The Affordable Care Act is Coming Home to Roost

[IDBillzFan]

Based on most of the "The ACA is an abject failure in every capacity" posts in this thread...

 

Again, my issue with your comments is that they're based on your perception of what you think you're reading here. Virtually no one in this thread is making the argument you quote above. So you're taking a very narrow and isolated position and arguing against it using a very narrow and isolated anecdote based on a very narrow and isolated sampling of three or four people who have found their health care costs reduced.

 

Finding a handful of ACA success stories is easy. I can find you four people who like going to the CA DMV. I can find you five people who still think the Bills will make the playoffs this year. I can actually show you someone -- elected to serve in Congress by a majority of his constituents -- who believes too many people will make Guam tip over.

 

The law is an absolute mess for most people. You're the exception, not the rule.

[Magox]

I'l say it again. I've now spoken to 3 business owners (including me) who have had great success on the exchange. Better plan, better rates, easy to use website.

 

I know it's not popular to say anything positive about the ACA on here but if you pay for your health care in any way, you really should go to the ACA website and price shop. My buddy owns a 10 person business and will save thousands this year--and his employees will get much better healthcare--by jettisoning his current offering and paying his people more money that they can use to enroll themselves.

 

For me, my wife has a PPO plan at work that was costing our family $1800. No dental. We signed up for the platinum BCBS Personal Choice plan. Lower deductible. All our doctors in network. Large network (including PENN) and out of network costs and deductible reasonable. Dental plan. $1200/month.

 

 

 

Well, I'm glad to hear that you and your friends have found good deals on the ACA.

 

However as LA pointed out, you guys are certainly the exception and not the norm. There are many variables that go into the premium changes, it could be the doctor reimbursement rates in the network, possibly pre existing medical conditions in the individual market plan you had that is now more based on a community rating, maybe the small business risk pools that your friends workplaces maybe consisted of sicker and older people or maybe you just happen to live in one of those rare zip codes where more insurers stepped in helping reduce the premiums.

 

I hope you have the time and interest to read this post, simply because I'm going to provide empirical data and analysis performed no longer on abstract models, but existing exchange information. There will also be opinions from some non partisan industry insiders who also are basing their views on the data at hand. Also I will tell you my firsthand experience of the law as well and the impact we are seeing on many individual instances.

 

http://www.forbes.co...low-to-elderly/

In the average state, the ACA will increase underlying premiums by 41 percent.

That's a 49 state analysis based on policies that are currently being offered on the exchanges, relative to comparable deductible policies you could have found on E health insurance.

 

http://www.usatoday....unties/4165513/

 

5]More than half of the counties in 34 states using the federal

health insurance

exchange lack even a bronze plan that's affordable — by the government's own definition — for 40-year-old couples who make just a little too much for financial assistance, a USA TODAY analysis shows.

5]Many of these counties are in rural, less populous areas that already had limited choice and pricey plans, but many others are heavily populated, such as Bergen County, N.J., and Philadelphia and Milwaukee counties.

 

5] But the analysis clearly shows how the sticker shock hitting many in the middle class, including the self-employed and early retirees, isn't just a perception problem. The lack of counties with affordable plans means many middle-class people will either opt out of insurance or pay too much to buy it.

5]The prices of exchange plans have shocked many shoppers, especially those who had plans canceled because they did not meet the ACA coverage requirements. But experts are not surprised.

 

So what about the small business premiums? It's worse.

 

http://investigation...trade-offs?lite

 

“As a business owner, we have to be viable first and then provide services,” he said. Lutz is not required to provide health insurance to workers, but has done so for 35 years.

 

 

 

By not sponsoring a company plan, Lutz also enables workers to shop around and see if they do better buying insurance through the health insurance exchanges established by the new law, where some qualify for subsidies, or through buying a new group plan recommended by the company.

 

Twenty-six of the dealership's workers had been covered this year under the old company plan. Twenty-one have now decided to go with the new group plan recommended by the company for next year, though they realize that they face sharply higher out-of-pocket costs next year.

Their deductibles will go from $1,125 this year to $3,000 next year, and maximum out-of-pocket costs jump from $2,250 to $6,350. And for families, those numbers double: to a $6,000 deductible and $12,700 out-of-pocket maximum.

“How is this helping the average American that’s working 40 to 50 hours per week?” said Terry Hardcastle, a salesperson. “How are we supposed to live?”

 

Cathy Smith, who’d hoped she’d qualify for a subsidy and made just a little too much money, had tears in her eyes. "You don't make that much money to begin with,” she said, “and the prescriptions are going to kill me."

