Obamacare Haters Refuse to Accept Reality

Obamacare haters deny reality? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you.

Republican politicians, in turn, had to operate within the bounds of what their voters considered acceptable. And Republican voters, as the 2016 election cycle has made abundantly clear to even those long committed to denying it, are bat-**** crazy.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/obamacare-haters-refuse-to-accept-reality.html#

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The last chart seems to be misleading, in that the PPACA restricted the level of care allowed which is not a reduction is cost as much as it is a reduction is approved services which has a tertiary yet corollary affect on costs. For instance, reducing the number of days a person can stay in the hospital - Medicare Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) in chart 2 as just one example. This is reducing care by limiting the doctor's options, which by cause and effect reduces costs.

My father-in-law became very ill not long after the PPACA's restrictions became effective. Part of the PPACA are restrictions on doctor's ability to choose the best course of action for their patients. My father-in-law was sent home from the hospital twice because of PPACA restrictions on length of stay, and on his third return he was found to had become septic... he never returned home. The doctors (both members of our church and good family friends) explained to us exactly what, how, and why this had happened. They showed us the law and described how they were being told when to send people home and at point that insurance would no longer be required to pay.

Beaudreaux said:

The last chart seems to be misleading, in that the PPACA restricted the level of care allowed which is not a reduction is cost as much as it is a reduction is approved services which has a tertiary yet corollary affect on costs. For instance, reducing the number of days a person can stay in the hospital - Medicare Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) in chart 2 as just one example. This is reducing care by limiting the doctor's options, which by cause and effect reduces costs.

My father-in-law became very ill not long after the PPACA's restrictions became effective. Part of the PPACA are restrictions on doctor's ability to choose the best course of action for their patients. My father-in-law was sent home from the hospital twice because of PPACA restrictions on length of stay, and on his third return he was found to had become septic... he never returned home. The doctors (both members of our church and good family friends) explained to us exactly what, how, and why this had happened. They showed us the law and described how they were being told when to send people home and at point that insurance would no longer be required to pay.

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Sending people home ASAP has been in effect for a long time, way before Obamacare. We're all supposed to go home to recuperate or hospice to die--no one gets to stay in a hospital for weeks under observation anymore unless you're in ICU or attached to a machine.

calamity said:

Obamacare haters deny reality? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you.

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Is this a graph of costs in the PPACA health exchange or in insurance overall? If the latter, then how is the PPACA controlling health insurance costs? The CMS isn't in operation yet, so it's not that. In other words, what are the provisions of the PPACA that have reduced health insurance premium inflation? All the provisions I see would increase costs to insurance companies and those would be passed on to the insured in the form of more expensive premiums.

market corrections take a while, but those corrections are coming soon

Obamacare patients sicker and pricier than expected - Mar. 30, 2016

LowDown said:

Is this a graph of costs in the PPACA health exchange or in insurance overall? If the latter, then how is the PPACA controlling health insurance costs? The CMS isn't in operation yet, so it's not that. In other words, what are the provisions of the PPACA that have reduced health insurance premium inflation? All the provisions I see would increase costs to insurance companies and those would be passed on to the insured in the form of more expensive premiums.

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Read the article.

I only hate the ACA for how It has affected me personally. It has cost me money I can't afford.
The End.

ARealConservative said:

market corrections take a while, but those corrections are coming soon

Obamacare patients sicker and pricier than expected - Mar. 30, 2016

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It sure is cheaper than letting them get worse and then provide emergency care. Wait---unless you propose just letting them die in the street. You never know with "Real Conservatives."

Ntharotep said:

I only hate the ACA for how It has affected me personally. It has cost me money I can't afford.
The End.

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Price to be paid when you live in a society. Or, are you also one of those people who wants to just let people with illness go untreated and die?

calamity said:

It sure is cheaper than letting them get worse and then provide emergency care. Wait---unless you propose just letting them die in the street. You never know with "Real Conservatives."

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my vision reaches further then yours. I know what a mistake it is to upend personal responsibility for short term comforts. This is a lesson you will eventually learn as well.

calamity said:

Sending people home ASAP has been in effect for a long time, way before Obamacare. We're all supposed to go home to recuperate or hospice to die--no one gets to stay in a hospital for weeks under observation anymore unless you're in ICU or attached to a machine.

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Obamacare patients sicker and pricier than expected

Patients in Obamacare are sicker and need significantly more medical care than those in employer-sponsored plans, according to a new Blue Cross Blue Shield Association report.

