ObamaCare…coming soon

[Veritas]

Hearing Confirms ObamaCare Increases Costs, Uncertainty for Employers

WASHINGTON, D.C. | March 10, 2011 –

“Today, the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions held a hearing to investigate the rising cost of employer-provided health care and its impact on workers. Members of the subcommittee heard testimony that described a number of factors contributing to the growing expense, including the Democrats’ recent government takeover of health care.”
http://edworkforce.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=228704

[blahblahblah]

My insurance went up a whole s***load right after the Hope and Change went into effect. Good thing I live near TJ, I can always just downsize to a catastrophic plan and do all my health care down there.

[Veritas]

Just curious how you pick a physician in TJ. Do you have someone who recommended one or?

[SK in CV]

[quote=bearishgurl]SK, my understanding of the HCRA is that the carriers currently have to accept everyone who applies for an individual policy but can charge premiums according to risk until 2014. My fear is that when 2014 comes they will have to lower the premiums of these high users of health care and charge the rest of us in the same age group accordingly to make up the difference. That will really hurt the healthy boomer set that cannot yet qualify for Medicare![/quote]

Your understanding is not correct.

[SK in CV]

[quote=Aecetia]Just one of the top ten failures of Obamacare:

“Some Americans have already had a spike in the cost of their insurance premiums of an astounding 20% to 60%. Insurance companies have raised premiums in double-digit increases. For example, Blue Shield of California​ recently increased some of its individual plans by 59%, saying that 4% of the increase is a direct result of the new health care law.”

“Now, the CBO projects that the average American family will pay $2,100 more on health care premiums when the law is fully implemented (an increase of 10% to 13%).”

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=42461%5B/quote%5D

Wow. 4% out of 59% is because of the new law. That’s about 1.5% more than their closely related associate, Anthem Blue Cross has as their internal numbers. But you might as well blame the entire increase on the law. What the hell.

[Veritas]

What’s good for the goose: “Grassley said, ‘It’s only fair and logical that top administration officials, who fought so hard for passage of this overhaul of America’s health care system, experience it themselves. If it’s as good as promised, they’ll know it first-hand. If there are problems, they’ll be able to really understand them, as they should.’”

http://newledger.com/2010/03/exempted-from-obamacare-senior-staff-who-wrote-the-bill/

“This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” Morpheus

[Anonymous]

Aecetia, your explanations are pretty weak: some vague quotes from partisan sources and a few statistics that show insurance companies have raised rates – just like they’ve been doing for years.

Most of the HCRA hasn’t even gone into effect yet. There is nothing required by law right now that would cause these rate hikes.

Did it ever occur to you that insurance companies are raising rates now, before they are constrained by the legislation, so that they can alter public perception?

Here’s an example of how things work in real-life:

– Insurance company spokesperson: “We have to raise rates, Obama is making us do it!”

– The “objective” WSJ reports these “facts” – blaming Obamacare for the rate hikes.

– People who read these “newspapers” (read:industry propaganda) believe it and start repeating it around the office on the internet (it never even occurs to them that the billion-dollar insurance industry is playing them…)

Know any of these people?

[SK in CV]

[quote=pri_dk]Aecetia, your explanations are pretty weak: some vague quotes from partisan sources and a few statistics that show insurance companies have raised rates – just like they’ve been doing for years.

Most of the HCRA hasn’t even gone into effect yet. There is nothing required by law right now that would cause these rate hikes.

Did it ever occur to you that insurance companies are raising rates now, before they are constrained by the legislation, so that they can alter public perception?

Here’s an example of how things work in real-life:

– Insurance company spokesperson: “We have to raise rates, Obama is making us do it!”

– The “objective” WSJ reports these “facts” – blaming Obamacare for the rate hikes.

– People who read these “newspapers” (read:industry propaganda) believe it and start repeating it around the office on the internet (it never even occurs to them that the billion-dollar insurance industry is playing them…)

Know any of these people?[/quote]

This kind of shit happens all the time by people bound by political ideologies. When the first version of the bill was passed by the house (and still being debated by the house), someone posted, on this board, a list of 50 claims about the law, purported to have been written by a constitutional lawyer. With citations of page and line number for every one. So I read the bill. Beginning to end. As i did with the final bill. 49 out of the 50 were outright falsities (including “death panels”). I documented exactly why each was false. The one true statement was that minority medical school students would get grants.

But people who are ideologically opposed to either the sponsor of the bill, the party proposing the bill, or for any of dozens of other reasons, ignore facts, and stick with beliefs, latch on to those falsities to support their religious like beliefs despite all evidence to the contrary. It has dumbed us down as a country. It is, and will continue to be an impediment to progress.

[Anonymous]

[quote=SK in CV]But people who are ideologically opposed to either the sponsor of the bill, the party proposing the bill, or for any of dozens of other reasons, ignore facts, and stick with beliefs, latch on to those falsities to support their religious like beliefs despite all evidence to the contrary. It has dumbed us down as a country. It is, and will continue to be an impediment to progress.[/quote]

Yup.