Insurance broker Michael Harp said small businesses, part of what’s known in the industry as the “small group market,” are used to seeing health insurance premiums climb about 10 percent a year, but it’s never before been this dramatic. For Extreme Dodge to have kept deductibles and out-of-pocket costs at last year’s levels, he said, would have cost the dealership almost 50 percent more than last year.

 

Harp says what is happening at this dealership is representative of the other small businesses he deals with. Businesses with 50 or fewer employees currently provide health insurance to about 17 million U.S. workers, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

 

He said the biggest surprise to him in how the law impacts small business clients is “how many people are losers versus winners. … There are some people who do come out ahead, but I would say the overwhelming majority, they’re paying much higher rates and they have lower benefits.”

Some small businesses have been able to extend their current policies and delay the deadline for complying with the new law until sometime next year.

 

 

http://www.cleveland...ers_warn_t.html

The Affordable Care Act is about to upend these old insurance pricing models, especially for companies with 50 or fewer employees. Yet until things stabilize, this is going to mean a lot of price hikes for small businesses, according to Ohio health insurance administrators, brokers and even advocates of the health care law commonly called Obamacare.

“I’m not certain about all that many things that surround my life,” says Paul Nachtwey, vice president of the employee benefits practice at Beachwood-based Todd Associates, a brokerage and advisory firm. “I am certain of that. It will be bad out of the gate, and it will only get worse.”

Even Rhett Buttle, vice president of the Small Business Majority, an advocacy group allied with Democrats, acknowledges coming price changes -- some up, some down -- in a number of states.

“Is there going to be some price differential?” asks Buttle. “Most likely.”

 

Linda Blumberg, an economist and senior fellow in the Urban Institute’s Health Policy Center, describes the change by citing the example of employers like General Motors. With thousands of employees, many of whom seldom seek medical care, GM’s premiums won’t suffer if a few employees get sick and wind up hospitalized. That’s not the case for a business with four, five or a dozen employees.

 

Steve Millard, president and CEO of the Council of Smaller Enterprises, or COSE, in Cleveland, explains how it could work out, although he approaches it without blinders and sees flaws on both sides of the ACA arguments. COSE already helps thousands of small businesses in Ohio buy insurance.

“We’re estimating in the individual market between 100 and 125 percent and in the small-group market between 25 to 50 percent will be your average rate hike” next year, he says. But even that “really depends upon where you fall.

“If you have a group of old, chain-smoking, cancer-ridden employees, you’re going to see a rate reduction. And we’re seeing reductions of 25 to 35 percent in some groups, based on the fact that they’ve got a really bad demographic, if you will, in their population.

“But if you are in that pool of folks who are really critical to making this work, folks they’re trying to get in -- you’re the young, healthy folks, you’re the small computer programming shop with guys who don’t really use healthcare - your rate increases are going to be 25, 50, 75 percent.”

 

 

 

 

The National Federation of Independent Businesses, which represents nearly 11,000 business owners across the state, has revealed that not one single member has reported that their healthcare insurance costs are going down.

 

The federation's director Mike Durant said an "overwhelming majority" of small firms with fewer than 50 employees have reported, in fact, that their premiums have shot up.

 

 

I went into the health insurance field about a year and a half ago, started off working for a company and about 6 months ago decided to open up a small office with a few agents and now we have eight. We are aligned with GOHEALTH who is one of the largest online brokerages in the country, the way I have my office set up is that we are on a central cloud based program, all the agents work out of their own homes, I provide them leads that I purchase through GOHEALTH, in which they generate them from people who are searching for health insurance through their website in which we call them to offer them different plans.

 

GOHEALTH is one of the few agencies that is contracted with the Government to offer the subsidized policies on the exchange, just like the federal website, there are glitches with the direct link from GOHEALTH to the Federal Marketplace ACA website. We just recently obtained access to offer those policies due to the technical difficulties. Our office is licensed to offer health insurance in 23 states and we carry United Health Care/Golden Rule, Aetna, Assurant Health, Cigna, Humana and a couple regional based carriers.

 

I say this with all honesty, the vast majority of the premiums for people who do not qualify for a subsidy pay not only a higher premium, but considerably higher, in some cases 200-300% higher, depending on how rural of a location they live.

 

There were a few carriers that were still allowing people to purchase the older 2013 Major Medical policies that didn't comply with the new ACA 10 essential benefits mandates, without having to pay a penalty. Of course they are only able to keep that policy throughout 2014, in which their policy will then be cancelled and they will at that point have to either purchase one of the ACA policies that complies with the law, or purchase a non complying policy and pay the fine, or go without health insurance. We've had a deluge of sales in the past 45 days, and out of the 750 policies that we have in our office, not even 20 of them were the 2014 policies.

