**UPDATE** New Obamacare Reality Setting in: 8M in exchanges, 35% are < 35 yrs old

[piasabird]

This is a study run and funded by the government that is running ACA? What would be the reason to trust government officials?

They spent $millions on a website that did not work.

 

[ivwshane]

This is a study run and funded by the government that is running ACA? What would be the reason to trust government officials?

They spent $millions on a website that did not work.

The rand study was funded by the government? Do you have a source for that claim?

 

[sunzt]

This is a study run and funded by the government that is running ACA? What would be the reason to trust government officials?

They spent $millions on a website that did not work.

#1 RAND is a privately run FFRDC that is partially funded by Congress (like all FFRDCs) that works with both Republican and Democratic administrations. They ultimately report to congress. If anything, the house has more influence on their budget than the executive branch since the house appropriates their funding that stems from government.

#2 There are no government officials in RAND. It is a privately run company with a board.

#3 RAND did not make the ACA website.

 

[Jhhnn]

Yet another obamacare thread. The website is a mess, still un-secure and the government cannot say how many people have actually paid premiums.

Premiums are rising across the country. http://www.unionleader.com/article/20140408/NEWS1201/140409269

Insurers cut the number of doctors in their plans...

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/feb/04/business/la-fi-obamacare-patients-20140205

and a lot of major hospitals are not accepting obamacare plans...

http://health.usnews.com/health-new...2013/10/30/top-hospitals-opt-out-of-obamacare

insurers are limiting the number of networked doctors...

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/20...complain-about-limited-doctor-choices-nearby/

And many doctors simply plan to opt-out...

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/...ccess-health-insurance-doctors-244415971.html

Links are just a sampling. Point is obamacare is sucking (but we must embrace the suck) and the o-zombies will go to their grave spouting the wonder of obamacare.

Heh. All doom & gloom *projections* rather that a look at objective reality. Unsurprising, and unsurprising that you'd represent it to be something it's not.

 

[Jhhnn]

#1 RAND is a privately run FFRDC that is partially funded by Congress. They ultimately report to congress. If anything, the house has more influence on their budget than the executive branch since the house appropriates their funding that stems from government.

#2 There are no government officials in RAND. It is a privately run company with a board.

#3 RAND did not make the ACA website.

Those seeking the shelter of Denial will go to any lengths to get it.

 

[First]

It's quite telling how stone silent the anti-ACA crowd is.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamacare-its-working-20140409

No one would claim that the Affordable Care Act rollout has all gone according to plan. The troubles started in the summer of 2012, when the Supreme Court took an ax to one of the main pillars of Obamacare: expanding Medicaid to cover any American earning less than $16,000. The federal government, the court ruled, couldn't force the states to take funding to cover the working poor, leading nearly half of them to boycott the program out of partisan spite. Then, powerful GOP-governed states like Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania refused to set up their own insurance exchanges, foisting the responsibility onto the underfunded healthcare.gov &#8211; which failed catastrophically at launch. The Congressional Budget Office downsized its first-year private enrollment projection from 7 million to 6 million people &#8211; a bar even administration allies feared could be impossible to clear, leading House Speaker John Boehner to brand the president's signature legislation "a train wreck."

See six stories of Obamacare already making a difference

But then something extraordinary happened. That "wrecked" train pulled right into the station. Early. On March 27th, the administration announced that the federal and state exchanges had signed up more than 6 million Americans for insurance plans. Four days later, on the last night of open enrollment, that number jumped past the original goal of 7 million. And that didn't include as many as 9 million people who bypassed exchanges and bought policies directly from insurance companies. "It's been a winding road," says Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, "but Obamacare is actually working as expected." With support for the ACA growing &#8211; in the latest NPR poll, 54 percent either approve of the law or want it to go further &#8211; the reality is dawning on the GOP that the law could still prove a wedge issue this fall, against its own electoral interests. "The Republican focus on Obamacare is backfiring," says Stanley Greenberg, a top Democratic pollster, who conducted the survey with a GOP counterpart. "They're on the wrong side of the issue."