The #1 reason people don’t believe that global warming is occurring:

Al Gore made a movie about it.

“If I don’t like the messenger, then I will refuse to even consider the message.”

[blahblahblah]

[quote=Veritas]Just curious how you pick a physician in TJ. Do you have someone who recommended one or?[/quote]

Yeah, I know someone who’s been down there and had good experiences. There is a pretty big medical tourism business there now, just google “medical tourism tijuana” and lots of stuff will pop up. People from all over the US fly to SD to go down there for treatments. Of course I haven’t been yet so maybe it’s not that great, I will know soon though…

[bearishgurl]

[quote=SK in CV][quote=bearishgurl]SK, my understanding of the HCRA is that the carriers currently have to accept everyone who applies for an individual policy but can charge premiums according to risk until 2014. My fear is that when 2014 comes they will have to lower the premiums of these high users of health care and charge the rest of us in the same age group accordingly to make up the difference. That will really hurt the healthy boomer set that cannot yet qualify for Medicare![/quote]

Your understanding is not correct.[/quote]

If you’ve read and studied the entire bill, SK, then perhaps you can explain to us here how these carriers are going to recoup the $$ when they can’t charge “Susie the recent cancer survivor” (age 59) or “Joe 6P the walking heart attack” (age 57) $1100 to $1600 a month for a premium anymore and may not deny either of them coverage.

The money to take care of these folks has to come from somewhere.

[SK in CV]

[quote=bearishgurl]
If you’ve read and studied the entire bill, SK, then perhaps you can explain to us here how these carriers are going to recoup the $$ when they can’t charge “Susie the recent cancer survivor” (age 59) or “Joe 6P the walking heart attack” (age 57) $1100 to $1600 a month for a premium anymore and may not deny either of them coverage.

The money to take care of these folks has to come from somewhere.[/quote]

I haven’t studied the bill, but I have read it. There is nothing that will keep them from charging $1100 to $1600 a month. (Depending on Susie and Joe’s age, they may already be charging those premiums.) There will still be risk-based pricing. Pricing will be significantly more complicated post-2013, in part depending on whether policies are inside or outside of the exchanges. And that complexity will vary from state to state, as some states already have guarantee issue and community rating in place, and high risk Susie and Joe may already be covered. In the majority of states, where those plans are not yet in place, that risk premium is expected to be transitional in nature and will in part be covered by reinsurance which will mitigate, in part, that risk premium.

Peripherally related, I recently sat in on a round table discussion (meaning me, and 4 guys sitting at a round table at a bar.) with 3 (of the 5) major carrier sales executives in my current state, along with a big group agent. They all expect 2012 to be the most competitive year in the last 10 with regards to pricing. Primarily as a result of 85% MLR floor (for group policies) set in place by the ACA, effective the first of this year. One way the insurance companies are attempting to circumvent the floor (or at least shift costs, effectivly circumventing it) is to include broker commissions as part of medical costs. They don’t expect that will happen, and as a result, fully expect commissions to be cut, maybe dramatically from the current standard of 5% for group policies.

[blahblahblah]

[quote=pri_dk]
Yup.

The #1 reason people don’t believe that global warming is occurring:

Al Gore made a movie about it.

“If I don’t like the messenger, then I will refuse to even consider the message.”[/quote]

Actually some people are beginning to question it because they read the news.

[mike92104]

[quote=SK in CV]

This kind of shit happens all the time by people bound by political ideologies. When the first version of the bill was passed by the house (and still being debated by the house), someone posted, on this board, a list of 50 claims about the law, purported to have been written by a constitutional lawyer. With citations of page and line number for every one. So I read the bill. Beginning to end. As i did with the final bill. 49 out of the 50 were outright falsities (including “death panels”). I documented exactly why each was false. The one true statement was that minority medical school students would get grants.

But people who are ideologically opposed to either the sponsor of the bill, the party proposing the bill, or for any of dozens of other reasons, ignore facts, and stick with beliefs, latch on to those falsities to support their religious like beliefs despite all evidence to the contrary. It has dumbed us down as a country. It is, and will continue to be an impediment to progress.[/quote]

I will point out that this works both ways. There have been several people on this board who will argue to death on behalf of one political party no matter how many facts are presented to prove them wrong.

[Anonymous]

So another cranky old scientist who does not even study climate writes a letter.

What are we supposed to do with this?

But he has a Nobel Prize!

So that means that we can also acknowledge Krugman as an authority on Economics…right?

I particularly like this part:

“I am Norwegian, should I really worry about a little bit of warming? I am unfortunately becoming an old man. We have heard many similar warnings about the acid rain 30 years ago and the ozone hole 10 years ago or deforestation but the humanity is still around. The ozone hole width has peaked in 1993,” he continued

Know why deforestation and ozone are less of a problem today? Because we did something about it!

http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/progsregs/arp/
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/Ozone/history.html

[Author]

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