 

We offered both of them, and allowed them to make the choice. Our modus operandi is we would show a direct contrast by first pricing the 2014 ACA compliant plans. Show them the deductibles, prescription plans, networks and then premiums. To say the least, the overwhelming reaction was EXTREMELY NEGATIVE!!! That's putting it mildly. A typical response would be "I thought this was suppose to be the Affordable Care Act".....Then our next response is to explain why the premiums are much higher than they use to be. Which we begin to tell them some of the benefits such as that there is no more Denying people for pre existing medical conditions which of course has a cost associated to premiums. That there are taxes levied on some hospitals, taxes on the insurers and medical device makers, which of course these end up being passed down to the consumer. And then we tell them about the 10 essential minimum benefits, in which it entails that every new policy MUST have Children's pediatric coverage, Substance abuse , mental health and Maternity coverage. These added benefits in which many cases are not needed add on to the premium.

 

This by far is the most unpopular portion of the law that we hear from people. I can't tell you how many older individuals say, "I don't need that" and they are not pleased. So then we go and quote them the 2013 plans. We inform them that they will have to go through underwriting and they may not get approved based on their medical history. In I'd say in over 98% of the quotes we give, you can get these individuals a cheaper policy with a lower deductible, much larger PPO network and heftier prescription drug plan. Of course, they like these policies better.

 

We proceed to send them out quotes with policy details of the 2 best plans we selected for 2014 and 2 best for 2013 policies and there they can see a side by side comparison to the email address we sent it to.

 

So, it's not just the links that I provided above that show evidence that premiums are lower, but that is what we overwhelmingly see as well.

 

Here's the kicker, there have been many policies that have been purchased on the individual market that are these 2013 plans. Those plans, unless the law is reformed again (which I believe it will), there will be a huge wave of cancellation notices that will be sent in October of 2014.

 

JA, I've literally had a few women break down in tears telling me that they don't know what they are going to do come next year. I've heard many people say that they'll just go without health insurance. I quoted a lady and her husband out of Arkansas age 59 and 61, who had a $5k deductible through UH and they were paying $589 a month. It included doctor copays of $35, it was a large PPO network, $500 deductible on prescriptions with $15 copay on generics, ER visits $500 deductible and free preventative visits.....The cheapest policy they can get for 2014 is a bronze Humana $6300 deductible $12600 for the two of them, no doctor visit coverage until they hit the deductible, no ER visits until it hits deductible, no prescriptions until it hits deductible for $1485. She wept. I had to try to console her, very awkward to say the least, considering that I'm not the consoling type. I had to tell her that there are other options where she can get decent coverage but would have to pay the fine, also that I thought that the law would be reformed and that maybe this horrible position that she is in will possibly not be the case come next year.

 

I've got a lot more to say on the law, regarding deductibles, networks, prescription plans and premiums. I'll save that for a later post.

Edited January 4, 2014 by Magox

[John Adams]

I guess when critical thinking is taken out of the equation, anything is possible in a person's mind. Again, the ACA disregards "The Law Of Large Numbers". This is typical Obama. He thinks he can rule by fiat and is arrogant enough to believe that his proclamations can actually win out over proven theory. Good luck with your premiums. One way or another you will be paying more. It may not show up in your premiums because it will paid for by taxes or deficit spending, but you will pay more.

 

Simpleton.

 

I expect to pay more. My old business's health insurance premiums increased 17% or more every year for the last decade. I always expect to pay more.

 

It's hard for you to accept what I'm posting and not say something about your secret love in ever post but I wasn't posting for political advantage. I was posting to help people who are overpaying--NOW--for insurance.

 

Again, my issue with your comments is that they're based on your perception of what you think you're reading here. Virtually no one in this thread is making the argument you quote above. So you're taking a very narrow and isolated position and arguing against it using a very narrow and isolated anecdote based on a very narrow and isolated sampling of three or four people who have found their health care costs reduced.

 

Finding a handful of ACA success stories is easy. I can find you four people who like going to the CA DMV. I can find you five people who still think the Bills will make the playoffs this year. I can actually show you someone -- elected to serve in Congress by a majority of his constituents -- who believes too many people will make Guam tip over.

 

The law is an absolute mess for most people. You're the exception, not the rule.

 

OK...find me where B-Man (or the quote machine that functions as his brain) has said something positive about the ACA.

 

Well, I'm glad to hear that you and your friends have found good deals on the ACA.