For many Americans, Obamacare is synonymous with a buggy website. But consider that the president's health-care law has insured far more people outside the private insurance exchanges &#8211; upward of 10 million, beginning with 1 million children with pre-existing conditions who were covered with the law's 2010 passage, and 3 million young adults who have secured coverage on their parents' health plans. Obamacare never did get a public option, but a huge portion of its new enrollees are now on a publicly funded health plan: Medicaid. In the 26 states participating in its expansion, Medicaid now offers comprehensive coverage for anyone earning less than 138 percent of poverty income &#8211; $16,105 for individuals or $27,310 for a family of three. More than 4.5 million poor Americans have already gained coverage, and with no enrollment deadline that figure will only grow. Meanwhile, outreach efforts have also brought nearly 2 million very poor Americans out of the woodwork to sign up for Medicaid benefits for which they would already have been eligible.

Find out the top 7 Obamacare exchanges

The law's impact is greater even than these enrollment metrics might suggest: Where insurers previously rejected nearly one in five applicants, today an estimated 120 million Americans with a pre-existing condition cannot be denied coverage. Obamacare also guarantees zero-co-pay preventive care for policies bought on its exchanges. For some young women with modest incomes who take the Pill, the value of these benefits (up to $1,200) is greater than the yearly premiums on a very basic plan (roughly $1,100). Addiction treatment, mental-health care and maternity coverage are all now guaranteed. Even seniors are coming out ahead, having already pocketed an average $1,265 in savings on prescription drugs bought under Medicare.

Far from driving a spike in prices, Obamacare implementation has coincided with a "bend in the curve" of health-care costs that everyone agrees is essential to solving the nation's long-term budget woes. Since the bill's passage in 2010, growth in health-care spending has dialed down to just 1.3 percent &#8211; less than one-third the average since 1965 &#8211; and the insurance industry's 2014 premiums weighed in at 15 percent less than CBO projections.

The disastrous launch of the $319 million healthcare.gov last October will remain a black eye for the Obama administration. "This has been really wounding," says a former administration official. "We've been engaged in a 50-year war on the role of government. Please do not help the other side!"

The administrative failures of ACA implementation left an untold number of Americans needlessly uninsured. How many? Had all states been as effective as California at signing up private insurance buyers &#8211; the state enrolled nearly 20 percent of the national total &#8211; more than 9 million would have found coverage. This diminished outcome is not just the fault of the federal exchange but also of states like Hawaii, where a hobbled exchange enrolled fewer than 8,000 people in private insurance, and Oregon, which paid Silicon Valley giant Oracle more than $130 million in federal funds to build an online marketplace. The tech firm botched the job so spectacularly that the state was forced to hire an army of temp workers to process applications &#8211; on paper.

Republican Party sabotage has also impeded enrollment. "Obamacare has become so politically divisive that elected officials not only find it to their advantage to oppose the program but to actively undermine it," says Levitt. At least 17 states passed laws to restrict ACA "navigators" &#8211; professionals paid to help uninsured Americans enroll in suitable coverage. The difference in the two states with the greatest number of uninsured residents is striking: Where California signed up close to a third of its eligible citizens, Texas limped into March having enrolled just one in 10.

Of course, the Republican Party is so invested in the idea of Obamacare as a failure that it won't allow the truth to get in the way of its messaging. It has deployed hordes of consultants, elected officials and Fox News anchors to recite a litany of talking points that are gross distortions, if not outright lies.

GOP LIE No. 1: THE NUMBERS DON'T MEAN ANYTHING
Over the course of the open-enrollment period, Republicans labored to argue that Obamacare did far less good than advertised because an estimated 4.7 million Americans received letters in the fall warning that their current policies could not be renewed, as they failed to comply with new coverage requirements. They point to these "cancellations" to argue that few of the folks being counted as ACA enrollees previously lacked insurance.

There are three glaring flaws to this argument. First: Many if not most of those whose plans were canceled were automatically transferred into similar policies that complied with the new law. One of the nation's largest for-profit insurers told House investigators that it had issued fewer than 2,000 outright cancellations.

