Obamacare info the media never told us

This from one of God's favorites? Hmmmm . . . I don't think so. God has more sense than that.

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

So you believe God exists?

So you believe God exists? Originally Posted by Jewish Lawyer

Of course I do. I know it. S/he loves you even though you believe in a warmongering, favorite playing god. God doesn't hate you because you are an idiot. You do more harm to yourself by believing the bullshit you do.

You are special and unique. Just like everyone else.

http://insureblog.blogspot.com/2014/...-unicorns.html


MONDAY, JULY 28, 2014

Flying Monkey's and Unicorns
No bones about it. I don't like Obamacare. If you have the time, I can give you a long list of reasons. But let's start with an email I received from a lady in Georgia looking for "affordable" health insurance. Let's call the lady Dorothy, and her husband, Toto.



I am a self employed consultant and my husband is an independent sales rep. I need a health insurance plan for both of us. Can you help us weed through all this and find something?
Sure can, but I need to know if you have recently lost coverage. You can only buy coverage when the government says you can.

We were covered by a client that had me under contract and provided insurance. My last day with them was Friday so my insurance will terminate in August.


OK, that means the government will allow you to buy. Just need some details and I can send over a quote then we can talk on Monday.

The couple's ages are 58 and 54. Unfortunately they live in a part of Georgia where community rating factors are higher than all but 4 other places in the U.S.

Turns out a $12,000 deductible plan will run them $1100 month.

Last year a similar plan would have been around $400.

Of course President AWOL would call that plan substandard.
Is there any reason why we can take a plan for this year that doesn't meet minimum essential and then see what happens in 2015.
You can, but ..........

The only alternative is a short term medical (STM) that will cover you for up to 6 months. The plan does not meet government requirements and you will incur a penalty.

Plus the STM plans won't be allowed in 2015.

And rates for next year will be higher than 2014.
I am not paying those ($1100) premiums so we will have to find another option
Yeah, well good luck with that.

Finding affordable Obamacare health insurance is like looking for flying monkeys and unicorns. It just doesn't exist.

Fucking great big mess!!

Stories Causing Atlas to Shrug, July 31st Edition

http://benefitrevolution.blogspot.com/

Stories Causing Atlas to Shrug, July 31st Edition

http://benefitrevolution.blogspot.com/


Originally Posted by IIFFOFRDB

I see the liberal fuckers can't handle this post....no refutation

Obamascare


The PPACA Economy: A Crippled Recovery and Chronic Underemployment


http://benefitrevolution.blogspot.com/


MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 2014

While the last two months of government jobs reports have not provided entirely negative news, they have reiterated a troubling trend showing fewer adults in the workforce and a push toward involuntary part time employment. Our painfully slow economic "recovery" hampered primarily by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's (PPACA's) massive new regulatory burdens and taxes on U.S.
business have further led to an equally concerning sub-trend:

older workers forestalling (or foregoing) retirement; and
workers between 25 and 54 years old having access to fewer and fewer jobs.

In looking at July and June's reports together, we see that the economy lost 238,000 full time jobs while adding 851,000 part timers. PPACA imparts a new "tax" on employees working more than 30 hours in a week in 2015 as employers will be compelled to buy a health plan costing between $3,000 and $8,000 per employee per year or pay a $2,000 non-tax deductible fine. In response, every industry that can is pushing full time employees below 30 hours a week to keep labor costs affordable. This trend particularly hampers the hospitality and service industries. Think of this as the affordable labor response to the "Affordable Care Act."

Investors Business Daily reports, "the number of workers clocking in at just over 30 hours a week fell in June to an all-time low, relative to those putting in fewer than 30."



And what may be worse is that if this trend is not reversed soon, it could become a permanent change to our economy. Warren Meyer, writing at Forbes explained the practical realities of this shift concisely.
...The service industry generally does not operate 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, so its labor needs do not match traditional full-time shifts. Those of us who run service companies already have to piece together multiple employees and shifts to cover our operating hours. In this environment, there is no reason one can’t stitch together employees making 29 hours a week (that don’t have to be given expensive health care policies) nearly as easily as one can stitch together 40 hours a week employees. In fact, it can be easier — a store that needs to cover 10AM to 9PM can cover with two 5.5 hour a day employees. If they work 5 days a week, that is 27.5 hours a week, safely part-time. Three people working such hours with staggered days off can cover the store’s hours for 7 days.