 

However as LA pointed out, you guys are certainly the exception and not the norm. ...

I've got a lot more to say on the law, regarding deductibles, networks, prescription plans and premiums. I'll save that for a later post.[/font][/color][/font][/color][/font][/color][/font][/color]

 

And again, I'm sharing the anecdotes of 3 business owners in PA and Maryland. My goal, as I've said from the beginning, is not to defend the ACA but just to point out that as a practical matter, it may be better on the exchange for someone posting on here. It was for me. It seems really hard for people to accept or believe that what I'm saying is true.

 

By the way, when my wife said she was going to look on the exchange (she's in the health care industry), I figured it would be a waste of time but didn't argue because (1) she's a liberal and I was sure it would amount to nothing, and (2) see 1--happy wife, happy life and all that. When she reported her findings, I asked a million questions because I didn't believe it. But we now have a better, cheaper, plan--with dental--than we had before. The only thing that is worse my vision plan, which was crap before anyways.

 

I'm happy to report on the premiums in a year or so.

[Magox]

Simpleton.

 

I expect to pay more. My old business's health insurance premiums increased 17% or more every year for the last decade. I always expect to pay more.

 

It's hard for you to accept what I'm posting and not say something about your secret love in ever post but I wasn't posting for political advantage. I was posting to help people who are overpaying--NOW--for insurance.

 

 

 

OK...find me where B-Man (or the quote machine that functions as his brain) has said something positive about the ACA.

 

 

 

And again, I'm sharing the anecdotes of 3 business owners in PA and Maryland. My goal, as I've said from the beginning, is not to defend the ACA but just to point out that as a practical matter, it may be better on the exchange for someone posting on here. It was for me. It seems really hard for people to accept or believe that what I'm saying is true.

 

By the way, when my wife said she was going to look on the exchange (she's in the health care industry), I figured it would be a waste of time but didn't argue because (1) she's a liberal and I was sure it would amount to nothing, and (2) see 1--happy wife, happy life and all that. When she reported her findings, I asked a million questions because I didn't believe it. But we now have a better, cheaper, plan--with dental--than we had before. The only thing that is worse my vision plan, which was crap before anyways.

 

I'm happy to report on the premiums in a year or so.

 

Absolutely, it would be foolish to not look and see what sort of deal you could get on the exchange. There are some instances, rare as they may be, of certain individuals who are able to find a lower premium than what they were paying before, specially if you qualify for a subsidy or if you were someone who was previously being rated up because of a pre existing medical condition.

[3rdnlng]

 

 

Simpleton.

 

I expect to pay more. My old business's health insurance premiums increased 17% or more every year for the last decade. I always expect to pay more.

 

It's hard for you to accept what I'm posting and not say something about your secret love in ever post but I wasn't posting for political advantage. I was posting to help people who are overpaying--NOW--for insurance.

 

 

 

OK...find me where B-Man (or the quote machine that functions as his brain) has said something positive about the ACA.

 

 

 

And again, I'm sharing the anecdotes of 3 business owners in PA and Maryland. My goal, as I've said from the beginning, is not to defend the ACA but just to point out that as a practical matter, it may be better on the exchange for someone posting on here. It was for me. It seems really hard for people to accept or believe that what I'm saying is true.

 

By the way, when my wife said she was going to look on the exchange (she's in the health care industry), I figured it would be a waste of time but didn't argue because (1) she's a liberal and I was sure it would amount to nothing, and (2) see 1--happy wife, happy life and all that. When she reported her findings, I asked a million questions because I didn't believe it. But we now have a better, cheaper, plan--with dental--than we had before. The only thing that is worse my vision plan, which was crap before anyways.

 

I'm happy to report on the premiums in a year or so.

 

You call me a simpleton because you can't grasp the idea that just because it appears that your insurance is now less money doesn't mean it won't go up significantly in the future? The ACA discourages young, healthy people from signing up. It's simple, older and less healthy people will be signing up. The insurance premiums will have to cover a less healthier group.

 

Maybe you should just stick to the gay marriage issue.

[Nanker]

JA - did you shop around before the ACA or just now because it became top of mind?

Sounds like you just stayed with your old (previous) carrier for years and accepted their up-charges without putting much thought into it and shopping around.

[B-Man]

Obamacare’s ‘Absurd New Low’

 

Texas senator John Cornyn responds to the Obama administration doubling down on the abortion-drug, contraception, sterilization mandate yesterday, in the face of Catholic nuns who serve poor elderly Americans going to the Supreme Court for help:

"In a sign that the White House will stop at nothing to save its unpopular and unworkable health care law, now they’re working to silence a group of nuns in Colorado who object to the Obamacare mandate requiring coverage of contraceptive services. It’s an absurd new low for this mandate-happy Administration and an unacceptable affront to religious freedoms and fidelity. We should be concerned about the lengths President Obama will go to force his government-knows-best agenda on the American people."