Second: Through executive orders, Obama gave roughly half of those who received a letter &#8211; 2.35 million &#8211; the chance to stay in their existing coverage. CBO estimates suggest that just 1.5 million actually continued in their grandfathered plans, as many could find cheaper and/or better coverage on a subsidized exchange or qualify for Medicaid. It's telling that the Michigan leukemia patient featured in Koch-funded ads intended to convey the horror of these cancellations has found a compliant poicy on the exchange that still covers her oncologist and cut her monthly premium in half.

Giving the Republican argument every benefit of the doubt, this would leave a potential pool of about 3 million people who changed, rather than gained, insurance. This leads to the third flaw in the argument: Obamacare sign-ups were always going to include millions of people who already had insurance. In its latest estimate, the CBO showed just two-thirds (4 million of 6 million) of exchange enrollments coming from people who were previously uncovered. And the limited hard data available from the states suggests the CBO is closer to the mark than the GOP: In New York, nearly 60 percent of buyers were previously uninsured. In Kentucky, it's even higher: 75 percent.

GOP LIE No. 2: THEY HAVEN'T PAID THEIR PREMIUMS YET
GOP critics point out that the administration hasn't tracked how many enrollees are actually paying their insurance bills. The complaint about transparency is fair, but the concern is misplaced. Figures from state exchanges and insurers themselves show that between 80 and 95 percent of enrollees are paying their bills.

GOP LIE No. 3: OBAMACARE WILL COLLAPSE UNDER ITS OWN WEIGHT
One legitimate concern as Obamacare ramped up was that it could enter a "death spiral." This would happen if the number of older, sicker people on the exchanges far outnumbered the young and the healthy. Premiums would spike, year over year, with each increase driving more healthy folks out of the pool &#8211; making the exchange unsustainable. While reaching 7 million enrollees is a huge win politically, it doesn't ensure Obamacare's viability as an insurance program. "I do think there's too much focus on the overall number," Karen Ignagni, a top insurance-industry lobbyist, told reporters. What matters far more, she said, is the insurance pools' "distribution of healthy to unhealthy."

The administration wanted 18- to 34-year-olds to make up nearly 40 percent of enrollees. By March, however, only 25 percent of the mix was under 35. That sounds dire. Yet even pools with just 25 percent of younger people would not create a tailspin, forcing premiums to rise by just 2.4 percent, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Additionally, the convoluted structure of Obamacare eliminates systemic risk. Even the 27 states that relied entirely on the federal exchange will end up with state-specific insurance pools. What this means is that if a death spiral were to develop in, say, Ohio, that failure would not pull down neighboring states. What's more, safeguards within the ACA mean states don't have to get the mix right in Year One. For the first three years, ACA has shock absorbers to prevent premium spikes in states with problematic pools. Over that same period, the penalties for not buying insurance step up &#8211; which should drive younger, healthier people into the market, balancing the risk profile. We lack hard data to get a clear picture of all state pools. But private insurers are sending optimistic signals to investors that all is well. Case in point: Insurance giant WellPoint just raised its earnings forecast.

GOP LIE No. 4: "OBAMACARE IS THE NUMBER-ONE JOB KILLER IN AMERICA"
That's what Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told a Tea Party convention in Dallas last summer. Since then, the GOP has been making two ACA-connected job-loss claims, both demonstrably false. First, they twisted a February CBO report to claim that Obamacare will cause 2.5 million Americans to lose their jobs. What the CBO actually found is that Americans will be able to work a little less thanks to lower health-care costs, voluntarily scaling back work hours between 1.5 and 2 percent through 2024, or the output of 2.5 million full-time workers. The other GOP lie is that Obamacare is causing employers &#8211; who will be responsible for insuring employees who work more than 30 hours a week &#8211; to either scale back the hours of full-time employees or hire only part-time workers. This, too, is hogwash. While the share of part-time employment remains historically high, it has actually been in decline since 2010, when Obama*care became law.

