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Mary Landrieu's Bill

Unabogie

Philosopher
Unabogie
Joined
Aug 5, 2005
Messages
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Location
Portland, OR
Full text here:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s1642/text

Basically it provides that anyone who has a health insurance policy can keep it as long as the insurer offers such policies. On the whole, I support the idea. Although I have a few concerns about the wording.

1. Wouldn't this basically mandate that those insurance companies continue offering these policies even if they weren't making money? And isn't that actually controlling the health care market in a way that even the ACA doesn't?
2. Is this really an improvement? After all, the plans being cancelled are some of the worst plans out there or they wouldn't be cancelled. Is it better to offer this choice?
3. What will this do to the actuarials? Will it disrupt the expectations and cause the ACA to be less successful that it otherwise would be?

On the plus side, I think that most people who are on these crap plans will wean themselves off over time, and this bill says that only plans currently in effect are saved, which basically just staves off Obamacare for a bit more. It just eases the transition.

So on the whole, I'm not opposed to it, although I think it needs tweaking. And I mainly would support it so that the people whinging about "cancelled plans!!!!!!" would shut up while the rest of the country enrolls in the better coverage.

Lastly, what we really need to fix "rate shock" is a public option and/or price controls to lower the overall cost to get more in line with the rest of the world. There's no reason we should pay twice as much as everyone else for the same thing. And more generous subsidies, paid for by drastic cuts in military spending and making the wealthy pay the same tax rate as the rest of us.

Thoughts?
 
If it doesn't repeal the ACA outright, the GOP won't go for it. They don't want to improve or tweak the law, they want to kill it.

And they have no alternative to offer.
 
Unabogie said:
Full text here:

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s1642/text

Basically it provides that anyone who has a health insurance policy can keep it as long as the insurer offers such policies. On the whole, I support the idea. Although I have a few concerns about the wording.

1. Wouldn't this basically mandate that those insurance companies continue offering these policies even if they weren't making money? And isn't that actually controlling the health care market in a way that even the ACA doesn't?
2. Is this really an improvement? After all, the plans being cancelled are some of the worst plans out there or they wouldn't be cancelled. Is it better to offer this choice?
3. What will this do to the actuarials? Will it disrupt the expectations and cause the ACA to be less successful that it otherwise would be?

On the plus side, I think that most people who are on these crap plans will wean themselves off over time, and this bill says that only plans currently in effect are saved, which basically just staves off Obamacare for a bit more. It just eases the transition.

So on the whole, I'm not opposed to it, although I think it needs tweaking. And I mainly would support it so that the people whinging about "cancelled plans!!!!!!" would shut up while the rest of the country enrolls in the better coverage.

Lastly, what we really need to fix "rate shock" is a public option and/or price controls to lower the overall cost to get more in line with the rest of the world. There's no reason we should pay twice as much as everyone else for the same thing. And more generous subsidies, paid for by drastic cuts in military spending and making the wealthy pay the same tax rate as the rest of us.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
I'm thinking that if someone had applied this level of scrutiny to Obamacare in the first place, and anyone had heeded their warnings, we wouldn't need this bill.
 
theprestige said:
I'm thinking that if someone had applied this level of scrutiny to Obamacare in the first place, and anyone had heeded their warnings, we wouldn't need this bill.
Click to expand...

Of course we would. No large program goes off without a hitch. Sounds like you have no interest in making the law better.
 
If one of the objectives of the ACA is to ensure that all U.S. residents have a minimum acceptable standard of insurance then this amendment to the bill will ensure that it fails and that insurance companies can continue to offer insurance policies which aren't worth the paper they are printed on.

One of the high profile "failure" stories of ACA is the woman who was paying $50 a month for what she considered a good policy and who was being forced to lay nearly $600 a month under ACA (although actually by shopping around and claiming a subsidy this would be reduced drastically). When the Fox journalist looked into the policy, it was essentially worthless.

Al least one poster on this board has said that they are happy with a huge deductable, low benefit policy. I'm not against someone being screwed by their insurer as long as they go in with their eyes open but the story above highlights that there are lots of people out there who think they are covered but aren't. If I understand it, the ACA was supposed to address this.

U.S. healthcare is still too expensive (at least twice the price without any improvement in outcomes) and if bad insurance policies can still be sold, people can become bankrupt because of a bad run of medical luck. IMO this is unacceptable in a modern society.
 
Unabogie said:
3. What will this do to the actuarials? Will it disrupt the expectations and cause the ACA to be less successful that it otherwise would be?
Click to expand...

You would probably get the self-selecting problem. People who are relatively healthy and don't expect to need better insurance would keep those plans, and other people would tend to opt for the plans with better coverage.

If they do get sick later and suddenly need real coverage, they could buy a better plan from the exchanges without paying any penalty.

I think it's political ass-covering and not well thought-out.
 
Puppycow said:
You would probably get the self-selecting problem. People who are relatively healthy and don't expect to need better insurance would keep those plans, and other people would tend to opt for the plans with better coverage.

If they do get sick later and suddenly need real coverage, they could buy a better plan from the exchanges without paying any penalty.

I think it's political ass-covering and not well thought-out.
Click to expand...

I totally agree that it's merely ass covering, but note that in the bill, it states that this only applies to plans purchased before Dec. 2013. So starting next year, carriers won't be able to sell any new horrible plans. It will just enable people who want to stay on whatever plan they have now, do so.

