Here's something everyone is missing. And just to put it out there, I have my insurance license and work with this stuff:
The part of the mandate that was being pushed on the states was to use the Medicaid program to insure the uninsured. Not the standard insurance system. For those who are not aware, Medicaid is the STATE FUNDED system for providing health care to the indigent. It is not federally funded. The funds offered by the federal government were only to cover a certain period of time, in order to set up the expansion and get it running. After that time period, it would be up to each individual state to find the money to keep that expanded Medicaid program going. That, in turn, means either the state finding more ways to tax it's citizens or going to the federal government with it's hands out and then being in a position to do.....guess what.....guess.....receive the money with certain conditions and rules attached, that would in turn control the states Medicaid program.
Also, the taxes that support the ACA have not kicked in yet and are not scheduled to kick in until....guess what.....guess......the current President is on his way out of office. I'm also will to bet that many heads of the Democrat party will be suddenly "retiring" about that time as well.
Rates and premiums went up quite a bit since this started. I've seen and spoken with many people who are upset about it. All I can tell them is "that's how the program is set up". There is no other explanation. Yeah I can get into the details of it about more people with more conditions that require more treatments, coupled with no more limits to what can be paid out for services and treatments
But, it is what it is. We are stuck with it. It is a system that will bring in money to the government in the form of taxes. And I don't think we have ever seen the government eliminate something that brings in money for itself.
Originally Posted by bigwill832
There are a couple of problems with your post.
1. Expanded Medicaid is only encouraged for the people who fall in the category of family of 4 and their income is less than $24,000. It is not encouraged for anyone else.
You are correct about original Medicaid, to qualify it's a family of 4 and income is less than $16,000. You don't qualify for a Obamacare private plan if your income is less than $24,000 (family of 4). It just so happens that in the state of Kentucky 300,000 people did not qualify for a private plan and had to apply for Expanded Medicaid.
2. The individual mandate was put in with the hope of creating balanced risk pools in the individual market. High risk people (who had money) purchased insurance and submitted CLAIMS , a fair percentage of low risk people elected to not purchase health insurance (and pay the $94 first year fine). Thus in some states on some plans sold in the individual market, some health insurance companies lost money. Thus the underwriters raised the rates for the next year. This has been documented in several threads.
3. The taxes brought into the government went to pay for this expense, so that the ACA does not add to the deficit. The federal government is not making money off the taxes that you referred to. The ACA is a Trillion dollar expense over 10 years. These new taxes are paying for it.
4. The Expanded Medicaid is paid for by the Federal Government. The Federal Government is paying 100% of the cost of the Expanded Medicaid ( for the states that accepted it) for the first 3 years. After 5 years the Federal Government is paying 90% of the cost of the Expanded Medicaid. See the link below. How did you get that the states are responsible for paying for the Expanded Medicaid?
http://www.medicaid.gov/AffordableCa...-Care-Act.html