ACA reduces NY insurance costs 50%, GOP votes (again) to repeal

[berzerker60]

http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/17/new...ealth-insurance-new-york/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

New York state residents will be able to get health insurance next year on the Obamacare exchange for half the average price available in the state today.

The cost of a "silver" plan -- which covers at least 70% of medical costs, on average -- will drop to as little as $359 a month for a single adult Manhattan resident, for instance, according to a rate sheet released Wednesday by state officials. Currently, the cheapest plan a city resident can buy on the individual market is $1,001.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...use-to-vote-yet-again-on-repealing-obamacare/

The Republican-controlled House has already voted 37 times to repeal or significantly change all or part of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, which the GOP likes to call Obamacare. Time No. 38 and possibly 39 are expected Wednesday evening as the House votes on legislation that would delay two key parts of the new health-care law for another year. President Obama has already said that he will veto both of these bills.

Quick, it might be making a positive impact on people's lives! Kill it before it can become popular and our absolute, unthinking, zealous opposition starts to look even more irresponsible!

Of course, the GOP should be celebrating that Obamacare, which was their plan first, is actually succeeding through free-market competition driving down prices (that's what's causing this huge drop, the online exchanges causing competition). But that would require them to be intellectually honest instead of automatically hating everything Obama says or does.

 

[momeNt]

Well couldn't New York keep their own version of the law? I doubt New York is even a net-recipient of federal benefits, so if anything repealing ACA might make it even cheaper for them if they keep their own version.

 

[fskimospy]

Well couldn't New York keep their own version of the law? I doubt New York is even a net-recipient of federal benefits, so if anything repealing ACA might make it even cheaper for them if they keep their own version.

NYS could emulate the exchanges (which is where these savings here are coming from). They wouldn't be able to emulate the medicaid expansion and other things however. So, unless you want NYS to withdraw pretty heavily from the federal tax system, probably not.

That being said, NYS was a great example of how not to regulate your health care. They prohibited discriminating on pre-existing conditions but had no insurance mandate. What that meant was that the individual market was insanely expensive. What the ACA is really doing here is squashing an incredibly dumb state law that should have been squashed long ago.

 

[soulcougher73]

Only a single retard would pay $1000/m for health insurance. At that price, hell at the $360/m price its not worth it. Just take that money and put it into your own health savings account and pay out of pocket when you go get sick. Id hate to blow $12k/year and never once get sick or require attention. Ive gone years without needing medical care. What a waste of money.

 

[fskimospy]

Only a single retard would pay $1000/m for health insurance. At that price, hell at the $360/m price its not worth it. Just take that money and put it into your own health savings account and pay out of pocket when you go get sick. Id hate to blow $12k/year and never once get sick or require attention. Ive gone years without needing medical care. What a waste of money.

"Why do I need health insurance?? I'm not sick!"

And when you are diagnosed with a serious illness and your health savings account doesn't cover it? You will come crawling back to the rest of us, asking for us to foot your bill. That's what this is all about.

 

[berzerker60]

Only a single retard would pay $1000/m for health insurance. At that price, hell at the $360/m price its not worth it. Just take that money and put it into your own health savings account and pay out of pocket when you go get sick. Id hate to blow $12k/year and never once get sick or require attention. Ive gone years without needing medical care. What a waste of money.

Considering the drugs alone for cancer treatment can be $10k/month, enjoy going into bankruptcy and sticking the rest of us with the bill, that's very responsible and grown-up of you. And why get car insurance? My car is just fine, and surely no act of God or other problem that's not my fault could disturb it!

 

[Brainonska511]

Only a single retard would pay $1000/m for health insurance. At that price, hell at the $360/m price its not worth it. Just take that money and put it into your own health savings account and pay out of pocket when you go get sick. Id hate to blow $12k/year and never once get sick or require attention. Ive gone years without needing medical care. What a waste of money.

And then when you get cancer, good luck paying for your treatment.

