<p>This is a comment someone else left at a different site. I thought I would quote it because it is so true.</p>
<p>"If you’re rich, you don’t have to worry about it. $$$ gets you your own kind of health care.</p>
<p>If you’re poor, you’re gonna get subsidized. Plain and simple.</p>
<p>If you’re middle class, hang onto your hat because we are where the money is coming from, we’re gonna be paying for the subsidization and we have already found out it ain’t gonna be cheap."</p>
<p>Interesting interview with Zeke Emanuel, by Harold Pollack:</p>
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<p>Emanuel thinks that a lot of employers will stop offering health insurance, pay the penalty, and send their employees to the exchanges. He views this with approval.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/18/why-a-complex-unjust-expensive-error-prone-system-might-end-up-providing-the-best-health-care/”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/03/18/why-a-complex-unjust-expensive-error-prone-system-might-end-up-providing-the-best-health-care/</a></p>
<p>There was someone who used to post on the subject that said she knew she was going to pay more, was fine with it, etc. but hadn’t realized she was going to pay twice - once with higher premiums and again at tax time. </p>
<p>I don’t remember anyone substantially refuting her view. </p>
<p>14 ways to avoid the Obamacare Tax</p>
<h1>14 is the barn burner.</h1>
<p><a href=“14 Ways To Avoid The Obamacare Tax (Actually 15 if you include 'brief incarceration')”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottgottlieb/2014/03/19/14-ways-to-avoid-the-obamacare-tax/</a></p>
<p>GP…you are just repeating the same crap…</p>
<p>You got nothing…</p>
<p>Now you have to repeat things. LOL!!</p>
<p>Where are all the stories about Blue Shield’s crummy network? :)</p>
<p>In the meantime…all these political stories like the Hill’s arent stopping the sign ups. The sign ups are increasing…every week more than the week before. We are already at Dec sign up levels. :)</p>
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From GP’s link… which I should have read before I threw out 5.2 MM, dstark. Dated 3/11 so it may have missed the administration’s upward revision but… I suspect I was too generous.</p>
<p>edited for math precision: 80% of 5.5 MM = 4.4 MM. </p>
<p>(Not 4MM - as thrown out above - true, but there’s a belief on my part that the author of the piece was scribbling on a cocktail napkin and rounded down. Napkin or not, any product that doesn’t start with 5 in the millions place makes my bet look little too high.)</p>
<p>You guys have one little anecdote at a time. lol… You heard somebody who heard somebody who heard somebody and it turns out that person did not understand her insurance improved under ACA. Lol</p>
<p>The group that was paying for these hit ads is changing their ads…because they were false. Lol.</p>
<p>If you listen to GS… You will end up with a small fortune…if you started with a big one. ;)</p>
<p>“Emanuel thinks that a lot of employers will stop offering health insurance, pay the penalty, and send their employees to the exchanges. He views this with approval.”</p>
<p>If this happens, that will be the end of one of the political parties in this country. Every politician who supported this law is praying this won’t happen.</p>
<p>I have to quit now… I guess I will edit the rest…</p>
<p>More sign ups every week…</p>
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<p>Every economist who supported this law is praying it will happen. </p>
<p>Good grief. I’ll bet Emmanuel gets his health insurance from his university and not on the exchange. </p>
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<p>For now. ;)</p>
<p><a href=“The Satisfied Unsubsidized: Obamacare’s Hidden Winners - The Atlantic”>The Satisfied Unsubsidized: Obamacare’s Hidden Winners - The Atlantic;
<p>“Among the “satisfied unsubsidized,” a few patterns emerged. Most of the people I interviewed saw no reason to buy their plans through Healthcare.gov or the state exchanges. Doing so would only add a layer of bureaucracy, though several used the window-shopping function on the exchanges to scope out the market. All those who bought off-exchange found it much easier than in the past to buy through a broker or directly from an insurer in the post-ACA market, where an insurer cannot ask for information about a buyer’s medical history. And all found better coverage for the money than they could get before the ACA went into full effect.”</p>
<p>““It was uncommon, and arguably illegal, for insurers to raise an individual’s premium because of their health status” before the ACA, says Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “What was more common was for insurers to close product lines to new sales”—and then jack up the prices, trapping sick customers.”</p>
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<p>Oh, puhleeze, dstark, you know better than I that the plural of anecdotes is not data. :)</p>
<p>I am tired of the bs. I can play… I have access to thousands and thousands of anecdotes. </p>
<p>ACA helps a lot more people than it hurts. That is a fact.</p>