Based on the numbers above, a store might actually prefer to only have sub-30 hour shifts, but may have, until recently, provided full-time 40 hours work because good employees expect it and other employers were offering it. In other words, they had to offer full-time work because competition in the labor market demanded it. But if everyone in the service business stops offering full-time work, the competitive pressure to offer anything but part-time jobs will be gone. The service business may never go back. ...
As we continue to see less full and more part time work, it pushes older workers to continue working; forestalling retirement. The latest jobs report showed that fewer and fewer older workers are retiring making it tougher on the key 25-54 year old demographic to find and maintain any employment. The 25-54 year old group shed 142,000 jobs in the July report.

In total, 11.4 million Americans age 16 and over have left the workforce since President Obama took office and began the creation of PPACA in January 2009, according to data released last week from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). While the the officially reported unemployment rate came in at an improving 6.1% in July, actual unemployment is much higher than that. Professor of Business and Economics, Peter Morici of the University of Maryland projects that the real unemployment rate among U.S. citizens and permanent residents is at least 18%.

The participation rate, which measures the percentage of the population that participates in the labor force by either having a job or actively seeking one (an admittedly loose standard as one only needs to be seeking a job to be considered participating), is just under 63%. That is the lowest it has been since the late 1970s.

For those that signed up for Obamacare. Reality of this disaster may soon have it's impact. More and more Doctors are refusing Obamacare patients.

Jim


http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/04/do...care-patients/

Poor Obabies


Obamacare: HuffPo Writer Whines GOP Won't 'Fix' Law to Allow Federal Exchange Subsidies


By P.J. Gladnick | August 5, 2014 | 19:05

Jeffrey Young is a health care writer for the Huffington Post but you really have to wonder if he is posting his stories from Bizarro World. He is actually upset that Republicans in Congress, in the wake of the Halbig vs Burwell D.C. Circuit Court decision, won't join together with the Democrats in a giant kumbaya to "fix" the highly unpopular Obamacare law so that the language will clearly state that states using the federal exchange will be eligible for subsidies.

What is interesting is how liberals until about a week ago derided the idea that the language of the Obamacare law only allowed subsidies to go to state-based exchanges. However, this has drastically changed. Not only due to court decision but also because two of the biggest Obamacare cheerleaders who mocked the notion of Congress really intending what was clearly written in the law, Jonathan Gruber and Jonathan Cohn, were discovered to have in the past supported that very "Truther" position. So here we have Young bemoaning the fact that those "stubborn" Republicans won't save an unpopular liberal law:

A handful of simple words in a piece of legislation could prevent more than 4 million people losing their health insurance, but Congress isn't going to write them.

At issue are several lawsuits against Obamacare moving through the legal system that may go all the way to the Supreme Court. Among other things, the suits contend the precise phrasing of the Affordable Care Act means that low- and moderate-income health insurance consumers in most states can't receive subsidies to make coverage more affordable.


Lawmakers could end that threat any time by changing the law's wording to make it clear subsidies are available nationwide. But in today's take-no-prisoners Congress, Republicans won't let it happen and Democrats won't even try.


"The political point has been very clearly made by Democrats: Let's fix it," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who was chairman of the the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of five panels that wrote the law in 2009 and 2010, and is now its ranking Democrat. "The Republicans won't allow it. The only thing they want to pass is repeal."


Waaaaah! Why can't those nasty Republicans be "reasonable" and act like liberal Democrats to save a law that none of them supported?



These lawsuits come down to the phrase "exchange established by the state,” which appears in the Affordable Care Act. In a nutshell, the plaintiffs argue this means the tax credits available to people who earn up to four times the poverty level, which is $94,200 for a family of four this year, only can go to people who bought their health insurance in one of the 15 state-run health insurance exchanges, not the federal exchanges in 36 states.

Like other Democrats, Waxman rejects the contention that the law doesn't intend subsidies to be granted nationally. But he does acknowledge the Affordable Care Act language needs to be cleaned up in places.


