MESO-Rx
Anabolic Steroids
Affordable Care Act (ACA) - Obamacare
- Thread starter Michael Scally MD
- Start date
In fairness if like to believe Obama was guilty of treason (a comparative analogy of George Bush and liberals) but such is not the case.
I also very much DOUBT all these "employment restrictions" were enacted BECAUSE of Obama care
since most were PRESENT for a number before Obama even took office.
Regardless one thing history has revealed, if it can be fucked up no one does THAT better than government!
Jim
I also very much DOUBT all these "employment restrictions" were enacted BECAUSE of Obama care
since most were PRESENT for a number before Obama even took office.
Regardless one thing history has revealed, if it can be fucked up no one does THAT better than government!
Jim
Jim DeMint: We Won't Back Down on ObamaCare
Fighting a law that is unfair, unworkable and unaffordable is reasonable and necessary.
Jim DeMint: We Won't Back Down on ObamaCare - WSJ.com
Now that the government shutdown has ended and the president has preserved ObamaCare for the time being, it's worth explaining why my organization, the Heritage Foundation, and other conservatives chose this moment to fight—and why we will continue to fight. The reason is simple: to protect the American people from the harmful effects of this law.
I spent a good part of my summer traveling around the country with the Heritage Foundation's sister organization, Heritage Action, and I heard firsthand from many Americans being harmed by ObamaCare. More and more people have had their work hours cut, their jobs eliminated and their coverage taken away as a result of this new law.
Supporters of ObamaCare usually defend the law by insisting that they want to help people. I won't question their motives. I do wonder, however, if they understand what they're doing to the country.
We know that premiums are going up due to ObamaCare—Americans are getting notices in their mailboxes every day. On Wednesday, Drew Gonshorowski of the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation published research that shows exchange premiums are going up in all but five states. In North Carolina, for example, many consumers will find their premiums almost double when shopping on the government exchanges. The hardest-hit states, such as Georgia, Arizona, Vermont and North Dakota, will see premium increases of up to 150%.
Mr. Gonshorowski's research shows that the hardest hit by the increases will be young adults. "A state that exhibits this clearly is Vermont," he writes, "where the increase for 27-year-olds is 144 percent and the increase for 50-year-olds is still 60 percent, but far less. All states exhibit this relationship."
We also know that, once established, the cost of ObamaCare's new entitlements will not fall. Historical evidence suggests the opposite. Nearly 50 years ago, at the time of Medicare's enactment, it was projected that the federal government would spend $9 billion on Part A hospital services in 1990. Actual spending in that year totaled $67 billion—an increase of 644% compared with initial estimates.
Likewise, government officials originally projected that Medicare Part B physician services would require "federal appropriations of about $500 million a year from general tax revenues." Last year, the federal outlay for that program was $163.8 billion—overshooting the original estimate by more than 4,400%.
Given this track record, the Congressional Budget Office's projection that ObamaCare will cost "only" $250 billion (you read that right: a quarter-trillion dollars) a decade from now seems far-fetched.
There's a reason Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently claimed that ObamaCare will lead to a single-payer health-care system: It happens to be true. Once employers drop health coverage for their low and middle-wage workers, the majority of Americans will be dumped into tightly regulated health exchanges and granted a "choice" of plans that will be more alike than different. The quality of care will suffer, access to doctors and plans you once had and liked will be reduced, and America will deteriorate into a two-tier health system—one in which the well-off can still buy quality coverage, but most Americans are consigned to poor care through the exchanges and Medicaid.
Yes, I can hear many conservative friends saying to me right around this point: "Jim, we agree with you that ObamaCare is going to wreck the country, but elections have consequences." I have three responses.
The first is that ObamaCare was not the central fight in 2012, much to the disappointment of conservatives. Republicans hoped that negative economic news would sweep them to victory, and exit polls confirmed that the economy, not health care, was the top issue. The best thing is to declare last year's election a mistrial on ObamaCare.
Second, the lives of most Americans are not dominated by the electoral cycle. They shouldn't have to wait three more years for Congress to give them relief from this law, especially when the president has so frequently given waivers to his friends. Full legislative repeal may not be possible while President Obama remains in office, but delaying implementation by withholding funds from a law that is proven to be unfair, unworkable and unaffordable is a reasonable and necessary fight.
