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Heeeeeeere's Obamacare!

Unabogie said:
You mean as opposed to before, when they had no insurance at all? Have you really thought this through? By the way, what percentage of these patients are you claiming haven't paid? And how would people who haven't paid their premiums hurt the hospital? Would that hurt the insurer?
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Have you really thought this through? Those uninsured people previously showed up at the ER with a broken limb, received treatment, then received a bill, didn't pay it and this cost us all, right?

Now they have some plan through the ACA, subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Now they show up with a broken limb, the hospital bills their insurance, it gets applied to their 10,000.00 deductible, the patient gets a bill for $3500.00, doesn't pay and we are right back where we started from, except now we've got higher taxes to show for it.
 
Ampulla of Vater said:
Have you really thought this through? Those uninsured people previously showed up at the ER with a broken limb, received treatment, then received a bill, didn't pay it and this cost us all, right?

Now they have some plan through the ACA, subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Now they show up with a broken limb, the hospital bills their insurance, it gets applied to their 10,000.00 deductible, the patient gets a bill for $3500.00, doesn't pay and we are right back where we started from, except now we've got higher taxes to show for it.
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A typical Bronze plan from the exchange has a $5,000 individual deductible. Catastrophic plans available only to some applicants may have a $6,350 deductible. But apparently that isn't high enough for ACA opponents, so they lie about the numbers.

ETA: Those close to the poverty line are covered by Medicaid. A program that does have minimal copays, but does not have a deductible. Families with incomes less than 250% of the poverty line are eligible for special versions of Silver plans with reduced copays and deductibles.
 
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Ampulla of Vater said:
Have you really thought this through? Those uninsured people previously showed up at the ER with a broken limb, received treatment, then received a bill, didn't pay it and this cost us all, right?

Now they have some plan through the ACA, subsidized by taxpayer dollars. Now they show up with a broken limb, the hospital bills their insurance, it gets applied to their 10,000.00 deductible, the patient gets a bill for $3500.00, doesn't pay and we are right back where we started from, except now we've got higher taxes to show for it.
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As Kestrel pointed out, the deductibles in the ACA plans are much lower than $10,000, but even your contrived example fails to support your case. If someone breaks a leg with no insurance, they still go to the emergency room. So a person with insurance who nonetheless doesn't hit his deductible in an emergency does not affect a hospital either way, since the hospital would still end up treating the patient and eating the cost. What does change with Obamacare, is that people who go in for routine checkups now have insurance, so hospitals get paid for those since those are free under Obamacare. Furthermore, patients whose ER visits (or heart treatments or cancer treatments) exceed the $3500 deductible are no longer forcing costs to be borne solely by the hospital (and then passed on to the rest of us). Those people are now insured so the hospital is collecting more money than they were before, no matter how you count it.

So in light of this obvious math, how would Obamacare be causing hospitals to close? You can attempt to argue that insurance companies could be hurting, but not hospitals. And insurance companies are not hurting, since more of them want in on the exchanges next year than this year. And you could argue that people are not finding affordable insurance, but the average exchange premium is $82 a month, which by anyone's standard is pretty darn cheap for full coverage.
 
The ACA does not do much for those with incomes just above 400% of the FPL who are in their late 50s or early 60s. Insurance premiums for this group may be over 15% of household income in some areas.
 
Unabogie said:
As Kestrel pointed out, the deductibles in the ACA plans are much lower than $10,000, but even your contrived example fails to support your case. If someone breaks a leg with no insurance, they still go to the emergency room. So a person with insurance who nonetheless doesn't hit his deductible in an emergency does not affect a hospital either way, since the hospital would still end up treating the patient and eating the cost. What does change with Obamacare, is that people who go in for routine checkups now have insurance, so hospitals get paid for those since those are free under Obamacare. Furthermore, patients whose ER visits (or heart treatments or cancer treatments) exceed the $3500 deductible are no longer forcing costs to be borne solely by the hospital (and then passed on to the rest of us). Those people are now insured so the hospital is collecting more money than they were before, no matter how you count it.
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Firstly, no one gets a routine checkup at the hospital, so I don't know where you're getting that from. Secondly, I am seeing $10,000 deductibles through the exchange every day, so somewhere these are available.

Unabogie said:
So in light of this obvious math, how would Obamacare be causing hospitals to close? You can attempt to argue that insurance companies could be hurting, but not hospitals. And insurance companies are not hurting, since more of them want in on the exchanges next year than this year. And you could argue that people are not finding affordable insurance, but the average exchange premium is $82 a month, which by anyone's standard is pretty darn cheap for full coverage.
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Insurance companies aren't going to hurt because the federal gubment has agreed to cover their losses due to the ACA, which is also probably why more of them now want in. They have nothing to lose.

IMO, hospitals are hurting because Medicaid's rates do not cover the cost of doing business. I'm sure there are many additional factors, but you can research a topic just as easily as I can.
 
Ampulla of Vater said:
Firstly, no one gets a routine checkup at the hospital, so I don't know where you're getting that from. Secondly, I am seeing $10,000 deductibles through the exchange every day, so somewhere these are available.