And we must acknowledge that Jeffrey Young must live in Bizarro World if he thinks Republicans have some sort of obligation to "clean up" the Obamacare language in order to enable a law the Democrats arrogantly shoved through Congress without allowing any input from the other party. The absurdity of Young even suggesting that the Republicans should help Obamacare survive is reflected in many of the reader comments following his posted fantasy:

Hey, they had to pass it to find out what was in it right?

Intent by government definition mean NOTHING. A tax laws intent has no legal standing, its the enforcement and collection that has the legal standing. Since Obama, Reid, and Pelosi wrote and passed the ACA and all of its mandates down the throats of the voters, the mistakes are theirs. Intentions are like Obama's promises, they mean NOTHING.

Republicans were blocked from participation in crafting the bill. And now they're supposed to clean the ridiculous mess caused by the Democrats' rush to pass the bill before it was even read? Uh, huh.

Look, the Dems passed this thing via reconciliation not only without any Repub votes, but without so much as a whiff of compromise. This was back when Obama told Repubs they could sit in the back of the bus, and "elections have consequences". So, Dems fouled up the language in the original bill. Maybe they were in a hurry in case Landrieu or Nelson changed their minds. Maybe they didn't notice it cause they had to read it to see what was in it, and they didn't. And now they want Repubs to help them clean up their mess?



Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/pj-glad...#ixzz39ZiWxLe2

Weren't we told that the law was perfect as written? That it didn't need any review or amendments?

Actuary: Admin's Attempted Fix to 'If you like your plan, you can keep it,' Lie Could Cost Taxpayers $474 Per Insured Per Year






An absolutely fascinating little nugget surfaced in a story about Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or Obamacare) Exchanged-based insurance renewals for 2015 in the state of Connecticut. The column centers around exactly how much insurers should be charging in 2015 for their renewals in the Nutmeg State.

What I found most interesting is what the Connecticut Insurance Department's actuary said about per member per month insurer claim-savings as a result of HHS' last minute changes to the Transitional Reinsurance Program (insurer bailouts and here and here) last November, just prior to Thanksgiving.

As readers of this blog will recall, President Obama was given PolitiFact's Lie of the Year "award" in 2013 for saying that those who like their insurance plans, could "keep them." When that turned out to be untrue the President wanted to soften the harsh appearance of his lie by attempting to re-write PPACA, via a press conference, directing states to consider allowing individuals to keep non-compliant Obamacare plans. The offer was almost certainly not legal. Practically speaking, it was so late in the game that many states and people had already moved ahead with compliant, more expensive plans.

Mark Steyn authored the most wonderful description of the debacle at the time:
On Thursday, [the President] passed a new law at a press conference. George III never did that. But, having ordered America’s insurance companies to comply with Obamacare, the president announced that he is now ordering them not to comply with Obamacare. The legislative branch (as it’s still quaintly known) passed a law purporting to grandfather your existing health plan. The regulatory bureaucracy then interpreted the law so as to un-grandfather your health plan. So His Most Excellent Majesty has commanded that your health plan be de-un-grandfathered. That seems likely to work. The insurance industry had three years to prepare for the introduction of Obamacare. Now the King has given them six weeks to de-introduce Obamacare.
The President's press conference angered many insurers. In order to keep them from revolting, HHS reduced the PPACA large claim attachment point for insurers. In laymen terms this meant that PPACA's elaborate reinsurance program would funnel money to insurance companies who had a claim exceed $45,000 as opposed to the $70,000 that had been planned. It meant less risk and more money to insurers.

Now, at least one state has quantified that cost; which will ultimately fall on taxpayers when there is not enough "profits" in PPACA's Robin Hood scheme to take from rich insurers and give to poor ones.

This is from Allison Bell at LifeHealthPro:
A move by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to lower the deductible, or "attachment point," for the reinsurance program to $45,000, from $70,000, should cut individual major medical costs by about 4.5 percent, or $39.50 per member by month, according to Paul Lombardo, a [Connecticut Insurance] department actuary. ...
HHS lowered the attachment point to $45,000 to help compensate insurers for a last-minute change in commercial insurance rules.
A cool $39.50 per PPACA enrollee per month means a "savings" to insurers (or ultimate taxpayer cost) of $474 per enrollee per year.

And because we are on the topic, we must revisit this - who can forget Remy's great video on the "like your plan" lie?

If You Like Your Obamacare Plan, It'll Cost You. Consumers could be hit with major price increases, without even knowing it, if they don’t switch their health care plans.


