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"Some very good news for Obamacare"

iliveonramen

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So based on some initital numbers the cost of insurance throught the competitive exchanges has resulted in much lower premium prices than expected.

As the blog states I definately agree that California is the proving ground for if Obamacare works. Large state, heterogenous population, and they are invested a lot of resources and effort to actually make it work. Also it will be interesting since some large GOP states have pretty much decided not to play along and will provide some comparisons. Texas is specifically mentioned in the blog.
Wonkbook: Some very good news for Obamacare

Obamacare got some very good news on Thursday.

In 2009, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that a medium-level “silver” plan — which covers 70 percent of a beneficiary’s expected health costs — on the California health exchange would cost $5,200 annually. More recently, a report from the consulting firm Milliman predicted it would carry a $450 monthly premium. Yesterday, we got the real numbers. And they’re lower than anyone thought.

As always, Sarah Kliff has the details. The California exchange will have 13 insurance options, and the heavy competition appears to be driving down prices. The most affordable silver-level plan is charging $276-a-month. The second-most affordable plan is charging $294. And all this is before subsidies. Someone making twice the poverty line, say, will only pay $104-a-month.

Sparer plans are even cheaper. A young person buying the cheapest “bronze”-level plan will pay $172 — and that, again, is before any subsidies.

California is a particularly important test for Obamacare. It’s not just the largest state in the nation. It’s also one of the states most committed to implementing Obamacare effectively. Under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — remember how that really happened? — California was the first state to begin building its insurance exchanges. The state’s outreach efforts are unparalleled. Its insurance regulators are working hard to bring in good plans and make sure they’re playing fair. If California can’t make the law work, perhaps no one can. But if California can make the law work, it shows that others can, too.

And perhaps others will. We’re beginning to see competition drive down proposed rates in some exchanges around the country. Remember Maryland, where CareFirst grabbed headlines with a shocking 25 percent proposed increase in rates? More plans have streamed in with lower bids. Kaiser Permanente, for instance, is only increasing its rates next year by 4.3 percent — a modest increase that will make CareFirst’s proposal almost impossible to sustain. My guess is when the exchange actually opens in October, CareFirst will have dropped its price substantially. If they don’t, then Kaiser and others will grab all the market share.

The way this competition can drive down rates is already evident in Oregon. There, one insurer came in with monthly premium costs in the $169 range, while other insurers asked to charge more than $400. But then, seeing what their competitors were charging, two insurers came back to the state’s regulators and asked if they could refile at lower rates. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be competitive in the exchange. The Obama administration was ecstatic to see this: It’s exactly what they’re hoping will happen across the country.

Of course, California and Oregon are managing Obamacare particularly well. But the state-by-state nature of the Affordable Care Act creates really unusual political dynamics around how the law is perceived in its first year.

Imagine it’s the end of 2014. California now boasts a working, near-universal health-care system. Nothing perfect, but clearly a a success after the first year of implementation. Texas, meanwhile, is a bit of a mess. They didn’t allow the Medicaid expansion so the state’s poorest residents got nothing. They didn’t help with the exchanges, or the outreach, so there aren’t many choices, and premiums aren’t as low one might hope.

Viewed in isolation, Texas’s problems would be deadly for the law. But viewed next to California, they might mainly be a problem for the political class in Texas, which has failed to implement a clearly workable law.

Wonkbook’s Number of the Day: 115,000. That’s how many federal employees will be furloughed today due to sequestration. Three major agencies — the IRS, the EPA, and HUD — are closing their doors.

Wonkbook’s Quotation of the Day: “Don’t ask me how, because if I knew, I would certainly tell you, but the House is going to — the House is going to work its will,” said House Speaker John Boehner on immigration reform legislation.


Thoughts? Concerns? Competing views?
 
In 2009, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that a medium-level “silver” plan — which covers 70 percent of a beneficiary’s expected health costs — on the California health exchange would cost $5,200 annually. More recently, a report from the consulting firm Milliman predicted it would carry a $450 monthly premium. Yesterday, we got the real numbers. And they’re lower than anyone thought.

I get paid 17k per year. I pay 9,000 just in rent per year. So that leaves me with 3k (give or take a couple hundred) to pay for utilities, car insurance, and food.

How is this good? Ooooh right...its good for the insurance companies and the State! Screw me right?
 
I get paid 17k per year. I pay 9,000 just in rent per year. So that leaves me with 3k (give or take a couple hundred) to pay for utilities, car insurance, and food.

How is this good? Ooooh right...its good for the insurance companies!

As mentioned that doesn't include subsidies for lower incomed individuals. A hundred bucks a month minus the subsidy.

Not to mention you would then have insurance...which is a pretty big deal.
 
I get paid 17k per year. I pay 9,000 just in rent per year. So that leaves me with 3k (give or take a couple hundred) to pay for utilities, car insurance, and food.

How is this good? Ooooh right...its good for the insurance companies!