There's a third reason not to stop fighting. Forget the consultants, the pundits and the pollsters; good policy is good politics. If the Republicans had not fought on ObamaCare, the compromise would have been over the budget sequester. Instead, they have retained the sequester and for the past three months ObamaCare and its failings have been front and center in the national debate. Its disastrous launch was spotlighted by our defund struggle, not overshadowed, as some contend. With a revived and engaged electorate, ObamaCare will now be the issue for the next few years.
These are the reasons we fought so hard to get Washington to listen to the American people and take action to stop ObamaCare, and it is why so many are thankful for the courageous leadership of people like Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, and conservatives in the House of Representatives. The law is economically unstable, financially irresponsible and harmful to hardworking Americans.
Mr. DeMint, a former senator from South Carolina, is president of the Heritage Foundation.
Fighting a law that is unfair, unworkable and unaffordable is reasonable and necessary.
Jim DeMint: We Won't Back Down on ObamaCare - WSJ.com
Now that the government shutdown has ended and the president has preserved ObamaCare for the time being, it's worth explaining why my organization, the Heritage Foundation, and other conservatives chose this moment to fight—and why we will continue to fight. The reason is simple: to protect the American people from the harmful effects of this law.
I spent a good part of my summer traveling around the country with the Heritage Foundation's sister organization, Heritage Action, and I heard firsthand from many Americans being harmed by ObamaCare. More and more people have had their work hours cut, their jobs eliminated and their coverage taken away as a result of this new law.
Supporters of ObamaCare usually defend the law by insisting that they want to help people. I won't question their motives. I do wonder, however, if they understand what they're doing to the country.
We know that premiums are going up due to ObamaCare—Americans are getting notices in their mailboxes every day. On Wednesday, Drew Gonshorowski of the Center for Data Analysis at the Heritage Foundation published research that shows exchange premiums are going up in all but five states. In North Carolina, for example, many consumers will find their premiums almost double when shopping on the government exchanges. The hardest-hit states, such as Georgia, Arizona, Vermont and North Dakota, will see premium increases of up to 150%.
Mr. Gonshorowski's research shows that the hardest hit by the increases will be young adults. "A state that exhibits this clearly is Vermont," he writes, "where the increase for 27-year-olds is 144 percent and the increase for 50-year-olds is still 60 percent, but far less. All states exhibit this relationship."
We also know that, once established, the cost of ObamaCare's new entitlements will not fall. Historical evidence suggests the opposite. Nearly 50 years ago, at the time of Medicare's enactment, it was projected that the federal government would spend $9 billion on Part A hospital services in 1990. Actual spending in that year totaled $67 billion—an increase of 644% compared with initial estimates.
Likewise, government officials originally projected that Medicare Part B physician services would require "federal appropriations of about $500 million a year from general tax revenues." Last year, the federal outlay for that program was $163.8 billion—overshooting the original estimate by more than 4,400%.
Given this track record, the Congressional Budget Office's projection that ObamaCare will cost "only" $250 billion (you read that right: a quarter-trillion dollars) a decade from now seems far-fetched.
There's a reason Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently claimed that ObamaCare will lead to a single-payer health-care system: It happens to be true. Once employers drop health coverage for their low and middle-wage workers, the majority of Americans will be dumped into tightly regulated health exchanges and granted a "choice" of plans that will be more alike than different. The quality of care will suffer, access to doctors and plans you once had and liked will be reduced, and America will deteriorate into a two-tier health system—one in which the well-off can still buy quality coverage, but most Americans are consigned to poor care through the exchanges and Medicaid.
Yes, I can hear many conservative friends saying to me right around this point: "Jim, we agree with you that ObamaCare is going to wreck the country, but elections have consequences." I have three responses.
The first is that ObamaCare was not the central fight in 2012, much to the disappointment of conservatives. Republicans hoped that negative economic news would sweep them to victory, and exit polls confirmed that the economy, not health care, was the top issue. The best thing is to declare last year's election a mistrial on ObamaCare.
Second, the lives of most Americans are not dominated by the electoral cycle. They shouldn't have to wait three more years for Congress to give them relief from this law, especially when the president has so frequently given waivers to his friends. Full legislative repeal may not be possible while President Obama remains in office, but delaying implementation by withholding funds from a law that is proven to be unfair, unworkable and unaffordable is a reasonable and necessary fight.
There's a third reason not to stop fighting. Forget the consultants, the pundits and the pollsters; good policy is good politics. If the Republicans had not fought on ObamaCare, the compromise would have been over the budget sequester. Instead, they have retained the sequester and for the past three months ObamaCare and its failings have been front and center in the national debate. Its disastrous launch was spotlighted by our defund struggle, not overshadowed, as some contend. With a revived and engaged electorate, ObamaCare will now be the issue for the next few years.
