by "mkbruin, Atlas VP" (mkbruin)
Published 03/07/2017 at 08:41
by "mkbruin, Atlas VP" (mkbruin)
Published 03/07/2017 at 08:41
No Tags
STARS: 8
Health Insurance regulations after the jump.
Republicans published their ACA replacement last night, and before Dems had time to read the title they were holding press conferences vowing to defeat ”Trumpcare”. Let’s analyze for a minute.
1) Obamacare is collapsing. Republicans have been chicken little, screaming that the sky is falling for eight years. Now we are at the point that the CEO of every major insurer is discussing the failure of the ACA and half the country stick their heads up their collective asses. Please listen to the experts.
2) Republicans, you have had eight years to work on this, and this is the steaming pile of shit you throw at us? I’m not even mad, just disappointed. No, I take that back. I am mad. Fuck you.
3) Apparently Pelosi still has issues with reading bills before passing or opposing them. Fuck Pelosi too.
4) Obamacare is collapsing, democrats need to set aside your pride and realize you shoved through shit legislation. Bad legislation with good intentions is still bad legislation.
5) Fucking work together on this. It’s not about preserving Obama’s legacy. It’s not about creating a win for Trump. It’s about the health and economic prosperity of ALL americans. Set aside your petty bullshit and just do what’s right, after all THAT is your fucking job, it’s what we sent you there to do. This isn’t a frat house or a sorority house, you are a congressional member of one of the greatest democratic republics the world has ever seen. Fucking act like it, and legislate responsibly. Work together to implement responsible bipartisan legislation.
"Party-vi" (party-vi)
03/07/2017 at 08:47, STARS: 16
The CEO of every major insurer is discussing the failure of the ACA
"Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero" (sampsonite24)
03/07/2017 at 08:48, STARS: 4
Yeah as someone who works for one of the big health insurance companies they aren’t hurting from the ACA
"Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero" (sampsonite24)
03/07/2017 at 08:51, STARS: 1
I’ll be happy as long as they keep or even expand preventive care benefits and don’t bring back the pre-existing condition rules that were such bullshit in the first place
"vondon302" (vondon302)
03/07/2017 at 08:51, STARS: 1
But that won’t get me re elected will it.
Signed any politician
"Nibby" (nibby68)
03/07/2017 at 08:53, STARS: 8
"Party-vi" (party-vi)
03/07/2017 at 08:56, STARS: 8
My mom used to wake me up on the weekend, saying it was 10am or something. I freak out and roll out of bed to realize it’s like 8:30am and she’s evil.
"Nibby" (nibby68)
03/07/2017 at 08:57, STARS: 4
Time to wake her up at 3:47 AM
"Flavien Vidal" (flyingfrenchy)
03/07/2017 at 09:00, STARS: 4
It’s a failure if you could afford health insurance before... Hadn’t it been demonized like it has been and had more people subscribed to it, prices would have been much lower.
But now yes, it does hurt the middle class... At the same time, it’s often the only thing lower classes have. Finally the poorest of the working class, can have insurance. I’ve seen an American friend die of cancer and leave his family with insane debts thanks to how things were before Obamacare. He had a good health insurance though... He paid for it and all. But he was just too sick and expensive to”maintain”. So they dropped him.
Yes, it failed in many ways, it also helped and saved a shitload of people...
"SVTyler" (svtyler)
03/07/2017 at 09:02, STARS: 15
You do realize you’re bitching about Democrats doing the exact same thing the Republicans did throughout the entiretype of Obama’s presidency, right? The Republicans have zero ground to stand on after the last eight years of stonewalling any and all legislature they could because it was proposed by someone with a (D) next to their name, the hypocrisy of now trying to pull the ‘but think of the country!’ bs is pathetic.
"EL_ULY" (uly)
03/07/2017 at 09:09, STARS: 4
A dumb and sick society is easier to convince and control.
Praise God and Jesus :]
"facw" (facw)
03/07/2017 at 09:10, STARS: 6
I don’t see how you can blame the Dems on this. Obamacare is working pretty well. There are a lot of people who don’t like it, but the insurance companies are still making a lot of money. The biggest problems is that the bill was not adjusted after mandatory Medicaid expansion was struck down, which means that you can be in a shitty state and not be able to get Medicaid, but be too poor to qualify for exchange subsidies (because you were supposed to be covered by Medicaid).
There is the complaint that not enough people are signing up. That doesn’t match the Romneycare example from MA, which might have something to do with their constant bashing of the law, but in any event the solution would be to increase the penalty, rather than eliminate the whole thing.
I’m furious that the GOP is going to screw a whole lot of people out of healthcare, while at the same time allowing irresponsible people to freeload on the system by not carrying insurance. The plan Obama passed is a solidly conservative plan, modeled after the signature legislation of their 2012 candidate, with a solid market based approach, and a demand that people take responsibility for their healthcare. It needs a few tweaks, but that was certain to be the case for any legislation this size. They easily could have declared victory and taken credit, but instead they spent all of Obama’s term decrying it as the worst Socialism ever. I hope the Dems have learned their lesson and just pass single payer next time they are in power, the experience of the rest of the world shows that it provides better care (on average) at a far lower cost.
