<p>I’m just reporting what the broker said to me. I asked him because I didn’t know the answer and couldn’t find it online. If other people have different experiences, I’d like to know what they are so I have a better understanding. He was emphatic that <em>for the same plan benefits</em>, different insurers would give the same quote.</p>
<p>This broker was talking in the context of California. As far as I could tell, his expertise was for California only.</p>
<p>The last chart on that page shows 26.2 million less uninsured. </p>
<p>That number is not too high. If we have 5 million newly insured, 8 million medicaid, 3 million kids, 1 million shifted from other ACA programs to medicaid and 1 milllion additional medicaid signups throughout the year… That is 18 million.</p>
<p>5 million were prevented from receiving medicaid and if 1 million were scared off because of anecdotes and bad press…
That is 24 million. </p>
<p>I assume this bad press had some effect.</p>
<p>We are never getting exact numbers. We are going to get ranges which are going to be 95 percent accurate or so.</p>
<p>I told this board we are going to have 16-18 million newly insured. We are…</p>
<p>I said 4 to 7 million newly in the individual insurance market. </p>
<p>That is right. </p>
<p>Everybody can vet and figure it out for themselves. </p>
<p>That author’s piece that conservatives seem to love for some reason fits with my numbers. :)</p>
<p>My daughter works in Cal. My guess is the broker is correct in most cases…</p>
<p>You’re right. There are two ways of calculating “less uninsured.” If you look at the first chart and the second chart, you see that the prediction is 50 million uninsured in 2014 if there were no ACA, and 23.8 million uninsured with the ACA, yielding, as you say, a prediction of 26.2 million fewer uninsured than there would have been with no ACA.</p>
<p>But if you look at the second chart, you see that the 2013 uninsured number is 47.6, and the 2014 uninsured number is 23.8, yielding a drop in the number of uninsured of 23.8 million.</p>
<p>In our previous discussions here, when we talked about more/fewer uninsured in 2014, we were comparing to the 2013 numbers, not some imagined baseline, because we can’t know the baseline and we can know (sort of, if we believe Gallup or other sources) the 2013 uninsured.</p>
<p>I will reiterate -no one really knows the impact on the uninsured because of this law. If they did know, you can be sure the Administration would be trumpeting the number for days if it was favorable to them. The reality is they have stopped releasing enrollment stats since April.</p>
<p>Ahh, the report is about flux, not static numbers you can sit on.<br>
“The mandated coverage provisions, which include new responsibilities for both individuals and
employers, and the creation of the American Health Benefit Exchanges (hereafter referred to as
the “Exchanges”), would lead to shifts across coverage types and a substantial overall reduction
in the number of uninsured, as many of these individuals become covered through their
employers, Medicaid, or the Exchanges.” </p>
<p>It further includes dependents under 26, who can now be covered under their parents policies. To some extent, you’d need to know which specific sorts fall into each category, transition between categories, etc.</p>
<p>We’re only half way into 2014, let’s see. I don;t expect a good pro analysis (much less amateur,) til mid 2015 at the earliest.</p>
<p>Btw, there are many reasons we don’t have some ultimate fix on the number of uninsured- it;s not magically just because of this law. </p>
<p>Actingmt, The link is awful. Really. </p>
<p>That headline goes all over the country. People read the headline . They believe the headline. They form opinions or their opinions are reinforced after reading the headline. The headline is false. Stuff in the article written as fact is untrue. </p>
<p>But… My total numbers have a very high probability of being accurate and even this link agrees with me. ;)</p>
<p>You can ask your grown up kids. ;)</p>
<p>Is dietz around? IIRC, dietz has bought small business insurance in California, and might be able to tell us whether different insurers would give different price quotes for the same benefits (including the same network).</p>
<p>Ask someone on the small biz thread. It seems unlikely that they would all charge the same thing. How is that competition?</p>
<p>CF, I looked at my own state’s rate request tables, now being reviewed. Each different insurer had different “baseline” dollar amounts for small business, some increasing from prior, some decreasing. (And some with a different base amount for HSA.) The baselines were on age 21, with age and some other elements to factor in, for specifics. I can’t imagine what the broker was referring to. Maybe on the other thread, your questions can wake some small business owners.</p>
<p>@"Cardinal Fang" -
. The went up, year after year, pre-ACA - so why do you think they would stop going up post ACA?</p>
<p>In an case, ACA changes the way that premiums are set in the small group market — they now have to set premiums based on something called “modified community rating”, which prohibits use of actual or