These are the reasons we fought so hard to get Washington to listen to the American people and take action to stop ObamaCare, and it is why so many are thankful for the courageous leadership of people like Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, and conservatives in the House of Representatives. The law is economically unstable, financially irresponsible and harmful to hardworking Americans.
Mr. DeMint, a former senator from South Carolina, is president of the Heritage Foundation.
States Are Focus of Effort to Foil Health Care Law
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/u...-effort-to-foil-health-care-law.html?hp&_r=1&
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/u...-effort-to-foil-health-care-law.html?hp&_r=1&
cvictorg
New Member
Report: Obamacare Website Launched Despite Testing Failures | Mediaite
According to a report by the Washington Post, the Affordable Care Act federal exchange website failed tests up to a week before it went live, but officials continued with the rollout anyway.
Just days before the launch, the website was stress-tested to determine whether it could handle large traffic volume, and crashed when only a few hundred participants tried to log on.
It was not the sole warning. Insurance companies asked to preview the program advised Health and Human Services that the website would not be ready by the October 1st launch date, identifying problems with the CMS’ retention of enrollment data and the assimilation of all fifty-five contractors involved in the process. The insurance companies recommended the rollout be either delayed or circumscribed to a particular state as a pilot program.
Officials said the launch date was inflexible, referring to it as “the tyranny of the October 1 date.” Despite this, as of September 26 the site had not been tested to ensure a customer could complete the entire process from logging on to enrolling.
An anonymous source familiar with the project reported HHS is now finding further problems not only with accessing the site, but also shopping for and enrolling in plans, adding that “those issues would have shown up earlier if testing had been done sooner.”
Health insurance exchange launched despite signs of serious problems - The Washington Post
There were ample warning signs that the system was not working properly, according to people familiar with the project.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency in charge of running the health insurance exchange in 36 states, invited about 10 insurers to give advice and help test the Web site.
About a month before the exchange opened, this testing group urged agency officials not to launch it nationwide because it was still riddled with problems, according to an insurance IT executive who was close to the rollout.
“We discussed .?.?. is there a way to do a pilot — by state, by geographic region?” the executive said.
It was clear at the time, the executive said, that the CMS was still dealing with the way the exchange handled enrollment, federal subsidies and the security of consumers’ personal information, such as income.
One key problem, according to a person close to the project, was that the agency assumed the role of managing the 55 contractors involved and had not ensured that all the pieces were working together.
Some key testing of the system did not take place until the week before launch, according to this person. As late as Sept. 26, there had been no tests to determine whether a consumer could complete the process from beginning to end: create an account, determine eligibility for federal subsidies and sign up for a health insurance plan, according to two sources familiar with the project.
People working on the project knew that Oct. 1 was set in stone as a launch date. “We named it the tyranny of the October 1 date,” said a person close to the project.
CGI built the shopping and enrollment applications to accommodate 60,000 users at the same time. U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park has said that the government expected HealthCare.gov to draw 50,000 to 60,000 simultaneous users but that the site was overwhelmed by up to five times as many users in the first week.
According to a report by the Washington Post, the Affordable Care Act federal exchange website failed tests up to a week before it went live, but officials continued with the rollout anyway.
Just days before the launch, the website was stress-tested to determine whether it could handle large traffic volume, and crashed when only a few hundred participants tried to log on.
It was not the sole warning. Insurance companies asked to preview the program advised Health and Human Services that the website would not be ready by the October 1st launch date, identifying problems with the CMS’ retention of enrollment data and the assimilation of all fifty-five contractors involved in the process. The insurance companies recommended the rollout be either delayed or circumscribed to a particular state as a pilot program.
Officials said the launch date was inflexible, referring to it as “the tyranny of the October 1 date.” Despite this, as of September 26 the site had not been tested to ensure a customer could complete the entire process from logging on to enrolling.
An anonymous source familiar with the project reported HHS is now finding further problems not only with accessing the site, but also shopping for and enrolling in plans, adding that “those issues would have shown up earlier if testing had been done sooner.”
Health insurance exchange launched despite signs of serious problems - The Washington Post
There were ample warning signs that the system was not working properly, according to people familiar with the project.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency in charge of running the health insurance exchange in 36 states, invited about 10 insurers to give advice and help test the Web site.
About a month before the exchange opened, this testing group urged agency officials not to launch it nationwide because it was still riddled with problems, according to an insurance IT executive who was close to the rollout.