This raises fresh concerns about the possibility of steep rate hikes for 2017 and of insurers leaving the Obamacare exchanges.



The study, the first of its kind to look at millions of enrollees across the country, found that Obamacare members have higher rates of costly illnesses such as diabetes, depression, hypertension, heart disease, HIV and Hepatitis C.

They also use more medical services -- including emergency rooms, in-patient hospital care, doctors and prescriptions than patients in employer-sponsored plans. Their cost of care was 22% higher than those in work-based health plans in 2015, or $559 a month, on average, for Obamacare enrollees versus $457 for those in employer plans.
[...]

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ARealConservative said:

my vision reaches further then yours. I know what a mistake it is to upend personal responsibility for short term comforts. This is a lesson you will eventually learn as well.

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So, does that mean you are boycotting goods made in China or refusing to vote for politicians who support multi-national corporations?


I didn't think so.

Beaudreaux said:

Obamacare patients sicker and pricier than expected

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What else would you expect...the poor who never before went to a doctor to be healthier?

smh

calamity said:

So, does that mean you are boycotting goods made in China or refusing to vote for politicians who support multi-national corporations?


I didn't think so.

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so does that mean <insert stupid straw man that makes no sense>?

I didn't think so.

calamity said:

What else would you expect...the poor who never before went to a doctor to be healthier?

smh

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I read a similar article in NYT. and thought the same. of course they are going to be sicker and more costly.
However, because they are sicker and more costly it is obvious that health insurance is not getting cheaper. which is the implication of this thread to start with.

calamity said:

Sending people home ASAP has been in effect for a long time, way before Obamacare. We're all supposed to go home to recuperate or hospice to die--no one gets to stay in a hospital for weeks under observation anymore unless you're in ICU or attached to a machine.

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As your thread title says "Obamacare Haters Refuse to Accept Reality"

Reality is that there are "no restrictions on the level of care allowed" for Medicare

calamity said:

What else would you expect...the poor who never before went to a doctor to be healthier?

smh

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so you expected them to me pricier then you expected? COOKOO COOKOO

smh

Beaudreaux said:

The last chart seems to be misleading, in that the PPACA restricted the level of care allowed which is not a reduction is cost as much as it is a reduction is approved services which has a tertiary yet corollary affect on costs. For instance, reducing the number of days a person can stay in the hospital - Medicare Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) in chart 2 as just one example. This is reducing care by limiting the doctor's options, which by cause and effect reduces costs.

My father-in-law became very ill not long after the PPACA's restrictions became effective. Part of the PPACA are restrictions on doctor's ability to choose the best course of action for their patients. My father-in-law was sent home from the hospital twice because of PPACA restrictions on length of stay, and on his third return he was found to had become septic... he never returned home. The doctors (both members of our church and good family friends) explained to us exactly what, how, and why this had happened. They showed us the law and described how they were being told when to send people home and at point that insurance would no longer be required to pay.

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The whole thing is misleading because what matters is how much it costs to run the national system, and this "healthcare inflation" number is only looking to tell us how much the cost of each service has increased in price in one year. We already paid way too much for our health system for crap service before ObamaCare, and now we pay a lot more for the same basic crap service.

Even washington's rosy projections are a kick in the pants:

After six years of growth below 5 percent, national health spending is projected to have
grown 5.5 percent in 2014.
 Faster health spending due mainly to ACA health insurance coverage expansions
and rapid growth in prescription drug spending.
 Factors moderating health spending include the effects of continued increases in
cost sharing requirements in private health insurance plans and near historically
low rates of medical inflation.
 The insured rate is projected to have increased to 89 percent in 2014 (from 86
percent in 2013) as 8.4 million are projected to have gained coverage.
 After 2014, national health spending is projected to grow 5.3 percent in 2015 and peak at
6.3 percent in 2020.
 Over this time, medical inflation rates are anticipated to return to levels closer to
the decade prior to the recession.
 Medicare spending growth is expected to accelerate after 2015 due to expected
increases in use of medical goods and services by aging beneficiaries and
continued baby-boomer enrollm

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https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statis...tionalHealthExpendData/Downloads/proj2014.pdf

ARealConservative said:

so does that mean <insert stupid straw man that makes no sense>?

I didn't think so.

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You're the one who put this on the table: "what a mistake it is to upend personal responsibility for short term comforts."