"V8Demon - Prefers Autos for drag racing. Fite me!" (v8demon)
03/07/2017 at 09:19, STARS: 1
You had me at #3.
All the stars for that.
"fintail" (fintail)
03/07/2017 at 09:23, STARS: 4
I thought someone was so tired of politics that they were about to leave, or at least refrain from it. Must be fake news or alternative facts.
Work together LOL yeah that issue is just starting now. As if the leaders of either side give a rat’s behind about the “health and prosperity” of actual people. As long as defective and imposssible trickle down policies are allowed to creep back in, let them eat cake.
"Rico" (ricorich)
03/07/2017 at 09:23, STARS: 2
Lmao! Are you sure we aren’t long lost brothers?
When I was in high school mom dukes would burst into my room like Kramer telling me to get up, it’s almost 12pm and that I can’t just be sleeping all day blah blah blah.
Then I would look at my cable box and see it was like 10 AM.
-__-
"MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s" (mastermario)
03/07/2017 at 09:31, STARS: 7
It’s almost like basic healthcare should be a public service.
"facw" (facw)
03/07/2017 at 09:32, STARS: 1
I don’t see how it hurts the middle class. They still get their insurance through their employer (and indeed more people do because of the employer mandate (which is stupid, we should be moving away from employer provided insurance)). There are a few things in there that might make it more expensive, but we are talking about the removal of preexisting condition restrictions, the removal of lifetime benefit restrictions, and the ability to keep children on longer, all of which are desirable things. Healthcare prices have increased but there’s little reason to think Obamacare is the main driver for that, prices were skyrocketing before Obamacare and continue to do so, though the rate has slowed, despite Obamacare’s rather modest cost controls.
"Flavien Vidal" (flyingfrenchy)
03/07/2017 at 09:35, STARS: 1
I’m solely talking from a financial standpoint... If you have kids, make just enough money and obviously, are in good health, which is the case of many families, health insurance has most certainly gotten quite a bit more expensive for you...
"LongbowMkII" (longbowmkii)
03/07/2017 at 09:36, STARS: 1
having the government force people to buy your product is bad for business. duh.
"Azrek" (azrek)
03/07/2017 at 09:38, STARS: 0
I can’t get 6 of my friends to agree on the toppings for pizza. I can’t imagine trying to figure out how to pass a law that everyone agrees on in principle.
"LongbowMkII" (longbowmkii)
03/07/2017 at 09:39, STARS: 4
but what about the CEO’s? Ryan’s plan allows ins companies to deduct executive salaries over 500k!
1% lives matter
"facw" (facw)
03/07/2017 at 09:40, STARS: 0
Well you’ll be half happy. They are keeping the pre-existing condition rules (and the lifetime benefit rules). But a lot of people are no longer going to be able to afford healthcare, which means the preventative care benefits won’t be there for them, regardless of what plans are required to cover (it’s still not clear what plans will be required to cover), and they’ll have to keep using expensive emergency care on our dime, instead of treating things when they can be done more efficiently.
"facw" (facw)
03/07/2017 at 09:44, STARS: 3
But is that because of Obamacare? Because healthcare spending has been dramatically increasing for quite a while:
The big difference now is that previously a lot of employer sponsored coverage would just end up eating the costs (at the expense of stagnant wages), but recently they’ve taken to passing those costs on a blaming Obamacare. It’s a scapegoat, not anywhere near the driving factor behind the increases.
"WRXforScience" (WRXforScience)
03/07/2017 at 09:45, STARS: 3
Most of the biggest problems with the ACA came from compromises made to get it to pass in the first place. Politicians caved to the insurance industry (seriously those price gouging leeches deserve to be nationalized).
Hopefully the country realizes that access to healthcare should be guaranteed and we git rid of the asinine for profit medical industry altogether. The ‘free-market’ has failed in healthcare. There is no choice, insurance companies and hospitals have colluded to squeeze every penny from patients, and the services they provided are essential and unavoidable removing any semblance of leverage from the consumer.
We spend the most in the world for healthcare and yet we get mediocre results (at best). For profit medicine is the problem, and the flaccid attempts by Congress to claw back the most meager of concessions from the industry (which has its fingers so deep into Congress that their regular prostate exams are redundant) amount to little more than legislative theater and a means to appeal to their base (both sides).
"Bman76 (hates WS6 hoods, is on his phone and has 4 burners now)" (bman76-4)
03/07/2017 at 09:49, STARS: 4
Yeah, all those poor insurance companies going bankrupt while the entitled class is living it up with their healthcare... /s
Oh wait, the insurance industry still turned billions in profits. All I’ve got to say is that it takes a distinct lack of humanity to choose the well being of multi billion dollar companies over poor citizens.
"Jayhawk Jake" (jayhawkjake)
03/07/2017 at 10:21, STARS: 5
Was this some of that FAKE NEWS I’ve been hearing so much about?
http://oppositelock.kinja.com/oppoliticalopnik-1791680939#_ga=1.45546532.1020160654.1464317697
"Flavien Vidal" (flyingfrenchy)
03/07/2017 at 10:23, STARS: 0
The general spending hasn’t changed, the repartition of it has... This is the main problem with Obamacare. The burdain of the spending in healthcare has changed a lot.
