Forum Replies Created
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SK in CV
ParticipantI appreciate your words carli. There is a problem even labeling her rants as opinions. Picking a favorite drink at Starbucks calls for an opinion. Speculating whether a particular group of people caused an insurance company to withdraw from a market isn’t an opinion. It’s not a matter of opinion. There is an objective reason. No opinions are warranted. Everyone is not entitled to an opinion on every subject. With some subjects, there’s only facts. This is one of them.
Participant[quote=bearishgurl][quote=SK in CV][quote=bearishgurl]
I feel that the probable reason for United Health backing out of offering plans on CC for 2016 was that Hispanics have a high rate of diabetes and high blood pressure as do members of Native American tribes and CA has the biggest population of any state in the nation of both of these races/Nationalities.[/quote]
I get that you hate brown people. But that doesn’t give you the right to make shit up. Your feelings don’t allow you to makes shit up without being called on it. If you have actual facts, share them. This isn’t an opinion thing. There may be a factual basis. Or it could be your racism. It’s one or the other.[/quote]I just saw this and it doesn’t even deserve a response except to say that (1) that it is NOT meant to be derogatory but it is simply a true statement, and (2) you don’t know a damn thing about me … not my race, my nationality or that of any of my close relatives …. nothing. So you can stop making insults directed at me now.[/quote]
It is not simply a true statement. It is a bigoted made up fantasy from someone who is either terrified or hateful of brown people. I don’t need to know anything about you to judge your words. Your words are racist. Full stop.
And this is how absolutely stupid your words are. Native Americans are exempt from the coverage mandate under the ACA. There might be some that are covered under exchange plans. But none of them have to be. None of them are subject to a penalty for not having coverage. So the likelihood that genetic predisposition to diabetes in Native American populations is even a tiny piece of the reason that an insurance company backed out of participating in an exchange is zero. But you “believe” they’re responsible. Because it’s easier to blame a brown person. Idiot.
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]
Ditto for the rest of the states.So this makes the ACA “successful” because it managed to get so many more people “covered” into “expanded” Medicaid/Medi-Cal :=0[/quote]
Yes, exactly. Not a dirty little secret. That was the goal. Get people access to health care. You really have a problem with that?
Participant[quote=bearishgurl] The dirty little secrets of how the ACA really works on the ground are never mentioned, including the fact that a large portion of those signing up on exchange plans WERE previously covered prior to the ACA but their plans dropped them (even if they were “grandfathered”) in the wake of “obamacare.”[/quote]
Every plan was grandfathered. No plan had to be cancelled because of Obamacare. Not a single one. Fact is, almost no insurance plans ever survived more than 2 years. Insurance companies constantly change them. And that goes for both the individual market and the employer market.
Your experience with the ACA is not representative of most people. Fortunately, actual facts aren’t affected by what you think. Most people like their exchange plans. But then, most people aren’t as bitter and racist as you either.
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]In reality, CC does not exist to place individuals and families in plans they like (or can live with) who are willing to pay the monthly premium for. CC does not care if it signed up 1M enrollees into “marketplace plans” or just 200K. CC exists solely to gather financial information from its unsuspecting enrollees to be culled and re-culled from month to month and year to year for possible forced Medi-Cal placement. [/quote]
1.7 million Californians purchased qualified healthcare plans on the exchange.
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]They have their OWN interpretation of the ACA. The bottom line is, you sign up on Covered CA for a non-MediCal plan and accept a subsidy to help pay the premiums (no matter how small), there are a whole lotta of strings attached to that. In short, CC owns your a$$. Not only MUST you file your tax returns on time and NOT file any extensions (as with ALL healthplan exchanges across the country) but your plan’s carrier has absolutely NO SAY whatsoever in whether they get to keep you as a customer the entire 12 months … or not. [/quote]
You can’t continue too make shit up without being called on it. Nobody is bound to accept subsidies. Anyone can pay full price for their insurance and never share any tax info. Furthermore, even if subscribers do accept subsidies, their tax returns must be timely filed. That means including extensions. You’re just wrong on this. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I have no idea what that last part of the last sentence means about carriers having no say in whether they keep you. They do. Insureds contracts are with the carrier. And only with the carrier.
Additionally, if someone wants to get a premium tax credit and doesn’t want to share tax information with the exchange, whether it’s California or any other state, they don’t have to. Ever. They do have to pay 100% of their premiums up front, and then take the tax credit on their tax return.
