Politics Obamacare

Ace.....I dont minimize the first year procedural problems...from the sign ups to the latest.

Similar things happened with Medicare, with Bush's Medicare D, etc. and they can be fixed just as easily because they are process issues not policy issues.

The number of uninsured has dropped 4%, premiums are not skyrocketing as opponents predicted, new patient protections are in place for the first time that put consumers over insurance company profits, etc.

But one change I would like to see was a suggestion by that radical socialist Ben Carson to transform all insurance companies into non-profits.

 

The accountability issue is big. Talk to the insurance company - they blame the Obamacare folks. Talk to Obamacare folks, they blame the state medicare folks. Talk to the state medicare....they blame, etc, etc. Last year, I had an agent, he got paid a commission, if I had an administrative problem with the policy issuance, I could go to his office and tell him to get it fixed! Who do I go to now? And, actually with the Obamacare folks, you can't get the same person twice - one person says one thing one day and a different person says something totally different the next. Management 101, don't build complicated systems without accountability. It is a flaw in the law. There is no benefit for the added bureaucratic layer.

There are easier and better ways to address the uninsured. Perhaps one way would have been to simply buy the uninsured a policy rather than disrupting the entire industry.

We could debate the merits of the idea. Treat insurance companies like a utility company, some are collectives - non-profits. Even in the market today some insurance companies are set up as mutuals (owned by policyholders) basically the same as non-profits. USAA is a mutual (targeting military and former military people) and consistently ranked as one of the best insurance companies in the industry in terms of service. Insurance by its very nature is somewhat socialist. And I have never taken the position that socialism is inherently wrong - I simply prefer capitalism.

 

This was predicted also. Who believed the original CBO assumptions??? Actually, who believed them other than DC.? I would bet Pelosi did not even read the report...but if you questioned her or the report - how dare a person do such a thing!

 

ace....who believed that premiums would skyrocking other than the same folks who claimed the ACA has death panels.

The CBO report also stated that the revenue from all other provisions (other than those related to Exchange subsidies and mandate payments) will still significantly limit the budgetary impact of the law.

 

To be clear, I agree the use of the term - death panel - is provocative, however when limited resources have to be allocated life and death decisions have to be made. Call it whatever you want - I prefer to control my own medical decisions, I do not want government involved - the risks are too great. I further acknowledge that if government is not allocating limited medical resources, the resources are still limited and would still have to be allocated through some other means - in this regard I do not want insurance companies making the final decision (they can decide what they do with their money but if we enter a contract follow the terms of the contract), it should be my choice - even in regard to experimental treatments.

Collection of revenue is based on assumptions - those assumptions are going to be wrong. The CBO projections are wrong 100% of the time because the assumptions never occur as predicted. At best the CBO gives an accurate broad estimate and an expected trend.

 

I look at more pragmatically.

The US is not ready, politically, for a single payer system and the employer-based, private insurance system, as crazy as it is, is too entrenched.

But the ACA corrects many of the deficiencies of the system. It establishes federal regulations of the private insurance industry with regard to rates, coverage levels, the end of exclusions and rescissions , rather than the existing patchwork of 50 state regulations, many of which were more friendly to insurance companies than to consumers. It encourages competition among insurance companies through the Insurace Exchanges (a Republican idea) in what was a relatively closed market in many states where the top 2-3 insurers controlled 75-80% of the market, it incentivizes preventive care at the consumer level and cost management at the provider (hospitals/doctors) level. etc.

The next step will be large employers pushing their employees to the Insurance Exchanges (when it is allowed in a few years), with contributions similar to the employer share going to pay for a plan outside of the workplace, with employees having more options and employers getting out of that piece of the benefit business completely.

And ultimately, that will morph into a quasi single payer system. I will probably be dead or at least on Medicare when that happens.

 

The sky is not falling, the world is not ending, there is no death spiral!

Dire Obamacare Prediction Falls Hilariously Flat

 

It won't go away, because any law Congress passes to repeal it would be auto-vetoed by Obama

 

I can't think of any scenario under which there would be a 2/3 majority of both houses to override a veto by Obama. Whether that's a good thing or not is a different question, but I don't think it will happen.

 

What do you do when you are the Republican Tea Party governor of Pennsylvania and trailing in the polls by 20+ points?

Submit a plan to expand Medicaid (with ACA approved private option) that you resisted for three years!

1/2 million newly eligible next year....not bad!

 

sounds like a move he's had in his back pocket for some time. if he were leading, he'd keep opposing

 

Marco Rubio's alternative plan to expanding Medicaid in Florida....30 people sign up.

 

So, what is the latest from a person actually experiencing Obamacare.

For 6 years I had an individual North Carolina Blue Cross plan. For 6 years I went to the same doctor, same hospital, same facilities for tests, etc. Now under Obamacare, I still have an individual North Carolina Blue Cross plan and one would assume everything would stay the same. How wrong that would be if a person thought that! And of course no one says anything during the sign-up process. So, I find out, the hard way, that my Doctor does not take the Blue Cross plan through Obamacare. After weeks of arguing and going back and forth, I find out that previously my Blue Cross id card said Blue Cross Options, which it still does say for those who don't go through Obamacare. My Obama Blue Cross card says Blue Cross Value. There is a totally different network of providers. Thanks, Obamacare!

 

Did your doctor say why they don't accept the new Blue Cross?
Just because it's a different network doest mean they can't be in the network.
Sometimes that's by choice.