"JQJ213- Now With An Extra Cylinder!" (jqj213)
03/07/2017 at 10:35, STARS: 2
Regarding point 5
Where were you and your side when Obama was trying to do ANYTHING? Obama was fought on EVERYTHING he did, Hell he couldn’t even nominate a Supreme Court Justice despite having months in office still.
Partisan politics suck. But they aren’t anything new. It’s just the first time in years the Conservatives are somewhat struggling with it.
"facw" (facw)
03/07/2017 at 10:36, STARS: 0
But the general spending has changed, it has increased (both before and after Obamacare). And Obamacare doesn’t do anything that would shift a significantly larger burden onto the middle class. There’s no question that people are paying more for insurance, but there are a lot of other reasons for that.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
03/07/2017 at 10:41, STARS: 4
First off, I fully expect whatever the house passes is going to be DOA in the senate anyway.
What do you mean by “Obamacare is failing”? That is overly broad. What, exactly, do you mean?
Health insurance company CEOs are not the people to listen to for objective information about health insurance. These companies are profitable as all hell. They do anything and everything they can to charge customers higher premiums and pay out fewer benefits.
The insurers keep pushing this line of “we’re not making money selling health plans on the exchanges,” which in many cases is technically true. But they conveniently leave out the fact that generally they are making money hand over fist. Their overall balance sheets are solid. They just don’t want a line item that’s breaking even or losing a bit of money and they do their damnedest to spin and lobby to make it seem like the exchanges are not working.
Here’s the facts:
Health insurance premiums keep going up because healthcare costs keep going up. Pharmaceutical and medical device and equipment companies keep charging providers more money for supplies, providers keep charging insurers more money for services, and insurers keep charging customers higher premiums for less coverage. It’s a vicious cycle that will continue as long as we do not have government-mandated price controls in all 3 phases of the healthcare marketplace. But nobody talks about that. The ACA did not somehow magically cause this to happen. In fact, healthcare inflation is much lower under the ACA than it had been in the period before ACA.
The ACA provides subsidies to low-income people to purchase insurance through public exchanges. The subsidies are applied directly to their premiums. Republicans want to replace the individual subsidies with tax credits. They claim people will still be able to afford the exchange plans. But this leaves out the fact that someone who is barely scraping by financially is not able to pay a full year’s worth of un-subsidized insurance premiums while they wait for their tax refund. According to the White House’s Office of Management & Budget, this will effectively kick many people out of the exchanges .
Estimates from congressional budget analysts and the White House’s Office of Management and Budget kept showing that the credits would be both too small to provide enough help to lower-income people and too expensive overall for a GOP determined to slash federal spending that the ACA has required.
The ACA expanded the eligibility threshold for Medicaid (in states that accepted the expansion) to a higher percentage above the poverty line. This means that more people are eligible to get into their state’s Medicaid plans. Not purchase plans through private insurers. Roughly half of the people who gained coverage through the ACA did so through the Medicaid expansion, even though a bunch of Republican-controlled states turned it down. That’s 10 million new people on Medicaid. The Republican plan would end the medicaid expansion in 2020, and cap Medicaid spending at that point . Sorry, you 10 million people, but now you can buy exchange plans you can’t afford without subsidies, using tax credits that you won’t receive in time to pay your premiums! Hope that works out for you!
The ACA has the “evil” individual mandate which requires people to carry health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Republicans hate this. WE DON’T WANT THE GUBMINT TO MAKE US DO STUFF! The repeal bill removes the tax penalty, but at the same time, allows insurers to charge customers 30% more if they have a gap in their coverage over a couple months, and to do so for a total of 18 months worth of premiums. Effectively, people who have a gap in coverage through some circumstance that could likely be out of their control would pay a much larger penalty directly to the health insurers.
Is the ACA perfect? Certainly not.
But all of these things proposed by the GOP will reduce the total number of people with health coverage, while giving more money to the insurance companies, and not save the government much if anything except with regards to spending on Medicaid, which is frankly not a business it should be getting out of.
"TheHondaBro" (wwaveform)
03/07/2017 at 11:20, STARS: 0
Lots of meat, olives, onions, and mushrooms. NO PINEAPPLES.
"Azrek" (azrek)
03/07/2017 at 11:22, STARS: 0
I don’t want onions.
"TheHondaBro" (wwaveform)
03/07/2017 at 11:27, STARS: 0
You’re a fake Opponaut.
"Azrek" (azrek)
03/07/2017 at 12:10, STARS: 0
You’re a fake Acura!
"WiscoProud" (wiscoproud)
03/07/2017 at 12:23, STARS: 0
Its collapsing because the regulations needed to support it were removed.
"Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero" (sampsonite24)
03/07/2017 at 13:47, STARS: 0
I more meant the specific preventive benefits. Like the removal of minimum ages for things like mammograms and colonoscpies. The scope of care. Just because people cant afford it doesn’t mean preventive care gets taken away for everyone.