social insurance alongside free enterprise (http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/01/the-larger-point-about-obamacare-and-capitalism)"

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.

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 12:31 PM

classic boutons: strawman, no true scotsman, cookie cutter analysis and content free scoffing.

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 12:37 PM

basic economic self-interest underpins Blodget's rhetorical thrust:

These days, if you suggest that great companies should serve all of their constituencies (customers, employees, and shareholders) and that American companies should share more of their wealth with the people who generate it (employees), you get called a "socialist." You get called a "liberal." You get told that you "don't understand economics." You get accused of promoting "wealth confiscation." You get told that, in America, people get paid what they deserve to get paid: Anyone who wants more money should go out and "start their own company" or "demand a raise" or "get a better job."

In other words, you get told that anyone who suggests that great companies should share the value they create with their employees instead of just lining the pockets of shareholders is an idiot.

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5311f9a369beddd419f07867-907-680/screen%20shot%202014-02-28%20at%209.46.39%20am.pngBusiness Insider, St. Louis Fed (http://www.research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/)
Wages as a percent of the economy.

After all, these folks say, one law of capitalism is that employers pay their employees as little as possible. Employees are just "costs." You should try to minimize those "costs" whenever and wherever you can. This view, unfortunately, is not just selfish and demeaning to the people who do the work and create the value. It's also economically stupid. Those "costs" you are minimizing (your employees) are also current and prospective customers for your company and other companies. And the less money they have, the fewer products and services they are going to buy.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-need-to-pay-people-more-2014-3#ixzz2xYxkHWEZ

TeyshaBlue

03-31-2014, 01:06 PM

Makes me pine for a round of front loaded QE.

boutons_deux

03-31-2014, 01:54 PM

THE GOP'S LAST LINE OF DEFENSE ON OBAMACARE

By Charles P. Pierce on March 31, 2014

Apparently, the last line of defense that the Republicans have on the Affordable Care Act is to argue that the administration is cooking the books, or that numbers don't mean what they mean, or that math has become politically inconvenient for them.

Over the weekend, Rick Santorum ran that rap on Meet The Press, and Senator John Barrasso did the same thing (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/30/gop-sen-barrasso-administration-has-cooked-books-on-obamacare-numbers/) over on Rupert's Playhouse.

Torture porn enthusiast Marc Thiessen chips in from (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-made-up-good-news-about-obamacare/2014/03/31/1ed97eba-b8d1-11e3-899e-bb708e3539dd_story.html?hpid=z2)his mysteriously durable perch at The Washington Post. Jonathan Cohn has a good wrap-up (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117205/obamacare-signup-surge-republicans-say-obama-cooking-books)of the phenomenon in which he makes the point that denying reality always has been a go-to move for these folks.

Even accounting for the fact that some of these people won't actually pay their premiums, these figures would seem to undermine-or at least weaken-the argument that Obamacare is a catastrophic failure. Republicans and many of their allies obviously think otherwise. They are doing what they almost always do when data confounds their previously held beliefs. They are challenging the statistics-primarily, by suggesting that most of the people getting insurance already had coverage. Some, like Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, say the administration is "cooking the books." Others, like Senator Ted Cruz, say that the number of people without insurance is actually rising.

It's hard to know where to go with this. One side of the debate simply has its fingers in its ears, la-la-la'ing its way merrily through its own version of reality. The other side is still trying to wrestle a new law into place. People out in the country believe what they want to believe.

Some lives are made better. That seems to count less and less.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/republicans-accuse-administration-of-cooking-books-on-obamacare-033114

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 01:58 PM

there are pending court cases that could screw it up. like this one: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/02/03/if-the-latest-obamacare-lawsuit-succeeds-obamacare-is-in-big-trouble/

boutons_deux

03-31-2014, 02:01 PM

actually, there's one more legal attack in progress

a group of conservative plaintiffs flew beneath the radar four blocks away, pushing what may be an even more important challenge:

It was asking a three-judge D.C. Circuit panel to cripple the Obamacare tax subsidies designed to make insurance affordable for lower-income Americans.

That request produced fireworks in a usually staid courtroom. Judge Harry Edwards, a liberal stalwart, got into a shouting match with the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Michael Carvin – a rare scene in a court where lawyers calmly debate arcane points of administrative law and are trained never to talk over a judge. “Your argument makes no sense!” Edwards yelled at one point as Carvin tried to get a word in edgewise.

Reagan appointee A. Raymond Randolph was just as sharp-tongued on the other side, attacking the Affordable Care Act as “poorly written” and “stupid,” and the Obamacare rollout as “an unmitigated disaster.”

When the sound and fury died down, the bottom line was this: Two of the panel’s three judges appeared to agree that Obamacare subsidies are unavailable in 36 states. And that is huge news.

The subsidies, after all, are a key piece of the Affordable Care Act. They provide tax credits to lower-income Americans who buy insurance through exchanges, reducing the price of coverage – in some cases, dramatically. Without those subsidies, Obamacare’s promise of tens of millions of newly insured Americans likely won’t be possible. As Edwards put it Tuesday, a ruling invalidating the subsidies in most states just might “gut the statute.”

And that is precisely why Carvin – one of the lawyers who asked the Supreme Court to strike the whole law down in 2012 – began attacking the subsidies soon after his initial effort failed.

Carvin’s argument in the case, Halbig v. Sebelius, boils down to just four words in the massive Affordable Care Act. He told the D.C. Circuit panel Tuesday that when Congress drafted the statute’s tax-subsidy section, it wrote that applicants are eligible for subsidies if they enroll in insurance through an exchange “established by the State.” But after the law was enacted, 36 states refused to set up exchanges, so the federal government did it for them.

Carvin argued Tuesday that in those 36 states, there is no exchange “established by the state.” And that, he argued, means residents in those states can’t get subsidies. What’s more, Carvin claimed, Congress wanted it that way: He said Congress intentionally limited subsidies to states with their own exchanges as an incentive to get states to create exchanges in the first place.

That’s when the sparks began to fly. Leaning over the bench, Edwards told Carvin that his argument about what Congress had in mind “seems preposterous.” He told Carvin that his congressional-intent theory was just a cover for the plaintiffs’ overriding goal: to kill Obamacare. “What you’re asking for is to destroy the individual mandate, which guts the statute,” he said. “That’s what this case is about.”

Randolph staked out just as clear a position on the other side. He interrupted Edwards mid-sentence at one point – another rarity – to support Carvin’s argument. And when it came time for the government’s lawyer to argue, Randolph laid into Obamacare in colorful terms. “If the legislation is just stupid, it isn’t our job to save it,” he said.

With one judge on each side, the outcome came down to the third member of the panel: Thomas Griffith, a George W. Bush appointee. And while Griffith was less outspoken than Randolph, he eventually indicated that he, too, was buying Carvin’s basic argument: “Established by the State” means “established by the State.” “The key language here is ‘established,’” he said. And he strongly suggested that the government hadn’t met its burden to show that Congress meant to say something other than what it actually wrote.

After those comments, the writing was on the wall. When the court issues its decision – likely this spring or summer – expect it to sound the death knell for Obamacare subsidies in three-quarters of the country.

That won’t necessarily be the last word. The Obama administration can ask the full D.C. Circuit to rehear the case. And if that doesn’t work, it can look to the Supreme Court for salvation. But for now, Obamacare is once again on the ropes.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/dc-circuit-court-obamacare-subsidies

Winehole23

03-31-2014, 02:06 PM

that's what I just posted. (:facepalm)

boutons_deux

03-31-2014, 02:14 PM

The OId Confederate Lesbian can't even catch a break on Fox

Frustrated Fox host asks Lindsey Graham 4 times for GOP Obamacare alternative

Fox News on Monday picked the last day of enrollment for plans offered under the Affordable Care Act to ask Republicans who want to repeal the law what their alternative was.

Speaking to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Fox News host Jenna Lee pointed out that both Republican and Democratic analysts now agreed that continued efforts to try and repeal the president’s health care law could backfire.

“Well, I think we need to repeal it, and we need to replace it,” Graham insisted. still? really? :lol

“I think it’s good for the Republican Party to have a plan of its own that could insure Americans without having to lose your doctor and bankrupt the country.”

( what's good for the Repug party is ALWAYS bad for Americans )

When Lee asked Graham for the Republican plan, he replied with general ideas about not denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, and allowing children to stay on their parents insurance longer — both of which are already accomplished by the existing law.

Graham also added that he would like to see people be able to purchase insurance across state lines. (so state regulators would be neutered, got it!)

“Your colleague, Sen. Barrasso says that the White House is actually fixing the books [on enrollment numbers],” Lee pointed out. “Do you agree with that?”

“Totally, they are!” Graham replied.

“Do you have any facts to back that up?” Lee asked.

Instead of backing up the assertion with facts, Graham asked some questions of his own questions: “Tell me how many people who signed up for Obamacare have paid?”

“Why do you think Republicans can put together a better plan to get the trust back in government?” the Fox News host wondered. “What are Republicans putting out there that says to the American people,

‘No, you can trust us.’” :lol

“I think the first thing we’ve got to explain to the American people is the Democrats who want to fix Obamacare have a political problem,” Graham opined. “You can’t fix Obamacare, you got to start over. You can take some elements I just described and build a new health care plan.”

“Why hasn’t a full proposal of a completely different plan from the GOP been developed, put out to the press for the press to look at and really dig into?” Lee pressed.

“I hope that comes,” Graham said slowly. “But at the end of the day, we’re trying to implement a law that’s just failing America on multiple fronts. So, I’m in the camp of explaining to the American people that when a Democrat tells you that he wants to mend it, not end it. It can’t be mended.”

“Getting back to the question,” Lee said, trying one last time. “What is preventing the Republicans from putting forward a real plan that everybody can look at, even before November? Is it simply the election and political pressure that’s not allowing that to happen? Are you waiting for the change in the Senate?”

“I think we should have an outline of a health care plan, and that would be better for America,” Graham droned. “I think that would help the Republican Party. But between now and then, our Democratic friends are trying to sell the American people, ‘You can fix this Obamacare.’ It can’t be fixed. It’s got to be torn down, and start over.” :lol

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted at least 50 times (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/06/wonkbook-more-obamacare-delays-and-another-repeal-vote-by-gop/) to repeal the Affordable Care Act without putting forward an alternative. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) said in February (http://blogs.rollcall.com/218/cantor-says-gop-finishing-work-on-obamacare-alternative-details-agenda/) that Republicans would finally offer a replacement bill in the near future.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/31/watch-frustrated-fox-host-asks-lindsey-graham-4-times-for-gop-obamacare-alternative/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

boutons_deux

03-31-2014, 02:42 PM

http://www.alternet.org/files/styles/large/public/acasubsidies.png

TSA

04-01-2014, 12:14 AM

The White House now claims an Obamacare enrollment figure of six million people. However, according to The New York Times, at least 20% of those never paid their premiums to activate coverage, leaving them uninsured. That drops the number down to 4.8 million.
Next, as Washington Post columnist Ed Rogers notes, "the official HHS numbers still include duplicate enrollments." No one knows how many duplicate enrollments are in the stack; the White House refuses to say. However, given the disastrous Obamacare website failures, it is reasonable to imagine that the pile is riddled with numerous "false start" applications.
That leaves the most important question: How many people are gaining insurance who were previously uninsured? After all, that was the stated reason for Obamacare in the first place. McKinsey & Co. says that only 27% of those who have picked a plan through Obamacare were previously uninsured.
Moreover, McKinsey says these individuals have an unusually high rate of failing to pay their first month's premium. "Only 53 percent of them had paid their first premium, compared with 86 percent of the previously insured," reports CNBC.
Even conceding the White House its alleged six million enrollment figure (which, again, includes duplicates and incomplete applications), that would mean that just 810,000 of paying Obamacare customers were previously uninsured, a figure that represents 1.7% of America's 48.6 million uninsured people.
Indeed, most of those the White House counts as Obamacare enrollees are among the five million who had their health insurance plans canceled due to Obamacare.
Obamacare has taken a severe toll on President Obama's approval rating. The latest Associated Press poll reveals that his disapproval rating has now hit an all-time high of 59%. As one Democratic member of Congress told The New York Times, Obama is "poisonous" to Democrats running in the November 4th midterm elections.
Americans head to the polls in 218 days.

TSA

04-01-2014, 10:41 AM

Let me get this straight...We're going to be "gifted" with a health care plan we are forced to purchase, and fined if we don't,,, which purportedly covers at least ten million more people, without adding a single doctor,,, but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents, written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that didn't read it, but exempted themselves from it,,, and signed by a President who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes,,, for which we'll be taxed for four years before any benefits take effect, by a government which has already bankrupt Social Security and Medicare,,, all to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke
:lol

Th'Pusher

04-01-2014, 10:53 AM

:lol

Why no source linksTSA? Embarrassed?

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 10:53 AM

"16,000 new IRS agents"

link

TSA just loves Repug/Fox lies and propaganda

How many of your dirt-poor, red-state, gun-fellatin buddies and their kids will die for lack of Medicaid expansion?

Winehole23

04-01-2014, 11:00 AM

Makes me pine for a round of front loaded QE.unsure if serious...what do you mean by front-loaded?

TSA

04-01-2014, 11:07 AM

Why no source linksTSA? Embarrassed?

Since when does anyone link a comment they read?

TSA

04-01-2014, 11:17 AM

"16,000 new IRS agents"

link

TSA just loves Repug/Fox lies and propaganda

How many of your dirt-poor, red-state, gun-fellatin buddies and their kids will die for lack of Medicaid expansion?

I don't have any dirt-poor, red-state, gun-fellatin buddies.

Th'Pusher

04-01-2014, 11:17 AM

Since when does anyone link a comment they read?

How about a link to the original article? Let me guess. Fox News? Or was it something more egregious like brietbart or the blaze?

TSA

04-01-2014, 11:22 AM

Just some yahoo article I read this morning.

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 11:24 AM

Obamacare support edges opposition for first time in ABC-Washington Post poll (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/31/1288667/-Obamacare-support-edges-opposition-for-first-time-in-ABC-Washington-Post-poll)

According to their newest survey (http://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/03/31/National-Politics/Polling/release_308.xml), conducted nationally from March 26-30 among American adults with a margin of error of ±3.5 points, 49 percent of the country supports Obamacare and 48 percent opposes it.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/31/1288667/-Obamacare-support-edges-opposition-for-first-time-in-ABC-Washington-Post-poll?detail=email

and we know in the 48% opposing it there are the right-wing assholes who could benefit from it but hate Dems and n!gg@s, plus those who really want ACA to do much more (eg, public option).

As word gets around to the sheeple in red states how their Repug politicians screwed them and that ACA actually helps them, ACA will poll much favorably.

Given the continuing scorched-earth Repug sabotage, the too-widespread ignorance of what ACA is and does, and the screwups by FOR-PROFIT software contractors developing the fed/state exchanges, ACA is off to a fantastic start that pretty much mirrors the signup curve (and problems) of MA's universal health insurance startup.

ACA will get fixed, tweaked, improved like any complex system with Ms of complex moving parts, aka, human beings.

Th'Pusher

04-01-2014, 11:26 AM

Just some yahoo article I read this morning.

The comment should have been attributed to Donald Trump since that's who said it... :lol

TSA

04-01-2014, 11:29 AM

The comment should have been attributed to Donald Trump since that's who said it... :lol
:lol, that I did not know. I just found the comment funny.

TSA

04-01-2014, 11:30 AM

Winehole23

04-01-2014, 11:31 AM

The comment should have been attributed to Donald Trump since that's who said it... :lol...over two years ago.

Th'Pusher

04-01-2014, 11:31 AM

Just some yahoo article I read this morning.

And the article from a "report" from Wynton Hall at Breitbart.

You're such a fucking moron. Just admit you read rightwing news to get the confirmation bias you need. Don't be ashamed...

Winehole23

04-01-2014, 11:40 AM

Even conceding the White House its alleged six million enrollment figure (which, again, includes duplicates and incomplete applications), that would mean that just 810,000 of paying Obamacare customers were previously uninsured, a figure that represents 1.7% of America's 48.6 million uninsured people)

1.7%!cherrypicking. according to a nationwide Rand survey, that figure goes up by a factor of 10 when including Medicaid expansion, state exchanges, previously uninsured adults under 26 now covered on a parent's insurance, etc..

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...#ixzz2xYAxVoo3 (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obamacare-uninsured-national-20140331,0,5472960.story#ixzz2xYAxVoo3)

TSA

04-01-2014, 11:40 AM

And the article from a "report" from Wynton Hall at Breitbart.

You're such a fucking moron. Just admit you read rightwing news to get the confirmation bias you need. Don't be ashamed...
Actually you are wrong, again. The article on Yahoo was an article with a positive spin on Obamacare, definitely not rightwing.

Th'Pusher

04-01-2014, 11:59 AM

Actually you are wrong, again. The article on Yahoo was an article with a positive spin on Obamacare, definitely not rightwing.

Link? :lol
Brietbart :lol
TSA is upset that Obamacare signed up 7m users :lol

TSA

04-01-2014, 12:06 PM

Link? :lol
Brietbart :lol
TSA is upset that Obamacare signed up 7m users :lol

:cry http://news.yahoo.com/obamacare-website-stalls-bit-enrollment-deadline-092618319--sector.html :cry

Th'Pusher

04-01-2014, 12:23 PM

:lol that's not a link to what you posted here:

The White House now claims an Obamacare enrollment figure of six million people. However, according to The New York Times, at least 20% of those never paid their premiums to activate coverage, leaving them uninsured. That drops the number down to 4.8 million.
Next, as Washington Post columnist Ed Rogers notes, "the official HHS numbers still include duplicate enrollments." No one knows how many duplicate enrollments are in the stack; the White House refuses to say. However, given the disastrous Obamacare website failures, it is reasonable to imagine that the pile is riddled with numerous "false start" applications.
That leaves the most important question: How many people are gaining insurance who were previously uninsured? After all, that was the stated reason for Obamacare in the first place. McKinsey & Co. says that only 27% of those who have picked a plan through Obamacare were previously uninsured.
Moreover, McKinsey says these individuals have an unusually high rate of failing to pay their first month's premium. "Only 53 percent of them had paid their first premium, compared with 86 percent of the previously insured," reports CNBC.
Even conceding the White House its alleged six million enrollment figure (which, again, includes duplicates and incomplete applications), that would mean that just 810,000 of paying Obamacare customers were previously uninsured, a figure that represents 1.7% of America's 48.6 million uninsured people.
Indeed, most of those the White House counts as Obamacare enrollees are among the five million who had their health insurance plans canceled due to Obamacare.
Obamacare has taken a severe toll on President Obama's approval rating. The latest Associated Press poll reveals that his disapproval rating has now hit an all-time high of 59%. As one Democratic member of Congress told The New York Times, Obama is "poisonous" to Democrats running in the November 4th midterm elections.
Americans head to the polls in 218 days.

Winehole23

04-01-2014, 12:25 PM

redirect: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obamacare-uninsured-national-20140331,0,5472960.story#ixzz2xYAxVoo3

TSA

04-01-2014, 12:30 PM

:lol that's not a link to what you posted here:

You asked for a link to where I found the comment.

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 12:31 PM

redirect: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obamacare-uninsured-national-20140331,0,5472960.story#ixzz2xYAxVoo3

"But the solid enrollment in the first year has built a foundation that for now appears robust enough to support more growth next year.

In several states, including Rhode Island, Connecticut, Kentucky, Iowa and South Dakota, more insurers are looking to join state marketplaces when second-year enrollment begins this fall, according to marketplace and insurance industry officials.

And after initial resistance, a growing number of states with GOP governors or legislatures are looking to expand coverage further.

New Hampshire's Legislature just voted to expand its Medicaid program. Utah, Indiana and Pennsylvania are looking for ways to do the same."

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 12:38 PM

"The latest Associated Press poll reveals that his disapproval rating has now hit an all-time high of 59%."

Presidents, (sheeple think they are all-powerful, divine-right dictators) get praised or slandered MAINLY with the state of the economy. (except right-winger and Repugs who slander all things Dem, and esp Dem n!gg@s)

The Repugs austerity budgets, sequestration, etc, and refusal to implement any stimulus or jobs programs, have greatly slowed the recovery from the (pre-Obama) Banksters Great Depression, financial depression already known to be longer than other types, as the Repugs have calculated they would do since Jan 2009.

Th'Pusher

04-01-2014, 12:39 PM

You asked for a link to where I found the comment.

Sorry. There was a misunderstanding as I asked for links plural (to the comment and preceding article). Now, in the future, if you would just provide links to the news sources that give you the confirmation bias needed to fuel your emotions this could all be avoided. Thanks in advance, emo.

TSA

04-01-2014, 12:47 PM

Sorry. There was a misunderstanding as I asked for links plural (to the comment and preceding article). Now, in the future, if you would just provide links to the news sources that give you the confirmation bias needed to fuel your emotions this could all be avoided.No problem.

Thanks in advance, emo.Says the guy constantly using emoticons.

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 12:48 PM

ISSA SUBPOENAS SEVEN MILLION AMERICANS WHO SIGNED UP FOR OBAMACARE

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/issa-sub.jpg

Accusing them of involvement in “a widespread conspiracy to save President Obama’s failed health-care program,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) today subpoenaed the approximately seven million Americans who have signed up for Obamacare so far.

Arguing that the impressive enrollment numbers “don’t pass the smell test,” the House Oversight Committee chairman told reporters, “Any rational person would come to the same conclusion that I have: namely, that this is a well-orchestrated conspiracy of seven million people trying to make Obamacare look good.”

The California Republican said that the seven million co-conspirators targeted by his subpoenas would be required to travel to Washington to testify before his committee or risk being found in contempt of Congress.

