patrick.net

mell says

Obamacare Is A Disaster

No one was ever allowed to say that until July 15th of this year.

Here's the thing the premium raises this year, are even greater than the Obamatax.

Stupid Motherfuckers to the 1000th power.

This was all just a scam to extract money from those that know damn well will be too smart to pay for this. And wont have the same gripe as everyone about the inedequate cheatcare, because

My brother was in the hospital for about 3 days, he is insured. He got a bill for $7K that he has to pay out of pocket.
My neighbor accross the street had a heart attack they cracked his chest open put in a stent, sewed him up and threw him out onto the steet, all within 18 hours.

HIs bill as an uninsured indigent? Just a measly $10K
He would have paid more than that in insurance premiums for a year.

When ACA is gone,does that mean everyone can afford private insurance?

No it means next time it will be for real. A honest goodness Government ran Health and Medschool system.
People will say "Yeah well we tried that..."
The Next time these Cock suckers tries to sell us a Wallstreet Monopoly ran healthcare. Or any variation that gets us there.
National Healthcare and profits just don't mix.

There's too much at stake to just leave it up to the system we've become. From the Education that no modest income family can afford tuition for, to the Hospitals that bill using a blind seasonal menu, to the ghost Doctors that you never saw, but end up billing you, to the Collection agencies that can threaten you with Jail, to the run away premiums, to the 10's of the thousands of dollars that you're responsible for before you EVEN begin to claim. "Phew!!! alright! If anything happens now I'm fully coverd. Now that I've paid $20K out of my pocket already this year..."

You know what? When ACA is gone the insulting assult on our inteligence is gone.

If you get sick, you'll manage and make do. God you'll make do trust me. That's all Obamacare is already is just... "You better manage" care.

If you get sick, you better manage to have thousands to cover anything bigger than a bandaid.

I was talking to someone the other day saying that his premium for his family was going from $500 a month to $1500 a month.

It's all Obama's fault!!!

No Gruber was right it's the voters fault.

Not to mention how that is no longer going to be a non taxable benefit.

ACA,just another big govt. program to benefit Rep/Con/Teas because they are entrepreneurial failures that can't pay cash for their loved ones healthcare.

This is simple, have STEM PhDs and postdocs deliver health care, instead of working in their labs and fire the executives at both the hospitals and insurers ... prices across the board will drop like a rock.

Rin says

This is simple, have STEM PhDs and postdocs deliver health care, instead of working in their labs and fire the executives at both the hospitals and insurers ... prices across the board will drop like a rock

Some people complain that docs make too much, but the reality is:

This makes the physicians’ collective take-home pay only about 10 percent of total national health spending. If we somehow managed to cut that take-home pay by, say, 20 percent, we would reduce total national health spending by only 2 percent, in return for a wholly demoralized medical profession to which we so often look to save our lives. It strikes me as a poor strategy.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/do-doctors-salaries-drive-up-health-care-costs/?_r=0Rin says

fire the executives at both the hospitals and insurer

these are the a-holes that always want to reduce doctor compensation while trying to get the general public to ignore the elephant in the room.

DieBankOfAmericaPhukkingDie says

counter-jihadi rituals of desperation.

What effect would that have on the number of jihadists in this country? Jihadi rituals that don't kill jihadists are a missed opportunity

HEY YOU says

ACA,just another big govt. program

a failed government program that hopefully leads to single payer and free med school like all the other countries that have better healthcare metrics than the US. I don't see healthcare costs going down...I don't see executive compensation in the healthcare sector or health insurance sector going down

Wait till next year, when 25% of the working populace is hit by a 40% tax and companies make drastic changes in pay/benefits to come under the tax limits. Lets see if the dem supporters finally wake up.

HEY YOU says

When ACA is gone,does that mean everyone can afford private insurance

only chance is if the anti-competitive barriers are removed and people could actually purchase health insurance like car insurance and also if health insurance status isn't tied to employment.

Lot of the states that expanded medicaid have far higher percentages of uninsured after ACA than before because . More than three million people in 19 states remain stuck in a “Medicaid gap,” too poor to qualify for subsidies in the new marketplaces, but unable to get into a government program.

The rate of uninsured went up dramatically in the southwest in states that expanded medicaid from 2014-2015. California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, South Dakota and Montana all went downhill. Texas, Oklahoma and Montana did not expand medicare though.

All the southern states that didn't expand medicaid didn't see a noticeable difference from 2014 to 2015.

Mid-atlantic and Northeast states seem to have done the best in getting the uninsured levels down, as well as the midwest

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/31/upshot/who-still-doesnt-have-health-insurance-obamacare.html

mell says

the Supreme Court forgot that when it makes a service mandatory, corporations can charge any price they want.

Correction: The Supreme Court did not "forget" anything. This theft is completely intentional.

Indiana Jones says

mell says

the Supreme Court forgot that when it makes a service mandatory, corporations can charge any price they want.

Correction: The Supreme Court did not "forget" anything. This theft is completely intentional.

Yes, and the legislation is operating as designed.

mell says

In sum, of the 24 Obamacare co-ops funded with federal tax dollars, one (Vermont’s) never got approval to sell coverage, a second (CoOportunity) has already been wound down, and nine more will terminate at the end of this year.

So what is behind this, so far, 46 percent failure rate?