 

Perhaps Justice Sotomayor’s interest in the religious-liberty violation facing the Little Sisters of the Poor is an opportunity for all of Congress to reconsider what they’ve done in passing this monstrosity, with all its implications, including on religious freedom.

 

The day after Christmas, Bishop David Zubrik wrote about the HHS Mandate, imploring Congress to act to protect the conscience rights. Pittsburgh is one of the diocese that was granted an injunction, giving at least temporary relief to ministries that provide daily help to real people in need. He wrote:

Unless Congress acts, as the HHS mandate takes effect many religious employers will be forced to pay heavy government fines that will endanger their ability to carry out their ministries.

 

Those ministries are extensive. Service to those in need is central to the Catholic faith, and our dioceses serve all our neighbors without regard to their religion.

(

more at link

)

 

 

A Toomey-Casey lead would be a good one given the Keystoners would be a bipartisan duo, immediately deflating some of the “war on women” nonsense that will predictably be thrown out to try to scare senators away from it.

 

Consider the faces of the victims of the abortion-drug, contraception, sterilization mandate — people like the elderly poor people whose lives are treasured by the Little Sisters of the Poor. Perhaps some sensible women in the senate by join their sister Kelly Ayotte in protecting the religious freedom of the Little Sisters of the Poor. Sister Constance here is, after all, a woman, too. What about the real, outrageous, outlandish “war” (Kathleen Sebelius’s word, not mine) on her we’re seeing in the Obama administration’s stubborn insistence they violate their consciences or face fines or other choices — like closing homes — they simply should not be forced by the federal government to make?

 

 

 

.

Edited January 4, 2014 by B-Man

[Doc]

So 2.1M people signed up for private insurance so far, eh? How many are "invincibles"? How many are people who had their individual policies canceled? How many have actually paid their premiums? And what about the 48-oddM other people who were claimed to have been denied basic health care (really insurance, but what do the facts matter anymore?) and dying in the streets, which necessitated this idiotic law?

 

And no doubt some are paying less than before. Insurers guessed at the rates and were coerced into keeping them lower for political reasons. Just wait until next year and however long this thing lasts, which I give 4 years, tops, for one reason or another. But as they say, you get what you pay for. The new term for this is "Obamacaid" because of what it reimburses docs. And you know how much docs like Medicaid.

[OCinBuffalo]

Well, I'm glad to hear that you and your friends have found good deals on the ACA.

 

However as LA pointed out, you guys are certainly the exception and not the norm.

JA is a serial projector, so....it's not hard to see why he would think his personal experience is not only valuable, but instructive...to others, even though in reality there's practically 0 chance of that being true(I will prove this below).

 

Remember: We ALL, always, stand to learn something from JA...

I hope you have the time and interest to read this post,

I did and I did....because I don't have an ADHD problem, and, because sometimes, things can't be explained properly in a sentence.

 

Your post is not only valuable, it's instructive.

Here's the kicker,

Yes, it's going to be a kicker alright: a kick Democrats out of office kicker.

 

See, the real problem is: all sorts of people, especially and including JA, are going to find out the hard way that 2014 was "just a guess", and that they essentially got lucky this time around. Next Oct/Nov, when the REAL data is in...the insurance companies are going to get a "do over" WRT rates/policies. If you thought "sticker shock" was an accurate term in 2013....

 

Thus, it's not just JA's story that is NOT instructive as we move from signing up in 2013, to doing it in 2014, it's everbody's.

 

Everbody's 2013 signup experience, by definition, will not inform their 2014 experience, because: real, not estimated data. As I said above: I will prove it, and I just did.

 

Well, there's a 1% chance that a real miracle happens...which says that 2014 pricing was overestimated. So, there's that. (And of course, the Ds have built in a "blame the insurance companies, not us" excuse into this entrire thing. It won't work.)

Simpleton.

 

I expect to pay more. My old business's health insurance premiums increased 17% or more every year for the last decade. I always expect to pay more.

 

It's hard for you to accept what I'm posting and not say something about your secret love in ever post but I wasn't posting for political advantage. I was posting to help people who are overpaying--NOW--for insurance.

It's not hard for anybody here to accept what you're saying. Watch:

I accept what you're saying, fully, and without equivocation.

 

Done.

