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CNN Money: Obamacare isn't really killing jobs

SouthernDemocrat said:
Deductibles were going up long before the ACA. Other than a drop in the percentage of uninsured, I think one would be hard pressed to find any major impacts - positive or negative, to the economy resulting from the ACA. For most people it just didn't change much.
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It's just now being fully implemented if that, remember all the Obama changes to delay the plan. This is far from over by a long shot. There are many reports of insurance companies closing, exchanges failing, higher taxes, fines, deductibles going up, insurance cost going up etc etc. Instead of all these factors that Obama said would go down they are all going up.
 
MTAtech said:
Obamacare isn't really killing jobs
Another thing the other side was wrong about.
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Some states are experiencing decreasing health insurance prices from last year.

My state is averaging 30%+ increases to private market insurance premiums EACH of the last two years, on top of over a decade of skyrocketing prices. The cost in my state is the highest in the country. And because US prices are generally the highest in the world, that makes prices in my state basically the highest on Earth.

Employers in my state would gladly pay the penalty to stop offering coverage so that their employees could go tap into the federal subsidies, getting some of the cost out of our communities, if it weren't for the ****ing idiotic abrupt 400% subsidy cliff and the family glitch. The law's errors and crappy arbitrary policies prevent my state from having a good solution to its crippling health care and insurance costs, and therefore, in my state, the law is affecting hiring, hours, and jobs.

We could expect the effect of the law to be different in states that have much lower health care and insurance costs.
 
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Question:

Do companies which offer health insurance prefer to hire men and women without spouses or kids. Furthermore, do these same men and women earn more?
 
Kushinator said:
Question:

Do companies which offer health insurance prefer to hire men and women without spouses or kids.
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I haven't seen evidence one way or the other, but chances are probably not, because of hiring discrimination laws for one thing, and because those too old to have kids put upward pressure on group premiums all by themselves as it is by virtue of their age.

Why do you ask?

Other important questions could be how many employers are in a hiring holding pattern or pursuing reduced staffing by attrition because of health related expenditures? How many new positions are part-time? How many spouses are working less than they could to avoid hitting the subsidy cliff or losing Medicaid? How many couples are divorcing or avoiding marrying to avert the family glitch or dump the kids' expenses on SCHIP? And so on.
 
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ttwtt78640 said:
What is ignored is the constantly rising deductible amount. Bragging that premiums are rising more slowly implies an apples to apples comparison. What is happening is that you pay more in both premiums and other out of pocket medical care expenses (deductibles and co-pays). The premiums may have increased by only 4% but the deductibles increased by almost 10%.
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People are free to purchase plans with lower deductibles.

Funny how high deductibles only became an issue for rightwingers after ACA put a cap on deductibles and wasn't an issue pre-ACA when the sky was the limit
 
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sangha said:
People are free to purchase plans with lower deductibles.

Funny how high deductibles only became an issue for rightwingers after ACA put a cap on deductibles and wasn't an issue pre-ACA when the sky was the limit
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People who whine about high deductibles often either 1) don't understand how insurance works or how to use a calculator, or 2) don't directly foot the bill for premiums and so they don't care what the premiums cost.
 
sangha said:
People are free to purchase plans with lower deductibles.

Funny how high deductibles only became an issue for rightwingers after ACA put a cap on deductibles and wasn't an issue pre-ACA when the sky was the limit
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You (intentionally?) ignore the PPACA requirement that many more services must be included at "no added out of pocket cost". That is a huge factor in making premiums increase - you do not get "better" (more?) coverage for free under PPACA. In order to help hide the fact that premiums for the same deductible have increased, insurance companies simply raised the the deductible amounts instead of just the premium amounts. The only winners under PPACA are those that get subsidies or get a free ride for having higher actuarial risk factors (aka pre-existing conditions).
 
Critter7r said:
The problem I see with this idea is that the only way one's health insurance gets "unbundled" from employment is if the employer is exempt from the ACA, or if the person is unemployed.
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Why? The $2,000 "shared responsibility payment" is small compared to premiums some places. The break-even point is somewhere around $12,000/yr in employee premiums. Much more than that and it makes financial sense to dump, pay the penalty, raise wages a bit and hand out a pamphlet for healthcare.gov.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
You (intentionally?) ignore the PPACA requirement that many more services must be included at "no added out of pocket cost". That is a huge factor in making premiums increase - you do not get "better" (more?) coverage for free under PPACA.
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Actually, many of those requirements *LOWER* premiums. For example, covering contraceptives is MUCH cheaper than covering the baby that results from not using contraception.

In order to help hide the fact that premiums for the same deductible have increased, insurance companies simply raised the the deductible amounts instead of just the premium amounts. The only winners under PPACA are those that get subsidies or get a free ride for having higher actuarial risk factors (aka pre-existing conditions).
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Premiums for the same deductible have ALWAYS increased, but since ACA they've been increasing at a slower rate.