In the long run, I suspect it won't have much effect on anything, since this is a small percentage of people who would willingly stay on a crappy plan that really won't cover them, when they could have actual insurance for a little more. But it would quiet the complainers long enough for the rest of the country to enroll and iron out the kinks in the system. That has some value.
 
Puppycow said:
I think it's political ass-covering and not well thought-out.
Click to expand...

This ^

It's little more than political posturing from nervous Democrats who are up for re-election next year. It stands less than a snowball's chance in hell of going anywhere.
 
MattusMaximus said:
This ^

It's little more than political posturing from nervous Democrats who are up for re-election next year. It stands less than a snowball's chance in hell of going anywhere.
Click to expand...

So does this mean there's not a single conservative who's interested in improving the law's implementation?

The thread on "Did Obama Lie" has hundreds of posts. This one is met with crickets.

I guess governing is hard.
 
Unabogie said:
So does this mean there's not a single conservative who's interested in improving the law's implementation?
Click to expand...
There's plenty of them. They're just not Republicans. They're conservative Democrats, and independents who are so fed up with the joke that passes for a two-party system in the US that they don't want to be associated with either party.

To be fair, I'm sure there are some Republican conservatives out there who are interested in improving the law's implementation. But any of them in politics are not about to destroy their political careers with such blasphemy.
 
Unabogie said:
So does this mean there's not a single conservative who's interested in improving the law's implementation?

The thread on "Did Obama Lie" has hundreds of posts. This one is met with crickets.

I guess governing is hard.
Click to expand...

Most of the posts in one of the other threads on the ACA are also about the big Obama lie. It's mostly posts endlessly repeating minor variations same arguments.
 
If I am reading this right, people could sign up for any health plan this year and that would count as being properly insured for as many years as they keep that plan. This might lead to a rush to sign up for cheap plans that provide almost no protection against a serious medical problem. This bill isn't as bad as the House proposal that would allow selling junk insurance through the end of 2014.

The net result of allowing more grandfathered policies would be an increase in cost shifting. Premiums on the exchange plans would also be somewhat higher because fewer healthy people were buying those plans.
 
Kestrel said:
If I am reading this right, people could sign up for any health plan this year and that would count as being properly insured for as many years as they keep that plan. This might lead to a rush to sign up for cheap plans that provide almost no protection against a serious medical problem. This bill isn't as bad as the House proposal that would allow selling junk insurance through the end of 2014.

The net result of allowing more grandfathered policies would be an increase in cost shifting. Premiums on the exchange plans would also be somewhat higher because fewer healthy people were buying those plans.
Click to expand...

But I think the effects would be small enough not to matter. I agree with Dylan Scott that it's the combination of discontinued plans and a borked website that has people spooked. If people could shop for better plans right away and sign up for them, then the number of people who perceive themselves to be adversely affected by the new law would drop tremendously.

Remember, these crap plans notoriously only last about a year. That's since very few people meet all the criteria for someone who would stay on one: no insurance through work, affluent enough to not need subsidies, young, healthy, etc. As long as you don't make this permanent and just extend the current policies (I'd change it to read any policy in place at the time the law was enacted), then all new policies will be good insurance and people who stupidly want to keep phony insurance can do it a little while longer. I suspect there won't be many of them once the exchanges are up and running smoothly.
 
The ACA does grandfather insurance plans in effect at the time the law was signed. But you wouldn't know that from the screams in the press. Most of the articles I read about this issue have the facts wrong.

Yes, we could pass another law expanding the grandfather clause, but I doubt it would quiet down the noise. It might be better to just go ahead and let the plans die, especially as the web site seems to be rapidly improving.

ETA: It seems that Obama gave in. His new proposal allows people to keep their plans for another year. But since he can't force the insurance companies to keep offering the plans, the right wing will be screaming about Obama's new lie.
 
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Kestrel said:
The ACA does grandfather insurance plans in effect at the time the law was signed. But you wouldn't know that from the screams in the press. Most of the articles I read about this issue have the facts wrong.

Yes, we could pass another law expanding the grandfather clause, but I doubt it would quiet down the noise. It might be better to just go ahead and let the plans die, especially as the web site seems to be rapidly improving.

ETA: It seems that Obama gave in. His new proposal allows people to keep their plans for another year. But since he can't force the insurance companies to keep offering the plans, the right wing will be screaming about Obama's new lie.
Click to expand...

What else is new? I guess they're just pissed off that he called their bluff and effectively denied them a talking point for the 2014 elections.
 
Not to mention that even Democrats are questioning whether Obama has the unilateral power to amend the law.
 
Obama's healthcare 'fix' strictly political move
At best, President Obama's proposed healthcare “fix” offers political protection for vulnerable lawmakers. That's because beyond giving insurance companies permission to continue offering individual healthcare plans that don't comply with the Affordable Care Act, the president's fix doesn't compel anyone to do anything. ...
Click to expand...

In other words, it really is on the insurance companies and state regulators if they want to extend these policies or not. If they choose not to do so, don't blame Obama.
 
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He's not amending the law. No insurers are being compelled to do anything. They just won't be penalized if they choose to continue those plans for another year.

Gee, seeing as how the last few weeks were all about how Obama broke his promise and that cancelled plans were worse than Watergate, you'd think Teabaggers would be elated about it. After all, now no one will lose their plan unless insurance companies, of their own volition, decide to cancel them.

I'm just bemused at why that's not so.
 
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