‘The Affordable Care Act: 5 Years Later’ (WH.gov)

I consider this your surrender post on the Obamacare subject. You finally acquiesce about Obamacare driving up private insurance cost. It's only about "expanded Medicaid." Poor people had "unexpanded Medicaid" already. Originally Posted by gnadfly

Gadfly, you are almost as confused as IFFY on this ( and that is pretty hard to do).

1. Original Medicaid only applied to very poor people whose income was below the poverty line (that would be family of 4 that makes less than $16,000). So, a lot of poor people don't qualify for the original or as you call it unexpanded Medicaid. Note: the individual market is about 30 million people, everyone else under age 65 is getting their health insurance from their employer.

2. The expanded Medicaid (for the states that accepted it) is for a family of 4 that makes more than $16,000 and less than $24,000).

3. If you are a family of 4 and your income is greater than $24,000 and less than $94,000 you qualify to get a subsidy on healthcare.gov (if you cannot get health insurance from your employer) for private health insurance.

4. In the employer based market the rates went up a little like they do every year.

5. In the individual market on the government market place exchanges, if states had balanced risk pools their the premium prices did not spike up.

6. For the states that had unbalanced risk pools like the ones mentioned in post #1, the health insurance companies are asking for large premium increases. In those states there was an overload of sick people who purchased insurance, claims paid out did not equal premium coming in. This did not happen in every state, just certain ones.

7. This taken straight from post #1. The steep premium increases are not in every state.

Assurant is based in Wisconsin, but insurers all across the country are attempting to survive the same perverse incentives that finally undid that venerable company. The Journal lists proposed increases by companies offering plans through exchanges in Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington state. And many of these companies are already losing huge amounts of money: “BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee… lost $141 million from exchange-sold plans, stemming largely from a small number of sick enrollees.” It is asking for a 36.3 percent rate increase

Under Obamacare, the triple whammy = premiums rising, deductibles skyrocketing and co-pays on the increase.

Bad news for consumers. And nothing close to what Obama promised the American public = lower premiums and lower out of pocket expenses.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articl...s-Not-Premiums

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2014/1...gh-Deductibles

Californi is the place you want to be, frightr...
http://www.contracostatimes.com/brea...alth-care-some

California Senate approves health care for many illegal immigrants
By Tracy Seipel tseipel@mercurynews.com
POSTED: 06/02/2015 01:15:25 PM PDT0 COMMENTS| UPDATED: 13 DAYS AGO
SACRAMENTO -- A first-in-the-nation bill aimed at expanding health care for illegal immigrants sailed through the Senate on Tuesday even as some lawmakers acknowledged that thousands of legal residents are having to struggle to access health care through the state's Medi-Cal program.

In a 28-11 vote, a newly pared-down version of Senate Bill 4 by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, would let undocumented Californians buy health insurance with their own money through the state's Covered California exchange if the state is given a waiver by the federal government. It would also allow anyone age 18 and under to enroll in Medi-Cal regardless of immigration status -- and let undocumented immigrants age 19 and up enroll in Medi-Cal if there's money provided in the state budget.

"We are here today trying to address this critical issue that is vital to the success of our California: ... providing care to our undocumented community,'' Lara told colleagues before the vote. "The time has come for us to lead.''

Last week, SB 4 was scaled down from a "health care for all" bill that would have allowed all undocumented immigrants to enroll in Medi-Cal. But that bill would have cost taxpayers from $175 million to $740 million annually -- something Gov. Jerry Brown said was just too expensive.

The exact cost of the amended SB 4 won't be known until an upcoming fiscal analysis is released shortly, said Lara spokesman Jesse Melgar, though he said he believes the cost will be lower than $175 million.

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The bill now heads to the Assembly Rules Committee, which is expected to send it to the Assembly health and appropriations committees. If it clears the Legislature, the measure goes to Brown, who could veto it.

During Tuesday's hearing, Lara warned his colleagues not to "confuse" giving health care access to undocumented immigrants with the thorny issue of trying restore Medi-Cal rates for doctors.

Members of a budget conference committee are now seeking to restore 10 percent cuts to Medi-Cal reimbursements they imposed in 2011. Restoring the cuts, some lawmakers argue, would encourage more doctors to participate in the health program for the poor. But whether that will happen remains in doubt.