As Obamacare recovers from its rocky start, the true scandal of the law's rollout has nothing to do with Barack Obama or anything that's going on in the White House. Nearly 5 million Americans who live below the poverty line have been deprived of health insurance &#8211; and it's the 24 states that rejected Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, almost all led by Republican governors or legislatures, that should be held accountable.

The expansion of Medicaid was Obamacare's quiet triumph &#8211; and should have created health security for America's poor, much as seniors enjoy under Medicare. Under the old rules, Medicaid eligibility varied widely, and many in great need didn't qualify. In the legislation, Medicaid expansion was mandatory. So when Obamacare's authors created the rules for the exchanges, they did not include subsidies for those with incomes below the poverty line &#8211; they were supposed to be taken care of. But thanks to the Roberts Supreme Court, Medicaid expansion became optional. And in states that have refused to expand, millions of adults are now caught in an absurd Catch-22: too poor to buy their own coverage but not wealthy enough to receive federal help. In a sane Washington, it would be easy to fix this. But that would require the two parties to work together.

The worst offender by far is Gov. Rick Perry's Texas, which leads the nation with more than 1 million poor adults who will fall into the coverage gap. For his part, Perry has likened expanding Medicaid to "putting 1,000 more people on the Titanic." This is an odd description for a program that's more like a free lunch. The federal government pays 100 percent of the cost of expansion for three years, gradually scaling back to 90 percent by 2020 and beyond.

The economic consequences for the states that have refused this program are severe. Consider South Carolina, where, thanks to Gov. Nikki Haley, more than 190,000 will fall into the coverage gap. A study for the South Carolina Hospital Association found that Medicaid expansion would have brought more than $11 billion in federal funding to the state by 2020, creating nearly 44,000 new jobs and growing tax revenue enough to offset more than half of the state's future Medicaid cost-sharing. What's worse, Haley and Perry and their ilk aren't actually saving their citizens any money: The federal taxes that pay for Medicaid expansion are still being levied nationwide.

Notably, prominent GOP governors such as Jan Brewer in Arizona, Chris Christie in New Jersey and John Kasich of Ohio all bucked the Tea Party and accepted the federal funding. "When you die and get to the meeting with St. Peter, he's probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small," Kasich said. "But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor. You'd better have a good answer."

The surprising resurrection of Obamacare is poised to have broad political ramifications come November. During the darkest days of the healthcare.gov rollout last fall, Republicans made what seemed a safe bet that the unpopularity of the law would help deliver another midterm-election romp, just as it did in 2010. The GOP electoral strategy has been supported by millions from the Koch-backed Super PAC Americans for Prosperity, which has been bombarding key Senate swing states with anti-Obama*care TV ads intended to destroy vulnerable Democratic incumbents like Sen. Kay Hagan in North Carolina. But so far the impact of these kinds of ads has been modest, registering with voters as both old hat and "overreach," says Greenberg, the Democratic pollster.

Public opinion on Obamacare is now shifting. A Pew poll in March found that a 71 percent supermajority either supports Obamacare or wants politicians to "make the law work as well as possible," compared to just 19 percent of the electorate that wants to see the law fail.

Though Ted Cruz and the #fullrepeal crowd may still excite the GOP's Tea Party base, their message is no longer a clear winner among independents in the general election. The House leadership is taking notice. After more than four dozen votes attempting to repeal or roll back Obamacare, the House GOP is scrambling to come up with a policy it could market as a replacement. In a startling admission, GOP House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy acknowledged that the GOP's old playbook isn't cutting it anymore. "The country has changed since Obamacare has come in," he told the Washington Post. "We understand that."

House Republicans have learned the hard way that even nibbling around the edges of Obamacare can backfire. In February, the GOP pushed a bill to tweak the mandate that businesses offer health care to all employees working more than 30 hours. Switching to the GOP's preferred 40-hour standard, it turns out, would add $74 billion to the deficit by 2024 and cause nearly 1 million Americans to lose coverage. That's the kind of move that would play right into Democratic hands. Says Greenberg, "Democrats do very well when they hit back at Republicans on what people lose."