 

[momeNt]

And then when you get cancer, good luck paying for your treatment.

Most doctors, and especially oncologists, opt not to treat most forms of cancer when they themselves are the afflicted. So instead of paying $1,000 a month on the possibility that you get cancer so that it can help you pay for your treatment, and still have it bankrupt you and destroy your life. You can be $1,000 a month richer, and when you get your diagnosis, take a vacation and spend all your money on fun stuff not poisoning your body trying to kill off a cancer that will kill you regardless.

 

[fskimospy]

Most doctors, and especially oncologists, opt not to treat most forms of cancer when they themselves are the afflicted. So instead of paying $1,000 a month on the possibility that you get cancer so that it can help you pay for your treatment, and still have it bankrupt you and destroy your life. You can be $1,000 a month richer, and when you get your diagnosis, take a vacation and spend all your money on fun stuff not poisoning your body trying to kill off a cancer that will kill you regardless.

This is not accurate. Doctors do tend to opt for less treatment than regular people, but to say that most doctors opt not to treat most forms of cancer is inaccurate.

 

[michal1980]

costs are based on models. Models which expect a FLOOD of health individuals signing up.

Lets see a token penalty or 300 bucks a month for something I wont use.

This is like a teaser rate, that will explode next year.

 

[Genx87]

Is there a link to the exact details of the "silver" plan and what current plan they are comparing it to? The links within the article and the article itself doesnt have much information except the silver plan will cover 70% of medical expenses. But even that doesnt tell us much. 70% of 100 or 1000000 dollars? And what are the details of a private plan costs 1K a month?

 

[nehalem256]

Well couldn't New York keep their own version of the law?

Why couldn't left-wing states such as California or NY have an enacted a state single-payer health system years ago?

 

[nickbits]

Only a single retard would pay $1000/m for health insurance. At that price, hell at the $360/m price its not worth it. Just take that money and put it into your own health savings account and pay out of pocket when you go get sick. Id hate to blow $12k/year and never once get sick or require attention. Ive gone years without needing medical care. What a waste of money.

My medical bills are a constant 60-80k/year. Paying 1000/month sounds like a good deal to me (not that I pay that for mine).

 

[soulcougher73]

Considering the drugs alone for cancer treatment can be $10k/month, enjoy going into bankruptcy and sticking the rest of us with the bill, that's very responsible and grown-up of you. And why get car insurance? My car is just fine, and surely no act of God or other problem that's not my fault could disturb it!

Well considering I'd have 12k/year saved up for many years I can probably pay it out of pocket when /if I ever do get cancer. Also my car insurance is nowhere near 1k/m so I don't mind as much. Although I've had coverage for 23 years now on my car with not a single incident. Money down the drain.

 

[glenn1]

"Why do I need health insurance?? I'm not sick!"

And when you are diagnosed with a serious illness and your health savings account doesn't cover it? You will come crawling back to the rest of us, asking for us to foot your bill. That's what this is all about.

That's what a catastrophic policy is for. You have the HSA for expenses your high-deductible account doesn't cover, and the policy for the "serious illness" you describe.

That being said, both approaches have merit. If you didn't get a serious illness, you're likely better off with HSA/high deductible plan. If you do, then a standard health insurance plan is likely better. The potential problem comes in if Obamacare adds on significant requirements for "catastrophic" insurance making it far more expensive and more like a "traditional" health plan. In that case the potential savings for selecting a HSA/high deductible plan vanish.

 

[Genx87]

There is a tipping point on insurance cost\benefits. I am going through this debate right now. I recieve ~15K in insurance benefits a year from my employer. I use about 700 a year for checkups and of that I have to pay half. So I am not recieving anywhere near 15K in benefits from my health insurance. I am seriously debating dropping my insurance on a buy out and getting a private plan. BCBS has a high deduct plan that costs ~200 a month. I may be on the hook in the case of a catastrophic injury or illness. But that is what insurance is supposed to be about imo.

