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Will ObamaCare reduce healthcare costs and insurance premiums?

Will ObamaCare reduce healthcare costs and insurance preminums?

  • Yes, ObamaCare will reduce healthcare costs and insurance premiums

    Votes: 14 25.5%

  • No, ObamaCare will increase healthcare costs and insurance premiums

    Votes: 33 60.0%

  • IDK/other

    Votes: 8 14.5%
  • Total voters
    55
iliveonramen said:
If it's repealed there's no way a more liberal bill passes...even if "Medicare for all" is insanely popular.
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You're right about the polling, but there's often more to it than that. Medicare for all would have been easy to pass, the reason it didn't is because 80% of Americans like the insurance they have. What people actually want is Medicare for all, plus they get to keep their insurance, which isn't realistic.

Not to mention Medicare for all is not fiscally possible. Medicaid for all is possible, and ACA expands Medicaid greatly.
 
radcen said:
As much as it goes against my normal line of thinking, I support universal healthcare. I also think that Obamacare is just a step in that direction, though I agree with your point that it would be a mighty hurdle to overcome.

Is it ideal? No. I just think it's the best possible option out of a lot of crappy options. My biggest consternation about Obamacare is that I feel it delays the inevitable. I'd rather we just suck it up now and get it done.
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Sorry to do three straight posts, but I had to respond to this. It's either ACA or nothing, forever. Once a country has universal health care, the basic outline doesn't change. Countries that established multi-payer stay multi-payer, countries that establish single-payer stay single-payer. ACA is multi-payer. Assuming it succeeds well enough, it's what we'll have for the next 100 years.
 
francois60 said:
But the previous complaint was that we needed this in part to reduce the burden on taxpayers of uncompensated emergency room care. Now we're giving the same people full insurance.
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The costs of uninsured visits were carried by hospitals and ultimately insurance companies. Hospitals aren't allowed to turn someone away that would die otherwise but the government doesn't cover the cost.

Not to mention, ER care is expensive as hell to provide the same level of care a regular physician does. It's also the only way the uninsured can get medical care. It's a lose lose as in...yes in the end everybody is paying to some extent but it's MUCH cheaper to pay on the front end subsidizing someone's insurance than it is to pay the costs after hospitals/insurance companies and everyone in between gets their cut on the costs of providing healthcare to the uninsured.
 
Yes. I base this off evidence.
 
francois60 said:
You're right about the polling, but there's often more to it than that. Medicare for all would have been easy to pass, the reason it didn't is because 80% of Americans like the insurance they have. What people actually want is Medicare for all, plus they get to keep their insurance, which isn't realistic.

Not to mention Medicare for all is not fiscally possible. Medicaid for all is possible, and ACA expands Medicaid greatly.
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I kind of agree with you....most Americans do prefer their current insurance but people that receive Medicare actually poll higher than people that have private insurance. Medicare is nice...there's a lot of things you don't need to worry about. It's go to the hospital if you need to. No getting justifications or fighting with insurance companies.

I also agree it wouldn't be quite "Medicare for all". That's a catchy term used but it would be closer to government health insurance where you pay a rate based on income etc.
 
iliveonramen said:
The costs of uninsured visits were carried by hospitals and ultimately insurance companies. Hospitals aren't allowed to turn someone away that would die otherwise but the government doesn't cover the cost.
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So money hasn't been saved, the cost has just been shifted from hospitals and insurance companies to taxpayers.

Not to mention, ER care is expensive as hell to provide the same level of care a regular physician does. It's also the only way the uninsured can get medical care. It's a lose lose as in...yes in the end everybody is paying to some extent but it's MUCH cheaper to pay on the front end subsidizing someone's insurance than it is to pay the costs after hospitals/insurance companies and everyone in between gets their cut on the costs of providing healthcare to the uninsured.
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Again, that's an argument with spotty evidence in support of it. The studies on whether preventive care saves money or costs money are contradictory, and national health systems seem to come firmly down on the side of favoring emergency room care over preventive.
 
iliveonramen said:
I also agree it wouldn't be quite "Medicare for all". That's a catchy term used but it would be closer to government health insurance where you pay a rate based on income etc.
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The main difference is that Medicare is more generous to providers than a national single payer plan could ever be. Medicare ALONE is fiscally unsustainable, extending it to the whole country is simply impossible unless the provider payments are cut down to Canadian or British levels.