Soon, there won't be insurance companies. That is Obama's master plan.

Hospitals are opting out of Obamacare. As are unions. As is CONGRESS!

Yet, you and I just need to go to the local clinic and shut up.
 
As mentioned that doesn't include subsidies for lower incomed individuals. A hundred bucks a month minus the subsidy.

Not to mention you would then have insurance...which is a pretty big deal.

I don't need insurance right now thank you. Me and my family are quite healthy. I would rather spend that money on things that I need. Such as a new car and a house for our very own so that I don't have to pay rent and live by other peoples rules. So no, not a big deal to me. Prolly even less of a big deal to a college kid.

As for the subsidies..whoopie do. I'm quite sure that the amount that we will have to pay in deductibles will exceed that amount if I do happen to need health care.
 
I don't need insurance right now thank you. Me and my family are quite healthy. I would rather spend that money on things that I need. Such as a new car and a house for our very own so that I don't have to pay rent and live by other peoples rules. So no, not a big deal to me. Prolly even less of a big deal to a college kid.

As for the subsidies..whoopie do. I'm quite sure that the amount that we will have to pay in deductibles will exceed that amount if I do happen to need health care.

Sure...and if anything ever happened to anyone in your family that resulted in hospital bills you couldn't afford you'd just take em in and let the rest of us foot the bill in higher premiums for another individual that decided to opt out of paying insurance premiums.

I'm sure you wouldn't take the wager with the house you plan on buying because if a tree fell through the roof and took out your living room you'd be screwed. In the healthcare department it's win win....don't worry about insurance..take the wager because the end result is just claiming bankruptcy.
 
I don't need insurance right now thank you. Me and my family are quite healthy. .

Yeah I thought that at one time too. Then literally over a few days my body swelled up with pitting edema, not a good sign. Turns out I was diagnosed with a very rare congenital heart defect. With an ejection fraction of 10% and a myopathy classified as severe the prognosis was fairly grim and included serious consideration of a Left Ventricular Assist device (300k) and a heart transplant ($1,000,000,000). Pretty heafty bills to approach when one is fairly sick.
 
As mentioned that doesn't include subsidies for lower incomed individuals. A hundred bucks a month minus the subsidy.

Not to mention you would then have insurance...which is a pretty big deal.

I don't need insurance right now thank you. Me and my family are quite healthy. I would rather spend that money on things that I need. Such as a new car and a house for our very own so that I don't have to pay rent and live by other peoples rules. So no, not a big deal to me. Prolly even less of a big deal to a college kid.

As for the subsidies..whoopie do. I'm quite sure that the amount that we will have to pay in deductibles will exceed that amount if I do happen to need health care.

Depending on how big your family is you would probably be put on Medicaid in most places anyway. Idaho is oping out of the expansion though, so you may or may not qualify, not that many places will be taking all these new Medicaid patients.
 
So obamacare droped health insurance prices by 25 % after the insurance companies hiked up their prices in anticapation of obamacare sounds like what stores do during holidays to make their prices seem like " sales " .
 
I don't need insurance right now thank you. Me and my family are quite healthy. I would rather spend that money on things that I need. Such as a new car and a house for our very own so that I don't have to pay rent and live by other peoples rules. So no, not a big deal to me. Prolly even less of a big deal to a college kid.

As for the subsidies..whoopie do. I'm quite sure that the amount that we will have to pay in deductibles will exceed that amount if I do happen to need health care.

You enjoy Russian Roulette!! I'm glad you won't have to play it with your family anymore. Even if you're not.
 
Yeah man...folks are lovin them some Obamacare. Shame they didnt bother actually reading what they were supporting. Of course...it will all be 'fixed'...

Now, some unions upset over Obamacare - CBS News

Bottom line...mindless supporters LOVE Obamacare. Those that havent yet been hit with a bill LOVE Obamacare. Everyone else? Well...welcome to the real world.
 
You enjoy Russian Roulette!! I'm glad you won't have to play it with your family anymore. Even if you're not.

Except he will be able to. Idaho opted out of the Medicaid expansion. With a family and $19K income he will be one of those people who gets left in the gap. He won't be penalized because of his income so if desires not to participate in the national exchange, there is nothing to stop him or even discourage him.
 
Hah! My family lives in California, in fact my brother and I were just laughing about how Governor Moonbeam has been pumping sunshine up everyone's skirt there in the state. If Obamacare goes south they'll just lie about it, maybe find a way to slip them some federal money under the table to make the system float.

Meanwhile businesses leaving the state, sales tax going up again in most of the counties, loads of state retirees headed back to work (they can't afford to be retired anymore). State's in a pretty sad place. Housing market is coming back but no one expects it to stay that way.
 
Except he will be able to. Idaho opted out of the Medicaid expansion. With a family and $19K income he will be one of those people who gets left in the gap. He won't be penalized because of his income so if desires not to participate in the national exchange, there is nothing to stop him or even discourage him.