“We discussed .?.?. is there a way to do a pilot — by state, by geographic region?” the executive said.
It was clear at the time, the executive said, that the CMS was still dealing with the way the exchange handled enrollment, federal subsidies and the security of consumers’ personal information, such as income.
One key problem, according to a person close to the project, was that the agency assumed the role of managing the 55 contractors involved and had not ensured that all the pieces were working together.
Some key testing of the system did not take place until the week before launch, according to this person. As late as Sept. 26, there had been no tests to determine whether a consumer could complete the process from beginning to end: create an account, determine eligibility for federal subsidies and sign up for a health insurance plan, according to two sources familiar with the project.
People working on the project knew that Oct. 1 was set in stone as a launch date. “We named it the tyranny of the October 1 date,” said a person close to the project.
CGI built the shopping and enrollment applications to accommodate 60,000 users at the same time. U.S. Chief Technology Officer Todd Park has said that the government expected HealthCare.gov to draw 50,000 to 60,000 simultaneous users but that the site was overwhelmed by up to five times as many users in the first week.
The Myth That Obamacare Is Destroying Full-Time Jobs Just Got Debunked
The Obamacare Part-Time Jobs Myth - Business Insider
The Obamacare Part-Time Jobs Myth - Business Insider
luckyduck
Subscriber
Dead Man Walking
[America, The World is Laughing at You. Healthcare is a Right.]
Stillman M, Tailor M. Dead Man Walking. New England Journal of Medicine. MMS: Error
“Shocked” wouldn't be accurate, since we were accustomed to our uninsured patients' receiving inadequate medical care. “Saddened” wasn't right, either, only pecking at the edge of our response. And “disheartened” just smacked of victimhood. After hearing this story, we were neither shocked nor saddened nor disheartened. We were simply appalled.
We met Tommy Davis in our hospital's clinic for indigent persons in March 2013 (the name and date have been changed to protect the patient's privacy). He and his wife had been chronically uninsured despite working full-time jobs and were now facing disastrous consequences.
The week before this appointment, Mr. Davis had come to our emergency department with abdominal pain and obstipation. His examination, laboratory tests, and CT scan had cost him $10,000 (his entire life savings), and at evening's end he'd been sent home with a diagnosis of metastatic colon cancer.
The year before, he'd had similar symptoms and visited a primary care physician, who had taken a cursory history, told Mr. Davis he'd need insurance to be adequately evaluated, and billed him $200 for the appointment. Since Mr. Davis was poor and ineligible for Kentucky Medicaid, however, he'd simply used enemas until he was unable to defecate. By the time of his emergency department evaluation, he had a fully obstructed colon and widespread disease and chose to forgo treatment.
Mr. Davis had had an inkling that something was awry, but he'd been unable to pay for an evaluation. As his wife sobbed next to him in our examination room, he recounted his months of weight loss, the unbearable pain of his bowel movements, and his gnawing suspicion that he had cancer. “If we'd found it sooner,” he contended, “it would have made a difference. But now I'm just a dead man walking.”
For many of our patients, poverty alone limits access to care. We recently saw a man with AIDS and a full-body rash who couldn't afford bus fare to a dermatology appointment. We sometimes pay for our patients' medications because they are unable to cover even a $4 copayment. But a fair number of our patients — the medical “have-nots” — are denied basic services simply because they lack insurance, and our country's response to this problem has, at times, seemed toothless.
In our clinic, uninsured patients frequently find necessary care unobtainable. An obese 60-year-old woman with symptoms and signs of congestive heart failure was recently evaluated in the clinic. She couldn't afford the echocardiogram and evaluation for ischemic heart disease that most internists would have ordered, so furosemide treatment was initiated and adjusted to relieve her symptoms. This past spring, our colleagues saw a woman with a newly discovered lung nodule that was highly suspicious for cancer. She was referred to a thoracic surgeon, but he insisted that she first have a PET scan — a test for which she couldn't possibly pay.
However unconscionable we may find the story of Mr. Davis, a U.S. citizen who will die because he was uninsured, the literature suggests that it's a common tale. A 2009 study revealed a direct correlation between lack of insurance and increased mortality and suggested that nearly 45,000 American adults die each year because they have no medical coverage. And although we can't confidently argue that Mr. Davis would have survived had he been insured, research suggests that possibility; formerly uninsured adults given access to Oregon Medicaid were more likely than those who remained uninsured to have a usual place of care and a personal physician, to attend outpatient medical visits, and to receive recommended preventive care. Had Mr. Davis been insured, he might well have been offered timely and appropriate screening for colorectal cancer, and his abdominal pain and obstipation would surely have been urgently evaluated.