Now if we're starting in 1950 or even 1970, that system might work for most Americans, but in 2013, an awful lot of Americans have really generous insurance plans, especially union workers. Getting them to give that up would be impossible.
 
 
TheDemSocialist said:
Well lets take a look at what Romneycare did in Massachusetts
If ObamaCare Is So Bad, How Does RomneyCare Survive? - Forbes
REPORT: Massachusetts Premium Growth Declined After Passage Of Romneycare | ThinkProgress

And lets also look at the new projections:Average Obamacare premiums are lower than projected: why yours may not be (+video) - CSMonitor.com
Kaiser study finds 'lower than expected' ObamaCare premiums - The Hill's Healthwatch
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My turn.

Double Down: Obamacare Will Increase Avg. Individual-Market Insurance Premiums By 99% For Men, 62% For Women - Forbes

Now They Tell Us: ObamaCare Has Huge, Hidden, Premium Costs - Investors.com

I would list others, but they tend to be from biased sources.

At BEST, I figure that the increase in costs will be a "modest" amount.
 
francois60 said:
So money hasn't been saved, the cost has just been shifted from hospitals and insurance companies to taxpayers.
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I would argue against that. First it's not like the hospitals and insurance companies are eating the costs for the public good. It just goes into everyone's premium. I would also point out that when it goes through the gauntlet of insurance company and hospital billing systems with their administrative fees and convoluted billing processes who knows what the actual cost is to premiums. Based on one study it's a little over 1,000 dollars a year in premium costs.

Again, that's an argument with spotty evidence in support of it. The studies on whether preventive care saves money or costs money are contradictory, and national health systems seem to come firmly down on the side of favoring emergency room care over preventive.
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I haven't seen anything regarding ER use comparisons between the US and other countries and if you have a link I'd appreciate reading over it.
 
francois60 said:
The main difference is that Medicare is more generous to providers than a national single payer plan could ever be. Medicare ALONE is fiscally unsustainable, extending it to the whole country is simply impossible unless the provider payments are cut down to Canadian or British levels.
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Medicare is much more efficient than our current private system. If Medicare is unsustainable then there's no hope for our private insurance system.

I could agree with your second part regarding some individuals private insurance benefits but there are so many provisions baked into tax laws that create an incentive to avoid taxes by pumping money into expensive plans that of course companies are willing to throw tax free money at Cadillac plans rather than paying payroll taxes on an actual salary.
 
I have no idea what it's going to do to insurance premiums. I don't think anyone does.
 
iliveonramen said:
I haven't seen anything regarding ER use comparisons between the US and other countries and if you have a link I'd appreciate reading over it.
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I don't know about ER use, I just know that if you go to an ER in a single payer system, you get seen right away, whereas you wait a long time for a doctor. Good preventive care requires prompt and regular testing.
 
iliveonramen said:
Medicare is much more efficient than our current private system. If Medicare is unsustainable then there's no hope for our private insurance system.
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The private sector operates along different rules. As long as people are willing to pay the rising premiums, the model works. If people aren't willing to pay the rising premiums, then the insurance companies skimp to make the premiums affordable. Such as reducing the size of their provider networks or covering less.

Governments can sometimes do this as well, but it's harder for the government to cut back when it becomes necessary because there are a lot of free riders who don't pay in or pay very little, or paid in when they were younger.

I could agree with your second part regarding some individuals private insurance benefits but there are so many provisions baked into tax laws that create an incentive to avoid taxes by pumping money into expensive plans that of course companies are willing to throw tax free money at Cadillac plans rather than paying payroll taxes on an actual salary.
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But the reason those tax provisions continue is because there's a powerful constituency in favor of keeping them. Single payer is ultimately an egalitarian ideal that only works when few have great health insurance to begin with. If 20% have a better deal than they'd get from a single payer system, that's enough to sink it.
 
should have made this an open poll.
 
joko104 said:
President Obama and Democratic leadership promised ObamaCare/The Affordable Healthcare Act will reduce national healthcare costs and reduce insurance premiums.