expected health status or claims experience to set group premiums -<a href=“http://www.uhc.com/live/uhc_com/Assets/Documents/ACR_FAQ.pdf”>http://www.uhc.com/live/uhc_com/Assets/Documents/ACR_FAQ.pdf</a>
<a href=“http://www.nahu.org/consumer/GroupInsurance.cfm”>http://www.nahu.org/consumer/GroupInsurance.cfm</a></p>
<p>So that would tend to drive up rates for small group employers who previously had favorable ratings due to claims history among its employer group, and bring rates down for group employers who were paying higher rates due to to adverse claims history. However, it is likely that employers would have done a lot of shopping around in past years any time they faced a large rate increase - mitigating the impact of some of those past increases. If it got too expensive, they might have stopped offering insurance benefits. So it may very well be that market forces had been been shaping the small-group market in past years in a way that might have tended to keep apparent rates lower. (“Apparent” meaning the rates quoted to those left in the market as higher-cost employer groups were effectively driven out.)</p>
<p>Also, it’s a myth that employer-provided insurance plans were always better than what was available on the individual market. Larger employers, government employers, yes – but not so much smaller employers. They could opt for – and many did – really crappy policies, typically with relatively low maximum benefit caps. That is, sure the employee working for Mom & Pop Widgets had health insurance, and it seemed like a great policy as long as the employee never got seriously ill – but maybe that policy had a $20K annual cap and a $100K lifetime cap. Now that policy can’t be sold anymore. </p>
<p>We have to wait and we don’t have to wait. </p>
<p>If there was a 50/50 chance of ACA working on Oct 2013…</p>
<p>The chances are higher now that ACA will work after looking at the sign ups. ACA is on target. </p>
<p>If the premiums rise in the high single digits for 2015, the chances are higher ACA works.</p>
<p>The probability that ACA works increases with major positive events. </p>
<p>The probability that ACA doesn’t work decreases with major negative events. A major negative event is not written by people who write articles like Avik Roy or whoever wrote that link.</p>
<p>The Supreme Court is another story. </p>
<p>Right now ACA has a high probability of succeeding. Higher than in Oct. 2013.</p>
<p>I kinda gave up on the other thread. I don’t think anyone is reading it. </p>
<p>Are the “baseline” amounts for small businesses different because the insurers are charging different prices for the same benefits, or because different insurers have different networks?</p>
<p>The real question I wanted to know was whether in California, pre-ACA, small business insurance quotes took into account the health of the employees. The broker says they did not. </p>
<p>He also said that per-person costs were higher for smaller businesses, so a business of 20 employees was more expensive per person than a business of 40 employees, women were more expensive than men, and young women were a lot more expensive than young men. No surprises there.</p>
<p>@calmom, I meant to say, why are small business premiums reported going up by large amounts? An eight, ten, twelve percent increase would be in line with what we’ve been seeing before and would be unremarkable. But people here are reporting numbers more like 40-50% higher. What’s with that?</p>
<p>I like calmom’s link and I see that the second paragraph probably means groups under 50. </p>
<p>So… Nevermind… I guess the broker is right.</p>
<p>The Administration just finished a review of the VA and the findings are astonishing.</p>
<p>"The new report found what Mr. Nabors described as a “corrosive culture” that affects employee performance and patient care. He added that the Veterans Health Administration structure has “impeded appropriate management, supervision and oversight.”</p>
<p>"The VA acts with little transparency or accountability and many recommendations to improve care are slowly implemented or ignored. Concerns raised by the public, monitors or even VA leadership are viewed by those responsible for VA’s health care delivery as “exaggerated, unimportant, or `will pass.”</p>
<p>There are many more damning indictments of the VA but I think the above gives you a flavor of what is in this report.</p>
<p>This should be a warning of what happens when the govt sticks their incompetent nose into our health care.</p>
<p>Of course, ACA isn’t government health care. </p>
<p>I would debate your definition of govt health care when everything in your Obamacare policy is dictated by the govt. Regardless, you have stated on many occasions your unequivocal faith in govt health care.</p>
<p>This thread is not about the VA. It’s about working our way through the new insurance options. We know you don’t like ACA, GP. We get it. The government set the framework, it is not providing medical care. And LM has not stated her “unequivocal faith in govt health care.” Why fling that out unless you are just poking and jabbing?</p>
<p>Actually, she has LF. Many times. It’s that thing we can’t talk about, though. </p>