“If you signed up for Obamacare, you have a lot of explaining to do,” he said.

In announcing the subpoenas, Rep. Issa indicated that his committee could begin grilling the seven million Obamacare enrollees as early as next week. “If my suspicions are correct, this could be bigger than Benghazi,” he said.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/04/issa-subpoenas-seven-million-americans-who-signed-up-for-obamacare.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(54)

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 12:52 PM

Last fall, researchers quizzed 6000 Americans, age 18 to 65, on health insurance and the new law.

Half didn't know about the insurance marketplaces, or their subsidies.

Forty-two percent couldn't define a deductible.

And two thirds didn't know the difference (http://healthinsurance.about.com/od/understandingmanagedcare/a/HMOs_vs_PPOs.htm) between an HMO, with its restrictive physician network, and a PPO, which typically offers more flexibility.

The full survey is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Silvia Helena Barcellos et al, Preparedness of Americans for the Affordable Care Act (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/03/19/1320488111.abstract?sid=bcb1da98-bce7-4bd8-9236-8a48b35a59b6)]

Study author Silvia Helena Barcellos of U.S.C. says

those most likely to benefit from the law—like uninsured young and low-income respondents—typically know the least.

"It's very hard to believe that people will make informed choices…without having knowledge of these basic concepts." And until we master the basics, she says, simpler insurance options might be just what the doctor ordered.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/health-insurance-ignorance/?&WT.mc_id=SA_HLTH_20140401

"simpler insurance options", take that up the insurers who write the hyper-complicated, confusing policies, not ACA.

Winehole23

04-01-2014, 01:04 PM

Megan McArdle pokes some holes in the Rand survey:

Obamacare: What We Know and What We Don't
152 Mar 31, 2014 4:19 PM ET By Megan McArdle (http://www.bloombergview.com/contributors/megan-mcardle)

Today is the end of the beginning for the Affordable Care Act.

Open enrollment closes today and, anecdotally, there has been a big surge in traffic, a heroic tribute to the American powers of procrastination. At this rate, the number of plan selections looks like it might hit, or at least get close to, 7 million. That won't mean 7 million people actually enrolled in health insurance (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-28/is-obamacare-now-beyond-repeal), but it will certainly be a marketing coup for President Barack Obama's administration.

Nonetheless, as I wrote last week, there's still an immense amount we don't know. This morning's Los Angeles Times brings optimistic-sounding news (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-obamacare-uninsured-national-20140331,0,6550360,full.story#axzz2xYVbfomi) based on a Rand Corp. enrollment survey. As the article puts it:

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 (http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/healthcare_systems_and_services/latest_thinking) 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 (http://avalerehealth.net/expertise/managed-care/insights/observations-as-aca-open-enrollment-closes) from Avalere Health, a consulting firm that is closely

• 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 (http://http/www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur201403.pdf) 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.

But there are problems with all of that data.

1. The biggest is that the latest surveys available don't cover the recent surge, which might be (probably is?) different from earlier signups. I'd expect it to contain more "young invincibles," more long-term uninsured and healthier people on average than earlier waves. I'd also expect it to contain more people who will select a plan and then not pay their premiums consistently. All that data, however, is yet to come.

2. Both Rand and McKinsey are doing surveys of relatively small groups. It's useful data to have, because it's the only data we have. But it could easily depart from reality, either by overstating the percentage of uninsured who have bought exchange policies or by understating it.

3. The Rand data isn't even published, so it's hard to be confident about what it says.

4. When I look at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur201403.pdf) cited in the article, I'm not sure I see 3 million young people who have gained insurance because of the rules allowing them to stay on their parents' coverage. The accompanying chart shows the CDC data for 19-25-year-olds, who make up 85 percent of the affected age group (chart figures in millions).

http://www.bloomberg.com/image/iDLO051dLLs4.png (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhis/earlyrelease/insur201403.pdf) Data: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention It seems likely that the law produced some reduction in the number of uninsured young adults. But no matter how you count the uninsured you can't come up with a number as high as 3 million, unless you assume that the gain among 26-year-olds was truly enormous -- 50 percent of the gain among 19-25-year-olds. That seems ... unlikely. Besides, to get that high you'd have to start counting in 2010, but the number of uninsured among all age groups peaked in 2010, not just 19- to 25-year-olds, presumably because of the recession. So if you count from 2010, you're capturing some people who got insurance not because of the Affordable Care Act but because the economy started to recover from the financial crisis.

5. Nine million people buying insurance in the private market over six months is not an exciting number; according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, almost 16 million people bought plans in the private market (http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/total-population/) before the exchanges opened, so basically what this tells us is that over the course of half a year, slightly more than half of those with insurance in the prior year bought plans directly from insurers. Given that some people had their plans canceled because of the new law, this could be normal churn with no net addition of new coverage. Or it might not be. (This depends on how the study treats grandfathered plans, and how many grandfathered plans there were. Since I can't read the study, and we don't have actual data on the number of grandfathered plans, it's hard to say.) We don't know.

6. Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner points out (http://washingtonexaminer.com/significantly-fewer-uninsured-americans-gaining-coverage-under-obamacare-than-expected/article/2546552) that even if we accept these numbers, it's actually below what the Congressional Budget Office was projecting; unless the number of Medicaid enrollees also surges this month, and almost all of the new enrollees pay their premiums, it's hard to see how you get to 13 million fewer uninsured in 2014, which was what the CBO was projecting as recently as February. At Forbes, Avik Roy adds (http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/03/31/rand-only-one-third-of-obamacare-exchange-sign-ups-were-from-the-previously-uninsured/): “The Congressional Budget Office, in its original estimates, predicted that the vast majority of the people eligible for subsidies on the exchanges would be previously uninsured individuals. Instead, the vast majority are previously insured people, many of whom are getting a better deal on the exchanges because they either qualify for subsidies, or because they're older individuals who benefit from the law's steep rate hikes on the young (http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2012/03/22/how-obamacare-dramatically-increases-the-cost-of-insurance-for-young-workers/).” Unless McKinsey and Rand are wildly off, that is.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-31/obamacare-what-we-know-and-what-we-don-t

Th'Pusher

04-01-2014, 01:40 PM

Says the guy constantly using emoticons.

The difference is my emotions are :lol whereas yours are :uncontrollablerage

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 01:41 PM

"this could be normal churn with no net addition of new coverage"

Even it were QUANTITY churn (of junk policies), the new POLICIES are higher QUALITY (BETTER NET coverage).

TSA

04-01-2014, 02:01 PM

The difference is my emotions are :lol whereas yours are :uncontrollablerage
Link to uncontrollable rage please

TSA

04-01-2014, 02:02 PM

Megan McArdle pokes some holes in the Rand survey:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-31/obamacare-what-we-know-and-what-we-don-t

Thanks for confirming my confirmation bias with an unbiased confirmation.

DarrinS

04-01-2014, 02:10 PM

So, their goal was 7 million and they signed up 7.041 million?

Hmm.

Winehole23

04-01-2014, 02:37 PM

Thanks for confirming my confirmation bias with an unbiased confirmation.if you read carefully, nothing was definitively confirmed or refuted. reliable stats aren't in yet. taking the McArdle article as confirmation of your POV underscores your confirmation bias.

Winehole23

04-01-2014, 02:38 PM

the Rand survey, McArdle admits, could be wrong in either direction

TeyshaBlue

04-01-2014, 02:45 PM

unsure if serious...what do you mean by front-loaded?

Put the stimulus money in the hands of the public. Let them stimulate the economy by spending and retiring debt.

Winehole23

04-01-2014, 02:51 PM

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 03:02 PM

a good friend of mine -- solidly Republican, rabidly anti-Dem and anti-Obama -- suggested unironically in 2009 that it would have been better to write checks directly to taxpayers than to do what we did.

duh, sure, bail out Human-Americans, the Real Economy, rather than JUST the US (and EU, etc) financial sector.

The Fed and Treasury exist to protect/enrich the financial sector, only.

TSA

04-01-2014, 03:13 PM

if you read carefully, nothing was definitively confirmed or refuted. reliable stats aren't in yet. taking the McArdle article as confirmation of your POV underscores your confirmation bias.

Thanks for confirming my confirmation bias with an unbiased confirmation

TeyshaBlue

04-01-2014, 03:41 PM

a good friend of mine -- solidly Republican, rabidly anti-Dem and anti-Obama -- suggested unironically in 2009 that it would have been better to write checks directly to taxpayers than to do what we did.

Here ya go.
http://blogs.reuters.com/anatole-kaletsky/2012/08/01/how-about-quantitative-easing-for-the-people/

TSA

04-01-2014, 04:07 PM

We needed 7 million to sign up, and what do you know we got 7.1 million!

I can't believe anyone besides boutons buys this shit.

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 04:15 PM

boutons buys this shit.

boutons doesn't "buy" it, shit-for-brains, because The Great Boutons knows most of the work is yet to come. The future rests with the insurance companies, not the govt.

TSA

04-01-2014, 04:18 PM

boutons doesn't "buy" it, shit-for-brains, because The Great Boutons knows most of the work is yet to come. The future rests with the insurance companies, not the govt.

You've made your feelings pretty well known here about insurance companies so looks like you are actually on my side in thinking it will fail.

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 04:21 PM

You've made your feelings pretty well known here about insurance companies so looks like you are actually on my side in thinking it will fail.

if there's money for the insurance companies in making ACA fail, they will make it fail, knowing full well they have the power to kill any talk of the real solution, a public option/govt insurance.

Th'Pusher

04-01-2014, 04:50 PM

Link to uncontrollable rage please

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230751

Steam piping out of your ears as you bang away at your keyboard composing the OP. You even devolved into SA210 meme boy there for a minute. And let's not overlook the new avi.

Solid work! I'm sure you were emotionally drained.

TSA

04-01-2014, 04:59 PM

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=230751

Steam piping out of your ears as you bang away at your keyboard composing the OP. You even devolved into SA210 meme boy there for a minute. And let's not overlook the new avi.

Solid work! I'm sure you were emotionally drained.

If that is what you call uncontrollable rage than my assessment of you being a meek little pussy boy was spot on.

I'm digging the new avi and I hope it puts a smile on your face every time you see me post.

Th'Pusher

04-01-2014, 05:08 PM

If that is what you call uncontrollable rage than my assessment of you being a meek little pussy boy was spot on.

I'm digging the new avi and I hope it puts a smile on your face every time you see me post.

:lol you wished the "democratic piece of shit" death by black cock, not because he's a hypocrite, but because he was hypocritical while supporting gun control.

You just don't have the ability to think rationally when it comes to your precious little guns and the people who you perceive are trying to take them away. That's a simple observation.

TSA

04-01-2014, 05:15 PM

:lol you wished the "democratic piece of shit" death by black cock, not because he's a hypocrite, but because he was hypocritical while supporting gun control.No. Fucking. Shit. Sherlock.

This is getting off topic. I bumped the Yee thread, try and spin it some more, you're doing so well.

Winehole23

04-01-2014, 08:54 PM

Here ya go.
http://blogs.reuters.com/anatole-kaletsky/2012/08/01/how-about-quantitative-easing-for-the-people/:tu

boutons_deux

04-01-2014, 09:19 PM

Newly Enrolled, but Not Counted by Insurance Exchanges

Millions of newly insured people are hiding in plain sight.

They are the people who have bought new health insurance since the start of this year but have chosen for one reason or another to bypass the state and federal exchanges that opened last year under the Affordable Care Act. While the exact number is unknown, some health care experts estimate that it may be in the millions.

Aaron Billger, a spokesman for Highmark, an insurer that offers plans in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, said about 30 percent of the approximately 133,000 members that Highmark had enrolled as of mid-March had signed up outside the marketplaces.

The large insurer WellPoint, which has said it expects to enroll about one million customers nationwide in new plans, has reported that about 20 percent of its sign-ups have occurred off the exchanges.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/business/newly-insured-but-not-counted-by-the-insurance-exchanges.html?from=us

:lol

boutons_deux

04-02-2014, 05:44 AM

After 7 Million Americans Sign Up For Obamacare, Fox News Insists ‘No One’ Opposed Some Of Its Provisions

Moments after President Obama announced that 7.1 million Americans have signed up for coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s health care exchanges and criticized Republicans for seeking to repeal the law, Fox News host Neil Cavuto jumped in to defend the party — and the most popular parts of Obamacare.

“It’s easy to vilify each side here,” Cavuto said shortly after Obama concluded his remarks. “The fact of the matter is, no one is against trying to cover people with preexisting conditions, no one is against removing lifetime caps on medical coverage. The dirty detail is having to pay for that, and that is what still embroils and ensnares the law in controversy.”

In fact, multiple Republicans have come out against prohibiting insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions — and most GOP health care replacements would allow insurers to cherry pick the healthiest enrollees and shift sicker people into state-based high risk insurance pools.

During his 2012 presidential run, Rick Santorum was perhaps the most direct about the GOP’s support for permitting insurers to discriminate against Americans. The former Pennsylvania senator not only defended insurers for denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, he also argued that individuals who are sick should pay higher premiums because they cost more money to insure.

In July of 2012, now-retired Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) said that insurance companies should be allowed to discriminate against people with brain tumors. “I don’t that think someone who is diagnosed with a massive tumor should the next day be able to have millions and millions and millions of dollars in health care provided,” he said.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/01/3421871/obama-fox/

"The dirty detail is having to pay for that"

Repugs/Fox says health care for everyone too expensive? then fuck you into bankruptcy and death, sick, poor Americans.

How about some background as to why American for-profit health care that doesn't reach 10Ms of Americans is by far the most expensive rip-off in any industrial country?

Winehole23

04-02-2014, 08:25 AM

The answer to Megan McArdle’s (http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-28/is-obamacare-now-beyond-repeal) and Ross Douthat’s (http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/31/obamacare-lives/) question whether ACA is now beyond repeal is yes. One reason is the demographic argument of Kevin Drum: in 2017[the soonest possible date of repeal] there will be, according to the CBO, 36 million Americans newly covered by ACA through exchange policies or Medicaid. That’s a huge number of voters.http://www.samefacts.com/2014/03/health-medicine/the-doctor-is-in/

Winehole23

04-02-2014, 08:47 AM

The likelihood of replacement would be higher if there was an alternative that didn't take away people's insurance -- one that promised to cover roughly as many people as Obamacare does, or even more. Letting people on Medicaid buy into the market by converting much of the program into tax credits, for example, would be more viable than just kicking its new beneficiaries off the rolls.

Opponents of Obamacare should always have been thinking along these lines. Now they have less and less choice.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-01/obamacare-s-naysayers-should-concede-defeat

boutons_deux

04-02-2014, 08:53 AM

forerunners of the eventual no-profit public option:

Small Health Insurance Co-Ops Seeing Early Success

Many of us know the names of some of the big U.S. health insurance companies — like Blue Cross, Aetna, and Wellpoint. But what about CoOportunity Health, or Health Republic Insurance of New York? These are among 23 new companies under The Affordable Care Act. They're all non-profit, member-owned insurance cooperatives that were begun, in part, to create more competition and drive prices down.

The co-ops' rollout was funded almost entirely by federal government loans. Initial enrollment numbers for many look pretty good — but that may not be enough to make co-ops successful.

Karl Sutton, for one, says he's stoked about being able to buy health insurance through a co-op. Sutton lives in a scenic region of Montana just south of Glacier National Park, where tall, dark forests and taller mountains are blanketed white in early March.

Inside the wamth of his mobile greenhouse near Glacier National Park, Karl Sutton's spinach plants thrive despite the lingering winter chill.

During my visit, there's about two feet of snow on the ground, and it's zero degrees Farenheit outside. But it's warm inside Sutton's mobile greenhouse, and green plants are emerging from the dark earth. He grows vegetables to sell at nearby markets in Missoula and Kalispell.

"This is just spinach we, he says pointing to a row of small, leafy plants. "We're just eating it ourselves."

Sutton understands co-ops because he works in one: a 10-year-old , with revenue of more than a million dollars a year. It's run by and for its members.

Sutton says he wants that model for his health insurance company, too.

"When you buy into a co-op, that entitles you to one vote in the decision making, and I think it's the one business model that actually aligns with our democracy," he says. Sutton was eager to join the new . He thinks if members own the company, they're less likely to overuse health care – and that saves everyone money.

He knows the insurance startup is new, and still unproven.

"There's a degree of concern," he says, "but ... we might as well try, because if we don't have the membership, then the health care co-op isn't going to succeed. So we have to start somewhere, and I'm willing to take that risk."

A couple hundred miles and several mountain ranges away, John Morrison has a comfortable law office in Last Chance Gulch, the downtown historic district of Montana's capital, Helena. Morrison was the first president of the .

“ When you buy into a co-op, that entitles you to one vote in the decision making, and I think it's the one business model that actually aligns with our democracy.

"In some states co-ops are dominating the marketplace," Morrison says, "with 80 percent of the enrollees going to the co-op."

That's in Maine. Morrison says most co-ops are very happy with their enrollment numbers. Their rates are often the lowest that are available through an exchange.

"The co-op states have 8.4 percent lower premiums, on average, than [other states] across the marketplace," says Morrison. "So co-ops are creating that competition. They're keeping rates down in the states they're operating in."

But not everybody thinks those lower premiums in some states are directly tied to whether the states have a co-op option. , an insurance industry consultant, says low prices in a company's first year don't mean much.

"We haven't seen any claims yet," Laszewski says. "Getting the premium in the health insurance business is the first part of the business; having [a big] enough premium to pay the claims over time is the real test."

The co-ops do have a financial cushion: federal startup loans of about $100 million each. That gives them several years to readjust prices to cover all the health care their members will need. It's likely that many of their customers are people insurance companies avoided in the past — patients who either couldn't afford insurance before the new health law's subsidies, or who were previously turned down because they were sick, says Laszewski.

"These co-ops have to make it in this most problematic niche of all," says Laszewski. "In particular they're not in the large employer market, which is the bread and butter for these guys. They're not in the Medicare Advantage business; they're not in the Medigap business; they're not in the Medicare part D business. Those are the profitable businesses in the industry."

Jerry Dworak, head of Montana's co-op, says there is enough of a margin in the new exchange market for his company to survive. He says he's especially happy with the number of customers he's been able to get in spite of Healthcare.gov simply not working for the first two months it was open.

"Never in my wildest imagination, with the political capital that was involved in this thing did I think you'd hit Healthcare.gov and it [would be] blank!" Dworak laments. "I never thought that was going to happen!"

But Montana's co-op still has managed to win about 40 percent of the new exchange market. Co-ops now have 50 percent of the new market in Nebraska and Iowa, and 60 percent in Kentucky. Dworak attributes Montana's early success, in part, to tirelessly beating the bushes for customers.

"It's grassroots," he says. "One thing about Montana: What really plays is what one Montanan says to another one in a coffee shop."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/04/02/293327561/small-health-insurance-co-ops-seeing-early-success

Next step, esp if some state co-ops don't have a big enough pool to pay claims, is for the Feds to allow all the state coops to coalesce into a national coop and its much larger pool.

boutons_deux

04-02-2014, 09:59 AM

On last night’s Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert attacked conservatives for their conviction that enrollment in the Affordable Care Act would never reach its stated goal of seven million.

“They were never supposed to make it to seven million,” he said, before cutting to a montage of Fox News personalities insisting that they’d never make it. “The likelihood of them getting to that place,” one said, “is highly unlikely.”

Sean Hannity concurred, saying “We like to call this ‘Mission Impossible.’”

“There’s no way they’re going to get anywhere close,” said Karl Rove. “It just ain’t gonna happen.”

“It was only logical,” Colbert replied, “that if no one had signed up, no one would sign up. As everyone knows, past performance always indicates future results. That’s why I always play yesterday’s winning lotto numbers. And — may I point out — I have never lost yesterday’s lotto.”

Colbert then explained the enrollment surge, saying it “was all thanks to young adults signing up at higher rates. No one could have foreseen that college kids would put something off until the last minute.”

He acknowledged that the administration met their enrollment goal, then cut to another montage of Fox News personalities finding “a way to say they didn’t.”

“How many are young?” Colbert asked, repeating the Fox News spin. “How many have paid? What if their check doesn’t clear? What are numbers anyway but artificial constructs? And did you know that these are Arabic numerals? I mean, the ’3′ is just two Islamic crescent moons stacked on top of each other.”

“The terrorists have won,” he concluded.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/02/stephen-colbert-reaching-obamacare-enrollment-goal-means-the-terrorists-have-won/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

Winehole23

04-02-2014, 11:20 AM

But if the federal government's current strategy of exemptions and semantic dodges proves unequal to the task of gaining Obamacare purchase in states such as Texas or North Carolina, its architects will need to look for an alternative. Spending $1.3 trillion (http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/45010-breakout-AppendixB.pdf) in health-care subsidies for the middle class while leaving many poorer Americans with no options threatens the moral basis for the whole undertaking.http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-01/what-obamacare-s-numbers-don-t-tell-us

boutons_deux

04-02-2014, 12:05 PM

"leaving many poorer Americans with no options threatens the moral basis for the whole undertaking."

bullshit

ACA is the option for poorer Americans, available to TX and NC

Bloomberg, what's the "moral basis" of TX and NC trashing ACA, not setting up their own exchanges, blocking ACA navigators, and refusing to expand Medicaid for their "poorer Americans"?

boutons_deux

04-02-2014, 01:10 PM

a pretty good takedown of the intelligence contained in Repugs' anti-ACA slandering and lying

PRESIDENT’S ANNOUNCEMENT OF HEALTH-CARE NUMBERS ANGERS OPPONENTS OF MATH

Tuesday’s announcement by President Obama that 7.1 million people have signed up for Obamacare set off a firestorm of controversy among opponents of math in the U.S. Congress.