Elected officials bear a great deal of blame for the appalling vulnerability of the 22% of American adults who currently lack insurance. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) — the only legitimate legislative attempt to provide near-universal health coverage — remains under attack from some members of Congress, and our own two senators argue that enhancing marketplace competition and enacting tort reform will provide security enough for our nation's poor.
In discussing (and grieving over) what has happened to Mr. Davis and our many clinic patients whose health suffers for lack of insurance, we have considered our own obligations. As some congresspeople attempt to defund Obamacare, and as some states' governors and attorneys general deliberate over whether to implement health insurance exchanges and expand Medicaid eligibility, how can we as physicians ensure that the needs of patients like Mr. Davis are met?
First, we can honor our fundamental professional duty to help. Some have argued that the onus for providing access to health care rests on society at large rather than on individual physicians, yet the Hippocratic Oath compels us to treat the sick according to our ability and judgment and to keep them from harm and injustice. Even as we continue to hope for and work toward a future in which all Americans have health insurance, we believe it's our individual professional responsibility to treat people in need.
[America, The World is Laughing at You. Healthcare is a Right.]
Stillman M, Tailor M. Dead Man Walking. New England Journal of Medicine. MMS: Error
“Shocked” wouldn't be accurate, since we were accustomed to our uninsured patients' receiving inadequate medical care. “Saddened” wasn't right, either, only pecking at the edge of our response. And “disheartened” just smacked of victimhood. After hearing this story, we were neither shocked nor saddened nor disheartened. We were simply appalled.
We met Tommy Davis in our hospital's clinic for indigent persons in March 2013 (the name and date have been changed to protect the patient's privacy). He and his wife had been chronically uninsured despite working full-time jobs and were now facing disastrous consequences.
The week before this appointment, Mr. Davis had come to our emergency department with abdominal pain and obstipation. His examination, laboratory tests, and CT scan had cost him $10,000 (his entire life savings), and at evening's end he'd been sent home with a diagnosis of metastatic colon cancer.
The year before, he'd had similar symptoms and visited a primary care physician, who had taken a cursory history, told Mr. Davis he'd need insurance to be adequately evaluated, and billed him $200 for the appointment. Since Mr. Davis was poor and ineligible for Kentucky Medicaid, however, he'd simply used enemas until he was unable to defecate. By the time of his emergency department evaluation, he had a fully obstructed colon and widespread disease and chose to forgo treatment.
Mr. Davis had had an inkling that something was awry, but he'd been unable to pay for an evaluation. As his wife sobbed next to him in our examination room, he recounted his months of weight loss, the unbearable pain of his bowel movements, and his gnawing suspicion that he had cancer. “If we'd found it sooner,” he contended, “it would have made a difference. But now I'm just a dead man walking.”
For many of our patients, poverty alone limits access to care. We recently saw a man with AIDS and a full-body rash who couldn't afford bus fare to a dermatology appointment. We sometimes pay for our patients' medications because they are unable to cover even a $4 copayment. But a fair number of our patients — the medical “have-nots” — are denied basic services simply because they lack insurance, and our country's response to this problem has, at times, seemed toothless.
In our clinic, uninsured patients frequently find necessary care unobtainable. An obese 60-year-old woman with symptoms and signs of congestive heart failure was recently evaluated in the clinic. She couldn't afford the echocardiogram and evaluation for ischemic heart disease that most internists would have ordered, so furosemide treatment was initiated and adjusted to relieve her symptoms. This past spring, our colleagues saw a woman with a newly discovered lung nodule that was highly suspicious for cancer. She was referred to a thoracic surgeon, but he insisted that she first have a PET scan — a test for which she couldn't possibly pay.
However unconscionable we may find the story of Mr. Davis, a U.S. citizen who will die because he was uninsured, the literature suggests that it's a common tale. A 2009 study revealed a direct correlation between lack of insurance and increased mortality and suggested that nearly 45,000 American adults die each year because they have no medical coverage. And although we can't confidently argue that Mr. Davis would have survived had he been insured, research suggests that possibility; formerly uninsured adults given access to Oregon Medicaid were more likely than those who remained uninsured to have a usual place of care and a personal physician, to attend outpatient medical visits, and to receive recommended preventive care. Had Mr. Davis been insured, he might well have been offered timely and appropriate screening for colorectal cancer, and his abdominal pain and obstipation would surely have been urgently evaluated.
