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Obamacare: Is a $2,000 deductible 'affordable?'

ibd today:

Service Job Health Benefits Come Under Knife Ahead Of ObamaCare - Investors.com

Spending on health benefits in service occupations and among small firms exposed to ObamaCare mandates shrank over the past year, new Labor Department data show.

Although employers face penalties in 2014 if they fail to offer affordable coverage, this decline in spending on health benefits shows that they're finding ways to shift some of ObamaCare's looming costs back to the government.

Strikingly, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that health benefit increases came to a standstill in service occupations after the first quarter of 2010 — when ObamaCare became law. Prior to that, benefit costs had grown steadily since the mid-1990s.

But following ObamaCare's passage, health benefits per hour of work in service occupations grew 0% through March 2011 and 0% the next year, before falling 0.7% through March 2013.

Meanwhile, over the past three years, health benefits rose a moderate 2%, 2.8% and 2.7% per hour for the broad workforce, evidence that lower health care inflation doesn't explain the unusual declines in some sectors.

Rather, a likely culprit is a shift in the mix of full-time workers who will come under ObamaCare's employer mandate and part-time workers who won't.

BLS data, though volatile from month to month, clearly show that retailers have been cutting the average workweek for nonsupervisory employees over the past year.

May's employment report showed that the number of temp workers hit a record high, evidence that employers are embracing temps as a strategy for dodging ObamaCare fines.

The cost-shifting of ObamaCare's expenses won't only fall back on government, but on workers clocking fewer hours and, in other cases, on workers covering a bigger share of their health premiums.

For perspective, ObamaCare's $5,000 wage-equivalent fine comes out to $2.40 an hour for a 40-hour workweek. That's nearly 4.5 times after-tax spending on health benefits.
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obamacare author max baucus: choo choo!



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trfjr said:
then explain what is your arguement
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I may have missed a few posts but I think the gist of it is "I'm right, you're wrong, end of argument". It's also the counter argument.
 
Erod said:
So when does the "Affordable" part of the Affordable Care Act kick in? High deductibles and high co-pays were not what Obama sold us.
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Well, I think the affordable should kick in when the magic of the marketplace goes to work through the power of competition to ensure the most efficient delivery of goods and services to the consumer.

I find this whole debate absurd. The old system wasn't working. We needed to do something. What solution do you suggest?
 
Heebie Jeebie said:
So it makes it way more expensive for those making over $90k, since they will be paying for their insurance and the subsidies? I didn't realize 2 married elementary school teachers were so well off that they could afford to pay for all that!
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Elementary school teachers would take insurance through their employer, so that's a moot point.
 
trfjr said:
what denial? that i have to buy insurance so your premiums will be cheaper? If you think you should have a say so if i buy insurance or not then i should have a say so that welfare moms should be forced not have any more children so my taxes will be cheaper
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You clearly don't understand what insurance is. At all.
 
jmotivator said:
So wait, a major selling point of the ACA was that it mad eit illegal to deny anyone insurance for pre-existing conditions. And now you propose that the fix to the major flaw in the penalty system is to... limit access to people with pre-existing conditions?

Hmmmmm....
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Better yet, let's go to a single payer system like other advanced economies.

But of course, conservative don't want that. They want a continuation of a broken system that incentivizes making health care hard to obtain in this country, because everybody knows health care should be expensive and generally unobtainable; otherwise, everybody will actually see doctors and stay healthy!
 
FilmFestGuy said:
Elementary school teachers would take insurance through their employer, so that's a moot point.
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Are you saying they get it for free? Huh, I bet a lot of teachers would like to know to sign up for that!
 
Heebie Jeebie said:
Are you saying they get it for free? Huh, I bet a lot of teachers would like to know to sign up for that!
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No, it's not free. But you don't pay NEARLY the amount for employer-provided insurance as you do for individual insurance because the risk-pool is larger. In the case of a public school teacher, they would be in the risk pool with all county or state employees and thus, premiums would be lower - and a portion is paid by the employer.

I'm honestly a little surprised at some of the basics of insurance that some people don't seem to get.
 
We needed to do something
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Baucus warns of 'huge train wreck' enacting ObamaCare provisions - The Hill

Obamacare architect Rockefeller: It's 'beyond comprehension' | WashingtonExaminer

Harry Reid: Obamacare Will Be A 'Train Wreck' If Not Properly Implemented - HuffPo

Chuck Schumer says Obamacare partly responsible for premium hikes | WashingtonExaminer

on april 25 the nyt reported jean shaheen's and tom harkin's and uber lib ben cardin's (in ultra cooperative, dark blue maryland) concerns---part time jobs, robbing from wellness to pay propaganda, and premiums (up 25%, announces carefirst which covers 70% of terrapins)...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/26/u...cerns-about-health-care-law-rollout.html?_r=0

choo choo!
 
Taylor said:
I don't know what chart Krugman is looking at, but the one he links shows that "a large part of the rise in the disability rolls" reflected "simple demographics" was true from about 2002-2008. Since 2009, however, only a very small part of rise in disability rolls "reflects simple demographics" (the difference in slope being much, much less pronounced). Someone should tell Krugman that the entirety of the "aging baby boomers" has been in the "older worker" column since 2009, and started leaving for retirement in 2011.

If you want to understand the trouble Democrats are in, all you need to do is try following the "logic" of one Paul Krugman.
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Wait a second, if the rate of increase is not as great post recession (your "after 2009"), then the increases in DI awards are not attributable to "Fakers/takers" since unemployment and those not seeking work have remained steady, employment has barely kept pace with population.

The increases are almost entirely attributable to demographics:
http://www.cbpp.org/files/8-9-12ss.pdf
 
roughdraft274 said:
It's insurance. You can't just look at a single year and say "see you're over paying!" Because then you overlook that one year where you needed emergency surgery with a short stay in the ICU, where you shelled out a few thousand but didn't have to pay the other hundred thousand dollars of your bill. Do you really not understand that or are you being intentionally thick headed?
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he's being rational, given guaranteed issuance.
 
Well you have to consider the subsidies for the poor. The deductible might still be unaffordable, but is a lot better than paying out of pocket, if you do happen to get sick. In any case, the first couple years of this the tax penalty is so low that this can just be ignored. After that, it will be a harder decision.
 
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said...
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LOL!

what does the minister of information say?

in other words, tell it to harkin, who is "beyond upset"

tell it to the author, chair of senate finance, tell it to his health care subcommittee chair...

all aboard!
 
The Prof said:
LOL!

what does the minister of information say?

in other words, tell it to harkin, who is "beyond upset"

tell it to the author, chair of senate finance, tell it to his health care subcommittee chair...

all aboard!
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Uh...she did.

I see you still hide quotes, I think it is sad that a poster has to go to such lengths to avoid debate...on a forum.

What exactly are you afraid of?
 
sawyerloggingon said:
Comps will flee private insurance in mass leaving its employees with no options other than obammy care
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Yeah, like they were doing before reform. Shocking, just shocking. :coffeepap
 
jmotivator said:
So the Insurance industry wrote the insurance bill and then spent huge sums of money trying to defeat it?
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They spent huge sums of money to make sure the public option got killed, and it did. They tried to block the overhead cap (I forget what they call it) that requires a certain percentage of their total spending must be on health care rather than administrative stuff, but that attempt failed.

edit: Medical Loss Ratio, apparently.
 
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