Good news for us re: Obamacare/ACA

[carlfense]

Conservatives spent years predicting Obamacare would collapse in all manner of gloomy scenarios. But those predictions all occurred in the run-up to the law coming on-line, on the basis of sketchy, preliminary data or pure conjecture. But in the months since the law has come into effect, a steady stream of far more solid data has come in, and the doomsaying predictions are being hunted to extinction. The right’s ideological objections to Obamacare remain, but I can’t think of a single practical analytic claim they made that still looks correct.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/06/republicans-finally-admit-why-they-hate-the-aca.html

[BigRedBuster]

 

Conservatives spent years predicting Obamacare would collapse in all manner of gloomy scenarios. But those predictions all occurred in the run-up to the law coming on-line, on the basis of sketchy, preliminary data or pure conjecture. But in the months since the law has come into effect, a steady stream of far more solid data has come in, and the doomsaying predictions are being hunted to extinction. The right’s ideological objections to Obamacare remain, but I can’t think of a single practical analytic claim they made that still looks correct.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/06/republicans-finally-admit-why-they-hate-the-aca.html

 

 

 

In all fairness (Don't take this as defending the Republican party). We won't know if this financially can sustain itself until we have a number of years in the system.

[carlfense]

In all fairness (Don't take this as defending the Republican party). We won't know if this financially can sustain itself until we have a number of years in the system.

That's true. All we have so far is the first year or so of data . . . and even that is incomplete.

 

What we can say with little doubt is that the hysteria was almost all hype.

[BigRedBuster]

 

In all fairness (Don't take this as defending the Republican party). We won't know if this financially can sustain itself until we have a number of years in the system.

That's true. All we have so far is the first year or so of data . . . and even that is incomplete.

 

What we can say with little doubt is that the hysteria was almost all hype.

 

99% of the time hysteria about anything (In Washington) is a load of crap and politically motivated.

 

I have no problem with people being concerned about the program financially. It is something that should be questioned any time you implement a major program.

[carlfense]

 

 

In all fairness (Don't take this as defending the Republican party). We won't know if this financially can sustain itself until we have a number of years in the system.

That's true. All we have so far is the first year or so of data . . . and even that is incomplete.

 

What we can say with little doubt is that the hysteria was almost all hype.

 

99% of the time hysteria about anything (In Washington) is a load of crap and politically motivated.

 

I have no problem with people being concerned about the program financially. It is something that should be questioned any time you implement a major program.

 

Sure. For the same reason I think that some people are going to be a bit blindsided by that VA fix that is working through Congress . . .

[carlfense]

Now that Morrissey has learned that the initial premise undergirding his argument was wrong, has he reversed his conclusion? No, he has simply gone from arguing that high first-quarter growth in health spending proves Obamacare is a failure to arguing that low first-quarter health spending proves Obamcare is a failure:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/06/most-shameless-anti-obamacare-argument-yet.html

 

 

Perfect. Just perfect.

[carlfense]

7 predicted Obamacare disasters that never happened:

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5898879/seven-predicted-obamacare-disasters-that-never-happened

[sd'sker]

7 predicted Obamacare disasters that never happened:

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5898879/seven-predicted-obamacare-disasters-that-never-happened

i haven't gotten my calf implants i was promised, so i feel a little cheated. not sure that counts as a disaster, but still.

[TGHusker]

7 predicted Obamacare disasters that never happened:

http://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5898879/seven-predicted-obamacare-disasters-that-never-happened

Vox strikes again. I nominate and vote for Carl to be the ACA Czar. I think you can handle it Carl. Seriously, I appreciate all the info you have championed on this issue. Don't know how you have the time to investigate - but over time, I'm calmer about it. I don't think it will go away. What deficiencies it has will probably be tweaked in the years to come. Even wt the repubs get the full Congress, I bet they won't have the balls to try to repeal and replace - that will prove it was more air and no substance to bring to the table.

[BigRedBuster]

Honestly, it doesn't matter what we do with a health care plan unless we get these problems solved in our society. If not, our health care costs will continue to be astronomical.

 

LINK

[Abdullah the Butcher]

But with an $8 billion tax on insurers due Sept. 30 — the first time the new tax is being collected — the industry is getting help from an unlikely source: taxpayers.

States and the federal government will spend at least $700 million this year to pay the tax for their Medicaid health plans. The three dozen states that use Medicaid managed-care plans will give those insurers more money to cover the new expense. Many of those states — such as Florida, Louisiana and Tennessee — did not expand Medicaid as the law allows, and in the process turned down billions in new federal dollars.

Other insurers are getting some help paying the tax as well. Private insurers are passing the tax onto policyholders in the form of higher premiums. Medicare health plans are getting the tax covered by the federal government via higher reimbursement.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/30/obamacare-tax-healthcare-taxpayers-eight-billion/14861405/

[carlfense]

Obamacare train keeps not wrecking:

 

A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that in seven major cities that have released data on 2015 premiums, the price of the benchmark Obamacare plan — the second-cheapest silver plan, which the federal government uses to calculate subsidies —  is falling.

 

Yes, falling.

"Falling" is not a word that people associate with health-insurance premiums. They tend to rise as regularly as the morning sun. And, to be fair, the Kaiser Family Foundation is only looking at 16 cities in 15 states and the District of Columbia, and the drop they record is, on average, a modest 0.8 percent (though this is the same methodology they used in 2014, and to good results). But this data, though preliminary, is the best data we have  —  and it shows that Obamacare is doing a better job holding down costs than anyone seriously predicted, including Kaiser's researchers.

"I expected premium growth to be modest in most of the country," Larry Levitt, a co-author of the report, told Vox's Sarah Kliff.

"But what we saw were some decreases instead."

http://www.vox.com/2014/9/5/6108493/obamacare-premiums-lower-2015

[Abdullah the Butcher]

[carlfense]

Premium decreases. I wonder if the House majority would like any of those 40+ repeal votes back?

[Abdullah the Butcher]

http://humanevents.com/2014/09/09/obamacare-rates-going-up-in-nebraska-next-year/

 

 

Nebraska experienced some of the biggest premium hikes in the nation after the launch of the Affordable Care Act for people buying their own health insurance, most likely because insurance was cheaper here than in states that had already enacted Obamacare-like laws. Nebraskas rates went up 74 percent, according to aForbes study.

 

Now theyre going up again.

 

Under the federal Affordable Care Act, it appears that resulting health insurance costs will be increasing for most Nebraskans, Bruce Ramge, director of the Nebraska Department of Insurance, said in a press release.

 

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraskas rates will go up a whopping 19.5 percent on average, according to a rate sheet compiled by the insurance department.

 

Yay.