Obamacare has increased the premiums of about 85% of Americans...
this hardship may be enough to lead us into a 2nd Obama recession.
@H2O MAN,
The interesting thing is no one's premiums ever went up before Obamacare was passed.
I'll bet you never paid more than a nickel to get all your teeth pulled Spurt.
ObamaCare in Trouble? Exchange provision delayed, as lawmakers push to repeal another
By Jim Angle
Published April 03, 2013 | FoxNews.com
Parts of ObamaCare are starting to fray, even before full implementation.
The Obama administration now says a special system of exchanges designed to make it easier for small businesses to provide insurance will be delayed an entire year -- to 2015.
"Lots of small businesses struggle with providing insurance for their workers so this was supposed to facilitate it and make it easier for small business to do this," said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. "It was a huge portion of the sale job. When they passed the law in 2010 there were many senators and members of Congress who were saying 'I am doing this because it's going to help small businesses.'"
The exchanges were designed to give workers a range of choices supported by dollars from their employers. But now they will have only one choice until 2015, which could mean they can't shop for insurance that includes their current providers. Capretta said the administration is "way" behind schedule.
Since insurance is more expensive for small businesses, many of which have no obligation under the law to provide coverage, analysts now fear many might just stop trying and let workers go on the soon-to-be-launched state exchanges.
Sara Teppema of the Society of Actuaries -- which did an exhaustive study of ObamaCare -- said that "even if it's just a small change of people who are leaving the employment-based insurance and coming into the individual insurance market, their costs and their numbers will overwhelm those who are currently uninsured."
That means costs would increase.
Meanwhile, 79 senators including several liberal lawmakers recently voted to repeal a new tax on medical devices contained in the health care law following a similar vote in the House.
"The House and the Senate agreeing? This is a harmonic convergence, it doesn't happen," said former Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh. "But on this it's happened because the adverse consequences to our economy and the quality of health care are so apparent."
The two separate votes have not become law but show widespread opposition to the 2.3 percent sales tax on medical devices. Critics say the law is unfair to the industry since it's a tax on gross sales -- meaning it adds up to a much bigger percentage of a company's profits.
But supporters such as Paul Van de Water of the Center for American Progress oppose any repeal.
@H2O MAN,
Red states whine because they want more liberal money from the Federal government.
I do have to wonder about the conservative thought processes. They refuse to pass a bill that adds money to the program then complain that the program is underfunded.
@parados,
I've 'ALWAYS' advocated for a universal health care for our country, but the legislation approved by Obama was sloppy. There could have been many ways to save cost, but they didn't implement most of the important ones.
Doctors in the US perform too many and unnecessary tests, perform unnecessary surgery that doesn't improve or extend life, and could have saved money on "end of life" decision making before the elderly needs care.
From CNNMoney.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/11/pf/end-of-life-care-duplicate-2.moneymag/index.html
@cicerone imposter,
It may surprise you, but I kind of agree, though I'm not entirely sure what you mean regarding end of life decisions. First though, the devil's in the details of what they might have written. Second, they had to cobble up something that had a hope of being rammed through Congress. I'll give you good odds that the first requirement would seriously collide with the second.
Obamacare can’t fix what was never broken
Robert Samuelson
Quote:Health insurance is a financial product that is aimed at providing financial security,” the study says. On that ground, the expansion succeeded; by most clinical measures, it didn’t. Perhaps it is too early. The expanded Medicaid coverage was only two years old at the time of the study. Maybe greater health improvements will emerge. But maybe they won’t, and not only because the uninsured already receive care. Many uninsured are relatively healthy; insurance won’t make them healthier. For others, modern medicine can’t cure every health problem. For still others, bad luck or bad habits are hard to change. About two-fifths of Oregon’s uninsured were obese or smoked; Medicaid didn’t alter that.