It's almost as if you're not sure what there is to complain about. You start out complaining about high deductibles, and when I point out that this is a choice the purchaser makes, you move on to complaining about premiums. Now that I've pointed out that premiums have always increased, I wonder what you will complain about next. After all, there has to be something reasonable to complain about if you don't like it, amirite?
 
sangha said:
Actually, many of those requirements *LOWER* premiums. For example, covering contraceptives is MUCH cheaper than covering the baby that results from not using contraception.



Premiums for the same deductible have ALWAYS increased, but since ACA they've been increasing at a slower rate.

It's almost as if you're not sure what there is to complain about. You start out complaining about high deductibles, and when I point out that this is a choice the purchaser makes, you move on to complaining about premiums. Now that I've pointed out that premiums have always increased, I wonder what you will complain about next. After all, there has to be something reasonable to complain about if you don't like it, amirite?
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I like the part where he says the deductibles are too high because the ACA forces insurers to make stuff free.
 
sangha said:
Actually, many of those requirements *LOWER* premiums.
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L.o.l.

Premiums for the same deductible have ALWAYS increased, but since ACA they've been increasing at a slower rate.
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Not everywhere, and the increases still significantly exceed the rate of inflation, so simple slowing the rate of growth in some places isn't going to cut it.

Now that I've pointed out that premiums have always increased, I wonder what you will complain about next. After all, there has to be something reasonable to complain about if you don't like it, amirite?
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What would a left winger who, let's say, really thinks we should have fully nationalized the health care sector, have to complain about?

Here's what I have to complain about: 1) the 400% subsidy cliff, 2) the family glitch, 3) the "Cadillac" tax, 4) the in-network/out-of-network game, 5) the new IRS reporting burdens, 6) the employer mandate, 7) the 30-hour rule, 8) the general unwillingness to directly address the cost of our health care.
 
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Neomalthusian said:
L.o.l.
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Very persuasive

Not everywhere, and the increases still significantly exceed the rate of inflation, so simple slowing the rate of growth in some places isn't going to cut it.
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OMG!!! No, just about everywhere for just about everyone.



What would a left winger who, let's say, really thinks we should have fully nationalized the health care sector, have to complain about?

Here's what I have to complain about: 1) the 400% subsidy cliff, 2) the family glitch, 3) the "Cadillac" tax, 4) the in-network/out-of-network game, 5) the new IRS reporting burdens, 6) the employer mandate, 7) the 30-hour rule, 8) the general unwillingness to directly address the cost of our health care.
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1) There is no "cliff", (2) Agreed, (3) Agreed, it should be higher, (4) not a problem,(5) not a problem, (6) not a problem, (7) Agreed, it should be 20 hrs, (8) untrue
 
Critter7r said:
The problem I see with this idea is that the only way one's health insurance gets "unbundled" from employment is if the employer is exempt from the ACA, or if the person is unemployed. Everyone else was pretty much unaffected by the ACA if they had employer-provided health insurance. And, they are still beholden to their employer for their health insurance.

Neomalthusian said:
Why? The $2,000 "shared responsibility payment" is small compared to premiums some places. The break-even point is somewhere around $12,000/yr in employee premiums. Much more than that and it makes financial sense to dump, pay the penalty, raise wages a bit and hand out a pamphlet for healthcare.gov.
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This scenario would "unbundle" one's health insurance from their employment.

It's my understanding that ACA doesn't require employers to pay anything towards the employee's health insurance, just that they must facilitate access to insurance; as if the employer is a mini ACA-Exchange. So I assume there are costs involved with the administration of employee benefits, but that the employer isn't required to pay any portion of the health insurance.
 
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sangha said:
Actually, many of those requirements *LOWER* premiums. For example, covering contraceptives is MUCH cheaper than covering the baby that results from not using contraception.

....
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However, the insurance companies will raise rates to cover their actual expenses for contraception, without factoring in the future decreases in babby coverage.
 
Neomalthusian said:
the "Cadillac" tax
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May be rescinded.

>>the family glitch

Can be resolved. "No family left behind by Obamacare," healthinsurance.org, Jan 6, 2015

Maybe with Ryan as Speaker, the Republican caucus will stop being controlled by the EffUps, give up on repealing the whole thing (which could not survive a veto), and focus on reforming it.
 
Neomalthusian said:
I haven't seen evidence one way or the other, but chances are probably not, because of hiring discrimination laws for one thing, and because those too old to have kids put upward pressure on group premiums all by themselves as it is by virtue of their age.

Why do you ask?

Other important questions could be how many employers are in a hiring holding pattern or pursuing reduced staffing by attrition because of health related expenditures? How many new positions are part-time? How many spouses are working less than they could to avoid hitting the subsidy cliff or losing Medicaid? How many couples are divorcing or avoiding marrying to avert the family glitch or dump the kids' expenses on SCHIP? And so on.
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If Obamacare kills jobs via employee mandate, then it is not a leap to suggest being married with children is a job killer. But we know this is not the case.
 