 

Now, read what I wrote above, understand it first, and then accept what I'm saying.

 

Or...don't. It matters not. You're going to have to, sooner or later, whether you like it or not.

 

What I wrote above = gravity. It is reality, and always has been(well, since 2009). It's merely a matter of time...until you "discover" it.

And again, I'm sharing the anecdotes of 3 business owners in PA and Maryland. My goal, as I've said from the beginning, is not to defend the ACA but just to point out that as a practical matter, it may be better on the exchange for someone posting on here. It was for me. It seems really hard for people to accept or believe that what I'm saying is true.

I wonder: are you even aware of the state of the Maryland exchange? Do you have any idea how close it is to utter collapse, already?

 

Help: http://townhall.com/...change-n1764642 Now? It's "emergency" time : http://www.washingto...ca3b_story.html

 

All it's going to take (now appears to be inevitable) is for "the plan" to continued to be followed as they have right along, coupled with this "emergency" legislation(but it really doesn't matter much if they pass it or not).

 

That pretty much seals the Maryland exchange's fate. Whether it dies now, or 9 months from now, doesn't matter.

 

The only difference is that is: perhaps you and yours will get covered for 9 months, rather than 0 months.

I'm happy to report on the premiums in a year or so.

We'll see....

 

...but, I highly doubt the word "happy" will be in your report.

[3rdnlng]

So 2.1M people signed up for private insurance so far, eh? How many are "invincibles"? How many are people who had their individual policies canceled? How many have actually paid their premiums? And what about the 48-oddM other people who were claimed to have been denied basic health care (really insurance, but what do the facts matter anymore?) and dying in the streets, which necessitated this idiotic law?

 

And no doubt some are paying less than before. Insurers guessed at the rates and were coerced into keeping them lower for political reasons. Just wait until next year and however long this thing lasts, which I give 4 years, tops, for one reason or another. But as they say, you get what you pay for. The new term for this is "Obamacaid" because of what it reimburses docs. And you know how much docs like Medicaid.

 

If I understand and have faith in the government numbers, produced by the government, 2.1 million people have "enrolled", not by actually paying for insurance but by placing a plan in their online cart. So, in other words, 2.1 million people have window shopped ACA plans and figurativily wrote down the telephone number.

Edited January 5, 2014 by 3rdnlng

[John Adams]

JA - did you shop around before the ACA or just now because it became top of mind?

Sounds like you just stayed with your old (previous) carrier for years and accepted their up-charges without putting much thought into it and shopping around.

 

We shopped every year in my old biz and changed plans twice and carriers once. Our insurance bill was something like 10% of our revenues. It was a huge nut that we never stopped looking at. I don't know of many people who haven't had similar health ins premiums stories.

 

OC, I don't live in Maryland. Know nothing about it, but I'm guessing my friend who is a surgeon and shopped the exchange for his employees might be reasonably well informed. I know this is the part where you say that you're smarter than everyone so I will save you time. You're smarter than him and his decision is a bad one.

 

I relayed my experience. If there's a person on here looking for a good private plan, you might find a deal. Not sure that I've said much more in the ACA's defense. If my premiums double in 2015, I'll be shopping again. Big deal.

Edited January 5, 2014 by John Adams

[Doc]

If I understand and have faith in the government numbers, produced by the governmen,t 2.1 million people have "enrolled", not by actually paying for insurance but by placing a plan in their online cart. So, in other words, 2.1 million people have window shopped ACA plans and figurativily wrote down the telephone number.

Yep. That's why they won't admit how many (for should I say few) people have actually paid their premiums. Or how many are "invincibles." Or had to find a plan after their plan that they liked and wanted to keep...got canceled. Which tells you those numbers are not good.

 

It's funny that 5.4M people had their plans canceled because of Obamacaid, while at-best 2.1M people have signed up as a result of Obamacaid. If we take that number and add the ~3M kids who get to stay on their parents' plan until age 26, basically all Obamacaid has done to date is reduce the number of people with insurance. And as it stood, they were predicting that just 7M people would sign up in 2014, which again begs the question "what about those 40-odd million other people we were told lacked health insurance?" Did we spent trillions of dollars...to insure just 7M people (not counting the massive spike in Medicaid enrollments, which will only add further to the cost)?"

 

Speaking of Medicaid, here are two good articles on a) it's ineffectiveness (and Obamacaid will follow a similar path), and b) how it will lead to no change, if not worsening, ER usage, when we were told ER's would become barren wastelands.

[3rdnlng]

 

Yep. That's why they won't admit how many (for should I say few) people have actually paid their premiums. Or how many are "invincibles." Or had to find a plan after their plan that they liked and wanted to keep...got canceled. Which tells you those numbers are not good.