Lara argued that his colleagues should consider the current $1.4 billion annual cost of treating illegal immigrants, many of whom legally seek treatment in hospital emergency rooms.

"Your vote today," Lara reminded fellow senators, "will be one you remember long beyond this year in this chamber" because it would help the two million undocumented workers "who toil in our fields, clean your hotel rooms, take care of your babies and provide much-needed support for your families."

Two Republicans, Sen. Andy Vidak, R-Hanford, and Sen. Anthony Canella, R-Ceres, voted for the bill. Sen. Janet Nguyen, R-Garden Grove, was the only senator to abstain.

Like some of her Republican colleagues, Nguyen agreed that the bill had good intentions but could hurt Californians now enrolled in Medi-Cal.

"Unfortunately, they have limited access to their health care providers because we have failed to provide for their care,'' Nguyen said.

"If you are going to do this, then (increase) funding (to) make sure you don't promise someone a car -- and then there is no engine in it. It's wrong to enroll people into something they don't have access to.''

The state Senate on Tuesday also approved bills that would raise the legal age to buy tobacco from 18 to 21 and establish a graduation incentive grant program for CSU students aimed at helping them obtain their degrees in four years.

Staff writer Jessica Calefati contributed to this report. Contact Tracy Seipel at tseipel@mercurynews.com or 408 920-5343 and follow her at Twitter.com/taseipel.

Under Obamacare, the triple whammy = premiums rising, deductibles skyrocketing and co-pays on the increase.

Bad news for consumers. And nothing close to what Obama promised the American public = lower premiums and lower out of pocket expenses.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articl...s-Not-Premiums

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2014/1...gh-Deductibles Originally Posted by Whirlaway

This is straight from the first link Whirly. Do you read what you post?

Given that, Connolly said, "we were a little bit surprised" when PwC crunched the price data and found "the exchanges are competitive, and even cheaper in some instances." She also said that PwC clients "have been very intrigued by" the results.
The report found that the median rate of Obamacare exchange-sold plans that offer coverage comparable to employer-offered plans is $5,844 annually.
That's 4 percent less than the $6,119 for the average cost of an employer-provided plan of comparable benefits coverage, the report found.

This is straight from the first link Whirly. Do you read what you post?

Given that, Connolly said, "we were a little bit surprised" when PwC crunched the price data and found "the exchanges are competitive, and even cheaper in some instances." She also said that PwC clients "have been very intrigued by" the results.
The report found that the median rate of Obamacare exchange-sold plans that offer coverage comparable to employer-offered plans is $5,844 annually.
That's 4 percent less than the $6,119 for the average cost of an employer-provided plan of comparable benefits coverage, the report found. Originally Posted by flghtr65

You would be correct except about that this thing called "Deductibles" frighhhtr













http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obamacar...sticker-shock/













You ignoramus...













oh and this, frighhhtr... http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Column...s-Higher-Costs









LOLing you!

Apples to Oranges; All plans sold in the US have to conform to AHA requirements.................. ........the private plans are more expensive for a number of reasons, including they provide better (more comprehensive) coverage, they have lower deductibles, include dental (some), and any other factors.

Fact Jack = With Obamacare we have the triple whammy of continued premium increases, skyrocketing deductibles and increased co-payments ! Obama promised his plan would be completely different = lower premiums, lower out of pocket.

You left out the leading headline from my Fiscal Times link :

Obamacare Sticker Shock Found in Deductibles, Not Premiums

This is straight from the first link Whirly. Do you read what you post?

Given that, Connolly said, "we were a little bit surprised" when PwC crunched the price data and found "the exchanges are competitive, and even cheaper in some instances." She also said that PwC clients "have been very intrigued by" the results.
The report found that the median rate of Obamacare exchange-sold plans that offer coverage comparable to employer-offered plans is $5,844 annually.
That's 4 percent less than the $6,119 for the average cost of an employer-provided plan of comparable benefits coverage, the report found. Originally Posted by flghtr65

Nobody takes your posts seriously, SLOBBRIN, because you obviously don't care if they are irrelevant. You're like a barking dog.

It's apparent Gruber did a fine job.

Even after he explained he lied, they still believe his bullshit.

Gadfly, you are almost as confused as IFFY on this ( and that is pretty hard to do).

1. Original Medicaid only applied to very poor people whose income was below the poverty line (that would be family of 4 that makes less than $16,000). So, a lot of poor people don't qualify for the original or as you call it unexpanded Medicaid. Note: the individual market is about 30 million people, everyone else under age 65 is getting their health insurance from their employer.