First off, providing healthcare to people is not exactly a "short term comfort." And, second, if you are going to play that game, then you buying cheap **** from China and supporting politicians who take money from the corporations which have gutted American manufacturing most certainly applies.

sangha said:

As your thread title says "Obamacare Haters Refuse to Accept Reality"

Reality is that there are "no restrictions on the level of care allowed" for Medicare

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Very true. But that's not the full story.

The person who posted was describing one of the unintended consequences of OBamacare regulation. And that's that hospitals are decreasing care and now decreasing care not just when the patient is in the hospital... but denying them care they should be receiving in post hospital facilities.

Its called bundled payments... and its intent was for hospitals to provide better care.. so that patients would do better and could be sent to lower levels of care or home and would stay home.

but what is occurring in hospitals around the country... not everyone.. but its becoming more and more common.. is that the hospital is tying the physicians hands on the care the patient can receive. I have friends who are physicians that are being TOLD that they cannot admit a patient to the hospital because they were just discharged.

Hospitals are now going around to assisted livings, SNF's and home healths and giving them "report cards"... in other words... if you have a patient that's been discharged from the hospital and you end up sending them back because they are ill.. the hospital is not going to send patients your way.

Its becoming more and more of a problem. I just traveled to one of my rehab facilities where we had a meeting with the hospital from this very issue. They brought up our "scorecard" and pointed to two patients that were sent back to the hospital.

We pointed out that one patient was sent by the hospital because on the day he was admitted to us from the hospital, he had severe hip pain and was unable to bear weight, the same problems he had in the hospital.. and we discovered that the hospital had missed that he had fractured his hip. He was sent back to the hospital for subsequent ORIF of his fracture.

The second patient we sent back, was discovered to be septic on admission. He was put into observation, and then they discharged him not back to our facility but to assisted living (they told the family we had no beds when by law we had to keep one open for him) . The family wanted him transferred back to the hospital after a day in the assisted living but the assisted living didn;t. Two days later he was so sick that the family simply dialed 911. the patient died before they could get him to the hospital.

He was 72 and had been in good health before developing a pneumonia and going to the hospital.

ARealConservative said:

so you expected them to me pricier then you expected? COOKOO COOKOO

smh

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I guess, the humanity in me sees the fact that people who are sicker than was expected finally getting some medical treatment is a good thing. Silly bleeding heart that I am. :roll:

calamity said:

I guess, the humanity in me sees the fact that people who are sicker than was expected finally getting some medical treatment is a good thing. Silly bleeding heart that I am. :roll:

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Most people who wanted treatment got it, they just had to agree to be a charity case and jump through some humiliation. We need to see some change in the life expectancy and mortality rates to conclude that ObamaCare did anything useful medically. The media did not talk about this much because for the most part they were more in the tank for Obama than they were honest journalists.

SocialD said:

I read a similar article in NYT. and thought the same. of course they are going to be sicker and more costly.
However, because they are sicker and more costly it is obvious that health insurance is not getting cheaper. which is the implication of this thread to start with.

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Apparently those are potential future costs and, therefore, not reflected in the costs of the past years which are tabulated in the charts.

calamity said:

Apparently those are potential future costs and, therefore, not reflected in the costs of the past years which are tabulated in the charts.

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Yea most of the costly parts of the ACA didn't kick in until open enrollment of 2014, which means the end of 2014 so there still really isn't thorough numbers yet.

Beaudreaux said:

My father-in-law became very ill not long after the PPACA's restrictions became effective. Part of the PPACA are restrictions on doctor's ability to choose the best course of action for their patients. My father-in-law was sent home from the hospital twice because of PPACA restrictions on length of stay, and on his third return he was found to had become septic... he never returned home. The doctors (both members of our church and good family friends) explained to us exactly what, how, and why this had happened. They showed us the law and described how they were being told when to send people home and at point that insurance would no longer be required to pay.

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What "PPACA restrictions on length of stay"?

LowDown said:

Is this a graph of costs in the PPACA health exchange or in insurance overall? If the latter, then how is the PPACA controlling health insurance costs?

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Changes in financial incentives encourage changes in how care is delivered. The last few years have been very busy for many systems around the country. E.g.:

Hawkeye10 said:

Even washington's rosy projections are a kick in the pants:

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Rosy projections? Shortly after the ACA passed, the CMS actuaries projected that the bump in national health spending growth as the coverage expansions kicked in would push spending growth up to 9.2%. Instead, as your article notes, in actuality it was more like 5.5%.