 

It's funny that 5.4M people had their plans canceled because of Obamacaid, while at-best 2.1M people have signed up as a result of Obamacaid. If we take that number and add the ~3M kids who get to stay on their parents' plan until age 26, basically all Obamacaid has done to date is reduce the number of people with insurance. And as it stood, they were predicting that just 7M people would sign up in 2014, which again begs the question "what about those 40-odd million other people we were told lacked health insurance?" Did we spent trillions of dollars...to insure just 7M people (not counting the massive spike in Medicaid enrollments, which will only add further to the cost)?"

 

Speaking of Medicaid, here are two good articles on a) it's ineffectiveness (and Obamacaid will follow a similar path), and b) how it will lead to no change, if not worsening, ER usage, when we were told ER's would become barren wastelands.

 

Doc--you are a good poster. The nonsense these people spill is a real laugher. If they ever went back to reality their lives would be changed.

Edited January 5, 2014 by 3rdnlng

[OCinBuffalo]

We shopped every year in my old biz and changed plans twice and carriers once. Our insurance bill was something like 10% of our revenues. It was a huge nut that we never stopped looking at. I don't know of many people who haven't had similar health ins premiums stories.

I wonder how you think this makes you different than the rest of us? I've been doing, what you are now doing, for the last 10 years.

 

So...yeah...health insurance costs suck.

 

Obamacare has 1%(generous) chance of making this cost lest, and 99% chance of making it cost more....especially when the actuaries get the real data.

OC, I don't live in Maryland. Know nothing about it, but I'm guessing my friend who is a surgeon and shopped the exchange for his employees might be reasonably well informed. I know this is the part where you say that you're smarter than everyone so I will save you time. You're smarter than him and his decision is a bad one.

Are you or your friend capable of reading a newspaper or performing a web search?

 

This isn't about being smarter, this is about situational awareness. Mine is perfect. (I'll just tell you: that's a troll, using Archer no less...one of many I've specifically designed for you over the years. I don't have to tell people I'm smarter than you, I just have to keep creating the conditions for you to prove it.)

 

Look, your dopey little thing here hasn't worked, isn't working, and will never...primarily because most here are familiar with irony, and the pot, and the kettle.

I relayed my experience. If there's a person on here looking for a good private plan, you might find a deal. Not sure that I've said much more in the ACA's defense. If my premiums double in 2015, I'll be shopping again. Big deal.

Yeah, what happens when your 10% becomes 30? Huge deal.

 

Dude, underestimation of this nearly cost me the whole shebang my 3rd year of this...whatever this thing I do is called. I had employees with every excuse to leave, due to our "solution", which screwed them over. Luckily, we had a good crew, and they knew the score...because I made sure they did, from day 1.

 

But, I got lucky. Things could have gone very badly. As it stood, I lost one guy who was just looking for an excuse to leave and compete with me. This gave him his opening. If some had joined him? Who knows? He's long gone, but, neither you or I need this kind of hassle.

 

Word to the wise: it is a big deal.

 

I'm thinking of telling some of our contractors to do the following: Get temporary insurance(11 month) which isn't touched by Obamacare, pay the fine, and if you get really sick, cancel and then sign up for the exchange. This means:

1. You save between $1 and $5k per year(depends of course).

2. You can keep shopping all year, because you can quit temp insurance any time(usually) without paying a penalty(fee...whatever). It's like a corporate apartment, you can leave any month, but you pay more for the privlege. However, you STILL pay less than Obamacare.

 

Pause: Think about that for a second. Temp insurance has always been a rip off...yet...it's now more "affordable" than Obamacare.

 

3. If it really hits the fan, and you are looking at hitting your temp insurance claim limit(another reason it sucks, but, again: Obamacare), the "no pre-existing" thing means you are never in any real danger. Most of the people I work with can afford to take a one-time $5-8k hit, which is what the exchange deductible would cost.

4. Essentially you are betting on yourself to stay healthy, yes....but...you are getting a huge point spread in your favor, and you always get a bigger pay off than what you bet = saving the $1-5K.

5. Your bet is always hedged, big time.

 

The only trouble with the above: if everybody does it, this guarantees the death of Obamacare, so, then you lose your hedge.

 

However, given the realities here, it's likely this is gonna happen anyway. So, why bother getting ripped off in the meantime, while the "whatever comes next" is created?

 

That's how I see it right now. I could be wrong, but, I doubt it.

