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"if you had a law which said healthy people are gonna pay in... If you made it explicit the healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed"
Correct. Because insurance doesn't work that way. Insurance premiums are risk-adjusted. That's why it wouldn't have passed and Gruber knew it, hence the Gruber-admitted lack of transparency.
It's now possible to buy health insurance that doesn't get cancelled when you get sick or lose your job, which was previously an impossibility. That's an improvement for everyone, even if not everyone realizes it. Which isn't to say that every person is strictly better off under the ACA, but a lot of people don't realize how good they have it now (or how crappy they had it before). ACA has a bit of a marketing problem, in that if you don't get sick it isn't necessarily obvious that improvements like underwriting bans are doing anything for you.
As I have said in many other threads about this topic, everyone, and I mean everyone, is one of three things, either you are sick now, were sick in the past, or will be sick in the future. Both political parties have said they want to address the previous conditions issue.
Most of what the pro-ObamaCare flag waivers whine about would cease to exist as an issue, if all we did was end the practice of allowing insurance companies to refuse to insure people for preexisting conditions, or not renewing people's policies simply because they got sick.
We do not need this horrible ACA with all it's sundry problems to take care of preexisting conditions.
We also do not need the ACA if states want to expand Medicaid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankMiller
Thanks for your link to the CBO report, demonstrating on page 1 that cost estimates have gone down since the initial projections and showing that the ACA has been more successful than originally thought.
You miss the entire point, the ACA is adding over a trillion in new costs and taxes, it's not saving us any money, it's costing us trillions. To sit there and say it all good now, because some CBO report said the taxes won't be as bad as other predictions is irrelevant. It's like cliaming a battered wife's life is better because her abusive husband only beats her nine times a week instead of ten times a week.
BTW, how many more millions of tax dollars have we spent just trying to fix the ACA web site? Wow, what a success.
Which some people have a extremely hard time understanding.....
gruber was right about many people...just look at this thread...
I don't care for Obma or Obamacare or his administration. But I do agree with Gruber that the average is stupid. I've been saying that on here for a while that I feel as a country we are getting dumber and dumber. The fact that this country elected Obama twice speaks volumes about the low information voter.
Correct. Because insurance doesn't work that way. Insurance premiums are risk-adjusted. That's why it wouldn't have passed and Gruber knew it, hence the Gruber-admitted lack of transparency.
Healthy pay, and the sick receive. That's how it works, and that's how it was sold. It's also how it worked before, and it's how single payer system works. Now you are just trying to spin your way out of it.
Dems paid Gruber $400,000 for his part in Obamacare. That's a whole lot of money to pay for stupid.
Even more than that when you put all of the consulting fees together -- it goes to several million.
No surprise that he's being vilified and thrown under the bus now, simply for having been honest by explaining what was really going on and how it works.
It was funny listening to Obama's answer
to a question from Ed Henry about Gruber.
He didn't quite say he didn't know who he was,
like Pelosi, but he downplayed Gruber's role to
almost saying he was "just a guy in the neighborhood."
Quote:
Originally Posted by pghquest
I think I heard that Gruber went to the White House something like 12 times..
if Obama doesnt know who he is, then he should be removed from office due to a mental disorder.
Lol at Democrats acting like they don't know who Jonathan Gruber is, even though Nancy Pelosi cited him as one of the main architects in 2009. Unless she is having early stages of Alzheimer's and is losing her mind, she needs to resign or be recalled immediately for standing up there and telling that bold faced lie
Healthy pay, and the sick receive. That's how it works, and that's how it was sold. It's also how it worked before, and it's how single payer system works. Now you are just trying to spin your way out of it.
I'm spinning nothing. I'm taking Gruber at his word:
"if you had a law which said healthy people are gonna pay in... If you made it explicit the healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed"
And he's right. It wouldn't have had the votes to pass if Congress (and their constituents) knew young and/or healthy people were going to get screwed on premiums.
I'm spinning nothing. I'm taking Gruber at his word:
"if you had a law which said healthy people are gonna pay in... If you made it explicit the healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed"
And he's right. It wouldn't have had the votes to pass if Congress (and their constituents) knew young and/or healthy people were going to get screwed on premiums.
He didn't say anything about "getting screwed by premiums", he simply says if people knew the healthy will pay for the sick, it would not have passed.
However, everyone knows the healthy pay for the sick. If you did not know that, then you are a stupid American voter, just like he said. Healthy paying for the sick was the selling point of ACA, and it got it passed. They said they will get more young and healthy people to sign up, and that will pay for those with pre-existing conditions (the sick) and for those who can't afford it (the poor).
How could you not have heard it? It was the foundation of the whole thing.
If they will ever try to pass single payer system, they will sell it the same way, because there are many who support the idea.
Pre-existing conditions? That was one of the most often repeated selling points. What makes you say people had no knowledge about it? Yes, the healthy pay for the sick. That's the whole thing in a nutshell, and contrary to Gruber's' comment that was actually was the selling point. Get the young and the healthy to sign up through the mandate, and then you'd have a larger pool of payers. You never heard them say that?
I'll use you and me to explain why you don't understand what Gruber wanted to hide. Let's say neither of us has insurance.
You're a healthy 30, 40, 50 year-old. otoh, I'm a long time drug abuser with cirrhosis of the liver, AIDS, hepatitis, and collapsed veins. Should our health conditions be 100% irrelevant in establishing the premiums we pay to get our initial health insurance coverage ? You may think so, but Gruber suspects members of Congress would be reluctant to pass a bill that treated us the same.
If we were both healthy when applying for insurance, sure, your premiums would go to subsidize my care if I developed those conditions After we both were insured.
Why did Gruber suspect Congress wouldn't be thrilled with knowing what the bill did ? Because to the best of my knowledge not a single state Completely Ignored health condition when approving premiums. Though people with pre-existing conditions were a main target group to help, I'm not sure all the Yes votes knew how far the ACA went.
He didn't say anything about "getting screwed by premiums", he simply says if people knew the healthy will pay for the sick, it would not have passed.
However, everyone knows the healthy pay for the sick.
Now you're trying to spin. Premiums are risk-rated. Normally, young and/or healthy people have much lower premiums than do sick people. Gruber's point was that the ACA changed that to a very large extent, and if people knew the truth about that, it wouldn't have enough votes in Congress to pass.
Quote:
"Prior to the ACA, older and/or unhealthy adults could be charged more than five times what young, healthy adults were for health insurance premiums. The ACA limits this "age-rating" ratio to three—that is, older or unhealthy individuals can be charged only up to three times what the young and healthy pay. This is great news for those suffering from illness, because it means they will be able to get more affordable insurance that covers all of their health problems. Young invincibles, however, get the short end of the stick. One study estimates a median rate increase of 237 percent for young invincibles"
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Unless she is having early stages of Alzheimer's and is losing her mind, she needs to resign or be recalled immediately for standing up there and telling that bold faced lie