Until recently, Greenberg had been advising Democrats to move beyond Obamacare and turn to bread-and-butter issues like jobs and the minimum wage. "The strongest attack on Republicans," he says, "is that they're obsessed with Obamacare instead of critical issues like dealing with the economy." But his new poll has Greenberg rethinking that counsel. "Until now, this is an issue where the intensity has been on the other side," he says. But defending Obamacare, he adds, has emerged as "a values argument for our base." Greenberg now believes Democrats "ought to lean much more strongly" to campaign on the virtues of Obamacare as a means of boosting progressive turnout. "Not apologizing for Obamacare and embracing it actually wins the argument nationally," he says. "And it produces much more engagement of Democratic voters. That's a critical thing in off-year elections."

 

[glenn1]

It's quite telling how stone silent the anti-ACA crowd is.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obamacare-its-working-20140409

Unsure what you expect at this point. Both Obama and Democrats here have repeatedly said "Obamacre is no longer open to debate," so it's not like anything conservatives say will penetrate in any event. One could even stipulate the findings from this story and it's still a single data point, no more useful in declaring "victory" than the "Mission Accomplished" banner was after overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Like then, the early part (completing the invasion/passing the bill) was the easy part and handling the adminstration afterwards is what turned into the quagmire for the next several years.

Besides, even if ACA achieves its best-case scenario endstate there is still room for political argument about its political costs, benefits, and priorities. I for example have long criticized ACA for its IMHO extremely misguided decision to offer higher coverage/cost policies at the expense of lower cost/coverage options. Especially when the later could have conceivably been offered to all Americans making it truly universal care instead of overpriced plans with prepaid coverage for birth control which will still leave 10s of millions uninsured. Not to mention the younger and middle class people who get fucked over to subsidize the benefits for others. So congratulations on your "victory."

 

[ccchr]

Found this on another message board. Looks like not all the facts were given.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapot...ously-uninsured-individuals/?partner=yahootix

 

[First]

Unsure what you expect at this point. Both Obama and Democrats here have repeatedly said "Obamacre is no longer open to debate," so it's not like anything conservatives say will penetrate in any event.

Nothing you say penetrates because, as my OP originally cited, nothing you've said has actually come true. Falsehoods, generally, don't win hearts and minds. They numb people to conservative rhetoric on Obamacare, something that be a major problem for Repubs as soon as this November.

One could even stipulate the findings from this story and it's still a single data point, no more useful in declaring "victory" than the "Mission Accomplished" banner was after overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Like then, the early part (completing the invasion/passing the bill) was the easy part and handling the adminstration afterwards is what turned into the quagmire for the next several years.

You just compared fighting a war with providing health insurance.

Let me know if you need me to explain why that's laughable.

Besides, even if ACA achieves its best-case scenario endstate there is still room for political argument about its political costs, benefits, and priorities. I for example have long criticized ACA for its IMHO extremely misguided decision to offer higher coverage/cost policies at the expense of lower cost/coverage options. Especially when the later could have conceivably been offered to all Americans making it truly universal care instead of overpriced plans with prepaid coverage for birth control which will still leave 10s of millions uninsured. Not to mention the younger and middle class people who get fucked over to subsidize the benefits for others. So congratulations on your "victory."

It's not "my" victory, it's a victory for common sense market solutions that require significant amounts of regulation to control bad actors i.e. those insurance companies who provide "insurance" while not actually covering anything meaningful when the bill comes due. That's why this notion that a far "simpler" or "smaller" bill should have been passed is partially laughable; health insurance is not a small or simple industry. There are 50 health commissioner and therefore 50 states with different sets of laws for healthcare.

 

[First]

Found this on another message board. Looks like not all the facts were given.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapot...ously-uninsured-individuals/?partner=yahootix

What do you think the article actually says? The article's author Avik Roy, self-described anti-ACA conservative policy wonk, writes that while the study is preliminary, it's useful. The best he's got is that as "little" as 2M previously uninsured signed up via the exchanges....while admitting that many millions more previously uninsured may have signed up via Medicaid....and none of the Rand data includes the late March surge or any of April, something that is effectively 100% guaranteed to add to the 9.3M total and see the risk pool healthier.