It was by design, to promote proseletyzing for the new Cult of Obamneycare. Co-op evangelists who co-opted liberals on behalf of the legislation "were the ones hitting the streets and talking about the value of coverage and getting people insured. And in some ways, we were a very cheap way to be able to do that." In their naive idealism, the co-op evangelists failed to see through the legislation, and failed to game the system. With the legislation enacted and operating, the co-ops can now be liquidated.

mell says

ACA requiring all health insurers to pay out in claims at least 80 percent of premium revenues, or refund the difference to policyholders. By law, insurers can retain no more than 20 percent , out of which they must fund sales and administrative costs before booking any remainder as free cash. That significantly constrains a non-profit carrier’s ability to accumulate capital needed for growth, as it can’t raise funds through equity or debt offerings.

NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! I keep dispelling this ignorant myth and it keeps returning. As creationism is to Old Tyme Religion, the MLR accounting tool is to the Cult of Obamneycare. People seem allergic to math, but I promise the arithmetic is very simple and clear. Consider a "non-profit" HMO like, well, let's not call it Kaiser HMO, let's call it Fuhrer HMO. (OK, Godwin's Law: it was inevitable.)

1) Hypothetical Fuhrer HMO is "non-profit" so it pays no tax. It charges $5,000/year premiums.
2) Fuhrer HMO operates a "non-profit" hospital, which pays no tax because it is "non-profit."
3) Fuhrer Hospital rents space to Fuhrer C-T Scanning Lab Inc., an expressly for profit corporation.
4) As many patients as possible who are brought to Fuhrer Hospital are C-T scanned as often as possible.
5) Fuhrer C-T Scanning Lab Inc. charges $5,000 per scan, of which more than $4,900 consists of profit.
6) Fuhrer C-T Scanning Lab Inc. is free to "donate" any part of the $4,900 to Fuhrer's "non-profit" marketing partner, the Fuhrer Family Foundation.
7) Fuhrer Family Foundation pays commercial "news" to publicize push polls and phony studies touting purported benefits of making its revenue model mandatory.
8) If Fuhrer HMO books a "loss," it can claim reimbursement from the Obamneycare "risk corridor" fund, even while the scam continues making huge profits.

As you can see, even one C-T scan at $5k consumes 100% of the annual premium. Anything else is in addition: the 10,000% markup on everything. There is no limit to the profits that can be wrung from the legislation under this system. "No lifetime caps." And, the same applies on the for-profit corporate side: substitute XYZ corp as the parent company, with subsidiaries XY Insurance Corp, YZ hospital Corp, and XZ Scanning Lab; move money from one subsidiary to the others, and book reimbursible "losses" on the insurance side while making profits on the provider sides.

Notice also, the C-T scan may provide no medical benefit; even when the radiation makes the patient worse off with no health benefit, it's covered. And, the C-T scan is only one example, among many.

I read with sadness the NY Times article on a Tea Party Republican winning the Kentucky Governor's race, becoming only the second Republican governor of Kentucky in more than 40 years. He is terrible, even posed with Kim Davis, but he had one crucial advantage: like most voters, he opposed Obamneycare. Kentucky voters saw that the legislation was doing the opposite of what supporters had promised; premiums were increasing, etc. (IOW, they saw it was operating as designed, not as advertised.) What made me most sad was the comments: instead of acknowledging the numbers and facts, the Obamneycare cultists became enraged, even wrathful, vowing that the Kentucky voters would be punished for opposing the sacred legislation, and saying those evil voters deserve their dreadful fate.

Honestly, the Obamneycare cultists sounded like Old Tyme "young earth" Fundamentalists when confronted with proof of evolution, geology, or anything else their doctrine requires them to reject. This legislation has reduced the Democratic party to its lowest point in more than a century. And, when the numbers prove the opponents' predictions, the cultists don't reconsider: they become angry, vengeful, wrathful.

The 2016 election looks like a battle between Old Tyme Religious Fanatics and the New Cult of Obamneycare. Each faction favors its own myths, becoming more angry rather than reasoning together. The Democrats hope for a battle of the sexes, since most voters are women and might hopefully vote against the Old Tyme Religious restrictions that Republicans insist upon. (The GOP has become the party of Paul the Enforcer, rejecting even the original Christian disciples.) At best, voters might choose the lesser of two evils, the frying pan vs the fire, but if they jump instinctively out of the frying pan then gravity will pull us all into the fire.

Our small business got a rebate check this year.

Thank you Curious for that excellent post. It's something like how Florida Charter Schools work to generate R/E profits.

EBGuy says

Our small business got a rebate check this year.

I believe you, but I also believe Roseanne when she recounts her tale of being miraculously "healed" of a temporary injury in childhood, causing her whole family to convert for a while to the Moronic cult.

If you add up what your business and the actual people covered by its medical insurance policy are paying per person (be sure to include premiums, copayments, deductibles, and stuff that isn't covered by the policy so the people had to pay out of pocket), you will almost certainly find that you are paying more, even after the rebate. Nationally, the numbers are very clear: premiums and total spending have continued to increase faster than inflation, and faster than GDP, contrary to certain politicians' assurances that the legislation would make "all of our premiums go down" and the average family would save $2,500/year. The rebate check is the cultists' version of Roseanne being miraculously faith healed: although on that day she got better, that doesn't mean she got a benefit from the cult.

thunderlips11 says

Thank you Curious for that excellent post. It's something like how Florida Charter Schools work to generate R/E profits.

Your new avatar is of an Israeli soldier, what up with dat?

indigenous says

Florida Charter Schools work to generate R/E profits.

Wonder who is mostly responsible for that fine use of taxpayer dollars?