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And yet it was Obama who saw fit to spew lie after lie. I agree ACA didn't dismantle the old system, but it did increase costs for many, it did impose unfair regulations like force people to carry maternity insurance when they have no need for it. And the ACA is so good for everyone that our President felt the need to lie in order to sell it.
There are three age bands to ACA compliant insurance. I am in the oldest ban and it's beyond unlikely I will become pregnant. The actuaries know this and price accordingly.
The same actuaries also know that those in the younger age band are more likely to engage in unprotected sex with all the consequences, including pregnancy and STDs, including HIV. They also know this age group in more likely to be involved in a serious car accident and engage in substance abuse than the oldest bracket.
The actuaries also know that the oldest age bracket is more likely to be diagnosed with something seriously icky than the youngest age band. In my state, the premiums for the youngest age band are half of what they are for my age band.
The ACA Misinformation Machine has gotten tremendous mileage out of the inability to exclude maternity benefits from an ACA compliant policy. The Machine has created the perception that the cost of a maternity rider is baked into every ACA compliant policy. If that were the case, there would be no age bands that factor the most likely risks into the premium.
Ok, M.A.M., I'm in Nebraska where BC/BS is the class act.
But I have questions for you. Presuming your interest in providing for the uninsured is sincere, why are you a proponent of Obamacare? We do not know the future, of course, but let's pretend we both care about the uninsured. (I actually do; I think the health care for a child should not depend on who its parents are--we need all the children to grow up healthy and well-educated so they can pay a lot of social security taxes for your benefit and mine.)
1. Obamacare seems somewhat likely to actually result in more uninsured people on January 1, rather than less, due in part to the incredible incompetence of the Obama administration.
2. ACA-compliant policies in many states have large deductibles and never-before-seen coinsurance requirements. The large fraction of the population that is living paycheck-to-paycheck will not be able to afford any actual care for health issues. (They will be able to have physicals and screenings, but won't be able to afford recommended treatment.) With thousand dollar deductibles and 30-50% coinsurance, actual care is not going to happen even if the insurance was free after subsidies--for many people.
3. One of the immutable laws of economics is that when the price of something goes up, less of that thing is purchased by the market. The ACA raises the cost of employing people for thirty hours per week or more, so by definition it is a job-killer and paycheck-reducer. Doesn't this byproduct do great damage to the same people who are now uninsured?
4. According to the best estimates of the Obama administration, tens of millions will remain uninsured a decade after the launch of the ACA.
So bottom line, the ACA lets the well-intentioned act as if they are doing something for those less fortunate, without actually accomplishing much for those less fortunate. Why are you not fighting for reform of health care reform?
If some of us stop acting like the old status quo was great, could people on the other side stop acting as if the ACA is wonderful? Then maybe, just maybe, could we build a rational system that actually cares for all citizens without the economic damage inflicted by either the old status quo or the ACA?
edit: just saw your question about grandfathering. You have swallowed a red herring, for this reason: any decent policy had rising premiums year to year to keep up with the rising cost of health care. Premium increases were considered a change in the plan that disqualified 'grandfather' status. Therefore, no decent policies could actually be grandfathered. So please stop asking that question, it makes you look uninformed.
Premium increases were built into the plan that QUALIFIED "grandfather" status. Granted, the premium increases had to fall within a certain range, but they were certainly permitted.
except everybody and even my cat knows that the insurers will show a middle finger to this directive
and they can't even be blamed for that - only an incompetent liar a.k.a. obama could expect that a 4 year old work of preparation for this disaster obamacare can be changed 180 because the king said so.
What "4 year old work of preparation?"
If the insurers were really prepared, they wouldn't have still been selling non-compliant plans that had to be cancelled this year or next.
BTW, you do know that there are several bills currently in Congress that would do essentially the same thing as what the President proposed, right?
Here's one:
""So what I did was introduce a bill almost two weeks ago that said if you have an individual healthcare policy that was effective as of this year, January 2013, that policy in fact is grandfathered in and it allows you to keep it for another year. You're not going to be subject to a penalty. You're not going to be forced to find something else," Upton explains."