Participant[quote=bearishgurl]
I feel that the probable reason for United Health backing out of offering plans on CC for 2016 was that Hispanics have a high rate of diabetes and high blood pressure as do members of Native American tribes and CA has the biggest population of any state in the nation of both of these races/Nationalities.[/quote]
I get that you hate brown people. But that doesn’t give you the right to make shit up. Your feelings don’t allow you to makes shit up without being called on it. If you have actual facts, share them. This isn’t an opinion thing. There may be a factual basis. Or it could be your racism. It’s one or the other.
ParticipantI really didn’t think these words would be prescient so quickly.
[quote=SK in CV]
Extreme is deporting 12 million people who haven’t caused any problems. Extreme is not allowing more than a billion people entry into the country because of what other people have done. Extreme is passing laws that endanger the lives of millions of women. Those are policies supported by every Republican candidate. How far do you think every Republican candidate is from deporting every single non-citizen Muslim, and rounding up all the Muslim citizens and putting them in internment camps? You tell me, is that a big stretch or a little stretch? And then tell me that both sides are similarly extreme.[/quote]Ted Cruz said this morning:
[quote=Ted Cruz]
We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.[/quote]Secure Muslim neighborhoods. I live less than 1/2 a mile from a Mosque. He thinks half of my neighbors are terrorists and that my neighborhood needs to be locked down.
And some people really think that single payer healthcare is equally extreme?
Participant[quote=livinincali][quote=SK in CV]
Unlikely to happen. Under the ACA, insurance companies have no incentive to get costs under control, except to remain competitive with other insurance companies. There are no limits as to what they can charge, so long as they use the statutory percentage for health care.There are no new sudden cost increases under the ACA. There is a continuation of cost increases that dates back decades. And that includes both costs of medical care and premium costs. There were safeguards in place under the original law, to allow small insurance co-ops to succeed during the first few years, in case of catastrophic losses. Those safeguards were removed, guaranteeing failure of some of these coops. But the large insurance companies are doing just fine in most states. In states they’re not doing fine, they’ll figure it out. Their business is medical insurance. They’re unlikely to abandon controlled markets for their products.[/quote]
Of course there are costs increases under the ACA. Having to insure people with pre-existing conditions and having to create plans that insure things beyond what their previous plans insured both increased costs. There were a variety of people that were forced to change their health insurance plan because it did not meet the requirements specified in the law. For many of those people health insurance became more expensive rather than less expensive. I’m sure BG can write a novel about it.
In addition they cannot just raise premiums to whatever they want. They have to get approval from regulatory bodies. Even if they could raise the prices to whatever they’d like eventually it becomes too expensive and healthy people stop signing up. Why is United Health considering leaving the exchanges if everything is fine and they’ll just figure it out. I think they are figuring it out. It might be more profitable to stick to corporate health plans and ditch offering plans on the exchanges.
When Obama said that you don’t have to change your insurance if you don’t want to, he was 100% correct. He just should have added the caveat that if your insurance company changes their policy, it will have to conform to the new law. Every existing policy in force when the law was passed could have remained, and allowed. The insurance companies, elected, voluntarily, to change every one of their policies. That increased costs.
The law was passed 6 years ago tomorrow. There have been no changes since that time that would create sudden increases in costs. In the first 5 years of the laws existence, premiums went up at the slowest rate in decades. Health care spending went up at the slowest rate in decades.
Insurance companies can increase their rates any way they want, so long as they can prove that the rates are justifiable under the law. The law allows for an MLR of 80% for individual plans and 85% for group plans.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got refunds every single year, either directly or through my employer, since that part of the law went into effect. Which means that the premiums charged created a MLR of less than the limit.
United health hasn’t left yet. And if they do, competitors will replace them. Insurance is extremely profitable business. If Blue Cross and Aetna can make money, then United Health can.
Participant[quote=livinincali]As I see it Obamacare will likely cease to function if they can’t get costs under control. There’s nothing that forces an insurance company to operate in the exchanges and if costs continue to rise and healthy individuals drop plans then the insurance companies will just stop offering plans in various markets. It might end up worse than before. [/quote]
Unlikely to happen. Under the ACA, insurance companies have no incentive to get costs under control, except to remain competitive with other insurance companies. There are no limits as to what they can charge, so long as they use the statutory percentage for health care.
There are no new sudden cost increases under the ACA. There is a continuation of cost increases that dates back decades. And that includes both costs of medical care and premium costs. There were safeguards in place under the original law, to allow small insurance co-ops to succeed during the first few years, in case of catastrophic losses. Those safeguards were removed, guaranteeing failure of some of these coops. But the large insurance companies are doing just fine in most states. In states they’re not doing fine, they’ll figure it out. Their business is medical insurance. They’re unlikely to abandon controlled markets for their products.