Representative Michele Bachmann, a leading member of the anti-math caucus, told reporters, “Throughout the debate on Obamacare, there has been a tacit agreement to leave math out of it. Today, President Obama broke that agreement.”

Senator John Barrasso, an anti-math Republican from Wyoming, agreed. “It’s very disappointing to see the President use arithmetic for political purposes,” he said.
Bachmann said that she believed the American people “would see through President Obama’s desperate use of numbers.” She added, “Whenever this President gets in trouble, he hides behind data.”

The Minnesota Republican said that many others in Congress agreed with her, but she declined to count them.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/04/presidents-announcement-of-health-care-numbers-angers-opponents-of-math.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(55)

TSA

04-02-2014, 01:24 PM

It's only a registration card, but still....

http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/31/california-obamacare-exchange-sent-out-voter-ballots-pre-marked-as-democratic/

A couple in La Mesa, California received a voter registration card from California’s Obamacare exchange already pre-marked for the Democratic Party.

The couple did not want their identities revealed but told local station 10 News that they received an envelope addressed from Covered California, the state’s exchange, with a letter and registration card from the health care marketplace. They’ve always been registered to vote Republican.

“I’m an old guy and I never would have noticed it, except I have an accountant that notices every dot and dash on a piece of paper as a wife,” the man who received the card said

Covered California is in the midst of sending out voter registration cards to all of its sign-ups, due to pressure from left-wing groups threatening legal action if they don’t compl

Between private coverage and Medicaid sign ups, nearly four million Californians will receive voter registration cards.

With at least one couple’s Obamacare voter registration card illegally pre-marked as Democratic, worries over tying voter registration to the Democratic health care program could gain momentum.

Sending out the voter registration cards to everyone, even those who were already registered like the couple in question, is likely to swell the ranks of Democratic voters, the Washington Post warned. Those with lower incomes who have received benefits from the health care law will be more likely to vote for their benefactors in the Democratic Party.

“It’s a waste of money because there’s an awful lot of people who are going to get this that are already registered and they don’t need to. I can see that, but I can’t see putting ‘X’ on the form before it’s given to me in a little bitty box that nobody’s really going to notice,” the man who received the incorrectly marked card said.

Covered California denied responsibility for the violation.

“We are mailing voter registration material. However, the application forms come directly from the Secretary of State’s office, with no fields pre-marked,” spokeswoman Anne Gonzales told 10 News. “The individual should contact the Secretary of State, which takes these violations of election law extremely seriously :lol , and they will investigate, using the unique serial number.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/03/31/california-obamacare-exchange-sent-out-voter-ballots-pre-marked-as-democratic/#ixzz2xkqnQZbC

boutons_deux

04-02-2014, 02:58 PM

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) unveiled a new health care plan (http://americanxt.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/The-Freedom-and-Empowerment-Plan.pdf) on Wednesday, promising (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/bobby-jindal-obamacare-plan-105294.html#.UzxAFDzHb_Q.twitter) to repeal the Affordable Care Act and offer real conservative alternatives to President Obama’s health care proposal. But the initiative, which borrows heavily from GOP plans introduced over the last 20 years, would cause millions of Americans to lose their existing health care plans, exposing Jindal to the very same criticism he has deployed against Obama (http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-sunday-chris-wallace/2013/10/27/gov-bobby-jindal-obamacare-rollout-dysfunction-washington-reps-becerra-blackburn-talk#p//v/2775093894001)

But Jindal’s “Freedom and Empowerment Plan (http://americanxt.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/The-Freedom-and-Empowerment-Plan.pdf)” could prove just as frustrating, leading millions of Americans to lose their existing coverage in at least two ways: 1) by repealing the Affordable Care Act, and 2) treating employer-sponsored coverage and nongroup insurance equally in the tax code. The first would dramatically upend the health care market and cause at least 10 million people — signed up for insurance through the new marketplaces, Medicaid expansion, and the remaining individual market — to lose insurance. The second would likely lead many businesses to stop offering coverage altogether.

Currently, the 149 million nonelderly people (http://kff.org/report-section/2013-summary-of-findings/) who obtain coverage through their jobs don’t pay taxes on their benefits.

Not only would he kick people off their existing health care plans, but the plan could severely disadvantage lower-income Americans trying to buy coverage.

The “proposal (http://americanxt.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/The-Freedom-and-Empowerment-Plan.pdf)” calls for eliminating the tax-exempt status of employer-sponsored plans — thus treating employer-sponsored benefits as taxable income — and replacing it with “a standard deduction for all forms of health insurance.”

Estimates suggest that coverage loses under Jindal’s proposal would be far higher. Analysis (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=4025) conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) of a very similar proposal offered by the Republican Study Committee in 2013 found that replacing the tax exclusion with a deduction “would likely cause employer-based health coverage to seriously erode by encouraging employers to discontinue their coverage.” Though estimates remain scarce, Health Affairs concluded that Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) 2008 presidential campaign health care proposal — which would have similarly swapped the tax exclusion for a refundable tax credit — could have caused “twenty million Americans (http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/27/6/w472.full) to lose such coverage.”

the proposal doesn’t specify the size of the proposed new deduction, the provision would primarily benefit people in higher tax brackets and be worth little (or nothing) to the vast majority of uninsured. Lower-income Americans would only see a modest benefit, while people who don’t owe taxes to begin with or have very low incomes will see almost no benefit at all. The vast majority of uninsured are in the 15 percent tax bracket or less and would reap few, if any, rewards from Jindal’s proposal.

The plan also cuts billions from Medicaid by block granting the program, allows insurers to circumvent state insurance regulations by allowing companies to sell plans nationwide and includes $100 billion over 10 years to encourage states to develop their own health care solutions (mostly by establishing or expanding high-risk insurance pools).

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/02/3422233/gop-presidential-hopeful-offers-health-plan-that-would-kick-millions-off-their-insurance-plans/

Repugs keep up this hopeless, desperate shit rather than governing.

DarrinS

04-02-2014, 03:07 PM

There's going to be a similar surge of tax filings on Apr. 15. This will be a clear sign of success for our tax system. :cheer

boutons_deux

04-05-2014, 01:01 PM

Even in the Randian, savage social/economic Darwinism of USA, humanitarian health is possible and doable. It's done in Hawaii.

In Hawaii, a healthcare system apart

http://www.trbimg.com/img-533f5fc4/turbine/la-na-healthcare-coverage-hawaii-20140404-g/600

Today, the people who walk under these trees are some of the healthiest in America.

Hawaiians live longer than their counterparts on the mainland. They die less frequently from common diseases, such as breast and colon cancers (http://www.latimes.com/topic/health/diseases-illnesses/cancer-HEDAI0000010.topic), even though these cancers occur more often here than in most other states. They also pay less for their care; the state's healthcare costs are among the lowest in the country.

Hawaii's success owes much to the state's trailblazing health system and its long history of near-universal health insurance.

Forty years ago, the state became the first to require employers to provide health benefits, codifying a tradition that grew out of Hawaii's agrarian past, when sugar and pineapple plantations employed doctors to care for their workers.

That system has led to some of the highest rates of coverage and best access to medical care in the country (http://datacenter.commonwealthfund.org/scorecard/state/13/hawaii/).

"There has always been a mentality here that if you are sick, you go to the doctor. It's just part of the culture," said Myra Williams, 64, who has lived in Hawaii for 35 years and was recently treated successfully for early-stage breast cancer (http://www.latimes.com/topic/health/diseases-illnesses/breast-cancer-HEDAI0000012.topic).

Nearly 99% of the patients at the cancer center at Queen's have health coverage, a level unheard of at most urban medical centers on the mainland.

Healthcare in America is a tale of two countries.

Residents of the healthiest communities live as much as 14 years longer (http://viz.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/us-health-map/) on average than those in unhealthy places. They are a third less likely to die from treatable illnesses such as breast cancer, childhood measles and diabetes, according to data (http://datacenter.commonwealthfund.org/#ind=516/sc=38) from the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation dedicated to improving the healthcare system.

Big variations in poverty, education and diet may explain part of this divide. In Hawaii, the large share of residents of East Asian descent, who have lower mortality rates for many diseases, may also have an impact.

But differences in local health systems nationwide — including disparities in insurance coverage — also likely play an important role, according to an analysis of local and national healthcare data, a review of academic studies, interviews with scores of experts, and visits to communities across the country.

Nearly everyone is covered in the nation's healthiest places, including Hawaii, Massachusetts and parts of the Upper Midwest.

By contrast, fewer than 7 in 10 working-age adults have health insurance in parts of Texas, Florida and the Deep South — areas with some of the highest rates of death from preventable illnesses.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-healthcare-coverage-20140406,6620065,5438444,full.story#axzz2y1sKGUgO

TeyshaBlue

04-05-2014, 04:52 PM

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/t1.0-9/p403x403/1613927_651012104963981_1372131227_n.jpg

boutons_deux

04-05-2014, 06:43 PM

it's amazing how Repugs can fuck over their states, thanks to SCOTUS, by denying Medicaid expansion, causing the unnecesary disease and sickness in their state to continue.

TeyshaBlue

04-05-2014, 07:42 PM

lol...go borrow a sense of humor, bot. :lol

TeyshaBlue

04-05-2014, 07:43 PM

We've already establushed that you dont care about red state peasants anway...they're just a prop for your facile soliloquy theater.

boutons_deux

04-05-2014, 08:12 PM

We've already establushed that you dont care about red state peasants anway...they're just a prop for your facile soliloquy theater.

you haven't established shit about me.

your Repug buddies are fucking their poor, sick VOTERS who are too stupid and ignorant to vote the Repugs out

DUNCANownsKOBE

04-05-2014, 09:18 PM

you haven't established shit about me.

your Repug buddies are fucking their poor, sick VOTERS who are too stupid and ignorant to vote the Repugs out

Which is precisely why I don't have any sympathy for them and you shouldn't either. Same thing with poor black people/be@ners who worship the white man's god.

DarrinS

04-05-2014, 09:23 PM

There's going to be a similar surge of tax filings on Apr. 15. This will be a clear sign of success for our tax system. :cheer

which reminds me -- I gotta get on that shit tomorrow

TeyshaBlue

04-05-2014, 09:32 PM

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=229863&page=4&p=7179179&viewfull=1#post7179179

you haven't established shit about me.

your Repug buddies are fucking their poor, sick VOTERS who are too stupid and ignorant to vote the Repugs out

Oh no. It's quite well established. You did it yourself. :lol

boutons_deux

04-07-2014, 09:17 AM

Why Did The GOP Just Expand Obamacare Choices?

At the prodding of business organizations, House Republicans quietly secured a recent change in President Barack Obama's health law to expand coverage choices, a striking, one-of-a-kind departure from dozens of high-decibel attempts to repeal or dismember it.

Democrats describe the change involving small-business coverage options as a straightforward improvement of the type they are eager to make, and Obama signed it into law. Republicans are loath to agree, given the strong sentiment among the rank and file that the only fix the law deserves is a burial.

"Maybe you say it helps (Obamacare), but it really helps the small businessman," said Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., one of several physician-lawmakers among Republicans and an advocate of repeal.

No member of the House GOP leadership has publicly hailed the fix, which was tucked, at Republicans' request, into legislation preventing a cut in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients.

It is unclear how many members of the House rank and file knew of it because the legislation was passed by a highly unusual voice vote without debate.

Several lobbyists and Republican aides who monitored the issue said the provision reflects a calculation that no matter how hard the party tries, the earliest the law can be repealed is after Obama leaves office in 2017. In the meantime, according to this line of thinking, small-business owners need all the flexibility that can get to comply with it.

One repeal-favoring Republican lawmaker took a similar view. "I was brought up in a family of 12. My mother taught me to be patient," said Rep. Tom Reed of New York, who backed a stand-alone bill to make the same change.

The provision itself was relatively minor. It eliminated a cap on deductibles for small group policies offered inside the law's health care exchanges as well as outside; the cap was set at $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families.

Republicans said they sought it so small businesses can offer high-deductible plans that could be purchased by individuals who also have health savings accounts. These tax-preferred accounts are a long-time favorite of many Republicans, who say they give consumers greater control over their own health care.

The health law contains no deductible caps for individual plans or those offered by large employers, and the Department of Health and Human Services already had waived them for small businesses through 2015. The legislation means they will never go into effect.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gop-seeks-coverage-choices-health-law-they-hate?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

:lol

Nbadan

04-08-2014, 01:39 AM

http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/1/H/6/GOP-NoCare.jpg

Capt Bringdown

04-08-2014, 05:16 AM

You Won't Believe What These 10 Democrats Said About Obamacare! -- more --->> (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/04/wont-believe-what-10-democrats-said-obamacare.html)

"Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (April 6, 2010).
So here are the facts: if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan.
The facts: “They might have to end up switching doctors in part because they’re saving money” (Barack Obama, March 14, 2014).

And “with respect to the pledge I made that if you like your plan you can keep it … the way I put that forward, unequivocally, ended up not being accurate” (Barack Obama, November 14, 2013).

Barack Obama (July 24, 2013).

[S]tarting on October 1st … you’ll be able to comparison-shop online. There will be a marketplace online, just like you’d buy a flat-screen TV or plane tickets or anything else you’re doing online.
The facts: “What we’re also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy,” most unlike “a flat-screen TV” (Barack Obama, November 14, 2013).

Barack Obama (March 23, 2010).

Once this reform is implemented, health insurance exchanges will be created, a competitive marketplace where uninsured people and small businesses will finally be able to purchase affordable, quality insurance. They will be able to be part of a big pool and get the same good deal that members of Congress get.
The facts: Far from being “affordable,” quality” insurance, PPACA plans are marked by high co-pays, high deductibles, narrow networks, and narrow formularies.

And the PPACA marketplaces establish one Federal pool and many state pools, not “a big pool.”

Finally, “members of Congress and designated congressional staff will choose from 112 options in the Gold Metal tier” to retain the “Government contribution … for their health insurance coverage” for plan year 2014 (Office of Personnel Management). This is not the deal “uninsured people and small businesses” get, since they choose between Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum tiers, where only Silver (not Gold) can be subsidized.

Barack Obama (March 3, 2010).

[E]very idea has been put on the table. Every argument has been made. Everything there is to say about health care has been said and just about everyone has said it.

The facts: Single payer was not put “on the table” in hearings.

And in White House health care town hall transcripts, what single payer advocates had “to say” was censored.

-- more --->> (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/04/wont-believe-what-10-democrats-said-obamacare.html)

boutons_deux

04-08-2014, 11:59 AM

Obamacare is widening the gap between ‘red’ and ‘blue’ America

This chart tells the story:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/800px-Red_state_blue_state-615x345.jpg

The fact that the citizens of “red” and “blue” states live in what are essentially two countries with very different governments has largely flown under the radar, but it may become the defining story of our time. The two major parties are not only highly polarized ideologically, but as Dan Balz noted in (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/red-blue-states-move-in-opposite-directions-in-a-new-era-of-single-party-control/2013/12/28/9583d922-673a-11e3-ae56-22de072140a2_story.html)The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/red-blue-states-move-in-opposite-directions-in-a-new-era-of-single-party-control/2013/12/28/9583d922-673a-11e3-ae56-22de072140a2_story.html), “polarization has ushered in a new era in state government, where single-party control of the levers of power has produced competing Americas.” Three-quarters of US states are now controlled by one of the two major parties — the most in 60 years — and “officials in these states are moving unencumbered to enact their party’s agenda.”

When the Supreme Court ruled that states could decline Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion without facing a penalty, the justices set in motion a process that’s now pushing our two countries even further apart as about half of the states passed on the opportunity to insure their poorer residents.

The overall numbers are in, and for all its warts, Obamacare appears to have extended insurance coverage to about ten million people who didn’t have it before. (The precise number varies from study to study, but as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out, they’re all in the same ballpark (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/undertanding-the-new-obamacare-numbers).)

According to Gallup (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/07/3423503/poll-obamacare-uninsured/), the share of Americans who lack health insurance has fallen to the lowest level since before the Great Recession began.

But the Urban Institute offers a fascinating finding: The rate of uninsured is now almost 50 percent higher in states that refused the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion (18.1 percent) than in those that embraced the policy (12.4 percent).

This growing coverage gap isn’t entirely a result of the Medicaid expansion — the rate of uninsured dropped by four percentage points in expanding states and 1.5 points in states that refused the expansion. Rather, it reflects the fact that “red” and “blue” states have always had very different budget priorities — the latter, as a group, have long spent more on health care, education and anti-poverty programs, and Obamacare’s ACA expansion, which offers billions of federal dollars to states that take it, is now deepening that divide.

Now that legislating is all but impossible in a deadlocked Washington, these kinds of differences between “red” and “blue” America will only grow starker. And it goes well beyond health care — last week, Maryland joined Connecticut in raising that state’s minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, and a number of other states under Democratic control are expected to follow. The same dynamic is playing out with other issues — from paid sick leave to prison reform to efforts to tackle climate change.
We’re witnessing an important real-world experiment in state governance, and as the Urban Institute study shows, the results are already coming in.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/08/obamacare-is-widening-the-gap-between-red-and-blue-america/

and still the bubbas, rednecks, tea baggers, faux patriots, old white poor male assholes, Christians in red states will vote Repug to screw themselves.

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 12:42 PM

Oh looky. More asinine red/blue pidgeon holing for the intellectually retarded.
:facepalm

boutons_deux

04-08-2014, 12:48 PM

Oh looky. More asinine red/blue pidgeon holing for the intellectually retarded.
:facepalm

red states get screwed when they vote Repug. your evidence to the contrary?

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 12:56 PM

boutons_deux

04-08-2014, 01:12 PM

I doubt you could even define the red/blue state criteria in the link much less fabricate a cogent standard by which a state is red or blue.

Your inability to define these standards is enough to refute any nonsense predicated upon these idiotic labels.

your evidence to the contrary? evidence that Repugs, state or federal, have done ONE FUCKING THING for anybody who's not in the 1%, not a big corporation.

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 01:20 PM

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 01:21 PM

You are incapable of a rational arguement....that's why you're considered a joke on this bbs.

boutons_deux

04-08-2014, 01:22 PM

You are incapable of a rational arguement....that's why you're considered a joke on this bbs.

:lol

TB nothing to say

boutons_deux

04-08-2014, 01:33 PM

Repug corporate welfare escapes cuts

U.S. government rolls back proposed Medicare Advantage cut
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/08/u-s-government-rolls-back-proposed-medicare-advantage-cut/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

Medicare Advantage costs taxpayers about 10% more that Medicare, shifting taxpayer $10Bs to corporations annually.

boutons_deux

04-08-2014, 01:41 PM

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=196802&p=5865781#post5865781ed state/ blue state/Repugs

Pick a fucking lane.

We tried to do this earlier only to watch you devolve into your tautology club act..

evidence that Repugs, state or federal, have done ONE FUCKING THING for anybody who's not in the 1%, not a big corporation?

ya got NUTHIN

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 01:53 PM

You are incapable of a rational arguement....that's why you're considered a joke on this bbs.

Case in point

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 01:56 PM

I doubt you could even define the red/blue state criteria in the link much less fabricate a cogent standard by which a state is red or blue.

Your inability to define these standards is enough to refute any nonsense predicated upon these idiotic labels.

Nobody's has missed the point you cannot even sniff this.
Now, go move the goal posts again with another cutt and paste from some moonbat blog nobody will read.

boutons_deux

04-08-2014, 02:29 PM

Nobody's has missed the point you cannot even sniff this.
Now, go move the goal posts again with another cutt and paste from some moonbat blog nobody will read.

:lol

let's see: red state is controlled by Repugs, blue state controlled by Dems. got that?

and

evidence that Repugs, state or federal, have done ONE FUCKING THING for anybody who's not in the 1%, not a big corporation? ????

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 02:34 PM

:lol You've bitch slapped yourself again.
That's not the criteria used in your moonbat blog cite.:lmao:lmao

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 02:34 PM

And ignore this again, coward. EPA.

boutons_deux

04-08-2014, 02:46 PM

And ignore this again, coward. EPA.

the Repugs who did the EPA, OSHA, etc. are not the Repugs from 1975 forward.

Today's Repug want to kill EPA, OSHA, Clean Water Act, all enviro regs, all employee health/protection regs, allow child labor, kill the minimum wage, kill Medicare and SS, etc, etc.

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 02:50 PM

Predictable goal post move per par.:lmao

boutons_deux

04-08-2014, 02:56 PM

next tell me that a Repug President of this era would sign the Emancipation Proclamation :lol

And that today's Repugs would have passed Medicare, Medicaid, VRA, etc of the 1960s over the objections of the (Confederate racist) Dems :lol

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 03:13 PM

Keep on moving those posts, little fella.

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 03:15 PM

No answer to the criteria used in your cite? Not surprising.

boutons_deux

04-08-2014, 03:17 PM

WSJ Editors To Conservatives: Stop Acting Crazy Over Obamacarehttp://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/wsj-editorial-conservatives-obamacare?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

:lol Hey Repugs, gun fellators, bubbas, patriots, racists, old white pissed off patriot men, rednecks, inbreds, it's OVA. y'all lost! :lol

the foreigner Muslim Terrorist bitch slapped all y'all, made humanitarian PROGRESS for America

TeyshaBlue

04-08-2014, 03:20 PM

....and the moonbat cut and paste. Right on schedule.

boutons_deux

04-09-2014, 09:43 AM

....and the moonbat cut and paste. Right on schedule.

TB :lol nothing to say

boutons_deux

04-09-2014, 09:46 AM

ACA is working, people who have been living with disease, diasbility, no insurance, pain are getting health care.

Study Finds Sicklier Enrollees in Earliest Stage of Health Law

People who signed up early for insurance through the new marketplaces were more likely to be prescribed drugs to treat pain, depression and H.I.V. and were less likely to need contraceptives, according to a new study that provides a much-anticipated look at the population that signed up for coverage under the new health care law.