 

[sactoking]

I was waiting for this to be brought up. If I may editorialize for a moment, let me state clearly up-front that the NY Times article that first reported this, and all subsequent articles based on it, are intellectually dishonest. They may not be purposely dishonest, in fact it's likely rooted in the fact that they don't understand what they're writing about, but they're dishonest nonetheless.

As it pertains to New York, the ACA does drop premiums by 50%, but only because premiums were already 66% too high! NY has the single stupidest health insurance market in the nation. They did this to themselves voluntarily. That the ACA forcibly "corrects" this idiocy isn't indicative of its overall impact on national health care via health insurance regulation.

For example, in other threads there have been discussions about the individual mandate and how you can't have a ban on pre-existing conditions without it. Well, New York did. The NY market was guaranteed issue, no pre-ex, and community rating (everyone pays the same, there are no demographic differences such as age), all with no mandate. Surprise, surprise, people only bought individual policies when they were sick and premiums went through the roof.

NY's individual market is 17,000 lives. In 2011 the population was 8.245mm. That's 0.2% of the population in the individual market. By comparison, there were about 2.6mm uninsured people in NY. That's 31.5%! Of course your uninsured is 157.5x higher than you individual market when you have guaranteed issue, no pre-ex with no mandate!

With the ACA mandate, NY officials are expecting 615,000 new individuals to enter the market. That's a 3,600% increase over the current market. Of course your rates are going to go down!

At this point the comparison of benefits is largely irrelevant to the narrative, the stupidity of the current NY regulatory environment trumps that.

 

[Jaskalas]

This is not accurate. Doctors do tend to opt for less treatment than regular people, but to say that most doctors opt not to treat most forms of cancer is inaccurate.

Yeah, that did sound ridiculous.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I was waiting for this to be brought up. If I may editorialize for a moment, let me state clearly up-front that the NY Times article that first reported this, and all subsequent articles based on it, are intellectually dishonest. They may not be purposely dishonest, in fact it's likely rooted in the fact that they don't understand what they're writing about, but they're dishonest nonetheless.

As it pertains to New York, the ACA does drop premiums by 50%, but only because premiums were already 66% too high! NY has the single stupidest health insurance market in the nation. They did this to themselves voluntarily. That the ACA forcibly "corrects" this idiocy isn't indicative of its overall impact on national health care via health insurance regulation.

For example, in other threads there have been discussions about the individual mandate and how you can't have a ban on pre-existing conditions without it. Well, New York did. The NY market was guaranteed issue, no pre-ex, and community rating (everyone pays the same, there are no demographic differences such as age), all with no mandate. Surprise, surprise, people only bought individual policies when they were sick and premiums went through the roof.

NY's individual market is 17,000 lives. In 2011 the population was 8.245mm. That's 0.2% of the population in the individual market. By comparison, there were about 2.6mm uninsured people in NY. That's 31.5%! Of course your uninsured is 157.5x higher than you individual market when you have guaranteed issue, no pre-ex with no mandate!

With the ACA mandate, NY officials are expecting 615,000 new individuals to enter the market. That's a 3,600% increase over the current market. Of course your rates are going to go down!

At this point the comparison of benefits is largely irrelevant to the narrative, the stupidity of the current NY regulatory environment trumps that.

I can vouch for regulatory stupidity.

Oh, my and everyone else I know here had their premiums go up. I WANT MY 50% DISCOUNT!!!!

Forgive me if I don't hold my breath.

 

[fskimospy]

I was waiting for this to be brought up. If I may editorialize for a moment, let me state clearly up-front that the NY Times article that first reported this, and all subsequent articles based on it, are intellectually dishonest. They may not be purposely dishonest, in fact it's likely rooted in the fact that they don't understand what they're writing about, but they're dishonest nonetheless.

As it pertains to New York, the ACA does drop premiums by 50%, but only because premiums were already 66% too high! NY has the single stupidest health insurance market in the nation. They did this to themselves voluntarily. That the ACA forcibly "corrects" this idiocy isn't indicative of its overall impact on national health care via health insurance regulation.