Was that a truthful promise?
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not so far, premiums are up and cost for services are increasing as well.
 
IMO, it will increase costs, at least short-term.

But I mainly think this because it's a government program, and government programs always make whatever it is they are trying to do more expensive than they would be otherwise.
 
Not always, but in this case the mechanism is clear: forcing insurance companies to provide more services means insurance costs more. There is no free lunch.
 
joko104 said:
From his speech on the last page - you stopped at page 1.

"Here’s what you need to know. First, I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits – either now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize. Part of the reason I faced a trillion dollar deficit when I walked in the door of the White House is because too many initiatives over the last decade were not paid for – from the Iraq War to tax breaks for the wealthy. I will not make that same mistake with health care."

" The plan will not add to our deficit. The middle-class will realize greater security, not higher taxes. And if we are able to slow the growth of health care costs by just one-tenth of one percent each year, it will actually reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the long term."


S0... where is the first reduction in the deficit he promised?

Should I go to the part of promising everyone will have coverage and no pre-existing conditions would disqualify - and then link to how after 133,000 applications the Obama Administration shut all that down?
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Funny you should mention this... It seems he and the entire democratic party lost the meaning of deficit. All throughout the campaign I heard talk of decreasing the deficit when it sounded to me like they were referring to the debt. The deficit refers to spending over the allotted amount of money for federal expenditures each year, not the national debt. If the deficit was indeed 4 trillion dollars a year, he would have been adding 16 trillion dollars to the national debt in his first term. Obviously this isn't the case, so the only thing he could be talking about is the debt, so why do they keep referring to the deficit? Sounds to me like they don't know what they're talking about.
 
francois60 said:
The private sector operates along different rules. As long as people are willing to pay the rising premiums, the model works. If people aren't willing to pay the rising premiums, then the insurance companies skimp to make the premiums affordable. Such as reducing the size of their provider networks or covering less.
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That's a huge problem...as prices rise more people stop paying. If I'm say 28...have a decent job...and would normally get insurance...would I continue to pay higher and higher premiums? The higher premiums rise the more often healthy people that don't need insurance will forgo paying premiums. The pool decreases and the only folks paying premiums are...you got it sick people or those that will use it more often. So you end up with a death spiral of higher premiums.

Governments can sometimes do this as well, but it's harder for the government to cut back when it becomes necessary because there are a lot of free riders who don't pay in or pay very little, or paid in when they were younger.
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You have a lot of "free riders" in our current system. How many people opt out of insurance until they get old...about to have a family so need insurance for child birth and kids. How about go decades without health insurance and finally get back problems or something and go on disability and medicaid?

But the reason those tax provisions continue is because there's a powerful constituency in favor of keeping them. Single payer is ultimately an egalitarian ideal that only works when few have great health insurance to begin with. If 20% have a better deal than they'd get from a single payer system, that's enough to sink it.
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Sure...I guess you can wait until mroe and more people opt out of paying for insurance because of the higher prices. The higher the cost is the more people that will make that cost benefit decision on the side of gambling on not getting sick. When that happens you of course get higher premiums...then more people making that decision...well you eventually start having serious issues. Most of those companies would be unable to sustain those type of costs.
 
If the insurance system was breaking down, you could go to single payer as an alternative. Instead, we doubled down on the private system. That criticism comes from the left and it's valid. However, the insurance system is not yet breaking down and wasn't showing any signs of breaking down. But ACA makes that breakdown more likely by making insurance more expensive and increasing the odds that people won't want to buy the insurance.

So far, not many people are signing up to the exchanges. It's early yet, but you'd expect more enthusiasm for a great product. People buy Iphones three months before they come out, why wouldn't people buy insurance if it was the great, affordable deal they'd been waiting for?
 
joko104 said:
President Obama and Democratic leadership promised ObamaCare/The Affordable Healthcare Act will reduce national healthcare costs and reduce insurance premiums.

Was that a truthful promise?
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anonymous polls suck
 
Obama Care is a socialist Ponzi scheme that will never work and God forbid might bankrupt this country.
 
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