Elected officials bear a great deal of blame for the appalling vulnerability of the 22% of American adults who currently lack insurance. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) — the only legitimate legislative attempt to provide near-universal health coverage — remains under attack from some members of Congress, and our own two senators argue that enhancing marketplace competition and enacting tort reform will provide security enough for our nation's poor.
In discussing (and grieving over) what has happened to Mr. Davis and our many clinic patients whose health suffers for lack of insurance, we have considered our own obligations. As some congresspeople attempt to defund Obamacare, and as some states' governors and attorneys general deliberate over whether to implement health insurance exchanges and expand Medicaid eligibility, how can we as physicians ensure that the needs of patients like Mr. Davis are met?
First, we can honor our fundamental professional duty to help. Some have argued that the onus for providing access to health care rests on society at large rather than on individual physicians, yet the Hippocratic Oath compels us to treat the sick according to our ability and judgment and to keep them from harm and injustice. Even as we continue to hope for and work toward a future in which all Americans have health insurance, we believe it's our individual professional responsibility to treat people in need.
Last edited:
Republicans, Sensing Weakness in Health Law Rollout, Switch Tactics
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/u...s-in-health-law-rollout-switches-tactics.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/24/u...s-in-health-law-rollout-switches-tactics.html
nuncaquite
New Member
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8spP856AMY]Obama to AMA keep your doctor and insurance we will build economy - YouTube[/ame]
nuncaquite
New Member
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXqKp5B0ZLE]President Obama says If you like your Doctor You can Keep Your Doctor - YouTube[/ame]
I think it's funny....
Scenario 1: Apple the biggest and most power technology company releases a new iPhone, public response is much greater than expected, servers are stressed, things slow down or are nonfunctional and it's a screaming success of a launch!
Scenario 2: ACA response is greater than anticipated, servers are stressed, things slow down or are nonfunctional and the entire law must be crap!
This is not necessarily a defense if the ACA....just another way of looking at it. Before everyone says this is just proof the government is going to mess everything up....if apple can't have a 100% smooth product launch it's safe to say no one can.
Scenario 1: Apple the biggest and most power technology company releases a new iPhone, public response is much greater than expected, servers are stressed, things slow down or are nonfunctional and it's a screaming success of a launch!
Scenario 2: ACA response is greater than anticipated, servers are stressed, things slow down or are nonfunctional and the entire law must be crap!
This is not necessarily a defense if the ACA....just another way of looking at it. Before everyone says this is just proof the government is going to mess everything up....if apple can't have a 100% smooth product launch it's safe to say no one can.
nuncaquite
New Member
Whats so funny about the president telling lies about keeping your doctor and insurance? Well, I concede this much (its funnier than anything George Carlin ever said) [
)] In the face of disaster you guys keep drinking the Kool Aid.[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBeUGqeYsQg]Kool-Aid commercial - YouTube[/ame]
Millions of Americans Are Losing Their Health Plans Because of Obamacare | The Weekly Standard
Attachments
Estimate: 16 Million Americans Will Lose Current Coverage Because of Obamacare
Oct. 24, 2013
The president:
“If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”
A new estimate from healthcare expert Bob Laszewski (via the Weekly Standard):
The U.S. individual health insurance market currently totals about 19 million people. Because the Obama administration's regulations on grandfathering existing plans were so stringent about 85% of those, 16 million, are not grandfathered and must comply with Obamacare at their next renewal. The rules are very complex. For example, if you had an individual plan in March of 2010 when the law was passed and you only increased the deductible from $1,000 to $1,500 in the years since, your plan has lost its grandfather status and it will no longer be available to you when it would have renewed in 2014. These 16 million people are now receiving letters from their carriers saying they are losing their current coverage and must re-enroll in order to avoid a break in coverage and comply with the new health law's benefit mandates––the vast majority by January 1. Most of these will be seeing some pretty big rate increases.
CBO has estimated that the number of people dislodged from their pre-Obamacare arrangements could reach 20 million, while other independent analyses have concluded that the eventual figure may be significantly higher. The low-ball estimates of 16-20 million would be the equivalent of the entire population of Florida losing coverage. CareFirst is the latest insurer to break the bad news to its customers:
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield is being forced to cancel plans that currently cover 76,000 individuals in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., due to changes made by President Obama's health care law, the company told the Washington Examiner today. That represents more than 40 percent of the 177,000 individuals covered by CareFirst in those states. Though Obama famously promised that those who liked their health care coverage could keep it under his program, in reality, the health care law imposes a raft of new regulations on insurance policies starting Jan. 1 that are forcing insurers across the country to terminate existing plans.