BY SAM BAKER
August 5, 2014

People who decide to stick with the coverage they've already gotten through Obamacare, rather than switching plans, are at risk for some of the biggest premium spikes anywhere in the system. And some people won't even know their costs went up until they get a bill from the IRS.

Insurance plans generally raise their premiums every year, but those costs are just the tip of the iceberg for millions of Obamacare enrollees. A series of other, largely invisible factors will also push up many consumers' premiums.

In some cases, even if an insurance company doesn't raise its rates at all, its customers could still end up owing thousands of dollars more for their premiums. It's all a byproduct of complicated technical changes triggered, ironically enough, by the law's success at bolstering competition among insurers.

Many consumers will need to switch plans in order to keep their costs steady, but health care experts question how many people will do that. Switching plans can entail changing your doctor and adjusting to new out-of-pocket costs, never mind the fresh trek through HealthCare.gov. The White House has already set up an auto-renewal process, making it easier to stick with the status quo.


And with so many behind-the-scenes factors at play, most people might not even know that they need to go back through HealthCare.gov just to keep the deal they already have.

"A lot of people aren't going to understand this," said Susan Pantely, an actuary at the Milliman consulting firm.

Hidden cost of doing nothing

Let's break down the complex factors that make inertia so expensive for Obamacare enrollees.

First, there are the standard premium increases insurers seek from year to year. The lowest-cost plans in each state's marketplace were generally the ones that attracted the most customers in 2014. But in many cases, they're also the plans seeking above-average rate hikes.

"The prices of the lowest-cost [plans] tend to be going up more," said Caroline Pearson, vice president at the consulting firm Avalere Health. "Most people, if re-enrolled, will be enrolled in a plan that has a premium increase."

But that's only part of the reason inertia is so expensive for Obamacare enrollees. The vast majority of enrollees don't pay the full cost of their premiums—85 percent are getting financial help from the government. And many of those consumers will find that their subsidies don't go as far next year, even for the same plans.

The size of each person's subsidy is tied to a "benchmark" plan. Poorer consumers only have to spend a certain percentage of their income for that plan; the government pays the rest of the premium. If you choose a more expensive policy, you have to pay the difference on your own.

This year, about 3.4 million people picked the benchmark plan or went one option cheaper. But as those plans raise their rates and new options come to the market, they'll often lose their benchmark status to cheaper competitors—and their customers will find themselves on the hook for a bigger share of their premiums.

"I would expect that probably the majority of 2014 enrollees are going to be impacted pretty substantially," said Milliman analyst Paul Houchens.

Let's say your income is at about 150 percent of the poverty line—roughly $17,000 per year. The law says you don't have to pay more than 4 percent of your income for the benchmark plan in your area. You chose that plan this year, and you're getting a pretty generous subsidy.

Your plan wants to raise its rates by 5 percent next year—not great, but not the end of the world when you're only paying about $50 per month out of your pocket. You like the plan, the premium increase doesn't seem like a lot, and HealthCare.gov was a headache last time, so you just auto-renew.

Unbeknownst to you, though, new insurers have started offering cheaper plans in your area. Your plan is no longer the benchmark plan; a cheaper one is. So now your subsidy is based on the cost of that plan, not the one you have. This means you're on the hook not only for every dollar of your plan's 5 percent premium increase, but also for every dollar of the difference in price between your plan and the new benchmark plan.

These technical changes in subsidies could turn a 5 percent premium increase into a spike of 30 to 100 percent in the net costs for low-income consumers, according to a recent Milliam analysis.

There's already evidence this is happening: In an Avalere Health survey of nine states, the benchmark plan will change next year in six of them. The lowest-cost plan will change in seven of the nine states.

'The totally crazy part'

As cheaper plans come into the marketplace, millions of consumers will see the cost of keeping their plan rise. But they might not know it.

HealthCare.gov isn't able to automatically recalculate the subsidies existing consumers are eligible for. So, while the dollar value of your financial assistance drops, you can only find out that's happening by going back into the system and asking for a redetermination as part of the shopping process.

Consumers who auto-renew their policies will get the same dollar value of subsidies they got last year—even though changes in the marketplace all but guarantee that will no longer be the right subsidy amount for millions of people.