Well. Then he's a happy camper. Maybe. If the creek don't rise. ;)
 
Well. Then he's a happy camper. Maybe. If the creek don't rise. ;)

Now that my wife is working again, we are far outside the subsidy levels so we will be sticking with our high deductible policy for now. We, however, have the added benefit of knowing lots of people in the medical field socially or through blood that routine care is not an issue for us. I really wouldn't go completely without, especially with kids--they break easily I have discovered.
 
the best news for the PPACA would be if we decided to scrap it for UHC.

i could be wrong, but my guess is that it's just going to result in a bunch of minimal coverage plans that weasel their way out of covering anything. at least it killed the preexisting condition BS. that's one good thing i can say about it, but that could have been done separately.

they should have just let anyone buy into medicare. that would have been the best choice out of the options on the table. my guess is when the whole system collapses under its own weight, that will probably be what we build next.
 
the best news for the PPACA would be if we decided to scrap it for UHC.

i could be wrong, but my guess is that it's just going to result in a bunch of minimal coverage plans that weasel their way out of covering anything. at least it killed the preexisting condition BS. that's one good thing i can say about it, but that could have been done separately.

they should have just let anyone buy into medicare. that would have been the best choice out of the options on the table. my guess is when the whole system collapses under its own weight, that will probably be what we build next.

I am not opposed to UHC so long as there is salary containment mechanisms. We would do well to pair that up with immigration reform to allow all comers in the nursing-doctor-health tech world.
 
I am not opposed to UHC so long as there is salary containment mechanisms. We would do well to pair that up with immigration reform to allow all comers in the nursing-doctor-health tech world.

Salaries for whom? Physicians only constitute 8.6% of of all healthcare costs in this country, which mind you, is lower then almost any other country in the industrialized world.

Besides, who are you to say what someone who obtains 16 years of secondary schooling is worth?
 
Salaries for whom? Physicians only constitute 8.6% of of all healthcare costs in this country, which mind you, is lower then almost any other country in the industrialized world.

Besides, who are you to say what someone who obtains 16 years of secondary schooling is worth?

In the case of UHC, one of the one's paying the bill. If we can get a doctor from India or Pakistan who will work for less, then we should get them. That is how supply and demand works.
 
I am not opposed to UHC so long as there is salary containment mechanisms. We would do well to pair that up with immigration reform to allow all comers in the nursing-doctor-health tech world.

yeah, that's pretty much going to be necessary. we have to reverse the artificial doctor shortage, and we're going to have to do something about medical malpractice lawsuits. also, it should not cost a billion dollars to get a drug into phase three.

my hope is that when most of the basic care is being paid for by one source, that source will have more bargaining ability. doctors in other first world countries still do pretty well.
 
In the case of UHC, one of the one's paying the bill. If we can get a doctor from India or Pakistan who will work for less, then we should get them. That is how supply and demand works.

They also have far lower standards for their med schools. Let me ask you, would you want someone who went to a school in Pakistan or in the US to be performing a lifesaving procedure on you? I'm willing to bet you'd want someone from the US, but you expect the rest of us to be okay with the doctor from Pakistan.
 
yeah, that's pretty much going to be necessary. we have to reverse the artificial doctor shortage, and we're going to have to do something about medical malpractice lawsuits. also, it should not cost a billion dollars to get a drug into phase three.

my hope is that when most of the basic care is being paid for by one source, that source will have more bargaining ability. doctors in other first world countries still do pretty well.

Might depend on to what extent UHC occupied the field--if the system actually own the hospitals, then qualified immunity in medmal might resolve some of those issues.
 
They also have far lower standards for their med schools. Let me ask you, would you want someone who went to a school in Pakistan or in the US to be performing a lifesaving procedure on you? I'm willing to bet you'd want someone from the US, but you expect the rest of us to be okay with the doctor from Pakistan.

One of them darned foreigners did a pretty good job of saving my dad's life. :shock:
 
One of them darned foreigners did a pretty good job of saving my dad's life. :shock:

That really doesn't tell me a whole lot. I'm not saying a Pakistani can't be a doctor, what I'm saying is you can't really put what they learn in other countries on par with what we learn here. I'm for foreign students coming to our country for our colleges, what I'm not for is giving them a free pass on quality control. Though I will concede, foreign medical students fill a big need for primary care physicians. But my views on that are for another time, and another place.

My point is, doctors are only 8.6% of total medical costs. We have the best doctors in the world. Ten of the top twelve medical schools are here in the U.S. America steals the best and the brightest from around the world to become doctors. We have plenty of waste elsewhere before we should even think about doctor's salaries. For example, medication non-compliance costs $290B a year, which is over $70B more then TOTAL physician compensation.

The $289 Billion Cost of Medication Noncompliance, and What to Do About It - Brian Fung - The Atlantic
U.S Physician Compensation Among Lowest of Western Nations, Survey Finds
 
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