Insurance companies aren't going to hurt because the federal gubment has agreed to cover their losses due to the ACA, which is also probably why more of them now want in. They have nothing to lose.

IMO, hospitals are hurting because Medicaid's rates do not cover the cost of doing business. I'm sure there are many additional factors, but you can research a topic just as easily as I can.
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Where do you get the idea that no one gets checkups at the hospital? That is where my doctor is.
 
Ampulla of Vater said:
Firstly, no one gets a routine checkup at the hospital, so I don't know where you're getting that from. Secondly, I am seeing $10,000 deductibles through the exchange every day, so somewhere these are available.

Insurance companies aren't going to hurt because the federal gubment has agreed to cover their losses due to the ACA, which is also probably why more of them now want in. They have nothing to lose.

IMO, hospitals are hurting because Medicaid's rates do not cover the cost of doing business. I'm sure there are many additional factors, but you can research a topic just as easily as I can.
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A Bronze plan on the exchange typically has a $5,000 deductible for each individual and $10,000 for a family even if no individual in the family has reached the deductible.

For the first couple years of the exchange, there is an optional program that allows insurance companies to share risks and rewards with the government. The big risk was that only those with chronic illness would sign up for the exchange. The exchange sign up numbers indicate that didn't happen.
 
Paul Krugman made some interesting comments about the Affordable Care Act.

Have you been following the news about Obamacare? The Affordable Care Act has receded from the front page, but information about how it’s going keeps coming in — and almost all the news is good. Indeed, health reform has been on a roll ever since March, when it became clear that enrollment would surpass expectations despite the teething problems of the federal website.

What’s interesting about this success story is that it has been accompanied at every step by cries of impending disaster. At this point, by my reckoning, the enemies of health reform are 0 for 6. That is, they made at least six distinct predictions about how Obamacare would fail — every one of which turned out to be wrong.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/27/opinion/paul-krugman-so-much-for-obamacare-not-working.html
 
This is why they aren't running against Obamacare anymore and are now focused on Executive Orders.
 
As they say, time will tell if the law is ultimately successful or not. Elements of the law are still not in effect because they've been delayed. I will however observe this thread as a study of the similarities between political pundits and conspiracy theories. If there is one thing they have in common it's that the bias projected is quite similar... such as the appeal to silence ;)
 
Grizzly Bear said:
As they say, time will tell if the law is ultimately successful or not. Elements of the law are still not in effect because they've been delayed. I will however observe this thread as a study of the similarities between political pundits and conspiracy theories. If there is one thing they have in common it's that the bias projected is quite similar... such as the appeal to silence ;)
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The next Obamacare failure prediction is that in 2015 employers will stop providing health insurance for employees when the penalty for not providing insurance goes from $0 to $2,000. :rolleyes:
 
Federal Health Exchange Stays Busy After Open Enrollment Ends

For months, journalists and politicians fixated on the number of people signing up for health insurance through the federal exchange created as part of the Affordable Care Act. It turned out that more than 5 million people signed up using HealthCare.gov by April 19.

But perhaps more surprising is that, according to federal data released Wednesday to ProPublica, there have been nearly 1 million transactions on the exchange since then. People are allowed to sign up and switch plans after certain life events, such as job changes, moves, the birth of a baby, marriages and divorces.

The volume of these transactions was a jolt even for those who have watched the rollout of the ACA most closely.

"That's higher than I would have expected," said Larry Levitt, senior vice president for special initiatives at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "There are a lot of people who qualify for special enrollment, but my assumption has been that few of them would actually sign up." ...
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And, in case anyone's interested, you can get direct access to the ProPublica data and a detailed analysis of it here.

Thanks, Obama! :D
 
I think my wife, Karen, is included in that number since yesterday.

Our situation is complicated - let me compile some numbers and I'll post them later.

As a quick summary, we are now paying more overall for heath insurance, in spite of the fact I qualified for Medicare yesterday. But I will stipulate our coverage is better.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Are you happy with the outcome? Because at the end of the day, your satisfaction with what you are getting relative to the price you're paying is what matters.
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Very, very hard to say.

I'd say, overall, "No", but my situation is complicated.

I would have hoped that going on Medicare would have saved me money. After all, I've been paying into it my entire adult working life. But to get good coverage, I needed to add a Part D Rx Plan (cheap at $19/month, but with a $310 deductible) and a Supplemental to cover a lot of the Medicare Deductible (reasonable at $109/month). Plus, Medicare isn't free, so that's another $104.90/month. Overall, even with Medicare I'm paying 28% more, assuming that our previous premium was split 50/50.

Karen's situation is worse. Less on the deductible ($6,600 down from $10,000) and there are purported to be other benefits - no caps and the like. But that's with an 89% increase in premium, which would have been much more but for the fact that we should qualify for that subsidized price.

Here's how the numbers compared:

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So, in no way did we see the $2,500/year savings that Obama held out as the savings a "typical family" would see. In spite of going on Medicare, our overall health insurance cost went up 59%, coincidentally just over $2,500 a year increase.

So not happy, but it is what it is and its the law of the land and we'll live with it. Still do not see the mechanism by which the act will make health insurance more affordable for the "typical family", but might as well complain about the weather!
 
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