Much of this was known — or could have been surmised — during the debate over Obamacare. The Congressional Budget Office reported that the uninsured typically received 50 to 70 percent of the care of the insured. A study in 2007 of the 1965 creation of Medicare — insurance for the elderly — concluded that it had “no discernible impact on elderly mortality” in the first 10 years but improved recipients’ financial security by limiting out-of-pocket expenses.
Obamacare’s advocates ignored these ambiguities. They were too busy flaunting their moral superiority. Universal health insurance is a legitimate goal, but 2009 — in the midst of a major economic crisis — was the wrong time to pursue it. Predictably, it polarized public opinion and subverted confidence for what seem to have been, based on the available evidence, modest likely public health improvements. The crusade for universal coverage has been as much about advocates’ sense of self-worth as about benefits for the uninsured.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/overselling-obamacare/2013/05/09/f9446786-b8be-11e2-92f3-f291801936b8_story.html?hpid=z2
as I have said all along...
@hawkeye10,
Silly as assumptions about "
Maybe greater health improvements will emerge. But
maybe they won’t, .." and "but 2009 — in the midst of a major economic crisis — was the wrong time to pursue it."
We were NOT in the midst of a major economic crisis; it was the ENDING of the GW Bush Great Recession. Any graph on the US economy will prove what I'm saying. Unemployment ceased its huge increase, and the stock market started to improve. Maybe this or maybe that! Come on, that's no answer or solution.
@cicerone imposter,
Throwing even more money at the healthcare system will not solve the problem that we already spend more than we can afford for poor quality care. More is wrong with ObamaCare than the timing.
@hawkeye10,
You're arriving at the conclusion promulgated by Boehner. LOL Nobody really knows what the true cost will be; not yet. Where did you get your cost information? I want to see it.
@cicerone imposter,
More access to care means more cost of care, the only ways to lower our healthcare bill is to be more efficient, do more rationing of care, or be more healthy. This oregon study indicates that ObamaCare will not make us more healthy, it went the other direction on rationing, and it never even tried to do anything about the efficiency problem.
Come on...you are not stupid, you know damn well where this train goes so stop playing dumb.
ObamaCare is one of the worst pieces of legislation this country has every enacted.
ObamaCare needs to be ripped apart, killed with fire and then sent to Detroit.
@hawkeye10,
I've posted many issues about ObamaCare, and how they could have done a much better job to control costs.
That's not the issue we are talking about. It's about the claims made by you about the higher cost without any proof. Nobody has yet been able to determine those costs; NOBODY.
@cicerone imposter,
Quote:Philip Klein was kind enough to post a link to the actual GAO report (emphasis mine):
The effect of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), enacted in March 2010, on the long-term fiscal outlook depends largely on whether elements in PPACA designed to control cost growth are sustained. There was notable improvement in the longer-term outlook after the enactment of PPACA under GAO’s Fall 2010 Baseline Extended simulation, which assumes both the expansion of health care coverage and the full implementation and effectiveness of the cost-containment provisions over the entire 75-year simulation period. However, the federal budget remains on an unsustainable path. Further, questions about the implementation and sustainability of these provisions have been raised by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Office of the Actuary and others, due in part to challenges in sustaining increased health care productivity. The Fall 2010 Alternative simulation assumed cost containment mechanisms specified in PPACA were phased out over time while the additional costs associated with expanding federal health care coverage remained. Under these assumptions, the long-term outlook worsened slightly compared to the pre-PPACA January 2010 simulation.
Do you notice that they don't project actual estimates of increased cost?
That's because nobody still knows the actual impact of the cost-containment provisions and the longer term savings from healthier Americans.
Prevention is an important element for cost savings in health care.
This is virtually the only thing Obama has done that I do agree with. At present, many people simply skip seeing the doctor, even when they are very sick, because they can't afford it. That is unacceptable. Everyone must have access to health care, not in some future utopia, but right now. I just hope it doesn't result in rationing of health care and long waiting lists to see doctors.