Kushinator said:
If Obamacare kills jobs via employee mandate, then it is not a leap to suggest being married with children is a job killer. But we know this is not the case.
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Employers aren't and never were mandated to cover spouses/dependents, and older people are more likely to be solo in terms of signing up for the group insurance but they push premiums higher for being high risk, so it's damned if you do, damned if you don't, and so this isn't the only manner in which the law could "kill jobs."

The death spiraling of health care is what kills jobs and was doing so prior to the new law. The law just fails to deal with anything cleanly or directly, creates new backward incentives, more confusion and administrative burdens, and royally screws some people/families while giving others a sweet deal. Overall it's basically another layer of **** on what was already a plenty ****ty situation. If they fix the list of 5-10 ugly defects in the law I've mentioned, it will be a different story, and we will have something quite close to UHC, in a still-too-expensive, roundabout sort of way.
 
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Neomalthusian said:
Employers aren't and never were mandated to cover spouses/dependents, so this isn't the only manner in which the law could "kill jobs."
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If employee health care costs are the employment deterrent that many people make them out to be, it would follow that single men are preferred over married men with children.

Of course we know this is not the case.
 
Critter7r said:
This scenario would "unbundle" one's health insurance from their employment.

It's my understanding that ACA doesn't require employers to pay anything towards the employee's health insurance, just that they must facilitate access to insurance; as if the employer is a mini ACA-Exchange. So I assume there are costs involved with the administration of employee benefits, but that the employer isn't required to pay any portion of the health insurance.
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If the employer fails to avail an insurance solution that keeps "full time" employees' contributions toward their own premiums under roughly 10% of income, the employer may have to pay a $2,000 "shared responsibility payment" to the Feds. But only when this is the case is the employee then eligible for subsidies. So the shared responsibility tax/penalty can be thought of as an employer's contribution to the Feds to offer the employee a subsidy instead of messing with insurance directly as part of the benefit package.
 
sangha said:
Very persuasive

OMG!!! No, just about everywhere for just about everyone.
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Just cite your source. Everyone in my state is seeing the most dramatic increases ever, after a decade of skyrocketing. There are plenty of other states where the increases are still painful and in excess of the rise in CPI.

1) There is no "cliff",
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Oh I see, you're in denial. That explains your odd comments. Allow me to help: yes there is.

(2) Agreed, (3) Agreed, it should be higher, (4) not a problem,(5) not a problem, (6) not a problem, (7) Agreed, it should be 20 hrs, (8) untrue
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Not a problem because it's an election year, or because you don't understand policy?
 
Critter7r said:
This scenario would "unbundle" one's health insurance from their employment.

It's my understanding that ACA doesn't require employers to pay anything towards the employee's health insurance, just that they must facilitate access to insurance; as if the employer is a mini ACA-Exchange. So I assume there are costs involved with the administration of employee benefits, but that the employer isn't required to pay any portion of the health insurance.
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Your understanding is a bit off. Employers are required to cover 60%

Critter7r said:
However, the insurance companies will raise rates to cover their actual expenses for contraception, without factoring in the future decreases in babby coverage.
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There is no future decreases. The increase in costs is actually not happening so it keeps costs down in the present
 
Neomalthusian said:
Just cite your source. Everyone in my state is seeing the most dramatic increases ever, after a decade of skyrocketing. There are plenty of other states where the increases are still painful and in excess of the rise in CPI.
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You made the original claim. The burden of proof is on you


Oh I see, you're in denial. That explains your odd comments. Allow me to help: yes there is.
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Oh I see, you're in denial. That explains your odd comments. Allow me to help: no there is not.

Not a problem because it's an election year, or because you don't understand policy?
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Your arguments would be more persuasive if you had facts, not childish snark
 
sangha said:
You made the original claim. The burden of proof is on you
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The NCSL compiled publicly available data from all departments of insurance and marketplace websites revealing the following states are seeing increases across all plans averaging significantly above the general rate of inflation, with increases ranging from 4% up to 31% in the following states: Alaska, DC, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. My state happens to be the one with 31% increases this year. Google "NCSL change in premiums by state."

Oh I see, you're in denial. That explains your odd comments. Allow me to help: no there is not.
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The subsidies hit a cliff at 400% FPL. This is widely known.

Your arguments would be more persuasive if you had facts, not childish snark
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As though you have shown any facts? What I have said is factual. You just stomp your feet in protest.
 
Neomalthusian said:
The NCSL compiled publicly available data from all departments of insurance and marketplace websites revealing the following states are seeing increases across all plans averaging significantly above the general rate of inflation, with increases ranging from 4% up to 31% in the following states: Alaska, DC, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. My state happens to be the one with 31% increases this year. Google "NCSL change in premiums by state."
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I googled it and it shows articles about premiums for individual plans offered on exchanges which only cover a small minority of the insured.

The large majority of the insured have policies in the group market, which has been seeing historically low increases.



The subsidies hit a cliff at 400% FPL. This is widely known.
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No, the subsidies taper off until they reach zero. Cliffs don't "taper off".

This is widely known


As though you have shown any facts? What I have said is factual. You just stomp your feet in protest.
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That's just more childish snark pretending to be an actual argument
 
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