Originally posted by Bill the Cat
View Post
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.
Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
See more
See less
Is the Affordable Care Act Working?
Collapse
X
-
Originally posted by Littlejoe View PostI 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.The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.
Comment
-
Originally posted by Jedidiah View PostI 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.The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.
Comment
-
Originally posted by Cow Poke View PostWhich is GREAT if you don't have a serious claim - like my wife's breast cancer."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
-
Originally posted by Cow Poke View PostWell, yeah, a success would be that it actually worked as PROMISED, not just less bad than the critics' forecasts.
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
-
Originally posted by Littlejoe View PostI 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.
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
-
Originally posted by Sam View PostThis 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.The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.
Comment
-
Originally posted by phank View PostThis 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.The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.
Comment
-
Originally posted by Littlejoe View PostRight, and I think I need rotator cuff surgery...but there's no way I can afford it...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
-
Originally posted by Sam View PostHigh-deductible plans have been a part of every Republican health reform proposal I've looked at.
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.
The ACA helps reduce health care inequities and expands health coverage to those who would have otherwise been left out.
It is not, and was never designed to be, a panacea.
If we want to go that route, we will have to adopt a much more progressive reform policy.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
-
Originally posted by Cow Poke View PostYeah, we're paying the deductible for my wife's cancer treatments -- even with the insurance paying megabucks, it's a real shocker.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
-
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
-
Originally posted by Bill the Cat View PostThis, 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.The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.
Comment
-
Originally posted by Cow Poke View PostYeah, businesses often look for ways to spend MORE money, not less.
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
-
Originally posted by phank View PostThis 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.
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
by One Bad Pig
Yesterday, 11:55 AM
|
||
Started by whag, 03-26-2024, 04:38 PM
|
53 responses
417 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by Mountain Man
Yesterday, 11:32 AM
|
||
Started by rogue06, 03-26-2024, 11:45 AM
|
25 responses
114 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by rogue06
Yesterday, 08:36 AM
|
||
Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 09:21 AM
|
33 responses
198 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by Roy
Yesterday, 07:43 AM
|
||
Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 08:34 AM
|
87 responses
398 views
0 likes
|
Last Post
by Mountain Man
Today, 09:10 AM
|
Comment