Obamacare and Healthcare Spending

[carlfense]

Something to keep an eye on.

The slowdown of health-care costs is one of the most important developments in American politics. The long-term deficit crisis — those scary charts Paul Ryan likes to hold up, with federal spending soaring to absurd levels in a grim socialist dystopian future — all assume the cost of health care will continue to rise faster than the cost of other things. If that changes, the entire premise of the American debate changes. And there’s a lot of evidence to suggest it is changing — health-care costs have slowed dramatically, and experts believe it’s happening for non-temporary reasons.

 

The general conservative response to date has involved ignoring the trend, or perhaps dismissing it as a temporary, recession-induced dip likely to reverse itself. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal editorial page offered up what may be the new conservative fallback position: Okay, health-care costs are slowing down, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the huge new health-care reform law. “It increasingly looks as if ObamaCare passed amid a national correction in the health markets,” the Journal now asserts, “that no one in Congress or the White House understood.” It’s another one of those huge, crazy coincidences!

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/give-back-that-pulitzer-journal-editorial-page.html

[Junior]

The general conservative response to date has involved ignoring the trend, or perhaps dismissing it

 

That's pretty much the conservative mantra. Ignore data and/or dismiss it as flawed sampling.

 

Climate change data.

Polls showing support of background checks.

Health care costs.

Benghazi.

 

Am I missing any?

[rawhide]

You missed IRS, DOJ, Fast/furious, Border Security, DHS, Boston, etc.

[BigRedBuster]

Yep...it's going to be interesting.

 

I clicked on this link first after reading your quote:

 

experts believe

 

Seemed to be a pretty level headed discussion and explanation of what has been found. It talks about a number of economic factors and how companies have changed their health care coverage that very well could have caused the slow down in growth that started in 2009 and is still being seen in 2013.

 

Then, I click on the main article you gave a link to.

 

I got a little over half way through it before I had to stop from laughing. Really: The author is really trying to claim the Affordable Care Act is the reason for the slow down? The slow down in growth started in 2009. When was the ACA signed into law? When does the bulk of it take affect?

 

From the first article I read, this is the part that I am most interested in seeing play out.

 

Forecasters generally expect the low pace of health cost growth to continue through 2013.

 

But come 2014, the significant expansion of insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act will start to increase national health spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, although the underlying pace of inflation might remain low. Consolidation among medical providers also might start to push up the pace of cost growth, a more worrisome trend in the long term.

 

The economic recovery and falling unemployment should lead to higher spending, too. “Some return to higher spending is baked into a stronger economy,” said Mr. Altman of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “That’s going to be blamed on the A.C.A., and it shouldn’t be.”

 

But health economists are hopeful that the dozens of provisions in the Affordable Care Act designed to hold down costs might kick in as other factors fade. “My sense is that it’s really gathering speed,” Professor Cutler said of changes away from fee-for-service medicine. “Folks were taking tentative steps before the Supreme Court decision came down, but now everybody knows it’s locked in and the governors are deciding about the Medicaid expansion. If you’re a hospital executive, you’re now saying: ‘I need to figure out how I’m going to adjust to this.’ ”

 

I have been to a number of meetings from the health care industry talking about 2014 and beyond. I have to say, almost everyone that leaves those meetings are very concerned.

[carlfense]

I got a little over half way through it before I had to stop from laughing. Really: The author is really trying to claim the Affordable Care Act is the reason for the slow down? The slow down in growth started in 2009. When was the ACA signed into law? When does the bulk of it take affect?

If you'd prefer to keep laughing . . . perhaps you should read some of the conservative media predictions about Obamacare's effect on health care costs. Combine those with current reality (totally unrelated to Obamacare!) and you should at least get a couple decent laughs.

 

Edit: Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor but the pirouette from the government takeover of medicine is going to result in skyrocketing health care costs and onerous regulations to sure . . . costs are going down but that has nothing to do with Obamacare is going to make me smile.

[BigRedBuster]

When did the decline in increases start and when does ACA take effect?

 

And, obviously you missed this quote from the link in the article from your quote.

 

But come 2014, the significant expansion of insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act will start to increase national health spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, although the underlying pace of inflation might remain low. Consolidation among medical providers also might start to push up the pace of cost growth, a more worrisome trend in the long term.

 

I will be interested in seeing what happens after 2014.

[carlfense]

When did the decline in increases start and when does ACA take effect?

Define "take effect." That's not a loaded question . . .

[Someone]

I wonder what happens with everyone cost of insurance when we stop underwriting the cost of going to the ER by people who don't have insurance every time they get sick.

[BigRedBuster]

When did the decline in increases start and when does ACA take effect?

Define "take effect." That's not a loaded question . . .

 

 

Not really.

 

Wiki

 

A few things have taken effect but any person working within the system no matter if it is in the health care system or insurance industry will agree that the majority of the act that effects employers and insurance companies (and in turn insured people) starts taking effect in 2014.

 

When did the decline start again?

 

Another good time line.

 

Another link.

 

LINK

[carlfense]

A few things have taken effect but any person working within the system no matter if it is in the health care system or insurance industry will agree that the majority of the act that effects employers and insurance companies (and in turn insured people) starts taking effect in 2014.

If you think that providers haven't been making significant changes because of the ACA then I have to assume that you don't have much contact with health care providers. (And/or you don't really follow the news on this topic.)

 

So, again, how do you define "take effect"?

[BigRedBuster]

So, there were such major changes being made as early as 2008 to affect 2009 that much when the bill wasn't even going to be signed into law for over a year after that? Heck, nobody even really knew what was all going to be in the bill till right up to the end or even after it was signed?

[carlfense]

So, there were such major changes being made as early as 2008 to affect 2009 that much when the bill wasn't even going to be signed into law for over a year after that? Heck, nobody even really knew what was all going to be in the bill till right up to the end or even after it was signed?

All I know is that Obamacare is a catastrophe despite the available evidence. Let's not lose sight of that fact.

 

And I'm still waiting for your definition of "take effect." I'd genuinely like to try to answer your question but I can't until you can provide a definition.

[BigRedBuster]

So, there were such major changes being made as early as 2008 to affect 2009 that much when the bill wasn't even going to be signed into law for over a year after that? Heck, nobody even really knew what was all going to be in the bill till right up to the end or even after it was signed?

All I know is that Obamacare is a catastrophe despite the available evidence. Let's not lose sight of that fact.

 

And I'm still waiting for your definition of "take effect." I'd genuinely like to try to answer your question but I can't until you can provide a definition. I've answered this with three links of time.

[carlfense]

I've answered this with three links of time.

But you still haven't bothered to answer the question. How do you define "take effect"?

 

Do you mean the point at which the ACA starts changing the delivery of medical care? That would seem to be the most applicable definition for this discussion . . . but I can certainly see why you'd prefer to pretend that nothing will change until 2014.

 

I mean . . . who knows . . . maybe costs will be rising again at that point. That would certainly fit more comfortably with your beliefs, right?

[BigRedBuster]

Is that a crazier belief than thinking a bill that is signed into law influences industries one to two years before it is ever signed so much so that it causes major changes in cost increases? Especially when there are easily other major factors that are influencing the industry during that time.