We Told You So: The New "Obamacare Sux" Thread

[DaShi]

DD has been like Ben for some time now.

[Tupac Shakur]

Hope all you young Americans are ready to pay more for health insurance so old ****s like MtG, Ming, and Sloww can have their healthcare subsidized while they wait for free healthcare at 65.

It’s too early to know how much individual health insurance policies will cost once the online marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act launch Jan. 1. But that hasn’t stopped experts and interest groups from making predictions.

The latest analysis comes from the Society of Actuaries. It’s attracting attention because of the group’s expertise and nonpartisanship. What actuaries do for a living — predicting future expense based on multiple squishy factors — is at the core of figuring out what will happen under Obamacare.

Thanks to subsidies and the requirement that everybody get insurance or pay penalties, the society forecasts that the number of people covered by individual polices will double to 25.6 million by 2017.

Getting the headlines was the forecast that insurer costs — medical claims per policyholder — will soar, on average, 32 percent for the individual market in 2017, with wide variations among states. That’s not the same thing as saying prices consumers pay for policies will rise 32 percent. But if claims are higher, insurers generally charge more.

FAQ On The Latest Study: Obamacare's Impact On Insurance Claim Costs

A study commissioned by the State of California says that the new federal health care law will drive up individual insurance premiums, but that subsidies will offset most of the increase for low-income people.

The study, issued Thursday in the midst of a growing national debate over the impact of the law, is significant because California is far ahead of most states in setting up a competitive marketplace, or exchange, where people can buy insurance this fall.

Premiums could increase by an average of 30 percent for higher-income people in California who are now insured and do not qualify for federal insurance subsidies, the study said.

However, it said, people in this group will benefit from new limits on their out-of-pocket medical expenses, so their total cost of care will increase by 20 percent, on average.

The report for the state insurance exchange, known as Covered California, cited several factors contributing to higher premiums: an influx of less healthy people into the individual insurance market, and a requirement for health insurance plans to offer richer benefits and to cover more of the cost of care than is now typical for individual insurance policies.

Another factor, it said, is that federal and state government agencies are imposing new taxes and fees on insurers, which are likely to pass on some of the costs to consumers.

Health Care Law Will Raise Some Premiums, Study Says

During the legislative debate over the law, Democrats promised Obamacare would create jobs, lower health care costs, and allow people to keep their current plans if they chose to. Those vows, Republicans argue, are already being broken.

The Congressional Budget Office, the Hill’s nonpartisan scorekeeper, estimated that the health care law would reduce employment by about 800,000 workers and result in about 7 million people losing their employer-sponsored health care over a decade. The CBO also estimated that Obamacare during that period would raise health care spending by roughly $580 billion.

The Secret Republican Plan to Repeal 'Obamacare'

Some people purchasing new insurance policies for themselves this fall could see premiums rise because of requirements in the health-care law, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters Tuesday.

Ms. Sebelius’s remarks come weeks before insurers are expected to begin releasing rates for plans that start on Jan. 1, 2014, when key provisions of the health law kick in. Premiums have been a sensitive subject for the Obama administration, which is counting on elements in the health law designed to increase competition among insurers to keep rates in check. The administration has pointed to subsidies that will be available for many lower-income Americans to help them with the cost of coverage.

The secretary’s remarks are among the first direct statements from federal officials that people who have skimpy health plans right now could face higher premiums for plans that are more generous. She noted that the law requires plans to provide better benefits and treat all customers equally regardless of their medical claims.

Sebelius: Some Could See Insurance Premiums Rise

[Dinner]

DD has been like Ben for some time now.

Very true. Sorry but I already used my thanks today or I'd give it to you.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Bumped over the 2005 threads.

[Tupac Shakur]

Thank you, sir.

[DinoDoc]

Should the administration be allowed to break their own law?

WASHINGTON — Unable to meet tight deadlines in the new health care law, the Obama administration is delaying parts of a program intended to provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees — a major selling point for the health care legislation.

The law calls for a new insurance marketplace specifically for small businesses, starting next year. But in most states, employers will not be able to get what Congress intended: the option to provide workers with a choice of health plans. They will instead be limited to a single plan.

This choice option, already available to many big businesses, was supposed to become available to small employers in January. But administration officials said they would delay it to 2015 in the 33 states where the federal government will be running insurance markets known as exchanges. And they will delay the requirement for other states as well.

[Aeson]

Hopefully they can break the whole thing.

[Tupac Shakur]

At Tuesday’s press conference, President Obama delivered an unfocused eight-minute defense of his central legislative accomplishment in office – the Affordable Care Act. In the face of intraparty criticism that implementation of his health care law will be a “train wreck,” new polls showing support for the law near all-time lows, and even the Democratic nominee in next week’s House special election calling the law “extremely problematic”– there’s plenty of evidence piling up to believe health care will be a political millstone for Democrats in 2014.

Obama's Legacy: A Health Care Law That Hurts His Party

[DaShi]

I can't wait for next month's bump.

[Tupac Shakur]

All the really good horror stories won't be out until 2014.

[Hauldren Collider]

All the really good horror stories won't be out until 2014.

We have some good ones already. Dozens of companies shortening their hours to 29 per week. Refusing to expand past 50 employees and opening offices in Canada or overseas instead. Honestly, if you don't think Obamacare is a bad law, you're not paying attention or a ****ing idiot. It baffles me that anyone is still trying to defend it, but not as much as it baffles me that they ever passed it in the first place.

[kentonio]

It's a piece of **** law, that ended up being a piece of **** because a good law was too difficult to get past conservatives and the power of lobby money. It's still better than no law at all for those people who don't have rich parents to pay all their medical bills if they need.

[Dinner]

All the really good horror stories won't be out until 2014.

Yeah, yeah... In 2010 it was going to be in 2011, then 2012, and now that it is 2013 the horror stories are just around the corner in 2014.

You're worse than a broken clock because those are at least right twice a day.

[Aeson]

I still don't know if the mandate applies to expats. If I stop posting suddenly in early 2014, it should be safe to thank Obamacare (and perhaps Obamadrones).

[Zevico]

Thomas Sowell puts it best:

Those people morbid enough to keep track of politicians' promises may remember how Barack Obama said that ObamaCare would lower medical costs — and lots of people bought it.
But if you stop and think, however old-fashioned that may seem these days, do you seriously believe that millions more people can be given medical care and vast new bureaucracies created to administer payment for it, with no additional costs?
Just as there is no free lunch, there is no free red tape. Bureaucrats have to eat, just like everyone else, and they need a place to live and some other amenities. How do you suppose the price of medical care can go down when the costs of new government bureaucracies are added to the costs of the medical treatment itself?
By the way, where are the extra doctors going to come from, to treat the millions of additional patients? Training more people to become doctors is not free. Politicians may ignore costs but ignoring those costs will not make them go away.
With bureaucratically controlled medical care, you are going to need more doctors, just to treat a given number of patients, because time that is spent filling out government forms is time that is not spent treating patients. And doctors have the same 24 hours in the day as everybody else.
When you add more patients to more paperwork per patient, you are talking about still more costs. How can that lower medical costs? But although that may be impossible, politics is the art of the impossible. All it takes is rhetoric and a public that does not think beyond the rhetoric they hear.
You can just call "medical care for all" a "right" and you are home free with a major part of the public. Those who are more skeptical can be dismissed as people who just are not as compassionate. That puts you on the side of the angels against the forces of evil — and that is a proven winning strategy in politics.

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell043013.php3#.UYOgASuSArg