ACA premiums up as much as 50% as 2016 renewals hit...

[Winehole23]

Aetna threatened the government last summer with pulling out of 11 of the 15 states where it participated in the Obamacare individual insurance markets, claiming it was a “business decision.” The threat was made while the Department of Justice was investigating the merger but before it filed its an rust lawsuit. It was a shot before the bow. After the lawsuit was filed, Aetna followed through on its threat.


And Judge Bates put his finger on it: It wasn’t just a “business decision,” he wrote. There was more to it. “Aetna tried to leverage its participation in the exchanges for favorable treatment from DOJ regarding the proposed merger.”

[Winehole23]

Aetna cried wolf for wolfish reasons:

Aetna then tried to cover up that connection between the threat to pull out of those markets and the an rust investigation to the point where the “repeated efforts to conceal a paper trail about the decision-making process” bordered on “malfeasance,” he wrote.


Judge Bates determined that there was “persuasive evidence that when Aetna later withdrew from the 17 counties, it did not do so for business reasons, but instead to follow through on the threat that it made earlier.”

[Wild Cobra]

Look like I'm lucky.

Just this month, my healthcare went up by only 9%. My increase last year this time was 13.5%.

Wish my wages went up that fast...

[Winehole23]

death spiral!

[boutons_deux]

Look like I'm lucky.

Just this month, my healthcare went up by only 9%. My increase last year this time was 13.5%.

Wish my wages went up that fast...

Trumpcare will reduce your insurance costs!

[Wild Cobra]

Trumpcare will reduce your insurance costs!

Not likely.

Since I had a top of the line plan to begin with, after my initial jump following the passage of Obamacare, mine have been below the other increases.

It's the lesser plans that were highly affected by Obamacare.

[baseline bum]

in the case of Federal minimum wage, yes. Should be $15 immediately, indexed to inflation, and increasing the $25 in 10 years.

$25 an hour? Wow, so people would make $50,000 a year for frying chicken at Bill Miller's? What's the point of going to college or learning a trade? We'd have a generation of fry cooks and no doctors, engineers, truck drivers, plumbers, etc.

[Thread]

$25 an hour? Wow, so people would make $50,000 a year for frying chicken at Bill Miller's? What's the point of going to college or learning a trade? We'd have a generation of fry cooks and no doctors, engineers, truck drivers, plumbers, etc.

The point is:::it will be up to you & I to patronize these establishments to their end, be it a success, or, a failure. See how that works, cement head?

[baseline bum]

The point is:::it will be up to you & I to patronize these establishments to their end, be it a success, or, a failure. See how that works, cement head?

I don't see how it works. Are you arguing in favor of boutons' communist utopia?

[Thread]

I don't see how it works. Are you arguing in favor of boutons' communist utopia?

That's because you have the aforementioned head chock full of cement.

[baseline bum]

That's because you have the aforementioned head chock full of cement.

So you're a right wing nationalist commie son?

[Thread]

So you're a right wing nationalist commie son?

They were selling your .

[boutons_deux]

$25 an hour? Wow, so people would make $50,000 a year for frying chicken at Bill Miller's? What's the point of going to college or learning a trade? We'd have a generation of fry cooks and no doctors, engineers, truck drivers, plumbers, etc.

Sure, why not? give employers until 2025 to get there, but that $25 will be indexed to inflation from now, so more in 2025.

Taxpayers are already topping up the salaries of Bill Miller, Pudzer, Walmart, etc by many $100Ms if not $Bs per year, so why not have the employers pay living wages and give the taxpayers a break?

Why should taxpayers subsidize employers paying ty wages?

If employers can't run a business paying decent wages, and without taxpayer subsidies, then the businesses are dead.

The jobs would be in high demand, instead of mostly throway jobs people churned through everyday, resulting in higher quality, more reliable employees, less churn, less training.

[Thread]

Sure, why not? give employers until 2025 to get there, but that $25 will be indexed to inflation from now, so more in 2025.

Taxpayers are already topping up the salaries of Bill Miller, Pudzer, Walmart, etc by many $100Ms if not $Bs per year, so why not have the employers pay living wages and give the taxpayers a break?

Why should taxpayers subsidize employers paying ty wages?

[[[If employers can't run a business paying decent wages, and without taxpayer subsidies, then the businesses are dead.]]]