Edited January 5, 2014 by OCinBuffalo

[Doc]

Doc--you are a good poster. The nonsense these people spill is a real laugher. If they ever went back to realality their lives would be changed.

Some are just partisan hacks. Others think they're getting a good deal. The reality is what I said before: "you get what you pay for."

[John Adams]

I wonder how you think this makes you different than the rest of us? I've been doing, what you are now doing, for the last 10 years.

 

I've been doing what I've been doing for 10 years too. It doesn't make me different at all--I was throwing my experience out there as a positive one with the exchange in case people weren't checking into it.

 

Yeah, what happens when your 10% becomes 30? Huge deal.

 

What happens? The same thing that happens every year when my premiums increase by 17-24-whatever percent. I shop. The exchange is just another store.

Edited January 5, 2014 by John Adams

[B-Man]

 

Another Day, Another Delay

 

At some point this is going to stop being news (like the latest alarmist global warming study):

California extends payment deadline for Obamacare policies to Jan. 15

Amid deepening consumer frustration, California’s health exchange extended the payment deadline to Jan. 15 for insurance coverage starting Jan. 1 under the federal

healthcare law

.

The state’s move late Saturday comes as many enrollees continue to report problems getting an invoice from their insurance company or paying their first month’s premium so coverage is retroactive to Jan. 1.

What happened? Those “glitches” again:

Consumers say they have encountered

website glitches

trying to pay online and jammed phone lines when attempting to get help from their insurer or the Covered California exchange.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WaPo's Kliff Lets Obamacare Architect Who Promised Cost Savings Totally Change His Tune

 

In late October, continuing a four-year pattern of making such claims, MIT's Jonathan Gruber, who along with Ezekiel "Zeke the Bleak" Emanuel is considered one of the two "architects" of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, pointed to a study which claimed that "the Affordable Care Act is working even better than expected, producing more coverage for much less money." But, as Wingfield noted in his Friday column, Gruber sang a totally different tune when quoted in the Washington Post on Thursday.

Study: Expanding Medicaid doesn’t reduce ER trips. It increases them.

 

As the health-care law expands Medicaid to cover millions more Americans, a new Harvard University study finds that enrollment in public program significantly increases enrollees' use of emergency departments.

 

The research, published Thursday in the journal Science, showed a 40 percent increase in emergency department visits among those low-income adults in Oregon who gained Medicaid coverage in 2008 through a state lottery. This runs counter to some health-care law supporters' hope that Medicaid coverage would decrease this type of costly medical care,

by making it easier for low income adults to see primary care providers.

 

"I would view it as part of a broader set of evidence that covering people with health insurance doesn't save money," says Jonathan Gruber,

a health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who has also studied Oregon's Medicaid expansion but is not affiliated with this study.

"That was sometimes a misleading motivator for the Affordable Care Act. The law isn't designed to save money. It's designed to improve health, and that's going to cost money."

 

...

Gruber, the MIT economist, doesn't see the Harvard study as a compelling case against expanding Medicaid. There are still other benefits to insurance coverage, he says, that aren't about saving public funding.

Separate research on the Oregon expansion, published last spring in the New England Journal of Medicine, found Medicaid enrollees to have significantly lower rates of depression and were more able to pay their medical bills.

 

"The overall notion is we're getting people more health care," Gruber says. "There are huge improvements in mental health. For those who want to argue that expanding Medicaid is a free lunch, this is bad. But that was never the right argument."

 

What?!?

 

Gruber's statement might have been acceptable if he had isolated his contentions to Medicaid while claiming that the Obamacare exchanges were money-savers. But he clearly went much further — Taken as a whole, "The law isn't designed to save money ... (it's) going to cost money."

 

Now he tells us.

 

Gee, whatever happened to "bending the cost curve" and $2,500 in savings for the average family?

 

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2014/01/04/wapos-kliff-lets-obamacare-architect-who-promised-cost-savings-totally-c#ixzz2pXQfObqi

[Doc]

What happens? The same thing that happens every year when my premiums increase by 17-24-whatever percent. I shop. The exchange is just another store.

If you have pre-existing conditions, you'll be comparison shopping at more expensive stores (i.e. the individual market, again). You might have saved in the short-term, but will be paying more in the long-term.

[John Adams]

If you have pre-existing conditions, you'll be comparison shopping at more expensive stores (i.e. the individual market, again). You might have saved in the short-term, but will be paying more in the long-term.

 

 

I can always shop through my company.

Edited January 5, 2014 by John Adams

[Doc]

I can always shop through my company.

Oh, I thought you were previously on the individual market.

 

Any word on whether your company is planning on dropping health care coverage in 2015?