<p>“It may be years before healthcare scholars have the data to weigh the experiences of people like Karen, Brad, Frank, Jenny, and their families against those of unsubsidized buyers in the individual market who saw the rates rise when the ACA went into effect. (In the larger picture, the ACA’s winners far outnumber losers, as those whom the law will help obtain insurance far outnumber those subject to rate hikes.) It’s worth keeping in mind, though, that those untroubled by preexisting conditions or by the need to find insurance in the individual market can lose those advantages at any moment—as well as their financial status. Uncertainty is the universal preexisting condition—and thanks to the ACA, such changes should no longer threaten financial ruin or lack of access to medical care.”</p>
<p>^ Ironic comment BB, since a few posters here ARE leaning on anecdotes- and recently laughing at ds for crunching numbers. </p>
<p>This was in commentary (governing.com) about my state’s oversight, dated Feb 2011, but a strong reminder of where we were, how out of control it all was spinning. It mirrors what calmom earlier said:
Although rising premiums and health-care reform are often linked in the public mind, the first development preceded the passage of the second. [Chew on that line.] A recent Commonwealth Fund study tells the story. Between 2003 and 2009, health insurances premiums for businesses and their employees nationwide jumped by 41 percent, while per-person deductibles rose by 77 percent. Some states have seen even more dramatic increases or proposed increases. Last spring, Anthem Blue Cross shocked California regulators by announcing plans to increase premiums for individual health insurance policies by more than 30 percent. Outside actuaries found problems with their assumptions, and Anthem retreated, but another big California insurer, Blue Shield of California, recently announced a third round of rate hikes for individual policyholders that will bring total rate increases for some individual insurance policies to 59 percent. At the current growth rates, the cost of the average family policy, which was $13,027 in 2009, will top $23,000 by 2020. It’s a great article</p>
<p>There had to be a way to reign in the cost surges, take back some control. Maybe ACA doesn’t suit each citizen. Clearly some wish the others would just go eat cake. But you have to aim for some perspective. </p>
<p>Some humanist perspective. </p>
<p>Nevermind…</p>
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<p>Let them ‘lean’. :-q </p>
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<p>Perhaps true by cyber-friend, but I hope that you will readily admit that that was NOT how it was sold to the public. And, </p>
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<p>Let them lean?</p>
<p>You want them to drink? ;)</p>
<p>Okay, the Atlantic article is talking about those unsubsidized people who have preexisting conditions who were not well-served by the system pre-Obamacare. I agree we needed to do something for these people but Obamacare was not it. Many of the people with preexisting conditions will not be helped by Obamacare when they discover that limited networks and formularies will make it extremely difficult to find decent healthcare. Insurance doesn’t equal healthcare.</p>
<p>The real problem with the article or where it goes off the rails is the big whopper it repeats from the Obama Administration that 19 to 50% of the American people have preexisting conditions, implying they couldn’t get insurance. This is a blatant lie, right up there with you can keep your plan and doctor or you will pay $2,500 less under Obamacare.</p>
<p>Let’s look at the real numbers to understand the dimensions of the preexisting problem. I am going to quote a Forbes article which examined this claim made by the Obama Administration.</p>
<p>"According to the latest Census Bureau data, 309 million Americans have health insurance. Of these 4 percent are covered by directly purchased insurance alone. The remaining 96 percent are covered by government or company insurance or some combination. Government health insurance does not allow discrimination based on preexisting conditions. Company insurance typically does not either, insofar as the risk pool is already incorporated in the premiums, and there are portability requirements in moving from company to company.</p>
<p>Thus 12 million people purchased private direct purchased health insurance on the eve of Obama Care. Insurance industry studies show that one in eight applicants for private health insurance have preexisting conditions that affect their eligibility or premiums. This gives a total of 1.5 million Americans who were denied health insurance or paid higher premiums due to preexisting conditions."</p>
<p>So we are talking about 1.5 million people or 1/2 of 1%, hardly the 19 to 50% the Atlantic article cited. It is shameless how the Obamacare supporters keep repeating these lies or outright distortions. Yes, we needed to do something for these people but canceling millions of plans or raising the premiums by 50% to 100% for millions of subscribers or severely curtailing the networks for millions of Americans was not necessary to solve a problem that affects .5% of the population.</p>