There are three age bands to ACA compliant insurance. I am in the oldest ban and it's beyond unlikely I will become pregnant. The actuaries know this and price accordingly.
The same actuaries also know that those in the younger age band are more likely to engage in unprotected sex with all the consequences, including pregnancy and STDs, including HIV. They also know this age group in more likely to be involved in a serious car accident and engage in substance abuse than the oldest bracket.
The actuaries also know that the oldest age bracket is more likely to be diagnosed with something seriously icky than the youngest age band. In my state, the premiums for the youngest age band are half of what they are for my age band.
The ACA Misinformation Machine has gotten tremendous mileage out of the inability to exclude maternity benefits from an ACA compliant policy. The Machine has created the perception that the cost of a maternity rider is baked into every ACA compliant policy. If that were the case, there would be no age bands that factor the most likely risks into the premium.
There is a different price for every year of age in my pricesheet. They don't vary much from year to year at first, but the increase is not linear (it rises faster after 40) but the highest (me) is 3 times the lowest (my minor children) and it is not because people over 40 are getting pregnant in large numbers. My understanding is that if anyone is paying more than their fair share it is the young and fertile - irrespective of whether maternity is covered.
And really, does everyone on the right of the aisle have medically underwritten policies? They act like they have never heard of such a thing. Group policies have covered maternity and BC pills from the 80s IIRC. This is nothing new. It increases the risk pool. ACA is a group plan.
Stop the nonsense, just GIVE EVERYONE a base level of care--no charge, single payer. Anybody that wants better than government care can pay cash or buy supplemental insurance.
I did not realize you were an advocate of single payer. Reportedly, 16% of those opposed to the ACA oppose it because they favor single payer.
I too am an advocate for single payer. I would expand/reform Medicare.
When one looks at all the other nations with their unique universal healthcare systems, two things jump off the page. All people are required to maintain private insurance or pay into a healthcare fund on a sliding scale. Government is more involved in hospitals than they are in the U.S. In some cases, government owns and operates the hospitals. In other cases, government does not allow non MDs to run hospitals and profits are capped.
There's way too much big money/ self interests in the U.S. healthcare lobbies to let single payer happen.
And really, does everyone on the right of the aisle have medically underwritten policies? They act like they have never heard of such a thing. Group policies have covered maternity and BC pills from the 80s IIRC. This is nothing new. It increases the risk pool. ACA is a group plan.
Its difficult to visualize what these people know or understand.
One poster thought that if you were in a serious accident, in the hospital and didn't make a payment (while still there) that ACA cancelled your policy automatically and you had to pay the entire medical bill. Even though you had insurance coverage on the day of the accident.
How are they "mandatory co-pay" when most preventative care is supposed to be covered 100%?
"As a result of the Affordable Care Act, many health insurance plans are now required to pay in full for preventive health services, such as well visits and routine checkups.
... Routine doctor visits such as annual checkups and well baby and child visits must now be covered by your insurer if they aren't already. Also covered are flu shots and a host of other vaccinations, including those for hepatitis A and B, human papillomavirus (HPV), measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, and diphtheria. Blood tests to identify diabetes, blood pressure and cancer screenings, smoking cessation treatment, depression screening, and diet counseling are also covered, with no deductable, co-payment, or coinsurance required."
preventive care WAS covered 100% before. Mammograms, pap=smears and colonoscopies were absolutely "free" if one had insurance. Which does not mean that a visit to a doctor to get that pap-smear one does not have to pay a co-pay - then and now. It is the pap-smear which is covered, not the talk to the doctor about it.( or mammogram or colonoscopy)
and it was without co-pay before, now it is WITH co-pay.
which means obama LIEd yet again.
Routinedoctor visits were covered BEFORE with a SMALLER co-pay than they are NOW. I had to pay 20$ for a routine doctor's visit, now it is 40$.
I don't care about immunizations, because I am not the age group,but those were covered 100% before as well.
and "blood pressure screening" is not a lab test so it can not be "covered" or "not covered"
there is no "depression screening" as well
"diet counseling" is a part of any doctor's visit, as is taking your blood pressure and other vital signs - so pompously announcing that something so routine and avalilable long time ago as "being covered and free of charge" NOW is simply a LIE.