2. The expanded Medicaid (for the states that accepted it) is for a family of 4 that makes more than $16,000 and less than $24,000).
Originally Posted by flghtr65

http://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid-chi...ment-data.html

http://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid-chi...lment-data.pdf

There are about 90 million people on "medicaid" .... of those about 12 million were an increase based on the "expanded" coverage, back to 2013.

Basically, the "Affordable Care Act" increased enrollment by around 12 million. That's according to Government figures.

How many billions of dollars did getting 12 million people signed up cost?

It's apparent Gruber did a fine job.

Even after he explained he lied, they still believe his bullshit. Originally Posted by LexusLover

And woomby / undercunt / rusty balloon knot / wanna-be jalapeno sucker defends odummer's power grab everyday. Along with his butt buddy shammy and assup.

Calling the "fool on a stool"...

MATHEMATICS, REINSURANCE, UNCATEGORIZED
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION INCREASES INSURER SUBSIDIES
JUNE 17, 2015

The Obama administration announced earlier today that it would increase the rate of subsidy provided insurers under the transitional reinsurance program established by the Affordable Care Act. This program, in effect for the policies sold in 2014, 2015, and 2016 on one of the individual insurance exchanges fostered by the ACA, provides free specific stop loss reinsurance to insurers, something insurers would otherwise have to pay a lot of money to obtain. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today that instead of taxpayers giving insurers 80% of the losses on any individual for their claims between $45,000 and $250,000, it would now pay a full 100% of these losses.

The higher rate of reinsurance should not be interpreted as a sign that claims were lower than insurers expected — something that would run contrary to many of the recent insurer rate hike filings or the losses reported by many insurers. It is not a sign of the success of Obamacare; rather it is an artifact of its problems. If, for example, there were 14% fewer people enrolled in Obamacare than at the time the reinsurance rates were initially determined (7 million vs. 6 million), reinsurance payments could be, as here, yet more generous to insurers even if claims were 10% higher than originally projected.

There are several implications of today’s announcement. First, it means that, on a percentage basis, the ACA is subsidizing exchange insurers for 2014 even more than regulations enacted under it had heretofore prescribed. Since this same money paid to insurers could instead have been used to provide greater subsidies to poorer and middle class individuals trying to purchase health insurance, the candy distributed today to insurers is a bit troubling. Second, because CMS says it will actually have money left over from 2014 even after the increase in reinsurance rates, and because enrollment in Obamacare remains considerably lower than was estimated at the time of its enactment, there is an increased likelihood of reinsurance payments to insurers being higher than originally authorized in 2015.

We can get some sense of the magnitude of the changes announced today. To do so, I use data embedded in the Actuarial Value Calculator, a document produced by CMS for the purposes of figuring out whether various insurance plans met the standards for bronze, silver, gold and platinum policies. For an average silver policy, for example, the reinsurance that would have been provided prior to today would have been expected to save insurers about 11% in expenses, and, quite likely, premiums. With the new reinsurance parameters, the transitional reinsurance program will save insurers selling the same silver policies about 14%.

We can do the same exercise for platinum, gold and bronze policies. The results are not much different. The table below shows the results.

METAL LEVEL ORIGINAL SUBSIDY NEW SUBSIDY
Bronze 11% 13%
Silver 11% 14%
Gold 11% 13%
Platinum 10% 12%
Two foootnotes

1. This is actually the second time CMS has made the transitional reinsurance program for 2014 more generous. Originally, the reinsurance would “attach” at $60,000. If an individual’s claims were below that amount, no reinsurance would kick in. Leter, CMS changed the attachment point to $45,000.

2. How could I do this computation so swiftly? I’ve been preparing for testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee on, among other things, the effect of the transitional reinsurance program on insurer rate changes and I’ve been working on a talk on a similar topic for the R in Insurance Conference later this month. So, all I had to do was plug the new parameters into my model, and out came the results. Be prepared.

http://acadeathspiral.org/2015/06/17...rer-subsidies/




.