Obama also predicted that the new law would reduce average family premiums by $2,500 per year, and Nancy Pelosi asserted that "everybody will have lower rates." That's not going to be true for tens of millions of Americans, and will ring especially hollow for most people on the individual market. The New York Times reports that many rural communities are already beginning to feel Obamacare's price pinch:
As technical failures bedevil the rollout of President Obama’s health care law, evidence is emerging that one of the program’s loftiest goals — to encourage competition among insurers in an effort to keep costs low — is falling short for many rural Americans. While competition is intense in many populous regions, rural areas and small towns have far fewer carriers offering plans in the law’s online exchanges. Those places, many of them poor, are being asked to choose from some of the highest-priced plans in the 34 states where the federal government is running the health insurance marketplaces, a review by The New York Times has found. Of the roughly 2,500 counties served by the federal exchanges, more than half, or 58 percent, have plans offered by just one or two insurance carriers, according to an analysis by The Times of county-level data provided by the Department of Health and Human Services. In about 530 counties, only a single insurer is participating. The analysis suggests that the ambitions of the Affordable Care Act to increase competition have unfolded unevenly, at least in the early going, and have not addressed many of the factors that contribute to high prices.
The Times' analysis shows that these problems are especially acute in southern and "flyover" states -- places where the president is particularly unpopular. A final reminder: Obamacare, contrary to Democrats' assurances, is bending the national healthcare cost curve in the wrong direction. Hitting the administration hard for its transcendent incompetence is a political no-brainer for Republicans, but relentlessly highlighting the substantive failures of the program itself (which liberals pretend is totally separate from the failed exchange portals) is imperative. Even if every single bug and technical issue were rectified tomorrow, that wouldn't change the fact that the program is harmful, unaffordable, and built on reckless promises.
UPDATE - A cringe-worthy headline from Forbes: "More Americans In 3 States Have Had Their Insurance Canceled Under ObamaCare Than Have Filed An Exchange Account In All 50." Oof.
http://m.townhall.com/tipsheet/guyb...urrent-coverage-because-of-obamacare-n1731700
Oct. 24, 2013
The president:
“If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”
A new estimate from healthcare expert Bob Laszewski (via the Weekly Standard):
The U.S. individual health insurance market currently totals about 19 million people. Because the Obama administration's regulations on grandfathering existing plans were so stringent about 85% of those, 16 million, are not grandfathered and must comply with Obamacare at their next renewal. The rules are very complex. For example, if you had an individual plan in March of 2010 when the law was passed and you only increased the deductible from $1,000 to $1,500 in the years since, your plan has lost its grandfather status and it will no longer be available to you when it would have renewed in 2014. These 16 million people are now receiving letters from their carriers saying they are losing their current coverage and must re-enroll in order to avoid a break in coverage and comply with the new health law's benefit mandates––the vast majority by January 1. Most of these will be seeing some pretty big rate increases.
CBO has estimated that the number of people dislodged from their pre-Obamacare arrangements could reach 20 million, while other independent analyses have concluded that the eventual figure may be significantly higher. The low-ball estimates of 16-20 million would be the equivalent of the entire population of Florida losing coverage. CareFirst is the latest insurer to break the bad news to its customers:
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield is being forced to cancel plans that currently cover 76,000 individuals in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., due to changes made by President Obama's health care law, the company told the Washington Examiner today. That represents more than 40 percent of the 177,000 individuals covered by CareFirst in those states. Though Obama famously promised that those who liked their health care coverage could keep it under his program, in reality, the health care law imposes a raft of new regulations on insurance policies starting Jan. 1 that are forcing insurers across the country to terminate existing plans.
Obama also predicted that the new law would reduce average family premiums by $2,500 per year, and Nancy Pelosi asserted that "everybody will have lower rates." That's not going to be true for tens of millions of Americans, and will ring especially hollow for most people on the individual market. The New York Times reports that many rural communities are already beginning to feel Obamacare's price pinch:
As technical failures bedevil the rollout of President Obama’s health care law, evidence is emerging that one of the program’s loftiest goals — to encourage competition among insurers in an effort to keep costs low — is falling short for many rural Americans. While competition is intense in many populous regions, rural areas and small towns have far fewer carriers offering plans in the law’s online exchanges. Those places, many of them poor, are being asked to choose from some of the highest-priced plans in the 34 states where the federal government is running the health insurance marketplaces, a review by The New York Times has found. Of the roughly 2,500 counties served by the federal exchanges, more than half, or 58 percent, have plans offered by just one or two insurance carriers, according to an analysis by The Times of county-level data provided by the Department of Health and Human Services. In about 530 counties, only a single insurer is participating. The analysis suggests that the ambitions of the Affordable Care Act to increase competition have unfolded unevenly, at least in the early going, and have not addressed many of the factors that contribute to high prices.