The health of those who enrolled in new coverage is being closely watched because many observers have questioned whether the new marketplaces would attract a large share of sick people, which could lead to higher premiums and ultimately doom the new law.

The study, to be released Wednesday (http://lab.express-scripts.com/insights/government-programs/first-look-health-exchange-medication-utilization) by the major pharmacy-benefits manager Express Scripts, suggests that early enrollees face more serious health problems and are older than those covered by their employers. The study also showed a higher use of specialty drugs, which are often used to treat diseases like cancer and rheumatoid arthritis; the use of such drugs could hint at more costly medical problems.

Over all, early users of marketplace plans appeared to be filling prescriptions for drugs at rates similar to people with coverage through their employers. Another pharmacy-benefit manager, Prime Therapeutics, said it was seeing slightly higher rates of prescription-drug use among its marketplace customers.

“I think this gets under the hood of not only who is enrolling, but what kind of health care challenges do they have,” said Karen M. Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, which represents insurers. “Pharmacy claims are often an indicator for medical claims, and it’s often the case that they provide a real insight into overall trends.”

Still, she and others cautioned that it was too early to properly evaluate the health of those who were signing up. The study by Express Scripts looked at a sample of 650,000 consumers who received coverage in January and February and did not capture information about those who signed up closer to the enrollment deadline. Insurers have said anecdotally that those who signed up later tended to be younger and were presumably healthier.

...

“The medication is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Daniel N. Mendelson, chief executive of the consulting firm Avalere Health. “What goes along with that is a need for physician visits and, often, hospitalizations associated with complications from the conditions.”
In addition to finding increased use of drugs to treat pain, seizures and depression, the study also found that 6 in every 1,000 prescriptions in the marketplace plans were for drugs that treat H.I.V., a number that was nearly four times the figure among those with employer coverage.

insurers weren’t necessarily looking for a healthy population, but for reassurance that their guesses were correct about those who signed up. He said many insurers set premiums based on expectations that the newly covered would have different health needs.

“The plans knew what they were getting into,” he said. “They understood that this population was going to look really different.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/09/business/study-looks-at-earliest-health-law-enrollees.html?from=homepage

of course, red state people will remain without health care, in sickness, chronic pain, disability, and death, but that's Repug death panels for ya.

How's them "death spirals" working out for ya? :lol

TeyshaBlue

04-09-2014, 09:46 AM

boutons :lol nothing to say

boutons_deux

04-09-2014, 09:54 AM

Nearly 4 Million Seriously Mentally Ill Still Without Insurance
The 24 states that refused the Medicaid expansion have nearly 4 million people with severe mental illness without insurance.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/nearly-4-million-seriously-mentally-ill-still-without-insurance?akid=11695.187590.BGHpDp&rd=1&src=newsletter979436&t=13

but one ST right-wing gun fellator thinks it better that the cops SWAT teams shoot these 4M rather than help them.

boutons_deux

04-09-2014, 11:24 AM

Obama Won the Obamacare War, But the GOP Won’t Concede

Six months ago, the Obamacare insurance exchanges began their official rollout with a government shutdown and a protracted website failure. Yesterday, the president announced (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/04/obamacare-enrollment-deadline-special-enrollment-105239.html) that the Affordable Care Act's open-enrollment period had exceeded its goals, with at least 7.1 million Americans signing up. Obamacare has been the single most divisive issue in American politics since it was signed into law in March 2010. Is that period coming to an end? And has the president won?

It will not stop being a political issue until the end of the midterms, of course, because the Republicans have no other issue to run on this year — and Obamacare-bashing, like Obama-bashing in general, revs up its base.

And the GOP will do well in the midterms, too — not because of the Affordable Care Act, per se, but because the Republican base (white, male, old) turns up in off-year elections and much of the Democratic base (the new America that is inexorably supplanting the GOP base) hibernates until presidential election years.

After the midterms, Obamacare will be vastly diminished as a political issue except on the hard right, which, after all, still doesn’t like that government “health-care takeover” called Medicare either. (The new Paul Ryan budget (http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-paul-ryan-gop-budget-20140401,0,6166094.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fnews%2Fpolitics+(L. A.+Times+-+Politics)#axzz2xh43zyJF) released this week, among its other indignities, calls for replacing Medicare with a voucher system that would destroy it.)

Even now the ACA isn’t wildly unpopular — the country is split 49/48 in its favor according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/03/31/democrats-support-for-obamacare-surges/) — and it will gain in popularity as it takes root among those Americans who needed it and now have it.

In that important sense — as policy, not politics — the president may well have won, though we won’t know for sure for several years.

Meanwhile, it’s fascinating to see how those on the right are trying to deal with defeat by yet again trying to dispute hard statistics — claiming that the 7.1 million enrollment number is a fraud (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-made-up-good-news-about-obamacare/2014/03/31/1ed97eba-b8d1-11e3-899e-bb708e3539dd_story.html).

(Actually, the real number is higher, maybe as high as 10 million in some estimates, because some who signed up for Obamacare did so directly through insurers, not through the often-troubled government exchanges.)

Fox News even ran a graphic (http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/04/fox-news-corrects-obamcare-chart-186120.html?hp=r5) that used an outdated figure for enrollments, and visually portrayed the sign-up rate (in a bar chart) as about one-third of what it actually was.

This is the same kind of magical thinking that made conservative pundits attack Nate Silver during the 2012 election and talk themselves into believing that Romney was going to win.

We can only hope that Karl Rove will have another breakdown on television when he faces the reality that Obamacare has won over a significant segment of the electorate just as surely as Obama took Ohio on Election Night.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/04/frank-rich-gop-wont-surrender-in-obamacare-war.html

boutons_deux

04-09-2014, 04:07 PM

OPEN WIDE

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7017/13726084914_77e638781d_o.jpg

:lol

spurraider21

04-09-2014, 07:52 PM

bouton's liberal parents must have beat the shit out of him growing up tbh :lol

Capt Bringdown

04-10-2014, 06:14 AM

RAND Comes Clean: Obamacare's Exchanges Enrolled Only 1.4 Million Previously Uninsured Individuals -- more -->> (http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/04/09/rand-comes-clean-obamacares-exchanges-enrolled-only-1-4-million-previously-uninsured-individuals/)

Last week, I wrote about an article in the Los Angeles Times, on a then-as-yet unpublished report from the RAND Corporation. The report indicated that only one-third of Obamacare’s purported 7.1 million exchange sign-ups were from the previously uninsured. But Noam Levey, the author of the Times article, didn’t disclose RAND’s actual findings as to the actual number of previously uninsured exchange enrollees. Well, now we know why. RAND published the full report yesterday; it indicates that Obamacare’s exchanges only enrolled 1.4 million previously uninsured individuals. -- more -->> (http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/04/09/rand-comes-clean-obamacares-exchanges-enrolled-only-1-4-million-previously-uninsured-individuals/)

Will the Obama Administration Come To Regret Today's Obamacare Enrollment Announcement? -->> (http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2014/04/71-millionwill-obama-administration.html)

What happens when it becomes clear that the Obamacare insurance exchanges are making hardly a dent in the number of those uninsured?

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported that the non-profit Rand Corporation estimated that two-thirds of the first six million people to enroll in Obamacare were previously insured––only two million were previously uninsured.

If all of the one million people who signed up in the last week were previously uninsured, that would mean that only three million previously uninsured people have purchased coverage in the government-run exchanges.

By celebrating seven million enrollments, the administration has set some pretty high expectations: That Obamacare is making a huge dent in the number of those who were uninsured.

But it would appear that is not the case and they will have to manage a steady flow of hard data that will undermine today's celebration––in an election-year. -- more -->> (http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2014/04/71-millionwill-obama-administration.html)

boutons_deux

04-10-2014, 09:16 AM

Did Rand talk about the (diseased, pain-ridden, denied) Ms who now have access to health care with the expansion of Medicaid?

Did Rand talk about the Ms who bought insurance directly from insurers without buying through the exchanges?

Winehole23

04-10-2014, 09:27 AM

Repug governance, wealth transfer from taxpayers to corporations:
Obama and the Dems cave on cuts to Medicare Advantage, with measurable results for deficit reduction.

Democrats may be feeling better about the politics of the Affordable Care Act, but the legislation is complex enough that political dangers lurk around every corner, and constant vigilance is required to forestall the next attack. So the administration has announced (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/04/07/obama-administration-reverses-proposed-cut-to-medicare-plans/) that the cuts to Medicare Advantage that were scheduled to take place starting next year will not go forward; instead, the program will actually get an increase in payments.http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/04/08/with-midterms-looming-obama-administration-caves-on-medicare-advantage-cuts/

boutons_deux

04-10-2014, 09:40 AM

Obama and the Dems cave on cuts to Medicare Advantage, with measurable results for deficit reduction.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/04/08/with-midterms-looming-obama-administration-caves-on-medicare-advantage-cuts/

The insurance companies sucking down $100Bs in REPUGS' Medicare Advantage wealth transfer make the policies for politicians to enact and maintain. yawn

Stopping such a wealth transfer is nearly impossible.

Winehole23

04-10-2014, 09:54 AM

Obama and the Dems clearly had no intention of stopping it. in fact, they've just extended it. don't they get partial credit now, for flip-flopping on the cuts?

TeyshaBlue

04-10-2014, 09:56 AM

TeyshaBlue

04-10-2014, 09:57 AM

Obama and the Dems clearly had no intention of stopping it. in fact, they've just extended it. don't they get partial credit now, for flip-flopping on the cuts?

Yup. They have taken possession.

boutons_deux

04-10-2014, 09:59 AM

Obama and the Dems clearly had no intention of stopping it. in fact, they've just extended it. don't they get partial credit now, for flip-flopping on the cuts?

Corporate money owns ALL politicians, and they're especially possessive in an election year.

Winehole23

04-10-2014, 10:06 AM

in other words, yes. calling Medicare Advantage a REPUG policy at this point is dishonest.

boutons_deux

04-10-2014, 10:43 AM

in other words, yes. calling Medicare Advantage a REPUG policy at this point is dishonest.

absolutely not. Once this shit, like Iraq and Aghanistan shit, get started, it's effectively impossible to stop.

Repugs CREATED Advantage, along with unfunded Medicare Part D, and the REGULATION that govt cannot negotiate prices as single-buyer with drug/device suppliers, so the REpug own their shit, and now the Advantage corps own the politicians to keep it going.

boutons_deux

04-10-2014, 04:06 PM

From 3rd World Arkansas

Obamacare Headline in Rural Arkansas (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/09/1290727/-Obamacare-Headline-in-Rural-Arkansas)

In a real life example of how Obamacare is changing everything, our local newspaper ran an article about the closing of the 9th Street Ministry Medical Clinic.

"It was announced last week that 9th Street Ministries will be concluding their medical clinic mission, which had been ongoing monthly to offer free medical services to those in need since first starting in 1998. The final day for the medical clinic will be Thursday, April 24, and that will conclude the mission that has been in place for almost 16 years."

The article tells how the ministry has been operating once a month for years to give people healthcare on a first come, first served basis. This care was provided by volunteers.

My mother actually volunteered at the clinic and they would see as many as 300 a day. Many of these people would wait all day for the chance to see a doctor. Most of the patients were people who could not afford to see a doctor, but were not eligible for medicaid or medicare. Why would they close this clinic down?

"We’ve gone from seeing around 300 people a month on a regular basis, but as people were enrolling in Obamacare, the numbers we were seeing have dropped. We were down to 80 people that came through the medical clinic in February, all the way down to three people at the medical clinic in March. Our services won’t be needed anymore, and this will conclude our mission.”

We live in one of the most conservative places in Arkansas. The Repub's want to tell those people that once a month waiting all day for a chance to see a doctor was good enough. Thankfully, President Obama did not think so.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.menastar.com/

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/09/1290727/-Obamacare-Headline-in-Rural-Arkansas?detail=email

:lol Eat shit, Repugs.

boutons_deux

04-10-2014, 04:09 PM

Guess who got Obamacare money? Of course it's the Kochs! (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/09/1290794/-Guess-who-got-Obamacare-money-Of-course-it-s-the-nbsp-Kochs)

Here's a fun question, posed (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/obamacare-critics-accepted-subsidies-23245556) by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

"If the Affordable Care Act is so awful," Reid asked, "why did Koch Industries use it to their advantage?"

That's a rhetorical question, by the way. The answer is because they could get a big ol' chunk of money from the federal government, that's why. Congress created a $5 billion temporary reinsurance fund in the Affordable Care Act, to subsidize the cost to employers for providing ongoing coverage for people who retire before Medicare eligibility. The Kochs, of course, took a chunk of that.

The Early Retiree Reinsurance Program, Reid said, "helped the company pay health insurance costs for its retirees who are not covered by Medicare." Reid asked sarcastically: "So it's OK for Koch Industries to save money through Obamacare" even as Koch-related groups seek the law's repeal. […]Federal records show that Koch Industries received $1.4 million in early retiree subsidies. That's considerably less than the sums many other employers received. A Koch Industries spokesman said he had no comment on Reid's latest criticisms.

Other companies did receive a lot more:

UPS got $37 million;

Union Pacific $9.7 million;

Altria Client Services nearly $11 million; and

AT&T $213 million.

All of those companies donate more heavily to Republicans, but none of these companies have made it their mission to kill Obamacare. That makes the Kochs a special case. But very typically Republican.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/09/1290794/-Guess-who-got-Obamacare-money-Of-course-it-s-the-nbsp-Kochs?detail=email

"none of these companies have made it their mission to kill Obamacare" hmm, I dunno. they could contribute dark money to eg US CoC, ALEC, etc

FuzzyLumpkins

04-10-2014, 04:10 PM

absolutely not. Once this shit, like Iraq and Aghanistan shit, get started, it's effectively impossible to stop.

Repugs CREATED Advantage, along with unfunded Medicare Part D, and the REGULATION that govt cannot negotiate prices as single-buyer with drug/device suppliers, so the REpug own their shit, and now the Advantage corps own the politicians to keep it going.

The democrats doubled down on it. Deal with it.

boutons_deux

04-10-2014, 04:50 PM

The democrats doubled down on it. Deal with it.

double down, is that ghetto slang?

they doubled it? they downed it? upped it? they are owned by the corps as much as the Repugs.

ChumpDumper

04-10-2014, 05:01 PM

double down, is that ghetto slang?http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YRsDPL3KKdM/UOSX6Q7RqtI/AAAAAAAAEGo/UlJQx_5nYVE/s1600/blackadder-confused.gif

FuzzyLumpkins

04-10-2014, 05:20 PM

double down, is that ghetto slang?

they doubled it? they downed it? upped it? they are owned by the corps as much as the Repugs.

smh. it means they voted to extend it when their turn came up. the etymology is from gambling. it also means to bet the same amount when your turn to bet again comes up in games of chance. you have doubled down. It is apt because when the democrats had it come back around in the legislative cycle they voted yay just like the GOP did when they were in power. You repeat yourself and parrot your alternet and nakedcapitalism tripe. You double down by nature.

Deal with it.

spurraider21

04-10-2014, 05:29 PM

:lol reasoning with boutons "i'm open midned" deux

boutons_deux

04-11-2014, 08:59 AM

:lol reasoning with boutons "i'm open midned" deux

none of you right wingers have shown me any actions, policies, etc redeeming the Repugs over the last 40 years, and esp not since 2000.

but I remain open minded, so show me :lol

TeyshaBlue

04-11-2014, 09:01 AM

I did.

boutons_deux

04-11-2014, 09:02 AM

I did.

all debunked bulshit

TeyshaBlue

04-11-2014, 09:03 AM

Really? You debunked the auto bailout?

TeyshaBlue

04-11-2014, 09:04 AM

all debunked bulshit

Saying it didnt happen is not debunking btw.

TeyshaBlue

04-11-2014, 09:06 AM

You failed to debunk the SSC...Romneycare...EPA...etc. Obfuscate? For sure Goal Post move? Check.

TeyshaBlue

04-11-2014, 09:07 AM

lol 2000. Moving closer to the predicted 30 minute window. :lol

boutons_deux

04-11-2014, 09:24 AM

lol 2000. Moving closer to the predicted 30 minute window. :lol

especially since 2000, but 1990 is pretty much when the Repugs went fully insane.

boutons_deux

04-11-2014, 09:25 AM

I'll move it back to 1850 so you right wingers can claim Abe as your own.

boutons_deux

04-16-2014, 03:49 PM

Fox News outraged that all the people it told not to buy insurance can't get insurance until fall (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/14/1292054/-Fox-News-outraged-that-all-the-people-it-told-not-to-buy-insurance-can-t-get-insurance-until-Fall)

Brian Beutler catches (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117361/obamacare-leaves-millions-uninsured-conservatives-pretend-care) the latest Obamacare fauxrage from Fox News: millions of people won't be able to sign up for health insurance until November. So all those young people who Republicans, and Fox News, told that they shouldn't be signing up because freedom are now deprived of freedom by having to wait until the next open enrollment period. Here's Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/09/latest-obamacare-surprise-most-wont-be-able-to-buy-health-insurance-until-end/?intcmp=latestnews):

There is yet another ObamaCare surprise waiting for consumers: :lol

from now until the next open enrollment at the end of this year, most people will simply not be able to buy any health insurance at all, even outside the exchanges.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/14/1292054/-Fox-News-outraged-that-all-the-people-it-told-not-to-buy-insurance-can-t-get-insurance-until-Fall?detail=email

boutons_deux

04-17-2014, 11:33 AM

One can expect with some confidence that this fantastic decline in a huge and hugely expensive epidemic will continue and probably accelerate as poor people get care under ACA and expanded Medicaid (but not in red states, of course, they're screwed by the Repug politicians)

For Diabetics, Health Risks Fall Sharply

Federal researchers on Wednesday reported the first broad national picture of progress against some of the most devastating complications of diabetes, which affects millions of Americans, finding that rates of heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure and amputations fell sharply over the past two decades.

The biggest declines were in the rates of heart attacks and deaths from high blood sugar, which dropped by more than 60 percent from 1990 to 2010, the period studied. While researchers had had patchy indications that outcomes were improving for diabetic patients in recent years, the study (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1310799), published in The New England Journal of Medicine, documents startling gains.

“This is the first really credible, reliable data that demonstrates that all of the efforts at reducing risk have paid off,” said Dr. David M. Nathan, director of the Diabetes Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, who was not involved in the study. “Given that diabetes is the chronic epidemic of this millennium, this is a very important finding.”

The number of Americans with diabetes more than tripled over the period of the study and is now nearly 26 million. Nearly all the increase came from Type 2 diabetes, which is often related to obesity and is the more common form of the disease. An additional 79 million Americans have pre-diabetes, which means they are at high risk of developing the disease.

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who wrote the study, estimate that diabetes and its complications account for about $176 billion in medical costs every year. The study measured outcomes for both Type 1 and Type 2.

Researchers said the declines were the fruit of years of efforts to improve the health of patients with Type 2 diabetes. Doctors are much better now at controlling the risk factors that can lead to complications — for example, using medications to control blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure — health experts said. What is more, a widespread push to educate patients has improved how they look after themselves. And a major effort among health care providers to track the progress of diabetes patients and help steer the ones who are getting off track has started to have an effect.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/17/health/type-2-diabetes-complications-show-sharp-decline-report-finds.html?from=homepage

boutons_deux

04-22-2014, 01:09 PM

http://www.truthdig.com/images/made/images/cartoonuploads/obcaretrain_590_476.jpg

boutons_deux

04-24-2014, 10:11 AM

even red states don't want Obamacare repealed, they want it fixed and expanded

Health Law’s Middle-Ground Approach Leaves It Unloved

We gave them three options:

The government should not be involved;

the government should help people buy private insurance;

and the government should provide it directly.

When given three options for how the government should treat middle-class people without insurance, many people supported the most conservative or most liberal option.
Percentage giving different answers to question about the government's role in providing health insurance for middle-income people under age 65 who don't get insurance at work.

In Kentucky, Louisiana and North Carolina, nearly four in 10 said the government should provide health insurance, as it does through Medicare and, for many poor people, through Medicaid. About one-third of people in Arkansas gave the same answer.

Similar numbers of people in the four states gave the opposite answer. Roughly a third in Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina, and less than three in 10 in Kentucky, said that health insurance is one’s own responsibility and that the government should not be involved.

Private insurance, paid for with financial help from the government, gets the lowest level of support of all three options — and that’s the system now in place for many Americans via Obamacare.
A majority of Republicans in all four states said middle-class workers who are uninsured are not the government’s responsibility, while roughly half of Democrats favored expanding a Medicare/Medicaid-type system to them. It’s not surprising, then, that neither of the parties has been entirely happy with the way the law turned out.

Tellingly, independents — whom both parties are courting — do not fall into the middle option on this issue, either. The option that most closely resembles what is in place was the least-liked position among independents in these four states.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/upshot/health-laws-middle-ground-approach-leaves-it-unloved.html?_r=0

Dems made the horrible mistake of letting health-insurance-financed puppet Baucus and his insurance industry exec/lobbyist write ACA, and got a very mixed bag that enriches the insurance industry but does finally help the poor and people with medical problems.

iow, Human-Americans wouldn't be helped unless Corporate-Americans got paid off (with taxpayer $100Bs). The health industry return on a few $Ms invested in Baucus has been fantastic.

The Repug states that are expanding Medicaid are doing it by taking taxpayer dollars and giving it to poor people to go buy their own insurance, rather use on traditional Medicaid. A move that many of their base are against.

