Announcement

Collapse

Civics 101 Guidelines

Want to argue about politics? Healthcare reform? Taxes? Governments? You've come to the right place!

Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
See more
See less

Is the Affordable Care Act Working?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #46
    Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
    I've now had to change my plan to the ACA approved one through my work. Premium went up again this year, but about as much as last year. Deductible now sits at 5,000 for the family (up from 3,000 last year), and coverage is now 80/20 instead of last year's 90/10. It sure isn't more affordable for me...
    I'm thinking that most people who are "satisfied" with their Obamacare haven't yet had to pay much of the deductible yet.
    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

    Comment


    • #47
      Originally posted by Littlejoe View Post
      I work as a IT contractor to a major Health insurance provider. I can tell you that one of the first things they did when the ACA was passed...(and IIRC the CEO supported it) was to downsize their workforce. The second thing was to only offer the High Deductible Plan (HDP) to their employees (which they still have to pay for)

      The first thing MY company did was to discontinue ALL but the HDP. We don't have any other option but to take the HDP.
      Which is GREAT if you don't have a serious claim - like my wife's breast cancer.
      The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

      Comment


      • #48
        Originally posted by Jedidiah View Post
        I would consider it a success if it were true that people could keep the doctor/insurance they had and were happy with, and that the ACA would reduce healthcare costs across the board by any meaningful amount for each family. It has failed at both of those.
        Well, yeah, a success would be that it actually worked as PROMISED, not just less bad than the critics' forecasts.
        The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

        Comment


        • #49
          Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
          Which is GREAT if you don't have a serious claim - like my wife's breast cancer.
          Right, and I think I need rotator cuff surgery...but there's no way I can afford it...
          "What has the Church gained if it is popular, but there is no conviction, no repentance, no power?" - A.W. Tozer

          "... there are two parties in Washington, the stupid party and the evil party, who occasionally get together and do something both stupid and evil, and this is called bipartisanship." - Everett Dirksen

          Comment


          • #50
            Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
            Well, yeah, a success would be that it actually worked as PROMISED, not just less bad than the critics' forecasts.
            This is largely silly. NO government program (nor large-scale private sector program) has EVER worked exactly as intended, and many (both public and private) morph into something quite different from the original vision.

            In the case of the ACA, I think the strawman (abetted, to be sure, by ideological Democrats) was that it would provide basically free insurance to everyone, that no employer would ever see any sense in not paying for it themselves when if they drop it, their employees could get it at someone else's expense, that the private plans under the exchanges would be cheaper per coverage than they used to be, that everyone making less than some minimum amount would be automatically covered under Medicaid, and so on and on and on.

            And when most of these dreams didn't come true, the ideological fanatics dubbed the entire program a total failure. SO WHAT if many more people are covered, SO WHAT if national health is improving as a result, SO WHAT if many who previously couldn't afford coverage are now covered. We expected manna from heaven, what we got was a pretty solid working affordable effective program with the usual collection of costs and drawbacks, so the whole thing is a broken promise. So there!

            And, I suspect, even if we DID see universal coverage at half the total cost of the previous system (which only covered about half the people), these fanatics would STILL be complaining.

            The system certainly has room for improvement. It qualifies as a mild success so far.

            Comment


            • #51
              Originally posted by Littlejoe View Post
              I work as a IT contractor to a major Health insurance provider. I can tell you that one of the first things they did when the ACA was passed...(and IIRC the CEO supported it) was to downsize their workforce. The second thing was to only offer the High Deductible Plan (HDP) to their employees (which they still have to pay for)

              The first thing MY company did was to discontinue ALL but the HDP. We don't have any other option but to take the HDP.
              This is one of the things that upsets me about the employer response to the ACA. Small businesses aren't mandated to provide insurance and get tax credits for doing so. Large employers get tax credits for providing insurance and don't see higher taxes from the ACA. There's no real reason for employers already offering insurance to cut it down to minimum coverage except to save money for their own bottom line. We seem to be seeing a lot of employers continue the trend of cutting back health care benefits that existed prior to the ACA, only now they're blaming it on the new law and taking in the profits. I believe you said your company made a net profit of $100m last year and yet the company is only offering HDP insurance that covers 60% of costs?

              That's absurd and morally wrong, to be sure.
              "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

              Comment


              • #52
                Originally posted by Sam View Post
                This is one of the things that upsets me about the employer response to the ACA. Small businesses aren't mandated to provide insurance and get tax credits for doing so. Large employers get tax credits for providing insurance and don't see higher taxes from the ACA. There's no real reason for employers already offering insurance to cut it down to minimum coverage except to save money for their own bottom line.
                Yeah, businesses often look for ways to spend MORE money, not less.
                The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                Comment


                • #53
                  Originally posted by phank View Post
                  This is largely silly. NO government program (nor large-scale private sector program) has EVER worked exactly as intended, and many (both public and private) morph into something quite different from the original vision.
                  But you can KEEP your doctor. PERIOD. And you can KEEP your plan. PERIOD. That was a flat out lie.
                  The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                  Comment


                  • #54
                    Originally posted by Littlejoe View Post
                    Right, and I think I need rotator cuff surgery...but there's no way I can afford it...
                    Yeah, we're paying the deductible for my wife's cancer treatments -- even with the insurance paying megabucks, it's a real shocker.
                    Last edited by Cow Poke; 10-27-2014, 07:08 PM.
                    The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                    Comment


                    • #55
                      Originally posted by Sam View Post
                      High-deductible plans have been a part of every Republican health reform proposal I've looked at.
                      Those were the "catastrophic" plans that were bare bones with very low premiums. These under Obamacare are different because of the mandatory requirements of the ACA.