Obamacare is making getting your personal information "free of charge" and "covered" now too, isn't it? LOL
Last edited by vox populi; 11-15-2013 at 10:49 AM..
Its difficult to visualize what these people know or understand.
One poster thought that if you were in a serious accident, in the hospital and didn't make a payment (while still there) that ACA cancelled your policy automatically and you had to pay the entire medical bill. Even though you had insurance coverage on the day of the accident.
I know, huh....
Some people really thought they could keep their insurance, and their rates would go down....
Some people thought that obama was also gonna pay their rent, gas, and mortage....
It truly is amaizing what people know and think they understand....
Oh, and 30,000,000 will still not have insurance....
You seem to be occupied with addressing the failures of your Obamacare website, promising us that it will be up and running with the bugs finally ironed out by the end of the month, etc.
But, Mr. Obama, those aren't the real problems your insurance scheme has.
What is really worrying us, is the high costs you are charging for insurance plans that often don't provide the services we want while "covering" us for things we'll never need; high deductibles that mean your plans won't pay a dime until we've paid out far more than our present plans require... and a complete lack of any other choice we'd like to see when we choose insurance plans.
Mr. President, the only reason we even gave this a hearing, is because you promised us that it would contain no new taxes, and that we'd be able to keep our present doctors and plans if we wanted to. We would have voted it down immediately if not for these provisions.
And now we find that, as soon as we gave you our votes, you went to the Supreme Court and insisted the scheme DID have new taxes, and that you'd only called them "penalties" to fool us into voting the way you wanted. And we found that we couldn't keep our present plans and doctors... and that you knew it all all along, even while you were assuring us otherwise.
And to rub salt into these wounds, you are forcing us to use your new scheme instead of the ones we want, and threatening to penalize us if we don't obey.
Excuse me, sir, but when did you decide that we could no longer be trusted to choose our own insurance? And that a bunch of bureaucrats three thousand miles away, knew better than we did about it? Especially in light of their track record to date.
And where did you get the authority to impose this decree on us?
Mr. President, who died and made you God?
Sure, there are problems in the insurance industry. Many of which started when government got involved in it seventy years ago, and which have only been getting worse with each government "solution".
That government involvement started during the emergency of a major war. But the war is over, Mr. President, long ago. Why is the government still involved? We'd like to get back to regular life.
Yes, we'd like to see some solutions to the problems that existed before that major war started. But having government pile more and more problems on top of them, isn't helping and never has.
Mr. President, please call off the war that government has continued ever since that time long ago when the real war went away. If you would quit spending so much effort on trying to control every last facet of our lives, perhaps you can find a way to help us with some of the actual problems we face.
If government is really the one who can help those problems at all, that is. From their efforts to date, I'm not encouraged. To put it mildly.
These people really need to stop and think:
If they are ignoring legal efforts to stop their implementing unconstitutional programs, what kind of methods are they leaving for us to use, to stop them?
we need to 1. Reform EMTALA so it returns to the basics it was passed for.
2. Tort reform across the board.
Then we can talk about minimal options public option - which can be paid for by 1% federal sales tax which is UNTOUCHABLE and goes ONLY for the minimal options medical care public option.
It can cover maternity and mental health, plus emergencies. Everything else can be paid for by the low-cost insurance - and there should be multiple varieties of combinations available.
3. The guards of the pre-existing conditions and no caps and no drops when getting sick stay.
4. Allow the insurance companies sell the plans across the state lines.
5. Healthcare accounts which should be pre-tax and able to rollover from year to year
No one envisioned that 40 million would attempt to use ERs for their primary healthcare, when this law was passed in the 80's.
There are no federal laws that prohibit insurance from being sold across state lines. It's a state issue. 50 states- 50 different politically appointed insurance commissions- 50 different sets of laws and regulations.
Most folk DK the laws in their own state, let alone those of the other 49. The home state of the insurer would govern the laws of the policy. It's not practical, in the current environment, for insurers to set up PPO/EPO relationships in all 50 states.
In order for cross state to work, the states would need to abdicate insurance regulation to the fed. The big box insurers would then likely prevail.
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