"That's the totally crazy part," Pearson said. "They're basically going to send them what they know to be the wrong subsidy."

The IRS will eventually figure out how much financial assistance you should have received, and will reconcile the difference on your taxes. If you should have gotten a bigger subsidy, the government will issue you a tax credit. If your subsidy was too big, which would be the case if you keep your plan and lower-cost options come to the market, you'll owe the IRS money.

Milliman has this example: Your plan doesn't change its premiums at all, and your income isn't changing. You auto-renew and keep receiving the same subsidy. But because of changes in the benchmark plan, you shouldn't actually be receiving the same subsidy. Although it seems to you like nothing changed—not your premium, not your income—you'll owe the IRS between $300 and $2,500 when you pay your taxes, because your subsidy should have been smaller. Unless and until HealthCare.gov is able to do this math automatically, it's up to you to figure that out.

"We get into a very dangerous situation if we just tell everybody they can just auto-enroll," Houchens said.

It pays to shop

Again, all of this is avoidable. These are the risks of auto-renewal. Anyone who goes back in to HealthCare.gov to get a new eligibility determination will see their updated subsidy as well as the current list of available plans.

If you've been on the benchmark plan and you switch to the new benchmark plan, your costs will stay exactly the same, because the subsidies work by capping how much of your income you'll have to spend for that plan. Or maybe consumers will decide it's worth the extra money to stick with the plan they have, but will get the advantage of knowing about those costs up front, rather than being hit with a tax bill.

Consumers are "largely protected if they're willing to switch plans," said Larry Levitt, vice president of special initiatives at the Kaiser Family Foundation.

But will they be willing to switch?

Experience with Medicare's prescription-drug benefit suggests not. Once seniors pick a drug plan, they're unlikely to reenter the marketplace and shop around again, even if there's a plan that might work better for them, Levitt said. The same is true of the insurance exchange that serves federal employees—people rarely switch.

"There are lots of reasons to believe inertia will take hold here and people won't switch," Levitt said. "Betting on inertia is certainly a reasonable bet here."

But Levitt also said the Obamacare exchanges might be different. Most of the people who signed up for coverage this year were previously uninsured, so they probably haven't gotten too attached to a specific doctor yet. They likely wouldn't feel like they're losing a lot by switching to a cheaper policy, Levitt said. And the way people shopped this year indicated that they're especially price-conscious.

"I think people may shop around more than they have in the past," he said.

Complicating all of this is the auto-renewal process the administration has set up. The administration is in a tough spot on auto-renewal—it wants to keep as many of this year's 8 million sign-ups as possible, but it also wants to keep real-world premium increases in check.

"It's a really tough balance. You don't want people to end up uninsured, so you want to make renewal as easy as possible, but (you) also want to make sure people understand they have other options," Levitt said. "Auto-renewing people is not a crazy idea, but how well that works will depend a lot on the communication that goes out to people."

http://www.nationaljournal.com/healt...t-you-20140805

People paid for medicare, it goes along with social security.......which people paid for as well......"MEDICAID" is the free shit!!! like free food, free phones, free housing, free electricity, free child care and so on and so on and so on......

Today on the Michael Berry show. http://benefitrevolution.blogspot.com/









Here is the full list of exemptions from Healthcare.gov:

You’re uninsured for less than 3 months of the year

The lowest-priced coverage available to you would cost more than 8% of your household income

You don’t have to file a tax return because your income is too low (Learn about the filing limit.)

You’re a member of a federally recognized tribe or eligible for services through an Indian Health Services provider

You’re a member of a recognized health care sharing ministry

You’re a member of a recognized religious sect with religious objections to insurance, including Social Security and Medicare

You’re incarcerated (either detained or jailed), and not being held pending disposition of charges

You’re not lawfully present in the U.S.

You were homeless.

You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.

You received a shut-off notice from a utility company.

You recently experienced domestic violence.

You recently experienced the death of a close family member.

You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural or human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.

You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.

You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months which resulted in substantial debt.

You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.

You expect to claim a child as a tax dependent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and CHIP, and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child. In this case, you do not have the pay the penalty for the child.

As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible for enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, lower costs on your monthly premiums, or cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.

You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Your individual insurance plan was cancelled and you believe other Marketplace plans are unaffordable.

You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.