Winehole23

04-25-2014, 11:12 AM

The Obama administration is poised to take over Oregon’s broken health insurance exchange, according to officials familiar with the decision who say that it reflects federal officials’ conclusion that several state-run marketplaces may be too dysfunctional to fix.

In public, the board overseeing Cover Oregon is scheduled to vote Friday whether to join the federal insurance marketplace that sells health plans in most of the country under the Affordable Care Act. Behind the scenes, the officials say, federal and Oregon officials already have agreed that closing down the state marketplace is the best path to rescue what has been the country’s only one to fail so spectacularly (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/20/how-oregon-wound-up-with-the-nations-worst-obamacare-website/) that no resident has been able to sign up for coverage online since it opened early last fall.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/obama-administration-prepares-to-take-over-oregons-broken-health-insurance-exchange/2014/04/24/ff9aa220-cbc4-11e3-95f7-7ecdde72d2ea_story.html

boutons_deux

04-25-2014, 11:23 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/obama-administration-prepares-to-take-over-oregons-broken-health-insurance-exchange/2014/04/24/ff9aa220-cbc4-11e3-95f7-7ecdde72d2ea_story.html

I found this surprising. Connecticut's state exchange ran so well, easily MUCH better than healthcare.gov, that it offered to help other states.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/02/27/283526215/connecticut-looks-to-sell-its-obamacare-exchange-to-other-states

boutons_deux

04-27-2014, 09:17 AM

In Poorest States, Political Stigma Is Depressing Participation in Health Law

with a grant from the health care law (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/health_care_reform/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), two employees played an advertisement they had helped produce to promote the law’s insurance coverage for young, working-class West Virginians.

The ads ran just over 100 times during the recent six-month enrollment period. But three conservative groups ran 12 times as many, to oppose the law and the local Democratic congressman who voted for it.

the partisan divisions and attack ads have depressed participation in some places.

They say the law has been stigmatized for many who could benefit from it, especially in conservative states like West Virginia that have the poorest, most medically underserved populations but where President Obama and his signature initiative are hugely unpopular.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen once they pull out all the stops to trash Obamacare,” Mr. Shattls said. “We’re nonpartisan here. We’re just doing what we’re funded to do, and that is to provide access” to health care.

In the past week, 22 new television ads against the health care law and for Republican federal candidates ran in 14 states. Since last spring, 76 percent of the more than 38,000 Republican-sponsored television ads nationally, and 79 percent in West Virginia, have attacked the law, according to Kantar Media/CMAG, which tracks political advertising.

“The controversy about Obamacare does seem to have interfered with people’s ability to sort out the value of the marketplace for getting health insurance for themselves,”

“Literally, people thought there would be chips embedded in their bodies if they signed up for Obamacare,” :lol

Far to the east, at a branch of the Shenandoah Valley Medical System in Martinsburg, Sara R. Koontz, a social worker, said she had heard people express fears about chip implants as well as “death panels” as she sought to enroll uninsured residents.

Some told her that they would rather pay a penalty than sign up for insurance, she said, and even people who did enroll paused in their excitement to ask, “Wait — this isn’t that Obamacare, is it?”

Until recently, Mr. Jenkins was a Democrat, a member of Valley Health’s board and executive director of the West Virginia State Medical Association, which has supported the Affordable Care Act. Now, as a Republican, he backs its repeal.

“Evan knows Obamacare is a mess,” said an ad from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which blamed the law for lost jobs, dropped coverage and high premiums. An ad from the group Americans for Prosperity, backed by the conservative billionaires David H. and Charles G. Koch, denounced Mr. Rahall for supporting the law, saying it was “going to hurt a lot of people.”

Many professionals here dispute such claims. “It’s working, and you can show it’s working,” Dr. Becker said.

Nationwide, more people have signed up for private plans than for Medicaid, but the results are the opposite in West Virginia, where about 15 percent of residents — 270,000 of 1.8 million — lacked insurance when the law took effect. Initial sign-ups for Medicaid, about 115,000 since Oct. 1, are nearly double what actuaries projected, and roughly five times the number of people believed to have bought private plans

Many of the uninsured were also deterred from participating by cultural factors: unfamiliarity with insurance, computer illiteracy, Appalachian isolation and, most of all, cost. But also at play was hostility to Mr. Obama.

( :lol aka, the Repug ignorant, white, rural, confused, racist base )

a lot attributed to the A.C.A. that is not actuarially accurate.”

“I worry,” Mr. Samples said, “about people not understanding what their options are.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/27/us/politics/in-poorest-states-political-stigma-is-depressing-participation-in-health-law.html?from=homepage

confusing and lying to their base is the Repugs' fundamental strategy.

boutons_deux

04-27-2014, 10:00 AM

States Are Running Out Of Excuses For Refusing To Expand Medicaid (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/25/3430824/states-excuses-medicaid-expansion/)

Accepting Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion could be a better financial deal (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=4131) for states than initially predicted, according to new data from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Expanding Medicaid to extend health coverage to additional low-income Americans will costabout a third (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/us/politics/forecast-cut-on-spending-for-health.html?emc=edit_tnt_20140423&nlid=58462464&tntemail0=y&_r=0) of what the CBO projected earlier this year, according to the agency’s updated estimates (http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/45231-ACA_Estimates.pdf) of Obamacare’s financial impact. Back in early February, the CBO estimated that state spending on Medicaid and CHIP would be $70 billion higher over the next decade because of the expansion. Now, that figure has been revised down to $46 billion.

Ultimately, states will only need to spend about 1.6 percent more on their public health insurance programs than they would have spent in the absence of health reform. And that’s before the potential long-term savings from Medicaid expansion — like the benefits of providing increased mental health treatment (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/27/3338921/medicaid-mental-health-study/) to low-income people — are factored in.

“Health reform’s Medicaid expansion, which many opponents wrongly claim will cripple state budgets, is an even better deal for states than previously thought,” Edwin Park, the vice president for health policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the independent research group that first flagged the revision, noted (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=4131).

Many of the GOP leaders who have continued to resist Medicaid expansion (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/28/3420364/states-struggling-afford-health-care/) say that it’s simply too expensive, or insinuate that the federal government won’t follow through (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/10/3425353/maine-governor-medicaid/) on its commitment to provide funding. But those talking points don’t match up with reality.

The CBO numbers aren’t the only evidence that states’ concerns are overblown. Last month, a study found that the people who are enrolling in Medicaid tend to be in better physical and mental health (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/27/3419586/obamacare-medicaid-eligible-healthier/) than the people who are already in the program. That means the states that agree to expand Medicaid aren’t burdening their programs with a flood of sick and costly patients.

There’s also a significant human cost (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/09/3424629/florida-medicaid-charlene-dill/) to resisting Medicaid expansion. Thanks to GOP-led states’ continued resistance to this policy, about 5.8 million impoverished (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/03/28/3420364/states-struggling-afford-health-care/) Americans don’t have any access to affordable health care whatsoever. Harvard researchers recently estimated that as many as 17,000 people will die (http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2014/01/30/opting-out-of-medicaid-expansion-the-health-and-financial-impacts/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=opting-out-of-medicaid-expansion-the-health-and-financial-impacts) directly as a result of their states refusing to expand Medicaid.

Nonetheless, many GOP lawmakers haven’t indicated they’re ready to give up the fight against this aspect of Obamacare. Several states have recently laid the groundwork to continue blocking expansion (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/gop-bills-medicaid-expansion-democratic-governors) even if the governor’s mansion is occupied by a Democrat.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/25/3430824/states-excuses-medicaid-expansion/

Repugs are "DEATH PANELISTS" voting their base to death.

boutons_deux

04-30-2014, 05:30 AM

Scott Went Looking For Obamacare Horror Stories But Found Satisfied Seniors

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) went to a senior center on Tuesday to warn of the dangers of Obamacare and hear horror stories about the law. But instead Scott found almost all the seniors he talked to were satisfied with the new law.

There were 20 seniors who were assembled at a roundtable at the Volen Center in Boca Raton for Scott's visit, according to The Florida Sun Sentinel (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/broward-politics-blog/sfl-rick-scott-obamacare-20140429,0,5601325.story). But the seniors expressed satisfaction with their health care and even praised Obamacare.

Harvey Eisen, 92, said he was "completely satisfied" with Obamacare, according to the Sun Sentinel. Eisen also cast doubt about Scott's claim about cuts to Medicare that come through Obamacare. But that wouldn't be the end of the world even if there were, Eisen said.

"I can't expect that me as a senior citizen are going to get preferential treatment when other programs are also being cut," Eisen said.
Ruthlyn Rubin, 66, said she expected Obamacare to become more popular.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/rick-scott-horror-stories-obamacare-seniors-volen-center?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

:lol

boutons_deux

05-02-2014, 11:16 AM

Envisioning the End of Employer-Provided Health Plans

The days of Americans getting health insurance through their employers may be numbered — and the change could be just as profound as the shift of employers forcing employees to manage their own retirement savings.

As the Affordable Care Act goes from thousands of pages of legalese to actual, real-life public policy, the future of employer-provided health insurance is one of the most fascinating questions. Will employers call for — and their workers accept — the practice of buying health insurance through government exchanges? How much will companies save, and will they pass those savings on to employees? Will it make workers more mobile and ready to shift jobs, or will employer-paid health insurance become a sought-after perk?

The answers go to the heart of how things work in a sector that is one-eighth of the American economy. A new report gives some hints of how large the impact might be.

By 2020, about 90 percent of American workers who now receive health insurance through their employers will be shifted to government exchanges created by the health law, according to a projection by S&P Capital IQ, a research firm serving the financial industry.

It’s not an outlandish notion. Ezekiel Emanuel, an architect of the Affordable Care Act, has long predicted (http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/why-employers-will-stop-offering-health-insurance/) a similar shift.

But the scope and speed of the shift is surprising. So is the amount of money that companies could save. The S&P researchers tried to estimate what it would save the biggest American companies.

Their answer: $700 billion between 2016 and 2025, or about 4 percent of the total value of those companies. The total could reach $3.25 trillion for all companies with more than 50 employees.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/01/upshot/employer-sponsored-health-insurance-may-be-on-the-way-out.html?from=homepage

But the key is that one of the "companies" selling health on the exchanges must be 1)state no-profit coops 2) federal no-profit health insurance

Winehole23

05-06-2014, 09:36 AM

Gallop traces the ongoing failure: http://www.gallup.com/poll/168821/uninsured-rate-drops.aspx

boutons_deux

05-06-2014, 09:52 AM

Pro-life Repugs and their pro-life "Christians" murdering the poor (they're criminals, takers, moochers, blacks, browns, anyway, right?) by refusing Medicaid expansion.

Death Panels!

Mortality Drop Seen to Follow ’06 Health Law

The death rate in Massachusetts dropped significantly after it adopted mandatory health care coverage in 2006, a study released Monday found, offering evidence that the country’s first experiment with universal coverage — and the model for crucial parts of President Obama’s health care law — has saved lives, health economists say.

The study tallied deaths in Massachusetts from 2001 to 2010 and found that the mortality rate — the number of deaths per 100,000 people — fell by about 3 percent in the four years after the law went into effect. The decline was steepest in counties with the highest proportions of poor and previously uninsured people. In contrast, the mortality rate in a control group of counties similar to Massachusetts in other states was largely unchanged.

A national 3 percent decline in mortality among adults under 65 would mean about 17,000 fewer deaths a year.

“It’s big,” said Samuel Preston, a demographer at the University of Pennsylvania and an authority on life expectancy. Professor Preston, who was not involved in the study, called the study “careful and thoughtful,” and said it added to a growing body of evidence that people with health insurance could reap the ultimate benefit — longer life.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/health/death-rate-fell-in-massachusetts-after-health-care-overhaul.html?from=homepage

boutons_deux

05-07-2014, 10:38 AM

Another Repug LIE destroyed

Insurers Say Most Who Signed Up Under Health Law Have Paid Up

Most of the people choosing health plans under the Affordable Care Act — about 80 percent — are paying their initial premiums as required for coverage to take effect, several large insurers said Tuesday on the eve of a House hearing about the law.

But the health insurance industry said the total of eight million people who signed up included “many duplicate enrollments” for consumers who tried to enroll more than once because of problems on the website.

“Insurers have many duplicate enrollments in their system for which they never received any payment,” said Mark Pratt, a senior vice president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry trade
group.

“It may be a matter of months,” Mr. Pratt added, “before insurers know how many people activated their coverage by paying their share of premiums.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/us/politics/insurers-say-most-who-signed-up-under-health-law-have-paid-up.html?from=homepage

boutons_deux

05-07-2014, 11:20 AM

Missouri Protesters Arrested After Demanding Their Lawmakers Pass Medicaid Expansion

More than 100 protesters and clergy members were removed from the Missouri Senate galleries on Tuesday, after they burst out into chants demanding the state accept Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Missouri is one of 24 states (http://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/resources/primers/medicaidmap) that has not yet accepted the more than $2 billion (http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2013/Dec/1718_Glied_how_states_stand_gain_lose_Medicaid_exp ansion_ib_v2.pdf) in federal funds available to the Show-Me state.

The Springfield News-Leader reported (http://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/2014/05/06/shouting-protestors-shut-state-senate/8765497/) that the protesters shouted, “Medicaid Expansion! Do it now!” and “Missouri Senate expand Medicaid, bring dignity, do your jobs!” Capitol police reportedly removed more than 100 people and arrested 23 clergy (http://www.cco.org/pages?id=0043), delaying the Senate’s session by nearly an hour.

Gov. Jay Nixon (D) supports the expansion (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/11/29/1258311/missouri-medicaid-expansion-2/), which would provide insurance for tens of thousands of additional Missourians. But despite estimates that refusal to accept the funds would cost state hospitals hundreds of millions of dollars (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/08/660441/missouri-medicaid-expansion/), the Republican-controlled legislature has not passed expansion legislation.

After the protest, a Republican State Senator (https://twitter.com/RyanSilvey/status/463720851884765184) who has backed expansion tweeted (http://politicmo.com/2014/05/06/protestors-erupt-in-missouri-senate-urging-lawmakers-to-expand-medicaid/) that “it appears that unruly protesters have killed our chances,” as the protests have “emboldened (https://twitter.com/RyanSilvey/status/463749753663410176)” opponents.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/05/06/3434953/missouri-medicaid-protest/

And Repugs/tea baggers STILL think running against ACA is a campaign winner :lol

boutons_deux

05-07-2014, 11:37 AM

...

boutons_deux

05-08-2014, 03:38 PM

This Was The Week The GOP's Anti-Obamacare Circus Came Crashing Down

Just a couple months ago, the pair of hearings that congressional Republicans held this week on Obamacare would have gone very differently.

The GOP was at the top of its oversight game back then, leaving administration officials flustered (http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/assets/4275397/818529478.gif). But this week, the party appeared powerless to conjure the bad Obamacare headlines it has been seeking.

First, House Republicans continued an increasingly desperate search for evidence that recent Obamacare news hasn't been as positive as the White House has said. At that hearing, the Republicans were stumped by their own witnesses, who had mostly positive things to say about recent developments or refused to speculate about possible future shortcomings.

Then a day later, Senate Republicans seemed to make the tactical decision that hitting hard on the law wasn't the right strategy while reviewing the person nominated to replace Health and Human
Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who served as the lightning rod for many of the law's controversies.

Both incidents marked seismic shifts from the days of HealthCare.gov's disastrous launch, when Republicans readily grilled Sebelius and other officials over the law, taking as many shots as they could while Obamacare's future was uncertain.

Things got so bad that, at one point, Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) effectively chastised industry executives for not producing any information on the 2015 rates, which Republicans have warned (http://rncresearch.tumblr.com/post/81490760938/as-obama-spikes-the-obamacare-football-americans-face) could skyrocket.

"You have done no internal analysis on what the trend line is for these premiums? None?" Blackburn said, clearly exasperated. "It is baffling that we could have some of our nation's largest insurers, and you all don't have any internal analysis of what these rates are going to be."

It was that kind of week for the GOP.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/gop-anti-obamamcare-circus-demise?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

:lol

The remaining two FALSE SCANDALS AS THIS-IS-HOW-WE-CAMPAIGN-WITH-WITCHHUNTING are IRS and Benghazi! LOSERS! :lol

boutons_deux

05-17-2014, 10:04 AM

wow, that was fast! Obamacare rompin and stompin already

Hospitals In Arkansas See Drop In Uninsured ER Visits Following Obamacare Implementation (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/05/16/3438782/hospitals-arkansas/)

Preliminary survey results from Arkansas show (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/16/survey-shows-drop-in-arkansas-uninsured-er-visits/) a significant drop in the number of uninsured since the implementation of the state’s so-called private option, a compromise hammered out between Gov. Mike Beebe (D), Republican state lawmakers, and the Obama administration to provide health care coverage to low-income residents.
Data released on Thursday from 42 hospitals show that emergency room visits dropped by 2 percent (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/16/survey-shows-drop-in-arkansas-uninsured-er-visits/), “while the number of uninsured patients in those emergency rooms dropped by 24 percent,” the Associated Press notes.

Erik Dorey, a spokesperson for Sen. Mark Pryor (D-AR), said that the survey results indicated that the state’s implementation of health care reform is successfully providing insurance coverage to Arkansas families. “Because of Arkansas’ private option, 150,000 working families already know the security of quality coverage, and its successful implementation is a credit to Republicans and Democrats in Arkansas coming together to pass it into law,” Dorey said in a statement to ThinkProgress.

Indeed, hospitals are already seeing impressive results. “With the private option, we have literally seen a 50 percent reduction in uninsured patients coming through our emergency room,” chief executive officer Ray Montgomery of The White County Medical Center said.

The program has removed “a financial barrier for individuals who have needed care and needed service use, so they are not waiting later to have more complicated, less effective, more costly outcomes,” Arkansas Surgeon General Joe Thompson added.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/05/16/3438782/hospitals-arkansas/

xrayzebra

05-17-2014, 10:44 AM

uh-huh, I wonder how many of that 24 percent actually had insurance? But I guess you can think progress. Like hope and change. Or you can keep your doctor.

boutons_deux

05-17-2014, 10:55 AM

uh-huh, I wonder how many of that 24 percent actually had insurance? But I guess you can think progress. Like hope and change. Or you can keep your doctor.

:lol

100% earlier had no insurance.

now 76% have no insurance, so 100% of the 24% HAD INSURANCE :lol

FuzzyLumpkins

05-17-2014, 10:57 AM

CRIPPLE FIGHT!!!

xrayzebra

05-17-2014, 12:40 PM

Or butons, they lost their insurance and was forced on to Obamacare because of Obamacare. Point being some folks think they have insurance and don't and even the doctors and hospitals are unsure until they submit claims. I wont dispute your 24 percent but I will wait and see how it all shakes out.

Fuzzychumpkins: Children should be quite and listen when adults are talking. You can follow me all you want so long as you are quite. I know you want to pattern yourself after the chumpster, but try to better yourself.

boutons_deux

05-17-2014, 05:45 PM

Or butons, they lost their insurance and was forced on to Obamacare because of Obamacare.

bullshit. the ER patients were UNinsured, they had no insurance to lose.

w/o Obamacare, insurance companies cancelled polices every year, forever and denied policies to sick people.

Now they can't and they MUST not refuse insurance to anybody. XZ bitch slapped again.

Nbadan

05-17-2014, 10:33 PM

Obamacare saved consumers billions, new report finds
By Morgan Whitaker at MSNBC

http://www.msnbc.com/politicsnation/obamacare-saved-consumers-billions

"SNIP........................

The report from The Commonwealth Fund released Tuesday finds the medical loss ratio provision, which caps profits for health insurance companies, benefited consumers by about $3 billion over the past two years through a combination of rebates from insurance companies and reduced overhead spending.

The law’s provision limits insurance companies to spending a minimum of 80-85% of premiums specifically on treatment and medical costs, rather than overhead and profits.

The rebate receipts sent to consumers hit $1 billion in 2011 and about $500 million in 2012, an indication that insurance providers successfully shifted business models to fit the new spending requirements. In addition to the rebates provided to consumers, insurers reduced profits and spending on general overhead by about $1.4 billion, the report finds.

“The medical loss ratio requirement of the Affordable Care Act creates a higher-value insurance product for consumers,” said The Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal said in the report. “It ensures that a substantial portion of their premium dollar pays for medical care, as opposed to administrative costs and profits. It also encourages insurers to improve the care their customers receive, by investing in initiatives that will help achieve better outcomes for patients.”

Yep....

boutons_deux

05-18-2014, 08:35 AM

Forecast Predicts A Shift Away From Employer-Sponsored Insurance

Michael Thompson, of the financial research firm S&P Capital IQ, predicts more and more companies will decide to get out of the business of providing health insurance now that their workers have another way to get coverage through the Affordable Care Act.

MICHAEL THOMPSON: ACA actually creates an opportunity to revisit and redefine that relationship.

HORSLEY: At first, Thompson expects only a few big companies will make the switch. But as firms discover they can save money by shifting workers onto the exchanges, the trend will accelerate until by 2020, Thompson predicts 9 out of 10 employees will be responsible for buying their own health insurance.

THOMPSON: This is where it gets kind of interesting. That's the moment that employees start bearing the future risk of future health care premium rises.

(what? health insurers have been raising rates for decades, and in the past few years, employers have been requiring employees to pay a higher percentage of the premium. Employees ALREADY "bear the risk" of health insurance. )

HORSLEY: Thompson likens the change to the move from traditional pensions to 401(k) plans. Employees will have more choices, but fewer guarantees.

The Obama administration takes issue with Thompson's forecast, noting that when Massachusetts adopted a similar health care overhaul, insurance coverage through employers actually went up.

http://www.npr.org/2014/05/08/310794103/forecast-predicts-a-shift-away-from-employer-sponsored-insurance?sc=17&f=1128&utm_source=iosnewsapp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=app

boutons_deux

05-18-2014, 08:43 AM

no change from the status quo, health insurers and greedy sick care providers will keep sucking $100Ks of Human-Americans, because they can.