For example, in other threads there have been discussions about the individual mandate and how you can't have a ban on pre-existing conditions without it. Well, New York did. The NY market was guaranteed issue, no pre-ex, and community rating (everyone pays the same, there are no demographic differences such as age), all with no mandate. Surprise, surprise, people only bought individual policies when they were sick and premiums went through the roof.

NY's individual market is 17,000 lives. In 2011 the population was 8.245mm. That's 0.2% of the population in the individual market. By comparison, there were about 2.6mm uninsured people in NY. That's 31.5%! Of course your uninsured is 157.5x higher than you individual market when you have guaranteed issue, no pre-ex with no mandate!

With the ACA mandate, NY officials are expecting 615,000 new individuals to enter the market. That's a 3,600% increase over the current market. Of course your rates are going to go down!

At this point the comparison of benefits is largely irrelevant to the narrative, the stupidity of the current NY regulatory environment trumps that.

From this I can only conclude that you never read the NY Times article. The article explicitly mentions how the high premiums in NYS were caused by this regulatory problem.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

From this I can only conclude that you never read the NY Times article. The article explicitly mentions how the high premiums in NYS were caused by this regulatory problem.

I see what you are saying. It's the CNN article which is dishonest.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Quick, it might be making a positive impact on people's lives! Kill it before it can become popular and our absolute, unthinking, zealous opposition starts to look even more irresponsible!

Of course, the GOP should be celebrating that Obamacare, which was their plan first, is actually succeeding through free-market competition driving down prices (that's what's causing this huge drop, the online exchanges causing competition). But that would require them to be intellectually honest instead of automatically hating everything Obama says or does.

Speaking of intellectually dishonest, you seem to have done a good job yourself. The CNN article says nothing about the particulars and the proportion of people who will benefit. Then you link a repeal to this event.

Well let's do this. There is a thread where union workers are going to have their benefits cut because of Obamacare. Republican repeal would correct this. Why do you hate unions?

 

[berzerker60]

Speaking of intellectually dishonest, you seem to have done a good job yourself. The CNN article says nothing about the particulars and the proportion of people who will benefit. Then you link a repeal to this event.

Well let's do this. There is a thread where union workers are going to have their benefits cut because of Obamacare. Republican repeal would correct this. Why do you hate unions?

I had also read the NYTimes article and the CNN one just happened to be handier when I was posting, while seeming to have much of the same material.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/h...rkers-set-to-fall-50.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The new premium rates do not affect a majority of New Yorkers, who receive insurance through their employers, only those who must purchase it on their own. Because the cost of individual coverage has soared, only 17,000 New Yorkers currently buy insurance on their own. About 2.6 million are uninsured in New York State.
State officials estimate as many as 615,000 individuals will buy health insurance on their own in the first few years the health law is in effect. In addition to lower premiums, about three-quarters of those people will be eligible for the subsidies available to lower-income individuals.

That's still a lot of people being helped by Obamacare, which the GOP continues to argue is absolutely horrible in every way and completely beyond possible repair or improvement and needs to be completely and immediately repealed.

Literally no one believes Obamacare doesn't need some revisions to fix parts that are flawed or broken, so pointing out some flaws doesn't mean very much. Fixing it is impossible as long as the insane caucus of the House GOP refuses to allow any legislation regarding Obamacare other than pointless repeals that they know have 0% chance of going anywhere. Once the current, insane GOP dies off, we can start addressing real problems with its current form, but that won't happen as long as the House majority is in denial about even parts of Obamacare being much better than repeal (especially since there is no alternative on the table, as Obamacare was their plan in the first place).

 

[glenn1]

I had also read the NYTimes article and the CNN one just happened to be handier when I was posting, while seeming to have much of the same material.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/h...rkers-set-to-fall-50.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

That's still a lot of people being helped by Obamacare, which the GOP continues to argue is absolutely horrible in every way and completely beyond possible repair or improvement and needs to be completely and immediately repealed.

