Who's Sorry Now?

[Joe Guy]

Joe--these numbers seem low; is this a policy you own yourself, or one provided through your employer (or union or whatever) which requires you to pay a part of the premium?

They are low. My total premium is actually $1148.00. Without going into a lot of detail, I have fixed credit built up that now pays approximately 50% of the full premium. As the premium goes up I pay a higher percentage. Once the credit runs out, I pay the full premium. I'm hoping things will change before that happens.

[Scooter]

This is grim news for the White House and for Democrats on the ballot in November. This independent arbiter, long embraced by the White House, has validated a core complaint of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) critics: that it will discourage work and become an ungainly entitlement. Disputing Republicans’ charges is much easier than refuting the federal government’s official scorekeepers.

It would indeed be grim news, except that the guy who wrote the report says that's complete bs:

On Wednesday, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) director Doug Elmendorf refuted the claim that the Affordable Care Act is a job killer — a misleading takeaway from his agency’s new report that is being touted by Obamacare critics.
Testifying before the House Budget Committee on the CBO’s newly released economic projections for the next decade, Elmendorf addressed the report’s finding that the Affordable Care Act will reduce the labor participation rate and the total number of hours worked by an equivalent of 2 million jobs in 2017. According to Elmendorf, that statistic is being taken out of context to suggest that Obamacare will eliminate jobs.

“The reason we don’t use the term ‘lost jobs’ is there is a critical difference between people who like to work and can’t find a job — or have a job that’s lost for reasons beyond their control — and people who choose not to work,” he explained. “If someone comes up to you and says, ‘The boss says I’m being laid off because we don’t have enough business to pay,’ any other person feels bad about that and we sympathize for them having lost their job. If someone says, ‘I decided to retire or stay home and spend more time with my family and spend more time doing my hobby,’ they don’t feel bad about it — they feel good about it. And we don’t sympathize. We say congratulations.”

Even Budget Committee Chairman and former GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan conceded that point in part. “Just to understand, it is not that employers are laying people off,” said Ryan at the beginning of the hearing.

In fact, the CBO report explicitly states that the estimated reduction in labor “stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor” and that “there is no compelling evidence that part-time employment has increased as a result of ACA.” Those notions are further supported by economic data on full- and part-time employment trends over the last several years. Simply put, the report finds that Obamacare will reduce the number of people who are forced to work a job merely for the sake of health insurance.

Elmendorf also noted that the ACA is actually expected to boost the economy in the near-term by making health insurance and medical care affordable for the poorest Americans, giving them the freedom to spend money in other areas of the economy. “On balance, CBO estimates that the ACA will boost overall demand for goods and services over the next few years,” states the report.

Crackpot has this exactly right - if there are people who no longer feel pressured to remain employed beyond the point they would like to be, solely to maintain their health insurance, then that opens up those jobs for people who actually do want them. In what universe, other the doom-and-gloom-all-the-time version that the Republican mindset is stuck in, could that possibly be construed as a bad thing?

[oldr_n_wsr]

Who's Sorry Now?

Many patients at Stony Brook University Hospital who signed up for insurance through the NY Health Insurance exchange are sorry now.

Stony Brook (the only university hospital on LI) does not take any of the 8 insurance company plans listed on the NY Health insurance exchange. I can't link to the article I just read in the newspaper (I prefer hardcopy of my newspaper) but if you google "stony brook ny health exchange" and click on the Newsday result you can read the article.

[Big RR]

If I recall, North Shore/Long Island Jewish Medical Center is affiliated with NYU and its medical school. I dn't know what insurance it accepts, but it is another university affiliated hospital on Long Island

[Long Run]

Crackpot has this exactly right - if there are people who no longer feel pressured to remain employed beyond the point they would like to be, solely to maintain their health insurance, then that opens up those jobs for people who actually do want them. In what universe, other the doom-and-gloom-all-the-time version that the Republican mindset is stuck in, could that possibly be construed as a bad thing?

There are good and bad in this, like all the consequences of this law. First, it is not true that this opens up jobs for other people on an hour for hour basis. Over time, eventually if people leave the workforce there will be people who can do that job who replace that position; some jobs are easier than others in any particular locations. So, at a minimum, there are a lot of lost hours and productivity as this dislocation/relocation occurs. This is a negative for the economy.

Second, it is not a positive that many of these people will go from paying for their own healthcare (via their work) to having the taxpayers pick up a big chunk of their bill when they get the subsidy on the Exchange. This, in effect, turns the ACA into an inducement to effectively go on a partial dole. So, for this class of person, it is a negative for society.

Third, while the ideal would be a system that divorces health care from the workplace (but note that ACA further entwined that relationship by imposing penalties on employers who don't pay their "fair share"), under the current system, by encouraging employers to provide healthcare, and having this be a big benefit to working full time (or mostly so), this encourages people to work -- which is most definitely a good thing. We want people to work and pay taxes rather than get government benefits for working less: society gets more taxes and less government spending. The CBO report effectively states that the ACA does the exact opposite. The people who work less may see themselves as winners, but everyone who pays for them is a loser. Since most of us on this board are in the loser category, it is fair to say this report reflects badly on the law (though we will have to wait and see how things turn out before any final conclusion).

[MajGenl.Meade]

[oldr_n_wsr]

"...
I never said that. I think all should be covered I just don't like being forced by law to be covered. ... "

I just don't like being forced by law to

pay for fire protection.