Most state health insurers seek rate boost: Proposals compared

http://seattletimes.com/ABPub/2014/05/13/2023593964.gif

If approved, rate increases for 2015 individual health plans proposed by 12 insurance companies may affect most policyholders, whether they bought their plans through
WashingtonHealthplanfinder (https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/HBEWeb/Annon_DisplayHomePage.action?authn_try_count=0&contextType=external&username=string&contextValue=%2Foam&password=sercure_string&challenge_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.wahealthplanfinder .org%2FHBEWeb%2FAnnon_DisplayHomePage.action&request_id=-8920950224137145920&locale=en_US&resource_url=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.wahealthplanf inder.org%252FHBEWeb%252F)’s online marketplace or in the outside market.

Washington is one of the first states to see proposed rate changes for 2015 individual health-insurance plans.

The proposed rate changes range from a decrease of 6.8 percent — from Molina Healthcare of Washington — to an increase of 26 percent from Time Insurance, a national company with relatively few Washington policyholders.

Most rate-change requests, particularly from larger insurers, were in the middle ground, with most asking for increases from about 2 to about 11 percent.

To anyone who has had individual insurance, premium increases are not surprising:

Records show that, on average, insurers have proposed rate increases for individual plans from about 9 percent to more than 18 percent every year from 2007 to 2013.

After review by the Office of the Insurance Commissioner (http://www.oic.wa.gov/), the average rate increases imposed were lower — in most cases, only slightly lower. But in one year, rate-increase requests were cut by more than 3.5 percentage points.

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023593959_insurancenewratesxml.html

Naturally, without ANY doubt, the Repugs will LIE that any and all rate increases are exclusively because of ACA.

boutons_deux

05-18-2014, 08:46 AM

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1676594/thumbs/o-HEALTH-INSURANCE-PREMIUMS-2015-570.jpg?1

boutons_deux

05-19-2014, 03:07 PM

More Specious Attacks on Reform

Conservative critics of President Obama’s health care reforms are engaged in two long-shot lawsuits to overturn the Affordable Care Act or disable one of its central provisions. Both lawsuits should be recognized for what they really are — attempts to use the courts to scuttle a law that Congressional Republicans have repeatedly tried, but failed, to repeal through the political process.

One case (http://www.pacificlegal.org/cases/Sissel-3-1374), now before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, makes the specious argument that the entire law should be overturned because the bill did not “originate” in the House.

The plaintiff’s lawyers argue that this process violated the “origination clause” in Article 1 of the Constitution, which says “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.” They contend the Senate did not merely “amend” the original House bill because the health care reform amendment was not germane to the original bill.

A federal district judge rightly rejected this argument on two grounds last year (https://www.pacificlegal.org/document.doc?id=917).

First, the reform law is not primarily a revenue-raising measure, though it may incidentally raise some revenue through a fee, called a “shared responsibility payment,” on people who refuse to take out health insurance.

Second, even if the bill could be construed as a revenue-raiser, it originated in the House. The judge ruled that past Supreme Court decisions allowed the Senate to substitute the entire text and title of a bill and left it to Congress to determine in individual cases whether that was acceptable. In this case, no one in the House challenged the act as a violation of the origination clause.

In a separate line of attack, lawsuits in several states argue that the act allows federal subsidies only for people buying coverage on the 14 state health insurance exchanges, but not for people buying on the exchanges run by the federal government in the 36 states that refused to set up their own. That contention was slapped down in one case in January (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/us/judge-upholds-rights-to-subsidies-in-health-care-law.html) by a federal district judge, who concluded that the law was designed to provide quality, affordable health care for “virtually all” Americans, not just those buying insurance on state-run exchanges. In March, a federal appellate court panel heard arguments on this case.

The opponents of health care reform are making desperate arguments that defy common sense and the purpose of a law that was approved by the political process and is providing benefits to tens of millions of Americans. Should these cases somehow reach the Supreme Court, the justices should reject their arguments outright.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/19/opinion/more-specious-attacks-on-reform.html?from=opinion

xrayzebra

05-20-2014, 10:40 AM

Millions Could Get Surprise Tax Bills Under ‘Obamacare’ If They Don’t Accurately Project Their Income

snip......

A draft of the application for insurance asks people to project their 2014 income if their current income is not steady or if they expect it to change. The application runs 15 pages for a three-person family, but nowhere does it warn people that they may have to repay part of the subsidy if their income increases.

“I think this will be the hardest thing for members of the public to understand because it is a novel aspect of this tax credit,” said Catherine Livingston, who recently served as health care counsel for the Internal Revenue Service. “I can’t think of what else they do in the tax system currently that works that way.” Livingston is now a partner in the Washington office of the law firm Jones Day.

There’s another wrinkle: The vast majority of taxpayers won’t actually receive the subsidies. Instead, the money will be paid directly to insurance companies and consumers will get the benefit in reduced premiums.

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/04/02/millions-could-get-surprise-tax-bills-under-obamacare-if-they-dont-accurately-project-their-income/

boutons_deux

05-23-2014, 02:02 PM

Actors, musicians are big beneficiaries of Obamacare

More than most people, workers in the area's vast entertainment industry are poised to benefit from the federal health law. But as the new law takes hold, the massive overhaul has also stirred up considerable confusion and anxiety over how to navigate a host of new healthcare options.

For decades, artists have flocked to the state, and many have just scraped by while trying to get their big break. According to a study from the National Endowment for the Arts, California has the highest number of artists in the nation.

The same study found that more than 30% of artists are self-employed compared with 10% in the general population, and rates of uninsured are typically higher among the self-employed than others.

In the industry, actors and other movie workers typically get insurance through their unions. But many say they don't get enough hours or steady work as actors to meet the income requirements to apply.

For instance, according to data from SAG-AFTRA, the country's largest union for actors, broadcasters and recording artists, only about 15% of members qualify for health insurance through the union.
"When people think Hollywood, they think George Clooney and Meryl Streep, but that's not the average person in this town," said Dan Kitowski, director of health services for the western region of the Actors Fund, a national nonprofit that does Affordable Care Act outreach.

The federal law that went into full effect this year made it easier for people to buy health insurance on their own because coverage is guaranteed regardless of preexisting health conditions, and subsidies are available to make premiums more affordable.

That creates a new range of options for people who are self-employed or who may have held on to a job they didn't like just for the benefits, said Laura Baker, a senior health and benefits consultant for consulting firm Mercer in Los Angeles. One Harvard study estimated that 11 million Americans were stuck in so-called "job lock" — not able to leave their jobs for fear of losing their health benefits.
"It's certainly a whole new world for some," Baker said.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-actors-insurance-20140523-story.html

boutons_deux

06-07-2014, 08:46 AM

GOP Candidates Are Seeing Obamacare In A Different Light

a reminder of a pronounced shift among Republican politicians discussing Obamacare on the campaign trail. Few of them are delivering feisty denunciations and declarations of repeal, as they did just a few months ago. Even in deeply conservative states, Republicans are muting their rhetoric, acknowledging positive tenets of the ACA and engaging in equivocation — or, in some cases, fabrication — to cover their tracks.

That’s because the political terrain has shifted beneath their feet. In practice, as its proponents have long predicted, the ACA has helped millions of people to obtain health care they would not have been able to afford otherwise. Surely it’s no surprise that few voters want to give up benefits they have just begun to enjoy.

That has meant some less-than-artful dodging by such indefatigable partisan warriors as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. In keeping with the GOP script, McConnell has been adamant about repealing the ACA.

But in his home state of Kentucky, Kynect, the state-run exchange that connects residents to Obamacare, is wildly popular, having signed up more than 400,000 people for health insurance. So McConnell takes advantage of voters’ confusion — many don’t understand that Kynect is Obamacare — to suggest he supports the exchange but not that foul law that made it possible. Indeed, he has gone so far as to declare that they are unconnected — a laughable lie, even in the warped reality of a political campaign.

Several other prominent Republicans have found themselves in a similar bind, as many facets of the law prove politically popular. Voters still don’t like “Obamacare,” but they like many of its provisions, including those that outlaw bans on patients who have pre-existing conditions.

Voters also support the provision that prevents lifetime caps on insurance payments — something that benefits those with serious, chronic illnesses — and the one that allows parents to keep their children insured until they are 26 years old. Indeed, the only provision that remains broadly unpopular is the mandate that requires every adult to buy health insurance (a necessary feature of the law, and one that many Republicans, including Mitt Romney, once believed in).

Perhaps the most dramatic shift among GOP pols has concerned Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. The Supreme Court’s ruling affirming the ACA made the Medicaid expansion optional for states, and most Republican governors resisted it. That was foolish and shortsighted, since the federal government pays the overwhelming portion of the additional cost. Those governors — and their GOP colleagues in Congress — were willing to trade better health for some of their poorest residents for the chance to poke Obama in the eye.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/gop-candidates-seeing-obamacare-different-light/

Grimes must absolutely, aggressively get out the CLARIFICATION that KYNECT __IS__ Obamacare.

Dems must absolutely, aggressively run in red states saying that it was the Repugs who DENIED Medicaid expansion, effectively, inarguably causing the deaths and more severe diseases of 1000s of red staters.

boutons_deux

06-07-2014, 11:07 AM

GOP’s quiet Obamacare disaster: How this week’s biggest story got overlooked

Right around noon on Wednesday, the Senate voted to invoke cloture (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=2&vote=00174) on Sylvia Mathews Burwell’s nomination to be the next secretary of Health and Human Services. The all-out Obamacare brawl that Republicans had promised when Burwell’s nomination was announced never materialized. Instead, it ended with a quiet, respectful display of bipartisan comity.

Losing the opportunity to grandstand on the Burwell nomination, however, was the least of the Republicans’ troubles this week when it came to the Affordable Care Act. We’re only six days into June, and opponents of the ACA have already had a terrible month.

The big news was the release of new data (http://medicaid.gov/AffordableCareAct/Medicaid-Moving-Forward-2014/Downloads/April-2014-Enrollment-Report.pdf) from the White House indicating that enrollment in Medicaid has surged (http://www.vox.com/2014/6/4/5780024/one-in-five-americans-are-now-on-medicaid) in states that elected to expand the program under the Affordable Care Act. In April alone more than 1 million people (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/medicaid-enrollment-surges-by-more-than-1-million-in-april/2014/06/04/79f9881e-ec1e-11e3-b10e-5090cf3b5958_story.html) signed up for coverage. Medicaid enrollment in states that rejected the expansion has also gone up as people who didn’t know they were eligible started signing up – the so-called Woodwork Effect (http://www.cnbc.com/id/101668821). Add all those enrollees to the number of people who were on Medicaid or CHIP prior to the ACA’s implementation, and you come up with just over 65 million Americans enrolled in the program.

As Paul Waldman puts it at the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/06/05/memo-to-gop-the-war-over-big-government-health-care-is-over-and-you-lost/), this is game over for Republican critics of the law who insist on repealing and replacing the ACA to get government out of healthcare. To do so, they’d have to find a way to transition tens of millions of people off of their government-provided health coverage. “Even if Republicans took back the White House and both houses of Congress,” Waldman writes, “moving people off their government insurance would be next to impossible.” The fight over Obamacare was always going to be a war of attrition, and it was always stacked against the Republicans.

And it’s not just that people are signing up for Medicaid; they’re using it, and early indicators are that expanding access to healthcare is having the intended effect of reducing instances of uncompensated care. The Colorado Hospital Association released a study (http://www.cha.com/Documents/Press-Releases/Medicaid-Expansion-Volume-Study-News-Release-June.aspx) this week showing that “hospitals in states that chose to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act saw significantly more Medicaid patients and a related reduction in self-pay and charity care cases.” Hospitals are obligated to treat and stabilize emergency room patients regardless of their insurance status or their ability to pay. If they can’t pay, the hospital gets stuck with the bill. Expanding the Medicaid rolls means that more people can seek out care and hospitals will have to absorb less bad debt, which could lead to lower healthcare costs overall.

Gallup’s most recent survey (http://www.gallup.com/poll/170882/uninsured-rate-holds-steady.aspx) found that the uninsured rate thus far in the second quarter of 2014 is 13.4 percent, which is “down from 17.1% in the fourth quarter of 2013 and from the 15.6% average in the first quarter of 2014.” Overall this means that the roughly 11 million people who gained insurance during the ACA’s implementation contributed to a 22 percent drop (http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/06/obamacare-skeptics-now-have-to-explain-why-the-uninsured-rate-is-22-percent-lower/372229/) in the uninsured rate. The rate does seem to be leveling off, per Gallup’s analysis, but the “rate could drop if more states elect to expand Medicaid.”

And as it turns out, there are states that are working to do exactly that. While there are still 20 states holding firm in their refusal to expand Medicaid, four states (http://familiesusa.org/product/50-state-look-medicaid-expansion-2014) are either trying to work out compromise packages (Utah, Pennsylvania and Indiana) or locked in an internal battle over whether to accept the expansion (Virginia).

http://www.salon.com/2014/06/06/gops_quiet_obamacare_disaster_how_this_weeks_bigge st_story_got_overlooked/

boutons_deux

06-09-2014, 10:29 AM

In Texarkana, Uninsured and on the Wrong Side of a State Line

TEXARKANA, Tex. — On a hazy, hot evening here, Janice Marks ate a dinner of turkey and stuffing at a homeless shelter filled with plastic cots before crossing a few blocks to the Arkansas side of town to start her night shift restocking the dairy cases at Walmart.

The next day, David Tramel and Janice McFall had a free meal of hot dogs and doughnut holes at a Salvation Army center in Arkansas before heading back to their tent, hidden in a field by the highway in Texas.

None of the three have health insurance (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier). But had Ms. Marks, 26, chosen to sleep on the side of town where she works, or had Mr. Tramel and Ms. McFall, who are both in their early 20s, made their camp where they had eaten their dinner, their fortunes might be different.

Arkansas accepted the Medicaid (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicaid/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) expansion in the Affordable Care Act. Texas did not.

(http://mobile.nytimes.com/images/100000002927543/2014/06/09/business/economy/uninsured-on-the-wrong-side-of-a-state-line.html)That makes Texarkana perhaps the starkest example of how President Obama’shealth care law (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/health_insurance_and_managed_care/health_care_reform/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier) is altering the economic geography of the country. The poor living in the Arkansas half of town won access to a government benefit worth thousands of dollars annually, yet nothing changed for those on the Texas side of the state line.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/business/economy/uninsured-on-the-wrong-side-of-a-state-line.html

boutons_deux

06-09-2014, 02:30 PM

Shifts in Charity Health Care

Health care reform was supposed to relieve the financial strain on hospitals that have provided a lot of free charity care to poor and uninsured patients. The reform law, known as the Affordable Care Act, was expected to insure most of those patients either through expanded state Medicaid programs for the poor or through subsidized private insurance for middle-income patients, thereby funneling new revenues to hospitals that had previously absorbed the costs of uncompensated care.

In return for the new income streams, hospitals that treat large numbers of the poor and get special subsidies to defray the cost would have those subsidies reduced on the theory that they would no longer need as much help.

But after the Supreme Court ruled that the reform law could not force states to expand their Medicaid programs, 20 or more states declined to do so. That failure has hurt some big urban hospitals, because their charity care burden remains essentially the same even as their federal aid has been cut.

( thanks, SCOTUS5 and Repug assholes! )
Even in California, which has expanded its Medicaid program, public hospitals that serve the poorest patients could face a big funding shortfall in future years, according to a study just published by researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles.

A recent report (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/26/us/hospitals-look-to-health-law-cutting-charity.html) in The Times by Abby Goodnough found that some hospital systems have started tightening the requirements for charity care in efforts to push uninsured people into signing up for subsidized health plans on the insurance exchanges created by the reform law. In St. Louis, for example, Barnes-Jewish Hospital has started charging co-payments to uninsured patients no matter how poor they are. Those at or below the poverty level ($11,670 for an individual) are charged $100 for emergency care and $50 for an office visit.

But some medical centers have seen their charity care costs decline. A report (http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2014/May/27/Safety-Net-Hospitals-Seeing-More-Patients-And-Money.aspx?utm_source=khn&utm_medium=internal&utm_campaign=related-content) late last month in Kaiser Health News and USA Today said that Seattle’s largest “safety net” hospital, run by the University of Washington, saw its proportion of uninsured patients drop from 12 percent last year to a surprisingly low 2 percent this spring, putting the hospital on track to increase its revenue by $20 million this year from annual revenues of about $800 million.

How all of this will shake out is still uncertain. Some vulnerable groups may find it even harder to get the care they need. Through a quirk in the reform law,

residents below the poverty line in states that have failed to expand Medicaid are not eligible for either Medicaid or for subsidized coverage on the insurance exchanges.

( thanks, Repug and SCOTUS5 assholes! )

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid or the subsidized coverage. And some low-income people who have enrolled in subsidized health plans may have trouble paying their cost-sharing.

There are some ways to address these gaps.

All states ought to expand their Medicaid programs since the federal government is offering very generous matching funds.

Hospitals should move aggressively to help people enroll in Medicaid or in subsidized plans on the exchanges.

And federal health officials need to review regularly whether health plan co-payments are actually affordable to those living on very modest incomes.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/opinion/shifts-in-charity-health-care.html

And many people who qualify for Medicaid, even rural rednecks, bubbas, poor white trash Repug voters, refuse to signup for Obamacare or Medicaid because Fox/Repugs told them to hate it and all things guvmint.

boutons_deux

06-14-2014, 10:28 PM

Medicare cost growth still very, very low (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/12/1306559/-Medicare-cost-growth-still-very-very-nbsp-low)

While healthcare costs overall have increased—as expected with all the new patients thanks to Obamacare—in the last few quarters, Medicare spending growth is really, really slow. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget finds that (http://crfb.org/blogs/determining-medicares-underlying-growth) Medicare growth in the first eight months of this fiscal year has been just 0.3 percent. Some of that can be accounted for by federal policies, "the Medicare sequester [which wasn't in effect for part of FY 2013], payment reductions in the Affordable Care Act for home health agencies and Medicare Advantage plans, ramped-up hospital readmission penalties, and frozen means-tested Medicare premium income thresholds." Even without those factors, though, costs are being held down.

http://images.dailykos.com/images/88983/large/medicare_mbr.jpg?1402614221

Adjusted for timing shifts, Medicare growth is even lower through eight months at just 0.3 percent. And even after removing the effects of temporary policies, year-to-date Medicare growth remains extremely low at 2.5 percent, even lower than through April. This is more than a full percentage point below economic and beneficiary growth, meaning that even excluding one-time effects, Medicare spending is on pace to both fall as a percent of GDP and on a per-capita basis. [emphasis in original, which tells you how big a deal this is to these analysts!]

The Incidental Economist notes (http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/medicare-growth-is-really-low/) that economic growth is 3.9 percent. Obamacare's supposed "death panel," the Independent Payment Advisory Board would kick in when spending reached GDP + 1 percent. We're nowhere near that now. So yes, this is pretty good news for Medicare, and should mean the end to any talk about raising the eligibility age for the program, or doing more means testing.

Hell, maybe now would be time to start talking about expanding the program. Medicare at 55, anyone?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/12/1306559/-Medicare-cost-growth-still-very-very-nbsp-low?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29

boutons_deux

06-15-2014, 07:22 AM

Listened to Atul in my drive time, excellent report from a superstar health care insider (not a Euro-American, a "macaca", so you right-wing xenopobes can get pissed off) who explains how OBAMACARE is so much more transformative than the shit like healthcare.gov that the Repugs politicize. FUCK THE REPUGS

45 minutes long, so I don't expect right-wingers will make any effort to permit any light into their deep, dark ignorance

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/06/13/atul-gawande-healthcare-obamacare-on-point-live

Winehole23

06-16-2014, 08:48 AM

The percentage of uninsured Minnesotans has dropped to the lowest level in state history, and the second-lowest level in the nation, following the end of enrollments under the Affordable (http://www.startribune.com/business/262726381.html#) Care Act.

About 180,500 Minnesotans gained health insurance from last September to this May, with the vast majority getting coverage through one of the state’s public health programs, a report from the University of Minnesota found.
That left just 4.9 percent of all Minnesotans lacking health coverage on May 1, about a month after the federal health law’s first major sign-up deadline. That’s down from 8.9 percent last Sept. 30.

“A change in the uninsurance rate (http://www.startribune.com/business/262726381.html#) like this is pretty much unprecedented in Minnesota,” said Julie Sonier of the university’s State Health Access Data Assistance Center and a co-author of the report.

http://www.startribune.com/business/262726381.html

Winehole23

06-18-2014, 11:01 AM

insurers bail out in year two: http://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/blog/2014/06/insurers-jumping-in-year-2

boutons_deux

06-18-2014, 12:20 PM

insurers bail out in year two: http://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/blog/2014/06/insurers-jumping-in-year-2

"bail out" what?

Winehole23

06-19-2014, 09:46 AM

the debacle continues to unfold

boutons_deux

06-19-2014, 08:32 PM

the debacle continues to unfold

what debacle?

boutons_deux

06-19-2014, 09:26 PM

New Poll Looks at Winners and Losers on the ACA Exchanges (http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2014/06/19/poll-looks-at-winners-and-losers-on-the-aca-exchanges/)

The Kaiser Family Foundation poll (http://kff.org/private-insurance/report/survey-of-non-group-health-insurance-enrollees/) has provided one of the first comprehensive looks at the new enrollees in the individual market.

One of the biggest findings of the poll is that a majority (57 percent) of people getting coverage on the exchanges say they were previously uninsured. As intended, the law resulted in more people buying coverage.