Making Sure You Earn Less Than 4X Federal Poverty Opens Up a Devious Little Obamacare Tax Loophole


Nothing spurs innovation, creativity and job growth like complex tax notches that incentivize fraud and the suppression of one's own income. Here is an excerpt from a longer piece up at CATO demonstrating an absurd Obamacare subsidy and reporting loophole:

... To illustrate the Obamacare reporting loophole, consider the health insurance marketplace in Hialeah, Florida with two consumers. The first, Michael, is single, age 49, a non-smoker, and makes $46,000. The second, Lisa, makes $47,000 but is otherwise similar. Both find themselves ineligible for a taxpayer subsidy on HealthCare.gov and in searching more than 80 plans decide on a Humana Bronze plan with an annual premium of $4,092.

Where’s the reporting loophole? If Michael reports that he expects to make just $12,000 during 2015, he’ll ultimately pay $1,250 for his health insurance. If Lisa does the same, she’ll be on the hook for full amount. The Obamacare reporting loophole lowers Michael’s payment by more than $2,800, even though he wasn’t eligible for a taxpayer subsidy at all.

How does Michael profit from this? Obamacare offers sizable taxpayer subsidies to those with low income. Even so, many would have difficulty paying more than $4,000 in advance for health insurance. Instead, consumers can report their anticipated income and then have the subsidy advanced directly to the insurance company. Advanced reporting of income runs into a practical issue: Michael or Lisa might make an inaccurate report. If so, the advance subsidy would be incorrect. One might expect that Michael or Lisa would have to square up during tax filing season, a process the IRS calls reconciling. For single individuals like Michael with income under $46,680 (400% of the poverty line), the way in which the advance subsidy is reconciled encourages misreporting. Michael faces a repayment limit of at most $1,250, if the taxpayer advance to the insurance company was too large. In contrast, there is no upper limit on repayment for Lisa, because her income is above 400% of the poverty line. ...



http://benefitrevolution.blogspot.co...s-than-4x.html

CONFIRMED: WHITE HOUSE LIED ABOUT JONATHAN GRUBER’S ROLE IN DEVELOPING OBAMACARE

by JOHN HAYWARD22 Jun 2015145

President Obama’s dismissal of MIT’s Jonathan Gruber as just “some adviser” he barely remembers, rather than a key architect of ObamaCare, has always been one of the flimsiest and most transparent lies told by this profoundly dishonest White House.

Everyone knew Gruber was critical to ObamaCare, and when he was caught on tape high-fiving himself for helping to fool what he described as “stupid” American voters with the Affordable Care Act’s web of false promises and ludicrous projections, he was speaking from the Administration’s heart.

It’s still newsworthy that the House Oversight Committee has released emails to the Wall Street Journal showing Gruber had a far closer working relationship with the White House than it wanted to admit:

The emails show frequent consultations between Mr. Gruber and top Obama administration staffers and advisers in the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services on the Affordable Care Act. They show he informed HHS about interviews with reporters and discussions with lawmakers, and he consulted with HHS about how to publicly describe his role.

[…] “His proximity to HHS and the White House was a whole lot tighter than they admitted,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)80%
(R., Utah), chairman of the House oversight committee. “There’s no doubt he was a much more integral part of this than they’ve said. He put up this facade he was an arm’s length away. It was a farce.”

Mr. Chaffetz on Sunday sent a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell requesting information justifying the department’s sole-source contract with Mr. Gruber for his work on the health law.

Good luck with that, Rep. Chaffetz. At the rate this Administration responds to congressional and public inquiries, you’ll be getting the answer to your letter sometime in 2018.

The emails show Mr. Gruber was in touch with key advisers such as Peter Orszag, who was director of the Office of Management and Budget, an arm of the White House that oversaw federal programs.

He was also in contact with Jason Furman, an economic adviser to the president, and Ezekiel Emanuel, who was then a special adviser for health policy at OMB.

One email indicates Mr. Gruber was invited to meet with Mr. Obama. In a July 2009 email, he wrote that Mr. Orszag had “invited me to meet with the head honcho to talk about cost control.”

“Thank you for being an integral part of getting us to this historic moment,” according to Sept. 9, 2009 email to Mr. Gruber fromJeanne Lambrew, a top Obama administration health adviser who worked at HHS and the White House. In a November 2009 email, she called Mr. Gruber “our hero.”

In an August 2009 email, Lawrence Summers—then a top economic adviser in the administration—emailed Mr. Gruber and asked “if you were POTUS, what would u do now?” Mr. Gruber responded that Mr. Obama should hold out for enough money to do universal coverage.