I just don't like being forced by law to

pay for flood control dams.

I just don't like being forced by law to

pay for police protection.

I just don't like being forced by law to

pay the FDA to test drugs for effectiveness.

I just don't like being forced by law to

pay for education.


You are really not understanding how the world works !


Health insurance is cheaper and there is better health care in all of the rest of the G-20 because in those countries everyone is covered, and it is paid for out of taxes.


yrs,
rubato

Fire, police, dams, FDA, education are all government entities (or built by government entities).

The ACA is forcing me to buy a product from a private company (aka non government entity). On top of that they are dictating what products that private company can sell to me.

Of course the actual "forcing me to buy" something was/is unconstitutional so they got around that by getting the USSC to call it a tax. And as such it's one of the largest tax increases (if not the largest) ever.

And now it seems the ACA is forcing the government to tax itself.

Study: ObamaCare Insurer Fee Could Backfire On States

A provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires health insurance companies pay a fee to help fund the law and expand benefits to the poor and uninsured could actually lead to the federal government taxing states and itself, according to a new analysis.

With Medicaid insurance for the poor funded jointly by states and the federal government, the so-called “health insurance tax” used to help fund coverage under the law will “drain $13.6 billion” over the next decade from those states that contract with private health plans to provide Medicaid benefits to poor Americans, a report from actuarial firm Milliman Inc. for Medicaid Health Plans of America shows. It could also cost the federal government even more, the report shows.

“States and the federal government end up paying for the tax due to actuarial soundness requirements,” Medicaid Health Plans said in a statement accompanying the report. “As an important consumer protection, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and implementing regulations require Medicaid managed care payment rates to be actuarially sound, inclusive of medical costs, administrative costs, taxes and fees. So according to federal law, the insurance tax must be paid by the state and federal governments through higher payments provided to plans, and results in the federal government taxing states and itself.”

The study is similar to another industry-funded Milliman report issued two years ago that was also funded by Medicaid Health Plans of America.

But the stakes may be higher this time around given more and more state Medicaid programs are contracting with private health insurance companies like Aetna AET -0.79% (AET), Humana HUM -1.1% (HUM), UnitedHealth Group UNH -0.25% (UNH), Centene (CNC) and Molina (MOH) to provide health benefits to poor Americans. Medicaid Health Plans of America said 37 state Medicaid programs and the District of Columbia contract with health plans to help manage their insurance programs for the poor.

“It is apparent now more than ever: the health insurance tax is an ill-conceived method to finance the ACA and it will be on the shoulders of the country’s sickest and poorest,” said Jeff Myers, president and chief executive officer of Medicaid Health Plans of America.

For its part, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services had no comment when reached Tuesday.

Health plans lately have been forecasting a boon in business providing health benefits to Medicaid patients. But the fee has been among the industry’s concerns in questions from Wall Street analysts and investors on recent earnings conference calls.

As state budgets have been hurt by the stagnant economy, lawmakers have turned more patients eligible for Medicaid over to privately-contracted insurance companies, providing additional revenue to the industry. The health law provides a cash infusion of more than $900 billion in federal dollars from 2014 to 2022 to expand Medicaid programs for states interested in the proposition.

From October through December of 2013, between 1.1 million and 1.8 million people “have newly enrolled in Medicaid” thanks to the health law, according to a report last week from Avalere Health, a research and advisory services firm on health policy issues tracking the Affordable Care Act.

LINK
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen ... r=yahootix

[rubato]

http://acasignups.net/14/02/13/most-imp ... ey-tell-us

Most improved states – and what they tell us
Submitted by Olav Grinde on Thursday, February 13, 2014 - 9:30am.

Larry Levitt of Kaiser makes an interesting observation in a couple of Tweets yesterday:

States with big increases in ACA enrollment since December:

Mississippi ↑ 116%
Florida ↑ 88%
Louisiana ↑ 87%
Texas ↑ 75%
Georgia ↑ 73%

This list is all fed marketplace states. Growth generally lower in state exchanges because enrollment was higher to begin with.

Let me point out a few things that are worth noting here:

Texas is second only to California with regards to number of uninsured, and has now reached 33 % of its target, despite considerable obstruction and sabotage from Governor Perry and the GOP powerholders.
Florida is third with regards to number of uninsured, having now reached 62 % of its target.
Georgia is, I believe, rated fifth with regards to number of uninsured, behind New York (goal exceeded). Georgia is at 50 % fulfilment.

Between them, Texas, Florida and Georgia had enrolled 605,724 people per 02/01. That represents 18.4 % of total enrollments through the federal and state exchanges. The fact that three of the five most-improved states have such a large percentage of the America’s uninsured bodes well for a promising final February–March surge!

And ticking right along:

http://acasignups.net/

Exchange QHPs: 3.32M
Other QHPs: 298K
Medicaid/CHIP: (2.53M - 7.75M)
Sub26ers: 3.10M

Total as of February 12, 2014: 9.25M - 14.46 M

Enrollment Period Elapsed: 73.6%
CBO Exchange QHP Projection Attained: 47.0%

there was a big jump in December as people, predictably, rushed to make the Jan 1 deadline. Things have slowed since then I would expect to see another acceleration when the next deadline approaches.

For those reading the site, Gaba has actually revised a number of state totals downwards as more information has come in about who was reporting what. The jump in the total reflects the lower estimates.

yrs,
rubato