The poll also found that that a narrow plurality of people in the non-group market who were forced to switch from non-compliant plans to new ACA-approved plans actually ended up paying less for premiums, likely because of the new tax credits. Among this group 46 percent said their premiums went down while 39 percent said their premiums went up:

http://static1.firedoglake.com/1/files/2014/06/KFFpremiums.png

Of course premiums aren’t the only metric by which to judge a plan. For some the new plans meant narrower networks. Among this group 33 percent said they have fewer choices in primary care doctors, only 10 percent say they have more options, and 55 percent claim the networks are about the same.

In general this poll confirms the basic impression derived from other sources. A majority of people in the individual market arguably benefited from the law or were not impacted much — mainly those who received subsidies or had health problems. Yet there is a segment of people who can legitimately feel they were made worse for some reason, like healthy people who had insurance and now are paying higher premiums.

In fact that is roughly what we seen when people in the non-group market were directly asked if the law was a net positive or negative for them, although there is a good chance that this and all of the other answers to the survey are being skewed by partisan allegiances. Among non-group enrollees 29 percent believe the were negatively affected:

http://static1.firedoglake.com/1/files/2014/06/KFFworsebetter.png

Democrats can make the argument that this is an acceptable set of trade offs for a net benefit, but the political problem is that the law wasn’t sold as a set of trade-offs for people in the non-group market. The law was cynically sold as a way to help some people while leaving absolutely everyone with insurance they liked completely unaffected.

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2014/06/19/poll-looks-at-winners-and-losers-on-the-aca-exchanges/

"leaving absolutely everyone with insurance they liked completely unaffected"

but a lot of non-group insurance people 1) were/are healthy (no claims) and 2) had cheapo catastrophe insurance, which was outlawed.

boutons_deux

06-21-2014, 09:30 AM

Virginia Governor Moves Forward on Medicaid Expansion Without Legislature

After months of debate over whether or not the state would expand Medicaid coverage (http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/03/10/virginia-assembly-closes-without-passing-medicaid-expansion-budget/) under the Affordable Care Act, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) said Friday that he would move forward unilaterally without legislative action.

During a press conference (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/gov-terry-mcauliffe-vetoes-portions-of-virginia-budget-prolonging-medicaid-standoff/2014/06/20/960d98a8-f879-11e3-a3a5-42be35962a52_story.html), McAuliffe announced vetoes of portions of the state budget, and laid out his plan for addressing Medicaid expansion.

There has been much speculation about whether McAuliffe would or couldbypass the legislature (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-gov-mcauliffe-seeks-legislative-bypass-for-medicaid-expansion/2014/05/02/a54ea58a-d215-11e3-a6b1-45c4dffb85a6_story.html) to expand Medicaid.

The Republican-controlled legislature passed a budget earlier this month that did not include a plan to expand Medicaid (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/13/virginia-budget-medicaid-expansion_n_5492455.html), which is expected to provide health insurance to 400,000 low-income residents in the state.

During his remarks (https://governor.virginia.gov/news/newsarticle?articleId=5216), McAuliffe said he would veto the Medicaid Innovation and Reform Commission (MIRC), calling it a “sham to pretend that the legislature is serious about Medicaid reform and expansion.” The governor noted that even former Attorney General Ken Cuccinelliraised questions about MIRC’s constitutionality (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ken-cuccinelli-virginia-medicaid-expansion-unconstitutional).

McAuliffe said he has instructed William Hazel, the secretary of health and human resources, and Ric Brown, his secretary of finance, and their respective staffers to no longer attend or assist with any “meaningless” MIRC meetings. The governor also vetoed an amendment that banned the state from expanding Medicaid pursuant to the Affordable Care Act.

“I am moving forward,” said McAuliffe. “There are several options available to me.”

McAuliffe said Hazel has been directed to work with federal partners in Washington, D.C., the insurance industry, health-care providers, university medical centers, nonprofit organizations, local health departments, and the hospital industry, and to deliver a plan no later than September 1.

“We can move Virginia health care forward even in the face of the demagoguery, lies, fear and cowardice that have gripped this debate for too long,” said McAuliffe.

http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/06/20/virginia-governor-moves-forward-medicaid-expansion-without-legislature/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rhrealitycheck+%28RH+Reality+ Check%29

boutons_deux

07-09-2014, 12:41 PM

Blind squirrel news:

After Arizona Expanded Medicaid, Hospitals Started Saving Money (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/09/3458161/arizona-medicaid-uncompensated-care/)

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) fought hard (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/04/23/a-year-after-arizona-approved-medicaid-expansion-brewer-still-fighting-for-it/) to convince the GOP lawmakers in her state to accept Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion. Now, she’s seeing some of the fruits of her labor. According to a new report (http://azstarnet.com/arizona-hospital-and-healthcare-survey/pdf_d7ec6a21-643f-5793-81a2-f307cef1f42e.html) from the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, hospitals in the state are saving money by providing less uncompensated care.

Uncompensated care is driven by low-income and uninsured people who can’t pay their hospital bills. After Arizona removed childless adults (http://www.fiercehealthfinance.com/story/uncompensated-care-arizona-plummets-hospital-margins-rise/2014-07-06) from its Medicaid program back in 2011, uncompensated care skyrocketed throughout the state. But now that Arizona has expanded Medicaid under the health reform law, a move that allowed childless adults to enroll in the public health program again, that trend is being reversed.

In the first four months of this year, according to the new report, the uncompensated care at Arizona hospitals dropped by 31 percent (http://azstarnet.com/news/local/arizona-hospitals-doing-less-uncompensated-care/article_ddde554d-462b-5538-8ca7-33d144337581.html) compared to the same period in 2013. That helped the average operating margin of Arizona hospitals to rise from 4 percent to 5.2 percent over the last year.

“We were hoping people would take advantage of the Medicaid and federal healthcare.gov opportunity, that they would sign up,” Judy Rich, the chair of the Board of Directors for the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, told the Arizona Daily Star (http://azstarnet.com/news/local/arizona-hospitals-doing-less-uncompensated-care/article_ddde554d-462b-5538-8ca7-33d144337581.html), adding that she’s “guardedly optimistic” that those enrollment efforts were successful.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), Arizona’s decision to expand Medicaid will eventually cut the state’s uninsurance rate by nearly a third (http://kff.org/health-reform/report/the-cost-and-coverage-implications-of-the/).

The editorial board of the Arizona Republic (http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/08/medicaid-expansion-uncompensated-care/12383909/) is praising Brewer for her role in helping coverage go up and costs go down. “This happened because of Brewer’s tenacity,” they write. “Our Republican governor fought a pitched battle with members of her own party to win approval to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act… Medicaid expansion is paying off in Arizona.”

A similar dynamic is playing out (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/06/10/3446905/unexpected-benefits-medicaid-expansion/) in other states across the country as Obamacare’s coverage expansion has begun to take effect. Safety net hospitals that serve a disproportionate number (http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Publications/Fund-Reports/2012/Mar/Vulnerable-Populations.aspx) of poor and uninsured people report that more of their patients now have insurance (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/05/27/3441751/obamacare-safety-net-hospitals/). Emergency rooms have also started to notice a drop (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/05/16/3438782/hospitals-arkansas/) in the number of uninsured patients seeking care. And public hospitals say that an influx of newly insured Medicaid patients is helping their bottom lines (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/05/08/3435616/obamacare-is-already-providing-a-big-boost-to-public-hospitals/).

However, a starkly different story is unfolding in the areas of the country that have rejected Obamacare’s optional Medicaid expansion. Millions of low-income people are being locked out of health reform (http://kff.org/health-reform/issue-brief/the-coverage-gap-uninsured-poor-adults-in-states-that-do-not-expand-medicaid/) because their lawmakers continue to resist accepting federal funds to expand the Medicaid rolls. Rural hospitals in states like Tennessee (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/04/30/3432599/tennessee-medicaid-hospital/), Georgia (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/02/18/3299961/fourth-georgia-hospital-shuts/), Virginia (http://www.timesnews.net/article/9067290/wellmont-closing-lee-regional-medical-center), andNorth Carolina (http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/05/3676270/rural-hospital-to-close-naacp.html) have been forced to close because they can’t afford to remain operating without the Medicaid reimbursements from the low-income people who would have been eligible for the expansion.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/09/3458161/arizona-medicaid-uncompensated-care/

Thanks, Repugs!

boutons_deux

07-10-2014, 10:21 AM

Study: Anti-Obamacare Ads Might Have Actually Increased Enrollment

The millions of dollars being spent in televisions ads that criticize Obamacare might have actually backfired and led to increased enrollment under the health care reform law, according to a study (http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/techtank/posts/2014/07/9-anti-aca-ads-backfire)published Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.

Brookings fellow Niam Yaraghi observed "a positive association between the anti-ACA spending and ACA enrollment." Spending on negative Obamacare ads has outpaced spending on positive ads 15 to 1, according to media research (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/16/obamacare-spending-ads_n_5338602.html). In Senate races where Democrats are running for re-election, which have been the major targets for anti-Obamacare ads, Yaraghi detected a spike in enrollment.

"This implies that anti-ACA ads may unintentionally increase the public awareness about the existence of a governmentally subsidized service and its benefits for the uninsured," Yaraghi wrote of his findings.

The results weren't perfectly clear-cut. In states where it's a Republican defending their Senate seat, negative ads did seem to lead to a reduction in enrollment, according to Yaraghi. But anti-Obamacare ad spending has been heavier in general in states with a Democratic incumbent.

The Brookings analysis accounted only for the 8 million people who enrolled in private coverage under Obamacare, although Yaraghi said he also controlled for other state factors like low-income population and average insurance premiums.

Aside from general increased awareness, Yaraghi had an interesting alternative or secondary theory for the phenomenon he observed:

On the other hand, an individual’s prediction about the chances of repealing the ACA may be associated with the volume of advertisements against it. In the states where more anti-ACA ads are aired, residents were on average more likely to believe that Congress will repeal the ACA in the near future. People who believe that subsidized health insurance may soon disappear could have a greater willingness to take advantage of this one time opportunity.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/brookings-anti-obamacare-ads-enrollment?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

boutons_deux

07-10-2014, 10:51 AM

Libertarian Accidentally Shows How Obamacare Is Succeeding

The Commonwealth Fund has a new survey (http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2014/jul/Health-Coverage-Access-ACA) showing that the proportion of adults lacking health insurance has fallen by a quarter, from 20 percent of the population to 15 percent. (Most respondents, including 74 percent of newly insured Republicans, report liking their plan.)

Also, this week, the Congressional Budget Office again revised down (http://www.vox.com/2014/7/9/5883843/the-amazing-mysterious-decline-in-medicares-price-tag) its cost estimates for Medicare, which now spends $50 billion a year less than it was projected to before Obamacare passed. Also, the New England Journal of Medicine (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMhpr1405667)recently estimated that 20 million Americans gained insurance under the new law.

The latter study comes in for criticism by Peter Suderman (http://reason.com/blog/2014/07/08/no-20-million-havent-gained-coverage-und), Reason’s indefatigable health-care analyst. Like the entire right-wing media, Suderman’s coverage of Obamacare has furnished an endless supply of mockery of the law’s endless failures (http://reason.com/archives/2014/07/01/obamacare-story-so-far) and imminent collapse (http://reason.com/blog/2013/11/11/time-to-start-considering-obamacares-wor).

While some of his points have validity, it’s fair to say that the broader narrative conveyed by his work (http://reason.com/people/peter-suderman/all), which certainly lies on the sophisticated end of the anti-Obamacare industry, has utterly failed to prepare his libertarian readers for the possibility that the hated health-care law will actually work more or less as intended.

And yet, in another way, the conservative media has provided a useful lagging indicator of Obamacare’s progress.

The message of every individual story is that the law is failing, the administration is lying, and so on.

The substance, when viewed as a whole, tells a different story. Here is how Suderman, to take just one example, has described the continuous advancement of the law’s coverage goals:

January 21 (http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/21/most-people-signing-up-for-obamacare-alr): The prognosis was so grim that Obamacare might not have yielded any net reduction in the uninsured (“it appears possible that there has been no net expansion of private coverage at all”).

January 23 (http://reason.com/blog/2014/01/23/a-few-questions-about-obamacare-and-the): The situation had grown perhaps slightly less bleak — meager reductions in the uninsured rate may have taken place (“it's still possible that the number of people with insurance of any kind (including Medicaid) has increased, but the number of people with private insurance has not”).

February 24 (http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/24/ignore-the-administrations-inflated-obam): It appeared that non-trivial numbers of Americans, perhaps a couple million, had gained insurance, but far less than the claimed 7 million:

We don’t know how exactly many people have gotten health coverage through Medicaid for the first time as a result of Obamacare, but the actual number is certainly much lower than the 7 million President Obama claimed …
That means a significant downward revision is coming — a 20 to 30 percent reduction would bring total enrollments down to between 2.31 million and 2.64 million.

March 11 (http://reason.com/blog/2014/03/11/is-obamacare-covering-the-uninsured-mayb): The number of newly covered had risen from the mid-2 millions to around 3 million — far less than the 13 million claimed by Obama:

instead of the 13 million people the administration the administration counts as having obtained coverage under the law, the total gain in coverage for the previously is really more like 3 million, most of which comes through the dysfunctional Medicaid system. If so, that’s not nothing, but it’s a lot less than most anyone who supported the law predicted or hoped.

July 8 (http://reason.com/blog/2014/07/08/no-20-million-havent-gained-coverage-und): A New England Journal of Medicine report that 20 million Americans have gained insurance under Obamacare, argues Suderman, is probably too high (“it’s too early to say exactly how many so far — only that 20 million is almost certainly an overstatement”).

We have gone from learning that the law has failed to cover anybody

to learning it would cover a couple million to learning it would cover a few million

to learning that it has probably insured fewer than 20 million people halfway through year one.

The message of every individual dispatch is a confident prediction of the hated enemy's demise, yet the terms described in each, taken together, tell the story of retreat.

The enemy’s invasion fleet has been destroyed; its huge losses on the field of battle have left it on the brink of surrender; the enemy soldiers will be slaughtered by our brave civilian defenders as they attempt to enter the capital; the resistance will triumph!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/libertarian-accidentally-shows-obamacare-success.html

suck it, "Reason"-able libertarians, right-wingers.

boutons_deux

07-10-2014, 12:32 PM

Turns Out, Republicans Love Obamacare (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/10/3458577/even-republicans-are-satisfied-with-the-new-obamacare-coverage-poll-finds/)

Overall, 73 percent of people who bought health plans and 87 percent of those who signed up for Medicaid said they were somewhat or very satisfied with their new health insurance.

Seventy-four percent of newly insured Republicans liked their plans.

Even 77 percent of people who had insurance before — including members of the much-publicized group whose plans got canceled last year — were happy with their new coverage.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2014/07/10/3458577/even-republicans-are-satisfied-with-the-new-obamacare-coverage-poll-finds/

boutons_deux

07-13-2014, 10:13 AM

There are still 5 million people left out of the good Obamacare news (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/11/1313311/-There-are-still-5-million-people-left-out-of-the-good-Obamacare-news)

The Commonwealth fund created (http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2014/jul/Health-Coverage-Access-ACA) a handy info graphic to show the key findings from its big new survey of insurance coverage. Here's a big chunk of it:

http://images.dailykos.com/images/93978/large/commonwealth-medicaid.png?1405104556

attribution: Commonwealth Fund

But for a moment, let's focus on this part:

attribution: Commonwealth Fund

Among adults who earn less than poverty wages in states that didn't expand Medicaid, the uninsured rate is 36 percent, a decline of two percentage points (termed not statistically significant) from last year. That compares to a dramatic drop from 28 percent to 17 percent in states that expanded Medicaid.

States that didn't take Medicaid aren't reaping the benefit of having less uninsured people.

Those benefits are things like hospitals not losing as much money (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/09/1312845/-Arizona-hospitals-already-reaping-benefit-of-Medicaid-nbsp-expansion) treating people who don't have insurance, and increased revenue (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/23/1308993/-Major-cities-could-see-big-drops-in-uninsured-increase-in-revenue-with-Medicaid-nbsp-expansion), more jobs, and more economic activity by all those people who have more disposable income because they have affordable health care.

Or forcing older couples to separate (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/07/1312357/-Tennessee-Republican-family-values-in-the-Medicaid-nbsp-fight) to keep regular Medicaid.

More than 5 million people are stuck in the Medicaid gap.

More than 250,000 of them are veterans.

People are dying because of it (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/09/1290855/-Meet-the-late-Charlene-Dill-sentenced-to-death-by-Republican-Obamcare-obstruction). And that's all on the GOP.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/07/11/1313311/-There-are-still-5-million-people-left-out-of-the-good-Obamacare-news?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos %29#

Wild Cobra

07-13-2014, 02:46 PM

Did you verify this one, or not?

boutons_deux

07-13-2014, 03:18 PM

Did you verify this one, or not?

"Do You Own Research"

--WC

Wild Cobra

07-13-2014, 03:28 PM

"Do You Own Research"

--WC
LOL...

I was just asking.

Can't you give a simple yes or no?

Nbadan

07-16-2014, 02:43 AM

Oh my debacle..... :lol

The percentage of Americans without health insurance fell to a new low in recent months, according to the results of a Gallup poll released Thursday.

Specifically, the uninsured rate fell to 13.4 percent in the second quarter of 2014. That's down from its peak of 18 percent in the third quarter of last year, and it's the lowest quarterly average that Gallup has seen since it began tracking this type of data in 2008.

The percentage of uninsured Americans has fallen steadily since the beginning of Obamacare's open enrollment period for buying insurance in October. President Obama's health law mandates that nearly all Americans either have health insurance or pay a fine.

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1903168/original.jpg

Nbadan

07-16-2014, 03:03 AM

http://www.alternet.org/files/styles/story_image/public/story_images/shutterstock_158434151-edited.jpg
iHstoric Jesus on the old Prague Cemetery, Czech Republic
Photo Credit: Kajano

Do you recall the part in the Bible where Jesus healed the leper, the blind, and raised Lazarus from the dead? I do. Apparently, Republicans remember those three respective biblical stories a little differently. According to a new YouGov poll, Republican Jesus did indeed heal the leper, the blind, and a dead man, but only after he asked each for a co-pay.

The poll was conducted July 1-2 among 1,000 U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. On a wide range of political issues, from healthcare to gun control, from raising taxes on the rich to climate change, respondents were asked what would Jesus support or oppose.

According to the results of the poll, a majority of Democrats and independents have read the same version of Christianity’s Holy Book as I. For Republicans, however, it appears that, once again, they’ve conflated Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged with the Bible.

Eighty percent of Democrats and 52 percent of independents said Jesus would support universal healthcare. Indeed it’s hard to imagine Jesus would deny care to those who lack the financial means to enjoy the comfort of our for-profit capitalist healthcare industry. But that’s not the Jesus Republicans know. Only 23 percent of Republicans believe Jesus would support healthcare for all.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/most-republicans-think-jesus-would-denounce-universal-healthcare

boutons_deux

07-19-2014, 08:18 PM

Great way to run a country. Here's a major sector, a huge component of the economy, critical to the country, and it's fucked up.

Thanks, free market! We are sure you'll fix this disaster with the optimum solution.

Bottlenecks in Training Doctors

The new head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Sloan Gibson, told a Senate committee (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/us/va-official-says-fixing-issues-at-root-of-waiting-list-scandal-will-cost-billions.html) last week that he needed $17.6 billion over the next three years to hire some 1,500 doctors, 8,500 nurses and other clinicians to reduce the unconscionably long waiting times that many veterans now endure before they are able to see a doctor.

That news was bad enough, but the department’s problems are emblematic of an even deeper problem: a nationwide shortage of doctors, especially primary care doctors, and other health care professionals, that will only get worse in coming years. No less alarming, the current medical education system is ill-equipped to train the number of professionals needed.

Experts disagree over how bad the current shortages are. But virtually all agree that the problem is acute in rural areas and in poor urban neighborhoods. As of June 19, according to one estimate cited by analysts in the Department of Health and Human Services, there was a shortage of 16,000 primary care physicians in such underserved areas.

The Association of American Medical Colleges reiterated last week (https://www.aamc.org/newsroom/newsreleases/385506/07172014.html) an earlier warning that there will be a shortfall of 45,000 primary care physicians and 46,000 surgeons and medical specialists by 2020, leaving too few doctors to care for an aging population and for the millions of patients who will gain health coverage and seek treatment under the Affordable Care Act.

Some experts, however, believe that the real problem is not an overall shortage of doctors but an imbalance in the use of existing resources. For example, there may be too many specialists and too few primary care doctors; too many professionals in cities and affluent areas, too few in rural or impoverished areas; too many doctors doing routine procedures that could be handled by advanced-practice nurses, physician assistants or pharmacists.

In any case, there is a desperate need for accurate, up-to-date information. But congressional Republicans, who refuse to cooperate in any way with the Affordable Care Act, have blocked a commission that was supposed to sort it all out and make recommendations. The reform law created a National Health Care Workforce Commission, whose members were appointed in late 2010, but the panel has never met and it has no staff or budget to support its operations. This year, President Obama gave up even requesting $3 million for the panel, after losing that battle in previous years.

One obstacle to producing enough doctors is a shortage of residency slots in teaching hospitals to provide clinical training for doctors who have just graduated from medical school. Medical school enrollments and the number of medical schools have soared over the past decade, statistics show, but the number of residencies to train graduates has increased only modestly, largely because of a congressional cap on paying for the slots.

Another hurdle that will potentially affect nurses and physician assistants — as well as students in medical and osteopathic schools — in coming years is an expected shortage in clinical training sites in community hospitals and clinics. This is where students get the hands-on experience they need to supplement classroom instruction and earn their degrees.

