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In the case of Obamacare we do have to wait a year or 2 since the employer mandate has not been implemented.
The detractors of the ACA are constantly moving the failure goalposts back further and further. The ACA isn't perfect, not by a long shot...but it is still better than the immoral "profits over people, let them die" system we had before.
The detractors of the ACA are constantly moving the failure goalposts back further and further. The ACA isn't perfect, not by a long shot...but it is still better than the immoral "profits over people, let them die" system we had before.
In what way?
I basically have the same insurance, it just costs more today than in the "profits over people, let them die" system we had before. Nationally, there's some protections like no out-of-pocket maximums or dropping people when they get sick. Then there's the pre-existing people which is a combination of everyone paying more so some people can wait until they get sick before trying to screw an insurance company and people losing jobs or whatnot and becoming uninsurable because the existing employment-based system was always a bad idea.
But not really that much has changed . It's still far too early to say, but it still mostly seems like an employment-based system for the most part. There's really two or three groups that benefited. In states that expanded Medicare coverage, those people benefits. For people who make so little money that the more expensive ACA insurance ends up being less due to receiving welfare subsidy assistance than the previous plans were. The ranges greatly. For me, the break-even point was about $24,000/yr. If you make less than that, you get enough welfare to offset the cost increase. Of course, I'm young so my health insurance is cheap and ACA has the 3x rule which artificially raises the price for young people since they have to pay at least 1/3 the price that a higher risk (age) demographic does even though there's no actuarial basis for doing so. The last group that benefits is those who are uninsurable due to preexisting conditions and/or pregnancy which seems odd to lump together but basically fits.
it really hasn't changed much for the most part except to become more pay as you go.
we have a gold plan and should save about 5k this year with no subsidy. the basic insurance is cheaper then we had but it is more ala carte.
since we do not use much in the way of medical facilities other than our primary doctor i like i a lot better than our conventional plan we had where we pay more for insurance but more was covered that we didn't need..
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bg7
The number of people previously without healthcare in a first world country - that was the monstrosity. An obscenity in fact.
And the result is a tremendous number of people that now have healthcare with no premiums, paid for by those of us that lost our great, inexpensive premium/low co-pay plans. Those of us paying will only pay more as the bills come in for the medicare people.
Being an economist is not like being a doctor or a lawyer. People can basically grace themselves with the title, ignore the requirements of education/experience (or I have seen one person grace themselves with a PhD in Econ), and start throwing out crap. There's no real penalty for doing so besides real experts in the field laughing at them...which is dismissed as some conspiracy by elitists.
Publishers always will invite people to the opinion page because it creates content, it's free, and cranks love to spew nonsense. The crazier the forecast, or in dispute the idea, the better because it gets people reading it. As long as it is not complete gibbering insanity then it tends to get some views.
People who believe this crap no matter what won't care. Like doomsayers that predict the end of the world over and over to abject failure. It's not proof that supports their belief, it's critical to their life view. People like this keep making predictions over and over without a blink when it fails and a new date for the prediction comes along...some 10-20 times.
Let them spew their nonsense. They can create a large catalog of evidence for people to cite why they think this person a nut.
This Marc Thiesen calls himself an "economist"?!? This really explains why so many people distrust economists. He sure gives his profession a really bad rap. We know that about 8 mio people signed up for ObamaCare and about 4 million more people now have health care coverage than before. Not ideal, but a lot better than before. Let's go into details of what he said and "predicted":
- "Even if the administration manages to fix the Web site and finally implement the individual mandate, people still may not join — because the plans being offered are so unattractive."
- "Even with federal subsidies, few Americans will bother to buy insurance with a $4,000 to $12,700 deductible — and millions won’t even be eligible for the subsidies."
- "If enough Americans don’t join the exchanges, Obamacare collapses."
- "London’s Daily Mail reported that total sign-ups in the first week were just 51,000 people."
One more pseudo-"economist" we can scratch from our list to trust in anything.
The issue wasn't how many enrolled in ObamaCare, more the age of who enrolled. If it was older people who previously couldn't get onto private healthcare plans due to pre-existing conditions and illnesses heavily out weighting the healthy youngsters, there would problems with the rates in future years. When the cost to not get healthcare plans when the penalty is much lower than the yearly rate if you don't get health plans from your employer than paying it per month, it leaves an out for the invincibles to not offset sicker older enrollees. That is the issue.
providers were a problem ever since insurance required us to go in network so i can't say anything changed there. been doing that as long as i can remember.
coverage on wellness prescriptions like our lipitor is free now , so even that is a step up in our case.
while co-pays and out of pockets went up insurance fell from 13-14k a year to only 6500.00 or so . now we pay for what we use besides the family doctors up to 3k each or 6k a couple . even if we maxed out is a better deal and we are no where's near hitting the out of pockets.
09-19-2014, 12:23 PM
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n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by mkpunk
The issue wasn't how many enrolled in ObamaCare, more the age of who enrolled. If it was older people who previously couldn't get onto private healthcare plans due to pre-existing conditions and illnesses heavily out weighting the healthy youngsters, there would problems with the rates in future years. When the cost to not get healthcare plans when the penalty is much lower than the yearly rate if you don't get health plans from your employer than paying it per month, it leaves an out for the invincibles to not offset sicker older enrollees. That is the issue.
Which, thus far, available evidence does not suggest that this is actually a problem but rather wishful thinking on the part of people who want it to fail.
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