So whatever the precise makeup, be it Medicaid/private exchange or 28% young versus 34% young, the law has already been a success based on preliminary data that doesn't count a significant part of the late surge. Things aren't likely to get worse than the numbers Rand found even IF the Rand sampling errors all turn out to be worst case. In other words, you'll see articles showing ACA looking even more robust, nullifying further the obsessive attacks on ACA.

 

[Fern]

I think it's too early to have good numbers etc.

I noticed the margin of error was 3.5 million. That seems quite large when compared to the 9.3 million number. I don't ever recall seeing such a large margin of error.

I found this bit interesting.

--The number of people getting insurance through their employers increased by 8.2 million. Rand said the increase is likely to have been driven by a decline in unemployment, which made more people eligible for employer plans, and by the incentives in the Affordable Care Act encouraging more employer coverage. The figure certainly undermines the contention by the healthcare law's critics that the legislation gave employers an incentive to drop coverage.

And the employer provided HI under Obamacare were suspended until 2015? So, Obamacare gets credited with increasing HI coverage to the tune of about 8.2 million and the law's not even in effect?

Still think we need to wait for solid numbers and various analyses.

Fern

 

[senseamp]

The same Republicans who called Obamacare a job killer are now crediting increases in the number of insured on job creation instead of Obamacare. I am concerned that crows may become an endangered species once Republicans run out of excuses.

 

[Fern]

The same Republicans who called Obamacare a job killer are now crediting increases in the number of insured on job creation instead of Obamacare. I am concerned that crows may become an endangered species once Republicans run out of excuses.

The Rand people?

That's their claim.

Fern

 

[werepossum]

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-rand-20140408,0,6208659.column#axzz2yMCeLb47



Quick recap of anti-ACA predictions made toward the end of 2013, all of which continue to fail the test of time:

1. "The ACA starting January 1, 2014 will be a calamitous, disorganized mess like the web site". Facts are the beginning of the year came and went, and there were no coverage calamities where people called their insurance company only to be told they didn't have insurance or wouldn't be covered. There were no long lines at the pharmacy for prescription drugs or ER and generally little to no reports of unusual insurance coverage issues that aren't standard fare for said industry (sactoking and the rest can certainly expound on this much more thoroughly). Certainly, no major stories that shows anything remotely widespread.

2. "If you like your insurance you can keep it." An undeniable fact that, of course, is proving to be utterly irrelevant with Rand Corp (and other studies) showing those with cancelled policies comprised less than 1M total persons, and that the net effect is still 9.3M were added since Sept. 2013 anyway (including many cancelled plans), making the point utterly moot. Will have much weaker legs by election day clearly, especially since it barely affects the overwhelming majority of voters personally to begin with. Note that conservatives routinely, some even to this day, throw around 6M as the total number of cancelled policies. We know it's not the case.

3. "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor." No substantial reports this is a widespread problem as of today, April 8th 2014. Narrower networks of doctors, a consequence of cost controls in ACA, doesn't appear to actually mean people are losing their doctors since most (not all, but very much most) have the choice of which plans to choose that include their doctor or not. That ability to choose makes not keeping your doctor far less a talking point, though this one never had much electoral legs to begin with.

4. "Businesses will dump their employees on the exchanges". Not only are many more than 9.3M additional Americans going to be insured when this month is concluded, but employer coverage continues to be strong as unemployment has continued to come down. Has zero electoral legs now that there has been a delay of the employer mandate, with some conservatives previously claiming 100M+ employer plans would be in jeopardy because of the mandate.

5. "Web site is structurally flawed and not fixable". Uh, yeah, sure.