There are bills in Congress to increase the number of residency slots for new doctors by 15,000 over a five-year period. This seems entirely warranted, given the increase in doctors who will be pouring out of the medical schools. Whether Congress will appropriate the money needed for that purpose — on top of spending large sums to rehabilitate the Department of Veterans Affairs health system — is questionable.

Beyond that, attention must be given to expanding the number and use of other health care professionals, as well as to improving the efficiency of health care delivery with the help of new technologies and new organizational structures.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/bottlenecks-in-training-doctors.html?_r=0

the "free market" and "for profit health" aren't solving shit, and the Repugs block all governmental efforts to provide guidance and solutions.

btw, the new Hep C pill Sovaldi is $1000 (nice round number pulled out of Gilead's investors' asses), $84K/year

Winehole23

07-22-2014, 11:51 AM

ACA subsides ruled illegal in 36 states:

President Obama's healthcare law was dealt a severe blow Tuesday as a federal appeals court panel ruled that government subsidies should be cut off for the majority of low- and middle-income residents currently receiving help with their insurance premiums under the program.

Defenders of the healthcare law called the ruling a temporary setback and predicted that it will be reversed by the full U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where Democratic appointees now outnumber Republicans. Obama administration officials confirmed Tuesday that they plan to appeal.

In a 2-1 vote, a panel of judges on the appeals court rejected the administration's argument that the problem in the case was triggered by imprecise language in the complex Affordable Care Act and that Congress had always intended to offer the subsidies nationwide to low- and middle-income people who bought insurance through one of the state or federal health exchanges created under the law.

But as written, the law states that subsidies should be paid to those who purchase insurance through an "exchange established by the state." That would seem to leave out the 36 states in which the exchanges are operated by the federal government.

“We conclude that the ACA unambiguously restricts the [authorized] subsidy to insurance purchased on exchanges ‘established by the state,'” said Judge Thomas Griffith. “We reach this conclusion, frankly, with reluctance. At least until states that wish to can set up Exchanges, our ruling will likely have a significant consequences for millions of individuals receiving tax credits through federal exchanges and for health insurance markets more broadly.”

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-court-obamacare-subsidies-20140711-story.html

boutons_deux

07-22-2014, 12:02 PM

ACA subsides ruled illegal in 36 states:

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-court-obamacare-subsidies-20140711-story.html

badly written law, Thanks, lawyers.

will be appealed, up to SCOTUS, which will certainly fuck up ACA, 5-4.

fix the law? hell no, Repug Congress will block any change.

TheSanityAnnex

07-22-2014, 12:30 PM

the debacle continues to unfold

TheSanityAnnex

07-22-2014, 12:32 PM

badly written law, Thanks, lawyers.

will be appealed, up to SCOTUS, which will certainly fuck up ACA, 5-4.

fix the law? hell no, Repug Congress will block any change.

This was predicted long ago and is the reason why you don't push things through like this administration did. I feel bad for the people losing their subsidies.

Clipper Nation

07-22-2014, 12:32 PM

badly written law, Thanks, lawyers.

will be appealed, up to SCOTUS, which will certainly fuck up ACA, 5-4.

fix the law? hell no, Repug Congress will block any change.
Obummercare sucks assPERIOD, deal with it....

boutons_deux

07-22-2014, 12:47 PM

Obummercare sucks assPERIOD, deal with it....

in your ignorant, stupid opinion, dictated by your thought masters.

ACA is an overwhelming success with the people it was intended to help.

TheSanityAnnex

07-22-2014, 12:51 PM

Original bill that passed
http://i1311.photobucket.com/albums/s679/thefuzzylumpkins/obamacare_zps5a7c5f89.jpg (http://s1311.photobucket.com/user/thefuzzylumpkins/media/obamacare_zps5a7c5f89.jpg.html)

ACA after HHS filled in the "details"
http://i1311.photobucket.com/albums/s679/thefuzzylumpkins/obamacarebill2_zps5b00e822.jpg (http://s1311.photobucket.com/user/thefuzzylumpkins/media/obamacarebill2_zps5b00e822.jpg.html)

ChumpDumper

07-22-2014, 12:58 PM

What's the Republican alternative?

I mean, since Obama stole their original idea.

TheSanityAnnex

07-22-2014, 01:22 PM

Quite a few more cases still

The IRS Challenge:
Pruitt vs. Sebelius
Halbig vs. Sebelius
King vs. Sebelius
Indiana et al vs. IRS et al

The IPAB Challenge:
Coons vs. Geithner

The HHS Mandate Challenge:
Becket Fund HHS Information Central

The Origination Clause Challenge:
Sissel v. Department of Health and Human Services
Hotze v. Sebelius

Clipper Nation

07-22-2014, 01:47 PM

in your ignorant, stupid opinion, dictated by your thought masters.

ACA is an overwhelming success with the people it was intended to help.
I don't have any "thought masters," meanwhile, all of your "opinions" come from AlterNet and Huffington Post....

Keep insisting that Obummercare is an "overwhelming success" as more and more flaws come to light.... it's eerily similar to Dubya's "Mission Accomplished" slogan :lol

ChumpDumper

07-22-2014, 01:47 PM

TheSanityAnnex

07-22-2014, 02:07 PM

Ask a republican

ChumpDumper

07-22-2014, 02:08 PM

Ask a republicanI'm asking you since you are so all over this issue.

What's your alternative?

TheSanityAnnex

07-22-2014, 02:13 PM

My fully covered insurance through my company that I pay nothing for never changed. I have no alternative at this time, I just enjoy watching it crumble.

ChumpDumper

07-22-2014, 02:14 PM

My fully covered insurance through my company that I pay nothing for never changed. I have no alternative at this time, I just enjoy watching it crumble.Why do you want it to crumble?

TheSanityAnnex

07-22-2014, 02:23 PM

Why do you want it to crumble?
Because of how it was pushed through congress.

Basically this:"Obamacare was forced though so quickly because it never would have passed otherwise, or would have been significantly changed before passing. The Democrats had a super-majority in congress until Ted Kennedy Died in August of 2009. Then Scott Brown, a republican, would be elected in the special election which would end the super-majority in the Senate and allow the Republicans to filibuster. This forced the Senate to act fast so they passed their version on December 24 and Scott Brown was Elected in January and sworn in on February 4th. The House then had to pass the senate bill as is in order to avoid sending a bill back to the now deadlocked Senate, this lacked any real support from most democrats as well so they did some creative parliamentary procedures to turn the bill in to a budget bill which is subject to reconciliation which blocks filibuster in the senate. This also limited and House changes to budgetary concerns which required the executive order about abortions to be created to satisfy some hold out Democrats.

The reasons for all this were mostly political, this was supposed to be Obama's signature reform and his legacy. The Democrats weren't interested in negotiating with republicans because the had won big in the 2008 elections and this was also partly their victory legislation. The bill was also getting more and more unpopular as the "debate" went on and got uglier and it started becoming apparent that anyone who voted for the bill that wasn't in a totally safe district would face major challenges in reelection bids, especially for republicans, for supporting the bill, so passing fast there was hope that the public's short memory would forget the worst transgressions. The bill was also passed quickly because it has huge welfare spending in it in the form of medicaid expansions and premium subsidies, which once implemented would be nearly impossible to repeal. The spending in the bill was huge and it needed years of extra taxes being collected to build up a cash reserve in order for the bill to be rated as budget neutral."

ChumpDumper

07-22-2014, 02:24 PM

So you want it to crumble for purely political reasons.

OK.

TheSanityAnnex

07-22-2014, 02:37 PM

I don't like most politicians, especially those who don't follow laws so yes.

ChumpDumper

07-22-2014, 02:38 PM

I don't like most politicians, especially those who don't follow laws so yes.Which laws were broken?

Clipper Nation

07-22-2014, 02:48 PM

So you want it to crumble for purely political reasons.

OK.
Can't speak for TSA, but I want it to crumble because it's just horrible legislation that was forced through Congress and has been a failure in practice....

As for alternatives, the Private Option Healthcare Act of 2010 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Obummercare....

ChumpDumper

07-22-2014, 02:49 PM

boutons_deux

07-22-2014, 02:52 PM

Can't speak for TSA, but I want it to crumble because it's just horrible legislation that was forced through Congress and has been a failure in practice....

As for alternatives, the Private Option Healthcare Act of 2010 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Obummercare....

As master politician LBJ said, "if you have enough votes, you can do anything".

And the Dems had enough votes, so it passed.

What was forced?

because no Repug voted for it? that's not forcing, it's called voters kicking your sorry asses and losing both House and Senate.

Clipper Nation

07-22-2014, 02:54 PM

Can't argue the way it was legislated, but in what ways has it failed?
They couldn't even build the website properly, the government couldn't even pay the subsidies properly, studies have shown that Obummercare will lead to a rise in the number of uninsured, as of this April only one-third of registrants were previously uninsured, etc....

Clipper Nation

07-22-2014, 02:55 PM

What was forced?

Obamacare was forced though so quickly because it never would have passed otherwise, or would have been significantly changed before passing. The Democrats had a super-majority in congress until Ted Kennedy Died in August of 2009. Then Scott Brown, a republican, would be elected in the special election which would end the super-majority in the Senate and allow the Republicans to filibuster. This forced the Senate to act fast so they passed their version on December 24 and Scott Brown was Elected in January and sworn in on February 4th. The House then had to pass the senate bill as is in order to avoid sending a bill back to the now deadlocked Senate, this lacked any real support from most democrats as well so they did some creative parliamentary procedures to turn the bill in to a budget bill which is subject to reconciliation which blocks filibuster in the senate. This also limited and House changes to budgetary concerns which required the executive order about abortions to be created to satisfy some hold out Democrats.

The reasons for all this were mostly political, this was supposed to be Obama's signature reform and his legacy. The Democrats weren't interested in negotiating with republicans because the had won big in the 2008 elections and this was also partly their victory legislation. The bill was also getting more and more unpopular as the "debate" went on and got uglier and it started becoming apparent that anyone who voted for the bill that wasn't in a totally safe district would face major challenges in reelection bids, especially for republicans, for supporting the bill, so passing fast there was hope that the public's short memory would forget the worst transgressions. The bill was also passed quickly because it has huge welfare spending in it in the form of medicaid expansions and premium subsidies, which once implemented would be nearly impossible to repeal. The spending in the bill was huge and it needed years of extra taxes being collected to build up a cash reserve in order for the bill to be rated as budget neutral.

ChumpDumper

07-22-2014, 02:57 PM

They couldn't even build the website properly, the government couldn't even pay the subsidies properly, studies have shown that Obummercare will lead to a rise in the number of uninsured, as of this April only one-third of registrants were previously uninsured, etc....Hm, well the rate of uninsured has dropped to it's lowest point since
gallup started being measured in 2008. What do those studies say about that?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/172403/uninsured-rate-sinks-second-quarter.aspx

Clipper Nation

07-22-2014, 03:40 PM

Hm, well the rate of uninsured has dropped to it's lowest point since
gallup started being measured in 2008. What do those studies say about that?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/172403/uninsured-rate-sinks-second-quarter.aspx
Stephen Parente used the Obama administration's final 2014 enrollment reports and his microsimulation model to project health plan prices and enrollment over the next decade. His projections, shared first with the Washington Post, find an increase in individual plan enrollment in 2015 and 2016, before sharply dropping off in 2017 and then slowly decreasing below 2015 levels by 2024. At the same time, he projects a steady decrease in employer coverage that will be steeper than the gains in Medicaid enrollment, resulting in a greater number of uninsured 10 years out.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/27/why-the-major-test-for-obamacare-premiums-might-wait-until-2017/

ChumpDumper

07-22-2014, 03:43 PM

Stephen Parente used the Obama administration's final 2014 enrollment reports and his microsimulation model to project health plan prices and enrollment over the next decade. His projections, shared first with the Washington Post, find an increase in individual plan enrollment in 2015 and 2016, before sharply dropping off in 2017 and then slowly decreasing below 2015 levels by 2024. At the same time, he projects a steady decrease in employer coverage that will be steeper than the gains in Medicaid enrollment, resulting in a greater number of uninsured 10 years out.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/05/27/why-the-major-test-for-obamacare-premiums-might-wait-until-2017/So does he suggest az change to avoid what he thinks will happen?

I'm all ears.

boutons_deux

07-22-2014, 03:47 PM

What Happens If Obama Loses the Halbig Case?

Halbig case goes up to the Supreme Court and they rule for the plaintiffs: in a stroke, everyone enrolled in Obamacare through a federal exchange is no longer eligible for subsidies. What happens then? Is Obamacare doomed?

Not at all. What happens is that people in blue states like California and New York, which operate their own exchanges, continue getting their federal subsidies. People in red states, which punted the job to the feds, will suddenly have their subsidies yanked away. Half the country will have access to a generous entitlement and the other half won't.

How many people will this affect? The earliest we'll get a Supreme Court ruling on this is mid-2015, and mid-2016 is more likely. At a guess, maybe 12 million people will have exchange coverage by 2015 and about 20 million by 2016. Let's split the difference and call it 15 million. About 80 percent of them qualify for subsidies, which brings the number to about 12 million. Roughly half of them are in states that would be affected by Halbig.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/07/what-happens-if-obama-loses-halbig-case

Hey, this is cool!

All the subsidized insured people in red states that didn't set up a state insurance exchange will lose their subsidies, bringing home FINANCIALLY and UNEQUIVOCALLY what a bunch of total assholes the red state Repug politicians are, who willing to screw, and even let die, their own voters just to fuck up Obama and the Dems.

GREAT!

boutons_deux

07-22-2014, 04:50 PM

Jost noted that conservatives on the Washington-based Appeals Court panel were openly hostile to the law in hearings last winter. “The case was argued (http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/documents/halbig_oral_argument_transcript.pdf) on March 25, 2014 to a three-judge panel consisting of Judges A. Raymond Randolph, Harry Edwards, and Thomas Griffith,” he wrote. “Almost from the moment the argument began, Judge Randolph expressed his profound dislike of the Affordable Care Act. He also demonstrated a profound misunderstanding of the history of the statute, and of the statute itself.”

Jost said that court’s conservative judges misread the legislative history of the law and some sloppy legislative drafting—less precise rather than more precise language—during the case’s trial phase to create a justification for blocking the federal subsidies. Tuesday’s other federal appeals court ruling, upholding the subsidies, highlighted those same legal ambiguities but reached the opposite conclusion.

“One hopes that by the time the D.C. Circuit announces a decision in this case, the judges will have reread the briefs and supporting record and have corrected any erroneous first impressions,” Jost wrote late last week. “This case is too important to be decided on wrong information…

A decision for the plaintiffs could deprive residents of 34 states of $36 billion in tax credits by 2016 and could cause the non-group market to collapse in those states. The ensuing disruption of the health care system will bring financial ruin to many families and, ultimately, will cost lives. The courts have to get this right.”
Unfortunately, one federal court did not get it right, as Jost put it. But it will not be the final word on this case or this feature of the Obamacare law. Shortly after the ruling was released, the Obama Administration said it would ask all of the judges on the Appeals Court in Washington to review the ruling. And then the federal appeals court in Richmond issued its ruling in the administration’s favor.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/did-courts-just-gut-obamacare-theres-more-story-you-think?akid=12040.187590.TuTxMD&rd=1&src=newsletter1012347&t=2&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

TheSanityAnnex

07-22-2014, 05:23 PM

Th'Pusher

07-22-2014, 06:25 PM

:lol at anyone thinking a subsidy is going to be removed once it's been implemented. My guess is republicans will be more than happy to "fix" the law when they see hundreds of thousands of their constituents a bouts to have the subsidy stripped.

boutons_deux

07-22-2014, 09:10 PM

"No blame for the blue states that did the same?"

the same what? the blue states that used the federal exchange did nothing wrong, and nearly all expanded Medicaid.

did the Dems, blue states sue Sebelius and screw themselves?

or was it a Repug operative, former dubya appointee as Christian supremacist, JACQUELINE HALBIG screw the red states' people who used the fed exchange?

Th'Pusher

07-22-2014, 11:13 PM

Barry's admin appears to be playing chess. Republicans playing checkers.

How Obama's court strategy may help save Obamacare

The ruling on Obamacare is a dramatic example of why Obama forced the issue. | Getty
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 07/22/2014 07:17 PM EDT | Updated: 07/22/2014 07:56 PM EDT
Last fall, President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid deployed the "nuclear option" to help get three liberal judges onto the D.C. Circuit appeals court.

Tuesday's ruling on Obamacare is a dramatic example of why they forced the issue.

On Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a 2-1 decision that could gut much of Obamacare by preventing the federal government from offering subsidies to many Americans. The two judges in the majority were appointed by Republican presidents.

But the full court now has seven judges appointed by Democrats and four by Republicans. It took only an hour or so for the administration to announce that it plans to ask the entire bench to review the decision.

(Also on POLITICO: Wild day for Obamacare: Appeals court rulings conflict)

When Obama took to the Rose Garden last June to launch an aggressive campaign to confirm the slate of three new judges to the D.C. Circuit, experts pointed to the critical role that court plays in overseeing federal regulations -- something especially important for a president now focused on implementing his agenda through executive actions in the face of the gridlock on Capitol Hill.

The D.C. Circuit has an often crucial impact on environmental and safety regulations, but Tuesday's decision on Affordable Care Act subsidies is a reminder of just how directly Obama's legacy -- and his signature legislative achievement -- may be linked to the Washington-based appeals court.

"I think it was wise strategy. ... They're probably patting themselves on the back," Curt Levey of the conservative Coalition for Justice said Tuesday, referring to the White House's confirmation drive, which he opposed. "We all knew it was highly unusual, nominating three people at a time to the same circuit. ... We knew this wasn't a coincidence. More than any president, this one is dependent on the D.C. Circuit and that's why it was such a priority."

To confirm three new judges last fall, Reid moved to change Senate rules and eliminate filibusters of certain judicial and executive branch nominees. Asked Tuesday whether the ruling by the three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit vindicates his decision to deploy the nuclear option last year, Reid was blunt: "I think if you look at simple math, it does."

(Also on POLITICO: Democrats still haven't learned Obamacare lesson)

A White House spokesperson declined to comment for this story, but one former official involved in the discussions about nominating the three new D.C. Circuit judges said the strategy is now looking prescient. It "was pretty brilliant," said the ex-official, who asked not to be named.

Former White House communications director Anita Dunn said the decision to make a public push for the nominees involved some risk because Democrats don't traditionally rally around the issue of judicial nominations except when a Supreme Court seat is in play.

"It's a challenge because unlike the Republican Party, the Democratic Party hasn't spent a lot of time educating grass-roots supporters about the role of the federal judiciary when it comes to issues progressives care about," said Dunn. "The Republican Party has spent a huge amount of time, 20 to 30 years, educating their grass roots about why these issues are important."

One conservative legal activist said she believes Obama was specifically worried about challenges to Obamacare when he made the decision to push to fill the three open D.C. Circuit seats at the same time, despite GOP complaints that there were simply not enough cases to justify the appointments.

"I think this is exactly what the president was thinking about when he decided to ram all those judges through," said Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network. "The president for his whole first term dragged his feet and didn't seem to think judges were really a priority. Then suddenly, out of the blue, he decides he needs to move on what I'd argue is the least busy circuit in the country. ... This is the payoff for him."

One liberal legal advocate said Tuesday that he's hopeful the Obama D.C. Circuit appointees will side with other judges, including a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that unanimously backed the government's authority to interpret the law to allow the subsidies.

"I would hope President Obama's four extraordinarily qualified nominees [to the D.C. Circuit] would side with the six other judges across the ideological spectrum in rejecting these challenges to affordable health care," said Doug Kendall of the Constitutional Accountability Center. "One of the most important impact of filling the four vacancies to this court has been to change dramatically the makeup of the en banc panel."

However, several experts cautioned that it's not certain that all seven Democratic appointees on the court or the four Republican ones will vote along party lines -- or even that the full bench of the D.C. Circuit will agree to take up the case.

"The new appointees really only took their seats in December and January and we're only in July. We're just getting first opinions from these new judges," said Drexel University law professor Lisa McElroy. She studied five years of D.C. Circuit opinions and found that judges usually did not appear to decide cases along ideological lines.

However, McElroy said there are several reasons to think the Obamacare subsidies might be different. For one thing, there's no precedent that directly dictates the outcome of the case, since it involves interpreting wording in the Affordable Care Act.

"While my statistics say it doesn't necessarily make a difference, you do wonder in a case that is so political," McElroy said. "I think that if I were the White House, I would be very glad I had done it," she said, referring to the nomination and confirmation of the three newest Obama-appointed judges.

While Obama supporters may be celebrating his strategy now and continue to reap benefits from it for years to come, McElroy said at some point liberals could regret cutting out much of the filibuster power. "Hindsight is 20-20, but 10 years from now if there's a Republican president and they want those nominees filibustered, they may feel differently," she said.

Of course, even if the D.C. Circuit takes up the Obamacare subsidies case en banc, it might not have the final word since the Supreme Court could decide to consider the issue.

The Obama administration's legal strategy appears to be to try to keep the issue out of the Supreme Court by getting the full bench of the D.C. Circuit to rule for the administration, doing away with the split with the 4th Circuit that developed on Tuesday.

If Tuesday's rulings stand, it's virtually certain the Supreme Court would take the case to prevent Obamacare from being interpreted differently in different parts of the country. However, if the conflict is resolved by the lower courts, it's possible the high court might decide not to wade into the issue.

"If there's no circuit split, I would not be surprised at all if the Supreme Court doesn't hear this case," Kendall said.

However, Levey said that, even without a split in the lower circuits, he thinks the Supreme Court could come up with the four votes needed to dive into the issue. "I certainly think there's three," he said. "It's an existential threat to Obamacare."