There’s a lot more at the Wall Street Journal piece linked above, including Gruber’s invaluable assistance in spinning reporters, working out deals with Big Labor, and getting recalcitrant Senators including Mary Landrieu (D-LA) on board. How’s that ObamaCare working out for you career-wise, Ms. Landrieu? Are you happy Gruber was able to talk you into supporting the law you knew was a pile of garbage?

As with every bit of truth cudgeled out of this furtive Administration, it took a long time for the House Oversight Committee to get to the bottom of this, after obtaining 20,000 pages of emails from MIT. Once again, the Obama delaying tactics worked like a charm.

When the President falsely denied Gruber’s role to the media, it gave them the go-ahead to largely ignore those bombshell videos in which he not only confirmed that the much-anticipated Supreme Court ruling in King v. Burwell should be a slam-dunk against ObamaCare, wiping out the subsidies illegally paid through the federal exchanges, but also explained at length how so much of the Affordable Care Act was an elaborate scam designed to keep American voters in the dark about the legislation’s true objectives and ramifications.

On the former point, Gruber was quite clear that the denial of subsidies to states that don’t set up their own ObamaCare exchanges was a deliberate feature of the legislation, not a typo or some old idea accidentally left lurking in the poorly-written Affordable Care Act. The reason we’re going to need the Supreme Court to decide the fate of the subsidies is that, contrary to the expectations of the brain trust that devised ObamaCare, the vast majority of states decided not to create such exchanges (and some of the states that did had to junk theirs, after wasting hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money on them.)

Gruber and his pals figured only a few states would resist creating the exchanges, and the loss of subsidy money to their citizens would quickly pressure the holdout governors to knuckle under and set one up, thus allowing the federal government to offload the expense and hassle of the program (which ObamaCare’s creators always knew would be far, far greater than what they told the public) onto hapless conscripted state governments. As with so much of the Affordable Care Act, voluntary participation was an illusion, a lie. The states were to be given a hypothetical choice not to “opt in” to the exchange program, but in reality the subsidy baseball bat would be applied to the kneecaps of holdouts until they abandoned their resistance.

This is also the reason President Obama lied, and lied, and lied again about how you would be able to “keep your plan if you like your plan.” You were tricked into thinking participation in ObamaCare would be voluntary, and you could just stay with your old health care if you decided the new government-controlled offerings weren’t right for you. Obama explicitly put it that way when he was criscrossing the country to spread the Keep Your Plan lie – he said the Affordable Care Act would be so wonderful, saving average Americans some $2,500 a year on the cost of insurance while delivering a superior product, that people would voluntarily abandon their old plans and demand ACA plans in droves.

If the Obama media had paid proper attention to the significance of the Gruber revelations, and the White House had not been able to downplay the depth of his influence on the plan, the uncovering of his videotaped chest-thumping – by a citizen, not any sort of professional “journalist” – would have been devastating. Instead, once again, the media eagerly helped Obama shape a painful news cycle with falsehoods, and the truth comes out literally days before the Supreme Court rules on the subsidies – too late to influence the Court, while Obama was given a clear field to bully them into protecting his health care con job again.

The Obama Administration has always understood that truth depreciates in value over time. Today’s blockbuster revelation becomes tomorrow’s footnote. This is especially true under the “progressive” philosophy of never returning liberty it has taken.

The American people were never told ObamaCare would be a permanent disfigurement of the Constitutional order, invulnerable to repeal no matter how many of its promises were proven false, or how much damage it did to the lives of law-abiding taxpayers. They are never told this vision of “democracy” works by banana-republic rules: one man, one vote, one time; no apologies, no refunds, no more choices in the future. “Hope and Change” are popular slogans until the Left gets what it wants – then it’s Despair and Stasis, forever, and only heartless, selfish Enemies of the State would dare to hope for change.

By keeping the truth of ObamaCare hidden until Democrats were able to shove the Affordable Care Act down America’s throat in a dead-of-night vote, the Left accomplished its vital goal of tricking its subjects into signing away their freedom and taking steps toward collectivism they will never be able to retrace. What good does it do to learn the truth now? We live in an age where truth has full depreciated to become a yard-sale item, while we are forced ever deeper into debt to pay for illusions.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-governm...ing-obamacare/

Obama lied. I'm shocked . . . SHOCKED,

Just kicking the shit out of a dead thread, aren't you, SLOBBRIN?