Who knows, perhaps Republicans can use the ACA as enough of a net positive to gain some Senate seats this year, maybe even win back the Senate for 2 years. But not only is this law staying, it's already vastly improved and working better than opposition predicted 3 short months ago. The question they have to ask themselves is, after 4 years of campaigning against Obamacare with zero to show for it (literally, nothing) while also failing to govern in the House at all, when will Repubs start governing again? Immigration? Healthcare? We gonna see anything other than gun votes or show ACA repeal votes?

EDIT; Title slightly altered.

One small correction - the "very small number" of less than one million is NOT the number who lost their health insurance because of Obamacare, but the number who lost their health insurance because of Obamacare and are now uninsured. From your quoted article:

The Rand study confirms other surveys that placed the number of people who lost their old insurance and did not or could not replace it -- the focus of an enormous volume of anti-Obamacare rhetoric -- at less than 1 million.

The remainder lost their health insurance because of Obamacare and either went on Medicaid or got new, more expensive Obamacare health insurance. But hey, taking health insurance from a mere million Americans is no big deal as long as they still pay taxes to buy health insurance for someone else, right?

 

[Matt1970]

2. "If you like your insurance you can keep it." An undeniable fact that, of course, is proving to be utterly irrelevant with Rand Corp (and other studies) showing those with cancelled policies comprised less than 1M total persons, and that the net effect is still 9.3M were added since Sept. 2013 anyway (including many cancelled plans), making the point utterly moot. Will have much weaker legs by election day clearly, especially since it barely affects the overwhelming majority of voters personally to begin with. Note that conservatives routinely, some even to this day, throw around 6M as the total number of cancelled policies. We know it's not the case.

Reading comprehension fail? You even bolded it. The Rand study confirms other surveys that placed the number of people who lost their old insurance and did not or could not replace it at less than 1 million. Spin it any way you want there are a LOT of people lied to. The fact that they signed up for new plans is irrelevant. The bigger problem is still looming, the employer mandate.

 

[First]

One small correction - the "very small number" of less than one million is NOT the number who lost their health insurance because of Obamacare, but the number who lost their health insurance because of Obamacare and are now uninsured. From your quoted article:

The remainder lost their health insurance because of Obamacare and either went on Medicaid or got new, more expensive Obamacare health insurance. But hey, taking health insurance from a mere million Americans is no big deal as long as they still pay taxes to buy health insurance for someone else, right?

Indeed, that's a good catch. Non-covered.

Of course....thinking about it for a bit, I imagine many of those <1M may be people who fall into the coverage gap of people in states that haven't expanded Medicaid; those whose AGI is more than 138% of poverty line in non-Medicaid expanding state but less than the private exchange ACA subsidy line. As you well know, this is a problem still centered around the SCOTUS case in 2012 and conscious Republican intransigence in said states (FL, TX, etc.) for not taking the expanded Medicaid poverty line definition. All entirely avoidable if not for politics, in other words, and really having nothing to do with a "flaw" in the ACA, other than it not anticipating the extent of conservative obstruction in two branches of gov't.

Reading comprehension fail? You even bolded it. The Rand study confirms other surveys that placed the number of people who lost their old insurance and did not or could not replace it at less than 1 million. Spin it any way you want there are a LOT of people lied to. The fact that they signed up for new plans is irrelevant. The bigger problem is still looming, the employer mandate.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

 

[senseamp]

The Rand people?

That's their claim.

Fern

The Republicans have latched on to it, that most of the new insured are from job creation, not exchanges. But they were same people who were telling us Obamacare is a job killer and that companies would be cutting hours to kick employees off insurance.

 

[Jhhnn]

Besides, even if ACA achieves its best-case scenario endstate there is still room for political argument about its political costs, benefits, and priorities.

Yeh, the political costs to Repubs will be rather large, given that it's one of the best things to happen to the American Public since SS. It shows us all that the Government of the People delivers when the Jerb Creators have other priorities. It's shaping up to be a staggering blow to right wing ideology in general.