Participant[quote=flyer]I realize others have stated they disagree, but, personally, I see bs and chaos on both sides. The few times I’ve tuned in to listen to either party speak, I’ve heard raving, ranting and promises made that only a fool would believe could actually be accomplished in reality–given the involvement of the three branches of government–vs. a monarchy–which the candidates appear to believe exists in the US.
Pandering to the masses has become an art form in this election beyond anything I’ve ever seen in my lifetime, and those who are being duped into voting for, what will most likely be proven to be empty promises, will become the victims of their own ignorance. That said, everyone is certainly free to believe whatever they want to believe.[/quote]
Campaign rhetoric isn’t chaos. Candidates state their positions. Things they want to do. Some are interpreted as promises. Other than tea baggers, nobody holds candidates responsible when they try to turn their agendas into law and fail because they can’t get support for those agendas. There has been no chaos on the dem side. There isn’t even any subjectivity in that assertion. The word has a very specific meaning. As presidential campaigns go, there hasn’t even been much in the way of BS.
Participant[quote=AN]Although Hillary is against TPP now, she was pretty open to TPP in the past. This is what I’m talking about in running to the left in primary and running back to the center during the general. I don’t think Bernie would ever support TPP, even in the general. That’s what’s the difference. Bill was pretty open to free trade (NAFTA).
ACA, I won’t even go there, since I dislike both stance on it. But there’s a difference. Hillary is willing to compromise about it, while Bernie want to go straight to single payer now (no middle ground).
As for taxes, you can chalk it up as gut feeling, since neither of them have given an exact tax plans with all the rates for all the brackets. However, as I said, Bernie offered up much more social benefits than Hillary, and that’s where I think in order to balance the budget, taxes would have to go up a lot more under Bernie than Hillary.[/quote]
You could be right on TPP. The thing is, Hillary didn’t have to make a 180. She never endorsed TPP. What she’s endorsed is the right fair trade agreement, and she never gave the TPP her seal of approval. Sanders has endorsed the exact same thing.
We disagree on the ACA (and I suspect, most of your reasons for not liking it has nothing to do with anything that’s in the law), but Bernie and Hillary don’t. What Sanders has proved, over and over again in his 25 years in congress, is that he can compromise. He compromised by voting for the ACA. Hillary probably would compromise earlier, but that doesn’t make either one of their positions extreme.
Their biggest difference is in foreign policy. Hillary can’t cut taxes enough for the middle class because she’s ready to go to war at an ugly fart, and won’t cut defense. Sanders can pay for all his programs with defense cuts. But cuts to defense are not an extreme position, except for those that think Iraq was a good idea.
Extreme is deporting 12 million people who haven’t caused any problems. Extreme is not allowing more than a billion people entry into the country because of what other people have done. Extreme is passing laws that endanger the lives of millions of women. Those are policies supported by every Republican candidate. How far do you think every Republican candidate is from deporting every single non-citizen Muslim, and rounding up all the Muslim citizens and putting them in internment camps? You tell me, is that a big stretch or a little stretch? And then tell me that both sides are similarly extreme.
Participant[quote=AN][quote=SK in CV][quote=AN]I view Bernie as pretty extreme in comparison to Hillary and Bill.[/quote]
Be specific please. Extreme with regards to which policy position?[/quote]Taxes, trade, (to a much smaller extent) single payer healthcare.[/quote]
Both are opposed to the TPP. Sanders wants single payer now, and Clinton wants to improve upon the ACA (more towards single payer).
Clinton on taxes:
“The wealthiest pay too little in taxes while the middle class needs more relief. I’m going to fix that. I’ll close corporate tax loopholes and make sure millionaires and billionaires can’t pay lower rates than middle-class families. And I’ll give tax relief to working families who are struggling with costs from college to health care.”
Sanders on taxes:
“The wealthy and large corporations must pay their fair share. As president, I will stop corporations from shifting profits and jobs overseas to avoid paying taxes. I will tax Wall St. speculators who caused millions their jobs, homes, and life savings. I will tell the billionaire class: You can’t have it all while kids in this country go hungry.”
There’s not a lot of room between those two.
The biggest differences between the two is free college v. college that is affordable for all, and single payer now v. move towards single payer. Both are pretty standard Dem policy positions. Same targets. Different paths.
Participant[quote=AN]I view Bernie as pretty extreme in comparison to Hillary and Bill.[/quote]
Be specific please. Extreme with regards to which policy position?
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