The jobs would be in high demand, instead of mostly throway jobs people churned through everyday, resulting in higher quality, more reliable employees, less churn, less training.

Then let them be dead.

[Wild Cobra]

I don't see how it works. Are you arguing in favor of boutons' communist utopia?

Can you say utopia with a Russian accent?

[SnakeBoy]

Not likely.

Since I had a top of the line plan to begin with, after my initial jump following the passage of Obamacare, mine have been below the other increases.

It's the lesser plans that were highly affected by Obamacare.

Are you even on the individual market?

[SnakeBoy]

death spiral!

The individual market is in a death spiral. Do you not believe it?

[Wild Cobra]

Are you even on the individual market?

No, I'm covered through a very large employer. I have what they would call a golden or platinum plan.

Rather expensive already before Obamacare.

[SnakeBoy]

No, I'm covered through a very large employer. I have what they would call a golden or platinum plan.

Rather expensive already before Obamacare.

Well the big increases you hear about are the rates on the individual market. My grandfathered plan went up 26% this year. Don't have much choice since the only individual insurance available in Texas now is a crappy Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO plan which is almost twice the price for the bronze plan.

[Wild Cobra]

Well the big increases you hear about are the rates on the individual market. My grandfathered plan went up 26% this year. Don't have much choice since the only individual insurance available in Texas now is a crappy Blue Cross Blue Shield HMO plan which is almost twice the price for the bronze plan.

Yes, I know they go up more than mine. The facts are fuzzy in my mind, but I believe they have imposed an ever increasing tax of insurance plans, and a way to partially offset subsidized insurance. I forget what the last year is that these taxes stop increasing.

[rmt]

Yes, I know they go up more than mine. The facts are fuzzy in my mind, but I believe they have imposed an ever increasing tax of insurance plans, and a way to partially offset subsidized insurance. I forget what the last year is that these taxes stop increasing.

They've postponed the Cadillac tax on expensive plans like yours until 2020.

The so-called Cadillac tax is an excise tax on high cost health plans offered by employers. Beginning in 2020, health plans that cost more than $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for a family plan will be subject to the tax, which is 40% of the amount that exceeds those thresholds

[Winehole23]

The individual market is in a death spiral. Do you not believe it?

I believe premiums are getting more expensive and that it was foreseeable that they would and that they will continue to. It's undeniably true that insurers have left the market -- some for purely political reasons. Aetna is awash in profits.

does the term "death spiral" have a precise technical meaning?

[SnakeBoy]

I believe premiums are getting more expensive and that it was foreseeable that they would and that they will continue to. It's undeniably true that insurers have left the market -- some for purely political reasons. Aetna is awash in profits.

Aetna wasn't awash in profits on the individual market. Nationally they were losing money every year. The politics in their case was that they pulled out of a few markets where they were making money because they wanted the merger.

does the term "death spiral" have a precise technical meaning?

Yeah it meant that when the ACA put a bunch of people who were previously uninsurable onto the individual market it would cause premiums to rise which would cause healthy people to leave the market which would cause premiums to rise which would cause healthy people to leave the market which would etc. etc.

The public option was supposed to be the counter to that by allowing us to be part of larger national risk pool but Obama quickly abandoned that idea to get insurers on board with the ACA.

[Spurminator]

Looking more and more like the ACA is going to be a 2018 (and potentially 2020) wedge issue.

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare...amacare-repeal

The conservative House Freedom Caucus voted Monday night to oppose an ObamaCare repeal bill if it does not go as far as the repeal measure that passed in 2015, drawing a line in the sand that could complicate Republican repeal efforts.

Conservatives have been pushing for the 2015 repeal bill, which kills the core elements of the law including its subsidies, taxes, mandates and Medicaid expansion, to be brought up again. But the move Monday night to oppose an effort if it falls short of that bill is a significant new development.

Some more moderate Republicans are uneasy with repealing all of ObamaCare's taxes, and especially with repealing the Medicaid expansion. But if repeal of those areas is weakened, the Freedom Caucus now says it would oppose the bill.

"If it's less than 2015, we will oppose it," Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said after exiting the meeting.

[Winehole23]

Trump promised cheaper, better healthcare coverage for all. One wonders how he'll deliver.

The US Congress may not be on his side.