 

[MomentsofSanity]

One small correction - the "very small number" of less than one million is NOT the number who lost their health insurance because of Obamacare, but the number who lost their health insurance because of Obamacare and are now uninsured. From your quoted article:



The remainder lost their health insurance because of Obamacare and either went on Medicaid or got new, more expensive Obamacare health insurance. But hey, taking health insurance from a mere million Americans is no big deal as long as they still pay taxes to buy health insurance for someone else, right?

Also from his quoted article:

CBO estimates suggest that just 1.5 million actually continued in their grandfathered plans, as many could find cheaper and/or better coverage on a subsidized exchange or qualify for Medicaid.

I highlight that as your post seems to imply everyone had to pay more for coverage.

 

[Jhhnn]

The Republicans have latched on to it, that most of the new insured are from job creation, not exchanges. But they were same people who were telling us Obamacare is a job killer and that companies would be cutting hours to kick employees off insurance.

The desperate gymnastics from the leadership are expected. The real question is how well the ran & file can keep their noses in the ass cracks of the leadership through it all. They're making a valiant effort.

 

[Incorruptible]

buh.. buh... buh.... obamacare is evil... buh... buh... communist....socialist... buh buh.. muslim... buh buh.....

IT"S A LIE!! RAND IS FUNDED BY Government!! ARRGGG yeah thats it.... EERRRAARRRAAH!!

Keep spouting leftist BS. obamacare needs to be demolished and replaced with a free market healthcare system.

 

[Fern]

All from his quoted article:

CBO estimates suggest that just 1.5 million actually continued in their grandfathered plans, as many could find cheaper and/or better coverage on a subsidized exchange or qualify for Medicaid.

I highlight that as your post seems to imply everyone had to pay more for coverage.

Where does that quote come from?

I can't find it in the OP's link.

IIRC, the last year's CBO estimate they predicted only 1 million new insured from the ranks of the employed. That's much different than the Rand results.

In May 2013, for example, the Congressional Budget Office projected the ranks of the insured through employers would rise by only 1 million.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/obamacare-rand-study-uninsured-rate-esi-2014-4#ixzz2yRS1rCU5

Unless the CBO did a much more recent estimate I don't think it's helpful to quote their numbers.

I'd also like to know what they meant by "grandfathered plans".

Fern

 

[shira]

Keep spouting leftist BS. obamacare needs to be demolished and replaced with a free market healthcare system.

Please point us to the specifics of this "free market healthcare system" you continually sing the praises of. And please also explain to us how this system would solve the problems of pre-existing conditions, tens of millions of uninsured Americans, and spiraling healthcare costs.

 

[Incorruptible]

Please point us to the specifics of this "free market healthcare system" you continually sing the praises of. And please also explain to us how this system would solve the problems of pre-existing conditions, tens of millions of uninsured Americans, and spiraling healthcare costs.

I love how you conveniently forgot to mention the illegal immigrants and the people who can afford it but choose not to get it. Typical leftist.

 

[Sea Ray]

I think the bottom line is that Obamacare was a solution (more or less) to an issue the Republicans didn't believe was actually a problem. If a person didn't have insurance, it was their fault, for whatever reason. I understand them being opposed to the law but I hope now they can finally accept that it isn't going anywhere and it isn't going to self destruct. It needs tweaking, but enough people signed up (including young people) that fundamentally the law does work.

The law can't be repealed at this point and the Republicans know that. Kicking that many people off insurance or Medicaid, plus going back to the lower age to be on your parent's plan and allowing discrimination based on pre-existing conditions would be political suicide in national and state races.

A couple things. First of all, nobody doubted that Obamacare would add people to the insurance roles. No trick in doing that. Just give out more free or subsidized plans and you'll accomplish that but it's far, far away from universal coverage. We started with about 50 million uninsured. The White House promised us at least 32 million. They're a far cry from that.

Finally, if you want to insure more people, fine. Give out your goodies and go for it but why did you have to screw with my insurance too? Why did you have to insist that my plan include birth control and dental care for kids? I was happy with my plan and now Obamacare forced me to give it up for a more expensive plan because it has to include so many things. Why did you have to F* with my plan in order to give 9 million people Medicaid or subsidies?