                      Indeed, the ideas that would have reduced reliance on high-deductible plans as a cost-saving measure, public option and single-payer, have routinely been opposed by just about every GOP politician or pundit to comment on the matter.
                      For better reasons than the low deductibles claimed by the single payer and public options.

                      The ACA helps reduce health care inequities and expands health coverage to those who would have otherwise been left out.
                      At the expense of the taxpaying middle class. Who do you think pays for those "subsidies"?

                      It is not, and was never designed to be, a panacea.
                      It was designed to be yet another form of welfare.

                      If we want to go that route, we will have to adopt a much more progressive reform policy.
                      Sorry, but seeing the way the government mismanages the VA hospitals, no thanks.
                      That's what
                      - She

                      Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                      - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                      I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                      - Stephen R. Donaldson

                      Comment


                      • #56
                        Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                        Yeah, we're paying the deductible for my wife's cancer treatments -- even with the insurance paying megabucks, it's a real shocker.
                        My wife had to be scoped at the ER for a blockage with her gastric bypass. We got billed $1800 total. Still paying on it.
                        That's what
                        - She

                        Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                        - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                        I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                        - Stephen R. Donaldson

                        Comment


                        • #57
                          This, I was not aware of...

                          Obamacare’s so-called Cadillac tax, which begins in 2018, will also encourage employers to adopt high-deductible plans, says Tracy Watts, a senior partner at Mercer. Companies will face a 40 percent tax on premiums that exceed $10,200 for individual coverage.
                          That's what
                          - She

                          Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                          - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                          I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                          - Stephen R. Donaldson

                          Comment


                          • #58
                            Originally posted by Bill the Cat View Post
                            This, I was not aware of...

                            Obamacare’s so-called Cadillac tax, which begins in 2018, will also encourage employers to adopt high-deductible plans, says Tracy Watts, a senior partner at Mercer. Companies will face a 40 percent tax on premiums that exceed $10,200 for individual coverage.
                            Because they voted FOR the plan so they could find out what's in it.
                            The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                            Comment


                            • #59
                              Originally posted by Cow Poke View Post
                              Yeah, businesses often look for ways to spend MORE money, not less.
                              Is your argument that businesses are morally justified in providing bare-bones health insurance to their workers while taking in $100m+ in profit? If not plainly immoral, isn't it in societies interest to develop more affordable and comprehensive solutions?

                              You can't really have it two ways here: if you're arguing that the ACA was not a step forward and we should go back to where employers could offer this kind of insurance or simply not offer insurance at all, you're not advocating a fix. If you're arguing that the ACA wasn't reformative enough, you've got to explain what would be better -- some GOP proposals have indeed decoupled employer-based insurance in reforming the market but all propose minimum-coverage, high-deductible plans as the baseline insurance to replace it. Companies would have to voluntarily pay their workers more in order for those workers to afford better coverage without paying extensively more than the current or pre-ACA systems. And if employers are already cutting back health plans in order to pad profits, that can hardly be expected.

                              It seems that the logical conclusion to many Conservative complaints leads towards more progressive solutions like public option or single payer, interestingly enough.
                              "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                              Comment


                              • #60
                                Originally posted by phank View Post
                                This is largely silly. NO government program (nor large-scale private sector program) has EVER worked exactly as intended, and many (both public and private) morph into something quite different from the original vision.

                                In the case of the ACA, I think the strawman (abetted, to be sure, by ideological Democrats) was that it would provide basically free insurance to everyone, that no employer would ever see any sense in not paying for it themselves when if they drop it, their employees could get it at someone else's expense, that the private plans under the exchanges would be cheaper per coverage than they used to be, that everyone making less than some minimum amount would be automatically covered under Medicaid, and so on and on and on.

                                And when most of these dreams didn't come true, the ideological fanatics dubbed the entire program a total failure. SO WHAT if many more people are covered, SO WHAT if national health is improving as a result, SO WHAT if many who previously couldn't afford coverage are now covered. We expected manna from heaven, what we got was a pretty solid working affordable effective program with the usual collection of costs and drawbacks, so the whole thing is a broken promise. So there!

                                And, I suspect, even if we DID see universal coverage at half the total cost of the previous system (which only covered about half the people), these fanatics would STILL be complaining.

                                The system certainly has room for improvement. It qualifies as a mild success so far.
                                You say that "many more are covered". Define "many more", because 74% of current Obamacare enrollees were previously insured, so the very best case scenario, and this is a generous estimate, is that 3-million people have insurance who didn't have it before (some estimates put the number as low as 1-million), and most of those are being dumped straight into Medicaid, so it's a "success" for Medicaid but not for Obamacare. Add to that people who have actually lost coverage (cancer patients have been hit the worst), skyrocketing premiums and higher out of pocket costs for the insured (apparently some hospitals are asking Obamacare patients to pay upfront prompting CNN to ask if Obamacare is second-rate insurance), and the hundreds of thousands of doctors who are refusing to accept Obamacare...

                                Well, it becomes very hard to call Obamacare even a minor success. I think "colossal failure" is a more fitting description.
                                Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                                But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                                Than a fool in the eyes of God


                                From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                                Comment

                                Related Threads

                                Collapse

                                Topics Statistics Last Post
                                Started by little_monkey, 03-27-2024, 04:19 PM
                                16 responses
                                180 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post One Bad Pig  
                                Started by whag, 03-26-2024, 04:38 PM
                                53 responses
                                417 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Mountain Man  
                                Started by rogue06, 03-26-2024, 11:45 AM
                                25 responses
                                114 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post rogue06
                                by rogue06
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 09:21 AM
                                33 responses
                                198 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Roy
                                by Roy
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 08:34 AM
                                87 responses
                                398 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Mountain Man  
                                Working...
                                X