Literally no one believes Obamacare doesn't need some revisions to fix parts that are flawed or broken, so pointing out some flaws doesn't mean very much. Fixing it is impossible as long as the insane caucus of the House GOP refuses to allow any legislation regarding Obamacare other than pointless repeals that they know have 0% chance of going anywhere. Once the current, insane GOP dies off, we can start addressing real problems with its current form, but that won't happen as long as the House majority is in denial about even parts of Obamacare being much better than repeal (especially since there is no alternative on the table, as Obamacare was their plan in the first place).

Of course it's not horrible in every way, but that doesn't make it good in total. And sure some people are helped via Obamacare, such as those with pre-existing conditions. Obamacare is a boon for them since they'll get lower premiums than what would apply using normal underwriting. But in helping those people, it hurts the rest who don't have pre-existing conditions; they'll be worse off since they need to assume the costs of those who do. What you cannot do is tell us truthfully that EVERYONE is better off with Obamacare, since that's manifestly false. You probably can't even provide evidence that MOST of us are better off.

As for "addressing real problems in current form" and "no alternative on the table," you've offered no evidence and simply saying this doesn't make it true. Others can easily argue that status quo ante IS an improvement over Obamacare.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I had also read the NYTimes article and the CNN one just happened to be handier when I was posting, while seeming to have much of the same material.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/h...rkers-set-to-fall-50.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

That's still a lot of people being helped by Obamacare, which the GOP continues to argue is absolutely horrible in every way and completely beyond possible repair or improvement and needs to be completely and immediately repealed.

Literally no one believes Obamacare doesn't need some revisions to fix parts that are flawed or broken, so pointing out some flaws doesn't mean very much. Fixing it is impossible as long as the insane caucus of the House GOP refuses to allow any legislation regarding Obamacare other than pointless repeals that they know have 0% chance of going anywhere. Once the current, insane GOP dies off, we can start addressing real problems with its current form, but that won't happen as long as the House majority is in denial about even parts of Obamacare being much better than repeal (especially since there is no alternative on the table, as Obamacare was their plan in the first place).

We've needed significant reform in Medicaid for decades now. It hasn't really happened. What you don't seem to understand is that the ACA will take on a life of itself and become resistant to changes. It's a natural consequence of political constructs, and this is very much that. Not only that, but it is the foundation of all future health care in the US. If the foundation is not solid then anything by needs must also be flawed more than it needs.

I'm fully for repeal of the ACA, but I'm hardly a Republican. I think they are as ill equipped for reform as are the Democrats. Yes the Dems are trying, but "try" isn't helpful for something this complicated. I can try to give you CPR with a plunger, but it's not going to work very well in the end.

Unfortunately the political machine is so strong and the thinking of "it must be Republican or Democrat" is so ingrained in many that they will defend whatever their party demands. So it is with this.

US health care is probably the most complex and highly interrelated social construct ever. Rather than asking "what can we do to facilitate care while eliminating duplication and bottlenecks" we install regulations top down. In an example of costs savings I cited dialysis patients who are denied an important medication under Medicare because some bureaucracy decided that vitamins ought to be excluded. Well that makes sense on the surface if you don't know what you are doing, but when you brute force a solution on a highly entangled and complex system you are going to have a multitude of unintended consequences. In a year or two this may be corrected, but at what real cost now? Why is the system set up with absolutes by those who don't understand that health care is a very individual proposition? Because it's expedient.

Other solutions? I have a whole list. Know what? Democrats are as dead set against real reform as the Republicans. I've been told we know everything already. That's awesome. I can claim that we know about the details of many complex physics and complicated mathematical proofs and meanings. I can put them in front of Congress and know what? They won't have a clue.

No one want's good health care reform, which would inherently lower the cost of treatments and improve overall health. They want their party to win. That's what's at stake. Political victory. All else is secondary.