The Times' analysis shows that these problems are especially acute in southern and "flyover" states -- places where the president is particularly unpopular. A final reminder: Obamacare, contrary to Democrats' assurances, is bending the national healthcare cost curve in the wrong direction. Hitting the administration hard for its transcendent incompetence is a political no-brainer for Republicans, but relentlessly highlighting the substantive failures of the program itself (which liberals pretend is totally separate from the failed exchange portals) is imperative. Even if every single bug and technical issue were rectified tomorrow, that wouldn't change the fact that the program is harmful, unaffordable, and built on reckless promises.
UPDATE - A cringe-worthy headline from Forbes: "More Americans In 3 States Have Had Their Insurance Canceled Under ObamaCare Than Have Filed An Exchange Account In All 50." Oof.
http://m.townhall.com/tipsheet/guyb...urrent-coverage-because-of-obamacare-n1731700
500,000 Californians Lose Health Policies
My wife, the syndicated San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders, has learned that at least 500,000 Californians may lose their health insurance next year — and that’s a conservative estimate.
According to this link as of December 2012, there were 491,977 covered lives in individual health care plans regulated by the state Department Insurance that are not grandfathered under the Affordable Care Act. (If they bought a plan after March 2010, their coverage is not grandfathered.) This is a 2012 number, but if the number of people with private coverage hasn’t changed much in the last ten months, that’s half a million Californians who will lose their coverage.
Those canceled policies will have to be replaced with Obamacare-approved insurance:
California Association of Health Plans president Pat Johnston told me that by law providers must cancel non-grandfathered individual policies. (It is my understanding some folks will lose their coverage at year’s end, others might be able to extend into 2014 through the end of a covered year.) This probably means premiums hikes for people who “not only were they healthy, they also probably were very savvy shoppers.” This is a small corner of the insurance market; others may well save money under the Affordable Care Act. But for the people kicked off their individual California plans, Johnston said, it may well be that ”if you’re outside that subsidy range, you’re on your own.”
So much for, “If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.” The train wreck continues.
http://m.nationalreview.com/corner/362263/500000-californians-lose-health-policies-wesley-j-smith
My wife, the syndicated San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra J. Saunders, has learned that at least 500,000 Californians may lose their health insurance next year — and that’s a conservative estimate.
According to this link as of December 2012, there were 491,977 covered lives in individual health care plans regulated by the state Department Insurance that are not grandfathered under the Affordable Care Act. (If they bought a plan after March 2010, their coverage is not grandfathered.) This is a 2012 number, but if the number of people with private coverage hasn’t changed much in the last ten months, that’s half a million Californians who will lose their coverage.
Those canceled policies will have to be replaced with Obamacare-approved insurance:
California Association of Health Plans president Pat Johnston told me that by law providers must cancel non-grandfathered individual policies. (It is my understanding some folks will lose their coverage at year’s end, others might be able to extend into 2014 through the end of a covered year.) This probably means premiums hikes for people who “not only were they healthy, they also probably were very savvy shoppers.” This is a small corner of the insurance market; others may well save money under the Affordable Care Act. But for the people kicked off their individual California plans, Johnston said, it may well be that ”if you’re outside that subsidy range, you’re on your own.”
So much for, “If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.” The train wreck continues.
http://m.nationalreview.com/corner/362263/500000-californians-lose-health-policies-wesley-j-smith
Yes many people will "lose" coverage because their current plans do not meet the basic standards of the ACA....I have read that many companies who are canceling these policies are inviting the same people to sign up immediately for a plan that does qualify for no to very little difference in premiums.
In general the plans being cancelled are crap bare bones plans to begin with....
In general the plans being cancelled are crap bare bones plans to begin with....
Really, that's awesome. Now everyone can get more for less. I'm surprised the Administration hasn't tooted their own horn announcing this.
Seems like he would of had some of those people stand in as props at his ShamWow infomercial on Tuesday. That may have increased the success stories from 2 to 8-10 million.
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